Dancing Jax. Robin Jarvis

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СКАЧАТЬ image of the suited man standing upon the sandhill, with the road behind him, was replaced by a smart young woman, in front of a red-brick, arched entrance.

      “Lyndsay, what more can you tell us about this tragic incident?”

      “Well, Tara, medical staff have been working round the clock, through the night here. I understand there was something in the region of a hundred and twenty casualties, impact injuries and burns being the majority of cases that had to be dealt with.”

      “And I gather the death toll has now risen again?”

      “Yes, within the last hour, it has been announced that two more have died as a result of their injuries, bringing the total now up to thirty-eight – with five more still in intensive care and fighting for their lives. An unbelievable loss of life in this usually quiet seaside town, here in Suffolk.”

      Behind her a nurse emerged from the entrance; she looked tired and drained. Someone behind the camera must have alerted Lyndsay because she turned and almost ran over to her, eager for a word from the front line.

      “Can you tell me what it’s been like in there?” she asked, shoving a microphone forward.

      A startled Carol Thornbury looked quizzically down the lens that came after.

      “How is the mood of the medical staff?” the reporter asked. “What can you tell us? How are the families of the injured feeling at this time?”

      “Are you bloody stupid or something?” Carol snapped. “How do you think they’re feeling? Get that ruddy camera out of my face or I’ll give you a colonoscopy with it! And keep this area clear!”

      Carol barged impatiently past the camera crew, leaving a thick-skinned Lyndsay smiling benignly. “As you can see,” she continued without a blink, “the atmosphere here is tense and tempers are running high. This is Lyndsay Draymore, Felixstowe General, for BBC News.”

      The picture switched back to the anchorperson, perched informally against the news desk, casually displaying the shapely legs that had served her so well in Strictly Come Dancing the year before.

      “And we’ll have more of that terrible incident in Suffolk on our main bulletin at six,” she purred. “You can tweet us your thoughts and condolences at the address at the bottom of the screen. Now over to our showbiz correspondent to see which pop diva has lost a size, shredding twenty pounds thanks to a new diet from…”

      Martin turned off the TV. “Good on you, Carol,” he said proudly.

      “She looked shattered,” Paul commented.

      “Must have been a horrible night there,” Martin answered. “I’ll run a bath for her and do some toast. She’ll want something before she crashes…”

      He flinched, not believing his unthinking choice of word, and the horror of the previous night rushed in again. He and Paul had returned home in a kind of dream state. The night had been alive with sirens and whirling lights and they had both fallen asleep in front of the rolling news.

      The phone rang. It was Carol’s mother.

      “Hello, Jean. Yes, I saw her on the news just now too. No, television always makes you look fatter than you are. Yes, it’s been awful. No, I don’t know how many were from the school, they haven’t released that information yet. Paul is fine. I’ll tell her you rang, soon as she gets back. OK, you too, Jean. Bye now.”

      It was the second time she had rung. The first was at half six that morning when she had first heard about it on the radio. Other people had called: Barry Milligan had sounded irritable and hungover and his mood wasn’t helped by the fact that the rugby game had been cancelled out of respect. Gerald Benning, Paul’s piano teacher, had checked to make sure he was safe, and so had members of the family who hadn’t been in touch for years. It was positively ghoulish.

      When Carol came through the door, she gave her son the biggest, chest-crushing hug he’d ever had. She had worked an extra four hours over her shift. Her face looked grey and drawn and her hollow eyes seemed to attest to the things she had seen in the casualty department.

      Martin passed her a cup of tea, which she took gratefully, but refused the toast.

      “I couldn’t,” she stated.

      Neither Martin nor her son uttered a word while she drank it. Then, cradling the cup in her hands, she said, “I never want to go through another night like that as long as I live.”

      “You were just on telly,” Paul ventured. “You were fierce!”

      “That stupid, stupid woman. Why do they ask such inane, crass questions?”

      “It’s what they do,” Martin said.

      “I almost punched her, but you know what stopped me? I knew it’d help her flaming career and I’d end up on some cheap blooper programme that’d be repeated for the rest of my life.”

      She closed her eyes and seemed to sag.

      “There’s a bath waiting,” Martin told her. He had never seen her like this before. Carol always left the grimness of the job at the hospital and was able to detach herself from it. Not this time. She was too limp to manage the bath. She just wanted to flop into bed.

      Halfway up the stairs, she stopped and said, in a small, defeated voice, “I recognised lots of them. Some had been your pupils, Martin. A few of them still are… or were.”

      Across town, Emma Taylor sat on her bed, staring blankly at the wallpaper. Conor had gone with her in the ambulance. Both had been too stunned to say anything. In casualty Emma had been checked over: superficial burns to the back of her legs, which had been appropriately dressed and, due to the volume of more serious cases coming in, she had been discharged. Conor had been treated for the cuts and bruises he had sustained in the fight, but the sights that wheeled by while he waited never left him.

      Emma’s usually disinterested parents had been loud and vocal in their sympathy, but of zero use and were more keen to find out if any compensation could be claimed. For the first time, the girl had not milked a situation to her utmost advantage. Instead she went quietly to her room, plugged her earphones in and replayed those moments over and over in her head. She hadn’t slept all night.

      When her mobile rang, she didn’t hear it, but saw the flashing of the screen. She stared at it like it was something new and unrecognisable. The number was certainly unfamiliar. She picked it up and pulled out one earphone.

      “Who’s that?”

      “Conor.”

      “How’d you get my number?”

      “Nicky Dobbs gave it me. I knew you two used to go out…”

      “Nicky Dobbs is a waste of space.”

      “So I thought I’d…”

      “What do you want?”

      “About, you know. I can’t talk to anyone here about it. They won’t be able to understand.”

      “Well, I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “But СКАЧАТЬ