The small crowd that has gathered – out of nowhere, hurrying from their homes – parts slightly and I see Bridie and Mairi running towards me, their faces shocked, as white as shells. And then I hear the wild, rasping screams, over and over, like the cry of a wounded animal, on and on as if they will never stop. I look around frantically, wide-eyed, terrified, wondering where they’re coming from.
It’s only as Bridie reaches me and wraps her arms around me that I realise the screams are mine.
I fight to get through to where Daisy lies, needing above all to hold her. As I reach her, there’s a gurgling choking sound and Davy turns her head to one side as a gush of seawater flows from her mouth. He presses a finger against her neck and looks up at me, relief flooding his face. ‘There’s a pulse.’
But her eyes are still shut, her damp lashes stark against the translucent, too-pale skin of her face. Tentatively, gently, I brush a strand of hair away from her forehead, where the shadow of a bruise is beginning to form. She looks so tiny, so fragile, lying there motionless, and I gasp as a sob judders through my whole being, unleashing a shaking so violent that it takes both Bridie and Mairi to hold me upright.
The crowd parts as the doctor strides to Daisy’s side, crouching, setting down his bag and opening her coat to press a stethoscope to her chest.
‘She fell between the boat and the jetty,’ Davy tells him. ‘I think she may have hit her head on the way down. She was only in the water for a minute or two, but she looked to be unconscious when I reached her. She wasn’t breathing and there was no pulse. I did CPR, she’s vomited up some water and there’s a breath and a pulse now.’ He sounds businesslike, clinical, telling the doctor the things he needs to know, but it panics me even more that they’re talking over my daughter like this, like it’s just an empty body, a shell, not my living, laughing Daisy any more.
The doctor nods. ‘We’ll not move her. There may be injuries to her head or her neck. The helicopter’s on its way.’
He swivels on his heels, turning to look at me. ‘Don’t worry, Lexie, we’ll get her to the hospital just as quick as we can. You can go with her. Davy here’s done all the right things.’ He notices the trembling that wracks my body, making my teeth chatter. ‘She’s in shock,’ he tells Bridie. ‘Can someone lend her a coat?’ he calls.
A jacket is draped over my shoulders and Mairi pulls me close, letting the warm solidity of her body support mine. Someone else has brought blankets and they are wrapped around Davy’s shoulders because he is shivering, too. One is laid gently, softly, over Daisy as I kneel at her side, clutching one of her tiny hands, willing the fingers to curl around mine. But they don’t respond. And in my head all I can hear is please . . . please . . . please. Until, after an age, the noise of the helicopter’s blades chops the air above us into a million pieces and they seem to flutter down around us like dying leaves.
Our arrival at the hospital is a blur of half-remembered impressions: the kindness of the medic in the helicopter who held my hand on the surprisingly short journey as we flew over the hills and sea lochs; Daisy looking so tiny and fragile, her unmoving body strapped into a cradle that they lifted out and placed on a trolley as if it were as weightless as a feather; the team of doctors and nurses who surrounded her as we hurried through the warren of brightly lit corridors; watching, helpless, as they took her away for X-rays; the waiting; the not-daring-to-breathe minutes – which felt like hours – as I sat with my arms wrapped around myself, trying not to fall apart, as I waited and waited and then waited some more.
And then, at last, the moment when the doctor came through and she had a smile on her face as she held my hand in hers and told me that they were cautiously optimistic. Davy’s quick actions had undoubtedly saved Daisy’s life. ‘She has no broken bones and there doesn’t seem to be any damage to her spine. But she has a severe concussion and hasn’t regained consciousness yet. We’ll just have to wait and see how she is when she comes around . . . If need be, we can arrange for her to be taken from Yorkhill to one of the other Glasgow hospitals where there’s a scanner that can look into her brain. But it’s too early to tell if there’s any lasting brain damage yet.’
I struggled to swallow the panic that choked me when I heard those last words. ‘Can I see her?’ I managed to croak.
‘Of course. We’re just getting her settled into a side room where we can keep a close eye on her. You can come through now.’