by Mel Darbon
Jack rests his head on the bed. His curls spill over my hand. I want to touch them. He sits up again.
“I told you about Seb in my cards, he’s cool. I owe him big time.”
“That’s five minutes!” A green shape hovers by Jack.
I don’t want Jack to go. I want him to sit here for ever and keep talking. So I can deep-sleep. And not be scared of monsters coming. I try and squeeze his hand.
“Please, just a bit longer, nurse?” Jack sounds quivery.
“I’m sorry, you have to go because Rose’s blood pressure is far too high and she needs to rest.”
“I love you, Rosie Tremayne.” Jack’s lips touch mine. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Maybe not tomorrow,” the nurse says.
Yes tomorrow, I want to tell her.
“The police are hoping to talk to Rose if we agree she’s well enough.”
“Police? Why do the police want to talk to my Rosie?”
“I don’t know exactly, but Rose has been through a lot it seems.”
“What happened to her? If anyone’s hurt my Rosie, I’ll kill them.”
“I don’t think we’ll have any of that sort of talk, thank you very much, young man. It’s time you left, I’m sure you’ll see her very soon; the best you can do for Rose is be patient and do as you’re told.”
The nurse puts her arm round Jack. I want it to be my arm. I struggle to stay awake. Nothing on my body will do as it’s told. The picture of Jack gets smaller and smaller.
I tumble over into nothing.
The pain in my head has gone quiet. I can breathe in and out better.
I remember Jack was here. I know he was real. He’s nowhere now.
My nurse comes over with a jug of water. She’s wearing blue pyjamas today.
“Is Jack outside?”
“Oh no, love, I think he went home yesterday.”
“Yesterday? He sat here,” I pat the bed, “before I fell deep-asleep.”
The nurse laughs. “You’ve been asleep for a long time. Your boyfriend was here yesterday, Wednesday afternoon and it’s now early Thursday morning.”
I lost Wednesday. I’m making habits of losing days.
I hope Jack is still waiting for me. I can talk to him today.
“Your parents sat with you for ages after that but I sent them back to their hotel to get some sleep too. They’ll be here soon, I’m sure. They’ve been beside themselves with worry and I think you’ve put a few grey hairs onto your dad’s head.”
“I didn’t do that. Dad grew them himself.”
The nurse laughs and laughs. She’s still laughing as she leaves me.
A man doctor in a white coat stands at the end of my bed. They all wear whiter than white coats. He doesn’t say hello. He checks my medicine board and makes a mark on it.
“Hello, young lady. I’m your consultant. I just wanted to check that everything is going to plan as you’ve had us quite worried, you know.” He tips his head on the side. “I think that enforced sleep has done you good. How are you feeling today?”
“Abitbetterthankyou. My chest hurts and my throat is burny still. The knife in my head has gone.”
“Good, good, you’re doing as the doctor ordered then.” He laughs loudly. “Right, let’s see how your chest sounds.”
He puts his listening tubes in his ears and a cold bit on my front. He stands up and does a big smile to his ears. “Much better.”
“Have you seen Jack?”
“Jack? I’m afraid not. Were you expecting him?”
“He’s my boyfriend. We’re going to get married.”
The doctor clears his throat up. “Your temperature’s normal and since your lungs sound clearer and less crackly I think we can probably move you to the HDU. That means a high dependency unit, so you’ll still have to be really looked after, as you’ve been very ill. Now, your antibiotics – that’s your medicine to get better—”
“YeahIknow.”
“My apologies, Miss Tremayne, your antibiotics for the pneumonia have kicked in and hopefully will continue to work their miracles. The infection in your burn is clearing up with the help of some different tablets. They are both very strong doses, so you might have a sore stomach on top of everything else for a bit. But I think we can try you with a tiny bit of lunch later and see how you manage with eating for yourself; something soft and easy to swallow.”
He smiles at me over the top of his glasses. “Good.” He writes something on my board and clips it back onto the end of my bed. “Don’t do anything silly!”
“I’m never silly.”
He clears his throat again and walks off.
I don’t want food. I want Jack and only Jack. Why can’t anyone understand?
I don’t want to be in hospital; but if I go home I won’t see Jack.
I’m worn out being Rose.
Outside the window the sky is full of cloud. The sun has gone away. When Mum comes, I’m going to ask for my Jack. He will make the sun come back to me.
A siren howls outside. I remember the police. Mum said they were coming. I don’t want police. I can’t tell them about Janek. I don’t want my family to be dead.
I want to stop Janek. I want to help Lisette. Janek will hurt her. And Danka and Courtney. Idon’tknowwhattodo. I’m scaredscaredscared.
Jack would tell me to, “Go, Rosie!” Grandma would put my chin up.
I can do it.
But I can’t stop Janek hurting us.
A little blue butterfly flutters on the window ledge. I smile and smile. He makes me strong. Jack sent him and he found me. My lucky blue butterfly.
I don’t think it can stop badbad people.
My nurse comes back to me. “We’re definitely going to move you as you don’t need to be here now. You’ll be right next to this ward as you’re not out of the woods yet.”
“I haven’t been in the woods.”
“Ha ha! It’s what’s called an expression, sweetie, and it means you need a lot of looking after still.”
I nod my head. “I know those. Mum says them all the time. Hers can be silly too.”
The nurse smiles and nods. “You’re right… If you carry on improving like this, you’ll be home before you know it. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be home for Christmas?”
“Do hospitals have Christmas?”
“Oh yes, all the doctors and nurses wear tinsel on their heads and we have Christmas dinner and families come in with presents. There, that’s sorted your IV tube out. We’ll keep it in to give you your medicines while your throat’s still a bit raw. Now, it’s about time we gave you a wash.”
“I can wash me! I’m not a baby.”
“Of course not, but you’re still very wobbly and you have these tubes in you, so for now it’s best that I help you.”
The nurse pulls the blue curtain around me. She sings a Christmas song as she washes me. I like her singing. I feel lots better when she’s finished. Last of all she brushes my hair and puts a clean nightdress on me.
“This is so pretty. Your mum brought it for you.”
There’s a bang and something rattles on the floor. It stops by my curtains. The nurse pulls the curtain open.
“Ah, here he is; Chati is going to help us wheel you through to the HDU.”
A little man with a black ponytail grins at me. He holds my drip. He pretends to be a car as we leave the room. “Broom broom.” He nods his head up and down as he walks.
I try and see Jack in the corridor. It’s no good.
Mum and Dad are in my new room. There are fairy lights around a picture on the wall. Mum has put lots of cards on the shelf. Two gold balloons bob up and down over the radiator. A bed sits on the other side, but it’s empty. Lots of machines sit on the wall.
“Darling, you look so much brighter. You’ve got some pink in your cheeks, hasn’t she, Mike?”
“She has indeed.” Dad kisses my nose.
Chati wheels my drip up next to me. “Good luck, anak.” His eye
s twinkle.
“Byebye. Thankyou.”
The nurse checks everything’s in place. “I’ll come back in a bit.”
When they’ve gone, Mum and Dad sit on each side of me, holding my hands.
“Do you remember what I asked you yesterday? About the police coming to talk to you? Well, they’re here now and want to know if they can have a little chat.”
Dad scrapes his chair back. “You don’t have to do anything if you don’t feel up to it.”
I take a deep breath and blow my scared out the window. To follow the blue butterfly to a safe place.
“I’lltalktothepoliceman.” My words stumble over each other.
A knock on the door makes me jump. Dad opens it up. Two police people stand there. A police lady and a police man. The man is tree-tall and has one big, black eyebrow in a row. I don’t look at him.
“Would it be all right to ask Rose some questions, Mr and Mrs Tremayne?”
“Why don’t you ask Rose that?” Mum does her eyebrow lift at them.
The blonde police lady nods. She takes her cap off and tucks it under her arm. “Do you feel able to answer some questions, Rose?”
I’m frightened again now they are here. I check at the door for Janek. Mum squeezes my hand and I squeeze hers back.
I can’t do it. I want to, but I can’t.
The police lady asks Dad to move. He doesn’t look happy but he sits on the end of my bed. She looks at me for a long time then leans forward to whisper to me. “It’s okay, Rose, no one can hurt you, or any of your family now; we will protect you and keep you all safe.”
I don’t know how she knows. Did I talk the words in my head out loud?
I make a picture of Jack holding my hand and start to talk. Before I can stop me talking. Sometimes the police lady asks me questions. Sometimes I have to cool my throat with water. I tell them about Lawrence helping me get the right colour tube train. And how kind he was. And then how the snow made the trains go away. I talk about Paris and how horrible Leo was. Mum shakes her head and looks sad. I tell them about staying at the Youth Hostel. Mum smiles and looks pleased. Cos I was being in-de-pen-dent. Dad frowns. Mum frowns too when I say about Mia with the freckles. And how she took my stuff away. My mouth stumbles when I get to Janek. But I make myself brave. I have to tell them about him. I have to help Lisette. And Danka. And Courtney.
I start to tell but Dad keeps barging into my words with huffs and puffs and bad words.
The police lady frowns at him. “Tell me about this Janek if you can, don’t be afraid, we’re here to protect you.”
“H…he wore sunglasses. That’s silly in the winter. His blond hair was stuck down to his head. His coat was plasticky and Tesco mustard colour. He was nice to me. He picked my clothes up. He stopped me crying. I blew my nose on his hanky. He said I could keep it. He promised to help me find Jack. He took me to his house. His promises weren’t real. It was a badbad house.”
Dad jumps up and shouts, “This is too much, let the poor girl rest – she’s just got out of ICU, for Christ’s sake.”
“No, Dad. My mouth won’t stop now.”
Dad bites his lip. “This is too bloody much.”
Mum is still and white. I squeeze her hand. I can hardly feel her squeeze mine back.
“Don’t exhaust her.” A cross looking doctor with big hair and a flappy white coat flies into my room. She didn’t knock. “I need to check Rose is okay.” She picks up my notes on the end of the bed. “She’s only recently had her breathing tube out, so her throat will still be very sore and we don’t want any setbacks.”
“I’mokaythankyou.”
The doctor shakes her head.
“I promise we’ll stop if it’s getting too much for Rose,” the police lady says.
“I’ll be back soon.” The doctor’s coat flies back out of the room.
I don’t want to stop. I want to let it all out of my head now. “I met Janek in the park.”
“Do you know where this park was, Rose?”
I take myself back to the place. “It had some swings. And a little statue of a sad lion. He’d lost his ears.”
“That’s great, Rose.”
I shake my head. “No, it isn’t. He wouldn’t be able to hear. I remember! It was near the Youth Hostel. By the red post box.”
“Can you remember the name of the hostel?”
“Green line. Four stops. Going west. From Victoria.”
The police man checks his phone. “Green line – that’s the District line. Four stops, that’s Earl’s Court. We had a report of a Down’s girl staying at a hostel there.”
“Yesitwas. Nearest to Victoria. I had a private room. All by myself. No extra cost.”
Mum and Dad have their mouths open.
“You got a private room all to yourself?” Mum’s words are all spluttery.
“I found Grandma’s thinking cap.”
“Thank you, Rose, that’s a great help.” The police lady writes something in her notebook. “Let’s go back to Janek. He took you to his house after the park in his car?”
“Yes. His house.”
“Do you know where the house was?”
“No.”
“Was it a long drive from the park?”
“No, not long. All the houses looked the same.”
“What was Janek’s car like?”
“It was like Dad’s car. But gold.”
“BMW coupé,” Dad tells her. He’s pacing up and down by my bed.
“Could you sit down, please, Mr Tremayne?”
“My daughter was picked up by some sick bloody bastard, who I want to kill, so, no, I can’t sit still!”
“Mike!”
“This won’t help Rose, Mr Tremayne. Please calm down, I promise you we will be doing everything we can to find this man and stop him. We’re already tracking someone who fits his description. He’s known to us from previous investigations. I can assure you, we will find him and he will be punished; for a long time.”
“What, you knew about this man and yet he’s still out there? What the hell is the matter with you people? Were you waiting for someone to get hurt?”
Dad flings his hand out knocking my water all over the floor. I don’t want his angry now.
“Sit down, Mike, right now. No, leave it, I’ll clear it up.”
The police lady stands up. “If it wasn’t for the circumstances, Mr Tremayne, I would ask you to leave.”
That takes Dad’s huff and puff away. I am all upset and confused now. I want to get my words back. Mum glares at Dad.
“Do you want to carry on, Rose, or would you rather stop for now?”
“Carryon.”
“You are in Janek’s car and he takes you to his house?”
“Yes. The houses were like the ones outside my college on Gravel Hill. But very dirty. There were two girls living there. Lisette and Courtney. And Janek’s girlfriend, Danka. She had a brother like me. But he didn’t live in the house. He didn’t live in England.”
“Do you know how old the girls were? Don’t worry about what they looked like – we can get that later.”
“Lisette was fifteen. She told me.” Mum makes a funny noise in her throat. “I don’t know about Courtney. They had to do bad sex with men. Janek wanted me to party with a man. The man had a sparkle in his tooth.”
Mum starts to cry. Dad’s face has gone sheet-white.
“I didn’t party, Mum, Dad.”
“Thank God, thank God.” Mum holds my hand so tight it hurts me. Dad covers his eyes with his hand.
“Mr and Mrs Tremayne, would you rather we talk to Rose alone? This is clearly very distressing for all of you.”
“No! Thank you, we’re fine, just give us a moment. Rose needs us, don’t you, darling?”
I nod.
Mum stands by the window. I can see her shoulders shaking up and down. I rest my eyes, and Dad and the police people talk quietly. I’m so tired I don’t think I can tell any more.
B
ut I have to finish. Or it will never get out of me. Hurry up, Mum.
Mum returns with red, puffy eyes and sits on the bed next to me. “I’m ready.” She smiles a see-saw smile at me.
The police lady flips a page of her notebook. “You told us that you didn’t have to be with that man. Why was that?”
“Janek said pigs were looking for me at every house. In the street. I don’t know what the pigs were but Janek hid me under the stairs.”
The police lady sighs. “It’s a rude word for policeman, Rose.”
“Oh… But I like pigs.”
The police lady pats my hand. “Now, you were under the stairs.”
“Yes. Janek had to pull the wood out. I thought I was going to die. My back was pushed up on a hot bit.”
Mum and Dad look at each other.
“I prayed to God, ’cept it came out muddled. Thinking of Jack made me de-ter-mined. In the black-dark I remembered what he said on Henley-on-Thames Bridge. He told me I could do anything I wanted to. He told me I was brave and strong. And that he loved me for always. I told me that over and over again. Then I didn’t think about dying or spiders getting me. When Danka let me out, Lisette helped me. She gave me money that Janek gave her. And I gave her my special blue butterfly to look after her. I hope she’s not hurt… I want her to be safe.”
“We’ll be doing everything we can to help those girls, Rose.”
“Yes? You take them away from Janek?”
“Yes, we will make sure they never see him again. They will be looked after and safe… What happened next, after you were under the stairs?”
“Janek dumped me by the river. A mix-up dog called Bella rescued me from the snow. She was Tom’s dog. He looked after me and helped me not be scared. Tom lives under a bridge. Not like Henley-on-Thames Bridge. He had sunset hair. And a big spot on his chin like Ben.”
The police lady smiles.
“He kept me warm with a fire in a dustbin with holes. He gave me food. We found some clothes to make me different. Then Tom put me on the train to Jack. Bella gave me a blue teddy bear with one eye as a present. She got it from a bag outside a charity shop. It’s in my coat pocket. I’m going to keep it always. Will you take me to see Tom, Mum? He saved my life and helped me get to Jack. He was more kind-good even than Lawrence.”