CHAPTER 7
Lights, Flashing in my eyes, and then passing over me in a long string as I seemed to move down a corridor. Something stinging my arm–fuck, that felt better, for the pain had come with the lights, and it had arrived in capital letters. Voices.

“Her, not him, you twat!”

Larinda’s…

“I am sorry, but with those there, it’s hard to see…her as a woman”

“Well, she’s MY bloody woman, yeah? Sorry, getting a bit upset, OK?”

“Do you want to go and sit down somewhere? Get a cuppa?”

“Not leaving her, am I?”

“Well, you will have to keep out of the way, and if they take her into theatre, that will mean outside”

A hand on mine. I tried to squeeze it.

“Jill? You with us, love? Oh shit! How you feeling?”

I had lips, and a tongue, and the air was moving now, but the connections were slippery and broken.

“Hurts…what happen?”

That other voice, some doctor or nurse, obviously. “Don’t stress her, please”

“Lover, John Wilkins came round, trying to be sociable, yeah? Found you, got the ambulance and filth out. You’re in the Royal East Surrey”

“What about Nye? Von’s dad? It was him”

“Walked into the nick, cool as shit, yeah? Nick me now boys, but it needed doing, he says”

Things started to go away again. I held onto her as long as I could, but she went with the lights, the corridor and the world.

Disinfectant and the smell of food don’t mix well, but they were there, and I added the aroma of fresh vomit as someone held a small bowl to my face. My head hurt like fuck, and there were serious twinges from my groin. The memories came back; on the floor, trying to breathe as he kicked and kicked…I came back to the here and now as I realised it was Larinda who held the bowl. My head was bare, but the nighty I wore was my own.

“Lover? How you feeling?”

“Like shit. What happened? I remember him, kicking me, and then, you know, nothing till I got here”

“Von’s old man, yeah, her dad, he did it. Looks like he kicked you in the head as well”

“Face?”

“You vain bitch! No, in the side, then walked straight into the local nick. Arrest me, boys, but I was provoked, and did the world a service. He’s banged away at the moment while they assess the damage and the CPS piss about”

She smiled, and there was an odd sort of laugh, followed by tears. “Was just a thought, yeah, fucking good job for the old bastard that he was nicked by a different force. If the other John had got him, he’d be fucked. You any idea what triggered it?”

The memories were coming back, bit by bit. ‘Perverting little boys’, that had been his line. William. It must be William.

“Love, it must have been something to do with Will, what he said, like, about perverting little boys. My phone was flat, aye? You need to check it; it’s on charge in the bedroom”

Another memory rose bubbling from the depths. Theatre.

“Larinda, love, what exactly has he done to me? Apart from what feels like splitting my head in half?”

“They thought that might be fractured at first, but no, just concussion, thank fuck. No…”

She trailed off, then squeezed my hand. “Lover, I ain’t gonna get my breakfast no more, yeah? Both smashed to shit, both gone. Empty nest sort of thing”

I tried to make light of it. “Well, never really wanted them, did I? Just, like, I might have chosen a slightly less painful way to get rid”

She tried to smile again, but she was too close to cracking to make it genuine. “Jill, I left John to look after the house, yeah? That OK? If I ring him, get him to grab your phone, run it round the nick? See if there’s anything from Will?”

“Be good, aye”

“Going out to make the call, yeah, but be right back. You’ve been assimilated, Carter, you know that”

The world went away again just then, for a short while, and when it came back it brought more people. John Wilkins was there, with my sweet woman, and so was Will, tears in his eyes. I grunted a greeting, and reached out for John’s hand, for Will’s.

“Nice timing, John, just when I needed you. Thanks, mate”

Memories. How he would never, ever be my mate. So wrong.

“Not a problem, Jill, not at all. I took the liberty of letting Sally know, so others may visit. I’ve also told the office for you”

“Appreciated. I owe you a pint, aye? Will…what the fuck happened?”

“Oh, Jill, this was all my fault! It was the news, this morning, and there was something on it about gay marriage, and Mam went off on one of her rants, and Bamps was staying with us, and she and him, you know, they wind each other up, and I just got angry…”

Larinda said, very calmly, “And so you told your mother, yeah? Finally, you came out?”

He nodded, the tears falling. “And Bamps, he went ballistic, jumps in the car and sets off, and I knew where he was going, and I rang, but it was just the answer thing, and I texted, but I got nothing back, and she was screaming at me, so I just stuffed things in a bag and got out, and shit, a train, and…”

John was still calm, so detached. “He arrived just as Larinda called me for the telephone, so I locked up and brought him with me. We dropped the phone off at the police station, with the charger”

Larinda moved across to hold Will.

“Son, none of this is your fault. We all have to be ourselves, yeah, and that can hurt others, but you have to be honest. It was going to come out…sorry, no other words for it, yeah? But your mum, she’d have known some day, so what’s done is done. You’ve done nothing wrong. Your granddad, he’s the one, he’s got the hate”

“But it’s not, is it? He cares about me, that’s why he did it!”

Larinda kissed his cheek. “Welcome to being a grown-up, Will. Life is complicated as shit, we just hide that bit from the kids. Jill, I am going to take these two off for a cuppa, cause we are a bit busy in the corridor and they don’t like more than three in at a time, yeah? Laters, soon as”

A kiss and she was gone, and then it was Rachel, and John Forster, Alec by his side, and after a while Sally and Stewart, and then a lovely bit of confusion as Annie and Dennis appeared just as a Surrey copper came in to ask the questions that were inevitable.

I came slowly back from the headache, and in a way it was as if each person that came to me, each visitor that took my hand, left their love and drew away a little of my pain with their presence. Friends. All that I had so nearly thrown away, so recently.

Morning light, and the smell of breakfast. Where the hell had the evening gone? I was helped out of the bed into a chair, my breakfast before me, and though the room moved a little bit further in my vision as I stopped moving, it wasn’t too bad, and I was starving. Larinda was slumped snoring gently in a chair by the bed, and woke as the catering lady shook her gently by the shoulder.

“She’s awake, love. Want a cuppa?”

“God, yeah. Jill, how’s you?”

“Better, love. Where’d yesterday go?”

“You just flaked out, lover. Shit, stiff all over, me”

There was a pause as she took a draught of her tea.

“Will’s at ours, yeah, he didn’t want to go home, so I left him with a key and John to look after him, make sure he don’t do nothing silly. He’s blaming himself big style. Tell him he’s done nothing wrong, but he’s still hurting, poor kid. How the hell did you end up with such a fucking cow?”

“Loneliness, pet, that’s how”

"Yeah, well, you don’t get to be lonely again, yeah? You are mine for keeps, Carter…”

She trailed off again, then lifted her face to the window, lines set hard. “I nearly went down there, Jill. I nearly got into my car and drove down to hers. Was gonna get the address off Will, and see how she liked a good fucking kick in the fork. But you, you was here, and so I thought, yeah, laters for you, Von my love, laters”

She turned back to me. “But you’re here, hurting, and I couldn’t leave you, yeah? Anyway…the coppers want to see if you can do a statement this morning, lover. I can see them in the corridor. Call them in”

“Aye, gan on, get it over with”

She waved them in, and it was obvious they had sent one of each to cover all options. A bit like myself, really. I gathered what courage I had left, and looked the woman in the eye.

“No”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No. I will not give a statement”