Dear Diary,
We’re home, we’re finally home. Ah, Ellwood is such a beautiful place. As soon as we got here it felt like everything glowed with sunlight; the hills rolled and the trees swayed. The space felt endless like I could put out my arms and start swimming in it if I wanted to. I almost kissed the ground when we finally arrived here after a long flight and drive from the airport.
I saw every sheep, every field, every gate from the window of the van as we drove along the country roads from the airport feeling like I almost remembered each one individually. And the green, wow, I don’t think I ever noticed the green that much before. Luscious English green.
A chorus of birdsong greeted us as we entered the backyard. The first thing I did was check on my little world of plants. Mostly they were ok and still able to look up at me with their flowery heads. Some were a bit droopy but none were dead. Mabel, the next-door neighbor, did a good job of looking after them.
The first thing I did before going into the house was find the rusty old watering can, fill it with water and pour it in to the soil of the pots. I swear I saw some of the plants move ever so slightly as the water soaked in, as if they were saying hello.
The second thing I did was put the kettle on and make a nice cup of tea for myself, and one for Leo. He seemed as pleased as I was to be home. He jumped up onto the kitchen counter and we chatted away as I poured the tea. We left the kitchen door open to let the fresh air roll in. It smelt a different way here so fresh you could almost taste it.
We sat in the kitchen and then the living room, drinking tea, making bacon sandwiches, simply soaking in the fact that we were home. At one point Mabel popped round to see us, clearly pleased to have us back. She asked how the trip went. Now that was hard to answer.
I’m here now, in my bedroom, in my bed – ah, there can be no place nicer. I’m amongst my familiar things, my beautiful dressing table, my antique mirror.
It’s hard to believe that only a few days ago we were in a New York hospital, curled up by the bedside of Farley. When we got there, after the aquarium, we sat down at Farley’s bedside and soon enough both of us to fell fast asleep, our arms on the bed, still sat in the plastic chairs.
We must’ve slept for ages because it was black outside when we did finally open our eyes. I don’t know if we would have even woken up then if a young nurse, not that much older than we are, hadn’t nudged us awake and laid a tray on a table with two bowls of steaming soup in them.
‘We don’t usually give out free food but I’ve seen you two in here all day and I don’t want you to starve,’ she said.
‘Oh wow, thank you,’ I said, bleary eyed.
Leo smiled at her. She smiled back.
‘Just eat your soup guys, you gotta eat,’ she said.
‘How is he?’ I said.
‘He’s stable,’ she said. ‘No signs of worsening.’
‘Any signs of getting better?’ said Leo.
‘No, not yet,’ she said.
My heart sank a little. The nurse left the room. Leo passed a bowl of soup to me – I picked up the spoon and started to eat. It was tomato soup; warm, rich and hot. I ate every last drop. Leo did the same.
Once we had eaten we continued to sit by the bedside, quiet, just watching his face or sitting back in our chairs and looking around the room. There wasn’t much to look at. I mostly kept my eyes on Farley. To me he looked like an angel who had fallen from heaven and landed with too big a bang. I knew I loved him.
His loveliness, even in his unconsciousness, even behind the bruises on his face and the gash along his cheek, was still there. Still drawing me to him, maybe even more than before.
Leo and I didn’t say much, we just sat there – through the long hours of the night. I didn’t sleep again; I just waited. Leo fell between consciousness and unconsciousness. At some point, it must’ve been right in the middle of the night in the wee hours of the morning, I took his hand and slowly followed the long bumps of his veins with my finger.
His hand lay limp. I held onto it. After maybe an hour of holding his hand I felt a movement of his fingers. It was the first sign of life since we had been there.
‘He moved,’ I said.
‘Huh?’ said Leo, opening his eyes and sitting upwards.
‘Yes! His hand just moved,’ I said, jumping up.
‘Farley?’ I said. ‘My love?’
His eyes flickered.
‘His eyes flickered,’ I said.
‘I know, I saw,’ said Leo. ‘Talk to him.’
‘Farley, it’s Amber. I’m here, right here. We’re in New York. You need to wake up now.’
He frowned.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I’m here.’
His eyes opened. I smiled at him. He blinked.
‘Amber,’ he said.
‘I’ll get the doctor,’ said Leo, dashing out the room.
‘What happened?’ said Farley. ‘Where am I?’
‘You got beat up,’ I said. ‘You’re in New York, in a hospital. We brought you here.’
‘And… But… I recognized those people… From the gig. I remember,’ he said.
Leo returned with the doctor in tow who immediately began to check the machines and take notes on his clipboard.
‘How do you feel?’ he asked Farley.
‘Out of it,’ said Farley. ‘But I’ll live.’
I had to stop myself from jumping up and down on the spot.
‘Good,’ said the doctor. ‘We’ll need to do a few tests once you’re more awake and then we’ll go from there.’
My heart nearly jumped right out of my chest. Leo smiled too.
‘There is something else. The police need to question you,’ he said.
‘The police?’ he said.
‘Yes, they’ve been waiting around for a couple of hours now. I can’t hold them off any more now you’re awake. I think it’ll just be a few questions,’ he said. ‘You guys will need to leave.’
‘But…’ I said, as Leo took me by the arm and led us both out the room.
We sat in the chairs just outside and watched as two police officers walked into Farley’s room. They were decked out in New York style outfits with dark blue uniforms and shining badges.
‘It’ll be ok,’ said Leo, holding my hand and squeezing it.
They weren’t in there for long and as soon as they left we went back in to see Farley.
‘Guys, I didn’t say anything,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry, Farley,’ I said. ‘You just get better. Please.’
‘I just told them I didn’t know who it was,’ he said. ‘People get beat up all the time in New York, it’s nothing new. Plus, I’m British so they think I don’t have a clue and I’m just some silly tourist,’ he said.
Leo and I sat back down in our chairs.
‘It was all a mistake, a massive mistake,’ I said.
He looked tired, really tired.
‘I know, I trust you,’ said Farley, his eyes starting to close. ‘Can we talk about this later?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘What do you need from us?’
‘Go home, get changed for God’s sake girl – you’re still wearing that dress… Get yourselves sorted, get some sleep and come back. Sound ok?’ he said.
‘Yes, I can do that,’ I said.
‘You too, Leo,’ he said. ‘And thanks for coming here.’
‘No problem,’ said Leo.
‘Will you be ok?’ I said.
‘Yes, I’ll be ok,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
I kissed him on the cheek and with that we left him to go back to our hotel. We were in a bit of a daze and the main thing I can remember is the relief I felt when I finally took off that dress. It lay crumpled in the corner of the room a pile of gold and red.
I slipped under the covers of the bed in my hotel room, closed my eyes and didn’t open them until I had slept deeply for quite a few hours. When I did finally wake a sense of hope crept up on me. It was mingled in with the sense of dread I had felt solidly since finding Farley in that alleyway, but it was there.
I stepped out of bed into the shower, enjoying the feeling of the hot water rushing down my back. After that I slipped on a pair of jeans and a big jumper, made form the wool of Ellwood sheep. As I packed my handbag, ready to head back out to the hospital, I heard a soft knock on my door. It was Leo. He waited as I finished packing and then we both set off to the hospital once again.
Once we got there it was mid afternoon and the sun blazed through the window of Farley’s room. We found him sat upright in bed with a smile on his face, chatting to a nurse who was just leaving. The same nurse who had given us the soup pottered at his bedside. It looked like they had a favorite patient. I couldn’t blame them. A shade of pink had come back to his cheeks and his blonde hair was clean and combed.
‘Amber!’ he called as we walked in. ‘Leo! Come in, guys.’
I laughed. The nurse nodded, saying hi as she walked out.
‘Pull up your pews,’ he said, gesturing either side to the same chairs we had sat, slept and worried in for hours and hours before.
‘Sit your bums down,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ said Leo.
We settled ourselves down.
‘Are you comfortable?’ he said, fluffing up his own pillow behind him.
‘Yes,’ we said.
‘Did you have a good sleep?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ we said.
‘Has to be said, you both look much better than you did before – God, I was worried about you,’ he said.
We laughed.
‘Now, are you guys going to tell me what in the living name of hell just happened?’ he said, looking from me to Leo, back to me.
‘Um,’ I said.
‘We were stupid,’ said Leo.
‘Yes. Very,’ I said.
‘Mostly, I was stupid,’ said Leo. ‘I just dragged Amber into it at the end.’
‘Huh?’ said Farley. ‘Into what?’
I saw Leo gulp. I couldn’t think how to tell him.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’m a bit of a jealous brother, right? You probably noticed, let’s be honest.’
Farley smiled
‘Well, I did notice you might want to kill me when I met you at Central Park…’ he said.
‘Yeah, huh,’ said Leo. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘What’s that got to do with any of this though?’ said Farley.
‘Well, I kind of took it too far…’ said Leo. ‘There’s this girl we know – we’ve known her all our lives. She’s called Marilyn. You met her, she was with me at Central Park.’
Farley held back his head and sort of laughed, sort of groaned.
‘Marilyn…’ he said. ‘Go on…’
‘Anyway, I was an idiot – I thought she was a friend. It turns out I was wrong.’
‘Ah ha,’ he said.
‘I was upset, to be fair – at the start – it wasn’t that much – that Amber was seeing someone. I wasn’t used to it. Anyway, Marilyn sort of played on this and managed to convince me I was losing Amber, like for real…’ he said.
‘What?’ said Farley.
‘Yeah, I know,’ said Leo. ‘It sounds ridiculous now. But it all got out of hand. And basically… I ended up going along with a plan to get you beat up.’
‘Wow,’ said Farley. ‘I did not see that coming. So you got your pals to do it?’
‘Well, they didn’t actually know it was you,’ he said.
‘Huh?’ said Farley.
‘Yup,’ said Leo. ‘It’s that ridiculous.’
‘We tricked our pals into beating you up by mistake. They thought they were homing in on another guy who was causing trouble the night before.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Farley.
‘I can only say I’m sorry, truly Farley. It was a huge mistake on my part. I want to find a way through this, a way for us to be friends,’ he said.
Farley held back his head and looked as though he were thinking hard.
‘Thank you Leo. Thank you for your honesty. Really, that means a lot,’ he said.
Leo looked at him, his eyes wide.
‘It wasn’t just Leo who was at fault,’ I said, aware that he had managed to leave me out of it completely.
‘I went along with it too, thinking they were beating up the other guy. I pointed you out,’ I said.
‘You?’ he said, looking confused.
‘Oh well, I’ve done it before, to be perfectly honest,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a friend Cheryl – or at least I did have a friend, Cheryl. She beats people up, with her pals Jez and Lambert. I dunno, it’s something they’ve done since school. It’s wrong, it’s totally sick actually. I just, before, well, I didn’t think. I always went along with it.’
‘Ah ha…’ he said.
‘And well, I knew she was looking for a fight – she wanted to get someone we’d had a run in with, from the other night,’ I said.
‘Who?’ said Farley.
‘Aw, it was nothing really. Just some guys who had a go at me in a pub, in Brooklyn,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I thought I was pointing out the guy, you know, to Cheryl, when I was on stage – but I wasn’t – I was pointing out you.’
‘Ah, I see,’ he said.
‘She only did that because I told her to,’ said Leo.
Farley turned towards Leo.
‘Right…’ he said.
‘Yeah, I knew she was pointing you out. It was just such a screw up. I’m just, what can I say? I’m just so sorry,’ he said.
‘Ah ha…’ said Farley. ‘How did you see me though? You were on stage…?’
‘Well, Marilyn wasn’t. She could see and she let me know where you were…’ he said.
‘Ah, ok…’ said Farley. ‘Wow, that Marilyn really had it for me, huh?'
'She had it in for all of us,' said Leo.
'Yeah, huh. Well, I guess it’s a good job I didn’t die then, eh?' said Farley. 'God, your friends really know how to pounce someone. They came out of nowhere and they had these boots on… Like proper killing boots…’
‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Never again… Never again… I’ll never have anything to do with those guys ever again. They are not our friends. ’
Leo shook his head. He looked at me to Farley, to me again.
‘I got it wrong,’ said Leo. ‘I got it so wrong.’