3
Before the end of the week... An odd conversation, Uncle Phil had said. As if Luke’s father had somehow known that something was going to happen. But what?
All day there had been something nagging away at the back of Luke’s mind, but he hadn’t quite been able to put his finger on what it was. Something about those files he’d found on his father’s laptop. Were they diary entries, or reminders to do something?
After Phil had wobbled his way down the gravel drive, Luke went back into the house, and upstairs to the attic room. He paused at the top of the steep, narrow stairs and knocked on the door.
“Alfie?” he called softly. “Are you in there, Alfie?”
In response to a grunt from within, Luke pushed open the door. Alfie was sprawled on the bed, idly flicking through TV channels.
Luke moved a pile of newspapers onto the floor and lowered himself into the sagging armchair.
“Another day,” said Alfie, eventually.
“Yeah. Another one.” Time passing. They needed to put as much time as possible between them and what had happened, Luke reckoned.
It was often like this with Alfie, when they weren’t bickering: long silences that communicated as much as any words ever could; and then at other times they would have rapid-fire conversations where they finished each other’s sentences, as if there simply wasn’t enough time to have a full exchange.
“Use your laptop?” asked Luke.
Alfie gestured to an area of the floor with the TV’s remote. Luke found the computer down there, partly hidden by a tangle of jeans and t-shirts.
He settled cross-legged on the floor with the laptop and glanced across at Alfie. He was watching a news channel now, and the screen showed an angry crowd scene. It could have been anywhere.
Luke hadn’t told anyone about the files he’d taken from his father’s laptop. It seemed trivial, somehow, in the scale of what had happened.
Now, he found the family drive, opened the folder he had created and looked at the list of files.
He opened the first one again, and read its contents:
Holidays: Late snow. J&L flight cancelled. Be home.
When he read it earlier he had concluded that his father must have checked flights when the weather changed for the worst, and seen that they had been cancelled. But... now he knew what had been nagging away at the back of his mind about this file. He closed it, and checked the file properties: it had been created on 18th March last year. He switched to a web browser and searched for the dates of Easter. Last year, Easter Sunday had been on 20th April, and it was Easter Monday when the weather had closed in and Luke and his mother had been stranded at a blizzard-locked airport.
So his father had written that note over a month before Easter. Had he somehow known in advance that late snow was going to prevent their trip? How could he have known something like that?
He thought again of the strange visit from Uncle Phil, triggered by a conversation with Luke’s father before he had died. He had insisted that Phil should visit them before the end of the week.
But why?
Luke looked at the folder listing again. There were a dozen or more files dated between last Easter and now.
One of them was labelled with today’s date.
Luke paused. This was ridiculous. His heart was racing, his throat dry... his hands were even shaking. He couldn’t possibly believe that this file contained some hidden truth about the future. It was not possible. Yes, that first file had been created before last Easter, but perhaps his father had gone back in later and amended the contents. That would explain it.
He opened today’s file.
Phil... This is what hurts the most, I think. Some things we can change, but some we just cannot. Whatever you do, the outcome is the same. I’m sorry, Phil. I’d do anything if I could. Need to get you to see J and the boys before the end. I’m so sorry. You’ve been like a brother to me. I wish you could have had longer.
No.
Not Uncle Phil too.
~
Luke didn’t know what to think, what to do. He closed down the laptop, and sat up straight, stretching his spine. And breathed.
He stood, took a step towards the door, and then he was running, out of Alfie’s room and barreling down the steep stairs to the landing. More stairs, and out of the front door.
He fumbled for his garage key, grabbed his bike, remembered to lock the garage, and mounted his bike at a run.
Out onto the main road and a van screeched its brakes and blared its horn at him.
The evening was getting dark now and he hadn’t put his lights on, but he didn’t want to stop for anything. Down through the village, past the infant school, the shop, a crowd of smokers outside the Old Bull. A car swung past him and bipped its horn at his lack of lights.
He reached the row of Victorian terraced houses where Uncle Phil lived, and swung into the lane that ran around the back. Jumping off, he let his bike crash to a halt in the hawthorn hedge between the lane and a field of potatoes. Slowing now, he pushed at a high wooden gate..
Uncle Phil’s back garden was long and narrow. A straight concrete path ran between two vegetable beds, then there was a small area of lawn.
“Hey there... hey there, Luke. What’s the big commotion?”
Uncle Phil stood at the kitchen door, a tied up white rubbish bag from the kitchen bin in his hand.
“I...”
Luke didn’t know what he was going to say, how to explain the sudden surge of panic that had overtaken him when he had believed that somehow his father’s notes had seen into the future and were warning that something awful was going to happen. Something awful about Uncle Phil.
“Cup of tea?”
Phil dropped the bag into a big green wheely bin, and then stepped back into the kitchen.
They sat in the front room, the TV on low in the background – for the company, Phil had always explained. Luke had recovered his breath now. He cradled his mug in both hands, and appreciated the fact that his uncle hadn’t pressed at all. No questions about his panicked appearance in the back garden, nothing about why he had come here within an hour of Phil’s earlier visit to the family home.
He felt like a fool now. He didn’t know how he had let such mad thoughts take hold in his mind. The TV was on a quiz show, a heavily-freckled young woman one question away from winning a holiday in New York.
“He came up with some strange things, you know,” said Phil. “That father of yours.”
Luke stared into his mug. The tea had a patchy film over its surface, like petrol on a puddle.
“I thought Julie was mad to marry him when she hardly knew him. I told her that more than once. Bit of a chancer, bit of a wide boy, if you know what I mean. It took him a long time to win me round. I learnt to trust him, though. Especially whenever he made some damn fool demand of me. Like don’t go on a particular flight, for instance. He saved my skin that time. Plane came down in the North Sea. It was the Nats, they said.”
Luke sipped at his tea. He was starting to wish he hadn’t come here. He didn’t want to hear this kind of thing.
“You learn to listen to him after something like that,” said Phil. “And other things too.”
Luke stared at the TV. The woman had lost. She hadn’t been able to name seven European capital cities in the time allowed. She was still managing to smile, even so.
“So when he tells me I should see my sister and the boys before the week is out it’s not something I can ignore, even if I did put it off until this evening. Makes you scared a little. Sounds a bit final, doesn’t it? Know what I mean? There’s nothing I can do, no flight to avoid... Just make sure I’ve seen the people I’m closest to. All very final. Does that make sense to you, Luke?”
Luke took another sip of his tea. The TV had cut to ads. A tractor rumbled past in the road outside.
Uncle Phil leaned forward in his seat. “So tell me, Luke. Did he say something to you? Is that why you came rushing here like some kind of mad thing? What was it? What did he say?”
Luke didn’t want to meet his uncle’s eye, but then he had to and he couldn’t tear his gaze away again. He had never seen Phil so intense before.
“He didn’t say anything,” said Luke. How could he explain that he’d found a computer file that had said something vague which he’d interpreted as some kind of warning? It sounded so foolish.
“So why did you come rushing here like this, then? Not that I mind, of course. Lovely to have you here.”
“I... I just had to get away.”
At that Phil slumped back in his seat as if someone had cut the strings that had been holding him upright, taut. “Ah... yes, of course. I understand.” He paused, then went on: “I’m sorry. I got carried away. Foolish words. You don’t need to hear my ramblings at a time like this. Of course you had to get away. You’re welcome here any time you need to do that, Luke. D’you understand?”
They sat and watched more TV, occasionally commenting on what came up. A woman having bolts put into her broken leg after a car crash, a dog that kept attacking its owner’s husband, another quiz show. The evening passed, and it grew fully dark outside.
All the time, Luke kept thinking about what Phil had said. His father’s strange warnings. Phil hadn’t told him much, but it all tied in with the files Luke had found: that strange awareness of events yet to happen. He thought of what Phil had said about the need to see the family before the end of this week, and how final that had sounded: this was no warning to avoid a flight or a train; more a tying up of loose ends.
And whenever he thought these thoughts he stopped them in their tracks. It was madness. He had thought his father’s death hadn’t really affected him but maybe it had. Maybe it was driving him insane.
He checked his phone, remembering now that he had put it on silent. There was a message from his mother, asking where he was. He thumbed a reply, telling her he was just at Phil’s watching rubbish TV. He pressed send and then took a minute to check online to see his friends’ statuses.
When he looked up, Phil was holding his left arm out, flexing his hand, turning it over and then back.
“Think I pulled something,” his uncle said, when he saw Luke watching him. “Arm hurts to buggery.”
Phil’s face had gone pale and his breathing was rapid and shallow. He kept staring at his arm, as if he had never seen it before.
Then he tipped forward in his seat, hands clutching at his chest.
Luke stared. He knew exactly what was happening. Uncle Phil had suffered a heart attack five or six years ago, and had been on pills for it ever since.
And now, sitting across the small front room of his terraced house from Luke while another dumb quiz show played out at low volume on the TV, he was having another one.
Luke rushed to him, held him, felt the spasming of his uncle’s body as it was wracked with pain, then felt it slump and sag back into the chair. Luke leaned back, releasing Phil from his embrace. His uncle was staring into the distance, eyes not moving.
He wasn’t breathing.
Luke checked his uncle’s wrist for a pulse, then tried his neck.
Nothing.
He looked all round the room. He didn’t know why. Didn’t know what kind of help to expect. He went to the window, but the street was deserted.
His phone.
He called 999, and asked for an ambulance, quickly.
“Please,” he said. “It’s my uncle. He’s had a heart attack. He’s had one before. He’s not breathing. He’s dead. I think he’s dead.”
“Okay, take a deep breath, please. Can you tell me where you are?”
Luke gave the address.
“Right. We have an ambulance on its way right now. What’s your name?”
“Luke.”
“Okay, Luke. What makes you think your uncle has had a heart attack?”
“He’s had one before. He had a pain in his arm and in his chest – really bad pain. And now he’s not breathing and I can’t find a pulse.”
“Okay, Luke. An ambulance is on its way. It should be with you in about ten minutes. Is there anyone else there with you?”
“No.”
“Okay. How old are you, Luke?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“Okay, Luke. You’re doing well. I need you to try to help your uncle. Just because his heart has stopped doesn’t mean there’s no hope. I need you to help give him a chance, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Your uncle. What position is he in?”
“He’s in his chair. Look, what can I do?”
“Can you move him, Luke? Can you lie him on the ground on his back?”
Luke put his phone on speaker and placed it on the sofa. Then he leaned over his uncle, put his arms around his chest and hauled him onto the floor.
“I’ve done that,” he said.
“Okay. Now can you take a look in his mouth, Luke? Is there any vomit or food in there?”
Luke pulled Phil’s lower jaw down. There were no obstructions, as far as he could see.
“Right, Luke. I need you to find his breastbone. You need to place the heel of one hand on the bone directly between his nipples. Can you do that? Good. Now place your other hand on top of that and press down hard, twice. Okay? Can you find a pulse now? Is his heart beating? No... Okay. Now I’m going to talk you through how to give your uncle artificial respiration, Luke, okay?”
~
It was no good. No good at all.
Luke did everything the operator told him for fifteen minutes until the ambulance arrived, but it was no good.
Uncle Phil had suffered a fatal heart attack.
There was nothing anyone could do.