Free Never Ending by Martyn Bedford Page A

from. She was placed in a therapy group herself back in the early days. First session, the participants tossed a beanbag among themselves, the thrower saying their name, then asking What’s your name? to the person they threw the bag to. The first time the bag was tossed to Shiv she let it hit her chest and fall to the floor, the thrower’s question unanswered.
    She lasted three sessions before she was withdrawn from group work.
    It was too soon, she tells herself. She wasn’t ready to be helped.
    Sumner is laying down ground rules, talking about mutual respect. Shiv sits straighter in her seat, tries to focus, to give this a fair go.
    A little brass bell signals the start of Talk.
    Assistant Sumner asks them to close their eyes. At first Shiv keeps hers open, embarrassed by the idea of sitting with them shut in front of relative strangers. But the others all close their eyes – even Caron – and watching everyone else when they are oblivious to it makes Shiv feel like a spy. She closes her eyes too.
    Gradually, everyone settles and a hushed stillness envelops the room. Shiv has never been to a meditation class but this is what she imagines it’s like.
    As in Walk, it’s Declan she’s supposed to be thinking about.
    She can’t. Her mind is too buzzy with waiting for someone to speak; who will it be and what will they say? Other distractions too. Thoughts of Mikey and their conversation in the medical room.
    How did Phoebe drown? Shiv wanted to ask, before Nurse Zena appeared in the doorway, needing to tend to her patient. Why couldn’t you save her?
    “I heard a noise from the bedroom but I didn’t go to see if she was all right.”
    Lucy. The first speaker. After such a long silence, Shiv was starting to wonder if anyone would break it. Lucy explains that she is talking about her niece, Milly, who died while Lucy was babysitting. It’s like she’s giving evidence about an incident she witnessed but which didn’t directly involve her. Shiv knows that voice. She has used it herself, recounting Declan’s death for the umpteenth time. People give you a weird look; they don’t see that it might be the only way to get the words out.
    A response. Helen, the shaman, who played solo pool in the Rec Room last night before Caron and Shiv coaxed her into Buckaroo.
    “Why didn’t you go to her?” she asks. More curious than accusatory.
    “Because I was on Facebook.” Lucy uses the same neutral tone as before. “And when I logged off I’d forgotten about the noise in the bedroom. Forgotten all about Milly. I just sat there and ate a whole pack of biscuits in front of my sister’s TV. Then I fell asleep on the sofa.”
    After a pause, she says, “When they came home I still had crumbs on my top.”
    It’s all too easy to imagine the scene: the click of the key in the lock, the front door easing open, the sister’s whispered (not to wake Baby), “Hi, we’re home.” Lucy, jerking awake, a sleepy, biscuity taste in her mouth, standing up, hurriedly brushing crumbs off, the brother-in-law entering the lounge, drunk, saying something funny, the clip-clip of the sister’s shoes along the hall as she goes to check on their little girl.
    The anxiety in her voice – from concern, to panic, to terror.
    Shiv shuts the scene down. She doesn’t want to picture the sister’s face as she bends over the cot; she might see her own face instead, peering at Declan.
    Helen responds again. “How did Milly die?”
    “She choked,” Lucy manages to say. “She was sick and she choked. I was stuffing my fat face with biscuits while my little niece choked to death.”
    No one says a word for the longest time after that. A vast chasm of silence.
    Then, deadpan, Caron asks, “What type of biscuits were they?”
    The timing is perfect. In the microsecond before her question registers with the group – in the shocked disbelief when Caron’s words do sink in – it’s as though all the air has been sucked from the room. When