Second in the Queue

I follow the sound of semi-automatic fire up the staircase, and ease back the bedroom door. A man screams. Blood sprays from his severed thigh, and my fourteen-year-old son grunts in satisfaction. I lean in to kiss him goodbye. Eyes fixed on his alarmingly realistic PlayStation Six, he turns his shoulder and another victim howls in agony.

‘I’m taking Sophie to dance, Charlie.’ I tell him. ‘Please don’t trash the house.’

‘Die,’ he says, ‘you bastards,’ and another burst of gunfire follows me back down the stairs.

Sophie at least is still young enough to be interested in her dad. She takes my hand and skips beside me, practicing some complicated dance step all along the pot-holed lane. She’s still dancing when we pass the cricket ground and I remind myself how lucky we are to live in such a place, but the comforting sight of the pavilion is spoiled by the ragged row of identical posters glued to its wooden slats.

A masked man stands in the foreground with one fist raised to the sky, and the other pointing at me, while behind him a ball of flame bursts through a pretty, whitewashed house.

‘Urban Justice’, the caption reads. ‘What they deserve’. My hand tightens around Sophie’s and I quicken my pace, away from the pavilion and up onto the broad sweep of Carlton Road.

‘Don’t want to be late,’ I mumble, and squint against the glare from the gigantic new electro-board that hangs down beneath the railway bridge. ‘Upgrade to Gold Star Care’, it commands, while a thousand stars flash across the screen.

There’s a four way junction on the brow of the hill, and the pedestrian crossing that cost a thousand signatures, back in the days when petitions still mattered. Sophie presses the 2 button like she has since she had to stand on tip-toes to reach, and up close I see that the electro-board’s alloy frame is pasted with a dozen more Urban Justice posters.

What fuels such rage, I wonder, as if the answer isn’t right there in front of me, and I stare at my trainers and press down on my simmering guilt. I cannot be to blame. I have done nothing.

‘Hey look,’ Sophie says. I feel an urge to cover her eyes, but Sophie isn’t pointing at Urban Justice, she’s staring wide-eyed at the giant billboard above us. The stars have gone out, and a glossy teenage girl fills the screen. ‘Red Surf Super Sale, still on,’ Sophie reads, and I don’t know whether to be pleased or appalled by my daughter’s ability to filter the world around her.

‘Yeh, right,’ I say, relieved to fall back into that comfortable argument, ‘a ten quid sweatshirt for only two hundred pounds.’

‘Ten quid?’ Sophie says, pointing alternate toes at the sloping curb. ‘No one gets a top for ten pounds.’

‘I do.’ That was a mistake.

‘Yeh, Dad,’ Sophie shakes her head at my 2016 Olympics t-shirt, so worn it’s almost transparent. ‘And it shows. I mean just look at the state...’ and I’m pleased when her words are drowned by the roar of a big white Jaguar revving its engine at the lights.

‘I’m just fine,’ I tell her, but I can’t help noticing that the neon chevron on the Jaguar’s bonnet is flashing, meaning the on-board computer has been switched off and the driver is operating on manual override. ‘That’s not even legal anymore, not this close to town.’

Sophie shrugs.

The Jaguar growls.

I catch a glimpse through the windscreen. Black eye make-up and big hair. Rich kids in Daddy’s car.

‘Look the part, or be apart,’ Sophie reads the Red Surf tag-line and looks up at me with that same ironic smile her mother used to have, before she took it to someone who could give her all the shiny things she wanted.

‘Oh, belt up, Sophie. There are more important things than bloody money.’

She stops dancing. Her hand pulls out of mine. I feel my jaw clench, unsure if I’m angry with Sophie or myself.

‘Come on, Soph,’ I say. ‘Let’s not spoil the day.’ Sophie’s lips tighten. She stands, splay footed and angry at the edge of the curb. I glare at the electro-board and wait for the green man to set us free. The little bugger stays stubbornly red, but the traffic light switches to amber.

The Jaguar surges forward. Fat tyres squeal. The car slips left, towards us. There’s a gust of air. A momentary pressure. I clutch the space where Sophie’s hand should be, and take half a step back.

The steering wheel spins. Brakes bite. The nose dips, and that flashing chevron veers away. In the end, the back wheel barely clips the curb.

I see the girl in the passenger seat, the dragon tattoo on her arm, and the diamond at her throat. Her mouth opens. Blood sprays across the window. The car roars over the hill, and my hand is numb and empty.

Sophie lies at the edge of the curb. It must be her. She’s wearing those sandals she made me buy, strappy, fussy things, white jeans, and a baby pink sweatshirt.

Her face is gone, lost behind a tangle of matted hair. Blood soaks down through her pink shirt, and I howl to match the roar of the engine.

I reach out, and draw away. I am terrified. That same fear as when I first saw her, pulled, bloody and screaming from her mother’s belly. But now she is silent. The screams are mine.

‘Sophie?’

I force myself to touch her, confused by the sticky heat on my fingers. Blood smears her face, like chocolate from some illicit treat. I kiss her and hold my ear to her lips, but all I hear is the click, click, click of mobile phone cameras from the gathering crowd.

Phone.

The thing slips in my hand. The screen will not recognize my bloody fingertips, but the God I no longer believe in smiles down upon me.

The lights change again and an ambulance edges forward. I stumble into the road, hands raised, blood running down my arms. The ambulance stops. The door opens. I look at the lines on the driver’s face and try not to see the flashing gold star logo on the open door. But like Urban Justice, the logo is everywhere, on the bonnet of the ambulance, on his cap and trousers, and emblazoned across his chest, with his name, ‘Ben’, three black letters stark against the star.

‘My daughter,’ I begin, but there is nothing to say. She lies on the curb, with the crowd pressing in around her.

Ben puts his hand on my arm. He says something I do not hear, but his voice is calm, his grip warm and strong.

‘Thank you,’ I say, ‘thank you, thank you,’ and I sink to my knees on the road.

‘Step away,’ Ben commands. ‘Don’t move her, don’t touch her.’ He kneels by my daughter’s side and cradles her head with gentle, knowing hands.

At the edge of my vision, the passenger door opens. A young woman steps down with her hair drawn back from her narrow forehead, and her name across the star on her tightly buttoned jacket.

Courtney stands above me. Her palm opens and her mouth moves, but all I hear is the snapping of the crowd and the ringing in my ears.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ I say, as if they are the only words I know, but there is something in the tightness of Courtney’s face that stills my tongue.

‘I.D.,’ she shouts over the clicking phones. ‘I need to see your insurance.’

Her hand stretches and I stare at her long, thin fingers.

‘Insurance,’ she says again.

I fumble for my wallet and hold out my Silver Star NHS card, as if the watery sun might turn that base thing into gold.

Courtney’s face sharpens. She jabs at the gold star on her chest.

‘Come on, Ben,’ she snaps.

He looks up, and I see that he has laid my daughter in the recovery position.

‘She is alive,’ I hear my own creaking voice.

Ben walks towards the ambulance.

‘She needs help.’ I grab his shoulder. ‘For God’s sake. Can’t you see that?’

That’s it,’ Courtney says. ‘Let’s go.’

Ben lifts my hand from his shoulder. He, at least, has the decency to look ashamed.

‘Wait.’ I reach out, and then I think better of it. ‘I have money.’

Courtney sneers at my worn out t-shirt and saggy joggers.

‘There’s a ten thousand deposit,’ she says. ‘More if she needs an operation.’

‘Fine. Okay.’

She turns back to the ambulance.

‘No. Please.’

‘It’s alright,’ Ben says, and it is his turn to put a hand on my shoulder.

Courtney’s back a moment later, with yellow plastic jutting from her pocket, and a mobile credit card machine. I hesitate, unsure what possible connection there can be between an ambulance and that machine.

Ben nods encouragement. I push my card in and tap out the number with twenty years of regular payments behind me, not one of them anywhere near ten thousand pounds.

The technology is state-of-the-art. The answer is instantaneous.

Transaction declined.

I look from the grey screen to Courtney’s arched eyebrows, and the urge to smash my fist into her brittle face is almost overwhelming.

‘It’s a mistake. An irregular transaction,’ I garble the sort of jargon that Courtney might understand. And who knows, maybe it’s true?

I slap my pockets, and then see my phone lying on the road. ‘Wait,’ I tell her, ‘just a moment,’ and bang in the number on the back of the credit card.

God bless them. They answer on the first ring.

‘I need an extension on my...’

‘Thank you for calling Sky Blue Credit Cards. We are currently experiencing high volumes of calls. Your call is important to us and will be answered as soon as a colleague becomes available. Please hold the line.’

My nails dig into my palms.

Sophie’s blood drips onto the tarmac.

The phone beeps. A different voice comes on the line.

Hope surges hot through my chest.

‘You are currently...third...in the queue.’

My breath catches in my throat and It Must Be Love comes screeching out of the phone, complete with trumpets and trombones.

‘Ben. Help her, please.’

Ben steps from one foot to the other.

‘Jesus Christ. It’s only a mile to the hospital.’

Courtney says something about protocols.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ben turns back to the ambulance.

‘No.’ I spin him round and a flare goes up behind Courtney’s eyes.

She grabs the yellow plastic from her pocket and holds it, two handed, at my throat.

‘Tazers may be used in self-defence,’ she says, like she’s reading from a manual, like the voice on the end of the phone.

‘You twisted cyborg. I’m going to ram that Tazer...’

There’s a noise behind me, a groan or a cry.

The snapping circle has closed around Sophie. I lash out, fighting my way through.

‘Dad, Daddy,’ she says, and a bubble bursts in her mouth.

I hold her hand. Now, when it’s too late, I squeeze her palm tight against mine and look into her bewildered eyes.

My vision blurs. I press her close. My baby’s blood gushes onto my neck, while somewhere far away an ambulance guns into life. Stars flicker and die on the board above us.

‘What they deserve,’ the poster screams.

Finally, the sound of Madness stops beating through the phone, and we are second in the queue.

_______________

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