chapter forty-eight
The day of the barbeque
Ruby’s head sagged sideways. Water streamed from her. Her little pink coat was heavy and sodden with water. Her arms dangled uselessly like a rag doll’s.
Clementine thought: Cold. She’ll be so cold.
Ruby hated the cold. Her teeth chattered like a wind-up toy when she got too cold. The water at swimming lessons was never warm enough for her, even in the middle of summer. ‘Cold, cold!’ she’d cry.
Clementine ran to snatch Ruby from Oliver, to snuggle her close to her chest and warm her up. She could already feel how her wet body would soak her clothes. She got to the side of the fountain and held out her hands, but Oliver ignored Clementine as he climbed out of the fountain with Ruby cradled in his arms.
‘Me,’ said Clementine stupidly. She meant: Give her to me.
Oliver placed Ruby flat on her back on the hard, uncomfortable terracotta tiles next to the fountain.
‘Ruby!’ said Oliver loudly, as if Ruby were in trouble. He shook Ruby’s little shoulder. Much too roughly. ‘Ruby! Wake up, Ruby!’ He sounded angry. He never sounded angry.
Clementine fell hard on her knees on the tiles next to them. ‘Give her to me,’ she said desperately, but she couldn’t get close to her. Oliver and Erika were taking up the space.
Ruby’s skin was white. Her lips were violet. Her head lolled. Her eyes were open but stared straight ahead. Her teeth weren’t chattering. Oliver put one hand under Ruby’s neck and the other hand on her forehead and tipped back her head as if to stare at the sky. He put his thumb on her chin, pulled open her mouth and then he stuck in two fingers as if he were trying to fish something out.
‘Oliver, give her to me,’ demanded Clementine. She just needed to get her into her arms so she could fix her.
Oliver bent his head down close to Ruby’s face and turned his ear to her mouth, as if to listen to her whisper something. He looked at Erika and shook his head. A tiny shake that said: No. He unbuttoned the black toggles of her pink coat.
Understanding exploded through Clementine’s body at the same moment as the music stopped abruptly. There was a moment of complete, eerie silence in the backyard before Sam began to shout, as if he were in a violent argument with someone. ‘We need an ambulance!’ He ran back and forth, idiotically, dementedly, patting his pockets. ‘I can’t find my phone. Where’s my phone? My phone!’
Vid said calmly, ‘I’m calling an ambulance, Sam.’ He lifted his phone from his ear to prove it. ‘It’s ringing. It’s ringing right now.’
‘Tell them she’s not breathing,’ said Erika. She and Oliver were moving themselves into position side by side next to Ruby. ‘It’s important they know she’s not breathing.’
‘What’s wrong with Ruby?’ said Holly. She came and stood next to Clementine and plucked at her sleeve. Clementine tried to answer, but her chest was so tightly constricted she couldn’t speak.
‘Does she want Whisk?’ said Holly. ‘Here’s Whisk. Mummy, quickly, give Ruby Whisk. That will make her feel better.’
Clementine took Whisk. She curled her fingers around the cold wires.
‘Come here with me, Holly.’ Tiffany took Holly by the hand and pulled her back.
Oliver said to Erika, ‘Fifteen and two, right?’ His face was dead white. There were droplets of water on his glasses like rain and beads of water sliding down his face like sweat. His eyes were fixed on Erika, as if they were the only two people there.
‘Yes. Fifteen and two,’ said Erika. She pushed her wet hair out of her eyes.
Oliver laced his fingers, locked his elbows and put his big hands over Ruby’s chest.
‘Oh God,’ said Sam. He clutched his hands behind the back of his neck and dropped his head as if he were protecting himself from a blow, and walked around in circles. ‘Oh dear God.’
Oliver began to rock back and forth, counting out loud as he rhythmically compressed Ruby’s chest. ‘One and two and three and four and five.’
‘Oliver is hurting Ruby!’ wailed Holly.
‘No,’ said Tiffany. ‘He’s not hurting her. He’s helping her. He and Erika are doing exactly the right thing. They’re helping her.’ Her voice trembled.
‘Twelve and thirteen and fourteen and fifteen and one and two.’
On the count of fifteen Erika pinched Ruby’s nose and bent her face towards Ruby’s, her mouth open, as if to kiss her like a lover, in a move so sensual and intimate, so terrifying and wrong, so familiar and shocking. This is what you do. Everyone knew this is what you did to save a life, but you didn’t see it happen, not in real life, not in someone’s backyard, not with your own child, who had just moments before been running about trying to catch the lights.
Nothing happened.
Erika breathed once more into Ruby’s mouth, while Oliver continued to rock and chant: ‘One and two and three and four and five.’
Clementine felt herself rocking in time with him, muttering over and over: pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.
So this is how it happens, a part of her thought as she rocked and begged. This is what it feels like. You don’t change. There is no special protection when you cross that invisible line from your ordinary life to that parallel world where tragedies happen. It happens just like this. You don’t become someone else. You’re still exactly the same. Everything around you still smells and looks and feels exactly the same. She could still taste Vid’s dessert. She could still smell the roast meat from the barbeque. She could hear the dog yapping endlessly and she could feel a thin line of blood trickling down her shin from where her knees had smacked hard against the pavers.
‘Oh, dear God, please, God,’ Sam moaned, and he sounded so weak and desperate, and he didn’t believe in God, he was an atheist, and his horror was her horror but she didn’t want to know about it, and Clementine thought savagely, Shut up, Sam, just shut up.
She could hear Vid saying, ‘We have a very little girl here who is not breathing. Do you understand me? She is not breathing. We need you right now. Please send an ambulance right now.’ Clementine felt an immense animosity towards him for saying that, as if he was saying something awful about Ruby, as if by saying she wasn’t breathing he was making it so. ‘We must be at the top of your list, we must be top priority, if we need to pay extra that is no problem, we will pay anything.’
Did he honestly think he could pay for a faster ambulance? That rich people could arrange for a VIP ambulance service?
‘And nine and ten and eleven and twelve and thirteen and fourteen and fifteen.’
Erika bent her head once more.
Sam crouched down next to Clementine and took her hand. She grabbed on to it as if he could pull her back to before, as if he could pull her back to just minutes earlier.
Hadn’t that only just happened? Just then? Just that moment before this moment? Surely she’d only looked away for a minute. It couldn’t have been more than a minute.
‘The ambulance is on its way,’ said Vid. ‘I’ll go and wait on the street so they know where to go.’
‘We’ll come too,’ said Tiffany. ‘You come and help us look out for the ambulance, Holly.’
Holly went, without resisting, without looking back, her hand trustingly held in Tiffany’s as if they were going to see another pet.
Of course a minute was enough.
Never take your eyes off them. Never look away. It happens so fast. It happens without a sound. All those stories in the news. All those parents. All those mistakes she’d read about. Backyard drownings. Unfenced pools. Children unsupervised in the bath. Children with stupid, foolish, neglectful parents. Children who died surrounded by so-called responsible adults. And each time she would pretend to be non-judgemental but really, deep down she was thinking, Not me. That could never really happen to me.
Erika lifted her head from her second breath and her eyes met Clementine’s with a look of unutterable despair. Tiny beads of water clung to her eyelashes. Her lips, the lips that had been pressed against Ruby’s, were chapped.
Oliver’s voice didn’t change. ‘One and two and three and four and five.’