Golden Hour (35 page)

Rattle of noise, blur of motion, a boy on a bike
smack
across the front of the car,
crump
on the bonnet and punch through the air, bike spinning away, boy vaulting skyward, lands on a parked car, bounces, hits the tarmac, doesn't move.

Carrie jams on the brakes, she's uttering these small panic cries, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” People appear out of nowhere, mobile phones out, calling for help, taking pictures. Toby's out of the car, going to the boy.

“Don't move him!” A passer-by, an instant expert. “Could've broken his back.”

“Crazy kid,” says another. “Accident waiting to happen.”

“Nothing you could do,” they say. “Came down Keere Street like a runaway train.”

Carrie out of the car now, shaking violently.

“Is he—is he . . .?”

The man who has taken charge says, “He's breathing. He's concussed.”

“Have they—has the—”

“Ambulance on its way.”

Toby says to Carrie, “Give me your phone.”

He calls Carrie's mum, tells her briefly and clearly what's happened.

“She's coming right over,” he says to Carrie.

Carrie nods, white-faced, shivering. The sun shines out of a clear sky, glinting on the spokes of the buckled bike as it lies on its side in the road. From far away they hear the siren of an ambulance, faint at first, but growing louder. The boy's body doesn't move.

Laura is trying to control her panic but the problem is she has no car. Carrie took hers for driving practice and Henry has taken his to Haywards Heath for the meeting in London. She calls Alison Critchell, gets her answer machine. Can she call Martin Linton? She stands in the kitchen looking out into the garden struggling not to picture the car crashed and what might have happened and Carrie frightened, needing her, when she sees Terry Sutton go by, carrying a roll of wire netting.

“Terry!” she calls from the back door. “Terry!”

He comes over, and as she tells him Carrie's been in an accident she finds she's crying.

Terry turns out to be a wonder. He drops everything, offers to take her in his car, and within minutes they're on their way.

“I don't think it was Carrie's fault,” Laura says, needing to talk. “This boy on his bike came out of nowhere. But what must Carrie be feeling? What if the boy dies?”

“These biker boys don't die,” says Terry. “They bounce.”

He drives fast and skillfully, almost to the scene of the accident. A small crowd has formed where the police have closed the road. People are holding their phones above their heads taking photographs.

Terry acts as Laura's minder, pushing a way through for her.

“Sorry, mate. Family here. Family.”

To the policeman barring their way he says, “Hello, Ron. This is Mrs. Broad. It's her daughter over there.”

Carrie and Toby are standing just beyond Laura's car, talking to a policewoman. The boy's bike still lies where it fell on the road. Laura is let through and runs to Carrie, takes her in her arms.

“Darling, darling, sweetheart.”

Carrie cries a little. Toby speaks quietly, with reassuring steadiness.

“It wasn't Carrie's fault. The boy came out of nowhere.”

“How is he?”

“They've taken him in an ambulance.”

Laura turns to the policewoman.

“Can I take her home?”

“Your daughter can go. We'll be in touch tomorrow. But I'm afraid the car has to stay. There's an FCI unit on the way.”

“I don't care about the car.” She holds Carrie close. “Will someone let us know about—about everything?”

“Yes, ma'am. You'll be kept informed.”

Laura keeps her arm round Carrie all the way back to Terry's car, as if she's cold. They get into the back. Toby sits in the front, beside Terry.

“I've not got a car at home,” says Laura. “Terry's been an angel.”

“Mum,” says Carrie. “I want to go to the hospital.”

“There's nothing we can do, darling.”

“I want to go to the hospital.”

“Sweetheart, we can't ask Terry to take us all the way to Brighton.”

“No problem,” says Terry.

So they head out onto the A27 west. Carrie starts to talk about the accident.

“I was on the right side of the road,” she says. “I was watching where I was going. I never saw him.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” says Toby.

“They breathalyzed me,” says Carrie. “But they were nice.”

“Why didn't he use his brakes?” says Laura.

“Don't have brakes,” Terry interjects. “That was a BMX bike. They don't have brakes.”

“Don't have brakes!”

“I felt it when he hit the car,” says Carrie. “The car kind of rocked. Mum—” she starts to cry again—“what if he dies?”

“It's not your fault, darling. It just isn't.”

They drive over the Downs, past the building site for the new stadium, to the Woodingdean crossroads. Here the traffic tails back, waiting for the lights to change. Laura keeps Carrie's hand in hers. Ahead the land swoops down in curving folds to the straight line of the sea, and Carrie's hand shivers in hers. Then they're moving again, past the dummy fisherman in his yellow trawler coat on the roof of the Woodingdean Fish Shop, and Carrie's holding her breath, thinking the boy's going to die.

Into Brighton over the racecourse.

“Parking at the hospital's a joke,” says Terry. “Both our kiddies were born here. Julie can push 'em out faster than I can find a parking space.”

“Carrie was born here too,” says Laura. “Weren't you, darling?”

Terry drives right up to A&E like he's an ambulance.

“You go in,” he says. “I'll park and come and find you.”

“No, go home now, Terry,” says Laura. “We can get a taxi back.”

“Have to go back the same way as you,” says Terry. “Might as well wait.”

“You're being amazing,” says Laura.

“Got to look out for each other, haven't we?” says Terry.

Laura and Carrie and Toby go through the automatic sliding glass doors into A&E. There's a reception window with a receptionist talking on the phone. She comes off the phone and Laura tells her about the accident.

“Are you next of kin?” she says.

“My daughter was in the accident. She was driving the car the boy hit.”

“So she's not next of kin?”

“No, but she's terribly worried. She just wants to know how the boy is.”

“Do you know the name of the boy?”

“No.”

The receptionist looks at them blankly.

“Can't help, can I?” she says.

“All we want to know is that he's—well, all right. He must have only just been brought in. Maybe half an hour ago at the most. From Lewes, a boy of eleven or twelve. Couldn't you ask someone?”

“Can't do that,” says the receptionist. “It's patient confidentiality, see?”

She looks past them to the people waiting behind.

Carrie goes to the window, speaks in a whisper.

“I just want to know I've not killed him,” she says.

“Sorry,” says the receptionist.

The people behind cough and murmur. They move away from the window.

“There's a waiting room through there,” Toby says. “Sit down and I'll get us all a cup of coffee.”

The waiting room has lavender walls and mauve chairs and a big mural on one wall, of dolphins. There's a hot-drinks machine and a sign pointing to the WRVS Coffee Shop.

“I'll go to the coffee shop,” says Toby. “It'll be better coffee.”

A middle-aged woman is waiting with her husband. She has a heavily bandaged hand held up above her head, as if she's hailing a taxi. She sighs and groans and says to her husband, “Tell the nurse it's still coming through.” Catching Laura's eye she says, “Won't stop bleeding.”

Terry now rejoins them.

“It's a joke, that car park,” he says.

“They won't tell us anything,” says Laura. “We're having a hot drink. Then we might as well get home.”

“He'll be through there,” says Terry, pointing down the corridor. “You could walk in. No one's going to stop you.”

As he speaks a large woman with a shock of black hair appears from the wards and heads across the reception area to the exit. Terry sees her.

“Hey, Sheena!”

“Terry?” she says. “Oh, Terry! My Chipper's hurt so bad.”

“Chipper!”

“Only nearly killed himself on his bike, hasn't he?” Her face contorts with pain. “Christ knows, I told him often enough.”

Terry points to Carrie.

“She was driving the car,” he says. “She's come because she was so worried about him.”

The woman stares at Carrie in confusion. “You was in the car?”

“How is he?” says Carrie. “Is he going to be all right?”

“Only broken three ribs and fractured his pelvis, hasn't he? If he had any brains he might have knocked them out too.”

“So he's not—I mean, he's not . . .”

The boy's mother sees the anguish in Carrie's eyes and she's moved. She goes to Carrie and takes her hand.

“He's not going to die, love. You mustn't blame yourself. The police told me, he was way out of control.” Carrie starts to cry.
“Oh, aren't you a love! But he's my boy, see. He's a bloody idiot, but he's my baby boy. And he's a good kid, too, in his way.”

“I thought I'd killed him.”

“No, no. You never. He's going to be in hospital a few weeks. Six months he'll be as good as new. That's what they're telling me. Good as new. And maybe better. Maybe not such a fool any more. That's what I'm hoping.”

Laura is staring at the boy's mother's hand. She wears a ruby ring on the fourth finger of her left hand.

“Listen, I'm dying for a smoke,” she says. “That's why I come out.”

She looks at Laura, sensing her close attention.

“Gave up years ago, didn't I? But a shock like this and it's back on the old fags.”

“So he's going to be all right?” says Laura.

“That's what they're telling me. They got him all pumped up with morphine for now.”

“We're so, so sorry,” says Laura.

She's thinking how she'd feel if it was Jack. Or Carrie.

“Good of you to come,” says the boy's mother. “Decent of you. Shows there are still good people in the world. Though God knows what you're doing with this tosser.”

She gives a tired grin at Terry.

“Terry brought us over in his car,” says Laura. “He's one of the good people.”

“He's all right, is Tel. Gotta get my nicotine now.”

She goes out through the double set of doors to the open air.

Toby reappears with a cardboard tray on which he carries four cardboard cups of coffee. He hands out the coffees.

“Sugar, Terry? I thought you'd be one for sugar.”

“We met the boy's mum,” Carrie tells him. “The boy on the bike. He's going to be all right.”

“That's great.”

“He's broken his ribs and his pelvis. But he's going to be all right.”

“And you were so sure you'd killed him.”

“It was the way he just lay there, not moving.” She shivers. “It was so horrible.”

They all drink their coffee.

“She's a friend of Terry's,” says Laura.

“Sheena,” says Terry. “Friend of my Julie's.”

“She's got my ring,” says Laura.

They don't understand.

“What do you mean, Mum?” says Carrie.

“I'd know it anywhere. She's wearing my ring.”

“But that's impossible.”

“I know.”

“She can't have your ring. It must be one that looks like it. She just can't.”

“It's my ring. It'll have our initials inside. You look.”

“How can I look? Mum, I nearly killed her son. I can't go up to her and say, Where did you get that ring?”

“I know,” says Laura.

She feels a little sick, the kind of sick you feel when you lose a clear sense of up and down. Nothing makes any sense. But she knows her own ring. That's for sure.

Terry gets up and starts pacing the bleak reception area, swinging his muscular arms. He goes over to stare at the dolphins.

Toby puts down his cup of coffee, half drunk.

“Where is she now?” he says.

“Outside,” says Laura. “Having a cigarette.”

Toby gets up.

“I'll have a word with her.”

“Toby,” says Carrie. “Her boy's all smashed up.”

“I know how to do this,” says Toby. “You wait here.”

And they do. He speaks with such quiet confidence that they almost believe he has some magic power. And no one else has a better idea.

He goes out through the glass doors and there's a line of ambulances, a police car. And over to the right there's a low wall topped by a green metal-mesh fence. Here's Sheena, in the afternoon sunshine, standing by a “No Smoking Anywhere On The Premises” sign, smoking.

Toby goes over to her side and looks through the mesh at the view. Sunlit rooftops, a school playground, the top of a thin church spire. The great sea beyond.

“Spare a ciggie?” says Toby.

“Sure,” she says.

She gives him her little book of matches so he can light up.

“Not allowed,” he says, pointing at the sign.

“It's outside,” she says. “It's fresh air.”

“Hey, if we're going to get lung cancer we're in the right place.”

“I ain't getting no cancer,” says Sheena. “Two fags don't give you cancer.”

“You know what cancer is?” says Toby. “It's your body turning on itself.”

“Is that right?”

“Like one part of your body wants to destroy the other part.”