Chapter 7
I heard the pounding of footsteps tearing up the stairs before I’d realised what was going on. The sound practically vibrated through the house. When I think about it now it makes me shudder and the sensations, the tastes, sounds and smells, whip me right back to that night like a time-travelling machine.
A fight had broken out, that much was clear. Between whom I couldn’t be sure. There were only about twenty of us in the house and all of those people had been our friends. I scanned the sea of familiar faces for Jack. And then I heard his voice and it became apparent that he was at the epicentre of the whirlwind taking place upstairs.
A sensible girl would have fled in the opposite direction, or perhaps gone to investigate before seeking some sort of help. Oh if only I were a sensible girl.
By the time I’d reached the hallway I was sucked immediately into the drama. In the centre of a small crowd of our non-sensible friends were two strangers. Both male. Both looked off their heads on some kind of drug. Both were scarily aggressive.
‘Get out!’ I heard one of the girls scream.
‘Fuck off out of here,’ Said someone else.
It was difficult to see exactly what was going on because somebody had pulled my head back by my hair and somehow I found myself being spun around in a circle.
The front door was open and outside there were more guys. Maybe ten of them in total. They were aged perhaps late teens early twenties. Greasy-looking, they wore a combination of cheap vinyl jackets and scruffy jeans, to be honest the word, ‘Chav’ sprang to mind.
‘What are you doing here??’ I asked the nearest male. He was the youngest-looking of the group. I tried to make some kind of contact with him but his eyes were entirely glazed over. His pupils were glossy, his lips dry. He didn’t respond at all. He just stared.
‘Please leave!’ I told him. In my best authorative tone. My eyes dropped. In his hands was a large stone paving slab. The kind that people use to create patios in their gardens. Our landlord had left several spare slabs leaning against the fence and now this guy was clutching one of them, his knuckles white.
The pushing and shoving continued. Somebody smashed a beer bottle on the back of the head of the tallest stranger. He roared with anger and at that the chaos erupted.
I turned to flee the scene, but before I had a chance to take a single step a heavy weight plunged into the crown of my head.
‘What the fuck?’ I muttered. My arms instantly rose to the core of the pain. My hands cupping the spot that stung immensely. The rest of my body felt limp and without warning my knees gave way and I slumped to the ground like a rag-doll.
I had been smacked on the head by the pikey bloke standing at my door. I hadn’t known him from Adam. I had never done anything to anger him and yet he had pounded a paving slab into my head.
That’s when the smashing began. The entire house sounded as though it were shattering. Like it had suddenly been transported to the centre of a war-zone.
Shrill screams could be heard from upstairs. Doors slamming, cabinets crashing to the ground. Somebody stood on my head and pulled my hair. I felt as though it were being pulled out in clumps.
Suddenly I felt my body being pulled into Massimo’s bedroom, directly off the hallway. Through blurred vision I could just make out Massimo’s face, his soft South African accent confirmed he was with me.
‘Get down,’ He whispered, ‘Keep your head down,’
I did as instructed and laid perfectly still, wedged in between Massimo’s king-sized bed and the wall opposite the front window. In a split second one of the stone slabs came hurtling through the window, the glass shattered. Seemingly in slow motion, jagged, triangular pieces flew through the room. I felt them drumming all over me as they landed on my back and my head, like sharp little hail stones.
‘Jack? Where is Jack?’ I whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ replied a female voice. It made me jump a tad. I didn’t realise anyone else was in the room.
My blurry eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room and I noticed that Cheryl, one of the other bar-maids that I worked with, was next to me. But before I had any time to speak the door swung open, the handle bashed the wall and almost immediately the light flicked on, blinding me.
Suddenly a herd of elephants stampeded into the house, at least that’s what it sounded like.
And then I noticed a large figure stood in the doorway. I lost my breath. He marched into the room, his steps heavy in industrial boots.
‘Where the fuck is she?’ He roared. As he stepped closer I saw it was the taller guy. His hair wet with grease and slick with blood. The blood was dripping from his thick black hair. His face murderous with anger.
Barely conscious, I remained still and silent, as though I were playing a game of, ‘Sleeping Lions.’ I felt that the consequences would be irreparable should I have even flinched slightly.
I could hear Cheryl. She began to whimper and cowered like a little girl in the corner of the room.
‘Was it you?? You little fuck. Was it you??’ His voice made me shudder. He leant over me. His boots inches away from my torso. The blood trickled down his angry cheeks and made a little pool next to my head.
He made eye contact with me before kicking my body aside with so much force that I felt as though I were winded. I heard the first punch being thrown. And then I heard the whipping sound of a slap across the face. Next I heard the screaming and crying. And then I was plunged into absolute darkness.
We all had our own tales to tell from that horrific night. The majority of our guests had escaped into the garden. They had been unable to unlock our back gate and instead had climbed into the garden of our next-door neighbour. We had yet to meet our neighbour, although we had known she had been elderly and frail. I later heard that she had been terrified beyond words. I feel awful for that.
My best friends, Kirsten and Sara had barricaded themselves in my bedroom with the chest of drawers. They too had experienced the shower of glass as the windows upstairs were shattered.
My friend Natalie and her boyfriend Ben had taken refuge in the safety of the cupboard under the stairs. They had been fortunate under the circumstances, yet their ordeal had been just as terrifying.
Others had hidden in other places, but in vain. Their stories had been horrific too.
I wish I could tell you that my own story had concluded there. Alas like the scariest of nightmares the event didn’t seem to have a conclusion at all.
I’m not sure how or when I regained consciousness. And I’m fairly positive that my subconscious chose to erase certain parts of the ordeal. Somehow I found myself at the back of the house, in the garden.
I screamed for Jack. I couldn’t see him anywhere. The fairy lights had somehow disappeared and the moon offered the only form of light on the situation. People were shouting. The girls were crying. I couldn’t see Kirsten or Sara. I stumbled in the unfamiliar garden, tripping in the gravel and landing in the damp grass and that’s when I saw him.
‘He’s dead . . .’ I told myself. ‘Oh. My. God.’
He lay face down in the grass, his body limp and lifeless.
The guys were sat with him. One of them was on the phone.
‘Put him in the recovery position,’ he instructed the others.
‘What’s the recovery position?’ I heard someone ask.
I knew. I had learnt it in a first aid course that I had taken a few years back. I knew what it was. But I couldn’t speak. I just stood frozen to the spot, like a rabbit caught in headlights.
‘Get a tea-towel! Go and find a tea-towel!’ This time my legs obeyed. I wobbled towards the back door. It was half-hanging from just one hinge. As I pulled it back I couldn’t have prepared myself for what I saw.
The fridge-freezer lay across the kitchen floor at an unusual angle. Glass was strewn across the room. A fusion of blood and beer seemed to be smeared up the walls. Everything was broken. Our glasses and plates. Our clock. The notice board that my Dad had given me for Christmas. Everything.
I climbed over the fridge, slipped in a puddle on the floor and grabbed a tea-towel from the drawer. I had only unpacked them the previous day.
My heart thumped. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had just leapt out of my body, jiggled about a bit and then jumped back in.
I cannot describe the relief I felt when I made my way back out into the garden.
Jack was standing; his legs wide like one of those cowboys in an old western.
‘Oh thank god,’ I gushed, running towards him.
‘Have they gone?’ he asked. ‘That’s my fucking house.’ He looked distraught and in agony. But he was alive.
Jack began to run a little and then he lost his balance and fell to the ground again.
And my heart sank once more.
‘Is he going to die?’ I asked anyone that would listen. ‘Oh god, don’t let him die.’
Everyone crowded around him once more. His friends spoke softly. They whispered words of encouragement and kindness. But I couldn’t say anything.
All I could think of was what I would say to his parents. How would I explain it to them? I had barely been his girlfriend for a month and he was going to leave me.
I had known it was too good to be true. God was going to punish me for what I had done to Toby. He was going to steal Jack from me and leave me alone with nothing but absolute despair and a shattered heart.
By the time the ambulance arrived I had pretty much accepted the fact that Jack was to be taken from me that very night. I watched him having his injuries tended to by the heroic paramedics. Forever a charmer he chatted to one of the lady’s, as she carefully wrapped his wounded head in bandages, and made her laugh and I smiled.
We had been together for such a short time. We hadn’t even exchanged the, ‘L’ word. Seriously. I hadn’t even told him that I loved him.
I prayed silently. And stood, still dressed as a prostitute, in the cold night air. Almost oblivious to the forensics team and police officers that were decorating our bomb-site home with thick yellow Crime Scene tape.
Patiently and in absolute silence I waited for my man. And prayed to god that he would be okay.
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