The Art of Not Breathing(56)

“Where is she?” His voice is barely a whisper.

“Mum? I don’t know. She’s not back yet. Hang on for me, okay? An ambulance is coming.”

“I was going to find her.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find her.”

Dillon lets out a long, raspy breath.

“No,” he croaks. “That day. That’s who I was looking for. I saw her from the water when I was swimming. She was on the beach.”

I can’t make sense of what he’s saying. I ask him if he’s taken something. I ask him if he smoked weed or if he took pills, but he shakes his head. I sound like Dad.

“She wasn’t there that day, Dil. She was at home, remember? She came later, after the police arrived.”

His head becomes heavy in my arms, his blond hair greasy and sticking to my skin.

As the ambulance crew comes into the garden, he murmurs again.

“She was,” he says. “Mum was there that day. She was having an affair.”

The images flash through my mind again: the pebbles, the blue haze—her coat—Eddie splashing about, Mum arriving in the car. I can’t make sense of it all. The memories are too cloudy.

As the crew loads Dillon onto a stretcher and into the ambulance, Mum appears at the end of the road. She stops short, then throws her hand over her mouth and starts to run, stumbling over the cracked pavement. I try to take her in. I don’t even know who she is.

“Dillon,” she gasps when she reaches us. She lifts the oxygen mask from his face. A paramedic pulls her back, and then she looks at me with bloodshot eyes.

“What happened to him?” she wails, her voice high and squeaky. I can smell the booze on her breath, but then I wonder if it’s me. I clamp my lips shut, too afraid to speak.

A paramedic turns to us. “We’re taking him to Raigmore Hospital. You can follow us in your car.”

Mum launches herself at him. “I’m his mother!” she cries. “I need to be with him.”

The paramedic holds her at arm’s length and looks at me. He tells us that there’s only room for one of us. Mum breaks free from him and clambers up into the ambulance. She throws me her handbag, and it lands on the road with a great clunk.

“Get a taxi, Elsie. There’s money in my purse.”

I am too stunned to move. The other paramedic whispers in my mum’s ear and looks at me, but Mum pushes her away.

“Call your father and tell him to come quick,” she yells as the doors are closing. I stand alone on our street, my hair still damp. Even though it’s gone ten, the light hasn’t completely faded yet. The sky is now a rich indigo, and the midsummer air is balmy.

In the taxi on the way to Inverness, I search through my mother’s bag, looking for her mobile. I find a whole load of pictures of me, Eddie, and Dillon that I didn’t even know existed—us on the beach, at Fairy Glen, on a farm. Most of them are creased and faded. I find three bottles of sleeping pills and an unopened box of condoms. I feel sick, and I hate her even more than my father. I hate Tay for making me forget that my brother needed me, but most of all I hate myself. I’m still covered in salt from the sea, and when I lick my lips, it makes me heave. The taxi slams on its brakes, and the driver helps me out to be sick at the side of the road.

“Do you think my brother will die?” I ask him when I finish throwing up.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he says, rubbing my back in small circles. I can hear the meter ticking.

I call my father from Mum’s mobile, but he doesn’t answer. I keep pressing redial. Eventually, I withhold the number and he picks up. When I tell him about Dillon, he makes a noise that sounds like he’s being strangled. I know that when we all crash into each other at the hospital, there’s going to be one almighty eruption.





EDDIE: Just one more. Then I’ll go to sleep.

DILLON: I can’t think of any more.

EDDIE: Pleeeeeease.

DILLON: Eddie, I’m all out.





1



THE DOCTORS ARE VERY WORRIED ABOUT DILLON. I stand between my parents outside the door that leads to intensive care as two doctors with masks around their necks tell us that he is severely malnourished and there is a chance he will go into organ failure. They say he is dehydrated, that he needs nutrients immediately.

We stare at him through the small window. He is either asleep or unconscious, but he doesn’t seem bothered by the flurry of people in scrubs fussing about him, sticking needles in his arms, squeezing fluid into his veins. Clear tubes snake across his face and up his nose, and his face is almost the same color as the sheet covering him.

“Can we go in?” my father asks.

“No, we need to stabilize him first.”

My mother holds on to my arm and digs her fingernails into my skin. My mind swings wildly between worrying that Dillon will die and imagining my mum having an affair.

We are shown to the waiting room.

A series of people in different-colored scrubs enter the room one by one to ask us questions. The same questions over and over again.

Has he collapsed before?

Does he have any medical conditions?

How much does he weigh?

What has he eaten in the last few days?

What about fluids?

Is he depressed?