This is a Love Story (43 page)

The crowds were like treacle until I neared my road and then they dispersed to clear the way. My chest was full of excitement as I prepared to tell Dad all about my news. How would I start? So, Dad . . . I mouthed the words under my breath as I hurried along the streets. I have something to tell you . . . Dad, I got promoted – things are going to be very different for us now . . . Dad, I made it! Whatever way I imagined it coming out, it all seemed so corny, and just not really my style. I decided to ad lib and let it roll.

I turned the key in the door and as soon as it opened I was greeted by a huge bunch of pink and white flowers, which sat on the doormat looking lusciously at me, a small card wedged inside. Unable to speak, I reached down and opened the card. I immediately recognised the shaky writing. It must have taken him ages to do this – but how had he known? I hadn’t even told him yet. A thin line of biro trailed off from one letter where he must have fallen asleep mid-word. The third kiss was particularly wobbly.

‘Dad!’ I exclaimed, choked up with thick tears. ‘Thanks so much! I’m so happy, you literally have no idea . . .’

Nick must have told him. What a sweetheart, I thought as I hurriedly kicked off my shoes, losing my balance and nearly knocking over our coat stand in the process. I managed to steady myself by gripping on to the radiator. Phew. I scooped up the flowers and buried my head inside; the most crisp, stunning smell wafted up my nostrils. I stood there for a minute, taking it all in before speaking again. Amazing things like this didn’t happen very often. I wanted to seize the moment to take a picture in my mind, so I could remember this in the hard times.

‘Dad?’ I tried again. Silence. ‘Dad!’ I shouted, even louder. Nothing. Probably asleep, I thought with a smile. I turned into the living room; it was pretty dark and so quiet I could hear the clock ticking as if it was right next to my ear. I would find him snoozing in his room, I bet. Hmm, I thought, that’s a shame – I was busting to tell him. I decided to make some tea.

I turned into the kitchen and saw something that struck me as odd, but not totally out of the ordinary. The bottom half of Dad’s legs on the floor, poking out from behind the kitchen counter. A pair of fluffy brown slippers at the bottom of some black tracksuit pants. My dad. Two pink helium balloons floated in the air, bobbing sadly against the ceiling. Bump. Bump.

My stomach plunged. I couldn’t look. Please, no.
Please.
I stood still, my heart thumping in my chest. Nausea started to rise in my throat. Now come on, Sienna, I told myself sternly. It’s probably just one of his usual falls, he’s likely to still be passed out. I looked over at the sofa. His crash helmet was sitting uselessly on a cushion, staring back at me. Shit. He wasn’t wearing his crash helmet.

There was silence, broken intermittently by the gentle thud of the balloons, which were shifting in the cool breeze from an open window. Calm. Quiet. Peace.

I took a deep breath and one step forward. I saw my father lying face down on the floor. My eyes seemed to zoom in and out, trying to make sense of a small pool of blood surrounding his head. The balloons were streaming from his right hand, which was gripped into a fist. The ribbons ran through his fingers. My heart sank, and my head started to spin immediately. Adrenalin trickled into my legs like alcohol. I felt weak. No. This was some kind of sick joke.

I rushed down to his body and pressed my trembling hand against his cheek. It was cold. I instantly started to cry, my whole body shaking as if I had been left outside on a wintry night. I felt the distinct moment when my heart broke into tiny little pieces. It was like a tearing in my soul, each twist and rip made me feel like the world had really ended. I was losing my grip, losing him.

I pushed my fingers against his lips, into his neck, on to his chest, frantically searching for a sign of life. A heartbeat. A breath.
Anything.

‘No. No. No. No. No,’ I started to say again and again. I shouted it out in my empty flat so loudly it echoed around the walls and came back to taunt me before the ticking of the clock took over again.

‘Please, no, not my dad!’ I shouted it so piercingly this time I felt like the world might hear it. My throat felt as if it would split I yelled so loudly, and my voice cracked under the strain.

I lay across his back, crying so hard it hurt. My lungs rattled. My breath was choked with tears. This physically hurt.

Not my dad. No, please. Please. Please. I ran my hands over his face, then wrapped my arms around his chest, gripping on to him. I squeezed hard. Nothing happened. My mind started to twist and turn as I lay there.

Eventually shock set in and I calmly got up and put the kettle on. No, this wasn’t right. I was definitely imagining the whole thing. I’d been under a lot of stress lately. This was just a figment of my imagination. You hear about this kind of thing all the time, don’t you? Don’t you?

The water boiled so hard that the kettle rattled against the work surface. Teaspoons clattered in a pot. I got two mugs. One green. One blue. I poured the water into them, on top of teabags and sugar. I needed to be good to myself. Give myself a moment to take in my promotion, everything that had happened. Dad will wake up soon, I thought. I poured a splash of milk into each cup, watching it infiltrate the muddy brown water.

After a time I slowly picked up the mugs and walked into the living room. I sat there for what seemed like hours, just absorbing the silence. I needed to give myself a break. I was clearly going mad. A doctor’s appointment. That might help. I would tell my doctor that I was seeing things. Imagining things. Terrible things that weren’t actually there. My phone rang. It was Nick. I ignored it. I looked at the clock, it was 7.30 p.m. already. Darkness was creeping into the summer evening, slowly, through the blinds.

A while later, I broke the chasm of quiet. ‘Dad, your tea’s ready,’ I said quietly. He would come in any minute, I just knew it. Shuffle shuffle. That was my father’s trademark noise. Maybe I should get his tablets ready, I thought. But then the stabbing realisation started to creep into my mind, and the image of him on the floor kept flashing before my eyes. The haunting silence remained unbroken. I rubbed my eyes hard with my fists, trying to wipe the visions away. It never happened, OK? My bottom lip wobbled uncontrollably.

I tried again, just to be sure. ‘Dad. Tea’s ready.’ My voice was getting hoarse now.

No sound. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. ‘Your tea, Dad. Come on, hurry up – it’s getting cold.’

Tears started to leak from my eyes again, but I felt nothing. Numbness had spread like anaesthetic. They dripped on my lap and my fingers. They collected in the base of my neck like a swimming pool. I bent over and touched his mug. It was cold. Stone cold.

Nick

It was half past ten on Friday night when we broke into Sienna’s flat. Her neighbour Jack and I. He told me he’d heard her screaming, had knocked a few times but no one had answered.

‘I was supposed to be meeting her for dinner hours ago,’ I said to him as we stood in the dingy hallway. I was wearing the red and white striped Florida shirt, my nicest pair of trousers and some posh shoes.

He looked extremely worried. I’d never met him before, although I’d heard of him. I knew he’d helped Sienna and her dad in the past. He had thick, wiry white hair which poked out in tufts and whirls; the skin on his face was grey and wrinkled but there was a warmth about his features. A kindness.

I’d found him hovering around in the hall when I came up to the flat. Pacing up and down. Sienna hadn’t answered my calls. I was already concerned, but when I saw him, I knew I had good reason to be troubled.

‘I think we need to smash the door down,’ he said calmly.

‘But she might have just gone out,’ I protested, eager not to make a scene. I knew George was probably in there, sleeping quietly with no idea we were outside. Maybe she’d been screaming with happiness about her job, got carried away with it all and forgotten to meet me. Was it really necessary to smash the door down?

‘But Nick – it is Nick, isn’t it?’ I nodded. ‘I heard her, mate. She was shouting, she sounded really distressed.’ He reached out and put his arm on my shoulder, trying to get some sense out of me.

My heart sank. He was right. This probably was bad.

‘She’s not the type to just not answer her phone, is she? Not turn up?’ he asked, his fists clenched in what I could only assume was unexpressed tension.

‘No. No, she isn’t,’ I conceded, shaking my head.

‘Well come on, then, we’re going to have to bash this door down.’

I looked at it. It was big and strong and tall. Bigger and stronger and taller than me. I had no idea how two men like us were going to open it.

‘Come on,’ he urged, taking a few steps back and pressing his body against the wall. He beckoned me to stand next to him. ‘And go!’ he shouted, and we both ran towards the door, slamming our combined weight into it hard.

I was more of a literature and chess kind of chap than a strong man capable of knocking down mighty structures. It showed. My arm started to throb immediately and my skin tingled as I pulled away. We had made no impression whatsoever.

Then, suddenly, this fire ignited in my soul. I had to get to her. A strength rose from inside. A force I hadn’t even known I had. We ran towards it, again and again, until it was thrown open, launching us both into Sienna’s living room.

The door swung violently backwards; the sound of metal parts pinging away and hitting the walls greeted my ears. I could hear wood tearing and cracking, and then it hung sadly from the bottom hinge. I was breathless. Nervous. It was dark. it took a while for my eyes to adjust and then I saw her with her back to us, sitting on the sofa in the pitch black. She didn’t even turn around. Oh God. I rushed over to her and threw myself next to her small frame, which was bent right over.

‘Sienna, sweetheart. What’s going on?’ I asked frantically, shaking so much now I could barely hold it together.

She just looked ahead, staring into nothingness. I touched her face gently. It was wet, and more tears were running from her eyes like a tap had been left on in the back of her mind. I held her, so tight. I wrapped my arms around her body and squeezed. I could feel her heart thumping in her chest. She started to shudder.

‘Sienna, listen to me.’ I grabbed hold of her face now, starting to feel desperate. Then her body became limp and I found myself supporting her weight. ‘What’s happened?’ I begged. She didn’t say anything, didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Jack. ‘You need to come here,’ he said softly in my ear.

I peeled myself away from Sienna, who sank into the cushions, and followed him into the kitchen. A small amount of light was coming from a lamp he’d switched on. There he was. George. Lying face down on the floor, his hands wrapped around the balloons I’d ordered earlier. Oh no, no . . .

I ran back to Sienna and held her again. Grief overwhelmed me and I started to cry. I gently moved her face towards my chest and stroked her hair. I had to protect her from this. Save her. But it was too late. She’d gone through this alone.

‘Nick, what are you doing?’ she asked, pulling herself up and pressing her nose against mine. Her face was expressionless and her tone was flat.

I put both hands on her cheeks and kissed her nose. ‘Si, we need to call an ambulance and the police, OK? We need people to come and help us,’ I whispered through my tears, again feeling just as clueless as I had all that time ago when George collapsed on me.
An ambulance
, I thought, unsure of what you’re actually meant to do in situations like this.

‘No one needs to do anything with my dad. No, they don’t,’ she said, starting to sob.

I kissed her nose again, this time keeping my lips pressed against her face for longer. ‘Look, you just stay here, OK? Lie down. I’m going to sort this out.’ I scratched my head and wondered what on earth to do next. She just shook her head and stayed still. ‘Please, Sienna – listen to me, OK? I’m going to look after you. I’m going to call the right people who can help us, and then you’re coming back to my house with me, all right? I need you to be with me for your own good.’

Eventually she stopped shaking her head and lay down on the sofa, defeated and exhausted. Jack had already started to call the emergency services; he paced around George’s body with the phone pressed to his ear, a troubled look across his face.

I rushed into Sienna’s room, searching for a bag. I eventually found one and threw as much of her clothing into it as possible. I couldn’t even think straight. I managed to pick up her winter coat but swiftly stopped myself as I tried to stuff it in. It was summer, for God’s sake. Toothbrush. Shampoo. Shower gel . . .

Soon the flat was filled with green overalls and the sound of ripping Velcro. Sienna eventually stood up from the sofa and watched as they carried out various tests, pushing their fingers into his neck in search of the life that had fled his body. She watched it all but said nothing. I wasn’t sure whether I should shield her from it. Cover her eyes. Protect her. Instead, I let her observe them, but held her tight the whole time. I felt it was important that she knew he was in good hands. She said nothing.

When George had been transported from the flat, I took her home. Away from it all. Jack dealt with everything incredibly well. I saved his number to my phone and told him I would call as soon as I could to let him know how Sienna was doing.

The journey was difficult. Driving was difficult. When she finally agreed to get into the car she started to shake again, but it wasn’t because she was cold. It was shock. She stared out of the window for ages, not saying a word until we were about to pull into my driveway.