What Goes Around... Read Online Free PDF Page B

the first time I look properly at him.
    He’s naked.
    They’ve put a towel over his bits.
    A white one that he’s not allowed to use – it’s one of my for display purposes only towels. How ironic, I think. I never let him dry his hands on it and now it’s covering his cock.
    The room smells of sex.
    It reeks of it.
    It sticks to the lining of my nostrils and it makes be want to ga g as it moves into my lungs. I see that they’re not bruises on his chest - they’re love bites and, a moment or two later, when he makes gurgling noises and they roll him on his side, I see scratches on his back and they didn’t come from me.
    I will kill her.
    I swear, the second this over, my eyes turn from him to her, and even though I don’t say a word, my expression clearly tells her that very soon, any moment now, she’s going to have her head ripped off.
    His phone is ringing and I half expect him to answer it. For him to ask everyone to stop everything for a moment and then get up and step outside , or go out to the garden to answer it, as he always does. Christmas, Easter, middle of a row, it doesn’t matter, if his phone rings he answers it. This time though it rings out and I know then that he’s gone.
    I know, even as they stand back and his body jolts and his chest lifts off the carpet, that he’s not coming back.
    ‘We’ve got a rhythm.’
    He’s got a pulse apparently. They’re all taking about moving him and a policeman comes and tells me that he’s moving my car as I’m blocking the ambulance. I’m not alone with her, but we’re the only two standing doing nothing in the room.
    ‘I’m sorry…’ She’s sobbing, there is snot running down her nose and she’s beside herself and she’s cowering as if I’m about to hit her. I think about it, believe me, I think about it, but his phone rings again and we both stand there frozen for a moment before I answer it.
    ‘Where the hell are you? We’re supposed to be starting the meeting…’
    ‘Luke? ’ He sounds normal, he sounds busy, he sounds like he lives in the same world that I did a few moments ago.
    ‘Lucy?’ I hear his confusion. ‘Sorry, I thought I was ringing…’
    ‘You did. ’ I’m not crying, I’m shivering and shaking, and he sounds so normal, so oblivious. ‘I’m at home…’ I can hardly get the words out, let alone explain things to Luke. ‘They’re taking him to hospital…’ and there’s just silence. ‘It doesn’t look good.’
    H e’s all calm and practical and tells me that he’ll meet me there, that things will be fine, that he’s tough, and if anyone is going to pull through then it’s him, but I don’t think so.
    I really don’t think so.
    I turn off the phone and I look at her and I’m not going t o hit her, I just want her gone. I want her out, I want her away, I want this finished and done, right here, right now…
    ‘If my daughter ever has to hear about this.’
    ‘I won’t say anything.’ She’s pulling on her clothes.
    ‘I swear to God, ’ I tell her, ‘if my daughter, if anyone , gets so much as a sniff…’ The room stinks of sex and I feel like I’m going to throw up.
    ‘I’m not going to tell anyone,’ she whimpers. The policeman’s back with a colleague and I’m told that he’s not well enough for me to go with him in the ambulance, but the police will drive me there – I’m in no fit state apparently.
    She’s dressed now, about to run out, but the policeman asks her to wait. ‘We need a few details,’ he says.
    I don’t even attempt to comprehend what he wants her for. I mean, I don’t dwell on his words. I’m led down the stairs and they’re closing up the back of the ambulance. I can see that they’ve got this bag attached to a tube in his throat and are breathing air into him, but even though they’re not banging on his chest now, I just feel like he’s gone, I feel like he left in the bedroom…
    I’m driven to the hospital. Occasionally the police car blasts the