‘I wish you had.’
‘I didn’t know how.’
‘It’s good news,’ I insist, willing myself to stay strong until I get out of here.
‘Is it? I’m all over the place.’ He taps his credit card against the machine. ‘Can we meet tonight?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘To talk things through?’ he urges, as we head back to join Laurie.
I shake my head. ‘I can’t do this anymore. It’s not fair. Be with your family, Angus.’
‘Holly?’
‘Angus, don’t.’ Out of the corner of my eye I see a little girl, about four years old, in a duffle coat and boots, running down the Goldhawk Road, heading towards the traffic lights at the Chiswick High Road junction. ‘Chloe!’ I hear someone calling.
‘She’s going to stop, isn’t she?’ I say out loud. ‘Where’s her mum?’
She’s precariously close to Chiswick High Road now, early morning traffic moving in both directions. It’s clear she’s too young to have any road or traffic sense. She’s running, escaping from Mum. Angus’s pace quickens. ‘What the fuck?’ he says as he races out of the café. Everything happens in a split second. Angus rushing out into the main road. A mother running, screaming now, ‘Chloe! Stop! Come back!’ Angus grabbing the little girl from behind, pulling her back. Mum racing to Chloe, taking her arm, pulling her off the road. The sound of a car horn. Angus flung in the air. His body slams against the bonnet before he crashes to the ground. More screaming. And this time, I realise the screaming is coming from me.
Laurie and I rush outside and kneel beside him. He’s lying motionless, blood smeared across his forehead. ‘Angus, Angus, talk to me, are you all right?’ Laurie asks, prodding his arm.
My hand shakes as I call for an ambulance.
‘Is the patient breathing?’ the woman asks on the other end of the phone.
When Angus groans, I am overwhelmed with relief that he is alive. ‘Yes, yes he is.’
‘Tell me where you are and what happened,’ she asks, her tone calm.
I tell her, quickly. ‘He’s been hit by a car. He can’t speak or move and his leg, his foot, it’s pointing out at a weird angle.’
‘Someone will be with you straightaway.’
‘Hurry, please,’ I urge.
‘It’s already dispatched. Don’t move him, keep him as still as possible, just talk to him and keep him warm.’
Disorientated, Angus tries to sit up, but he’s paralysed with pain and confusion. ‘Don’t move,’ I tell him, squeezing his hand, as Laurie takes off her baggy jumper and places it over him, like a rug.
Never before have I been so relieved to see an ambulance, followed by two men in bottle-green jumpsuits rushing towards Angus. I watch as one of them approaches Angus from behind, and places both his hands on either side of Angus’s head, to make sure he can’t move a fraction of an inch. ‘Hi there, Angus, I need you to keep as still as you can for me,’ he says. For all we know, Angus could have a neck fracture, and be at risk of never walking again.
‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’ the mother asks, Chloe sobbing beside her.
‘Angus, can you tell me what happened?’ the paramedic asks, catching my eye and nodding reassuringly.
Angus groans in agony again.
‘Don’t worry, hang on in there,’ he says as another paramedic is now checking his pulse, his breathing. Quickly and efficiently, he examines his body, feeling and applying pressure against his stomach, hip and pelvis area. They check for bruising and if he’s losing any more blood. They take his blood pressure. They slide a gadget on to his finger which I know is to check his oxygen. ‘You’re doing well,’ the paramedic says to him. ‘How’s the pain?’
The panic and pain in Angus’s eyes say it all. They give him some gas and air.
Give me some too.
‘What are you doing now?’ Laurie asks as one of them touches Angus’s foot again. ‘Is he going to lose it?’
‘What happened?’ another passer-by asks me, but I’m too anxious to respond to anyone. I overhear one of the team saying something about a displaced fracture. Clearly, they’re worried about Angus’s right foot, and so am I. It looks as if it’s dislocated from his leg, and from what I can make out they’re struggling to feel a pulse. I watch one of them pressing a finger against his foot once more. ‘Would everyone mind giving us a bit of space?’ says one of the ambulance crew. Traffic has piled up. People are getting out of their cars. Walkers stop, distracted by the drama. The mother and child are still here, Chloe now locked in her mother’s arms. Angus has quite an audience. I know, if he could, he’d make a joke even now, saying it wasn’t exactly his idea of a leading role. But he’ll take it as it might be the only chance he’ll have. And he’d better be awarded an Oscar for his bravery.
