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Back Going Under Save as PDF
Chapters (70)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I BIRTH
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. PART II LIFE
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. TWENTY-ONE
  28. TWENTY-TWO
  29. TWENTY-THREE
  30. TWENTY-FOUR
  31. TWENTY-FIVE
  32. TWENTY-SIX
  33. TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. TWENTY-NINE
  36. THIRTY
  37. THIRTY-ONE
  38. THIRTY-TWO
  39. THIRTY-THREE
  40. THIRTY-FOUR
  41. PART III DEATH
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. FORTY-TWO
  50. FORTY-THREE
  51. FORTY-FOUR
  52. FORTY-FIVE
  53. FORTY-SIX
  54. FORTY-SEVEN
  55. FORTY-EIGHT
  56. FORTY-NINE
  57. FIFTY
  58. FIFTY-ONE
  59. FIFTY-TWO
  60. FIFTY-THREE
  61. FIFTY-FOUR
  62. FIFTY-FIVE
  63. FIFTY-SIX
  64. FIFTY-SEVEN
  65. FIFTY-EIGHT
  66. FIFTY-NINE
  67. SIXTY
  68. EPILOGUE
  69. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  70. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I don’t ask if the child’s still alive. Suddenly, I don’t even want to know. All I want to do is teleport the three of us out of this horrible little room to somewhere familiar and safe. I want to be sitting at the pub down the road from 19 North Avenue, at our regular table, gossiping about boys. Get us out of this godforsaken place! I scream inside my head. No one hears me. No one comes to our rescue. The airlift we so desperately need is flying over a crystal blue sea, delivering supplies of champagne and cocaine to Bond girls sitting on yachts.

‘She got the tube down, though,’ the nurse says, crouching beside Estelle. ‘She did really well.’

I’m deeply impressed.

‘You did everything you could and more, man,’ I say, sitting on the floor beside her. ‘You were stuck in an impossible situation no one in our position should ever be put in, and you did a fucking good job, all right?’

Estelle remains motionless on the floor, hugging her knees. ‘His whole body was blue,’ she says, finally looking up at me. Her eyes are so blank they scare me a little bit. ‘Like, he was blue. As blue as your scrubs.’

I cringe.

‘I’ve never seen anything like that.’ Estelle sounds almost reflective. ‘It was like a picture from a textbook, you know?’

Fantastic. What a great on-the-job learning experience.

‘It’s weird,’ Estelle continues. ‘All that keeps going through my head is that guy, the one who told us that story in our last year of uni.’

She’s delirious, I think.

‘You know.’ She sounds frustrated. ‘That emergency doctor. Tim … No, Toby.’ She frowns. ‘He told us that story about the kid who’d tried to cut off his own hand.’

How could I forget. Toby Henderson.

‘I asked him how he coped.’ She laughs, but there’s no humour in it. ‘Remember what he said?’

‘You just don’t,’ I hear my voice saying.

‘I didn’t believe him.’ Estelle’s voice is rising. ‘I didn’t fucking believe him!’

The paediatric room has cartoon characters painted on the wall to make it seem like a cheerful place. But as I look closely I can see that the paint is cracking, and the smiles on Mickey and Minnie’s faces are fading. There’s an abandoned Lego set on the table.