Chapter 50
‘How long did the taxi say it’d be?’ I say, frantically buttoning up my blouse.
‘Three minutes, max. He’s round the corner. We were lucky.’
I nod. ‘I’m sorry to have to leave like this.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he says, tugging on his trainers and grabbing his keys. ‘I’m coming with you.’
As the car hurtles towards the address in south Manchester that Josh gave me, I am delirious with panic, irradiated with fear. I try phoning Brendan, but it keeps going to voicemail. When he doesn’t answer on my third attempt, I leave a message.
‘Brendan, I need to talk to you about Leo. This is really important. Give me a call when you pick this up.’
A text arrives shortly afterwards.
We’ve got guests, Lisa! Now is NOT a good time – I’ll call tomorrow.
A wave of fury sweeps up inside me that’s unmatched by anything I felt when he first announced he was leaving me. I call him again and, when it goes straight to voicemail, I am unable – no, unwilling – to do anything other than let rip.
‘Listen to me, Brendan,’ I begin, in the kind of low growl that could get me a job in the Mob. ‘I don’t give a shit about your guests. I don’t care if I’m tearing you and your cycling club chums away from an intense game of Balderdash, a Glastonbury all-nighter or an orgy, for that matter. All that matters is that our son is at a party, having drunk God knows what. He is in trouble and he needs his parents. That’s right, Brendan. Parents – plural. So phone me back. Now.’
I end the call and glance at Zach, who reaches over and squeezes my hand. I look out of the window, at the bright lights of the city whizzing past, and start to tremble.
‘Hey,’ he says gently. ‘Whatever you find . . . I’m right here with you, okay? You’re not alone.’
I clench my jaw and nod, suppressing the tingle behind my eyes.
We finally arrive in one those streets where a process of gentrification has started but never quite finished. It consists of a row of huge Victorian semis, a curious combination of smart homes renovated at great expense and tatty flats with overgrown gardens.
The address I’ve been given falls into the former category, though I won’t be stopping to admire its reproduction pathway tiles. Zach thrusts a ton of notes into the driver’s hand and asks him to wait for us while we go inside, adding that there’s more if he does. The front garden is strewn with cans of lager, the music pumping out can be heard halfway down the street and the perspiration streaking down the inside of the windows suggests there are more people inside than the house was ever designed for.
Zach and I try ringing the bell, before knocking at the window . . . to absolutely no avail. The music’s too loud and the house is too packed.
‘Maybe I could get round the back,’ he says, more to himself than me, marching to the side.
‘You’d have to climb over the gate.’
He hands me his keys and phone and is about to give it a go when the front door opens. Two giggling, unfeasibly young-looking girls stumble out and head into the street. Before anyone has a chance to close it, Zach darts over and pushes it open with his foot.
When we step into the dank, crowded hallway, I am instantly transported back to some of the wilder parties of my sixth-form years. Two kids are making out on the stairs. Raucous laughter is coming from the kitchen. The Music so loud it makes your sternum vibrate and there is an overpowering smell of bodies and spilled booze.
Zach pushes open the first door and I scan what seems to be a living room, but it’s too dark to make much out, let alone find anyone I recognise. I grab the first random kid who has the misfortune to stand next to me and shout, ‘DO YOU KNOW WHERE LEO IS?’
He pulls a bewildered expression, so I frantically turn to someone else. ‘LEO SMEDLEY? HAS ANYONE SEEN LEO?’
The lights flare on amidst a roar of protestation, which only gets louder when the music comes to an abrupt halt. I realise that Zach is the one responsible for pulling the plug – literally, judging by the cable in his hand. A boy tries to square up to him but quickly realises that this might not be a good idea when he registers the size of Zach’s chest.
‘He’s upstairs, in the front bedroom.’
I turn around to find Josh – who I last saw at Leo’s 12th birthday party at Alton Towers – looking scared and shaken.
Zach and I weave past him and race up the stairs, stumbling over empty bottles and the odd body, as Josh follows us, saying, ‘It’s first left.’
Zach enters first and there, lying in the foetal position on a double bed, is my son. He is unconscious, or asleep, or something. I rush over and try to rouse him, slapping him gently across the cheek, shaking him by the shoulder.
‘What’s he taken?’ Zach demands.
A lightning bolt strikes at my core.
Josh’s eyes widen. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, has he taken drugs? And if so, what?’
Josh begins to stammer. ‘I . . . I don’t know. He might have just been drinking . . . although he was talking to a couple of kids who had some Molly . . .’
Molly. That’s Ecstasy, isn’t it?
My heart cracks wide open. My head swims. My hand suddenly feels cold and wet. I turn it over and realise there is blood on my fingers. It’s coming from Leo’s temple, matted into his hair.
‘What the—’
‘He fell over,’ Josh explains. ‘I think he hit his head on the side of the bath. He said he felt weird afterwards. That was when he came in here and I used his phone to call you.’
My bones feel as if they are about to give way. I am initially groping to make sense of all this, when I have a sudden rush of clarity. Of what we need to do to help him.
‘LEO! WAKE UP!’
He groans, opening his eyes briefly before closing them again.
‘Whose party is this?’ I hear Zach asking Josh, who looks as if he’s about to cry. ‘It’s my older brother’s, but it was never meant to be like this. He’s in the kitchen trying to get rid of people. There are tons of gatecrashers. He’d only planned to have a few mates over but word got out and . . .’
Zach puts his hand on Josh’s shoulder. ‘You’ll be okay. Go tell your brother that if people won’t leave he should call the cops. Okay?’
Josh sniffs, nods, then disappears.
‘We need to get Leo to a hospital,’ I tell Zach.
Despite my son’s current state, we manage between us to get him vaguely onto his feet, down the stairs and into the back of the car. I continue trying to keep him awake the whole time, having read somewhere that this is what you’re supposed to do in a situation like this. But I’m fighting a losing battle. He does open his eyes and mumble something every so often, but none of it’s close to comprehensible. When we arrive at A&E, I wait in the car while Zach runs inside to get a couple of nursing staff to bring out a stretcher.
As they transfer him onto it and take him inside, I follow in a surreal daze, passing images of cartoon characters on the walls. We are in a children’s hospital. The same place I brought Leo to when he was five and broke his wrist after falling from a climbing frame. Back then, he went away in a cast, with a sticker and a lollipop. We see a nurse first, who takes his observations, before a doctor comes to take over.
He is young, Asian and has a gentle, unflustered air. In his presence, everything seems to slow down.
He manages to rouse Leo enough to ask the same questions we did on the way here and a few more.
Have you taken drugs, Leo?
You’re not in trouble, Leo.
It’s important we know.
‘His friend seemed to think he’d been drinking and fell over and banged his head on the bath,’ I tell him.
‘And has he vomited?’
‘I think so,’ I say. ‘I could smell it on him.’
He nods, clicks on a pen and puts it in his pocket.
‘He’s not showing any signs of an MDMA overdose so my suspicion is that this is all alcohol. It’s . . . not unusual for teens to experiment with it. They have a low tolerance and, if they drink large volumes in a short period, it can be very dangerous.’
The plan, he tells me, is for careful monitoring, oxygen therapy and fluids, to be given intravenously. He is also going to order a CT scan because he’s concerned about his head injury. So my son is swept away to radiology as I stand, watching, feeling more helpless than I ever have in my life.