Black Diamond by Rachel Ingalls

Author:Rachel Ingalls [Rachel Ingalls]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571298464
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2012-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

*

After Alma came home from the hospital with Elton, she made some sandwiches and the two of them watched the news on television. There were pictures of the bus crash she’d been in and the aircraft accident she’d only just missed.

‘That was my bus,’ she said.

‘Which?’

‘That one there.’

‘Eight people died.’

‘That’s how I got the cut in front of my ear. And that plane crash: I wasn’t in it, but we were right near where it was. We drove by it.’ She tried to recall scenes from the past day but she couldn’t get them in sequence. She sat still, her eyes staring ahead until the program was over.

‘I think maybe you ought to get some rest,’ Elton suggested.

‘Just as soon as I make a couple of phone calls.’

She telephoned California. Tom answered. He sounded pleased to hear her. He called Rose to the phone.

Rose said, ‘We were so worried. There was that bus wreck, nearly everybody dead, and then a crash at the airport, too. The boys were going crazy. They kept saying that even if you’d missed one, you might have been in the other one.’

Alma told her that she’d been in the bus; and that she’d seen the accident at the airport. She was all right. But her mother had died, so she was going to stay on for a while. She didn’t know for how long. It might be a week. Or longer.

She phoned Bruce one more time.

As soon as he picked up the phone, he asked, ‘What’s happened?’

When she told him that Bess was dead, he said he was sorry. She gave him the date Elton had set for the funeral.

He said, ‘I won’t be coming.’

‘You’d better.’

‘How would that help her?’

‘It would help us. It would specially help Daddy.’

‘He’ll be all right. He’s got you there.’

‘Why did you give me your number, if it wasn’t for something like this? What could be worse than this?’

‘Jesus, Alma, don’t fold up on me now. I gave it to you so you could tell me what was going on.’

‘Well, I’m telling you. Come on home.’

‘No, I can’t,’ he said, and hung up again.

After that, she went to pieces. She cried for four minutes without stopping, and then collapsed on the front hall floor. Elton got Dr Mason over straight away; he told him about Bess’s death, the bus crash, everything. Dr Mason said it was possible that Alma was suffering from delayed shock, but as far as he could tell at the moment, she was actually just asleep.

They carried her up to her room, took off her shoes and put a blanket over her. Elton asked the doctor to stay and have a drink. Dr Mason looked at his watch and said: Yes, sure, there was time for a beer. They sat and talked for twenty minutes or so.

*

I dreamt that I was getting married to Alma. We were standing in front of the preacher and he said, ‘Do you, Bruce,’ and so on. And I said, ‘I don’t have to.

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