Lily Alone: A gripping and emotional drama
What sort of mother would leave her all alone… a gripping and heart-wrenching domestic drama that won’t let you go.Lily, who is almost three years old, wakes up alone at home with only her cuddly toy for company. She is afraid of the dark, can’t use the phone, and has been told never to open the door to strangers.But why is Lily alone and why isn’t there anyone who can help her? What about the lonely old woman in the flat below who wonders at the cries from the floor above? Or the grandmother who no longer sees Lily since her parents split up?All the while a young woman lies in a coma in hospital – no one knows her name or who she is, but in her silent dreams, a little girl is crying for her mummy… and for Lily, time is running out.
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HarperImpulse
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017
Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com / Cover design by Books Uncovered
Vivien Brown asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008252113
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008252120
Version: 2017-05-18
Contents
Ruby
There’s a face looking down at me. Big and blurry, not quite in focus. I close my eyes and open them again, slowly, but it’s still there. Go away. I don’t know who you are. Let me sleep. I need to sleep.
Other faces now, working their way into shot, waving about around the edges like the petals of a daisy, opening and closing, opening and closing. My back feels cold, and I’m lying on something hard. And wet. I don’t know how I got here. Or where here is.
‘It’s okay, sweetheart. Don’t try to move.’
Mike. Mike always calls me sweetheart. Calls everybody sweetheart. Is he here?
‘You’ve been in an accident. Just hold on there. The ambulance is on its way.’
It’s a woman now, bending down next to me. What does she mean, hold on? What am I supposed to hold on to? I try to reach for her hand, but mine won’t move. It just lies there, like a piece of dead meat. Disconnected.
The woman’s knees are bony, pressed against my side, and there’s water running off her mac and dripping onto my hand. I’m lying in the road. And it’s raining. How did I end up in the road? She touches my shoulder. Her face is white, really white, as if she’s had a shock; seen a ghost or something.
Why do I feel so cold? Did I forget to put the heating on? Where’s my duvet? I just want everyone to go away and leave me alone, so I can close my eyes and go back to sleep. But there’s so much noise. People talking, whispering, crying. Why is someone crying? Sirens now. Getting louder, closer.
And a minute later – or is it five? ten? – the thumping of a door. Two people in bright yellow jackets are squatting in front of me, touching me, talking to me, asking me my name. I stare at the yellow. It’s the same yellow as Lily’s new pyjamas, but without the rabbits. Lily likes rabbits. My stomach lurches. Lily. Where’s Lily?
‘Your name, sweetheart,’ one of them says again. ‘Can you tell us your name?’
I try to lift my head, to look for her. She should be here, with me, but she isn’t. My head falls back down, hard, as if I can’t hold its weight. Someone is clamping something around my neck now, and I can’t move any more. The sky is everywhere. It’s all I can see, like a thick grey blanket falling over me. I can feel the wetness at the back of my head, running down my neck, creeping inside my hood. It’s warm, sticky. Not like rain at all. Something – everything – hurts. Really hurts.
‘Lily …’ I say. ‘Lily …’
And then I’m gone.
Archie was hungry. Lily let his wet ear slip out of her mouth. She rubbed a sweaty hand over her eyelids and yawned, cuddled Archie up tight to her chest, then threw the covers back and held him up at arm’s length, tugging his little knitted trousers off over his feet.
Archie should have pyjamas for when he went to bed. Or to wear in the daytime sometimes, when there was nothing special to get dressed for. Lily had been wearing hers all morning, and so had Mummy.
