by Polly Ho-Yen
I see Julie and Steve exchange a look.
‘You both saw it?’ Steve asks.
Angharad and I look at each other for a tiny moment.
‘I was right there,’ Angharad starts to say.
‘But I saw it,’ I finish for her.
‘Did you see any of it, Angharad?’ Steve asks her. His eyes crinkle and I see doubt flash across them.
‘Well, no, but that was because Billy pulled me away. For my safety. I was having a bit of an asthma attack. But that Ted guy was there.’
‘You had an asthma attack?’ Julie’s voice rises sharply.
‘It was nothing serious.’ Angharad shrugs.
‘So let me get this straight,’ Steve says. ‘You didn’t see this man at all, and you didn’t see anyone… transform.’ He cringes as he says it.
Defeated, Angharad shakes her head.
‘But I did. I saw it. It happened, I swear.’
‘It’s just that it’s… it’s hard to believe,’ Julie says. ‘There’s a man who’s come back from the dead? And he can turn people grey?’
‘It’s not like he turns them grey,’ I say. ‘It’s like they catch something from him, the same thing that turned him grey.’
Suddenly a memory flashes back to me. The diagrams that Sylvia had pinned to the wall in the Martello tower. They look so clear in my mind, it’s as though I am back in that dark room, standing in front of them.
‘What is it, Billy?’ Angharad asks, seeing the look on my face.
‘I think I’ve seen something about this before. I saw some diagrams where people were coloured in grey.’
‘Where did you see diagrams like that?’ Steve asks.
I hesitate. But I have to say it, maybe it’s an important clue to help us save Ted and the fallen man. ‘Sylvia,’ I tell him. ‘Sylvia had them.’
Steve and Julie don’t say anything but they look at each other, in shock and something else that I can’t quite pinpoint; fear, worry, alarm?
‘You see! Maybe we weren’t the first to see this happen. Maybe it will happen to more people,’ Angharad says. ‘If we don’t do anything about it.’
‘You didn’t actually see anything, sweetheart,’ Julie says gently. ‘It was just Billy.’
Angharad opens her mouth as if to protest and then realizes that she can’t. Julie looks at Steve again, another silent conversation happening between them.
I can feel my heart thumping in my chest. It feels as though it might burst out. Every part of me is tensed with a mixture of anger and hurt at not being believed. Sylvia would believe me in a heartbeat, she would never think I was lying.
‘Umm…’ Steve rubs his chin. His face looks strained and a little white. ‘Look, I need to speak to Julie for a moment alone.’ Again I feel a bolt of rage and sadness flash through me. I didn’t know until then that not being believed could feel like a pain. It hangs over my shoulders and drags down my spine, a kind of shame that eats away at me. And it’s all mixed up with a hot, lashing anger. I feel like I am shaking, trying to contain it all inside me. But Angharad doesn’t hold back.
‘What do you need to talk about?’ says Angharad in a shot. ‘I can’t believe that you don’t believe us. Why would we make it up?’
‘Angharad!’ Julie exclaims. ‘Don’t answer back like that. Stay in here, Steve and I will speak in the kitchen.’
Angharad waits until they’ve left and then she goes straight up to the door and presses her ear against it.
‘I can’t really hear them,’ she whispers. ‘Hold on.’
I walk over and strain my ears too to catch any part of their conversation, but they are keeping their voices low and quiet.
‘I think they said something about humouring… I’m not sure. They’re coming back!’ Angharad hisses.
We dart away from the door and slump on the sofa as we were before.
‘Right,’ Steve says. ‘Julie and I think that we should all go back to the garages and see if we can find these people. I’ll take my phone and if we find them we’ll call the police straightaway.’
‘Let’s go,’ Angharad says, standing. ‘We need to find them quickly, but just make sure you don’t get too close to them or the same thing might happen to us that did to Ted.’
‘Ted? How do you know his name?’ Steve asks.
‘Because we heard him talking to his wife about the dog,’ I say. ‘Remember? The dog was barking, that’s how we found them.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Julie says, unconvincingly.
We set off for the garages, Angharad leading the way. The sun has come out now and all we can hear is the sound of children playing in gardens, the diluted chimes of an ice-cream van from a far-off street.
There’s no dog barking. There are no strange shrieks.
When we get to the garages, there’s a white car with its engine exposed at the entrance of one of the garages, and a young man wearing a black cap and whistling while he works.
No fallen man.
No grey skin.
No shrieks.
The man gives us a nod when he notices us.
‘Excuse me,’ Angharad says, walking over to him despite Julie hissing at her to come back. ‘Have you seen anyone else just here? Someone with grey skin? There might be two of them?’
The man scratches his beard. ‘Grey skin? Like they were wearing make-up? I haven’t seen anyone since I got here about ten minutes ago. Apart from you lot, of course. It’s a bit early for Halloween, isn’t it?’
He laughs, but Angharad stays put. ‘If you do see someone like that, call the police,’ she says. ‘Call them straightaway.’
‘Are they going to get me?’ the man says, a teasing tone lining his voice.
Angharad stalks away then, back towards us.
‘I know you don’t believe us,’ she says to Steve and Julie, looking them straight in the eye, standing taller than I ever could. ‘But Billy and I know what happened here. I still think we should call the police. We could knock on the door of Ted’s house too; his wife will be able to tell us that he’s gone missing. It was that house, wasn’t it, Billy?’
Despite Julie and Steve not believing me, the way that Angharad is acting, like there’s no chance I’m wrong, even though she didn’t actually see it, makes me feel stronger.
‘Yes, that house there,’ I answer. I catch Steve’s eye. Only a second passes before he looks away.
‘We’re not bothering anyone else,’ Julie says sternly. ‘That’s quite enough now. You,’ she says to Angharad, ‘always get swept up in telling these stories. I think that we’d better go home.’
‘Fine by me,’ Angharad says. ‘It’s not safe here.’
‘Is that what all this is really about?’ Julie says. ‘I thought you were getting along, but all the while you were just plotting this ridiculous story so you wouldn’t have to spend time with each other?’
‘It’s not like that,’ Angharad says, hotly. ‘Billy. Tell them.’
‘Sylvia always said she was getting me ready for something bad that was going to happen. Maybe this is it.’ As soon as I speak the words I wish I could take them back.
Steve’s face turns stormy.
‘That’s enough,’ he says. He speaks in a hard tone I’ve not heard before. It’s both quiet and loud at the same time. It feels like something physical, like a punch.
Julie looks embarrassed and unsure of which way to look. Even Angharad looks like she feels sorry for me now.
But before I can say any more, Julie and Steve separate us.
HOW TO FEEL LOST
The clock ticks.
It ticks too loudly. It gets louder with every tick, I am sure of it.
We are waiting in a room with a vase of fake, plastic pink carnations and a pile of tatty magazines. The seats are hard, plastic-moulded and uncomfortable against my body. There’s a television on the wall, with the sound off, which plays news stories with subtitles on, in a never-ending loop.
Steve sits opposite me, his hands pl
aced on his knees, looking straight ahead. He’s nervous. He’s been nervous all morning. From the moment he woke me; passing me a plate of half-burnt toast at 7 a.m. and telling me that we were going, we were really going to see Sylvia. We left the house so quickly that I forgot my phone and only when we were squashed on to the second train did I remember that I was meant to be seeing Anwar today and had no way of telling him that I couldn’t come any more. We had to travel across London and then take another train, then a taxi which finally led us here.
This is where Sylvia lives now. It’s meant to be somewhere she can ‘get the help that she needs’. At least, that’s what I overheard the doctor say to Steve outside this little waiting room we’re sitting in.
I wish that I had brought something for her. We talked about it briefly but in the rush of leaving and being late, the moment slipped past. I looked at the bunches of sad-looking flowers in a bucket at the train station but I knew she wouldn’t really like them and then Steve was calling me to go.
‘Are you okay?’ Steve asks me.
I give him a nod although I feel tired and disbelieving that we are here. We’ve been travelling for most of the day and my body feels stiff and cramped from sitting on trains. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask back.
Steve doesn’t answer but smiles at me, just a little.
‘Why now?’ I ask in a small voice. ‘Why have we come to see Sylvia now?’
‘Umm… I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and after yesterday, Julie thought, well we thought that it was time. If you see your mum, you might understand everything that’s happened a bit more.’ He sighs loudly and rubs his hands together nervously.
‘You don’t believe what I saw at all, do you?’
‘I believe you think you saw something,’ Steve says. He has a pained look on his face. ‘But it might not have been what you think it was. Being with your mum might have given you… a different idea of reality,’ he finishes awkwardly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that. I haven’t been making it up, Billy, your mum’s still not well. She’s still recovering. And maybe living with her on your own for so long has made you see things that possibly aren’t really there.’
‘So you do think I made it up?’
‘I don’t think you meant to,’ he tells me. ‘Just like your mum didn’t mean to do some of the things that she did.’ He looks at me, weighing up what to say next. ‘But, no, I don’t think that you really saw a grey man turning someone else into a monster.’
I stay silent. I know it sounds mad when it’s put like that, but I also know what I saw. And I know that Sylvia was teaching me to look after myself because she thought that I needed to be ready. Maybe she didn’t know exactly what was coming, but that doesn’t mean she was wrong.
‘Billy, the important thing for you to know is that this is a good place. That everyone here is helping your mum and I want you to see that for yourself. Your mum has spent time in here before and it has helped her to get better.’
He falls into silence and looks at his feet.
I can’t look at him either, so I stare from the tattered, dusty carnations to the magazines to the television screen where a woman with short, straight blonde hair stares out, a serious look on her face. I glance at the subtitles.
The cause of this mystery illness has yet to be established – there have been two fatalities so far but medical staff at the BRI in Bristol have confirmed the surviving patients remain in a ‘severely critical state’. Police are trying to identify what links this group of people and ask if anyone has any more information that they come forward immediately. Our local correspondent Nita Chowdni is in Bristol now.
The image switches to another woman standing outside a hospital. She’s going into more detail about how quickly the illness struck and then the screen fills with photographs of different faces. The subtitle reads: Victims of the mystery but fatal virus which has yet to be identified by medical authorities.
My mind races and I look again at the screen full of faces. Among the group are two young paramedics. I know that’s who they are because in the photo they are standing by an ambulance in their uniforms. They are smiling, looking like they might have just been about to start laughing about something.
There is a photograph of a man standing outside somewhere, the sun hitting his face so he has to squint slightly. The landscape behind him looks rugged and wild.
I almost have to stop myself from leaping up from the hard plastic chair as I realize that I recognize him. It’s the man who was driving the car and jumped out to help the fallen man. I remember he was wearing a blue jacket that made me think he did a lot of walking.
Suddenly, I’m sure. These are all the people who helped the fallen man. For whatever reason, they didn’t get changed by him like Ted did, they just got really sick.
‘They got infected by him, too.’ I think aloud without meaning to. ‘But in a different way. It’s all connected.’
‘What did you say?’ Steve says.
Just then the door opens and a nurse wearing a lilac-coloured uniform comes in.
‘Hi, Steve, hi, Billy, I’m Jo. I’m going to take you to see Sylvia today. I know that she’s been really looking forward to seeing you both, especially you, Billy.’
I try to push away my spiralling thoughts about the fallen man, and concentrate on why I’m here. Sylvia. I’m finally going to see Sylvia. And just like that, everything else melts away.
Jo has a calming sort of voice. I feel that she could lull you to sleep if you listened to her for long enough.
‘Now, it’s been a few months since you saw your mum, is that right?’
I nod.
‘Okay, well, it’s important to remember that your mum is working hard on getting better, and while she’s doing that some things might seem different about her. She might not be the same as you remember her right now because she is having to put a lot of her energy into her recovery rather than just being herself. Does that make sense?’ Jo asks me.
I nod my head again, although I don’t really understand what she is saying.
‘Can I see her now?’ I ask instead.
‘Of course – follow me.’
We go down a corridor – the floor is mint green and smells fiercely antiseptic.
I can’t help but look into other rooms that we pass. Sometimes the doors are just swinging closed and I catch a glimpse of the inside. I don’t see any faces, only the backs of people or sometimes just a pale green sheet covering them, still in bed. We go through some swinging double doors and then some more. I look back the way that we came and wonder if I’d be able to find my way again if I came here alone.
Each door that swings closed behind us makes my heart contract. I can feel a sort of heat or wriggling sensation climbing from my stomach up over my shoulders. It makes me feel quite sick, makes my footsteps smaller, slower.
‘Are you all right, Billy?’ I hear Steve asking me. I’ve come to a standstill and when I look down at my hands, I can see that they are trembling. I’m nervous, I realize, to be finally seeing Sylvia. Then out of nowhere I hear a voice in my head. Master your fears, Rule number four. I make myself take a deep breath. I straighten my back, look forward and force my feet to work.
‘I’m okay,’ I say.
We carry on walking, down another corridor and then another.
‘Here she is,’ announces Jo, pushing open the door of one of the small rooms. We arrive next to a bed that looks like all the others that we have passed. It has a body within it that is looking away, that is sheltering under its covers.
‘Sylvia,’ Jo says softly, ‘you have visitors, love.’ And then, quieter still: ‘Billy’s here.’
The body in the bed does not move. The body in the bed does not respond. I cannot see how the body in the bed can be Sylvia. The woman who has taken me on so many adventures, who usually has so much energy that it’s like she can’t sit still at all.
‘Sylvia?’ Steve says gentl
y. ‘We’re here.’
He reaches out a hand to touch the green-clothed figure in the bed in front of us but still she does not move.
‘Billy, why don’t you speak to her?’ Jo suggests. ‘Just talk to her like you normally would, if you can. She might not wake up, but I know she’ll want to hear your voice.’
But I am wordless. I feel choked up with what to say and what not to say. I feel like I’m watching everything play out from a distance – me, Steve and Jo standing around the hospital bed – as though I am quite separate from it happening, as if I am watching it happen to someone else.
Jo pulls back the covers a little so we can see the face of the person in the bed. She is asleep, her eyelids are firmly shut. But the body looks like Sylvia. It’s got the same colour hair, although it’s a bit longer than I remember and it’s fuzzy from not being brushed and lank from not being washed. The nose is the right shape and the mouth, though a little pale and dry, looks like Sylvia’s mouth.
But it’s not Sylvia. Not really. This still, silent body seems so far from the Sylvia that I know. Her light is gone. The light that drove her to take me on adventures and make sure we were prepared. The light that made her lean into me quite suddenly and sweep me up in a close, tight hug that would take my breath away – that light is gone. So much so, that part of me doubts that this is Sylvia at all.
There’s a commotion suddenly from one of the other rooms. An alarm rings out.
Jo hurries out of the room. I hear her call something to another nurse who runs towards her down the corridor. Then a doctor comes, and another nurse, and then another.
‘We’d better go back to the waiting room until they’ve dealt with this,’ Steve says to me. He puts a steering hand on my shoulder.
Everyone is so distracted by the other patient that I don’t think anyone sees but me:
Sylvia has sat up. She’s awake.
And, just like that, I know that she is herself again.
She’s looking right at me. I can see in her eyes that there’s so much that she wants to tell me. I can almost see it spilling out of her.
But her eyes flicker to Steve and then back to me and it’s as though she is swallowing everything down.