I brace myself for a fresh blow, but it doesn’t come.
Only now, as I refocus, do I realise my attacker is an elderly woman. She supports herself with a walking frame in one hand, and in the other, she brandishes a metal coal shovel.
Then I realise what Dad’s called her:Mum. My grandmother is the one who has ambushed me. The woman I share a past with, but have no memory of.
She glares at me, her face ablaze with wrath. ‘Stay away from him,’ she hisses at me, ‘or I’ll kill you.’
Now Dad and I look at each other. His face is bloodied and raw with open wounds. I return to myself, the person I was before tonight, appalled that I lost control and did this to him.
‘He’s served his time,’ my grandmother continues. ‘Now leave him alone. Fucking vigilantes.’
Dad clambers to his feet and I refuse the hand he offers. I push myself up off the floor, then balance against the wall as the pain makes the room swim. An almost unbearable flash of heat causes my knuckles to pulse.
‘Go,’ says Dad. ‘Now, Damon.’
This time, I don’t protest.
‘What did you call him?’ my grandmother says.
‘Go!’ Dad says to me again, with more urgency.
‘Is that ... him?’ the old woman asks, turning to me.
Neither of us answers as she regards me, searching for signs of familiarity. She doesn’t have to look too hard: facially, I am a carbon copy of my father. Her fearlessness is replaced by disbelief, and I think she’s about to open her heart and her arms to the grandson she hasn’t seen in so many years. Instead, she pivots effortlessly to who she was a moment ago. Her face is a picture of rage. As I move past her towards the door, she manages to turn and smack me one last time across the middle of my back with the shovel. It pushes me into another wall and comes close to knocking me back to my knees. I recover from my stumble just in time.
‘Get out, you little cunt!’ she yells.
‘Mum,stop,’ Dad shouts and steps between us, snatching the weapon from her hand and throwing it across the room. Then he takes me firmly by my injured shoulder, and frog-marches me back along the corridor and towards the front door. He opens it and I spin around to face him. He spits a mouthful of blood over thedoorstep and on to the pavement. A string of red saliva drips into his beard, then he locks his eyes on mine. They are cold and hard and full of fury. I am seeing the real him. And it floods me with fear to see myself reflected in his glare.
‘That was your only shot,’ he warns. ‘If you ever come back again, what I did to all those kids will be nothing compared to what I’ll do to you.’ He slams the door closed between us, but bellows through it: ‘Now stay the fuck away!’
Chapter 65
Melissa
Melissa’s stomach folds in on itself as Adrienne turns her iPad face up, accesses a shared Cloud app and a video appears. How could she have been so stupid? It’s the clip Melissa demanded Damon record before she helped him die the last time, in the hope of exonerating her if she were unable to successfully resuscitate him.
‘This is nothing,’ Melissa assures her, hoping Adrienne won’t spot the goosebumps or fine, raised hairs on her arms. ‘We were being silly. You know what we’re like when we’ve had a few drinks.’
She tries to take the iPad from Adrienne’s hand before the clip finishes playing, but her girlfriend moves swiftly to snatch it away. ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she says. ‘I’ve watched it a dozen times and nothing about this video suggests you’d been drinking or were “being silly”.’
‘We were drunk,’ Melissa insists, trying to keep her intonation light. ‘Damon was talking about going swimming in the sea again and I told him not until he makes a video clearing me of any responsibility if something happens. It was a bit of fun.’
Adrienne bangs her fists on the worktop. ‘I’m not an idiot, Mel!’ she shouts. ‘Every day I’m around patients who lie to me. Lying because they want more meds; lying because they’re in more pain than they careto admit: lying that they’ve injured themselves falling when they’ve been beaten by an abusive partner. My bullshit radar is pretty damn good.’
The game is up. Melissa rests her head in her hands, too ashamed to look at her.
‘Why?’ asks Adrienne.
‘Because if I didn’t help him, he was going to do it alone, and he can’t bring himself back to life.’
She goes on to explain how, each time Damon dies, he discovers chunks of his childhood he’s forgotten and returns with hallucinations of dead people.
‘So instead of getting him psychiatric help,’ says Adrienne, ‘you’re facilitating and actively encouraging him.’
‘You have to believe me, I begged him to change his mind. But when I first told him I was having no part of it, he found some psychopath online who was trying to kill him and had no intention of resuscitating him. If I hadn’t walked in on them, he’d be dead now. At least if I’m with him, he has a chance of coming back.’
Adrienne shakes her head. ‘And how many times have you done this with him?’
