Donor, The

by FitzGerald, Helen

  He touched Georgie’s diary. He had no idea what he might find inside. It made him a little scared. His hand was shaking. The diary opened somewhere in the middle, the first of several pages which had separate sheets stapled to it. He unfolded the first stapled sheet of paper and read:

  Aged 12

  Dear Mum,

  I love you. I hope what I’m doing won’t hurt you because it’s not your fault that I can’t take it any more. Life is something I’m not interested in. Apparently this will not hurt me. I’ll just fall asleep. When I do, I’ll be thinking of you.

  G

  Will gasped and flicked forward – there was another piece of paper stapled to a page two-thirds of the way though the diary.

  Aged 13

  Dear Dad and Kay,

  Goodbye. Please don’t blame yourselves. It’s me. I’m just not into being around.

  G

  And another, near the end …

  Aged 15

  Dad,

  I’m going to kill myself. You’d be surprised how easy it is to get a gun. Sometimes you’ve gone on and on at me so much I swear I could use one on you. I want this to hurt you. You deserve it.

  G

  Will banged the diary shut. Before he could change his mind, he had written the following:

  GEORGIE/CON: Mean selfish horrible

  GEORGIE/CON: Has no hope, no ambition, no kindness

  GEORGIE/CON: Loves no one bar a woman who does not exist

  GEORGIE/CON: Hates me

  GEORGIE/CON: Hates everything

  GEORGIE/CON: Has she bought a fucking gun? Jesus

  GEORGIE/CON: Wants to die

  GEORGIE/CON: Thought about killing me!

  He had never been so angry. Or so pissed. He threw his pen at the window. He bashed his fist at the desk. He growled, stood, punched the door of his office once, then again, again, until there was a hole in the door like the one he had punctured in the kitchen. And blood all over his hand.

  ‘I see you’ve calmed down,’ Georgie yelled from the hall.

  *

  God, God, God. Will raced to his desk, grabbed his notebook, tore the table from his book, ripped it in half, scrunched it into a tight ball, and shoved it in the top drawer of his desk. ‘Georgie?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry! Georgie! Where are you, baby? I’m SO sorry! Where are you?’ He walked out into the hall, looked in the kitchen, walked up the stairs and into her bedroom. She was sitting on the bed.

  ‘Please forgive me!’ Will said. ‘I shouldn’t have slapped you.’

  ‘Assaulted me. I could call the police, you know. I could call ChildLine.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have assaulted you. Are you okay? Where have you been?’

  ‘Around.’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Will said.

  ‘So are you,’ she replied. ‘You should fix up that hand. Come …’ She walked her father to the bathroom and retrieved Savlon spray and plasters from the medicine cabinet.

  They were silent for a moment, Will sitting on the edge of the bath, Georgie standing over him, washing, disinfecting, bandaging.

  ‘I’m going to make everything all right,’ Will said, the cut now tended to. ‘I’m going to sort this out, my lovely girl.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ she said, sitting on the edge of the bath next to him.

  ‘Yeah.’ Will touched Georgie on the cheek, not knowing if she would jerk to remove him the way she usually did, fobbing him off with a Fuck off, Dad. She didn’t. She moved her face into his touch and smiled sadly at him. He smiled back, but neither lasted long. Within a second, both were crying.

  ‘Please don’t let me die!’ she embraced him, sobbing. ‘Dad! Daddy! Please don’t let us die.’

  31

  The back of Heath’s block edged the thick red brick wall that surrounded the prison. On the other side was a nondescript road. People often threw things over the wall into the yard, hoping their loved ones would be in position at the right time to catch their offerings (usually drugs, hidden in a variety of ways, which included inside dead rats).

  Cynthia hoped Heath would be in the cell he’d been occupying one year earlier. She knew where to position herself so he could hear her dulcet tones through the grating in his wall.

  It was after lights out. She would wake him. But he wouldn’t mind.

  ‘Heath Jones! I love you!’ she yelled from the quiet road outside.

  ‘Heath Jones, I fucking love you!’ she yelled again. ‘You are the love of my life! My name is Cynthia and I love Heath Jones. I love you, Heath!’

  Heath woke immediately and jumped out of his bunk. Standing on tiptoes with his mouth touching the grating, he dribbled as he yelled … ‘Cynthia Marion, I love you! Cynthia! Don’t go away again! Wait for me! I love you, Cynthia! Sing to me!’

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ his first-timer cellmate said from the top bunk. If he’d been properly conscious, he’d have thought twice about making such an objection.

  Heath walked over to his bunk, pulled the novice to the ground and kicked him seven times, until he was unconscious.

  *

  Cynthia didn’t leave. She sang songs she and Heath had written together for over half an hour, undeterred by objections from officers and inmates. Tired of singing to an unappreciative crowd (Ya sound like a fuckin’ cat!), she lay on her coat and camped outside the front of the prison like a teen waiting for concert tickets. In the morning, she dragged herself from the doorway she’d taken shelter in and went inside to book a visit.

  Within an hour they were sitting opposite each other in the visits room. Looking at them, you wouldn’t know they loved each other more intensely than anyone else in the world. They seemed more like brother and sister, except perhaps that they were linking hands.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

  ‘All over the place,’ she paused. ‘I met my daughters.’

  ‘He came here,’ Heath said. ‘I know the score. Could you help?’

  ‘No.’ She rubbed his palm with her fingers. ‘I don’t want to talk about that in here. Are you clean?’

  ‘Yes. You?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right, baby, that’s all right. We don’t have to fucking do what people tell us to do. Life’s too short.’

  ‘You have to get out.’

  ‘And I will. I’ve been a good boy this year. I’m going to write the best letter this time. I’ve got it sussed. I’ll be out in weeks. But I need an address to go to. Where are you going to stay?’

  ‘I’ll get somewhere in Glasgow. Can you get transferred in the meantime?’

  ‘I’ll get onto it. Tell me as soon as you know where we’ll be living.’

  ‘We’ll be living together!’ she said. ‘Oh, thank God. I can’t take it without you. No one else gets me.’

  ‘No one else loves you like me,’ he said. ‘No one ever has. No one ever will. Cynthia, when I get out, will you marry me?’

  He’d asked her this a hundred times over the years. The answer was always yes. Somehow, they always seemed to forget to actually do it, never mind the fact that she and Will had never divorced.

  ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Of course I bloody will.’

  When the visit was over, Cynthia kissed her pinky and pressed it against Heath’s lips. ‘I missed you.’

  32

  Preston felt all shaky when he walked out of the Merchant City. My Lordy, that had been quite something. He’d never seen anything like it in his life. It was as if she knew he was there. He wondered, as he began the long walk towards Charing Cross, when she’d notice what he’d taken this time. The pants she’d left on the floor of the living room when she went to take a shower. He held them in his hand and smiled.

  When he got home, his mother was watching recorded snooker and chain smoking. The room smelt like pubs used to smell, before the ban.

  ‘Hi, son,’ she said. His mother had long forgotten how normal people spend their nights. Widowhood had turned everything topsy-t
urvy. ‘Did you have a good day?’

  ‘Yeah thanks, Mum,’ Preston said, taking a plastic lunch bag from the kitchen drawer. He placed Georgie’s pants in the bag and carefully sealed the plastic strip shut. ‘I’m going to bed now though, okay?’

  ‘Okay, son,’ she said, leaning so he could kiss her on the cheek without getting in the way of the snooker.

  Preston placed the plastic bag on top of his bedside table, took off his jeans, T-shirt, briefs and socks, and got into bed. He conjured the memory quickly, staring at the pants in the bag and touching himself. She was an extraordinary girl. Her body was immaculate considering it was screwed up inside. She moved like a swan – well, maybe not a swan. He’d never seen swans do that stuff. But it was more than her body or her face. She had an energy that zapped the space around her. She made everything stand up, as part of him was now.

  It was all going to plan when the doorbell rang. He looked at the clock. 4 a.m. Who on earth? He quickly reached for his briefs and listened as his mother opened the door … girl rhubarb boy rhubarb boy rhubarb … Footsteps … knock, knock. ‘Preston, love?’

  *

  As murders go, Preston had committed the least perfect. Each step he had taken from the Gorbals police station to the sixteenth floor of the nearby high rise, to the taxi on Rutherglen Road, had been caught on CCTV. The baseball cap had obscured his face until he took it off and threw it in the bin before getting in the taxi. Sure, the police didn’t have his face on record, but in the end, they didn’t need it, because the four boys he’d met outside the police station had given his name to the police – which in fact was several hours after the murder as they had been waylaid by a fight down the arches. Preston was angry with himself. He’d assumed the boys would never talk to the police, but of course they would when one of their own had been murdered. Why had he told them his real name? Preston scolded himself as he dressed. This was a most uncharacteristic security lapse.

  ‘Preston, love?’ he heard his mother say as he opened his bedroom window and climbed outside onto the ledge. He’d been doing this for years now, had it down pat.

  ‘Preston? The police are here to …’

  He reckoned his feet probably hit the ground just as his mother opened the bedroom door.

  He reckoned police sirens started blaring just as he closed the taxi door.

  33

  Will held Georgie in bed until she finally cried herself to sleep. Why had he found no photographs like this – with the two of them lying on the sofa watching Back to the Future or The Truman Show or snuggling on the beach in Largs after that smile-less shot had been snapped? (‘Hug me, Daddy! Hold me tighter!’) Her angry adolescence seemed to have toyed with his memory, twisted everything into a negative. Sure, she was always a challenge, but she was also incredibly affectionate at times. Feisty, fiery, emotional and raw. These are the words that should have come to mind earlier.

  Certain that she was sleeping calmly, Will crept out of her room, returned to his office, opened his notebook, looked at the first page:

  1) Cynthia

  And the second:

  2) Parents

  And turned to the next page to consider option number three.

  3) Buy one

  The knowledge of the page he had ripped out earlier throbbed in time with his hangover. Had he really been so drunk as to write such nonsense?

  ‘How to buy a kidney.’ He typed the words into the Google search engine. The very first article caught his eye:

  Mother to spend life savings on kidney in Philippines

  45-year-old Janette Graham, who has waited over three years for a transplant with the NHS, has decided to remortgage her house to purchase a kidney in the Philippines.

  ‘I have grappled with the moral issues involved,’ she says, ‘but I have five children under the age of eighteen. I want to see them grow up.’

  Mrs Graham is on dialysis every day. She fears she will die waiting for a suitable donor, as her blood type is rare and the NHS has so far failed to find a match.

  Transplant tourism has become so common in the Philippines in recent years that Luzon has been nicknamed ‘One Kidney Island’. ‘There are people in the Philippines who see this as an opportunity to break out of debilitating poverty,’ Mrs Graham says. ‘I am aware of the risks involved. Some patients have not returned from their operations in South East Asia.’ However, she goes on to say, she is also aware that three patients die every day waiting for a kidney transplant. ‘I can’t buy one here,’ she says. ‘It is illegal. I feel I have no other option.’

  Within the article was a link to another item about Filipino donors. It was the photograph that caught Will’s eye. Ten men – no, boys – standing in line, holding their shirts up to reveal the scars in their sides. Each had received a cash payment of £1,000, which would have provided temporary relief from poverty, but not a long-term solution. To add to that, the article highlighted that there was no evidence regarding the number of donors who had died during the procedure or from post-operative infections.

  The boys in the photograph gave reasons for their decision to donate:

  I haven’t got a job.

  My friend sold his and he was okay. I was scared, but my brothers and sisters needed to eat.

  I wasn’t scared. I was excited.

  Will printed out the articles, folded them and stapled them to the back of the page in his notebook. He was torn by the risks involved and by the stark images of the boy donors, but he was also excited. The risks were less than those the girls faced at the moment. And the donors were willing, desperate even. His parents could give him the money – the fact that they had been tested indicated a willingness to help. Failing that, he could remortgage the house – enough for a kidney and enough to tide them over till everything was back to normal. He was glad not to be working right now. He had more important things to do.

  The good thing about the Philippines was the sheer number of donors. One slum alone was called ‘Kidney Market’ because 300 people out of 16,000 had donated there. Also, the recipient made a ‘donation’ rather than a formal payment (around £40,000). The operations took place in a clean private hospital where the procedure was carried out efficiently and effectively. He did worry that it cost £40,000, when the donors in the photograph had only received £1,000. But with Georgie’s plea fresh in his mind, he didn’t wonder for long. Anyway, perhaps he could send the donor something extra (a tip, or perhaps he could deposit something each year, an ongoing thank you) to the person involved.

  Will looked at several other links – a forum where potential donors had listed their wares:

  Hello,

  I am kairav, from INDIA 18 yrs of age, quiet healthy, have no desease and my blood group is B+.

  I want to sell one of my kidney.

  hi

  my name is anum

  iam 21 years old, in good health, i have no desease,

  i am from egypt

  blood group A

  87 KG

  me Ekagrah. i m from india. i wanna sell 1 of my

  kidney as i m in need of money. whoever wants to

  buy plz contact me at my email

  I WANNA SELL MY KIDNEY

  I want sell my kidney. 20 y.o.

  Blood AB IV Rh+

  Once, Will had written something similar for the

  Glasgow Extra.

  Double buggy for sale,

  Good condition,

  Can deliver

  As he continued his research, he noted that someone had decided against a kidney from China. The prospective patient was appalled by the fact that it would come from an executed prisoner. Will scoffed at this. What difference did it make? He didn’t believe kidneys had morals which could seep into new homes. His girls’ kidneys certainly showed no moral fibre, giving up the ghost as they had.

  He felt the Philippines was the best option, mostly because he had found more concrete information about it than the other countries. He wrote the necessary contact details
and the price in his notebook. He would email the hospital later in the day. First, he had to visit his parents in St Andrews.

  34

  ‘Georgie! Georgie! Wake up.’ Kay opened the curtains of her sister’s bedroom. ‘It’s four o’clock, G. It’s a glorious day. Do you know where Dad is?’

  ‘Shut them!’ Georgie sought refuge from the light under her duvet.

  ‘Your room is disgusting!’ Kay picked up the clothes that were strewn all over the floor and piled them on a chair. She noticed a mobile amongst the debris and looked at it.

  ‘Georgie! Your phone is off! Are you crazy?’ She turned on the cheap mobile – they had both bought the same one after joining the waiting list. ‘Never ever turn this off or let it run out of battery. Always keep it beside you. Are you listening?’

  ‘Get out,’ she answered. ‘Stop moving my things!’

  Kay ignored her sister’s instructions. She put the phone on the bedside table and checked her own, which – as usual – was in her pocket. Since the diagnosis, she only ever wore clothes with pockets that would safely house her phone. She separated Georgie’s dirty clothes from the clean ones and placed the former in the washing basket.