Roger Curtis - Lights in a Western Sky

‘After your wife died… it must have been difficult for you,’ she said.

He told her he’d become a bit of a recluse – which I guess is someone very unhappy – and drowned himself in his work. Though it couldn’t have killed him as he said he’d come out of it now. Then he told her he was a fashion photographer and that she was far too young to have tasted life’s problems. Funny how I can remember them talking like it was just now.

‘Well, actually, no.’ she said. ‘You see, I lost my sister, about the same time as your wife, it must have been.’

‘Can I ask what happened?’ he said.

‘Knocked off her bicycle – and she hardly ever rode it. I can still see the ambulance coming up the drive. Somehow I knew even before they brought her in. We did everything together – parties, discos, holidays in Spain. We were twins, you see.’

‘It does explain something,’ he said.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Something about you – when you first spoke. Something in your voice. Compassion, understanding, I don’t know. You have a beautiful voice.’

She seemed to think that was a funny thing to say. ‘Have I?’ she said.

‘Yes, strange we should have so much in common.’

‘I suppose it is.’

I’d watched their heads getting closer and closer. All along I’d felt sorry – about the deaths, I mean. But there was something else that made me listen, made me think about couples in the park, going about holding hands, making me feel… well… empty inside. I could never understand that, like I could understand what they do indoors, like in Chloe’s magazines that she hides from Ma.

Then, hey, we were coming into town. There was the Odeon, and it was Lord of the Rings and Chloe had promised to take me. Then, shite, they were all getting out, and these two, but it wasn’t my stop yet.

I watched them get up, keeping together like they would never separate, and he said to her, ‘By the way, I’m David,’ and held out his hand. Then people coming down the stairs pushed between them and I don’t think he heard her say her name was Amanda, though I just could.

There were so many people on the pavement, some fighting to get on, others just milling about. From my window, high up, I could see they’d lost each other. I saw their heads looking round, worried like, as if they didn’t know what to do. Then David tried to push back into the crowd. He almost reached her but didn’t go far enough. Once they almost touched, but there was this big bloke between. Then they began to walk away.

Something Chloe said comes into my head. She said, ‘Johnny, you’re only ever thinking of yourself, you never do anything for anybody.’ It was like Chloe was sitting next to me talking into my ear, telling me to do something. And I suddenly saw it wasn’t too late. The last bloke in the queue was arguing with the driver, so I still had time. I had to push though.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ the man said. ‘That was this lady’s toe!’

I told him I had to get off to help someone, and he said I couldn’t push people around like that and then I jumped off before he could grab me.

I dunno where she went, but I could still see him, being so tall and that, way down near the cinema. It was him I had to follow.

I thought I’d lost him. Always a loser, Chloe says, before she feels sorry and cuddles me. So I ran up and down a bit, but no good. I thought I’d go into Macdonald’s, but even I knew 10p wasn’t enough. Then there he was at the crossing, making to run for it before the light went red. Silly bugger, I thought, to do so dangerous. Perhaps he was still thinking about her, to be so stupid. So I ran up behind him.

‘Mr David, Mr David,’ I shouted.

He was halfway across when he heard. Maybe he was expecting to hear, ’cause I was close then. Anyway he stopped and turned to look.

That was when the car hit him. A big black one with windows you couldn’t see through. People came running and then I couldn’t see him. When I pushed through there he was, with blood running from his head into the gutter. I felt bad that I wouldn’t be able to help him much now. Getting them together, I mean. By now a lot of people were crowding round and jabbering. The driver said, ‘He came right across me, I had no chance.’

‘Has anyone called an ambulance?’ someone said. And another man said he could hear it coming. And people quietened down a bit.

I could see he was breathing, but his face was white. There was grey hair over his ears. Perhaps he wasn’t so young after all, and too old for her. But maybe that didn’t matter too much. A bit later the ambulance came, then the police. They were quick taking him away.

‘You with him, son?’ someone said.

‘No,’ I said. But someone next to him said, ‘I heard you call out to him. David, you said – I heard you call it.’

‘Whatever,’ the first man said. ‘If you want we can follow them to the hospital – my van’s just around the corner.’

‘What about the police?’ the other man said. I could see he wasn’t happy.

‘Best avoided, mate, in my experience,’ the first man said.

It was a little blue van, with a ladder on top and full of paint cans. It smelt horrible inside, a bit like the man’s leather jacket. I could still see the blue light flashing in the distance. The man asked me my name, and I told him Johnny. I could see a reflection of the light in the Macdonald’s window. A man inside seemed to be biting at it, which made me laugh. Then I saw the driver looking at me a bit queer like. There was a queue at the cinema, so maybe it wasn’t a good time to go.

‘I want to see that film,’ I said.

‘Haven’t you got other things on your mind, sonny?’ he said.

I didn’t answer. I don’t think he was interested in films. There was something going in my head that made sense. What had happened to David and where we were going somehow seemed right.

I don’t think the driver liked me very much, from the way he looked at me when he wasn’t driving fast and just missing people.

So I said, ‘This is fun.’

He seemed to think so too, although you wouldn’t have known it from his face. He said, ‘You just go on thinking that, kiddo. Make the most of it – enjoy it while you can.’

Then we turned a corner and I spotted the big red letter and the black gates of the hospital. There was a queue at the bus stop and for a second I looked for her there. But of course she wasn’t because she’d have to have flown back to beat us and wouldn’t have been going anywhere anyway.

‘Am-an-da,’ I said.

‘What did you say?’ the driver said.

‘David’s friend,’ I told him. ‘She’s a nurse in this hospital.’

I could see the ambulance at the entrance. I jumped out when the van stopped behind it and then they were all too busy getting David off to notice me. I’d done enough and wanted to go home now. So I crept round the building to the door I’d come out of. It was locked, but the next one wasn’t and then I found myself in the corridor where Ma’d had bad thoughts about superman. I wondered if she still had him. I wanted to hold him again, so I sat down and waited and then they found me.

Ma wasn’t too pleased. ‘You little devil,’ she said. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘Helping someone, like Chloe told me to,’ I said.

She said they’d all been worried sick and emptied the blanket room.

We went into another corridor, past where the ambulances came, but I couldn’t let on I knew that. Another one was coming in. I stayed back a bit to see where the body went so I’d know where they’d taken David. Where I knew Amanda would find him.

Outside the sun came out and that seemed right. I knew I would see her there, coming up the path from the gate. And there she was, holding an armful of clothes that Chloe said were from the cleaners, which is why she went to town in the first place, I suppose. She saw us and stopped. I liked her smile.