20 September
The last time I ever see Scott Palmer, he and I talk about suicide.
In the bedroom, I’ve almost finished packing the rucksack. This will be my last journey back to Leeds before the big move down here.
“Hey, Kate,” Scott yells from the living room. “Come and look.” The dark urgency in his voice, combined with his use of my actual name, makes me run along the hall. “Looks like someone’s jumped off the pier. They must have tried to… oh God.”
As I hurry through the archway to join him, he slides open the balcony door, filling the living room with the thrum of whirring blades. Up near the clouds, an air ambulance chops through the sky. Two ground crews have parked at the front of the pier.
“You can always tell when something really bad’s happened,” he says. “Out come all the rubberneckers.”
Sure enough, a pack of seafront vultures have assembled to soak up the drama. Just like we have, I think. Wrapping my arms around Scott’s waist from behind, I press myself against his back. “Fuck,” I say. “I feel like I should be out there, doing something.”
He squeezes my hand. There’s a fond smile in his voice. “That’s you all over.”
“But I’m only across the road. I could help out. Time is so precious with things like this.”
“Looks like they’ve got it covered, baby.”
“How many times a year does someone jump?”
“Three or four. And yet this person never learns their lesson.”
He laughs lightly at his own joke, but as I gaze out over the surging water I can only feel grateful for the gift of breath. The three waterlogged bodies I’ve seen hauled out of rivers, their faces weren’t pretty.
“Drowning really isn’t a great way to go,” I say.
“Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t joke. It’s just… depressing, isn’t it.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Some of the jokes we crack on the job would make people’s relatives want to lynch us. But we’re not laughing at the bad stuff. It’s like we’re trying to flush out our systems. We’re trying to stay sane. You either laugh or you cry, and when you’re on the job, only one option works.”
A pause, and then Scott says, “I think you’re incredible, you know that?”
Compliments make me clam up, so I close my eyes and hold him tighter. Finally, someone thinks I’m all right. Someone who isn’t Izzy. “Only two weeks to go,” I say. “Don’t go changing your mind on me, or I will hunt you down and set fire to you.”
I feel the vibrations of his laugh from deep inside his chest. “I was about to say the same thing to you. Well, without the whole hunty fiery bit.”
We watch the helicopter circle the pier, as the coastguard’s rescue boat cleaves across the waves to join the search for this poor lost soul.
Standing up here in my ivory tower, cocooned by my perfect new life, I wonder what might possibly drive a person to commit such a sad and desperate act.