50. Sarah
50. Sarah
My taxi has just pulled into Cardiff train station when I get the phone call telling me that Danny is dead.
I hear the words. Understand what they mean. But my brain just refuses to take them in. They are too unbearable, too overwhelming. I can’t, won’t listen.
‘But he can’t be!’ I interrupt his uncle who is still talking and clearly doesn’t know that Danny’s been found. ‘He’s in hospital.’
As I climb out of the taxi, I patiently explain what has happened.
‘I was there when the hospital rang to say he’d been brought in. Annie and Joanna went to visit him there last night.’
‘I know, cariad ,’ he says, a sort of muffled cry catching in his throat. ‘But he checked himself out this morning. By the time Annie got there to take him home, he’d already discharged himself.’
None of this makes any sense. ‘I don’t understand,’ I say, ‘there must have been a mix-up.’
Danny’s uncle is sobbing now. Great, guttural heaves of despair. He takes a loud, deep breath.
‘I wish there had been, love. But I spoke to the hospital myself. Danny was hit by a car on his way home. They called an ambulance, but there was nothing they could do. It seems the driver who hit him was still over the limit from a party he’d been to last night.’
I think of the packed pubs I visited yesterday. All those people at the bar, jostling for more drinks.
‘Poor Annie had to go in to identify the body.’ Danny’s uncle is talking again. ‘She asked me to ring you, said she couldn’t bear to do it herself.’
Identify the body? Oh my God. A terrible noise comes out of my throat that I don’t even recognize.
Danny is dead.
It is the news I’ve been afraid of hearing for so long, but still I’m nowhere near prepared. It is simply too awful to think of Danny being gone. Of never seeing him again.
This man who has lived in my heart for all these years. Who I have loved, admired, pitied, even feared. An ordinary, decent man who used to want ordinary, decent things. Who used to want me.
And then he was sent to fight in a terrible war. And he saw and did terrible things. And those things broke his gentle soul.
And now I will never see him again. Never see his ink-black hair, his grey eyes, his scarred cheeks, his chipped front tooth …
How can that be?
I feel sick.
‘Oh God, no,’ I say. ‘He can’t be, he can’t be.’
Danny’s uncle can hardly speak through his tears. ‘I know, love, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry to have to tell you like this. Will you be all right?’
I hear Annie’s desperate voice in the background, hear Danny’s uncle tell her he’s coming.
‘I have to go, love –’ he says, and the line goes dead.
Annie. I never should have left her and Joanna last night. I have to get back to the house, be there for them.
I hear myself call Danny’s name. I call it, again and again, louder and louder, until people stop and turn to see whose name I’m calling.
‘Have you lost someone?’ the man running the taxi rank asks. The bell on his Santa hat jingles. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks again, as I stand unsteadily in front of him.
‘Annie,’ I say. ‘I have to get to Annie.’
‘Right you are, love,’ he says, looking puzzled.
A taxi pulls up behind us, beeping its horn. I watch as the man in the Santa hat opens the door and helps an old lady out of the back.
‘I hope you find your Annie,’ he calls over his shoulder, his hat jingling again.
Annie. I need to get back.
Dazed, I look around me, at the people crowding into the booking hall and concourse, and catch sight of the giant clock that sits on top of the station roof.
The time! The train to Leeds will just be leaving. Oh God, the train to Leeds!
Carl is expecting to meet me off it. An image of him waiting on a deserted platform swims before me. People have let Carl down all his life. I won’t be another one of those people.
It’s okay, I just need to ring him, tell him what’s happened. Carl will understand, I know he’ll understand.
Without looking, I reach down into my bag for my mobile phone. But my bag isn’t there. I scan the floor around me. My suitcase is still sitting on the ground in front of me, but my handbag – which I thought was on top of it – has gone.
Turning in circles, I search for the bag. But there is no sign of it. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. My mind is spinning. My bag. My phone. Danny. Carl. Danny.
Danny is dead.
‘My bag,’ I scream.
The man with the Santa hat turns to look at me.
‘My bag …’ and I start to cry. Loud, hysterical sobs.
The parking bays are full. People weave in and out of the cars, pulling suitcases behind them. The same taxi that had beeped its horn earlier is beeping it again now, angrily signalling for me to get out of the way, but I am frozen to the spot.
I don’t know where to go or what to do.
Somewhere in the distance I can hear a small band of carol singers, while all around me passers-by jostle with suitcases on wheels and small children and bags full of presents.
A small boy with hair the same Celtic black as Danny’s stares up at me.
‘Danny is dead,’ I offer by way of explanation.
His mother, clearly alarmed by what I’ve just said, tugs on his arm and pulls him away.
Danny is dead. The handsome dark-haired schoolboy who captured my teenage heart all those years ago, who made moving to Wales bearable. The young soldier brimming with hope, who craved adventure. And the broken man he became.
He’s dead.
Not killed in the war he risked his life for, but mown down by a drunk driver on his way home from a Christmas party. On the one morning we all assumed he was safe, because we thought he was tucked up in a hospital bed.
How can that be? How can life be so cruel?
‘My bag,’ I wail.
The man with the Santa hat is suddenly by my side, pulling my suitcase and shepherding me through the hordes of people in the direction of two policemen standing at the front of the station next to the carol singers.
‘You’re the fourth person this morning to have their bag snatched,’ the man is saying. ‘It makes my blood boil. At this time of year as well. You’re meant to think of your fellow man at Christmas, not swipe their belongings when they’re clearly vulnerable.’ He looks at me. ‘If you don’t mind me saying.’
He pulls me in front of the policemen, and I listen as he explains what’s happened.
He nods his head at me when he finishes talking. ‘Good luck,’ he says, and then he disappears into the crowd.
The policemen look at me sympathetically and I start to cry again.
When, finally, I manage to explain about Danny, they tell me they’ll arrange a lift.
‘Don’t worry,’ one of them says. ‘We’ll get you home.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, dissolving into tears all over again.
I’m sitting in the back of a police car, with no idea of how I’ve got here. It’s being driven at speed, but even so the journey home seems to take forever.
I stare at my reflection in the rear-view mirror. At the dark smudges of make-up beneath my eyes.
When I woke up this morning, I felt the same spirit of hope and optimism I’d felt yesterday when I was wrapping all the Christmas presents. After the drama of last night, I thought Danny was safe. Mum was packed and ready to go to her sister’s. And me … finally, I was going to be with Carl.
Even the bruising on my face had gone. Everything was going to be better now, I’d told myself stupidly.
Looking in the mirror, my scars are bright red and angry. My face looks like I feel.
Danny is gone. Forever. I will never see him again. Never talk to him again.
I should have gone with Annie and Joanna last night, told him one last time how much I loved him.
Why didn’t I?
Why didn’t I tell him how sorry I was for the way things had turned out for him? For how much he had suffered. For how much he had lost. The life he dreamed of, back home, the life he never got to live. The house he never built, the rugby team he never coached, the children he never had.
I have a sudden image of teenage Danny running off the rugby pitch, cheeks flushed red in the cold. So full of energy, even though the game was over. So full of love for all his teammates out there with him, for me, for his mum and Joanna, waiting for him in the stands.
I never let go of the thought that, one day, he would be that Danny again. If not for me, then for his mum and sister. For himself.
I trace my finger across the scars that will always be with me, and I start to cry.
I’m sorry, Danny. I’m so, so sorry.