Chapter 16
Even though it was a Sunday, I felt I had no choice but to call both John and Will and fill them in on the events of the previous night. Even if I just got their answerphones, it didn’t matter – this was important, and given the state Tyler had been in I didn’t feel it would be responsible for us to deal with it alone.
I was surprised when John answered his mobile – I’d just been gearing up to recite my message.
‘Hi, Casey,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m guessing this isn’t a social call? It’s not often that your name flashes up on a Sunday.’
‘It’s not,’ I agreed. ‘Oh, John. I don’t think I even know where to start.’
‘That sounds ominous,’ he said, his tone changing to match my own. ‘How about you just begin at the beginning.’
So I did, and, as I began recounting it, I could feel myself welling up. It came upon me unexpectedly – I’d really no idea it was going to happen, but as soon as the idea of the dead 15-year-old hit my brain again, I just couldn’t seem to stop myself crying. It was probably as much a lack of sleep as anything, but when Mike came up behind me, stroking my back and offering to speak to John instead, it was such a struggle to hold myself together that I realised it wasn’t just that; it was as much the thought of that little boy upstairs and what we were going to do now. He had no one left – that’s what really got to me. Absolutely no one.
Except us. ‘It’s okay,’ I said, to both John and Mike. ‘I’ll be fine. If you can just grab me a tissue, love,’ I added to Mike.
‘You sure?’ said John, clearly concerned.
‘Sure I’m sure,’ I said. ‘It’s just … oh, God, John,’ I said, sighing, ‘I’ve still got his mobile. So we’ve been through it – you know, just to try and get a sense of what happened – and there were lots of texts beforehand, between him and Cameron, and – oh, John, it would break your heart. Texts asking Tyler to see if he could sneak out and join them – this Cameron, and the two boys I’d seen Tyler with earlier. I feel so bad for him, John. I know exactly why he’s in the state he is. He’d texted back – and more than once, too – saying no. Saying he was tired … saying he didn’t want to get into any more trouble … And then there’s a final one, which he ignored, and I bet that’s been eating him up. So I know exactly how he’s feeling now. Bloody wretched.’
‘Oh, Casey,’ John said, ‘that’s just so bloody awful. Jesus – I can’t imagine what he’s going through – and what about you two? You must be feeling so strung out. How are you holding up?’
‘We’re still a bit numb, I think,’ I told him. ‘Tyler’s fast asleep – they gave him something at the hospital and we have more for tonight. But I’m dreading him waking up, if I’m honest with you. I really am.’
‘Well, I’ll come over then, Casey,’ he said straight away. ‘It’s no trouble. I’m sure all Tyler needs from you now is support – and I know you’ll be able to give him that, but maybe if I sat down with him, encouraged him to talk to me … would that be helpful? Or maybe if I got hold of Will? What d’you think would be best? My only concern – and it’s not a huge one – is that it might agitate him to see either of us … I don’t know. What d’you think? As I say, I’m happy to jump in the car. Just say.’
He’d actually made a point – something I’d not properly thought of. He was right. Knowing Tyler, it would make things worse, giving him an opportunity to retreat and bottle up his feelings. And that wouldn’t help at all – in fact it would really set us back. No, we needed to deal with this ourselves, no doubt about it. But just getting it off my chest had helped enormously, I realised. No, we’d be okay. We had to be, didn’t we?
I didn’t know what to expect to happen when Tyler woke up, but if I’d been asked to guess it would never have occurred to me that he’d just appear in the living room, mid-afternoon, seemingly out of nowhere and wrapped up in his duvet. Well, the pink duvet, which felt incongruous and way too bright and cheerful under the circumstances, and only served to highlight just how shattered and pale he looked.
I leapt from the chair – we’d been watching some chat show from way down the listings – went across to him and herded him across to the sofa. ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ I said, ‘come on, get yourself settled down here, while I get you something to eat and drink. You must be starving.’
Tyler didn’t answer. He just sat down on the sofa, as directed, swinging his legs up so he was lying along it. He looked cocooned, wrapped up sausage-roll style, with just his head sticking out. I suspected the drugs had really knocked him for six. Not to mention the bump and cuts on the back of his head.
Mike followed me into the kitchen. ‘I’m not sure he’s going to want to eat anything, Case, love.’
‘Oh, I know,’ I said, because I’d realised it too. ‘Just instinctive, I guess. I’ll make him a sandwich anyway. And he needs a drink at least.’
Mike squeezed my shoulder. ‘Whatever you say, love.’
By the time I followed Mike back into the living room, Tyler seemed sleepy again, leading me to wonder if he’d actually come down in a kind of sleepwalk. But when I perched at the end of the sofa by his feet, he stirred. He was facing the sofa back and I could see that his eyes were now fully open, and he was just lying there, staring at the fabric.
‘Love,’ I said gently, ‘do you want to talk about it? You know, if you talk about it – how you’re feeling – it might help make it a little better.’
There was a long silence, then he turned and eased himself up slightly. ‘How can anything make it better? Cam’s dead, and it’s my fault.’
‘Your fault?’ I looked across at Mike and back to Tyler. ‘Love, it’s not your fault. Why on earth would you think that?’
‘Course it is. Read my phone if you don’t believe me. They wanted me to go with them. My mates. To meet Cam and his other mates. And I said no, because I couldn’t. And now Cam’s dead. Simple.’
Mike got up from the armchair and went over to kneel in front of Tyler. ‘Listen, mate,’ he said. ‘No matter what you think, I know better. It’s not your fault. You did right not to go with them. If you had, there might have been four of you in that car.’
‘No!’ Tyler said, his voice rising. ‘If I’d been there they wouldn’t have even nicked a car in the first place. I know they wouldn’t. We’d have just stayed round the old estate or something, I know we would.’
‘You don’t know that, mate,’ Mike said softly. ‘None of us do. What I do know was that this was a tragic accident that never should have happened. No kid should lose his life that way, but this is not down to you. You shouldn’t have been out with them and you knew that, and I, for one, am very glad you weren’t.’ He ran a hand across Tyler’s forehead. ‘Very glad, son. Okay? Because it might just have saved your life.’
Watching Mike speaking to him so tenderly made me fill up all over again, but it was Tyler’s tears that plopped onto the duvet. ‘Why, Mike?’ he sobbed. ‘Why did he have to die on me? He’s my best mate. He’s the only one who knows what it’s like to be me.’ He burrowed down into the duvet and started sobbing all over again. And what could we say to make the pain better for him? Nothing?
To my relief, however, he was asleep again within minutes, and while he retreated into welcome oblivion we retreated into the kitchen.
‘God!’ said Mike, banging his fist down on the worktop. He cleared his throat then, noisily, as he plucked up the kettle.
He was too choked up to speak. And I was as well.
The death of a young person is never less than tragic. It just goes against the natural order of everything. And the ripples that spread from it would travel far and very widely, and they could, I knew, soon engulf Tyler. They already had, really – they had him in their grip and were threatening to drown him. And we had to address that – though I didn’t think we could do that ourselves. He needed professional targeted help to see him through what must have felt like the end of the world for him, and my first job, once the world of work was back in its collective office, was to get in touch with John again and see to it that he got some.
There was no question of him going into school. Even had he wanted to, I knew he was far too emotionally fragile; not to mention the small matter of what must be an extremely sore head. Though, bless him, when I looked in on him after Mike had left for work on the Monday morning, his face told me he’d been expecting me to send him.
His chin wobbled right away, in fact, just as soon as he saw me. ‘Please don’t make me go to school, Casey,’ he said. ‘Please. I just can’t face them all. Can’t face Grant, can’t face my mates, can’t face the teachers. I just can’t bear them asking me stuff,’ he finished, tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘You don’t have to go into school, love,’ I reassured him. ‘You’re not ready for that yet. No, you stay in bed. I just came in to see if you thought you could eat something. Can I tempt you with a bacon sandwich? Some cereal? Some toast?’
It had been a long time since he’d eaten anything of any substance, only picking at tea the previous evening, too choked with grief to swallow, and it had crossed my mind – in fact, it had crossed both our minds – if we should get back in touch with John and have him pass the news on to his father; perhaps a text or call from him, or if not from him, at least from his brother, might provide him with a much-needed shred of comfort.
But instinct had told me otherwise. Would they even care? Yes, they might feel a modicum of sadness – what thinking, feeling human being wouldn’t? – but I suspected there would be a lack of real feeling behind it, and the last thing Tyler needed was to have all that emotion – all that hope for his family – stirred up, only to have them fade away into the distance again.
‘I’m not very hungry,’ he said now. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘I’m not surprised, love,’ I said, giving his arm a squeeze. ‘Not with what you’ve been through. And the doctors gave you some strong medicine to help you sleep properly so that your head can heal up. You go back to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll come back and look in on you in an hour or so, but just shout if you need me, okay?’
‘I wish I could sleep,’ he said. ‘But my brain just won’t let me. I keep remembering everything … I can’t believe I’m never going to see him again.’
I put my arm around him. ‘Oh, love,’ I said. ‘I know. Look, if you don’t want to be on your own, how about we set you up down on the sofa?’
But he shook his head. ‘Maybe if I could just have the TV on quietly?’
‘That’s a good idea,’ I said. ‘Let’s find you something nice and distracting, eh?’
I picked up the remote, changing the channel even as I took it off standby. The last thing I wanted to flash up was the usual fare of the main channels early on a weekday morning – it would be news, and odds on, the majority of it would be bad. Which was fine, of course – till it had already hit you square in the eye.
Once downstairs my first plan had been to call John back again, but the phone started ringing as I approached it. It was Will, who’d caught up with my message and who’d also been brought up to speed by John.
He came straight to the point. ‘Is there anything you need from me, Casey? I’ll be over as soon as you think it’s appropriate, but in the meantime what can I do to help?’
My thoughts were already centred on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, who seemed the best port of call in the short term. ‘Can you look into some kind of bereavement counselling for him, do you think, Will? I’m sure CAMHS will have something they could set up for him, won’t they?’
‘Of course,’ Will said. ‘And I’ll get onto that right away. I’m not sure how soon it can happen, though. Just to make you aware, the waiting list is pretty long at the moment, but, I tell you what – I’ll look into a couple of other organisations; there are bound to be some local to you that can perhaps do something faster. Anything else?’
‘I’m not sure right now,’ I said. ‘It’s all happened so quickly, we’re in a bit of a daze, still. I just have this sense that we need to get on top of things, that we need to act quickly. I don’t know why, but I just have this horrible feeling that he might try to do something to hurt himself, you know?’
‘Absolutely,’ Will said. ‘The poor lad’s had so much to deal with these past few months, and I completely agree – straws and camels’ backs – this is the sort of thing that could so easily tip him over the edge. Bad enough for any kid, having something like this happen, but in Tyler’s circumstances the potential rises exponentially. Leave it with me. Let’s get him a counsellor. And, as I say, I’ll be round myself – probably tomorrow, if that suits, but definitely by Wednesday. But in the meantime it’s really a case of you and Mike keeping a close eye on him; keep the lines of communication open … but I’m teaching my granny to suck eggs, aren’t I? You know what to do. Er …’ he paused. ‘Not that I’m in any way likening you to a granny, of course …’
‘Will,’ I pointed out. ‘I am a granny. Three times over, remember? And, well, thanks. I really appreciate it. Thanks a mill.’
I phoned school straight after speaking to Will, to explain both what had happened, and that Tyler wouldn’t be coming in for a few days. And it was only after I’d spoken to them that it really hit me how little we knew about the lad who was so dear to our little man.
And when I put the phone down it was to find the little man himself standing in the doorway, in his favourite Spiderman pyjamas and the red fleecy dressing gown we’d bought for him. He looked hollow eyed – so young and frail and so, so sad.
‘Casey,’ he said in a small voice, ‘can I ask you something?’
I hurried over to him. ‘Come on, sweetie,’ I said, ‘on the couch with you. And yes, of course you can. You can ask me anything. What do you want to ask?’
‘It’s just that I was watching Jeremy Kyle upstairs,’ he said, as I got him settled and reached for the TV remote for him. ‘Did I ever tell you? That was my mum’s favourite programme.’
‘No, you didn’t, love,’ I said, worrying that he was watching something so volatile. But perhaps the routine slanging matches and shouting were the sort of distraction that suited him best. And who was I to judge anyway?
‘Was it, sweetie?’ I said.
‘The social worker who used to come and see me at Dad’s told me that. She used to know my mum, see. That’s how she knew stuff like that.’
I waited for him to continue, wondering where this might be leading. ‘What about it, love?’ I coaxed when he didn’t answer.
‘Well, it was just that I was watching it,’ he said finally, ‘and the lady that was on there just now, well, her mum died and she was sad because she couldn’t have a proper funeral because they never found her, so she couldn’t say goodbye to her …’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, wondering what terrible circumstances had been involved. Was that really the best thing for him to have been looking at? Apparently so.
‘Well, it was just, like, I wondered. Cam’ll have a funeral, won’t he? Like a proper one?’
‘Of course he will,’ I said.
‘So would you take me?’ he asked me. ‘So I can say goodbye to him properly?’
I perched at the end of the sofa, thinking fast before answering his question, because I didn’t want to promise him something I couldn’t deliver. Would social services be happy for me to take him, given his age and the circumstances? I thought they probably would, but having never been in this position before I couldn’t really guarantee it till I’d checked with John.
But something told me I was on safe ground. On what grounds would they refuse it? Cameron was Tyler’s closest friend; what could be inappropriate about taking him to say goodbye? However harrowing it might be – and I knew it would be that – if he wanted to go, it would be wrong to refuse it. In fact, if they did, I’d put my case till I could make them see reason. No, it would be fine. And yes, I’d take him.
‘I will, love,’ I said. ‘We’ll go together and we’ll take some flowers. We’ll say a proper goodbye to Cameron. We’ll be there, I promise. He was your best friend and it’s important that you’re there for him, isn’t it?’
Tyler nodded and smiled, albeit infinitesimally. But it was like a sun shaft coming down, even so.