In a Dark, Dark Wood(56)

He had closed his eyes. His hand in mine was relaxing.

‘He’s dying,’ I said to Nina, hearing the hysteria rising in my own voice. ‘Nina, do something.’

‘What the f*ck do you think I am doing? Playing tea-parties? Get me a towel. No, wait – don’t let go of that pad on his thigh. I’ll get it. Where the f*ck is Clare?’

She got up and ran for the kitchen, and I heard her banging through drawers.

James lay very still.

‘James?’ I said, suddenly panicked. ‘James, stay with me!’

He opened his eyes, painfully, and lay looking up at me, his eyes bright and dark in the soft light from the hall. His T-shirt was split open like a peeled fruit, and his blood-stained chest and belly were bare to the cold air. I wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to tell him everything was OK. But I could not. Because it was a lie.

I gritted my teeth and pressed harder on the pad on his thigh, willing the blood to stop pooling and pooling.

‘I’m … sorry …’ he said, very faint, so faint that I thought I had misheard.

‘What?’ I put my head closer, trying to hear.

‘I’m sorry …’ His hand squeezed mine, and then, to my astonishment, he reached up, his arm trembling with the effort, and touched my cheek. His breath rattled in his throat, and a thin trickle of blood came from the corner of his mouth.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to cry. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I managed. ‘It was a long time ago. It’s all over now.’

‘Clare …’

Oh f*ck, where was she?

A tear dripped off my nose onto his chest, and he reached up again and tried to wipe it away, but his arm was too weak and he let it fall back.

‘Don’t … cry …’

‘Oh James,’ it was all I could manage, a gulping exhortation that tried to say everything I couldn’t. James, don’t die, please don’t die.

‘Leo …’ he said softly, and he closed his eyes. Only James ever called me that. Only him. Always him.

I am still crying when the knock on the door comes, and I struggle up against the pillows, before remembering the electric button that raises the bedhead automatically.

The bed grinds me into a sitting position, and I take a deep, shuddering breath and swipe at my eyes.

‘Come in.’

The door opens, and it is Lamarr. I know my eyes must be red and wet, and my throat croaky, but I can’t find it in myself to care.

‘Tell me the truth,’ I say, before she can say anything else – before she’s sat down, even. ‘Please. I’ll tell you everything I can remember, but I have to know. Is he dead?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and I know. I try to speak, but I can’t. I sit, shaking my head, and trying to make the words come, but they don’t.

Lamarr sits in silence while I struggle for control, and then at last, when my breathing eases, she holds out the paper tray she’s carrying.

‘Coffee?’ she asks, gently.

I shouldn’t care. James is dead. What does coffee matter?

I nod, half-reluctantly, and when she hands it to me, I take a long sip. It’s hot and strong. It is as unlike the watery hospital gravy as chalk from Gorgonzola and I feel it running into every cell of my body and waking me up. It is impossible to believe that I can be alive and James can be dead.

When I put the cup down, my face feels stiff and my head aches. ‘Thank you,’ I manage, my voice rough. Lamarr leans across the gap between us and squeezes my hand.

‘It was the least I could do. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out like that, but I was asked—’ She stops and rephrases. ‘It was thought advisable not to tell you more than you knew already. We wanted to get your version. Uninfluenced.’

I don’t say anything. I just bow my head. I have written about this kind of thing, this kind of interview, all my adult life, and I never imagined for one moment I would be here.

‘I know this will be painful,’ she says at last, as the silence stretches, ‘but please, can you think back to last night? What do you remember?’

‘I remember up to the – the shooting,’ I say. ‘I remember running down the stairs, and seeing him … seeing him, lying there …’ I grit my teeth and pause for a moment, the breath hissing between my teeth. I will not cry again. Instead I gulp at the coffee, not caring that it scalds as I swallow. ‘You must know about the shooting?’ I say at last. ‘Did they tell you, the others? Nina and Clare and everyone?’

‘We have several different accounts,’ she says, a hint of evasiveness in her voice. ‘But we need to get all the perspectives.’

‘We were scared,’ I say, trying to think back. It seems like a hundred years ago, swathed in a fog of adrenaline as we all crept round the house, half-hysterical with a mixture of drunken excitement and genuine fear. ‘There was a message on the ouija board – about a murderer.’ The irony, as I say it, is almost unbearable. ‘We didn’t believe it – most of us, anyway – but I suppose it made us edgy. And there were footprints, in the snow outside. And when we woke up, the first time I mean, the kitchen door had come open.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. Someone had locked it – or said they had. Flo I think. Or was it Clare? Someone had checked, anyway. But it blew open, and it just made us all more crazed and frightened. And so when we heard the footsteps …’