by Celia Bryce
The consultant gave his frog smile. ‘… I think we can feel very positive about your treatment, Megan. I want you to know that.’
Like waving a magic wand. Yeah. Right.
‘So, an operation?’ That was Mum, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. It was a small lace-edged thing with a green shamrock sewn into the corner. She sounded as though she’d just fallen into the room from another place and wasn’t sure about anything much.
‘When?’ Megan asked.
‘I can’t say at this stage,’ the consultant replied. ‘But you will have to come in as soon as we can find you a bed.’ He closed Megan’s folder. Was it a sign for them all to go?
No one moved. Everyone just waited for what would happen next.
At last Dad gave a little cough. He squeezed Megan’s hand. ‘How does that sound?’ he said.
It sounded rubbish.
The bright pink suitcase sat like one of those flowers that grow in the desert after the rain. Mum was putting things away, arranging them the way she arranged everything. Clothes were folded into neat parcels and placed, with meticulous care, into the locker, as if it mattered a great deal where they went.
Standing by the bed, Megan wished Mum would stop. Don’t do that, not yet, she wanted to say. I need to do it – my way, when I want to. They’re my things. The words were there, but they stuck in her throat, swelling up inside her.
At last, everything was in place, the locker packed with pieces of Megan’s life, all ordered and hidden behind the doors. Mum’s cheeks were flushed. She was gazing around the room as if taking it all in, or maybe just wondering what to do or say next, hating to be idle.
‘If only your dad was home,’ she said, out of the blue. ‘He wanted to come, be here with you.’
It was enough to un-stick everything. Megan exploded. ‘No!’ ‘He has a job to do and it’s too far away. He’ll phone, email. You can print them off. I don’t want him to come.’ Megan stopped, realising that she was shouting, but gave the room a disgusted look. ‘It’s not as if there’s a computer here.’
Deep breath in, deep breath out. Keep calm, don’t lose it now.
Yet with the breathing in and the breathing out, all her strength seemed to go; it just seeped out of her. Not even her eyes would stay open; they were too full, too heavy. She did want Dad, she wanted him so much it hurt, but he mustn’t come. She had made him promise. Made him cross his heart. He mustn’t do anything different. He worked away, that was normal; he came home on leave, when it was his turn, and that was normal.
He had to keep it all the same.
That way, that way, she would get better. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, her voice quiet, controlled. ‘He doesn’t need to be here. And neither do you.’
An Irish nurse called Siobhan came in to see if they were all right. They weren’t, not really, but at last, after a cup of tea and a little more fussing, Mum said she might think about going home for a few hours.
‘You can stay,’ Siobhan said. ‘There’s a pull-down here.’ She indicated the extra bed folded like a broken wing against the wall next to Megan’s. ‘Parents do.’
If I was little, yes, if I was a baby. ‘Tomorrow, Mum. Come back tomorrow. I’ll be fine. Really, I will.’
She watched an exchange of glances between Mum and the nurse, who suggested that Mum could stay while she had some blood taken.
‘They’ll be starting your treatment.’ Mum exchanged another glance with the nurse. ‘I should stay.’ Megan gave them a look, a shake of the head. ‘All right,’ Mum said, ‘I’ll leave it till tomorrow. But first thing, I’m coming back. And you have to ring if you want me in sooner. Any time, mind you.’
At last Mum was on her way out, still fussing, still not wanting to leave. ‘Why not talk to that boy? He’ll know all there is to know about the ward and everything.’ Megan refused to acknowledge her. ‘You could be friends, love.’
‘I’ve got friends. I’m fine.’
As soon as Mum went home, Megan yanked out every single one of her belongings, surrounding herself with them. She sat like a hamster in the middle of its nest. They were private things, her things, letters from Dad, make-up, underwear. Everything. She wanted them around her for a little longer, wanted to feel them still, these small fragments of home. They were part of her, they told her who she was.
Megan looked at the sink, the shelf above it, the bin below, the bed with all of its levers and pedals, the TV on a stem growing from the wall behind, the whiteboard with a name written in big blue letters. Her name. Somehow that was a surprise.
Two
‘So, Megan Bright,’ Jackson read out her name from the doorway, ‘homesick yet?’
‘No.’
Shoving her things into a rough pile, Megan threw her dressing gown over the lot to hide them. It was a green dressing gown, making her bed look as if it had grown a hill. Something about that was satisfying – it made her feel slightly better. This was her own hill and only she was allowed to climb it or dig into it, nobody else.
‘Can I come in? Just got a refill.’ Jackson indicated the fattest bag of fluid hanging from the drip stand.
Megan slid her eyes from his grinning face and looked at the green hill on her bed, smoothed out the folds, patted it down.
‘Well, can I?’ Jackson leaned up against the door frame.
‘I thought you’d be too old for a baby ward,’ Megan said, ‘with your important scientific research and everything.’
Jackson sighed. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to run you over, but it gets so boring, it does your head in. Rooster reckons –’
‘Who reckons?’
‘Sister Brewster. Says as long as I don’t bug you, then it’s OK for me to come and say hello, us being the only teenagers in the whole wide world.’ He spread his arms, making a dramatic sweep.
Megan fiddled with the belt of her dressing gown.
‘Honest. This ward is the world. And we’re the oldest in it. Only they don’t treat you like it. You need parental permission to get out. Just to the shop! You wouldn’t believe it.’ Jackson plonked himself down in the chair next to her bed. He settled down in it, long-legged, almost too big for the place, like a trapped bird in a cage too small. His gaze settled on the green hill of belongings, then on Megan. ‘And they make you do school. It’s hopeless.’ He stopped. ‘I’ve just talked too much, haven’t I?’
Megan didn’t answer, just slid her hands to the pile, wanting to hug it to her, protect it, never let it go. Her eyes began to sting.
‘What you got under there, anyway?’ Jackson leaned forward.
‘Don’t!’ Megan pulled her belongings towards her. The dressing gown slid off slightly, revealing the edges of stuff, corners, bits of underwear. She felt naked, him being there looking at her things like that, like some perv. ‘Leave them alone. They’re mine.’ She covered them up once more, smoothing out the creases.
Jackson held up his hands, all long fingers. ‘All right! I’m not touching anything, see?’ He shook his head, smile all gone. ‘Rooster says …’
‘She says nothing about just turning up like you own the place, or running people over in corridors, or being nosy about private things.’
Jackson shrugged. ‘She was on about being friends.’
‘Got some. Thank you.’ There was a long silence which she wasn’t going to break.
‘You’ll be disappointed,’ Jackson said at last. ‘Friends mess you about.’
‘Mine won’t,’ Megan said. ‘They’re going to bring stuff.’
Jackson shook his head. ‘They’ll think they’re going to catch something. They won’t say it, but they’ll look at you like there’s bits dropping off and it’s going to happen to them if they get too close. You’ll see.’
Typical boy. His friends might be like that, but hers weren’t. ‘You don’t know everything.’
Jackson lounged in the chair as if he did indeed know everything, especially her friends. He crossed his legs, uncrossed them. Two
slashes of skin grinned through the frayed rips in his jeans.
Megan picked up the corner of her dressing gown, let it drop.
Her friends would come.
‘Too much homework,’ Jackson went on. ‘Too much to do. They’re grounded. Live too far away. Band practice. I know all the excuses.’
Megan looked at him. ‘Band practice?’
Jackson knitted his fingers, studying them for a few seconds. ‘We used to have a band going, me and my mates. They’ve got to keep rehearsing, so they can’t come. That’s their story, anyway.’
‘Rehearsing without you?’
‘Well, I’m here, they’re there,’ he said, ‘and that’s that.’ He began to chew at his nails, at the skin around them.
More silence.
Megan glanced at her bed, wishing that she hadn’t hauled everything out of her locker. It would take ages to put it all back.
‘I’m bugging you, aren’t I?’ Jackson pushed up his hat with a finger. Megan shrugged an answer. ‘Is that a yes or a no?’ He was looking at her with his huge brown eyes, jutting out his bottom lip, like a baby about to cry.
Becky and Laura might think that was funny. His fan club. Nine-year-olds.
‘My grandad’s ringing. After his tea. He’s ninety-five,’ Megan said. Jackson gave her a blank stare. ‘It’s a big thing for him.’ She stiffened her voice. ‘And he will ring.’
‘OK, I get the message. I’m out of here.’ Jackson slid from the chair and was by the door in one smooth movement. He peered out, then turned to face her. ‘Ever slept with a drip?’ Megan blinked. Jackson nodded at the bags of fluid attached to him.
She shook her head. ‘Don’t worry. You get used to it.’
Something in his voice made her look at him. His eyes were hidden by the brim of his hat, most of his face too. She could see the curve of his lips, the angle of his jaw, his long neck, his fingers loosely holding the door. He tilted his head back against the door frame. She could see his eyes, the gleam in them.
‘You’ll get used to most things,’ he said. ‘Even me.’
Left alone, Megan gazed around the room, at its walls, its gleaming freshness, as if it had all been cleaned and polished ready for somebody new. She felt small, insignificant, not quite as clean and shining as everything around her.
‘I’m here,’ she whispered. ‘Have you noticed me yet?’
Nothing moved, nothing stirred, not even the curtains at the open window.
Megan looked at the green hill on her bed and laid her head on top of it, feeling the outline of her things, her whole life in fragments, under the dressing gown.
* * *
‘We’ve just got to get this going,’ Siobhan said as she put up the chemo in its see-through bag, set the rate with the press of a button and checked the drops as they began to fall. There were lots of beeps and little lights. At last they settled into silence. ‘That’s it,’ she said finally. ‘All we have to do is wait for it to work.’
It was like watching one of those cookery programmes, with the TV chef talking through all the moves, from whisking eggs to adding salt and pepper.
And here’s one I prepared earlier.
And now it was all done.
Siobhan washed her hands at the sink. She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser, dried her hands on it, then dropped it in the waste bin. ‘After a few days, you’ll go home and come back for the next lot … In three weeks, probably.’
Home after a few days. Back in after three weeks. What about everything else?
‘You know school and stuff?’ Megan said. ‘Will I just go back when I get out?’
Siobhan wrote something on a chart. ‘If you want to. If you feel OK. Some people do, some don’t. It depends.’
Megan sighed.
‘I know that’s the vaguest answer in the world. But, you see, you’re all so different and on different treatments and for different lengths of time.’ Siobhan shook her head as if it were a huge problem. ‘Now, if you pesky patients would just help by having the same tumours, in the same places, it would be a great advantage to the medical world. We could all go home at teatime!’ Siobhan swirled her pen in the air as if it could cast a spell. ‘Wouldn’t that be just magic!’
Megan smiled. She couldn’t help it. ‘But if I do go back, what about the tube thingy, the line?’
‘Listen, you and that line are going to become so well acquainted you won’t want to part with it. You’ll be the best of friends and have a bundle of laughs.’ Siobhan patted her arm and was serious again. ‘We leave it in, Megan, so’s we’re not sticking you with needles all the time.’
‘But I’m not supposed to get it wet?’
‘If you mean swimming, then, no. But you can still have a shower.’
‘I can’t see me playing football, doing PE …’
‘As long as it’s taped up, why not?’ Siobhan said. ‘Obviously, you don’t want to yank the thing out. But it’s not for ever, you know. Really, it isn’t.’
Megan gazed up at her drip and the tube, the drip stand. ‘Yeah, I know.’
Siobhan looked about to say something else when she frowned. Someone was outside. ‘Hello there,’ she said, leaning out of the door. ‘Are you all right? Where’s your mammy?’ Whispers. More movement. ‘No, not at the moment, Kipper. Megan’s busy right now …’
Kipper? What kind of name was that?
‘… but maybe you can come back later? Off now, and I’ll see you, soon as I’ve finished here. No, I’m sure Megan won’t mind if you come and say hello some time.’
Siobhan smiled as she came back in. ‘A little doll, that one. Loves Jackson to bits. Maybe she’s wanting to size up the opposition.’ She winked at Megan. ‘You being it …’
Megan tutted. ‘She’s welcome to him. How old is she?’
‘Nearly seven, bless her. She almost lives here.’ Siobhan was tidying up, her movements quick and unfussy, as if she knew her job inside out. Within just a few seconds the place was just as it had been, except for the drip, of course, and the machine attached to it, with all of its numbers and the click of it and the blue casing.
Megan looked back up at it and watched as the clear drops formed with each click, watched as they grew and fell in a steady rhythm and was thankful that it wasn’t for ever, that she didn’t have to almost live on the ward. ‘What do you tell the little ones to make them feel it’s all just a bundle of laughs? What do you say to – Kipper?’
Siobhan smiled. ‘Ah now, the little ones. They get the special treatment. They get the talk about the bad-guy cells and the good-guy cells and magic wands and wizards and it’s all an adventure and they’re the star of the show. Like a cartoon. But you, you just get it straight.’
Megan twiddled her name bracelet, pushing it around her wrist. She had a number all to herself, which made her unique. Yet not unique at all. ‘Have we all got the same, then, on this ward? Have we all got cancer?’
‘Yes,’ Siobhan answered. ‘Every single one of you.’
‘How many’s that?’
‘Eighteen, when we’re full. We have a baby in. Six months. Poor wee feller. He just lights up, though, when his sister comes in. That’s Becky. I think you might have met her …’ Siobhan was moving towards the door.
‘And me and Jackson. We’re the oldest?’
‘You are. You’re the big guys.’
‘Fighting the bad guys.’
‘That just about sums it up. But you’re lucky, Megan. You can go home, you can go back to school even, between bouts.’
School. The very thought of it. It wasn’t as if she was having her appendix out the way Frieda did and showed everyone her wound, or when Darren Longstaff broke his leg and came in with his plaster and crutches. It didn’t feel the same somehow. It didn’t feel like anything to boast about, having cancer.
‘Mum says I don’t have to. I can do work at home.’
‘Or some do half-days, you know. It all depends. But there’s no pressure, no need to worry a
bout it now. You just concentrate on getting better. OK?’ Siobhan gave a little wave. ‘See you later. Just press the bell if you want anything.’
Out she went.
Megan slumped back on her pillows. Half-days. How were you supposed to keep your place on a football team with half-days?
‘Now, I’ve got a whole village to keep informed of what they’re doing to my girl in hospital, so give me lots of details, lass. Mrs Lemon’s here listening, so I won’t get it wrong when anyone asks.’
Grandad’s voice sounded as it always did, old and tinny, hard to understand if you didn’t know it or weren’t used to listening to it. Megan could picture him, with both hands wrapped around the receiver, clinging on, as if it would fly away. She could see Mrs Lemon, his carer, making sure it didn’t.
‘I’m too tall for the bed,’ she told him.
‘You’re a tall lass. That’s only to be expected.’
‘No, it’s because the bed’s too small. They’re baby beds, almost.’ He’d never understand, unless he was here to see it. How could he know what it was like?
‘Baby beds,’ Grandad told Mrs Lemon.
‘But at least I’ve got a room to myself.’
She went on to describe the ward, Sister Brewster, the doctors, Siobhan, then Jackson, starting with the fact that he was a right pain.
‘And he tells ghost stories to nine-year-olds! But it just shows you what kind of ward we’re on.’ Even now the thought outraged her.
‘So how old is he?’
‘Dunno, but he mustn’t be sixteen yet, or he’d be on the adult ward.’
‘Is he friendly?’ Grandad sounded concerned, as if she didn’t have friends of her own. Why did everyone think she needed Jackson?
‘Too friendly, if you ask me. He’s got no hair.’
There was a little silence before Grandad answered. ‘Well, now.’
Megan could hear Mrs Lemon in the background, maybe wanting to know what was wrong.