Page 48 of Before You Say Goodbye

It took Ben’s shaking hands three attempts to swing the lock back and get the door to open. When he did, he revealed Bowie lying motionless in the middle of the bathroom floor, his legs and arms splayed out in a manner that told them that he had collapsed. His lips were blue. Autumn stepped back, shaking her head from side to side. No. This could not be happening now.

Emma started screaming, a high-pitched, frantic scream that Autumn knew would be lodged in her memory forever more. She rushed towards her son, but Ben and Marley were already there, and Autumn knew Bowie’s mother could be of no help in the state she was in. She held Emma back. It took every ounce of strength she had.

“Take your mum with you and go and call an ambulance!” she yelled at Bluebell, wrestling them both in the direction of the kitchen. Bluebell dragged Emma away, still shrieking.

“You do this at work.” Pip was shouting at Maddie. “Do something.”

Relief flooded through Autumn. Maddie was a care worker. She was trained in resuscitation. She could step in and save her brother. She could tell them what to do to bring Bowie back to life. Autumn urged Maddie forward with her hands on her back. Pip — on the other side of his sister — was pushing her towards Bowie, too.

“I can’t.” Maddie put her head in her hands, turning her face away from where her brother was lying, dead the worst case and dying in the best. Autumn caught sight of the scene before her, gave up on Maddie, and watched. Ben was holding Bowie’s head and trying, through sobs, to breathe air into his son’s mouth. Marley was pressing his entire weight against Bowie’s ribcage, hysterically begging him not to die. Autumn could hear Bowie’s ribs cracking beneath Marley’s desperate palms, but he was not responding. Bowie’s head flopped limply from side to side with each compression.

Autumn had never felt more useless.

“Can I do anything, Ben?” Her voice came out in a wail. She didn’t expect him to answer. Autumn couldn’t watch any longer. She dropped to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest and covering her face. She concentrated on listening for sirens, trying in vain to hear anything above Emma’s hair-raising screams from the kitchen and Pip’s hysterical sobbing from where he sat beside her on the cold tiles. He kept repeatedly asking if Bowie was dead. Autumn was certain he was. She didn’t tell Pip that, though. To do so would make it real.

When she heard sirens close by, Autumn stood up and bolted, barefoot, out of the front door and down the graveldriveway as quickly as terror could carry her. She punched the button to release the gates and raced alongside the ambulance to the house, screeching at the paramedics.

“Hurry up! Hurry the fuck up!” She yanked the driver’s door open as they braked by the porch. Ignoring her stream of profanities, the paramedics jogged after her, along the hallway and into the bathroom.

“Get away from him, please, guys.” The paramedics moved through the doorway. Both Ben and Marley fell back against the bathroom wall, weeping.

“He doesn’t want to be resuscitated,” Maddie shouted at them.

“Shut up, Maddie,” Pip cried.

“Dad, don’t do this.” Maddie addressed her father.

One of the paramedics turned to Ben.

“Go ahead. Please. I’m his father. He wanted to live. He just wasn’t sure.”

“He WAS sure!” Maddie was becoming hysterical. Autumn moved to take hold of her, but she was inconsolable, pacing the floor of the corridor manically and shaking her head violently when she heard them mention a defibrillator.

It took three attempts to restart Bowie’s heart, then they moved him rapidly onto a stretcher and carried him out to the ambulance. Bluebell had released Emma from her grip so she could go with them, but Emma had changed her mind about wanting to be beside her son, paralysed by the idea this might be the end. Ben had to lift her into the back of the ambulance.

The paramedic barked the name of a hospital at Maddie, and then they were gone.

Barefoot — and in various states of undress — Autumn, Maddie, Bluebell and Pip piled into Maddie’s estate car, leaving Marley’s lover sitting by the front door.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to Autumn as she passed. Autumn told her to get a taxi home. She promised she would give her the money next time she saw her, but Hannah shook her head.

“Are you sure you’re going to be OK to drive?” Autumn asked, plugging in her seat belt. They couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. They were going to have to move fast to catch up with the ambulance. Maddie nodded agitatedly, turning the key in the ignition and stalling the car. Autumn reached out to grab her wrist. Her hands were shaking violently. “Bowie wouldn’t want us to kill ourselves trying to get to him,” she said.

Haste was not worth risking their lives for. Bowie was on his way to getting the care he needed and they would get there soon. They sat for a few minutes in silence. Autumn didn’t know what the others were thinking, but she was working hard on pulling herself together. She knew shock was debilitating, and that wasn’t what Bowie needed from her now. She had to find strength from somewhere and she spent those few minutes scratching around in her soul for the strongest parts of herself.

“Is he dead?” Pip asked into the silence.

“I don’t know.” Maddie shook her head.

“He’s fucking dead.” Bluebell wailed, sobbing into her hands.

Nobody said anything. Autumn started to cry.

Maddie waited a few more seconds, then turned the key in the ignition. This time, the car roared to life.

* * *

When she woke, Autumn didn’t know where she was. It was light outside. She saw white sheets and Bowie’s clammy hand in hers, and it all came flooding back. She wished she was still asleep.

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