I run my fingers underneath his shoulder and crouch to look at him. ‘Oh, oh,’ I say to her, involuntarily. His face is sopping. At first I think it’s blood, when my fingers touch the wetness, but it’s cold and thin-feeling.
And then I realize. My eyes see it as they adjust to the dark. It grows in front of me: a puddle at the bottom of the steps. Caused by a tree a few feet away, its roots pulling up the pavement, cracking it, making it uneven, creating great craters.
One of which is filled with water.
He’s totally submerged, in dark water, on the dark ground.
‘He’s face down, in a puddle,’ I say.
Surely she will help? She is on my side; she must be. She is a good person, working in the 999 call centre.
‘Roll him on to his side, quick as you can, out of the water,’ she says. ‘Does he have a head or neck injury?’
‘I … I don’t know. I pushed him. And he fell, down the stairs,’ I say.
Nobody can blame anybody for being honest. Nobody can prosecute for an innocent mistake.
‘Quick as you can,’ she repeats.
I roll him over. His black hood is still drawn partially over his face. The rest is in shadow.
‘Now I need you to check he’s breathing. Look, listen and feel, remember? Can you repeat that back?’
‘Look, listen and feel,’ I say woodenly.
‘Look for his chest rising. Listen with your ear at his airways. Feel for his breath.’
I stare at his chest. I lean my head down. I can hear everything, suddenly. The roar of distant traffic. The trickle of water into the canal. The sound of the raindrops splattering on the concrete. But nothing from him.
I take my glove off and rest my hand against his nose. There is no breath against my fingers. Nothing tickling them at all. It is still, unnatural, like looking at somebody with a vital detail missing, like eyelashes or fingernails. The contents of my handbag scatter over the ground as I lean over him. Lipsticks I never wear because they make me self-conscious roll all over the place.
‘He’s not breathing,’ I say. Panic rushes in again.
‘Is he definitely not?’ she says. ‘Put your cheek to his mouth. I want you to tell me whether you can feel his breath against your face.’
I wince, but do it anyway.
There’s nothing against my cheek. No movement. No warmth. No rustling of the strands of my hair by a breath. Nothing.
‘He’s definitely not breathing,’ I say.
Her voice is crisp, patient, sympathetic. ‘We’re going to do five rescue breaths first,’ she says. ‘Because he’s been drowning.’
Drowning.
‘Okay.’
‘Open his mouth. Lay him on his back. Tilt his chin back. Being careful of his neck. Chin lifted high, alright, Joanna? Tilt his head back. Are you ready?’
I move him on to flatter ground, and as I do so, his hood falls away and I see his face.
It’s not Sadiq.
His eyes are widely spaced, but that’s where the similarities end. His features are delicate. There’s no heavy brow. He’s got hollows underneath his cheekbones. It’s not Sadiq. It’s not Sadiq. It’s not Sadiq.
‘I …’ I don’t say any more, though maybe I should. ‘Shit. I’m – I’ll do it now,’ I say.
But inside, my thoughts are rushing like water through a burst pipe. It’s not him. It’s not him. I have pushed – I have injured – a stranger. This man wasn’t harassing me. He didn’t follow me. I look at his trainers again. They’re the same. The same stupid trainers.
But of course: he was out running. Trainers. Headphones. All black. How could I have made such a catastrophic error? How could I not have checked?
The voice keeps coming out of the headphones, getting louder and quieter as I move.
I could hang up the phone. I could run away. Get a flight somewhere before I’m stopped. Would I be stopped? All of my knowledge has come from the television. I can’t remember the last time I cracked open a newspaper. I know nothing about the real world, I think bitterly. Reuben would know what to do. He is a Proper Person who knows about global politics and can point to Iran on a map and knows what sautéing is. But of course, Reuben would never be in this situation. Good Reuben.
My body feels strange. My eyes are dry and heavy. The world shifts as I look at it, like I’m in a kaleidoscope. Perhaps I am drunk. I have had four drinks. I lean over and breathe into his mouth. It’s strangely intimate. My lips have only touched Reuben’s, for seven years.
Five breaths. Nothing happens.
She tells me to start chest compressions. There are no signs of life, she says.
I lean down and lace my fingers as she tells me to, the phone on speaker on a step. His chest yields under the pressure, surprisingly so, and I compress a few inches easily.
It happens suddenly, after five chest compressions. He reacts to me, his lips tightening. He sucks in a breath, his slim chest expanding and his body jerking as though the ground’s moved beneath him.
‘He’s … something’s happening,’ I shout.
And then he’s coughing. Hacking, productive coughs. I look away, not wanting to be privy to these moments. Maybe he’ll open his eyes. Maybe he’ll stand and walk away, disgruntled and inconvenienced, but fine, like we are motorists who’ve damaged each other’s bumpers. Maybe. Maybe. I close my eyes and wish for it.
‘He’s coughing,’ I say tonelessly. I can’t tell her I got the wrong man. I can’t tell her anything.
‘Okay, good. The ambulance is nearly with you,’ she says.
Sadiq – no, not-Sadiq – is still lying there. His eyes closed. Chest rising steadily.
‘Can you put him in the recovery position?’ she says.
Another surge of fear rushes through me like the tide’s coming in, and I try to ignore it, biting my lip. It is no longer fear of Sadiq. It is fear for what will happen to me now.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay.’ I heave him over.
There is no sign he’s conscious. His eyelids don’t flutter like Reuben’s do just before he wakes on Sunday mornings – the only morning of the whole week that we always spend together; the one where he is not with his charges or helping his MP or leading protests. This man’s arms don’t hold their own weight like Reuben’s do when he rolls over and beckons to me, wanting to hold me, even in his sleep. Instead, they flop on to the ground like they’re weighed down unnaturally, curling like an ape’s.
And then, when he’s in the recovery position, one knee bent up as the woman tells me to, I see the ambulance. The lights are flashing in the glass-fronted shop windows along the street above us. I see the ambulance’s blue light mirrored in the windows across the street, a few seconds behind itself, reflected and refracted across each display.
No. No. I am wrong. I see that it’s not a reflection.
It’s the police. There’s a police car, just behind the ambulance.
The ambulance is for him, but the police car is for me.
3
Conceal
The world closes to just me and Sadiq, lying there, motionless, face down.
And then the panic comes. Panic in such a pure form it could be an injection.
Sweat breaks out over my body. The street light is too bright. I pinch at my coat, at the neckline, trying to get some air. Within seconds, I’m drenched in sweat that feels like needles as it evaporates off my skin.
I stand, doing nothing except feeling the feelings – dread like spilt black ink in the bottom of my stomach, panic like bricks sitting on my chest, guilt like a shrinking feeling in my lower abdomen – and staring at Sadiq.
It’s been one minute. Two. I’m looking down, along the canal. There’s nobody here. Nobody except me and him. I feel myself rise up above the scene. I can see myself: a woman, thumbnail in the corner of her mouth, chewing on it, looking down at a man who’s lying face down on the ground; a dark canal, opaque with frost, illuminated in yellow patches by the street lights. Beyond us, a moon. Beyond that, space.
The sweating’s getting worse. I can’t … I can’t do it. I don’t have the human reserves I need to stay. To help him. To make that phone call.