October 2009
The soft blue of the lights around Grant’s intensive care bed threw ghoulish shadows onto his parents’ faces. They had come to the hospital as soon as they had heard, which was fourteen hours ago.
Jesse stood back from the scene. He stayed out of the glow around the bed and waited at the dark outer reaches of the room. Through the window he could see that the sun was rising.
The door opened with a slight suction of air and a young female doctor, slender with long dark hair, entered.
‘Hello, Mr and Mrs Behenna.’ She offered her hand. ‘My name is Dr Shawna Dhaliwal. I’m part of the care team for your son.’
‘How is he, Doctor?’ asked Jan.
‘As you know, he has broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken jaw and a broken nose. But it’s the scan we did on his brain that is worrying us.’
Jan closed her eyes and reached out for Edward’s hand.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Edward, his voice cracking.
‘We need to get inside and take a look. He hasn’t fractured the skull but we believe he may have a substantial bleed and we need to get that fixed as soon as possible. It’s imperative we release the pressure on his brain.’
Jan wiped her eyes with the tissue clutched in her shaking hands. ‘An operation?’
‘Yes,’ said Dr Dhaliwal. ‘And we need to do it sooner rather than later. Your son is very poorly. Theatre are getting prepared now.’
*
Six hours they waited. Jan trying to keep cheerful. Getting fresh cups of thin milky tea. Edward fretting about the car park ticket. Jesse unable to look either of them in the eye.
Eventually the ward sister came to see them. ‘Grant is in recovery. The operation went as well as we could have hoped.’
Jan’s hands grasped hers. ‘Oh, thank God. He’s OK?’
‘Dr Dhaliwal is coming to talk to you as soon as she’s changed.’ The sister wore an unreadable expression. ‘Although the operation has gone well, I can’t tell you more than that. Would you like some tea?’
At last, Dr Dhaliwal came. ‘We found the bleed and we’ve stopped it, which has released some pressure on Grant’s brain. However, his brain is bruised and rather swollen. It has some lacerations which may have been caused when he fell during the attack, or maybe … when the attacker had already got him on the floor and had kicked him.’
Edward couldn’t contain himself. ‘The police had better find this coward before I do.’
Jesse felt sick. ‘Dad, the police will do all they can.’
‘They’m better ’ad do, or by God I swear I’ll kill ’em myself.’
‘Edward,’ said Jan. ‘Let’s hear everything the doctor has to tell us first.’ She turned to Dr Dhaliwal. ‘What happens next? When can he come home?’
Dr Dhaliwal frowned in a practised, professional and concerned way. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. It’s a waiting game. We will monitor his progress. It may be a few days or,’ she swallowed, ‘or maybe weeks, maybe months, before he wakes up.’
Jesse looked at her sharply. ‘Will he ever wake up?’
‘It’s possible that he won’t.’
The sound of Jan’s anguished wail filled the room.
*
‘Live by the sword, die by the sword,’ said Greer, handing Jesse a whisky. She settled herself into the depths of their elephant-grey velvet sofa.
Jesse rubbed his forehead. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I’m just saying he chose to live recklessly and that’s what happens.’
‘He might never recover.’
‘Yes, and that’s awful, of course, but it’s not your responsibility.’
There was a knock at the front door. ‘I’ll get it,’ said Greer, unfolding her slim legs from underneath her.
Moments later she arrived back in the room with the policeman Jesse remembered from the night before.
The constable stepped awkwardly into the room, his hat under one arm, his radio burbling indecipherable messages. Jesse stood up. ‘Hello, I’m sorry, I don’t think I got your name last night.’
The policeman held out his hand. ‘Constable Steve Durrell. Steve.’
‘Sit down, sit down. Would you like a drink?’ asked Jesse.
‘A soft drink, please.’
Greer disappeared to the kitchen. Steve watched her go.
‘I’m afraid I have bad news.’
Jesse felt his stomach twist. ‘What?’
‘Your brother, Grant … He died an hour ago.’
Jesse could hear the rushing of his own blood in his ears. ‘He can’t have. I’ve been at the hospital all day. He had his operation. I saw him, on his bed, being wheeled back into his room.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Greer came back in with a beautiful tray laid stylishly with a linen napkin, a small jug of orange juice, a glass and a ceramic dish containing olives. ‘Here we are,’ she said.
*
Grant’s body was released after a post mortem. The police investigation had been unable to turn up any leads for the actual attack, but all their enquiries led them to the unsavoury characters and unfortunates with whom he had spent those lost years after he had left prison. Jan was tortured anew as details came out of his years of drug dealing and a drug habit that he had picked up in prison. It seemed that in the last months he had taken up dealing again and his life was starting to spiral out of control. The paraphernalia of a drug habit had been found in his rooms and the general consensus seemed to be that things were heading in only one direction for Grant.
Despite all this, Jesse made sure that the funeral befitted a Behenna. Grant hadn’t many friends in Trevay, but the town turned out to honour Edward and Jan. Reverend Rowena gave a suitable tribute to Grant. She didn’t go into his army career or his violent and often drunken personality. But she carefully described him as a son of Trevay. One who had had the joy of growing up in a tight community and loving family. ‘The choices he made in this life were never the easy ones, but we trust in our heavenly father to take Grant’s soul and heal it. We pray too that his murderer will one day be revealed and that the grace of God be with his parents, Edward and Jan, and his brother, Jesse. Let us pray.’
Jesse looked at the hunched figure of his mother, clinging on to her husband like a child as tortured sobs racked her body.
Jesse sat bolt upright in his pew and stared at the stained-glass window of Jesus calling the fishermen to be his disciples. He was glad that no one could hear the conversation in his head. ‘Forgive me but I’m glad he’s dead,’ he said to the sunlit face of Christ. ‘I’m glad. He hurt us all. And he’s not going to hurt us again. I didn’t mean him to die. But he did. Finally he did the right thing.’
The vicar ended her prayer and the congregation intoned ‘Amen’.
Greer got up from the embroidered hassock she’d been kneeling on and squeezed Jesse’s knee. ‘All right?’ she whispered.
He nodded.
The organist started to play ‘The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended’. Everyone stood and began to sing. Jesse, Mickey, Hal and Freddie went to the coffin with two of the funeral directors and lifted it onto their shoulders.
Outside the sun shone and a flock of seagulls cast their shadows as they flew over the churchyard cackling into the wind.
The freshly dug grave accepted Grant into its red earth, allowing him to rest on the slate beneath.
Jesse stepped back and bowed his head with a respect he did not feel. Greer slipped her arm through his elbow. ‘It’s over,’ she said to him quietly.
He looked at her sharply. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said: It’s over.’
He looked at her intently to see what, if anything, she knew. He examined the expression in her eyes, the turn of her mouth, the colour of her cheeks, but there was nothing.
‘Yes.’ He dropped a kiss on her dry lips. ‘You’re right. It’s over.’