Genius

by Clare Nonhebel

CHAPTER 40

  'Good news!’ said Andrew. 'They said I could be the one to tell you.’

  'What?’ said Keith. His leg hurt and the drug trolley was late. He felt light-headed and his perceptions were heightened: the light coming through the window seemed dazzling, and looking at each person he could see the emotions they were feeling, more clearly than he could see the features on their faces. He mistrusted this lucid state. He hoped it didn't mean he was going to have a fit.

  'Dad's getting you a modem for your computer,’ Andrew said. 'You can send e-mail. And get hooked up to the Internet.’

  'That's great.’

  Looking at his brother, Keith saw billows of distress pouring out of him, like smoke from the windows of a burning house.

  'Is there any other news?’ he asked.

  'Yes. This is even better. Some. TV people rang up. They're doing a programme on special children and they might want you to be on it. They're interviewing people this week.’

  'I won't be out of hospital till next week. Mr Abdul came round this morning and said.’

  'Mum told them that. They said someone could come to the hospital. It's only the first interview. You mightn't be selected.’

  'Is it disabled children, or what?’ Keith didn't feel enthusiastic. Was this one of those 'reward for being a brave little chap’ shows? If so, he was sick of it. He would have said something cynical, but Andrew worried him. If he was about to have a fit, Keith wanted a chance to ask Andrew what was the matter with him first.

  'No, all kinds of special kids, special talents and so on. Kids with unusual lives, you know.’ He was shifting about, rearranging the position of the water jug and the Lucozade bottle and the box of tissues and the sweets on Keith's bedside table. 'Do you want to go on it, if you get the chance?’

  'I don't mind. Would you?’

  'Go on telly? Sure. If l had a special life.’

  'Everyone's life is special,’ Keith said. 'How's yours going at the moment?’

  Andrew shrugged. 'All right.’

  'Something upsetting you?’

  'No.’

  'Oh,’ said Keith. 'I thought there was.’

  Andrew shot him a quick glance, then lowered his head. Keith studied his own left hand. The fingers were opening and then gripping shut of their own accord. It might not be long before his head started shaking. Then Andrew would have to call the nurse and the curtains would be drawn around the bed so the other patients and visitors wouldn't be disturbed by the sight of a poor deformed boy, red-faced, frothing at the mouth, gasping and shaking, tossed to and fro like a rabbit in the mouth of a frenzied dog.

  Andrew sat down on the edge of the bed. 'You don't miss much, do you? I can never hide anything from you, even if I want to. Which I don't really, Keith; it's just that I don't know how to say it. It's embarrassing.’

  He would have to be quick and use his instincts. He would prefer to wait and let Andrew find the words in his own time, but time was running short.

  A young woman in a white towelling dressing gown walked down the ward. 'Anyone got a light?’ She had an unlit cigarette in her hand. She looked at Keith, did a double-take, then looked away quickly.

  A nurse, drawing back the curtains from the bed in the corner and carrying away a bedpan, stopped her. 'You shouldn't be smoking before your operation.’

  'She doesn't look very ill, does she?’ Andrew whispered. 'D'you know what she's in for?’

  'I haven't seen her before,’ said Keith. 'She must have just come in today.’ Looking at her, he saw, as if on an X-ray, an embryo curled up in a corner of her body, its tiny unformed fists clenching and unclenching as his own hands were, flexing its infant muscles as it slept. Sensitive to every vibration, every sensation and sound, it received all the information in the world through the filter of its mother's protective body. But not for long.

  Keith didn't so much hear the scream as the baby was torn away from its lifeline as feel the agony within himself, as if it were his own life being rejected. Sucked out of its home with the force of a passenger sucked out of the shattered window of a sky-borne jumbo jet, the baby shot into a blaze of light and a deafening cacophony of sound, unable to breathe, with the delicate cells of its body wrenched apart. The defencelessly thin flesh was grabbed up in rough hands and deposited into a cold metal kidney dish, ready for disposal.

  Keith flinched and writhed on the bed. Andrew was instantly alert. 'What's wrong? Shall I call the nurse?’

  'No, I'm all right. Sit down.’ He forced his mind back to the present. 'Tell me what's wrong. Is it something to do with Jessica?’

  Andrew stared at him. 'How did you know?’

  Keith turned his eyes away from the young woman who was about to have an abortion, who was protesting to the nurse about her right to have a cigarette. He looked at Andrew, seeing him enmeshed with a girl of about his age, the veins in his arms connecting with her arteries, his blood supply draining into hers.

  'You're very involved with her, aren't you?’

  'Yes.’ Andrew looked away. 'Everyone thinks I'm silly. Or that it's sweet,’ he said venomously. 'I know I'm only thirteen. But I'm in love with her, Keith. I think about her night and day. I can't think about anything else.’

  Keith felt a pang, even while realizing it couldn't be literally true. Andrew had thought about him, had come visiting him, come to tell him good news. Jessica hadn't replaced Keith in Andrew's life, just occupied a lot of space that had previously been taken up with other things. Or perhaps she had filled a large gap in Andrew's life. Maybe that was more like it.

  'What does she feel?’

  'The same as me,’ Andrew said. Keith, watching him, saw the girl clinging on to him, desperate with need.

  'She lost her mother, didn't she?’ Keith said.

  'Last year, yes.’

  'She must feel very alone and afraid.’

  Andrew looked suspicious. 'You're saying it's not really love; she just needs security, and I'm handy?’

  'Is that what you think, yourself?’

  'No!’ he said vehemently.

  'She must be feeling quite lost, though,’ said Keith. 'And you're a really kind person to people who need help. I ought to know,’ he added, seeing Andrew grow angry.

  Andrew softened. 'It's more than that. I don't think about you night and day, do I? Why do people think someone my age can't be in love? Do you think that?’

  'I haven't had the experience,’ said Keith sadly, 'and I'm probably not likely to have. I don't know the dividing line between love and need. All the people I love, I need in some way, so I can't really be objective.’

  'We need you as well,’ Andrew said. He fought back tears. 'You look after all of us as well. It's just not so obvious.’

  'Maybe,’ said Keith cautiously, 'you're both quite vulnerable, for other reasons, and you're being a bit of a lifeline to one another.’

  He mustn't let his mind dwell on that baby whose lifeline was about to be ripped away; push the thoughts away and concentrate on Andrew. His feet were beginning to clench now, along with his hands, and his head was starting to throb and feel very hot. He tried to think clearly; his speech would soon become slurred. His voice already sounded to him as though it was coming from a long way away.

  ‘Jessica's on her own,’ he said, 'with her mother gone and her father at work all day. You're all she has. And you may soon lose me, and we've got on pretty well. I can't be rescued. Maybe it seems to you that she can, so you're giving her all the strength you have. But keep some for yourself, Andrew. Your life is important too. And don't become Mum and Dad's life-support when I've gone. You have a right to a life of your own.’

  He couldn't distance the baby any more now; he could feel her distress, right inside his bones; he was the embryo, with no life of her own, torn away from her moorings, ejected into a cruel, cold world, exposed and alone, facing death ill-equipped and unprotected.

  Dimly, he heard Andrew say, 'Are you all rig
ht? Keith!’ then, a little while later, in a higher pitch, 'Keith, don't die on me! Don't leave me!’

  But by then the waves were breaking over his head and he was in the grip of the merciless force that suctioned out his breath and closed his lungs and destroyed the only freedom Keith ever had, the freedom to think his own thoughts and be himself.

  Now he was just a pawn, held down by the hands of the same young nurse who would assist this afternoon at her first abortion. She was looking forward to the experience, proud to be used to help save a poor young girl from the fate of giving birth to a creature who - like this boy here - was too poorly formed to be considered fully human or to have a real life to live.