CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
There’s a sweetish, sickly sort of smell as I walk into the hall. I can’t place it.
‘Grace –’ Mum puts a hand on my arm, holding me back. She pushes past, shoving open the door into the sitting room.
‘Leah!’
I don’t get it –
I step forward into the room, and as I do the smell gets stronger. I cover my mouth and nose with my hand.
‘Leah.’
Mum’s on her knees beside the sofa.
That’s when I see her.
Leah is lying on her side, and her lips are bluish pale. One arm sticks out from underneath her, the fingers extended as if she’s reaching out to stroke Withnail or take something. But there’s a trail of silvery-green sick, which drips down from her mouth, over her arm, and pools on the wooden floor.
‘Oh God, oh God.’ Mum’s shaking her, and she’s starting to cry. ‘Leah.’
I can’t move. I just stand there, watching. It’s like my brain has run out of processing space. First Mabel and now Leah. And where are her friends? They must have known she was here.
There’s a groan from the sofa.
‘Leah,’ shouts Mum. ‘Can you hear me? Sweetheart. Darling – it’s Mummy.’ She pushes at Leah’s inert shape again.
‘Grace!’ She turns to me, her eyes flashing. ‘Call an ambulance.’
I can’t.
‘I can’t.’
‘What?’
I – I just can’t pick up the phone and speak to –
‘Call 999. Now.’
I shake my head and start walking backwards. I bump into the wall and shake my head again.
‘No.’
I can’t speak to a stranger now. I can’t make my words come. I can feel myself sliding down the wall.
‘Do I have to do everything myself?’ Mum’s still shaking Leah with one hand and pulling the phone out of her bag with the other. She looks at me with absolute hatred. I can see it burning in her eyes.
I close mine. I can’t do any more of anything. The relief that Mabel is OK has been instantly replaced by gut-wrenching fear. I can’t lose my sister. I can’t lose Leah. I feel frozen, like a hideous gargoyle, gripped in terror.
‘Ambulance,’ I hear Mum saying. There’s a sort of muffled groaning from Leah and as Mum’s talking she coughs.
I open my eyes and watch as Leah spews a never-ending fountain of vomit all over Mum. It pours over her arm and down into her bag, splashing all over the floor. And Mum just leans forward, dripping, and pulls Leah into her arms, and starts rubbing her back. And all I can think is that I knew she wasn’t going to a sleepover with Malia, and I knew she was hanging around with Lily Carmichael, and I let this happen. And now I’m going to lose her too, and I can’t bear it.
I watch as with her free hand Mum fiddles with the phone.
‘Lisa?’
I listen as she explains to Anna’s mum that Leah’s sick, that she needs a massive favour. There’s nodding and then Mum starts crying.
And then there’s a knock at the door. Something makes me stand up, and I pull the sitting-room door open.
‘All right, love?’ A paramedic in green and white smiles at me. He’s got a kind face.
And another one follows. She’s wearing a bright waistcoat and she pushes past, into the room. I step backwards out of it and sit on the stairs in the hall, waiting. After what might have been moments, or maybe ages – I don’t know – they come back with a trolley thing and I watch as Leah is rolled out of the front door towards an ambulance, which is waiting outside. I don’t even know if she’s alive. She’s just strapped there and there’s a weird sort of urgency in everyone’s voice and I can’t understand what the paramedic says through the radio but it sounds wrong. Wrong and scary and dark and – I don’t want this to be happening.
‘Oh God,’ says Mum as Lisa arrives. She pulls her bag on to her shoulder.
Lisa gives her a quick hug on the doorstep and I watch them both wipe away tears.
‘Hello, my lovely,’ says Lisa, turning to me. She’s given Mum a last touch on the shoulder as she rushes off to get into the back of the ambulance where my little sister is lying, blue, and covered in sick.
And then something happens.
My eyes start leaking tears, and they roll down my cheeks. I try to bat them away with the backs of my hands, but they just pour over the tops and through my fingers and down over my T-shirt. All I can think of is Leah’s deathly pale face and if I hadn’t been trying to impress everyone I would have been home and then Leah wouldn’t have been alone. And this would never have happened. I caused all of this.
And Anna’s mum – who smells of flowery things and different shampoo I don’t recognize and is round, and soft, and kind – sits on her knees in front of me at the foot of the stairs and she puts her arms round me and the tears leak out of me and all over her and she doesn’t seem to mind at all.
After a little while she sits back on her heels for a moment, and pulls her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. I pick at the fluff on the stair carpet until I have a little ball of it in my hand as she reads a text, then looks at me with a soft smile. She’s got the same eyes as Anna, but crinkly at the sides.
‘Your mum says they’re doing a few tests, but they think Leah’s going to be fine.’
I nod. Which is surprisingly hard when you feel as if you’re made of stone.
‘They’re going to keep her in,’ Anna’s mum continues, ‘and just look after her a bit, make sure she’s got some fluids. She’s going to be feeling a bit rough for a couple of days.’
She stands, extending a hand to pull me up from the stairs. I let her help me and feel her hand wrapping round mine, warm and strong and capable. And it makes me think fleetingly of Anna and I feel unspeakably sad. I ran away from everyone and everything and they must all hate me for what I did. I swallow and it’s like a huge ball of lead passes down my throat and settles in my stomach.
‘I think we’ll get you up to bed. You go and pop on some PJs. I’ll get you a hot-water bottle. OK, darling?’
I nod. I want to ask if Anna’s OK and where she is and why she didn’t come too, but I can guess the answer. If she didn’t hate me for what happened, she’d be here. So I just keep my mouth closed and I wait politely until I can get into my room and under my covers and then I can just stay there forever.
And I realize the sickly sweet smell that’s filling the house is cider. Well, cider and puke.
Withnail is curled up on my bed. It looks so normal, like nothing has changed. I expected to walk in and find that the bed was burned and all the bookshelves were upside down and the chaos that was happening outside would have altered everything, but my bed is still unmade and yesterday’s clothes are still on the floor. The book I was reading when I couldn’t sleep last night is face down on the carpet and there’s a half-drunk coffee sitting on the bedside table.
‘Let me take that downstairs,’ says Lisa. She picks it up and a couple of other glasses and a plate, and stacks them together. ‘You girls,’ she says, and smiles a funny sort of smile. ‘I’ll be back in five minutes. Do you want to hop in the shower and warm up?’
I shake my head. I don’t even want to get changed. The idea of peeling off these layers seems impossibly hard. I sit down on the bed and begin, not because I want to, but because I know if I don’t when she gets back I’ll have to have the conversation all over again.
Withnail rubs her face across my hands as I’m pulling off my socks. She’s purring and slinking round in circles. I pick her up for a moment and bury my face in her soft, warm-smelling fur. Then my brain flashes a picture of Mabel standing, legs cut and scarred, in her stable. I caused that. I’m not an animal lover. If I was, I wouldn’t have let that happen. I don’t deserve her, and I don’t deserve Withnail. I put her down on the ground and pull off my jeans.
‘Here you are – I found two hot water bottles. Fluffy ones. I’ve had a call from your mum, and Leah’s on the ward. She’s sleeping, and she’s doing fine.’
I feel ashamed. Anna’s family are so nice and normal and everything happens the way it’s supposed to. And somehow – I don’t know how – one minute our house was the same every day and everything was boring. Now it feels like the whole family is falling apart.
‘I’ll pop them in there,’ says Lisa, and she pulls back the covers and tucks one hot water bottle at the foot of the bed, and another up by my pillow. She puts a hand on my shoulder and looks at me, her eyes – Anna’s eyes – kind. ‘You’ve had more than enough to deal with today, Grace. You, and your mum and Leah – all of you. You need to sleep.’
It’s like she can tell that my brain won’t stop whirring.
‘I’m going down to make you a hot chocolate. Get under those covers. No arguments.’
I pull on a pair of pyjamas that are stuffed under my pillow and climb under the covers. I know I’m not going to sleep tonight, no matter what she says. There’s no way I could.