Charlotte Street (41 page)

And then something strange happened.

The woman who works in the head’s office – Sheila? – pushes through the double doors at the back of the hall and then holds her hands up apologetically. I look at the head, and the head raises her eyebrows at Sheila, and Sheila makes a phonecall mime. So Mrs Abercrombie stands up, but that’s not what Sheila meant; she points at me.

Me?
I now mime.

Yes
, she mimes back. And then:
Quickly
.

‘Jason?’ said the voice. A female voice with a heavy accent.

Sheila was hovering around, full of concern, popping her hand on my shoulder and patting me a lot, but I was pretty sure I knew who this was.

‘Um … Svetlana?’ I said back. ‘This is not really the best time to be talking about pies and crying. I was on stage, inspiring the youth of today.’

I rolled my eyes at Sheila in a
what-can-you-do?
kind of way, and she stopped patting me.

Silence on the other end of the line.

‘Abbey?’ I said.

‘It is not Abbey. This is
Pamela
,’ said the voice.

Pamela?

She sounded fraught, shocked, frightened.

Instantly I was afraid. Amazing how you can catch a fear before you know what to be afraid of.

‘Please, Jason. You come now!’

‘What? Where? What’s going on?’

‘It’s Dev.’

Shit.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said, a low panic rising in my voice. ‘What
about
Dev?’

Devdatta Ranjit Sandananda Patel was a hero.

A hero among men.

A hero facing down robots, and Nazis, and aliens.

A man who knew his way around a gun, around nunchucks, around a Hadouken punch.

A man who’d saved damsels, freed animals, bumped off end-of-level baddie after end-of-level baddie, and always,
always
lived to tell the tale.

But in real life, Devdatta Patel had never done anything heroic.

That’s what had bothered him more than anything.

‘We’ve never
done
anything,’ he’d tell me, on another lunchtime in Postman’s Park. ‘What have we ever done?’

I remember one time in particular. We were standing, staring at the tile that said:

This one, more than almost any other, had always been Dev’s favourite.

‘It’s a legacy!’ he’d say. ‘He
did
something, and here we are, a hundred and whatever years later, and maybe it’s just you and me, but
we know
the name William Freer Lucas. We’re on this planet for the blink of an eye but some of us live longer, even when they die young.’

That was all I could think about in the taxi. Staring out of the window at the grey shops and streets and malls, noticing every siren, every ambulance that screamed by.

So no. Dev had never been a hero.

Until today.

The taxi ride had been sickening.

I knew nothing. Just that he’d been rushed to hospital, that from the catch and the fear in Pamela’s voice it sounded bad. Maybe very bad.

She’d been jittery at the end of the call, right when I’d said I’d be there as soon as I could, like she’d passed the news on and could allow herself a brief emotional collapse.

Christ, Dev, what did you do? Are you okay?

I leaned against the window of the cab, my fists tight, and for the first time in my life I prayed for my friend.

‘We were going to the place,’ said Pamela, gripping her tea.

‘Which place?’ I said. ‘What happened?’

‘Hilton Hotel,’ she said. ‘In Mayfair.’

Oh, no. Of course. The Golden Joysticks. That was today.

That was my big surprise. My olive branch. Zoe had had to make a few phonecalls, but two tickets to the videogames bash of the year had been secured.

He’d been excited in his text:
Thank you thank you thank you! The Golden Joysticks! A reference to its early days as part of the GamesMaster franchise! Guess who I’ll ask … you never know! x

‘We were walking to the tube station,’ said Pamela, her eyes on mine, ‘and Dev, he saw a girl, maybe fourteen years, she cycles on her bike, but she was … um …’

She gestured with her hands.

‘Swaying?’ I tried.

‘One way then the other,’ she said, nodding. ‘She was
swaying
, she had bags on her bicycle, from shops …’

I sat her down on two blue plastic chairs. I could feel her arms shaking.

‘And she fell, bad fall, I heard her bell ring when she fall, and she made a noise,’ she said. ‘And her bags go everywhere but her leg is under her bike and she … um …’

‘Panics?’

She nodded, and I was starting to sweat, feeling the pressure of the moment.

‘And a car comes, quickly, very quickly, and I grab Dev’s arm, but he starts to run … he pulls her away from her bicycle, but the car, it comes quick, and Dev is there and …’

She clipped her hands together.

‘He spins,’ she said. ‘Hit! His leg is rip open, Jason, a lot blood, I saw the bone and it—’

She couldn’t find the words, but her hands did the work. I think she wanted to say ‘twist’ or ‘twists’; his bone, the femur or the tibula or the shin, twisted in amongst flaps of skin and blood and car and jeans, ligaments stretched and torn, and he’d lain there, my Dev, a bloodied and useless, desperate heap.

She looked at me, full of disbelief, that this could happen, that a car could hit a man she knew.

‘How is he?’ I said, my hand now shaking.

There are moments in life – days, even – that can block out the others in an instant. They’re like pinpricks. Sharp and painful and dominating, turning the moments either side into a pointless haze.

I’d never considered what it might be like to lose a friend. To lose Dev. That it could be possible at all seemed unreal, impossible. Or it did until today.

Dev was alive, I knew that. But what sliver of chance would it have taken to change that? A mile-per-hour more, a split-second later on the brakes, an inch or two to the right or left? But the overriding thought and the feeling I just couldn’t get away from … was admiration.

‘He’s lost blood,’ said the doctor, about my age but worn and beaten and not up for a role in
Holby City
any time soon. ‘It was a nasty hit.’

How nasty?
I wanted to say, but he wasn’t finished and in situations like this you want to delay the bad news as much as you can. Let the doctor say his piece: he’s done this before; he knows what he’s doing.

‘His leg pretty much buckled,’ he said. ‘There are lacerations, multiple fractures, some muscle damage …’

I began to feel ill. The doctor’s voice was soft even as the words became harder.

‘His hamstring has torn, I’m afraid. We had to—’

I began to feel faint.

Enough.

‘Is he okay?’ I said. ‘Is Dev okay?’

Four hours later
. Pamela had popped out to get KFC but I couldn’t touch mine. Too many bones. Too much loose fat, so warm and oily.

Pamela sucked at the bones until she caught sight of me, as grey as the tea in my hand.

Then the bang of the door.

‘Wise Fwom Your Gwaaave!’
was the first thing I heard as Dev was wheeled into the room by a man he proudly told us was Charles, his new best friend. I could see from Charles’s badge his name was Phil.

Dev’s leg was in plaster, his face swollen and bloodied, but he seemed strangely happy.

‘I’ve got a very badly broken leg!’ he said, waving his keyring about. ‘And some other stuff.’

‘Dev,’ I said. ‘Do you know what you
did
?’

‘If you can’t save a little life once in a while, what
can
you do?’

‘But you did!’ I said. ‘You saved a life! You’re a hero!’

‘I would not use that word,’ he said, graciously, ‘but you must always feel free to. Hello, Pamela.’

‘Dev,’ she said. ‘
Thank
you.’

We didn’t quite know what she was thanking him for but we went along with it, because it sounded pretty positive.

‘Bloody car,’ he said. ‘A Vectra! Bloke was on his phone. Didn’t see me ‘til the last second. He managed to swerve, but he caught me right on the … um. The … um—’

‘The leg,’ said Pamela, helpfully.

‘Yes. The leg.
This
one.’

He pointed at his plaster.

‘
And
we missed the bloody Golden Joysticks,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘That’s the tragedy no one here is talking about. The nurses don’t seem to care. Bloody NHS.’

‘We’ll go next year,’ I said.

‘Could probably still hit the afterparty?’

‘You’ve broken your leg, mate,’ I said. ‘And I’m pretty sure you’re on quite a lot of morphine.’

‘I am, actually!’ he said, nodding. ‘It’s given me a remarkable sense of wellbeing. We should get some for the flat. Abbey could make omelettes out of it. I wonder what’s number one in the charts.’

I weighed up the situation.

‘I should probably let you rest,’ I said, and Charles nodded, like I was a medical genius and could expect my PhD by special delivery in the morning. ‘Do you need a lift anywhere, Pamela?’

‘I stay,’ she said, and Dev tried to give me a subtle wink, which was so very subtle I’m fairly sure people in Germany saw it.

At the door, exhausted, happy, relieved, I turned.

‘Do you know what this means, Dev?’

‘I do, sir. I will need round-the-clock care!’

‘It means you
did
something, Dev.’

He cocked his head.

‘There was a moment, and you
used
it.’

I got home that night shattered. I could’ve lost Dev, was all I could think.

The people around you
are
you. They share your history. They can even write it with you. And when you lose one, there’s no doubt you lose some of yourself, however they’re lost.

So I sat down at my computer. I tried to work out an email. I tried to put into words what I was feeling. I wanted to say sorry,
unreservedly
sorry, sorry for
everything
, and make promises, and just be cool again, and have her back in my life even just as a pal.

But there was too much to say.

So I thought for a second, then went to Facebook, where I sent Sarah a friend request.

And those two words, I hoped, said it all.

‘The cook does not have to be a beautiful woman.’

- Traditional Shona Tribe proverb, Zimbabwe

Your comments have been very funny.

I know I don’t tell you very much. Place names, events, yes; names not so much. And I’m sorry I can’t tell you yet what my big plan is.

But maybe if you’ve been following this blog since the start you might have guessed.

I was sitting on the bus this morning thinking about it all. There’d been some accident up ahead, somewhere – ambulance, police, someone on a motorbike, I think, the awful rubberneckers craning to catch a glimpse of whatever. I’d been slowly coming to the conclusion that I should stop hankering after moments that have gone and start using the ones that are here.

Is that what you’d say? ‘Using’ them? It sounds weird but I don’t know what else to put.

On that note, a man tried to pick me up today by sitting very close to me on the bus and accidentally brushing his hand against mine so that he could apologise and then say, ‘Wow, did you feel that? The electricity!’ but maybe it’s a testament to my current state of mind that my first thought was, ‘I hope I don’t get a rash.’

I think the face I made must have made him stop short of his next conversational gambit because then he kept himself to himself and weirdly I felt a bit sad about that.

So I’ve had another chat with HR, about the idea. Apparently there are ‘ways and means’. Mum always praises my practical side; it was Dad who liked the risks I took. But with the year I’ve had … with Dad, with ‘him’ …

I hold I no grudges against ‘him’, by the way. Because really, now that I think about it, maybe it’s made me stronger. I wouldn’t now be wondering whether I should do something, or get out there, without having the year I’d never have chosen.

You can buckle, in life, I think, or you can bend.

I thought about my camera again this morning as I got off the bus near Charlotte Street. Would I have developed that film or those memories? Yes. In a moment of weakness. But I like to think maybe I’d have been strong and made the
choice
not to.

It’s the year of choosing for myself. But: will I?

Maybe I’m just in a weekend vibe, but if I do, I promise to be far more open with you. Yeah? You deserve that. And I’ll share one embarrassing secret as penance for my secrecy in a selfless act of friendship towards you.

I might even tell you my name.

Sx

The weekend was over and I was weighed down by books as I trudged down the corridor towards room 3Gc again. There was the odd snigger as I did.

‘Oi, sir, you makin’ it happen?’ called out Trey Stoddard.

‘Piss off!’ I said, because I’m a supply teacher, and no one told me I couldn’t.

Trey slapped his hand to his thigh and laughed, then ran off to tell his mates.

‘Jason,’ said a voice behind me, scuttling closer. It was Mrs Woollacombe. ‘Laura’s looking for you.’

Laura? Mrs Abercrombie? What for? To offer me more work? Or to tell me my work here was done? I had a contract with St John’s, but there’d never been any hint that it was rolling. I sighed to myself. If the work here dried up, it’d be other inner city schools for me, other faces, longer journeys, shorter nights.

‘I’ll pop in to see her at break,’ I said.

The kids were being good today. I liked to think maybe I’d calmed them with my wisdom during that assembly, but more likely, they were knackered from PE. They were attentive, though, and when I asked them to open their books, they did
so without protest or sigh, and now we sat quietly, and I listened to them read.