‘It sort of fits, doesn’t it? Here I am after a car crash, hopped up on painkillers. Meanwhile, Wayne’s in the ground because of his.’
A chill flitters along my spine – but it’s not the wind this time. I turn back to look at Jason, wondering if he’s heard what his sister said. If he has, then he doesn’t react. He smiles thinly and grimly at me, continuing to trail behind. I can’t read him. He’s not the boy I knew.
The gravestone reads Wayne Ringo Leveson. I used to laugh at him for it, not really understanding anything other than that his mother had named him after someone who was in an ancient rock band. Jason’s middle name is George. I suppose Ellie was lucky to get away without having John or Paul on her birth certificate.
It doesn’t feel funny now. Every time we’re here, I stare at Wayne’s name and remember the way we called him Ringo because we knew it would annoy him. I often wonder what I’d say to him now.
The three of us stand solemnly to the side of the stone, not trespassing on the grave itself. It’s unremarkable in its ordinariness. There are some elaborate memorials dotted around the church: crosses, mock tombs, shiny black squares rammed into the earth. Mourners have left teddies, flowers and plastic windmills to mark their losses, but Wayne’s has none of that. It is straightforward: a curved stone with his name and the dates that are too close together. I think this type of stone is what he would have wanted.
I wonder if Ellie’s going to say something. She normally has a few words each year – but she remains silent now, her arms behind her back, head bowed.
Jason steps forward, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a small matchbox car, which he places next to the stone.
I look to Ellie but she says nothing and then Jason slots in at my side as the three of us stand silently.
It’s a long while before anyone speaks – but it’s Jason who breaks the impasse.
‘What d’you reckon he’d be doing nowadays?’
Ellie and I never talk of things like this. We sometimes remember the old days, the fun days, but never how things might have been in an alternate present.
Jason answers his own question: ‘Probably working in a garage, I reckon. Maybe he’d even have his own place…?’
It’s an uncomfortable moment. Ellie doesn’t reply and, because she says nothing, neither do I. Jason somehow misses the hint.
‘D’you think he’d still live here?’ he adds. ‘North Melbury. He was always talking about getting out.’
More silence.
‘I reckon—’
‘Jase!’
Ellie cuts him off. Brother and sister stare at one another for a moment, leaving me stuck in the middle, and then she turns back to the stone. There’s quiet now and we’re back in the pattern of what we do every year. Ellie and I stand and stare in silence. We’ve held hands once or twice – but not today. I have no brothers or sisters and can’t imagine what it would be like to lose one. Wayne wasn’t simply Ellie’s brother; he was her twin brother. What must that be like? There was a time not long after everything happened that Ellie told me she’d felt it when Wayne died. She’d been at home, lying on her bed listening to music when she’d felt suddenly out of breath. She’d gasped and was left with an irrepressible sense of losing something. In that moment, she thought she’d forgotten to do something, but it was so much worse than that.
‘I sometimes wish it was me.’
It takes a second for me to realise that I’m the one who’s spoken; my lips spewing my thoughts without any filtering process. It’s something I’ve rarely admitted – even to myself – but there have definitely been times when it’s true. It was what I thought twenty-three years ago. Before Olivia. Before she saved me.
I frequently wished it were true before I had my daughter; now it’s only a fleeting consideration in the darkest moments of the night.
‘What do you mean?’ Jason asks.
‘I sometimes wish Wayne had survived the crash,’ I say. ‘That I’d been the one who died.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
23 Years Ago
The man’s eyes are wide as he stares down at me. He’s scared, possibly in shock, but then it occurs that the same is true of me. He reaches out a hand, touching my own.
‘Can you speak?’ he asks.
‘Yeah.’
‘We need to get you out of here.’
He stretches across me, muttering apologies as his head nudges into my chest. He grunts and then reels back, tugging the seat belt out from the clasp and helping me release my arm from underneath the loop.
‘This probably saved you,’ he says.
I mumble something back but even I’m not sure if it’s a word. Everything feels blurry and uneven.
‘I’m David,’ the man says. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Rose.’
‘Can you lift yourself out of the seat, Rose?’
‘I think so.’
He offers me his hand and I take it, even though I know I’d be all right by myself. David grips my wrist tightly and then tugs as I heave myself up and out of the passenger side of the car. He continues holding my arm, asking if I’m okay, and then supporting my lower back with an arm around my waist. I can see him sweating in the gloom and it occurs to me that he’s more scared than I am. He’s only a few years older than me, perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two. I wonder if we were at the same school at the same time – me in a lower year, him at the top.
‘Are you sure you can breathe all right, Rose?’
His question sounds silly until I realise I can hear myself wheezing. Now he’s mentioned it, I can feel it, too. Every time I breathe in, there’s a grating in my chest. Somehow, I’d not noticed it in the minutes that have passed.
‘I… I don’t know.’
The words are raspy and sore. I have a headache as well and, when I reach up to touch my temple, there’s blood. I can see it in David’s face now. His eyes dart away, looking through me, not at me.
‘You shouldn’t speak,’ he says. ‘You might have broken your ribs or punctured a lung. I don’t know enough, I’m afraid.’
He spins back towards the scene behind us and there’s panic in his whites of his eyes. In a flash, he tugs off his hoody, pressing the material to the side of my head.
‘Hold it there,’ he says. ‘Push it against the spot near your ear.’
I do as I’m told and there’s a flash of pain that sears stars into my vision.
David helps lower me to the ground and I don’t protest. The grass is dewy and soft underneath. He glances at his watch and then turns in a full circle. He’s lost, unsure what to do – and it’s hard to blame him for that. He offers me a smile that’s far from reassuring and then stumbles off towards the carnage.
I’m on one side of the road and, on the other, there’s a low stone wall. It’s perhaps waist-high if I was standing – but there’s not much of it left. The rocks have crumbled into dust, scattering a thin veil of ash across the verge.
That’s far from the worst of it.
Wayne’s car is a mangled mash of metal. The front has compacted into itself, the bonnet crumpling like a crushed, empty can. From what I can tell, the car hit the wall and bounced backwards, spinning so that the front is now facing me. The light of the moon glitters from the shards of glass that litter the road and verge; a shimmering crystal carpet tinged with crisp curls of metal.
There’s a steady crunch as David carefully treads across the glass. We must have walked over it together but I didn’t notice at the time.
More light comes from the headlights of David’s car beaming across the road. It’s parked askew on the side of the road, his driver’s door open.
David pokes his head into Wayne’s car and then reels back, both hands on his head at the sight of whatever’s inside. I can see his cold breath disappearing into the night and then he turns and scrunches his way back to me. His hands are in his pockets and he’s shivering without his hoody. His smile is narrow and forced.
‘How are you doing?’ he asks.
I try to shrug – but it hurts. All of a sudden, everything hurts.
‘You’re really lucky.’