chapter fifty-one
The day of the barbeque
The two blue-uniformed paramedics came into the backyard with the absolute authority of conductors walking onto a stage. They didn’t run, but they moved fast, with a rigid calmness.
It was as though the rest of them weren’t grown-ups anymore. It was as though they’d all been playing a game, a game where they’d pretended to be in control of their lives, a game where they’d pretended they had interesting professions and healthy bank accounts and families and backyard barbeques, but now a curtain had been pulled briskly aside and the grown-ups had marched in because rules had been broken.
Rules had been very badly broken. The circle of people surrounding Ruby parted automatically so the paramedics could get to her. Ruby mumbled incoherently, terrifyingly. She seemed drowsy and drugged, as if she were coming out of anaesthesia.
The paramedics moved as if in a choreographed dance they’d done many times before. As they examined Ruby with plastic-gloved hands the older man asked rapid questions without looking up, confident that the answers would be provided. He spoke in a voice that was fractionally louder and slower than a normal speaking voice, as if he were speaking to children.
‘What happened here?’
‘What’s her name?’
‘And how old is Ruby?’
‘When was Ruby last seen?’
‘So no one saw her fall? You don’t know if she hit her head?’
‘Did she have a pulse when she was pulled from the fountain?’
‘Are you the parents?’
He looked briefly up at Erika and Oliver as he asked the last question. A reasonable assumption. They were the ones in wet clothes.
‘No,’ said Sam. ‘We are.’ He indicated Clementine.
‘They rescued her,’ said Clementine. It seemed important to get this on the record. ‘Our friends. They did CPR. They got her breathing.’
‘How long did you perform CPR for?’ said the paramedic.
‘It would have been about five minutes,’ said Oliver. He looked at Erika to confirm.
‘At the most,’ said Erika.
‘We did two rescue breaths for every fifteen compressions,’ said Oliver anxiously.
Five minutes? It wasn’t possible, thought Clementine. It had been an unbearably long stretch of time.
There was something in Ruby’s mouth, a tube in her nose, a mask over her face. She’d been turned into a generic patient. Not their wicked, funny little Ruby.
‘Have you got any towels?’ asked the younger paramedic. He was using a pair of large, serrated scissors to cut a straight line through Ruby’s clothes: her tutu, her long-sleeved T-shirt, unpeeling the layers of clothing to reveal Ruby’s tiny white chest.
‘Of course.’ Vid hurried inside and returned with a stack of beautifully folded white fluffy towels.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Sam sharply as the paramedic dried Ruby’s body firmly and pressed two sticky pads to her chest.
‘These are defibrillator pads,’ said the paramedic. ‘In case she arrests again. We’re just preparing for the worst case scenario. It can also give us useful information.’
Ruby’s little arms flailed about.
‘We’re going to sedate her,’ said the older paramedic. ‘Are there any allergies I need to know about?’
‘None,’ said Sam.
‘Is she on any medication? What’s her medical history?’
‘She’s never even had antibiotics,’ said Clementine.
The paramedic tapped the side of a needle. Clementine saw white dots in front of her eyes.
‘Watch her,’ said the paramedic sharply, and Clementine realised he meant her only when Sam took her arm.
Sam had always been the one to take the girls for their injections. Clementine couldn’t bear needles.
‘Head between your knees,’ said the paramedic.
‘I’m okay,’ said Clementine, breathing deeply.
‘Why are the police here?’ asked Sam. Clementine looked up and saw Vid talking to a very young-looking policewoman with a pert ponytail. She took notes as Vid spoke. What was he saying? The mother wasn’t watching. She was talking to me. She was telling jokes.
Clementine saw that Erika had got up from her position by the fountain next to Ruby without Clementine noticing and had moved inside the cabana. She had two white towels draped over her shoulders and another on her lap, where Holly now sat, her back to Clementine, her head resting on Erika’s shoulder.
‘It’s standard for an event like this,’ said the paramedic as he continued to treat Ruby. ‘They’ll just ask some questions to clarify what happened. We’ll also need them to help block off the street for the rescue helicopter.’
‘A helicopter?’ said Sam. ‘They’re sending a helicopter? Where are they going to land it?’
‘Basically outside the front door,’ said the paramedic. He bent over Ruby’s arm. Clementine looked away.
‘You’re kidding,’ said Sam.
‘They land on highways, backyards, tennis courts. This place is perfect. Nice wide cul-de-sac. Underground power lines. They do it all the time.’
‘Huh,’ said Sam.
‘Yeah, the blades are shorter than on a normal helicopter.’
For God’s sake, were they having a chatty, masculine conversation about helicopters?
Except that Clementine could see that even though Sam sounded like himself, he wasn’t really, because he was opening and shutting his fists, rapidly and obsessively, over and over, as if he were freezing cold or mad.
‘But why do they need a helicopter?’ said Clementine. The panic, which had receded a little when she’d seen Ruby’s chest move and even more so when the paramedics arrived, sky-rocketed again. ‘She’s okay now, isn’t she? She’s going to be okay? She’s breathing now. Isn’t she breathing?’
She looked at Sam and saw the dread in his eyes. He was always a step ahead of her when it came to recognising danger ahead. Glass half-empty, she called it. Alert, he called it. Two crass, ugly words came into her head for the first time: brain damage.
‘It’s pretty standard procedure for a serious paediatric event. There will be a doctor on board. I expect they’ll intubate her and make sure she has stabilised before she goes on the helicopter,’ said the paramedic. He looked up at her. His skin had the roughened look of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. There was a kind of professional weariness in his eyes, like a war veteran who has seen things a civilian could never understand. ‘Your friends did everything right.’