24 December 2017
We’re at my parents’ for one of Mum’s show-off shindigs and the folk band she has hired is about to start.
I am so tired I want to go to my den – alone – and sleep till 2018.
‘All right?’ Liv asks, handing me a glass of sparkling grape juice.
‘Yeah. Don’t think it’ll be a late one, though.’
She smiles tightly. She’s not a natural nurse, and we’re both sick of me being sick. The first perforation knocked me for six, and then I had another scare on Bonfire Night. This morning, I realized I’m getting a cold. I probably shouldn’t have gone to the torchlit Burning of the Clocks procession that marks the winter solstice, but Leo had made his own lantern in the shape of a sports car and I didn’t want to miss it . . .
A cold is no big deal, except I’m on edge every time I cough, in case the movement in my chest knocks out one of my ICD leads again. It makes me feel like an old man.
The band begins with ‘Fairytale of New York’. They’re raucous and loud, but still, we all hear Liv’s phone when it rings at max volume.
She leaves the room to answer it which pisses me off. It’s Christmas Eve. Channel Four, or whoever it is, can surely wait.
She comes back in, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, and instantly I feel guilty. ‘What’s happened?’
Her dad is older than mine and had a fall in the summer that almost finished him off. We live in fear of another phone call like that, and I prepare myself for a dash to Hereford.
‘There’s been a crash,’ she says.
‘Shit. Is he OK?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not Dad. That was fire control. It’s a train crash, at Hayward’s Heath. Major incident. Several people dead.’
The look on her face wasn’t shock; it was anticipation.
She doesn’t have to tell me she’s going, I already know she can’t not. Season Two of Into the Fire has just started filming. This could make the whole series, and the fact it’s Christmas Eve will make it an even more powerful story.
Already Liv is heading for the door. ‘Will you apologize to your folks for me?’
‘They know the score.’
‘Cheers.’ She’s already in work mode. ‘How the hell am I going to get hold of anyone else tonight?’
‘I could come with you to do sound?’
I say it without thinking, but once the words are out, I know it’s the right thing. Leo is surrounded by his mates. It was his thirteenth birthday yesterday and he’s grown into a popular kid, laid back and funny. Later they’re all going to watch a bootleg copy of The Last Jedi in Dad’s viewing room, so he won’t notice if we both go. This could be what Liv and I need to bring us closer again.
‘Are you sure?’ She gestures towards my chest. ‘You said you were tired and—’
‘The adrenaline will kick in.’
She smiles and this time it’s genuine. ‘Fuck yes, please.’
I drive while she calls around for reinforcements. Her self-shooting producers and APs have scattered to the four corners of the British Isles for family reunions. The three local freelancers she sometimes uses are at the same wrap party in Brighton, too drunk to drive.
She gets hold of one crew from London, but after she ends the call, she says, ‘Can’t see him being there much before ten. So it’s you and me, Joel, like the olden days.’
Can we resurrect the olden days, when we were together 24/7 and still couldn’t get enough of each other? These days, we no longer work as a pair, and even our time at home seems focused on keeping Leo happy. Anything but admit to the mess we’re in.
It wasn’t just the cardiac perforation. Two years of trying for a baby would put any couple under pressure, but my prevarication about agreeing to IVF hasn’t helped. Liv found out we could even apply to have my problem gene added to the permitted screening list, which would mean our embryos could be checked. But still I’ve resisted.
I drive in silence now, while she sits the camera on her lap, prepping it for a night shoot. How do I explain my reluctance? I’ve tried to make sense of it. Maybe I want one thing in my life to exist without medical intervention. But that’s not a reason to deprive Liv of the child she desperately wants.
Leo is enough for me. I can’t imagine loving another baby as much as I love him. Yet if I don’t love Liv enough to make this happen, perhaps we shouldn’t be together.
I glance to my left. She’s looking at me now, but immediately pretends to fiddle with a camera setting. Sometimes I wonder if she’s only waiting till I’m completely well before she dumps me for good. I wouldn’t blame her.
But it would break Leo’s heart.
The sav nav skirts the queues on the motorway and gets us close to the site in under forty minutes.
‘How far now?’
But the lights ahead answer her question. Liv is usually unshockable, but even she’s speechless at the number of vehicles and emergency staff on site as we pull up. The field is already a bog where people have trooped through in heavy boots and it wears me out just following her to the nearest fire engine. She’s trying to locate one of the crews she’s been filming for the series.
‘They’re by the track,’ she says. ‘Look, it’s going to be grim. You don’t have to come.’
‘You think I can’t handle it?’
Liv sighs. ‘This isn’t about how macho you are, Joel. You’ve been ill. And even if you can handle it physically, the last thing you need is another trauma to give you nightmares.’
‘What makes you think I get nightmares—’
‘This isn’t the time.’ She’s already striding off, chasing the story. ‘Do what you want. You always do.’
I do get nightmares. They started before Leo came to live with me and they still mostly revolve around him. But I’ve never told Liv. Has she seen me thrashing around in bed? Is this another thing we can’t discuss?
I follow, because whatever happens in the future, she needs me now.
I’ve spent plenty of time filming in hospitals, but I haven’t been on the scene of a major incident before. It’s Liv who craves drama, which means I stick to science and lifestyle stuff so I can be there for Leo, though now he’s at secondary school, he needs me much less. Liv is the one with her overnight bag always packed, her camera on charge.
The scene is suddenly extremely crowded, despite the remoteness of the field. The paramedics, police and firefighters move with purpose, but the walking wounded dawdle and stop. Some wear winter coats but most have on only indoor clothes, as though they’ve been dropped here from their office or kitchen.
I begin to notice their injuries: a girl in a party dress with her wrist doubled back on itself. A man sits on a camping chair in the dim light, and I think he’s wearing odd socks till I realize the green one is a sock but the red one is his bare foot, soaked with blood.
How Liv keeps filming I don’t know. At least I can look away when I need to, whereas she must focus on the viewfinder. The firefighters are rescuing an elderly casualty, slicing through the wreckage, and his distress is unbearable.
I admire Liv for her resolve, yet being here makes me deeply uncomfortable. The casualties were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The emergency personnel have a job to do.
But us? What purpose are Liv and I serving, really?
OK, I’ve used the arguments myself when I’ve been talking to programme contributors: the educational benefits of TV, the myth-busting, and most of all the chance to tell an important story.
But where does education end and voyeurism begin?
Maybe I’m more uncomfortable because of the wrapped Christmas gifts that are scattered about, or the festive bottle of champagne leaking onto the carriage floor. But it feels like Liv is crossing the line tonight.
A casualty is taken away the instant the opening is large enough to gain access – he was talking but now he seems to have stopped.
As we follow them towards the ambulance, I look back. The carriage has been cut down the middle and glitters under the emergency lights, like a fish that’s been filleted.