Page 57 of The Family Across the Street
Gladys sinks to her knees by her front gate. Sophie is in her house but not George. The little boy ran to his mother. Did he run to his mother? Where is George?
She feels like she might pass out. This cannot be happening.
‘Gladys, old girl, are you okay? Are you okay, old girl?’ says Lou, fright making his voice tremble.
Gladys drops her head into her hands. ‘Oh Lou,’ she says and then she begins to cry.
47
Physical pain is a strange thing. It concentrates the mind. It sharpens your senses. I can smell the honeysuckle from outside, overripe in the heat. I can feel the heavy hot air in the room. I can hear sirens. I drop the gun because my hand doesn’t seem able to hold it anymore. It falls onto the floor with a clunk. And my body slowly folds, sinking onto the carpet.
I was going to shoot myself in the head, straight into my tortured brain. She could have just done it for me. I don’t know why she aimed for my stomach instead of my head.
‘Get down on the ground,’ says the policewoman. I am already down on the ground. Her voice is trembling a little and I wonder if I’m the first person she’s ever shot.
I came to punish her, and then I was going to punish him. It’s her fault Maddy didn’t love the man I was. And it’s Logan’s fault that she broke up with me. But I don’t know if I meant to… kill anyone.
I turn my head to the side and I see yellow camels. Why are there yellow camels? There was a rug in our house, and later in the flat my mother and I lived in, that had yellow camels. I used to count them sometimes, imagine them all walking across the desert in a slow bumping row. I look up and blink slowly, watching a small fly walk across the white ceiling. I turn my head and I can see my mother’s legs sprawled over the sofa.
She used to sing to me when she woke me up in the morning, and the song goes round my head now. ‘Good morning, good morning, it’s early morning light, so I want to say good morning to you.’ She put notes in my lunchbox when I was little: ‘Have a good day, I love you’ with a smiley face. She made me macaroni and cheese when I asked for it, even if she needed to go out and get the ingredients. She read me stories at night in bed, books about places that didn’t exist where animals could speak. She held me when I woke from a bad dream, telling me that the monsters had no chance against her. She wanted me to grow up to be a good person, a good man, but she didn’t have a chance against everything he said to me, everything he told me. She would have forgiven me anything. As I struggle to breathe, I acknowledge that truth. She would have forgiven me anything and welcomed me back into her life. I was going to break in through the back door but then I decided to ring the bell in the front, just stood there and waited. I saw some of my own features in her little boy’s face but that just made me angrier.
Her expression as she saw me at her front door only hours ago is imprinted on my mind. She was filled with delight and she even opened her arms, ready and waiting for a hug. She opened her arms and I showed her the gun. I could have made a different choice. I could have stepped into those arms and changed my life.
There is a burnt metal smell in this room. A thick, dark smell of blood and fire. There is a scent of sweat and honeysuckle. My eyes are heavy and I can’t quite breathe in enough air. I try to take a breath and hear a gurgle in my throat, taste something hot and salty. Am I dying?
I think she was a good mother. Maybe I was just a bad kid with a bad father. I don’t hate her. I love her, and now she’s gone.
I don’t know why I was so angry.
I don’t know why I came here.
I don’t know anything.
Epilogue
Logan
Three weeks later
‘Don’t you have to go back to work?’ asks Logan.
‘No, Maya told me to take an extra-long lunch break. We’ve no women in labour up there at the moment. I know that’s going to change soon, so I’ll just be here with you, unless you have someplace else to be.’ She is darting around the room, quick and light on her feet, straightening his linen, filling his water jug and making sure the flowers in the vase next to his bed are arranged neatly, all in one whirling movement. Her hair is held back in a tight bun with bobby pins keeping everything smooth, but there are still stray escaping curls. He can see bluish-grey shadows under her eyes that he would like to smooth away but knows not to mention.
‘Not leaving, are you?’ she asks.
‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ says Logan and he chuckles and then raises his hand to his chest as the pain rattles through his body. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’
‘Sorry, babes.’ She grimaces as though she has felt the pain in her own body.
‘You should sit down instead of doing that,’ he says as Debbie keeps moving, fixing the blinds so that the sun doesn’t hit his face and make him squint in the bright light. He wishes she would sit still so he could touch her. He loves her in her uniform, loves it when she transforms herself from home Debbie to work Debbie, ties up her hair and becomes someone completely capable and efficient.
‘I’m pregnant, babes, not sick.’ She stops in front of the window, a secretive smile touching her face.
Logan smiles at the words. When he woke up from surgery, she told him the news before he’d even said anything, before he’d even remembered fully what had happened and thought to ask about Katherine and the kids. He had opened his eyes, somewhat surprised to see a blurry white ceiling above him. He had blinked twice to clear his vision and then Debbie’s face had appeared above him. She was pale, her hazel eyes rimmed in red, a new line just above her nose as she creased her forehead. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
‘You make sure you get through this, big man. I’m not raising a kid on my own,’ she whispered.
‘What kid?’ he managed to ask, his throat cracked and dry.
