Truly Madly Guilty

'The ambulance is on its way,' said Vid. 'I'll go and wait on the street so they know where to go.'

'We'll come too,' said Tiffany. 'You come and help us look out for the ambulance, Holly.'

Holly went, without resisting, without looking back, her hand trustingly held in Tiffany's as if they were going to see another pet.

Of course a minute was enough.

Never take your eyes off them. Never look away. It happens so fast. It happens without a sound. All those stories in the news. All those parents. All those mistakes she'd

read about. Backyard drownings. Unfenced pools. Children unsupervised in the bath. Children with stupid, foolish, neglectful parents. Children who died surrounded by so-called responsible adults. And each time she would pretend to be non-judgemental but really, deep down she was thinking, Not me. That could never really happen to me.

Erika lifted her head from her second breath and her eyes met Clementine's with a look of unutterable despair. Tiny beads of water clung to her eyelashes. Her lips, the lips that had been pressed against Ruby's, were chapped.

Oliver's voice didn't change. 'One and two and three and four and five.'

chapter forty-nine

The day of the barbeque

'... and six and seven and eight and nine and ten.'

Erika listened to Oliver count, waiting for her cue. The number fifteen.

Her shirt stuck to her. Her jeans were so cold and clammy against her thighs.

Clementine's face looked like a skull. It was like the skin was pulled back too tight. She was an alien version of Clementine, staring at Erika as if she were begging for clemency.

Ruby wasn't responding.

It wasn't working even though they were doing it exactly right. Two rescue breaths after every fifteen compressions but do not stop the compressions, they'd changed the rules since the last time they'd done a first aid course, now you did non-stop compressions. She knew that was right.

She and Oliver had done a refresher first aid course back in March. It was a free course offered through Oliver's work. The managing partner at Oliver's new accounting firm was a passionate advocate for first aid education. He liked to interrupt meetings by pointing at someone and saying, 'Sanjeev is having a heart attack!' and then, while Sanjeev obligingly pretended to grab his chest, the managing partner would spin in his chair to point out someone else, often an unsuspecting intern, 'You there! What do you do? Save Sanjeev!' And then he'd count down the time before Sanjeev was dead and it was too late.

The course had been fun. Oliver and Erika were the star students. They'd both done first aid courses before this. Of course they had. They had their bronze medallions, their rescue diving certificates. They were the sort of people who believed in first aid courses, and anyway, no matter the subject, Oliver and Erika had always been star students. Even when the subject wasn't a matter of life and death they took it as seriously as if it were.

Erika could see their teacher now. Paul was a ruddy-faced, heavy-breathing man who looked like a potential heart attack victim himself. 'Got it in one,' Paul kept saying to Erika and Oliver with an approving click of his fingers each time they got something right.

Fifteen compressions and two rescue breaths. They were doing it right. They were doing it exactly right. They were following the rules, Paul, so why was Ruby just lying there, why wasn't she responding, Paul, you hateful, stupid, red-faced, finger-clicking man?

'... thirteen and fourteen and fifteen and one ...'

'Where is the ambulance?' said Sam. 'I can't hear a siren. Why can't I hear a siren?'

Erika pinched Ruby's nostrils together again, bent her head and exhaled a silent scream of fury into Ruby's body. YOU DO AS I SAY, RUBY. YOU BREATHE. It was her mother's voice; her mother at her most manic and vicious and terrifying, her mother when she caught Erika trying to throw something out. YOU BREATHE RIGHT THIS INSTANT, RUBY, HOW DARE YOU IGNORE ME, YOU BREATHE, NOW, RIGHT NOW.

Erika lifted her head.

Ruby's chest jolted. Water spewed up from her mouth. Oliver made a high, startled sound of surprise like a dog's whimper and lifted his hands.

Got it in one, said Paul in Erika's head, with a click of his fingers, and Erika turned Ruby's head to the side, just like they'd done with the rubbery-tasting plastic mannequin, and Ruby vomited more water, over and over, while Clementine sobbed and heaved as if she were being sick too. The long, thin wail of an ambulance pierced Erika's consciousness as if it had been there all along, and together she and Oliver turned Ruby onto her side, into the recovery position as they'd been taught.

Good girl, thought Erika, and she ran her hand gently over Ruby's head, brushing the wet strands of hair from her eyes as she continued to vomit water. Good girl.

chapter fifty

'Erika?'

'Mmmm.' Erika fidgeted and focused on the rain falling outside Not Pat's window. Was it easing perhaps?