‘Oh hello. Sorry, sorry. I’m his brother. I’ve got him now. I’ve got him. Thank you so much,’ Billy gasped and ended the call.
‘Daz?’ Billy sat his brother up; Daz’s head lolled on to his shoulder. He stank of alcohol.
‘What have you taken? Have you taken anything? What have you done? I’m going to call an ambulance.’
‘No,’ Darren managed. ‘I’m just really, really shpisshed.’With that he hurled right over Billy’s left shoulder and all over the rug in the middle of the wooden floor.
Billy laid him on his side in the recovery position, then fetched his duvet and put it over him. He went through to the kitchen to find an empty half-bottle of whisky. The whole place was in an even worse state than when he had come round the other day. It smelled like a refuse tip. In the bathroom he checked the medicine and toiletries cupboards for tablets of any kinds, putting some paracetamol in his pocket as he did so. He also raked through the bathroom bin for any drug packets and ran to both bedrooms to see if there were any in there either.
He walked back into the lounge to check that his brother was still on his side and that his breathing was OK. It was shallow. He paced around a bit. Darren so wouldn’t want a fuss, but what if he was dangerously drunk, what if he did need an ambulance? What if they couldn’t get through because a tree was down? He googled to see if there was any helpful information about what to do if someone was very drunk, but he didn’t know whether Darren was just drunk, or dangerously drunk. He had only been sick the once and his breathing wasn’t too shallow – or was it? Were there levels of shallowness? His mind racing, Billy raced into the kitchen and frenziedly tipped up the kitchen bin and scanned littered surfaces for any other empty bottles. Billy knew he needed assistance. He didn’t want Kara coming out in this weather, so should he phone his mum or dad? Then he breathed a sigh of relief. He knew exactly who he could call.
Pearl was there within minutes, skidding up on to the pavement below on her pea-green scooter and hurrying up the steps to bang on the door.
‘You caught me perfectly, my little darling, just as I was leaving the hospital,’ she said, and immediately Billy felt a great relief. ‘I told Joe I’d be a bit late ’cos of the weather, but I sailed through. OK, let’s see what’s happening here, shall we?’
Billy rolled up the spew-covered rug and threw it over the top of the outside stairs, out into the elements and somewhere that no one would fall over it in the dark. Meanwhile, a calm and professional Pearl checked over Darren.
‘You did everything right,’ she told Billy when he came back. ‘Your brother is just very drunk, as you said. But he can stay here. He needs a warm bed and plenty of fluids as soon as he’s able. And I don’t mean Jack Daniel’s.’ She laughed quietly. Billy smiled.
‘Good job he called you,’ she went on. ‘The bigger danger would have been him going on to his back and choking on his vomit.’
‘He didn’t call me, but with our twin sense when Kara told me he hadn’t been to work, I just knew. But he did call the Samaritans.’ Billy’s voice wobbled. ‘I thought … I …’
‘It’s all right.’ Pearl put a reassuring arm around Billy’s shoulders. ‘Calling them – well, that’s a positive thing. He’s obviously ready to talk about whatever it is that’s troubling him. Now come on, let’s get him into bed.’ A comatose Darren Dillon allowed the nurse and his brother to clumsily carry him into his bedroom, where they heaved him onto the bed, laid him on his side and rested a pillow behind him, so he couldn’t roll over.
Leaving a bowl on the bed and a pint of water next to him, Billy and Pearl went back through to the lounge, which stank of alcohol and vomit.
‘Will you stay here?’ Pearl asked. ‘I think it would be wise, just in case he needs you.’
‘Yes, I will. I’ll call Kara now and let her know what’s happened. She’s rung me twice already, bless her.’
‘And Billy,’ Pearl looked the young man in the eye, ‘this stays between you and me unless you say otherwise. I understand.’
Billy gulped. ‘I knew you’d take away all the drama. Mum would have gone into hysterics. Dad would have got angry.’ Her kindness made him feel like he was going to cry.
‘Talk to him,’ Pearl counselled. ‘Find out what it is. I’ve seen and heard many scenarios during my thirty years in hospitals and I’ve realised that the only thing in the whole world there is not a solution for is death. Whatever it is he’ll be all right. You’ll be all right. And you can always come to me to talk, you know that.’
As Pearl made her way carefully back up the hill to Bee Cottage on her scooter, dodging the gusts of wind, Billy messaged Kara, who was concerned but fine, then went in to Darren, who suddenly shot up in bed and managed to vomit directly into the bowl that Billy and Pearl had put near to him.
‘Bill? What you doing here?’ His voice was croaky. Billy put the bowl on the floor and handed him the loo roll that Pearl had also put on the bedside table. Darren then promptly burst into tears, tears that should have been shed long ago, and now that the dam had been burst by alcohol, he just couldn’t stop. Billy sat on the bed and just held him, not saying a word.
‘I need to tell you something,’ Darren sobbed finally, his breath hitching. ‘I’m sorry I’m so drunk.’
Billy felt the same fear go through him as when he had thought his brother might be ill or worse. He waited with his heart pounding.
‘I will tell you what’s wrong and you’re going to laugh at me, and you might even hate me. And Dad will go apeshit, I know.’ Darren made a noise between a laugh and a cry. ‘I’m an iron, a poofter. Call me what you like.’ Darren grabbed the pillow next to him and put it over his face. ‘I’m gay, Billy,’ he said in a muffled voice. ‘Gay.’
Billy pulled the unnecessary barrier away. He was super-calm. ‘Is that it?’
‘You what?’
‘Daz, I’m so close to you I know when you need to take a shit, don’t I, and you me. You’ve never had a bird, not even at school. Yes, you shagged the Penhaligan tart and Lydia Twist, but neither of those were going anywhere. That was obvious.’
‘Lydia fell for me, big time.’
‘No shit, Sherlock. That’s obviously why she went away. Kara and I had already worked that one out. I was just waiting for you to tell me.’
‘After Lydia, I realised I had to be true to myself and other people. Everybody hated her but well, she was actually quite decent underneath all her demons. I hurt her.’ Darren sniffed again.
