Donor, The

by FitzGerald, Helen

Kay bit at the inner lining of her lip. Georgie stopped breathing altogether. Will slowly removed his shaking hands from the five-pound note.

  Bessie, Queen Elizabeth, was not there. She was face down.

  The kidney would go to Kay.

  ‘No,’ Kay cried. ‘No!’

  ‘Yes,’ Georgie said, smiling, walking over to her sister’s side of the table and hugging her gently. ‘Yes, yes, yes, my beautiful twin.’

  44

  Will went to be tested the following day. In the first instance, all the nurse required was blood. So simple, after the long wait, to have a nurse extract liquid and place it in a small plastic bottle. Will watched as she labelled it. He’d always felt confident there’d be no problem. Now, though, he felt terrified. What if he was unsuitable? He willed the bottle of blood with his eyes: You’d better do the right thing, pal.

  He went home that night and tried not to think about it. If his tissue type was compatible, there’d be many more tests to complete: general health, psychological well-being. He couldn’t wait to get them done, to lie on a bench in hospital and count down from ten until he fell asleep. When he woke, Kay would be on the road to recovery. And he could look after her, and put the rest of his energies into helping Georgie.

  Will, Kay and Georgie watched a goofy comedy that night. Huddled on the sofa eating crisps and linking hands, no one mentioned the test. Instead, they laughed till halfway through the movie, when it went seriously downhill, and went to their beds to not sleep.

  * * *

  ‘Will? It’s Mr Jamieson.’ The phone had woken him.

  ‘Hello, yes.’ Will’s heart stopped.

  ‘Can you come in to my office?

  He didn’t tell the girls. He showered and dressed as quickly as he could and drove to the hospital. How many of these tortuous waits would he have to endure, he wondered. How many would be bad news? Surely not all of them. Surely, this time, the news would be good.

  *

  Will sat down when asked to. Oh no, the guy was perching his bottom on the edge of the desk. It made him so nervous that sweat patches formed under his arms and on his chest. His hands were trembling.

  ‘Your tissue type …’

  ‘Yeah …’ Will asked. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not a match. Not even close to a match.’

  Had he just heard those words? He had to repeat them to hear them properly. ‘It’s not even close to a match.’ His voice was monotone.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Will refused to let one sentence tie the noose. He didn’t believe it yet. It couldn’t be.

  ‘I’m sure. In fact, Mr Marion, I don’t know how to put this, but …’

  ‘Put what?’

  ‘After the results, I had a look through your file …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I noticed a small detail in the profiles, something peculiar … it made me want to be sure.’

  ‘Of what? Just tell me!’

  ‘Your girls both have beautiful brown eyes.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Your wife has blue eyes.’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘You have blue eyes.’

  Will didn’t say anything.

  ‘Are you sure Cynthia is the mother?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. I saw them come out of her. What on earth are you saying here?’

  ‘To be 100 per cent I did another test. A DNA test, rushed it through. Will … I don’t know how to tell you this, but …’

  ‘Just fucking say it.’

  ‘Two blue-eyed parents cannot have brown-eyed children.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry … it’s genetically impossible. And the DNA test confirmed it. Mr Marion, I am so sorry, but you’re not the girls’ biological father.’

  45

  Heath had been in his new cell, in his new prison, for over one week. His engagement to Cynthia – and her newfound address in Glasgow – had pushed the transfer on a little. And now, here he was, sitting at the desk in his cell, chewing the end of his prison-issue biro. This letter had to be good. Perfect. If he convinced them, he’d be out within a week.

  It wasn’t just the freedom he could taste in his mouth, smell in the air, it was her, his Cynthia, waiting for him in this very same city. She’d wangled a housing-benefit flat in Govanhill. Nice old tenement, close to town, two bedrooms, furnished. It would be their marital home. They would put their instruments in one room and – yes! – get the band together again. They’d put a large double bed in the second, where they would do it as often and as imaginatively as possible.

  Dear Sirs and Madams,

  Heath began,

  This year has been a really good one for me. I have been drug free. I have reunited with the love of my life, who I am going to marry. We are going to live at her new address in Govanhill, Glasgow. Most of all, I realise I have done wrong. I completed another victim awareness course last month and the man I killed did not have it coming even though he’d probably raped a woman and sold my heroin to nine-year-olds. And …

  Oh, but it was no good. He’d written this kind of shite before, and they always turned him down. He needed something that would really grab them, let them know he had indeed changed and would not be a threat to the community.

  He thought about some of his pals, come and gone. How did they convince the board? One had a dying mother who needed to be cared for – this had helped. One had a new baby. One had been rejected so often they just kind of had to let him out. One had done every course on offer three times over as well as joining the ‘Garden Party’ – i.e. the guys in green shirts who tend the three pot plants in the prison. Heath had the fiancée thing, but he had nothing else.

  He needed to think about it. There must be something he could write to convince them.

  ‘Jones!’ An officer had opened his cell door. ‘Visitor.’

  * * *

  Heath waited for his name and table number to be called at the prison-side entrance to the visits hall. Beside him were eleven other inmates. He could already see Cynthia at table six. She looked out of it. Heath was jealous. He couldn’t wait to get completely and utterly shitfaced.

  ‘James, table three,’ the officer said, and elderly sex offender James headed towards his loyal disbelieving brother at table three.

  ‘MacMillan, table five!’ Good-looking Preston MacMillan walked towards his crying mother. Heath watched this young boy closely. He was very pretty. A fish out of water. Not only that, but he stopped at Cynthia’s table and spoke to her. She said something to him. How on earth did they know each other?

  ‘Jones, table six,’ the officer ordered and Heath waltzed over to Cynthia, eyeing pretty-boy MacMillan as he sat opposite her and took her hand in his.

  ‘You know that guy?’ Heath said, pointing to Preston.

  ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘He’s the private detective who brought me back from Egypt. He’s a prick, Heath. In the hotel in Cairo, he got me to take my pants off then analysed me like some creepy pervert doctor. I don’t like him.’

  ‘I don’t like him either,’ Heath snarled, his brain ticking as much as a brain like his could.

  On the table behind them, Preston McMillan sat with his mother wondering three things.

  Who was that thug Cynthia Marion was visiting?

  When would he see the new boy again? Came through prison reception the same time as Preston. Got changed in the dog box next to him. Had an interesting shaped back, like a swimmer’s. After they’d changed into prison uniform, they’d both been escorted to the remand hall. The desk man sent Preston to a cell on the third flat and the new boy to one on the second. Would they meet at mealtime? Exercise, perhaps? What memento could he gather in this place? And where could he hide it?

  Lastly, Preston wondered if his mother would ever shut up. It’s my fault, I’ve been a bad mother, I can’t lose you as well! Oh, Preston, what I am to do?

  Tuning out his mother as much as possible, he trie
d to hear what Cynthia was saying to the thug. This was all he managed:

  HEATH: I don’t care about anyone but you.

  CYNTHIA: They looked so sick.

  HEATH: And what about us? You think we’re doing well?

  *

  As the prisoners were being escorted back to the halls some time later, Preston sidled up to Heath and said, ‘So, you know Cynthia Marion?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Heath said.

  ‘Her daughter is a friend of mine. Sounds like you were talking about her.’

  Heath stopped dead. ‘You eary-wigging my conversation?’

  ‘I suppose I was.’

  ‘Tell you what. Sign up for hairdressing this afternoon. I’ll fill you in on everything I know there.’

  *

  The hairdressing unit was a classroom opposite B Hall. Around twenty desks dotted the room, equipped with plastic-wigged heads. Implements were handed out under the strict supervision of the officer in charge – scissors, combs, brushes, hairdryers, dye, bleach, clippers.

  In his seat next to Heath, Preston listened as the officer tried to remain macho while teaching the basic skills of hairdressing.

  ‘And how do you know my fiancée?’ Heath asked Preston as they followed the instructions regarding washing and massaging the head.

  ‘I don’t really.’

  ‘You didn’t meet in a hotel in Cairo?’

  ‘We met on a beach in Dahab.’

  ‘And in a hotel in Cairo?’

  ‘Listen, what’s your name again?’ Preston started.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Heath said midway through his attempt to give a number 1 to the blond wig before him. ‘I’ve hurt myself here!’ Heath had somehow managed to make his finger bleed.

  ‘Wait there,’ the officer said, worried by the blood that was spurting from Heath’s finger. I’ll get the firs-taid kit.’

  Unsupervised, Heath immediately grabbed Preston by the neck in a stranglehold, bashed his head face-down onto the table and put his knee on his back. He had the clippers in his other hand, which he held at Preston’s head.

  ‘You fucked my fiancée?’ he said, turning the clippers on.

  ‘No!’ Preston said.

  Heath shaved a neat line in the middle of Preston’s head, from his neck all the way to his forehead.

  ‘Tell me what you did.’

  ‘She just asked me to touch it.’

  Heath began to shave a second line to the left of the first.

  ‘I don’t like it when people lie.’

  ‘I’m not lying.’

  ‘You calling her a liar?’

  A third line was completed. Heath liked his work. As always, it was meticulous, but it wasn’t doing the job. He turned Preston around so he was facing him, held him firmly by the neck with one hand, grabbed the hairdryer, prised open Preston’s mouth with his fingers and placed the large round nozzle into his mouth, stretching it, filling it.

  ‘You want to tell the truth now, you perverted prick?’

  Preston couldn’t speak. The hairdryer was in his mouth. He struggled. Why was no one doing anything to help? What was taking the officer so long?

  Heath turned the hairdryer onto high.

  Preston’s legs wriggled as hot air blasted into his mouth and lungs. Tears streamed from his eyes.

  Heath took the hairdryer out. Preston gasped. His tongue and throat were badly burnt.

  ‘How about now? Anything come to mind?’

  ‘She asked me to. I didn’t want to! I didn’t like it! I promise. I’m not a liar.’

  ‘No, and I suffer from low self-esteem. We all do.’ Several frightened-looking apprentice hairdressers laughed.

  Heath put the dryer back in Preston’s mouth, pushing it in further this time. Knee on his chest, he pinched Preston’s nostrils with his fingers and turned it on high again.

  Preston’s legs wriggled for a while, then stopped. His face – and the thick bald stripe on his head – turned bright red, then grey, then blue. The men in the room watched, terrified. Was he dead? Should they do something? If they did, would they die too?

  ‘How’s that bleeding?’ the officer said, returning to the room. Heath pulled the dryer from Preston’s mouth just in time. He fell to the floor.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ the officer asked, looking at Preston as he writhed and gasped on the ground, his hand over his scorched mouth.

  ‘Cannae stand the sight of blood, the wee poof.’

  Preston rolled around the floor, moaning.

  ‘Get up, you fearty,’ the officer said, before tending to Heath’s cut finger.

  46

  It was like being told his head wasn’t his. The news made everything inside him shudder. It had hit him, obviously, like a bowling ball-sized hailstone, but it didn’t make any sense.

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s a fact. I can show you the test results.’

  ‘No! I am their father. They’re my girls. They even look like me. Look at this nose!’ Will grabbed his nose angrily, wobbled it with his thumb and index finger. ‘They have my nose!’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Have you heard Kay laugh? She laughs exactly the same way as me … Kind of squeaky, ho-ho-ho!’

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’

  ‘Would I like a glass of water? Listen to me! In bed, Georgie sleeps with one hand grasping her hair, like this.’ Will pulled his fringe back with his right hand. Too hard. It would have hurt if he had any feeling. ‘I do the same!’

  ‘I’m going to pour you a whisky.’ Mr Jamieson grabbed a bottle from the bottom drawer of his desk and poured a stiff one. Will took it, but didn’t drink.

  ‘They both like horror films. I like horror films.’

  ‘Take a sip, Will.’

  He took an autopilot sip. He wanted the doctor to take it back, take that stupid sentence, the one he’d said before, just grab it from the air and swallow it.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I only wish I’d realised this sooner.’

  Will placed the glass of whisky on the desk beside Mr Jamieson’s still-perched bottom. He sat in silence for a moment, staring, then said, ‘I’m going to leave now.’ His legs shook as he stood up, and as he walked out the door, along the corridor, down the stairs, and into his car.

  He sat in the car park for over an hour, staring at the pillar in front of him. Images flashed on the concrete.

  The first time he held them in his arms at the same time. He had an itchy nose. Couldn’t do anything about it.

  That time at the window, when they were three, waiting for their mum to come back from the shops.

  Kay’s first concert. She had a flute solo. Will cried. Georgie got worried. ‘Are you sad because she’s bad at it, Dad?’

  Georgie asking for a family movie, the three of them on the sofa, huddling, laughing.

  All those years, all this time, it’d been the three of them. A team. Sometimes a crap one. Mostly, though, a good one.

  But they did both look like him. Same hair colour, same nose. Kay had the same laugh. Georgie had the same sleep-pose, the same terrible organisational skills. Was it possible they’d taken on his characteristics purely by being around him? Nurture over nature?

  All those years, and he was an impostor.

  All those years, and he had been fathering someone else’s children. Heath Jones’s children, in all probability.

  If they weren’t his, then what was he? ‘If I’m not their dad,’ he sobbed, ‘then what the hell am I?’

  *

  Someone was tapping on his window. Will wiped his eyes, looked up.

  ‘You all right in there?’ It was that chubby male nurse.

  Will wound the window down. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay, well take it easy, eh?’ the nurse said.

  Will shut the window as the nurse walked towards the lift. He took his phone from his pocket. ‘Georgie?’
r />   ‘Hi, Dad, how’d it go?’

  ‘Oh, fine. Nothing to report yet. I was wondering if Cynthia left her address when she came by.’

  ‘Um, she didn’t really. She said she was living in a hostel in Govanhill, but I think she’s probably got a flat by now. Why? Is everything okay? Really no news?’

  ‘None. Everything’s great, darlin’. I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Da—’

  He didn’t give her time to probe further.

  *

  There was only one hostel for homeless women in Govanhill. Will parked in front of it thirty minutes later.

  ‘I’m looking for Cynthia Marion,’ he said to the middle-aged barrel of laughs at the desk.

  ‘She’s not here. Got a flat.’ The rude bastard didn’t even bother looking Will in the eye.

  ‘You know where?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Will grabbed the man by his collar, pulled him towards him, and said, ‘Tell me where she fucking is, you fat prick.’

  The flat, as it happened, was just around the corner from the hostel. There was no security lock on the main entrance, so Will walked in the close, which had graffiti all over the walls, and stinking rubbish all over the floor. The only door without a name on it was on the first floor. He knocked, then listened. No noise at first, then a groan, then footsteps and a door shutting, or opening, then another groan, then … ‘Will? It’s you!’

  She was so high she could hardly stand. Her words slurred, her eyes protested against her attempts to open them. Will grabbed her arm and led her into the living room. The flat was a proper drugs den. No carpet. No heating. Junk and fags and drugs paraphernalia all over the place.

  He sat her on the sofa, went to the kitchen, poured her a glass of water, came back into the living room and threw the water in her face.

  ‘What the …’ She couldn’t even finish the sentence. Her body wanted to lie down. Will wouldn’t let her. He sat next to her and held her shoulders with his hands.