I crunch to a halt in front of El’s building and grip the gift in my parka pocket. Okay. Breathe. I plunge down the slabbed pathway to the main door of Mount Pleasant. Someone has attempted to cheer the place up, planting clumps of little yellow, white and purple flowers in beds on either side of the entrance. Because of those colours, his favourites, I think this is Ellis’s doing, and I smile.
As I buzz flat 123, I try to lose the grin. It’s difficult to talk when you’re smiling. You tend to look like a psychopath. Anyway, my jaw is starting to ache. I rock from foot to foot and wonder if El will ask for his IOU back when he gives me the money. Honestly, I’d rather him keep the cash. I love my IOU.
The seconds stretch out and the old stupid doubts begin to creep in again. I get out my phone and reread the message. Is this jokey tone for real? Maybe he and Gemma wrote it together and they’re watching from an upstairs window right now, giggling at me on the doorstep. My traitor brain invents dialogue for them:
Oh, poor wovesick wittle Dywan. I bet he’s bought you a pwesent and evewyfing.
Not Dywan. Mister Fwecks. Oh my God, he might actually think I like him! Pass me a bucket!
But this is rubbish. Although he and Gemma haven’t had any major fallout, there’s definitely been this cooling off between them since that day at Hug-A-Book. I guess she didn’t appreciate getting dumped for…
Forme.For ME.
The intercom buzzes and the main door clicks. I take a breath and push through. A floor plan in the vestibule shows Ellis’s flat on the first level. I’m too impatient to wait for the lift and so take the stairs, leaping three at a time. El’s corridor suddenly stretches ahead of me and I force myself to slow down because if he glances out of his door and sees me running, a) he will think I’m completely desperate (which I am), and b) he willactuallysee me running, which Mike reliably informs me is pure comedy gold.
Flat 123. I count my heartbeats and they steady. I knock on the door. It swings open at my touch and a short corridor with pretty pink wallpaper banishes the gloom of the outer hall.
“Hello? It’s, um, Dylan… Ellis? Is anyone…?”
“In here!”
I step inside and shrug off my coat. I’m looking for a hook, and breathing in this sleepy smell of jasmine, when El calls out again.
“We’re in the bathroom. Please, Dylan, hurry!”
I drop my coat and start opening doors. Living room, broom cupboard, kitchen, a woman’s bedroom, with colourful clothes and smart business jackets hanging on a rail and a straw hat perched on a dressmaker’s doll. Bathroom.
“Oh God.”
Ellis is sitting on the floor, his back propped against the toilet. He’s cradling this middle-aged woman in a pink towelling dressing gown that matches the wallpaper in the hall. She seems to be semi-conscious, her eyelids fluttering, her mouth breathing unheard words. El’s left hand is clasping her right, squeezing, comforting. His own right hand is pressed to her head and there are bright streamers of blood dripping through his fingers. He looks up at me and all I want to do is make this better for him.
At that moment the buzzer in the hall goes.
“Ambulance.” He nods. “Can you let them in?”
I run back to the corridor; I no longer care who sees me running. The intercom’s by the door and I buzz them in, then I return to the bathroom, where El’s face is a picture of pain and worry.
“My hand,” he groans. “Cramp.”
I scoot down next to him. Up close I can see how badly he’s trembling. I can also see the small white trails dribbling out of his aunt’s nose.
“Take your hand away,” I tell him. He looks uncertain. “After three,” I say, bringing up my palm to hover over his. “One. Two. Three…”
Our hands switch places, and in the millisecond before I press mine to the wound, I catch a glimpse of torn skin, thick and lolling like a curled tongue. My palm immediately feels hot and sticky. El makes a tiny shift in position and his aunt moans. They’re both smeared with blood and the lino under my knees is slippery with it.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers to her, his voice hoarse and tender at the same time. “I’ll look after you, sweetheart.” He buries his face in her hair, then looks up at me, his eyes wet. “Bless you, Dylan.”
“She’ll be fine.” I nod. It’s the sort of thing you have to say, and I want it to be true.
Blood is beginning to pulse slowly through my fingers when a couple of paramedics shoulder their way into the bathroom. They’re all fake humour – “Hello there, young lady, so what trouble have you been getting yourself into?” – while busily unpacking their kit. One of them edges around us and shines a penlight into Ellis’s aunt’s eyes, then gives her partner this psychic look and he starts tearing open plastic packages.
“You’ve done an amazing job, boys.” She smiles. “But let us take it from here, okay?”
She cradles her patient’s head, which allows El to slide out from under his aunt. When he’s free, I notice his jeans are completely spotless but his George EzraIt Don’t Matter NowT-shirt is flecked red. The paramedic gives me the nod and I remove my hand. Hardly any blood flows now and she takes her time assessing the wound. Meanwhile her partner sidles past us and grins through his beard.
“Give us a little space, hey, guys? She’s in safe hands.” As El starts for the door, the paramedic asks, “Do you know what she’s taken?”
“Coke. Silly cow. I don’t know how much.”
