Last Chance Angel Read online

  For Michael, Chris, Nick and Emily,

  with love,

  and with special thanks to my editors,

  Anne and Katie

  “It is never too late to be

  what you might have been.”

  George Eliot

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  SHADOWS

  TEMPTATION

  FREEDOM

  HOME

  WARNING

  SARA

  PROBLEMS

  LEARNING

  NATASHA

  SUPPORT

  SECRETS

  KELLY

  YASMIN

  GRAN

  SCHOOL

  BETRAYAL

  FAMILY

  REFLECTION

  DESTINY

  ALTERNATIVES

  CHOOSING

  HONOUR

  WILL

  MIRACLES

  LOVE

  Copyright

  THURSDAY, 2 FEBRUARY – 4.15 P.M.

  It was a spur of the moment decision to take the bike, one of those uncharacteristic impulses which can change your life and your death. We’d been given this really hard maths homework and I’d left it until the last minute. Even my brother, Jamie, couldn’t work it out and he’s two years older than me and went through all the GCSE stress last year. There was no point bothering Mum. She just glazes over at the mention of a fraction, and I didn’t want to wait for Dad. The less I had to do with him, the better. Yasmin was my only hope.

  I could have left it, but my maths teacher, Mrs Baxter, always implied that instead of being numerically challenged, I just wasn’t trying. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t add, subtract, divide or multiply. What more do you need in life, I thought. Then she put that comment on my Christmas report card: Jessica attends her maths lessons in body but not in spirit. It will demand a supreme effort on her behalf if she is to achieve her potential. Does she have it in her? It remains to be seen. To be fair, she did have a point. Maths was my favourite subject for daydreaming. I could have got top grades in that.

  Looking back, I don’t know why that report card got under my skin more than any of the others. It wasn’t as if it was completely different to what she normally put, but this time I felt she was writing me off, condemning me to failure, and I didn’t like being underestimated. It was time to show ‘She of so little faith’ the error of her ways, and top of my list of New Year’s resolutions was to make more of an effort in my worst subject. So on 2 February at 4.15 in the afternoon I called goodbye to Mum, quietly took the bike out of the garage and set off for Yasmin’s house.

  There wasn’t much time. It was really important that I was back by six o’clock when Dad returned from work. I daren’t leave him on his own with Mum. Jamie was upstairs but his music was turned up so loudly that he never heard anything. Perhaps that’s why he played it at full blast – a deliberate blocking-out policy. Boys are infuriatingly good at that. I was the complete opposite. Our family was disintegrating by the day and I needed to log every minute detail: the rows, the silences, the tracing of tears on Mum’s face. Knowing exactly what was going on was my way of preparing myself, protecting myself, which seems ironic considering what happened next.

  The bike was new at Christmas and Jamie would never have let me borrow it, even if I’d grovelled. As I sneaked it out of the garage I just didn’t think about lights. After all, Yasmin’s house was only half a mile away and I intended to be back well before dark. I should have known that the homework would take for ever because poor Yasmin had to explain the working-out again and again. She was incredibly patient as usual but I still ended up feeling as thick as congealed custard. We both deserved a treat after all that stress so she played her latest download while we drooled over photos of mega-expensive clothes in some magazines. I was just about to leave when Yasmin’s mum appeared with a plate of doughnuts. It would have been rude to refuse, so by the time I finally got outside their front door it was almost six o’clock and a fine drizzle sprayed from the sky. Dusk was thickening fast.

  “See you tomorrow,” Yasmin called as I swung my navy rucksack over my shoulder. “Where are your lights?”

  “Forgot them.”

  I clocked the worried look in her eyes.

  “It’s not far. I’ll be fine.”

  “Haven’t you got a helmet?”

  She was so cautious, so practical.

  “They ruin your hair.”

  I ran my fingers through my straight, light-brown hair. It was so fine and lacking in body at the best of times that the last thing I wanted was to flatten it even more with a helmet.

  “Better flat hair than flat you,” she said.

  Did I shiver? Did she have a premonition at that point? Did I? I don’t think so. If I’d thought anything at all it would be that accidents happened to other people.

  “Promise you’ll walk?” she persisted.

  I smiled and nodded. I remember thinking that it wasn’t so bad to lie, to break a promise, if you didn’t utter any words out loud.

  “Thanks for the help,” I called. “You might turn me into a maths genius yet.”

  She laughed and waved back, watching me walk alongside the bike until I turned the corner at the end of her road.

  As soon as I was out of sight, I eased myself onto the eye-watering boy’s saddle and started to pedal out of town, along Forest Road, head down against the rain, completely unaware that my life was about to change. I checked my watch. Five minutes to six. Soon Mum would be calling vainly up the stairs for Jamie to come down and Dad would be about to park his car outside the garage.

  I wondered what sort of a mood he’d be in tonight. It would depend on his plans. Perhaps he’d concoct another pretend business meeting to attend, when we all knew he was going out to meet her. I couldn’t bear the thought of Mum shouting and crying again, like last week. She had clutched at Dad’s shirt to stop him leaving the house, begged him to think about what he was doing to us, his treachery shrinking her eyes into their sockets. I had watched from the kitchen door.

  That’s where they say you should take shelter in an earthquake, beneath a door frame. I’d noticed how Dad’s arms stiffened by his sides, fists clenched as if he was trying really hard not to hit her, and I moved forward to stand between them. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t hit me but one day, if I wasn’t there, one day when Mum was on her own, he might not be able to stop himself from lashing out at her. That was why I had to get home before him.

  My legs pumped the pedals faster and I lifted my bum off the seat, leaning forwards, imagining I was on the Tour de France. A small degree of satisfaction flowed through me as I thought how my thigh muscles were being toned. All the cars had their lights on now and shadows stalked me, but I was nearly there. Just a couple more minutes and I would have been turning into our street with its hotchpotch of houses and neatly kept gardens. But that’s not what happened.

  The car swooshed out of a side road, taking advantage of a gap in the rush-hour traffic. It obviously hadn’t seen me. There wasn’t time to swerve, barely time to swear. We didn’t stand a chance of avoiding each other. I yanked at the brakes but the drizzle had formed an oily slick all over the tarmac. A fried egg in a non-stick pan would have had a better grip than my tyres. I slammed into the passenger door with the force of a charging rhinoceros before I started to fly. I’m pretty sure I actually somersaulted over the roof of that car. It obviously wasn’t Olympic gymnast standard, but for someone who can’t normally manage a forward roll without cricking their neck, it felt really impressive.

  It’s amazing what you have time to consider in a few seconds. There was a huge steaming dog poo on the edge of the pavement and a
discarded polystyrene box in the gutter. It looked as if it contained some sort of tomato pasta, but as I got closer it could have been vomit. It’s difficult to tell the difference when you’re in a spin. I wondered which would be the least repulsive to land in. If I’d tried harder in gym lessons I might have had more control of where I was going, but it was too late now. At least the dog poo was fresh and it might cushion my fall slightly.

  I remember worrying about my mobile phone flying out of my pocket and getting lost, and that I’d forgotten to take my library books back. I don’t remember thinking that I was going to die. I suppose I expected to land, brush myself down and continue on my way like they do in cartoons. That was before I plummeted to the ground like a parcel without a parachute.

  The back of my head smashed into the kerb and my lower spine tried to impress itself into a storm drain but for a few blissful seconds there wasn’t any pain. I looked up at the sky. It was beautiful: indigo streaked with orange and silver. A pale moon tumbled out from behind the inky rain cloud. I didn’t want to move, just to stay quite still and feel that sky. My head started to feel fuzzy.

  “Focus, Jess,” I said to myself. “Stay here. Don’t drift away.”

  Certain things leaped out at me as if I was in a 3D film. A leaning beech tree stretched its bare branches over the pavement and I could just make out the little brown buds at the ends of the twiggy bits. I imagined those sticky casings splitting apart in a month’s time and the fresh, lime-green leaves spilling out into the open air. Someone had nailed a bird box to the trunk of that tree and a blackbird was singing its heart out directly above me. It seemed like my own personal lullaby. I hoped all of that effort didn’t make it want to poop. I closed my mouth just in case and the fuzziness intensified.

  At the back of my head, where it joined the pavement, a deep thudding began to pulsate from my brain. Car doors slammed, jolting me back to reality. Exhaust fumes filled my nostrils and suddenly I felt sick. A bus went past, gawping faces pressed to the filmy windows. I prayed Will wasn’t on there, looking down at me with my nose reddened by the cold and mascara smudged by the rain. My heart did a little drum roll at the thought of him. He’s my brother’s best friend and I adore him. He’s funny and good-looking with dark brown hair that curls at the nape of his neck and a lopsided smile that always makes me blush. There was no way in a trillion light years that a guy like him would ever take any notice of a girl like me. That didn’t stop me dreaming, though. One day I hoped he’d see me for the fantastic, funny, attractive person I really was instead of just Jamie’s kid sister. One day, if I wished hard enough, he might just ask me out.

  “Don’t move, love.”

  A man bent over me, chasing away my dreams of Will. I licked my lips in case there was the remains of a sugar moustache from the doughnut around my mouth. I tried to smile. It felt odd, as if my head was opening up at the back. Someone was crying. How dare they! If anyone had permission to cry it should be me. I was the one in trouble, with dog poo in my hair and one favourite red Converse trainer idling in vomited pasta.

  “You’re going to be okay,” the man said soothingly.

  I’d never doubted it until that moment. I started to wonder how badly damaged the bike was and how long it would take me to save up for a replacement. Funny, I didn’t wonder how badly damaged I was. A siren started up in the distance. The road hummed beneath me as cars drove past, everyone carrying on with their lives. It was comforting to know that the whole world didn’t need to stop and have a look. It couldn’t be that bad.

  “The ambulance is coming.”

  The man’s steady hand was warm and reassuring as it grasped my shaking one.

  I tried to remember whether I’d got my best knickers on. Gran always joked that you should wear nice underwear in case you had an accident and needed to go to hospital. I had a horrible feeling that I’d let her down and was wearing the frayed, greyish ones that said Tuesday. It was Thursday, wasn’t it, or was it Friday?

  My eyes started to go fuzzy like a television that needs tuning and I could smell curry among the drifting exhaust smoke. I hoped it wasn’t Mum’s. She makes a really rank curry. Her face flickered in front of me, her fair wavy hair drifting in front of her heart-shaped face. She had freckles too and a small, snub nose. She looked young for her age, or she had done until Dad started messing about. I tried to lift my arm to check my watch. It must have been after six o’clock, and Dad would be home. I needed to be there.

  As I tried to move, a sudden pain swerved through my head and an ice-cold feeling twined its way upwards from my toes. The road surface didn’t feel so solid any more. The tarmac seemed to be softening beneath me like it did under the intense heat of last summer. Its gooey blackness was sucking me down like a vat of Gran’s treacle toffee. Crashing white noise filled my ears, drowning out the blackbird. I wanted to hear that bird.

  That’s when I started to scrabble for breath as the fear floundered through me. Someone else was crying now, and there was pain. So much pain everywhere. The back of my head felt sticky. I wondered if I was bleeding. I can’t stand the sight of blood. It makes me feel faint. The sky was so beautiful but it was getting dimmer. The crying got louder. “Shut up,” I wanted to shout. “Shut up, will you! You’re scaring me.” Just before I lost consciousness I realised that the cries were mine.

  FRIDAY, 3 MARCH – 8.30 A.M.

  The journey seemed to take ages and I hadn’t been prepared. One minute I was lying in my hospital bed, trying to hang on to everything going on – the bleep of the monitors, Mum’s voice which was getting more and more distant – and then there was someone calling me. It wasn’t a voice I recognised and I didn’t want to listen but it was right inside my head, calling my name again and again. I felt as if I had a rope around my feet, dragging me towards the entrance to a tunnel.

  “Mum,” I wanted to shout, “hold on to me. Don’t let me go.”

  But even without the horrible hospital tube down my throat I wouldn’t have been able to say anything. For days and days I’d been trying to let them all know that I was there, that I could hear them. But none of them heard my cries for help, not the doctors or nurses, not my brother or my gran, not even Mum and Dad. I was the only one who could hear the screams inside my head.

  The tunnel was full of bright light and the voice that was calling me was so persuasive, as if it belonged to one of those Sirens who were supposed to lure sailors to their doom. I knew it wasn’t right, that I should block my ears, but the voice twined around me like the bindweed at the bottom of Gran’s garden and I couldn’t help myself. I was being sucked upwards, feet first, as if there was some giant vacuum cleaner at the other end of that tunnel. I put my hands out, splayed my feet, but there was nothing to grab on to, nothing to help me slow down or stop my journey. Besides, I hadn’t got much strength.

  Up and up I went, looping around corners so fast that I felt dizzy, my eyes flickering against the light which was getting brighter and whiter until suddenly it was all over. I was spewed out of the tunnel and landed in a crumpled heap at someone’s feet. I’d braced myself, expecting it to hurt, but there was just this white, cotton-wool softness and mist, lots of mist. The man standing next to me had a pale, angular face with arched eyebrows and a creepy lack of lines. He didn’t look friendly, but it wasn’t that which made me tremble. It was the shimmering gold ring above his head and the silver-tipped wings which fanned out behind his arms. Unless I was mistaken, or was hallucinating, I had landed at the feet of what looked distinctly like an angel.

  The angel’s beautifully manicured fingernails played a little tune as they tapped impatiently against a cloud-shaped clipboard.

  “Name?”

  He barely glanced at me.

  “Jessica.”

  “Full name,” he demanded. “There are a whole host of Jessicas up here.”

  “Jessica Rowley.”

  “Age?”

  He stifled a yawn and I struggled to stand up. It was hard, like
trying to walk in those ball pools that Mum used to take me to when I was little. I wobbled to an upright position and blinked. Where was I? What was I doing in this strange place? It must be a dream. Soon I would wake up, wouldn’t I?

  “I’m fourteen and…” I hesitated. I’d lost track of time. “My birthday’s January the twenty-fifth.”

  “Aquarius,” he murmured, scanning the list in front of him. “That’s a bad sign.”

  He flicked over several sheets of impossibly thin paper and pursed his lips.

  “Are you booked in?”

  “I’m sorry?” I was floating now and it was the strangest sensation. I wanted to sit down, to feel something solid and secure beneath me.

  “Concentrate!” He snapped his fingers right in front of my face. “I asked if you’re booked in?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  I wanted to go back to the safety of the hospital bed, back to Mum holding my hand and Dad sounding falsely jolly.

  “Did you pick up your ticket?”

  The angel flicked a bit of his highlighted hair back into place.

  “No.”

  He threw up his hands in apparent frustration. I wanted to cry.

  “All the tickets for today are in a little box halfway up the Flume of Fate. I re-stocked it myself only a couple of hours ago, despite having a mountain of other things to do, I might add. You have no idea how long my list is…”

  “I’m sorry. I must have missed them.”

  Why was he being like this? Couldn’t he see that I wasn’t well? The receptionist in my doctor’s surgery was more welcoming, even if you only went in with a cold. I put up my hand as if I was in school.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  He sighed so hard the flowers on his very loud shirt seemed to wilt. I knew that something was terribly wrong. Why couldn’t I shake myself out of this dream?

  “W-what exactly is the Flume of Fate?”

  “It’s the fast lane to Paradise, of course. This is the processing room. You have to go through here first, having picked up your ticket with your name on it.”