A short pause. ‘Snake’s dead.’
I nearly dropped the phone.
‘When? What happened?’
‘He got shot. Last year.’
‘I can’t believe it.’ My head struggled to take this in. What it might mean. ‘So, what about you? Are you taking care of yourself?’ Are you sober, without him? Did the addict Sam die with Snake?
‘Yeah. I’m good. I got some proper help this time. Better medication.’
We chatted for a couple more minutes. Sam wanted to know when I was coming home. I said it felt like an if, not a when and wouldn’t be any time soon.
I knew my brother. I recognised the drawl of weed in his voice. And I knew not to trust him. After years of living in a home akin to hell, I had finally got my own place. You would have to drag me back kicking and screaming before I gave that up.
The day the police called to tell me Sam was in hospital, I didn’t kick. But in my head, I did some screaming. I packed my precious few possessions into the old rucksack, stuffing the surplus into a carrier bag. My cherished stash of tips bought the coach ticket to Nottingham, where I caught a free bus to the Queens Medical Centre. He lay in the last bed in the bay, with a view out across the car park and to the sparse trees beyond.
The outline of his skull pressed stark against ghostly green skin. A sharp contrast to his hair, spread out like oil against the pillow.
I shuffled the plastic chair up as close as possible, leaning forwards and laying my head as gently as I could upon his chest. Wrapping his hand in both of mine, I felt the rise and fall of his lungs, the thump of his heart, still beating despite his violent attempt to destroy it.
‘You came back.’
‘Yes.’ My voice was as weak as my brother’s.
‘Will you stay?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So you bloomin’ well should be. Don’t ever do that to me again.’
He didn’t answer. For once, my brother didn’t choose the easy lie.
14
Over the next few days, Sam failed to improve. The mental health nurse visited and assessed him for risk of self-harm. The results made me want to crawl into the back of my wardrobe. I stuffed my pride in there instead and called Perry.
Sam cried with relief when I asked if he wanted to go back to the private hospital. With a squillion-pound security system designed to keep patients safely inside, it would also keep vengeful murderers out. If we’d offered, I think he’d have moved in permanently at that point.
With Sam readmitted, I suddenly found myself with a lot more time on my hands. The end of February offered little in the way of work, and having missed choir practice, the following Sunday I decided to go along to Grace Chapel to thank Dylan properly for skiving off church.
I walked to Brooksby. The buses ran intermittently on Sundays, and I had done nothing about the absurd red car sitting in front of my house yet. It took longer than I thought, so by the time I ducked into the back row, the singing had already started.
Hester led from the front, a keyboard player, guitarist and a teenage girl playing a violin behind her. The style soundedquite folksy but it worked, and the congregation sang along with a gusto that more than made up for any lack of musicality. I spotted Rowan with her daughter Callie, to my surprise, and Melody. I knew Janice and Millie would be there, but hadn`t expected to see most of the other choir members. I didn’t know churches could include so many mixed-up, non-religious-type people. I had expected to stick out like a sore thumb. Instead, it felt strange I’d never been before.
After a couple more songs, the band sat down. Hester strode to the back row, and took the chair next to mine. I braced myself for the reprimand about missing rehearsal so near to the competition. Instead, I felt her rough hand take mine. She lifted it up and gently kissed it, before letting go again. In the church where my mum had found something worth believing in, this simple gesture was like a tap opening up my tear ducts again. Hester handed me a tissue, and hissed, ‘Pay attention, Faith. Crack open your heart and mind, and you might be surprised.’
Mags –Mags– spoke for twenty-odd minutes about a kick-butt woman in the Bible called Esther, who although a poor orphan, won the king’s heart to become queen, and then by her beauty and bravery and brains managed to save the whole of the Jewish people from genocide, and got the baddie caught red-handed committing sexual assault.
It was a fascinating story and I sort of related to some of it.
We sang one more song before finishing. Afterwards, when I chatted to the choir women over hot drinks and boring biscuits while trying to spot Dylan across the room without staring at him, random lines of the music kept playing, over and over, in the back of my head.
I had been orphaned twice – once when my mother died, and again when I lost Grandma. God hadn’t saved me from Snake. Or everything else. He hadn’t saved Sam. He hadn’t stopped Kane killing my mum.
And yet Sam and I had survived Kane, and escaped Snake. I had somehow met an unusually generous man, who also happened to be a millionaire and had fallen in love with me, meaning Sam could get help.
