When I Was Joe (20 page)

It's so good to see her again. Emma's the easiest-going person in our family and she's the nearest thing
I've got to a big sister. ‘Emma, Gran woke up!'

‘I knew she'd wake up for you,' she said. ‘They didn't want to bring you, you know, but it seemed like the only thing we could try to get to her. Ty, did you know they're going to send us abroad for a while? Me and Louise, and Mum, as soon as she's ready to leave hospital.'

‘What about us?'

‘Not you. I think, they think it's safer to keep us apart.'

‘Yeah, well, they're experts at keeping people safe, aren't they?' She misses my sarcasm and answers, ‘I certainly hope so.'

I think about Emma and her job in fashion and her boyfriend Paul. I think about Louise and her university degree and her flat in Hoxton and her job as head of English at a girls' school in Westminster. I have totally messed up their lives.

‘I'm really sorry, Emma. It's all my fault.'

‘No it's not, Ty, don't ever think that. You're just a witness. It's those boys on trial, they're the ones to blame. And whatever bastard threw that bomb into the shop.'

‘Did you see it? Did you see Mr Patel?'

‘I saw the shop,' she says, and she's looking the most serious I've ever seen Emma look. ‘He was OK. Trying to sort out his insurance claim.'

‘What . . . what does Lou think about going away?'

‘Well, she's not very happy. She's giving up a lot. But no one is blaming you, darling, never think that.'

‘Where will they send you?'

‘I don't know, they won't tell us. It'll be a magical mystery tour until we get to the airport. I'm keen on Spain. Get a bit of sunshine.'

She gently shakes my mum's shoulder. ‘Nicki, look who's here.'

She takes time to wake up and I'm shocked to see she's lost weight. Even the new red top, the one that looked so pretty before, is hanging loose on her. My mum is disappearing like a snowman when the sun comes out. She's blinking at me and says, ‘Ty? Are you OK? What's been happening?' Her voice sounds like a little girl.

‘I'm fine. Everything's fine. Gran woke up.'

‘She did? Louise said she'd wake up for you.' She's not as happy as I'd have expected. In fact, she sounds a little bit pissed off.

‘We can go back and see her in a minute. Nicki, when will you come home?'

She shrugs: ‘When they say . . . I don't know. Maybe they think I should come now with you.'

She's lost it again, I can tell. She's back to how she was a few weeks ago, unable to make decisions, all her
independence and fight and spirit drained away.

‘What do you want to do?' Emma asks gently. ‘Maybe it's time to be with Ty again? I'm sure Mum will understand.'

Nicki looks a bit confused. ‘It's not really up to me. . .' she says.

‘I'll talk to the police,' I say to Emma over her head. ‘I'll work something out.'

She looks even more worried than before. ‘Nicki, why don't you ask them to take you into Mum's room now? Then Ty and I will come along in a minute.'

My mum wanders out of the room and I hear her talking to Dave in the corridor. Emma puts her arm around me. ‘Ty, sweetheart, I'm a bit worried about Nicki. She seems spacey, out of it, not really herself.'

‘I know. . . She was getting a bit better but now she seems worse. Is she eating anything?'

‘Not much, and she and Louise haven't been getting on very well. Nicki feels very sensitive and like she's being blamed, which isn't what Lou means at all. It's been difficult.'

‘Why would she be blamed? It's down to me.'

‘Well, she feels like Lou is saying she isn't a very good mother, which obviously doesn't go down very well.'

Well, obviously. So Louise does think it's all my fault.

Dave knocks at the door: ‘I can give you another fifteen minutes with your gran, Ty, and then you really must go. They don't want to move you when it's light.'

I'm like an owl or a bat. A creature of the night. Or maybe a werewolf.

Gran is looking much more awake when they take us to see her again. She's not really up to talking though, and doesn't seem to know what's going on. ‘Ty?' she says faintly and reaches out to touch me. ‘What's that thing?' She's puzzled by the hat.

‘Take it off,' hisses Mum, and I don't know what to do. So I whip it off really quickly, and Louise and Emma both gasp when they see my jet-black hair and Lou says, ‘God, he looks exactly like his dad.'

Poor Gran is confused: ‘Are you Ty?' I pull the hat back on and tuck my hair underneath. ‘You've been ill for a while, Gran. My look's kind of changed.'

‘Oh, that's it,' she says, and she seems happy again.

‘Time's up,' says Dave, and I quickly hug them all.

I lean over and kiss Gran. ‘Gran, take care. Get yourself well again.'

‘I'll see you soon, darling boy,' she says, and I wish it could be true.

‘I'll be back with you soon,' says Mum, but she doesn't sound very sure.

Louise kisses me. ‘It's so good to see you. Take care.'

‘Take care,' echoes Emma, and Dave says, ‘That's it, I'm afraid.'

He leads me away, through corridors, down in the lift and through an empty hallway. Out of a door into the cold. It's not so dark now and the birds have started singing. ‘That all took far too long,' he says, and he lifts up his radio.

And then a car comes screeching around the corner and there's a loud cracking noise – bang! – and Dave shoves me back through the door before he stumbles and falls, blood seeping bright though his shirt.

‘Run!' he shouts at me. ‘Run!' The blood is spreading out over his side.

‘But . . . you. . .'

He points back along the corridor. ‘Run, go . . . they might come after you. . .'

I'm backing off. I don't want to abandon him, but . . . he said. . . I run. I run away from the blood.

I run and run along the corridor and crash through two sets of double doors. The hospital is starting to wake up now and I nearly barge into some cleaners. ‘There's a man back there,' I gasp, ‘been shot. . .' And I run on past their gaping faces.

Hospitals are strange places. This one seems to be lots of buildings jumbled together. The floors have lots
of different lines on them, blue, red, yellow, A, B, C. Very helpful if you know where you're going, but I don't. I'm just running, along echoing corridors, through tunnels, up stairs and past wards full of people who can't help me.

I'm trying to run as I would for Ellie, but I can't. I can't get my breathing under control. It's coming in short, sharp bursts, a jittering, terrified breath, a breath that slows me down and gives me a shooting pain in my side. What's the point of being a good runner if you can't run when you need to?

I need to pee. There's a loo and no one around and it seems like a good place to hide. Luckily there's no one in there. I find a cubicle, lock myself in, do the business, and climb up on to the toilet seat. I curl myself into a ball and try to think clearly. If I were watching this in a film it'd be really exciting, an action adventure. But when it's me on my own and I don't know what to do or where to go, it's not as exciting as you'd expect.

What if the gunman goes to the intensive care unit? What if he knows where to find my family? I'm going to have to get there first.

I hear a creak as the door opens. Someone's come in. I hold my breath, try not to make a sound, waiting to hear them use the loo, wash their hands, leave. Nothing. There's someone right outside the cubicle door just
standing there. Oh Christ. . . Can bullets go through doors? I bet they can.

I'll have to do something. I stand up on the loo seat and kick the door open as fast and strong as I can. And kick again as I jump down. I can feel my foot crunch into some guy's groin – and he goes flying backwards into the urinals. I don't even look at him or wait to see if he's got a gun or not. I clatter through the door and leg it along the corridor.

Intensive Care. I need to go and warn them that he could be coming there. There's a signpost up ahead and I stop for a moment to search for the name. There it is . . . follow the red line . . . here and here and stairs or lift? I opt for the stairs and dash up three flights. At the top I'm gasping for breath but feeling triumphant. I'll get there, I'll save them. . .

The lift door opens and a large man steps out. ‘Stop!' he yells at me and launches himself in a rugby tackle which I meet with another kick. Crash! My foot smashes against his teeth. I'm just about to follow through with a punch when I look at him properly for the first time.

Shit.

It's Doug.

‘Sorry, sorry, really sorry, Doug. I didn't know it was you.'

He recovers slowly, blood dripping from his lips.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing? First you kick me in the balls, then in the teeth.'

I'd have thought that was obvious. ‘I didn't realise it was you. I was trying to escape. I thought you were the guy who shot Dave. . . Did you know? He needs help. . .'

‘Don't worry about him. He's OK. We need to concentrate on you.'

‘How did you find me?'

‘We put a trace on you before you went in, just in case anything happened. To be honest, I was worried you might do a runner. You're an unpredictable little bugger.'

‘What do you mean, a trace?'

‘Electronic tagging device. Useful when someone goes AWOL.'

‘Dave said to run. . . I didn't want to leave him. . .' He pulls out his mobile. ‘Got him. Main entrance in ten.'

‘Main entrance? Isn't that a bit dangerous?' I'm like a suicide bomber. Anywhere I go, I could bring death and destruction to innocent people.

‘It's the only place they won't be expecting us. Walk slowly, try and look normal.'

We walk back down the corridor. My breathing is still coming in painful bursts and I'm constantly looking behind and around me. ‘What about Mum and
Gran. . .?' I ask, and Doug says, ‘Lots of people to look after them.'

We're nearly there. ‘Stay calm,' mutters Doug. ‘Once we're with other people, don't do anything to bring attention to yourself.'

I can hear police sirens and hope that means that someone's got to Dave in time. What about the guy that shot him? Is he going to be lying in wait for us?

We're at the main entrance. There are people here. They look normal – some old men, a woman with a baby, but what do I know? They might have guns, they might be about to shoot us. Suddenly I don't feel so brave any more. I can't do this. ‘It's OK,' says Doug, but what does he know?

And we're walking through the door and out into bright sunlight and there's a big black car, and Doug opens the door and pushes me in, a bit more roughly than necessary, in my opinion. Maureen's sitting there and gestures for me to crouch down on the floor, and I scrunch myself down as low as possible. Doug gets in the front, next to the driver, and Maureen covers me with a blanket. ‘It's just for a little while, just to get out of here.'

It's stiflingly hot under the thick scratchy blanket, and I'm getting cramp and I'm desperately hungry and thirsty. The motion of the car is making me feel sick too, and I retch a bit, but there's nothing there to be sick with,
just a foul taste in my mouth.

But worst of all is sitting in the dark feeling more and more panicky about what nearly happened to me, and what could be happening right now. I'm seeing the gunman standing in that little room and blasting them all away. My family turned into little scraps of blood and bone and hair and flesh.

I'm wedged against Maureen's legs, and after we've been driving for a bit, she leans down and rests her hand on my shoulder and whispers, ‘Don't worry. Try not to worry.'

Eventually, after what feels like hours, they stop and Maureen pulls off the blanket and says, ‘Oh dear,' when she sees me. I am so hot that I can feel my whole body burning up and my hair and shirt are completely wet with sweat, and I suppose I might look a little bit like perhaps I've been crying.

‘OK, quickly now, out of the car and over to that one.' I kind of groan because I was really hoping that we were going to stop driving for a bit and my legs are so cramped that I can hardly walk, but I half hop, half stumble to the other car. Doug's already transferred to the driver's seat, and he's not looking too sympathetic.

‘Just lie down on the back seat,' says Maureen. ‘Try and relax.' Doug reverses and then speeds along the little country lane we're parked in. ‘Here, have some
water,' says Maureen, and I prop myself up on my elbow and gulp it down gratefully. She says, ‘You're looking a bit green. Take one of these,' and passes over a little white pill which I assume must be for travel sickness.

I must have gone to sleep then, a blissful sleep with no dreams, because it's nearly night when I wake up again. We're pulling in at a service station and Maureen shakes my shoulder and says, ‘You could do with some food, I should think.'

‘Wh— what time is it?'

‘It's nine at night. You've slept almost all day,' says Doug.

‘I gave you a sedative. Thought you could do with it,' says Maureen.

‘Why are we still driving?' I have a sudden horrible thought. ‘You're not taking me to a new place to live, are you?'

They both laugh. ‘No, even we can't work that quickly,' says Maureen. ‘Let's just say we thought it was best to bring you back by the scenic route and get back after dark. We can have some food here, then we'll go to the house around midnight. Doug'll have to stay over.'

‘I'm really sorry, Doug, about what happened.'