Anthem for Jackson Dawes

by Celia Bryce

  ‘Hey,’ Jackson moved closer. Their drip stands nudged into each other with a dull clunk. ‘Don’t worry, whatever it is.’

  Then his arm was around her shoulders, warm as jumpers, pulling her in so close that she melted into the shape of him, so that in the sharpness of the moonlight, the jazzy glitter of the city and the strings of brightly lit roads, it was all just a blur. Megan couldn’t see where she ended or where he began, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more.

  * * *

  ‘Thank you,’ Megan said later. Her eyes felt swollen and sore with so much crying.

  ‘For what …?’

  ‘I don’t know. Being here, I suppose.’

  But it was more than that. It was everything else.

  It was Jackson making her feel that it didn’t matter if she cried. It was him making everything seem just that little bit more simple, that little bit less confusing. It was Jackson making her feel safe, there in the window, with the black sky all around her.

  At last she moved away, gently shrugging off his arm from around her shoulders. ‘We should get back, I suppose. Before they come and find us.’

  ‘Let them. What’re they going to do. Sack us? Send us home?’ His face shone in the moonlight. He was smiling.

  It was a nice smile, not one which laughed at her, for a change. Megan knew that Jackson was trying to be her friend, trying to help, when there was no Gemma to talk to, no Twins to make silly jokes about everything as if they understood what it was like to be in hospital, to have cancer.

  Megan gave Jackson a watery smile.

  He really was all she had. She’d have to be nice to him, stop treating him like he was in the way all the time. Jackson leaned in as if he knew all of this. Megan could feel his breath on her face, clean, toothpaste breath.

  ‘Let’s just stay here,’ he whispered, as if that would solve everything.

  But how could it?

  ‘Where else can we go?’ Megan said, surprising herself with the bitterness she felt all of a sudden. ‘There’s just this stupid ward, this stupid place.’ The words came out in short bursts, as if Jackson was to blame for everything when clearly he wasn’t.

  Yet she couldn’t help it.

  The anger wouldn’t go away. Just staying here meant she couldn’t get away, but would be sucked into the hospital, into Jackson’s world and end up like him, always in trouble, or like Kipper, upset about her cat.

  She didn’t want to be in trouble, didn’t want to be upset. She wanted to be normal and away from here and not have cancer any more. It was rubbish. Everything. And Jackson couldn’t help. No one could and there was no point in just staying here.

  It was then that Jackson bent his face to hers and kissed her with the softest peck of his lips. Megan moved away. ‘Don’t.’

  Jackson stood very still, as if paused by the press of a button. The air between them almost crackled. Megan couldn’t tell if he was hurt, amused or angry. She could easily un-pause him, easily feel him close to her again through the thin material of her dressing gown, breathe in every breath he took. She could easily kiss him back.

  But no.

  It wasn’t right. Nothing was.

  The space between them grew bigger and deeper than a canyon. The air cooled.

  ‘It’s OK. I get it,’ Jackson said.

  ‘No! You don’t get it! It’s just …’ The words wouldn’t come. Megan felt even more hollow inside.

  But didn’t you have to feel at least a little bit happy to want to kiss someone?

  Megan tried to make her way to the door, only now, in the dark, the furniture seemed bigger than before, her drip stand seemed to have grown more feet, more wheels. It kept colliding into things.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Jackson said. ‘Stay a bit longer. I’m sorry. Promise I won’t try anything else.’

  There was that grin in his voice once more, which said nothing had upset him. Nothing and no one, not even she, could ever really hurt him.

  It made Megan smile, just a little bit, as if it was all a bad dream, all the upset she felt, and now she was awake.

  Jackson began to fold himself down on to the low chairs lining the back wall.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Megan said.

  ‘Sometimes I just lay me down to sleep.’ He sounded like his mother or someone older even.

  ‘On those?’

  ‘Yeah. Try it.’

  Megan slumped down on the row of seats opposite. They weren’t uncomfortable, not really. She drew up her feet, wrapping her dressing gown around them like a blanket. She could fall asleep quite easily. Had Jackson ever done that? For the whole night? Had anyone ever caught him? She gazed at him as he stretched out like a cat in its basket.

  ‘Jackson?’ she whispered.

  ‘Sssssh! I’m planning.’

  Megan frowned. ‘Planning what?’ There was a chuckle in answer, nothing more. Oh no. Surely he wasn’t aiming to go off the ward tonight? ‘Are you going to escape again?’

  No answer.

  ‘You’re going to drive them crazy, you know.’

  Another chuckle, then silence. Obviously, Jackson didn’t care about upsetting nurses or doctors, he didn’t bother about rules and regulations, except to break them, to get away just for a little while.

  If only she could do the same.

  Megan wanted a place to go, just like Jackson, somewhere which wasn’t her room, wasn’t the ward, or the visitors’ waiting area, or the place they called School, but which was just a table, a couple of chairs and a computer in the corner of the playroom.

  ‘Where d’you really get to?’ she said. ‘When you go off the ward?’

  Jackson propped himself up on his elbow. Megan could feel him watching her, as if he was trying to work her out. ‘Well, it’s a big hospital,’ he said. ‘Hundreds of floors, and buildings and lifts. Then there’s the old bit, lots of corridors, and shadows and things you don’t want to meet in dead of night …’

  ‘Stop it, Jackson,’ Megan warned. ‘Keep that stuff for Becky and Laura. Come on. Out with it!’

  There was a laugh from low in his throat. ‘OK … well … the porters’ place, staff restaurant, laundry, visitors’ restaurant, chapel …’ He paused as if for breath, or to see what she made of it so far.

  Megan looked at Jackson, imagining him not stopping at the chapel, or the laundry, imagining him walking very casually, very coolly, out through the main doors, down the path, away into the street.

  ‘… the doctors’ residence, the nurses’ home … at least I think that’s what it was …’

  ‘You haven’t been to all those places.’

  ‘I so have.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not?’ Jackson grinned, his teeth white in the moonlight. ‘It reminds them I’m still here. They’ll miss me when I’m gone.’

  ‘Like a hole in the head.’

  A clock struck, kept on striking, each note a low boom across the city. It was midnight. Mr Henry would be out and about rat-catching, creeping over rooftops, climbing buildings, sitting on windowsills, peering in at people who should be asleep.

  ‘So apart from drawing,’ Jackson said, as if talking about himself was suddenly boring, ‘what else do you do?’

  ‘Football,’ Megan answered.

  Jackson made a pillow of his arms. ‘Football? You watch it, right?’

  ‘I play it.’

  ‘But you’re a girl! Girls don’t do football,’ Jackson mocked. ‘I don’t know what Becky and Laura will say about that! And Kipper, come to think of it. You’re meant to do proper girl stuff, like … I don’t know … clothes, shopping, make-up.’

  ‘That’s not all girls do!’

  ‘Isn’t it? The girls I know don’t play football.’

  Megan rolled her eyes. ‘Well … duh … ! I do!’ There was a pause while Jackson digested this.

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘I was the only girl in the school team,’ she answered. ‘We were doing all right.’


  Jackson made a noise, which she supposed meant he was impressed. ‘You must be good, then.’

  The defiance left her. What was the point of talking about something she might not do again? She’d never be as good and they’d hardly let her back on the team, after so long away from it.

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Hey, it’ll be OK. You’ll see.’ Jackson might have been reading her mind. ‘When they let us out of here for good, I’m back in the band and you’re back in the squad.’ He yawned and stretched once more, his limbs looking even longer, more supple, more sinewy. He nudged his drip stand out of the way to make more room. ‘In fact, they’re letting me out. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Home?’ Megan’s heart tripped. How would she get through to the end of this week without him? ‘For good?’

  ‘Nah. Back in a few weeks.’ There was a pause. Megan looked over at him. He was gazing at her. ‘Will you be here?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Jackson said nothing, as if he hadn’t heard, or didn’t care either way. Or perhaps it was because he was no longer awake. He was breathing slowly, rhythmically; there was an occasional little snore. His knees moved slightly, one on top of the other, as he settled further into sleep. There was a twitch of his arm. Megan watched the rise and fall of his chest, watched as the moon came back out and found him, resting its light on his skin.

  He had taken off his hat. Long fingers curled around the rim as he held it across his lean stomach. It breathed along with him.

  Megan yawned. They should both be back in their own rooms. If the night staff came in, there’d be trouble. Double trouble. But she didn’t care, not if Jackson didn’t.

  Megan curled up into a comfortable ball. She closed her eyes and saw herself and Jackson moving through the city, wrapped in strings of light. They headed further and further away from the hospital till they were just small specks in the black night, walking straight through till dawn.

  Seven

  Jackson was going home. He was busy packing his stuff with his mum. Megan left them to it though she wanted to be in the room with them. Which was stupid. She’d be going home herself in a couple of days. What a wimp to get upset. She could look after herself. She wasn’t a kid. She’d go walkabout on her own.

  Only perhaps she’d just have a wander to the main ward, rather than round the whole hospital. She was still tired. It didn’t take much to have her wanting to lie back down and sleep. Not that sleeping helped. She still woke up tired.

  Megan pushed her drip stand along the corridor in the opposite direction to Jackson’s room, nudged through the double doors, and the first thing she saw was Kipper.

  Her face was stormy and pink. She was sitting in the middle of her bed. Siobhan was with her. So was her mum, who only barely resembled the woman who’d talked to her the other night. She looked like she’d just got out of bed after a sleepless week.

  ‘Don’t want it,’ Kipper was saying.

  ‘It’s just medicine. To make you feel better,’ her mum said. ‘Siobhan’s brought it special. Just for you.’

  Kipper shook her head.

  Her mum tried again.

  Nothing.

  The whole thing was being watched by a small child who was lying on his side clutching a teddy bear which was wearing a tiny nurse’s cap with a big red cross on it. His fingers dug deeply into the teddy’s tummy, so that it doubled over as if in agony.

  ‘It’s just a tiny wee cup,’ Siobhan said. ‘And it’ll make you feel better.’

  ‘No. It won’t.’

  ‘Mikey’s had his, haven’t you, Mikey?’ The small boy with the teddy bear nodded. ‘See! And he’s feeling better, aren’t you?’

  Another nod. The teddy bear’s cap slipped.

  Kipper twisted her mouth.

  The phone rang at the Nurses’ Station. A doctor, shuffling papers about as if looking for one important thing, picked up and listened. ‘Sister Brewster, it’s for you.’ He waved the receiver in the air and continued with his search.

  ‘I’ll take it. She’s busy.’ A nurse appeared behind him, took the phone out of his hand and began to talk into it.

  Meanwhile, a baby cried and its mum hushed it with a stroke of its head. A toddler banged the side of his cot with Thomas the Tank Engine, who didn’t seem to mind, whose smile stayed put.

  A woman with a ‘Physiotherapist’ badge pinned to her white tunic sat with another child, making him breathe in and out to see if the stuffed mouse on his chest would move. ‘There you are. That’s much better. Nice deep breaths make the mouse move. You’re just like a trampoline!’ The boy looked up at her with amazed eyes. ‘Clever little man! Let’s try some more.’

  Then Jackson was there, standing at the top of the ward.

  Without his drip and with a jacket and jeans, a small rucksack over his shoulder, he looked normal. No, not normal. He looked stunning.

  The whole ward seemed to pause as a number of eyes turned to gaze at him. Even the steady click of machines appeared to stutter for a second as if caught off guard by him.

  Megan smiled. He’d come to see her before he’d left. There was a tingle of happiness, an ache of regret. But Jackson headed straight for Kipper, who stopped complaining. The boy with the teddy bear gazed up at him. Thomas the Tank Engine stopped in mid-air. The mouse moved up and down but the child was peering past the shoulder of the physiotherapist.

  ‘Hiya, Siobhan, what you got there?’ Jackson took the small pot of medicine from her hand and waved it under his nose. He closed his eyes as if it was the best thing ever. ‘Hmmm,’ he said, nodding. ‘Essence of strawberry. A hint of ice cream. A scatter of hundreds and thousands.’ He opened his eyes once more, made them enormous. There was a giggle from somewhere. ‘Can I have this, please?’

  Siobhan shook her head. ‘Now, Jackson, you know it’s not for you. Give it back this minute. You’ve got your own to take home with you.’ Her voice sparkled with amusement.

  Jackson frowned at her. ‘You’re going to drink it, aren’t you? I don’t believe it! A nurse! Stealing Kipper’s medicine?’ He held it up high, out of Siobhan’s reach.

  Kipper watched open-mouthed, eyes big as barrels. Her mum sat with a faint smile on her lips and pushed back a strand of hair from her face.

  ‘I shall return this to its rightful owner,’ said Jackson, tipping the medicine into Kipper’s mouth before she could clamp it shut. Very gently he closed her mouth, his fingers resting under her chin, to stop her spitting it back out.

  The medicine was gone.

  Another giggle from somewhere. Thomas the Tank Engine clattered into the cot side. The mouse rose and fell. The teddy bear’s cap slipped right off.

  ‘See you later, Kipper! And if you have any more trouble with that Siobhan sneaking off with your medicine, you just speak to me or my friend Megan.’

  He moved towards Megan and laid his hand gently on her shoulder. It felt warm and nice, like the hand of someone old and wise and kind. For a moment, Megan thought he might want to kiss her again. In front of the whole ward. What would she do? Let him? Megan looked up at him, as if to say, It’s all right, I don’t mind if you do.

  But Jackson only smiled at her. ‘See you next time, maybe.’

  And he was gone.

  Megan sat at the Play-Doh table, protecting Kipper’s cat. Somehow, and she wasn’t entirely sure how, she found herself helping to make a miniature Play-Doh Brian. He was snow-white with blue eyes. They’d only just finished when Kipper had to go back to her bed so that some student doctors could have a look at her. It could take ages, but she made Megan promise to take care of her model.

  It was the day before Megan was due to go home and it seemed strange, the idea of losing the drip and stand, her constant companion for what felt like for ever, and to know that she could do ordinary things again.

  Ordinary things. What were they?

  She looked around at the ward. There was some singing going on. A mum and a nurse with a CD player, singing along with the music
. Sitting on a blanket in front of them was a little boy copying them. Wrinkle your nose, they sang. The boy wrinkled his nose. Run your hands through your hair. He ran his hands over his bald head. Let your whole self wriggle, wriggle, wriggle. He flung his arms about, danced his head around and giggled, then clapped because he was so clever.

  His skin was a pale yellow and there were small ulcers around his mouth, but that didn’t seem to bother him. And when the music stopped with a fanfare and the adults applauded, he just yelled for more.

  The play button was pressed again and the song and dance routine resumed.

  Bored with waiting for Kipper, and with watching the little boy dance around on his bottom, Megan began to make a nice place for Brian to live. Rolling the dough into sausages for trees, and patting flat green circles for foliage, tiny red balls for apples, she made a garden. It blossomed by the white fence, which overlooked a sky-blue pond with a duck in the middle.

  With each piece, Megan concentrated on textures, giving leaves veins, giving trees bark, the pond lilies and the apples sprigs of green, so that everything looked vibrant, alive and splashed with every colour available.

  The play specialist nodded approval, while one child slid off her bed, leaving her mother behind, to have a look at the growing garden. One boy dragged his blanket with him, slipped the corner into his mouth and sat sucking it as he watched. The owner of Thomas the Tank Engine shuffled to the end of his cot and peered through the bars. The dancing boy was soon carried over by his mother and this new distraction made him smile all over again.

  If Jackson had been there, he might have spun a story around all the models in their startlingly bright colours. In his absence Megan did what she could.

  Here was Brian after his sleep.

  Here was Brian searching the pond for fish.

  Here was Brian climbing one of the trees.

  Kipper was on her way back at last, demanding to see her cat, to see if he was safe. Her mum was made to stay by her bed.

  Proud of her Play-Doh garden, Megan stood and took Kipper’s hand. ‘Close your eyes.’ Kipper closed her eyes. Megan led her to the table. ‘Now open them.’