3

Jesus Christ. What the fuck just happened? My head’s splitting like the worst of hangovers, mouth feels like something’s crawled in there and died. I’m home, I know that much, but as to how I got here? No idea. Must have been walking on autopilot, dead to the world.

All I can remember is noise, panic, screaming. There was heat, too, like I’d been on the beach all day on the one day of summer we get in this country. Glass breaking, people running in all directions, a man’s face in the windscreen of a truck.

Oh God. No.

I sit too heavily in the rickety old armchair, springs threatening to end any thoughts of being a father I might have had. Some chance, like I’d want to bring a child into this shit-stain of a world. Lifting hands up to my face, I notice for the first time that I’ve got a red scarf draped loosely over my shoulders. Cashmere by the feel of it, ripped at one end. There’s a dampness about it, spots of darker red where something has wetted it. I rub one between finger and thumb, stare at them stupidly when they come up with a thin smear of blood on my skin. Whose scarf is this? It’s not mine. Not my blood either. Whoever it belongs to, it stinks to high heaven of something corrosive, chemical.

My head spins as I stand, walk on unsteady legs to the tiny kitchen. I meant to throw the scarf away, but as I cross the hall so more memories come back. By the time I get to the bin, lid flipped open by a well-placed foot, I’ve pieced enough together that I might even throw myself in there, too.

The lid makes a dull metal clang as I let it fall down, wrap the scarf around my shoulders again and go through the automatic ritual of making myself a mug of coffee. I don’t want to believe what’s just happened, but the pieces are dropping into place now. A crowded bus stop, a truck speeding out of control, tipping in slow motion onto people too slow, too wrapped up in their earphone cocoons, too unlucky to even notice. And I’m reaching my arms out to embrace a stranger, a young woman with long blonde hair and a face I last saw as a child. She has a scarf around her neck, red cashmere despite the summer warmth, and she has a name.

Maddy.

Oh Christ. Maddy.