CHAPTER 66
I realised I was losing it again when Tony arrived for the third time, and at that point I started trying to get myself under control.

The mantra, ’not dead’, helped. As I slowly calmed myself, wrapped in Tony’s strength, I realised that I had been having the first complete panic attack of my life. That would not do; Alice needed me, and I would be there for her.

We had been shepherded to a family room, Enid staying out to talk to the medics. Anne took my hand as I calmed.

“We need to get those cuts looked at, Sar. Let’s get you to the ladies’ so we can sort your legs out”

Once in there, I realised that I had not just shredded my tights but also my shins, where I had knelt down for Alice. A black eye was just starting to show where he had hit me, and my lip felt swollen, but it was all minor. I just looked like shit. We did what repairs we could, and then returned to the family. Suzy had arrived, having unilaterally shut the pharmacy, and Andy would be along when the shop itself could be closed. I settled into Tone’s embrace, and a nurse appeared with a small tray to fuss over my legs, picking small bits of grit out and wiping me down with some bloody painful antiseptic stuff.

Enid came in with the doctor, who just looked tired. He sighed.

“It looks like she’s stable, but this is very early days and she is not in the first flush of youth. Fortunately, she’s not so old that she can’t heal. The good news….well, she’s alive, that’s about as good news as I can give you. She has a broken right forearm, a broken right tibia, I assume from the impact, but her spine is undamaged. Her jaw is broken on the right side, and she has a fractured skull and cheekbone. The limb breaks are very clean, so should heal nicely.

“This is going to sound silly, but I believe she was wearing a wig. Can you describe the style?”

I looked around. “Collar length, I suppose, grey, tightish curls, she was quite vain about her hair. Is it relevant?”

He nodded. “I know it sounded irrelevant, but it seems that even that slight bit of cushioning took away enough of the impact to avoid a more serious injury. Every little bit helps, as they say. Now, the bad news.

“She has quite extensive rotational bran injures, in my opinion, and I have had to carry out a small procedure to relieve pressure inside her skull. She is going to be rather heavily sedated for some time, I am afraid, but you should be able to go and see her shortly.”

Enid asked the killer question. “Is she going to live, doctor?”

“Er, I’m a surgeon, actually, but never mind. Short answer? Don’t know. I’m sorry to be blunt, but there is no other answer I can give apart from my opinion, which is that I think she will. The trouble is, until we can talk to her, we won’t know the damage to her mind, if any.”

I started to laugh, a little harshly. “She was due to come into hospital soon anyway!”

The doctor…surgeon smiled, and I suddenly saw how deeply tired he was, how hard he had worked over my girl. “The orchidectomy? Enid here mentioned that, and as next of kin, well…I know it’s not really the done thing, but I thought if she’s going to die on me she can do it feeling a little better. It’s a two minute procedure, but don’t tell the General Medical Council, OK?”

Such a small thing, such a big thing.

As evening came on, the room filled. Pat and Janet were there, him still in uniform, but they were wrapped round each other like people scared of drowning, and that lovely woman had collected Jim for us. They were followed by Andy and Bev with sandwiches and a couple of big flasks of coffee. Bev hugged me.

“Would you like us to take Jim home with us tonight?”

A thought struck me. “Shit, what about Pie?”

Andy nodded. “If you want, we can use your spare room, take Jim home and see to the dog. There’s nothing we need to go home for apart from an overnight bag sort of thing. Would that help?”

Tony hugged him. “That would be a great help, mate, I owe you one. That OK with you, Jim?”

“How bad is Aunty Alice, Dad?”

“Very poorly, son, very poorly. Your mum and me are going to stay here in case she needs us, so you be good with Uncle Andy, eh?”

“Dad, I am a big boy now, I can be good. I’ll look after Pie, but I want my Aunty OK. I love her.”

He was crying now, the tears of a big boy who was going to be strong turning into the racking sobs of a little boy whose heart was breaking. I folded him up and shushed him until he could get his control back. A nurse was at the door.

“She’s stable now, do a couple of you want to come and see her?”

I left Andy and Bev to sort out Jim and went along the corridor with Enid, and there she was, in a pink hospital gown, her head swathed in dressings and an arm and a leg in some sort of metal frame things. There was a box affair round her head and neck, obviously to keep it still, and as well as all sorts of drips and wires coming off her there was a cluster of tubes down her throat. Things beeped, and something made a regular hiss as her chest rose and fell. I touched her left hand…I felt so fucking futile. Not dead, not dead, not dead.

Dawn was waiting when we came out, Barry next to her looking pale.

“How is she, Sarah?”

“As well as anyone can hope for, considering, Dawn, which is as meaningless a thing as I have ever said”

“Well, our little friend is Tyler Ripley. He was a little unfriendly down at the nick, so I sprayed him, and the Custody Sergeant wasn’t amused. Unfortunately for him, he was tooled up, and he also had a few wraps of Charlie on him. He’s given an interview, all ‘no comment’, and we’re just waiting on CPS for a charging decision. Dangerous driving, assault, ABH, possession of bladed article in a public place, driving not n accordance with the terms of his licence–he’s on a provisional, no tax, no MOT, and if we can persuade them to go for the higher one, possession of a class A drug with intent to supply. And I seized his fucking car.

“Now, I don’t want to push you, but if we can get a statement off you ASAP it will really help in pushing the CPS along.”

She carefully and calmly led me through the events, and just as we finished Arwel arrived with Siá¢n. She was all calm efficiency on the surface, simmering beneath. He was arctic cold. This was the Arwel known and feared at home, the hard and brutal one I remembered.

He was very precise. “Hello, Officer, I’m her gentleman friend. Can you tell me where I might find the little cunt?”

I sighed. “Dawn, this is my Uncle Arwel, he’s a close friend of Alice. Arwel, this is our local copper, and you will not get in the way, OK?”

He just nodded. “OK.”

It was telepathy, in a way. Both of us knew, and I am sure that Dawn did as well, that what he meant was “…for now”, and I had a fleeting moment of sympathy for Ripley that popped like a snowflake on a fire. At some point he would meet my uncle, or somebody that Arwel knew, and it would be very violent and seriously painful, and I didn’t want or need to know any more.

Siá¢n spoke up. “Lainey is tied up at the moment, but she’s pulling a few favours in and should be over tomorrow with Hywel. Can we see her at all?”

Tony went to find a nurse, and after a while the two were back, and I saw that my big heavy uncle was quietly crying. Siá¢n and I wrapped ourselves around him, as Janet kept close to Pat and Tony held his mother. Human warmth, that was the only way to cope with this. Pat looked around the room, his arm tightly around Janet.

“I am not going to come out with any shite about forgiveness, and a better place, and anything else from my calling. All I will say is that looking around this room, at you people, I have hopes for humanity I sometimes thought I’d lost.

“We will be here for the good woman, our good friend, and when she is well, and when she is home, we shall all get pissed together and give thanks for the people around us. Because she will get better, she has to be at at least two weddings, three if Hywel asks Suzy”

Three? Oh shit….