Sitting back on her heels she felt for his breastbone, placed the heel of her left hand on it, covered that with her right hand and laced her fingers together. The wound was somewhere on the left of his chest, close to his heart and his lung. Pumping his heart might increase the blood loss but without it there would be no chance for blood to reach his brain. She began to push, using her weight, counting the rhythm. Aware of the ground trembling, people running, approaching, a Babel of words: shot… I saw the car…has anyone rung the ambulance… broad daylight.
‘Come on, Danny. Stay with me. Come on.’ Fiona gave him two more breaths. Resumed pushing. The muscles in her upper arms ached with the strain, she was sweaty with exertion, her hands now smeared red, the smell of copper in her throat.
She was still trying when she heard the howl of the ambulance getting louder and louder, then abruptly ceasing. The paramedic put his hand on her shoulder, told her to move away, that they could take it from here. And she nodded, unable to speak. Placed her hand against Danny’s cheek and saw his eyes unfocused, still. She bent to kiss him on the forehead. A mother’s kiss.
Fiona tried to stand but her legs were numb, useless. She struggled to her feet and felt the world tilt. Dizzy. She closed her eyes.
Across the grass came a crowd, to add to the clutch of onlookers. Perhaps two dozen people, mostly black. In hats and frocks, finery and natty suits. Fiona thought of a wedding party. Then she remembered it was Sunday. Churchgoers. And in the centre of the crowd, three women. Three generations. The youngest, the boy’s age. Exactly. Calling out, crying, praying aloud. Anguished. Fiona moved back, moved away and watched as the women – the mother and grandmother, the sister Nadine – fell beside him, demanding hope from the paramedics, deliverance from their God.
Fiona stood reeling under the high, blue sky, voices swooping and diving around her, while the boy was injected, defibrillated and put on oxygen. They loaded him into the ambulance.
When the police came they took her to sit in a car at the edge of the grass. She told them everything she could but the order kept getting mixed up and she left things out and had to correct herself and retell it until she had stitched together the sequence. All about doing the home visit and hearing the shot, seeing through the window the boy fall, and racing out of the house. The car that almost ran her over, as she hurtled across the road, the glimpse of the driver, a white man, at the wheel. Reaching Danny.