I cough again and water fills me up inside. And then, when I can take no more, the pain suddenly stops, the light dims, the dark of the water descends, allowing a film roll of my life to begin playing out once again.
Chapter 30
Damon
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep but I wake up coughing, convinced I’m still under the surface of the water and Melissa’s weight is pinning me down. It’s only when I sit upright that I realise where I am – alive, and in the safety of my bedroom.
Even though there’s no water left in my lungs or stomach, I continue to heave until my mouth fills with acrid bile – horrid yellow stuff that I spit into a pint glass by the side of the bed. I run my hands across my chest and face, but I don’t know what I’m checking for.
Melissa is watching me from an armchair in the corner of the room. This ‘aftercare’ is another condition of her helping me, in case any complications arise. ‘Secondary drowning,’ she explained, and I stared at her blankly. ‘Fluid can stay in your lungs and irritate them, which can affect your breathing. People die from it.’
Her legs and chest are covered by a grey, woollen blanket she’s taken from the wardrobe. It’s one of many things she left behind when she moved out. I know for a fact its threads still harbour her scent. They’re getting a fresh helping of it, for which I’ll one day be pitifully grateful.
‘Do you need anything?’ she asks.
‘I think I’m alright.’
My voice is croaky, so I take a swig from the bottle of water she’s left for me on my pillow. The sensation of it slipping down my throat is too familiar, though, and makes me gag. Looking to distract myself, I spy the defibrillator, the drill and unopened vials through the gap in the bathroom door.
‘Did it work?’ she asks.
I nod, then recall what I saw. I was watching Mum from a distance as she made her way towards a red front door in the middle of a row of what looked like terraced houses. She was holding the dead boy’s hand and they appeared to be speaking animatedly but I was too far away to hear their conversation.
‘He’s called Callum Baird,’ I tell Melissa. ‘He was my friend. I saw him playing with me, the two of us chasing each other on scooters around a supermarket car park. He had a blue one and mine was black. Then I saw him again, this time back on the path where I think he died.’ My voice tips past the vanishing point with that last word.
‘What happened to him, Damon?’
‘I don’t know.’
Her expression sours. ‘I thought the point of what you made me do was to find that out?’
‘It’s not like I can pick and choose what or who I’m going to see. But at least now I have his name.’
I’m also relieved that I’ve not brought anyone else back with me this third time. I don’t know if my brain has the bandwidth to deal with what another hallucination might mean.
I switch on the bedside lamp, take my phone from the charger and input Callum Baird’s name into a search engine, along with the word ‘murdered’. Many pages appear. Most of the stories date back to the early 2010s. I read one of the more recent ones aloud.
The family of a twelve-year-old boy found dead close to his London home have renewed their appeal for witnesses on the tenth anniversary of his murder. The body of Callum Baird, who had been beaten and asphyxiated, was found on a quiet path, but a suspect has never been charged in connection with his death.
I recall once again what the hypnotherapist told me. How at a young age, I mightn’t have had the cognitive capacity to understand each and every detail. And because my brain is reluctant to experience that trauma again, it has put up a shield to protect itself.
‘So now you know he’s real and what happened to him,’ Melissa continues. ‘This is over, right?’
‘Not yet,’ I say quietly.
She makes a disgusted, growling sound and drops her head back, hard, against the armchair. ‘Why?’
‘Because I need to know why I keep seeing him,’ I counter. ‘I think I should visit the place where he died to see if it triggers something else. And I need to know how my mum was involved.’
Melissa glares at me, as if I’ve caught her off guard with this, before her expression hardens.
‘This is never going to end, is it?’ she says sharply. ‘The past is thepast, Damon. It doesn’t matter anymore. You are here and you arebloody luckyto be so. We are trying to start a family, a massively exciting and huge deal in all our lives. But instead of focusing on that, you’re chasing ghosts.’
Before I can remind her they’re not ghosts but hallucinations, she clambers to her feet, grabs the blanket, storms out of the bedroom and into the lounge, and throws herself on to the sofa.
Chapter 31
Damon
