Cath Staincliffe - Split Second

Ruby wrinkled her nose.

‘Don’t you want to?’ Louise asked.

‘I suppose.’

‘Say yes, then.’ Louise turned back to the film. The donkey talking a mile a minute. There was something of that donkey in Luke. The irrepressible energy, the impulsiveness.

‘What the hell did you do it for?’ she’d demanded of him after the fireworks palaver. Luke had bought contraband Chinese fireworks, mortars, and set them off in two wheelie bins. Destroying both bins and setting the nearby fence alight, triggering a car alarm and waking half the neighbourhood.

‘To see what’d happen,’ he said. And then a glint dancing in his eye at the memory. ‘It was awesome – like a bomb.’

‘Jesus, Luke. It was dangerous, that’s what it was – and stupid. You could have taken your head off.’

‘No, they’ve a long fuse, there was plenty of time,’ reassuring her.

The police had cautioned him and warned her. They used all the clichés: off the rails and slippery slope . One of them did the talking, with the other just chipping in now and again, a cold face on him and a lick of malice in the cast of his eyes, the curl of his lips. She marked him as a bigot. Probably disapproved of her, prejudiced against Luke. Single mother, mixed-race kid.

She’d lost track of the number of times complete strangers had tried to have a cosy little chinwag with her bemoaning immigration and the flood of Pakis/Poles/blacks into the area stealing jobs/shops/school places, assuming she shared their Little Englander views. A different matter when she had the children with her: sleeping with the enemy then. She saw that there were issues for Luke and Ruby caught between two cultures, two identities. Ruby had come home from school in tears aged nine after being called a coconut (black on the outside, white inside) in the playground. Louise did all she could to inform them of their backgrounds, but that was hard when neither of their fathers were around and they didn’t have access to their extended families.

‘I’ve been thinking about my hair,’ Ruby announced.

‘Never!’ Louise said in mock surprise.

Ruby squeezed her knee, just where it really tickled, and Louise yelped.

‘I think I will get a wig. Make it a bit Lady Gaga,’ naming the flamboyant pop star with her theatrical costumes.

‘Fine. There’s that place on Oldham Street.’

Louise heard the ‘thwock’ of the letter box and went to investigate. A manila envelope with her name and address. Inside she found another envelope: Louise Murray c/o Care24, and the agency address. She pulled out a notelet, a painting of violets on the front, and opened it. Crabbed writing, the letters misshapen and crooked, trailing down the page at an alarming angle. She translated.

Dear Louise,

I was so very sorry to hear of your recent misfortune

and wish your son a most speedy recovery.

With very best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs R.M. Coulson

She shook her head. It would have taken Mrs Coulson most of an afternoon to write the note, her hand shaking uncontrollably, her eyes peering at the jumble of shapes that insisted on moving about on the page. Then she would have had to find a way of getting the card to Louise, asking the carers to help. Louise put the card on the side to take to the hospital.

Mrs Coulson had actually met Luke once, though Louise doubted she would remember. He’d been excluded from school and Louise didn’t want to leave him at home unsupervised. She decided he could accompany her on her day’s work, see what she did to earn a living for the three of them. Some places, where a new face might have caused confusion or upset, she made him wait in the car, but she took him in to Mrs Coulson’s, where she had to prepare and serve lunch and check on any errands or shopping that were needed.

When she introduced them, Mrs Coulson had looked startled. ‘Your son?’ she’d repeated.

‘Yes.’

‘I see,’ she’d murmured, and kept an eye (not as beady as it had once been) on Luke throughout, as though he might morph into a burglar and make off with the silver. As they were leaving, she’d called Louise back. ‘Is he adopted?’ she’d hissed.

‘No.’ Louise tried not to laugh. ‘No, he’s mine.’

Mrs Coulson made a little ‘I see’ sort of noise and her eyebrows twitched.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Louise had thought. She wondered if Luke remembered that day. If he had any memories left. Was that where he was now, lost in the labyrinth of past times? Reliving his jaunts with the Woodcraft Folk or play-fighting with Eddie, climbing into his great-grandad’s lap for a story or snorkelling by the caves on their holiday in Ibiza. What if he was trapped with bad memories? The sad times after Grandad died, after Eddie’s sudden, shocking death; the miserable days eked out in detention or the occasions when Louise had lost her temper, taken him to task for missing school again.

When he woke up, what would he remember? What would be forgotten? Would he still know her? Love her? Her heart swooped with fear. He would surely. Surely he would.

‘Hello, Luke.’ Louise put the bags down, shucked off her coat. She moved the chair where she could talk to him, leant over and kissed him, stroked his face. ‘It’s Christmas Day, Luke, Happy Christmas.’

‘Happy Christmas,’ Ruby echoed, unrolling the scarf from her neck.

‘We’re going to open our presents here. We’ve got yours too.’ Louise no longer felt self-conscious talking aloud like this, though she did worry sometimes that she might get too babyish in what she said, treating Luke as a helpless child instead of a boy close to adulthood. She did not want to infantilize him, turn him into some travesty of the real Luke.

Personality could change with brain injury. She’d seen it with some of her clients, people who had become quite unlike themselves after a stroke: more fearful and suspicious or alternatively more easy-going and cheerful. But all that really mattered now was that Luke woke up.

‘Right.’ She sat down and rummaged in one of the carriers. ‘This is for Ruby.’ She passed her the rectangular parcel and her daughter thanked her, tore the wrapping off. ‘Yes!’ she breathed. New hair straighteners with various extra tools and attachments.

‘And this.’ Louise passed her an envelope. She’d saved since summer to give them each some Christmas money, both of them at an age where they liked to choose their own gifts.

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Ruby came round and hugged her. She smelled of sweet cherry hair conditioner and some new rose and jasmine perfume she’d taken to wearing. But like Louise she was showing signs of the strain, her skin dry and ashy-looking round her eyes.

‘And here’s yours, Luke.’ Louise picked up his hand and folded it round the small parcel. ‘It’s what you asked for,’ she said, ‘the new phone in the black.’ Would he ever use it? The treacherous thought darted through her mind. The police still had his old one. He might have to change his number. Or would they let him use the old number on the new one, even if they still had it as evidence. No one had said anything to her about whether they had found anything of importance on his phone, anything to help piece together what had happened that night.

She nodded to Ruby.

‘This is from me.’ Ruby mimicked her mother, placing Luke’s other hand on the soft, bulky package. ‘It’s a T-shirt, TK Maxx, like your old one, but in white.’

‘You could say thank you,’ Louise teased him, ‘instead of just lying there.’

‘And this is yours, Mum.’ Ruby brought the present to Louise, who made a show of opening it.