Lou just sat in the kitchen and cried. Not proper sobbing, just silent tears that ran down her face and which she wiped away with the palm of her hand. I couldn’t think what to say to her.
Which was fine. I had plenty to say to everyone else.
All but one of the reporters cleared off by half past seven. I didn’t know if they had given up, or if Thomas’s habit of posting bits of Lego out of the letter box every time they passed another note through had become boring. I told Louisa to bath Thomas for me, mainly because I wanted her to get out of the kitchen, but also because that way I could go through all the messages on our answerphone and delete the newspaper ones while she couldn’t hear me. Twenty-six. Twenty-six of the buggers. And all sounding so nice, so understanding. Some of them even offered her money.
I pressed delete on every one. Even those offering money, although I admit I was a teeny bit tempted to see how much they were offering. All the while, I heard Lou talking to Thomas in the bathroom, the whine and splash of him dive-bombing his six inches of soapsuds with the Batmobile. That’s the thing you don’t know about children unless you have them – bath time, Lego and fish fingers don’t allow you to dwell on tragedy for too long. And then I hit the last message.
‘Louisa? It’s Camilla Traynor. Will you call me? As soon as possible?’
I stared at the answerphone. I rewound and replayed it. Then I ran upstairs and whipped Thomas out of the bath so fast my boy didn’t even know what hit him. He was standing there, the towel wrapped tightly around him like a compression bandage, and Lou, stumbling and confused, was already halfway down the stairs, me pushing her by the shoulder.
‘What if she hates me?’
‘She didn’t sound like she hated you.’
‘But what if the press are surrounding them there? What if they think it’s all my fault?’ Her eyes were wide and terrified. ‘What if she’s ringing to tell me he’s done it?’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Lou. For once in your life, just get a grip. You won’t know anything unless you call. Call her. Just call. You don’t have a bloody choice.’
I ran back into the bathroom, to set Thomas free. I shoved him into his pyjamas, told him that Granny had a biscuit for him if he ran to the kitchen super fast. And then I peered out of the bathroom door, to peek at my sister on the phone down in the hallway.
She was turned away from me, one hand smoothing the hair at the back of her head. She reached out a hand to steady herself.
‘Yes,’ she was saying. ‘I see.’ And then, ‘Okay.’
And after a pause, ‘Yes.’
She looked down at her feet for a good minute after she’d put the phone down.
‘Well?’ I said.
She looked up as if she’d only just seen me there, and shook her head.
‘It was nothing about the newspapers,’ she said, her voice still numb with shock. ‘She asked me – begged me – to come to Switzerland. And she’s booked me on to the last flight out this evening.’
26
In other circumstances I suppose it might have seemed strange that I, Lou Clark, a girl who had rarely been more than a bus ride from her home town in twenty years, was now flying to her third country in less than a week. But I packed an overnight case with the swift efficiency of an air stewardess, rejecting all but the barest necessities. Treena ran around silently fetching any other things she thought I might need, and then we headed downstairs. We stopped halfway down. Mum and Dad were already in the hall, standing side by side in the ominous way they used to do when we sneaked back late from a night out.
‘What’s going on?’ Mum was staring at my case.
Treena had stopped in front of me.
‘Lou’s going to Switzerland,’ she said. ‘And she needs to leave now. There’s only one flight left today.’
We were about to move when Mum stepped forward.
‘No.’ Her mouth was set into an unfamiliar line, her arms folded awkwardly in front of her. ‘Really. I don’t want you involved. If this is what I think it is, then no.’
‘But –’ Treena began, glancing behind at me.
‘No,’ said Mum, and her voice held an unusually steely quality. ‘No buts. I’ve been thinking about this, about everything you told us. It’s wrong. Morally wrong. And if you get embroiled in it and you’re seen to be helping a man kill himself, then you could end up in all sorts of trouble.’
‘Your mum’s right,’ Dad said.
‘We’ve seen it in the news. This could affect your whole life, Lou. This college interview, everything. If you get a criminal record, you will never get a college degree or a good job or anything –’
‘He’s asked for her to come. She can’t just ignore him,’ Treena interrupted.
‘Yes. Yes, she can. She’s given six months of her life to this family. And a fat lot of good it’s brought her, judging by the state of things. A fat lot of good it’s brought this family, with people banging on the door and all the neighbours thinking we’ve been done for benefit fraud or some such. No, she’s finally got the chance to make something of herself, and now they want her to go to that dreadful place in Switzerland and get involved in God knows what. Well, I say no. No, Louisa.’
‘But she has to go,’ Treena said.
‘No, she doesn’t. She’s done enough. She said herself last night, she’s done everything she could.’ Mum shook her head. ‘Whatever mess the Traynors are going to make of their lives going to this … this … whatever they’re going to do to their own son, I don’t want Louisa involved. I don’t want her ruining her whole life.’
‘I think I can make my own mind up,’ I said.
‘I’m not sure you can. This is your friend, Louisa. This is a young man with his whole life ahead of him. You cannot be part of this. I’m … I’m shocked that you could even consider it.’ Mum’s voice had a new, hard edge. ‘I didn’t bring you up to help someone end his life! Would you end Granddad’s life? Do you think we should shove him off to Dignitas too?’
‘Granddad is different.’
‘No, he isn’t. He can’t do what he used to. But his life is precious. Just as Will’s is precious.’
‘It’s not my decision, Mum. It’s Will’s. The whole point of this is to support Will.’
‘Support Will? I’ve never heard such rubbish. You are a child, Louisa. You’ve seen nothing, done nothing. And you have no idea what this is going to do to you. How in God’s name will you ever be able to sleep at night if you help him to go through with it? You’d be helping a man to die. Do you really understand that? You’d be helping Will, that lovely, clever young man, to die.’
‘I’d sleep at night because I trust Will to know what is right for him, and because what has been the worst thing for him has been losing the ability to make a single decision, to do a single thing for himself … ’ I looked at my parents, trying to make them understand. ‘I’m not a child. I love him. I love him, and I shouldn’t have left him alone, and I can’t bear not being there and not knowing what … what he’s … ’ I swallowed. ‘So yes. I’m going. I don’t need you to look out for me or understand. I’ll deal with it. But I’m going to Switzerland – whatever either of you says.’
The little hallway grew silent. Mum stared at me like she had no idea who I was. I took a step closer to her, trying to make her understand. But as I did, she took a step back.
‘Mum? I owe Will. I owe it to him to go. Who do you think got me to apply to college? Who do you think encouraged me to make something of myself, to travel places, to have ambitions? Who changed the way I think about everything? About myself even? Will did. I’ve done more, lived more, in the last six months than in the last twenty-seven years of my life. So if he wants me to go to Switzerland, then yes, I’m going to go. Whatever the outcome.’
There was a brief silence.
‘She’s like Aunt Lily,’ Dad said, quietly.
We all stood, staring at each other. Dad and Treena were shooting glances at each other, as if each of them were waiting for the other to say something.
But Mum broke the silence. ‘If you go, Louisa, you needn’t come back.’
The words fell out of her mouth like pebbles. I looked at my mother in shock. Her gaze was unyielding. It tensed as she watched for my reaction. It was as if a wall I had never known was there had sprung up between us.
‘Mum?’
‘I mean it. This is no better than murder.’
‘Josie … ’
‘That’s the truth, Bernard. I can’t be part of this.’
I remember thinking, as if at a distance, that I had never seen Katrina look so uncertain as she did now. I saw Dad’s hand reach out to Mum’s arm, whether in reproach or comfort I couldn’t tell. My mind went briefly blank. Then almost without knowing what I was doing, I walked slowly down the stairs and past my parents to the front door. And after a second, my sister followed me.
The corners of Dad’s mouth turned down, as if he were struggling to contain all sorts of things. Then he turned to Mum, and placed one hand on her shoulder. Her eyes searched his face and it was as if she already knew what he was going to say.
And then he threw Treena his keys. She caught them one-handed.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Go out the back door, through Mrs Doherty’s garden, and take the van. They won’t see you in the van. If you go now and the traffic’s not too bad you might just make it.’
‘You have any idea where this is all headed?’ Katrina said.
She glanced sideways at me as we sped down the motorway.
‘Nope.’
I couldn’t look at her for long – I was rifling through my handbag, trying to work out what I had forgotten. I kept hearing the sound of Mrs Traynor’s voice down the line. Louisa? Please will you come? I know we’ve had our differences, but please … It’s vital that you come now.
‘Shit. I’ve never seen Mum like that,’ Treena continued.
Passport, wallet, door keys. Door keys? For what? I no longer had a home.
Katrina glanced sideways at me. ‘I mean, she’s mad now, but she’s in shock. You know she’ll be all right in the end, right? I mean, when I came home and told her I was up the duff I thought she was never going to speak to me again. But it only took her – what? – two days, to come round.’
I could hear her babbling away beside me, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I could barely focus on anything. My nerve endings seemed to have come alive; they almost jangled with anticipation. I was going to see Will. Whatever else, I had that. I could almost feel the miles between us shrinking, as if we were at two ends of some invisible elastic thread.
‘Treen?’
‘Yes?’
I swallowed. ‘Don’t let me miss this flight.’
My sister is nothing if not determined. We queue-jumped, sped up the inside lane, broke the speed limit and scanned the radio for the traffic reports, and finally the airport came into view. She screeched to a halt and I was halfway out of the car before I heard her.
‘Hey! Lou!’
‘Sorry.’ I turned back and ran the few steps to her.
She hugged me, really tightly. ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ she said. She looked almost close to tears. ‘Now f**k off. If you miss the bloody plane on top of me getting six points on my licence, I’m never talking to you again.’
I didn’t look back. I ran all the way to the Swiss Air desk and it took me three goes to say my name clearly enough to request my tickets.
I arrived in Zurich shortly before midnight. Given the late hour, Mrs Traynor had, as promised, booked me into a hotel at the airport and said she would send a car for me at nine the following morning. I had thought I wouldn’t sleep, but I did – an odd, heavy and disjointed trawl through the hours – waking up at seven the next morning with no idea where I was.