The Shell House

by Linda Newbery

  ‘That’s rubbish! It’s not our fault. We didn’t tell him to go clambering round a dangerous building, did we? Didn’t even think it. But you can’t seriously believe it’s so easy to wish things into happening. You don’t believe in God, let alone one who sits up there with the world’s wish-list, ticking things off. I’m not beating my brains about that.’

  ‘Yes, you are. That’s why you lost your race.’

  ‘OK, I thought of someone dying, because of Michelle and her kidney. But I didn’t specify Dean Brampton, and anyway it hasn’t happened yet, ’cos he isn’t dead. You’re not suggesting he picked up my thought-waves and kindly flung himself at our feet as a sacrifice? He’s not dead, and nobody’s said he’s likely to die. He’s not about to snuff it with a signed donor card in his hand, is he?’

  ‘So, now you’ve said all that, why are we here? You saying it is brotherly love? In that case why aren’t we here every night, visiting anyone who happens to be in hospital? There’s no shortage.’

  ‘Look,’ Jordan said, ‘there’s two things. One, it’s an awful thing that’s happened to him. Two, he’s an obnoxious arrogant little turd. Am I really, genuinely sorry for him? Or is it really He got what was coming to him, might knock some sense into him? I’d be a lot sorrier if it was someone else—practically anyone else. What it comes down to is, I feel responsible. That’s why I’m here. OK, so it’s for me, to make myself feel better. That’s why we do most things when it comes down to it.’

  ‘Responsible, though—you’re contradicting yourself!’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Responsible’s not the right word. It’s more like his life has got kind of tangled up with ours, and like it or not we’ve got to care about it.’

  Ours. What did that mean?

  They had reached the hospital entrance now, an ambulance pulling up at the doors of A and E, the crew leaping out to fling the back doors open. Someone else’s life in ruins. Greg stopped and looked in bewilderment at the signboard, which had arrows pointing in all directions, but Jordan didn’t need to stop and look. He knew where Intensive Care was.

  Greg caught up. ‘Do you think they’ll let us see him?’

  ‘Probably not. We can try.’

  Hospitals. Greg hated them. He’d been here twice: once with a suspected fractured wrist in a football accident, once when his gran had been ill. He hated the miles of corridors, the clinical smells, the anonymity of everything. Come in here as a patient and you were on a conveyer belt. Dean Brampton, Dean the Mouth, would have become an item for processing. Jordan led the way through a maze of corridors, past the Operating Theatre and Radiology, to the Intensive Care ward. Inside, Greg glimpsed a room divided into bays, one of them screened by curtains. He saw drips, monitors, a nurse doing something to a motionless figure in the nearest bed. Another nurse looked up from a medication trolley as they entered, and came over quickly.

  ‘We’ve come to see Dean Brampton,’ Jordan explained.

  ‘I’m sorry, he’s not well enough for visitors.’ The nurse spoke in a hushed voice. ‘You’re not family, are you?’ She gave Jordan a second look. ‘You were here a couple of weeks ago, weren’t you?’

  ‘Michelle McAuliffe’s brother,’ Jordan said. ‘And friends of Dean.’

  Stretching the point, Greg thought, but the nurse nodded. ‘Oh yes. Well, it’s not really allowed, but if you wait here a minute I’ll just see if . . .’ She ushered them into a separate waiting area with cushions and magazines.

  Greg looked at Jordan; Jordan made a don’t-ask-me expression. A few moments later a different nurse appeared, accompanied by a tall woman with bottle-blonde hair. ‘Here we are, Mrs Brampton. Friends of Dean’s. I’ll leave you to chat.’

  The woman looked surprised, then gave a taut smile. As soon as the nurse had gone, she looked at each of the boys narrowly.

  ‘Thought she meant Yusuf and Lee. Who’re you, then?’

  ‘We were at the house when Dean had his accident,’ Jordan explained. ‘It was Greg who looked after him till the ambulance came.’

  ‘Oh, it was, was it? I’ve heard all about you two.’ Mrs Brampton jutted her chin at Greg. ‘You in particular. Ought to be ashamed of yourself, picking on younger kids! I’m going to be up that school first thing Monday.’

  ‘No, wait! You’ve—’ Jordan tried.

  ‘Picking on?’ Greg repeated. ‘If anyone’s done that it’s been Dean, making himself a pain.’ But he hadn’t come here to make accusations.

  ‘I know what I know,’ Mrs Brampton said. She squared up to Greg, looking ready for a fight herself—so close that he smelled a waft of perfume and stale cigarette smoke. ‘My boy’s stuck in here with spine damage, might spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and you’re walking round like Jack the Lad! Come here to gloat, I s’pose.’ She glanced at Jordan with a Dean-like sneer. ‘And bringing your boyfriend as well! Ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you pair of poofters. Going up that house to do God knows what!’

  Greg didn’t dare look at Jordan. Mrs Brampton was having exactly the same effect as her son—sending a powerful charge of anger through him, as if she had flicked a switch. He tried to control his voice. ‘Wait a minute. Dean and his friends went to the house to chuck stones and damage things—’

  ‘So you say. That’s not what I’ve heard.’

  ‘I’ve seen him! I’ve seen the graffiti, seen him lobbing stones, deliberately trying to damage a statue—’

  ‘Don’t you try to put him in the wrong!’ Mrs Brampton’s voice became shrill. ‘I know who’s to blame, and I’m going to make sure everyone else knows. Why were they climbing up the walls? To get away from you and your bullying!’

  ‘That’s rubbish!’ Jordan said.

  She rounded on him. ‘You calling me a liar now? My Dean’s lying there and you’ve come here to call me a liar?’

  Her shouting brought the nurse hurrying back, the one who knew Jordan. ‘Oh, come now, Mrs Brampton—don’t get yourself worked up again. That’s not going to help anyone.’

  Mrs Brampton’s shoulders started to quiver. She pulled a tissue from her sleeve. ‘Get them out of here! Coming here to stir up more trouble!’

  The nurse, one arm round her, gestured to Jordan and Greg to go outside. Mrs Brampton sat down on one of the sofas, sniffing, wiping her eyes with the tissue. ‘Christ, I need a fag,’ Greg heard her saying as he and Jordan went back into the ward. He glanced round again, looking for Dean, wondering which of the shrouded fingers linked to tubes and dials could be him.

  Out in the corridor, walking away, Jordan puffed out his breath. ‘Vile woman! Poor old Dean—what chance has he got with a mother like that?’

  Greg had something more urgent on his mind. ‘What she said—’

  ‘About bullying? Yeah—how can she get it so twisted?’

  ‘Not about bullying,’ Greg said. ‘About poofters.’

  A pause, then: ‘Don’t worry about it. She doesn’t know, any more than Dean does.’

  ‘Know?’

  ‘Greg.’ Jordan stopped and looked at him. ‘Don’t you know?’

  Greg hesitated, struggled for words, said nothing.

  ‘Poofter isn’t the word I’d actually use,’ Jordan said, with not quite his usual calm. ‘I wondered if you’d realized. Sometimes I thought you had—yesterday, I thought—and then I wasn’t sure how you—’

  Greg didn’t answer. They were walking side by side—he had no idea where, or which way was out—past an empty reception desk and a sign for Gynaecology and Out-Patients. Everything, he thought, was going to stay imprinted on his mind for ever. Then the corridor opened up into a seating area with red plastic seats arranged round three sides of a square, and a small refreshment stall, unattended.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Jordan asked. Greg heard the tremor in his voice that belied the lightness.

  ‘Let’s sit down here for a minute.’ Greg felt too dazed to carry on walking. They sat. Neither spoke for a few seconds, then Greg said: ‘Did you think—’ a
t the same moment as Jordan said: ‘A few times I—’

  ‘Go on. You first.’

  ‘A few times I was going to say something,’ Jordan said, ‘but then I didn’t.’

  Heels clicked along the corridor; an off-duty nurse in a navy coat came round the corner and looked at them in surprise. ‘There’s no-one in Out-Patients, not at this time of night. Can I help you?’

  ‘We’re just talking, thanks,’ Jordan said. ‘We’ve been visiting someone.’ The nurse gave them a final, doubtful look and walked on. Greg, still fazed, gave a nervous laugh. ‘She probably thinks we’re waiting to nick drugs and stuff.’

  ‘Or else we’re homeless, looking for beds for the night,’ Jordan said. ‘You didn’t answer just now when I asked if you minded.’

  ‘No. No, I don’t mind. But if you’re asking if I’m gay—’

  Jordan nodded, waiting.

  Greg shook his head. ‘I’ve never thought so. But it’s doing my head in. I mean, I fancy girls. I don’t know any more—it’s weird, all this—’

  ‘All this what? What’s doing your head in?’

  ‘This is. You are. I think about you all the time.’ Greg’s mouth wrenched itself into a grimacing smile; he shook his head, looking down at his clasped hands.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Can’t believe what I just said.’

  ‘But you did say it. If it helps,’ Jordan said, ‘I think about you all the time as well. It’s all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘So you know you’re—since when? How long have you known?’

  ‘Two years, three.’

  ‘So have you ever—?’

  ‘I’ve never had a real relationship, no,’ Jordan said, though that was not quite what Greg had meant. ‘There was someone I sort of hero-worshipped, someone in the year above us. He never knew. I’ve forgotten about him now.’

  There was something about the way Jordan said he and him that told Greg he had not quite forgotten.

  ‘Why don’t we go home?’ Jordan said. ‘We could talk there.’

  ‘Go round yours?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Hang on a bit.’ At Jordan’s house there would be people: friendly, concerned people, but still people. They would want to know about the swimming meet, about Dean. Greg needed to get his head straight before he could cope with other people. ‘That girl, Carly,’ he said, remembering the hug, the smile, the twinge of jealousy he had felt, watching, and surely that proved something—‘she likes you.’

  ‘I like her too, but not that way. She’s a team mate, that’s all. You didn’t think—’

  ‘Didn’t know what to think.’

  ‘But you minded?’

  Greg nodded.

  ‘You don’t need to,’ Jordan said. ‘It’s you I want to be with. No-one else.’

  There was a silence. Greg thought: What next? This is mad! They were sitting within touching distance, but separate. What if Jordan reached out to stroke his hand, or his hair? Greg felt the air prickling his skin. For all his looking and looking and wondering, he could not meet Jordan’s eye. His gaze was fixed on a poster on the wall opposite that instructed him to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables every day.

  Jordan shifted in his seat. ‘My parents know.’

  ‘Know?’

  ‘That I’m gay,’ Jordan said. ‘I thought it best if they knew.’

  Greg puffed out his cheeks. ‘Christ! I’d die rather than have mine know—if I was gay, I mean. You told yours?’

  ‘We talk about things,’ Jordan said. ‘I told you that. So I’ve come out, but only at home. Everywhere else, school especially, I’m firmly still in. Not quite brave enough for that yet. School is the worst place there is—well, you don’t need me to tell you that. A couple of years on, at college or whatever, I won’t mind.’

  ‘But your parents—you tell them everything? I mean, how did that come up? When?’

  ‘About a year ago. I wanted them to know.’

  ‘What, just like that? Round the tea-table? By the way, folks, I’m gay?’

  ‘No. Dad first. We’ve talked about it . . . a few times. He thought it might be just a phase, I might turn out to like girls after all—I think that’s what he hoped. But, well, it isn’t. So Dad helped me to realize how it’s got to be. You know how you see gay blokes on TV all the time, picking each other up, doing stuff in men’s bogs—well, I don’t want it like that, sordid. It’s got to be real, worth something. The other person’s got to be someone I can trust, someone I can be with. Everything.’

  ‘Someone you can look at the stars with and swim in the sea with at dawn?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jordan said. There was a pause, then: ‘That’s why I told you. To see if you like stargazing.’

  Another expectant silence; Greg’s vocal cords felt numbed. He cleared his throat, stalled: ‘So it’s only your dad who knows, then?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Jordan said, matter-of-factly. ‘We decided it was best to tell Mum and Michelle as well.’

  ‘Michelle knows?’ For one squirming second, the idea of telling Katy floated into Greg’s head.

  ‘Why not?’

  Greg threw out both hands—It’s obvious. But it was not obvious to Jordan.

  ‘It’s like—when someone nearly dies, when Michelle nearly did, it puts things into perspective,’ Jordan explained. ‘What does anything else matter, as long as we’re all alive and together? What’s the point of hiding things? I didn’t want Michelle asking me about girlfriends—didn’t want to pretend. It’s better that she knows. And she’s mature enough to be fine about it.’

  ‘Hang on a minute. Do you mean to say—that time I came round for Michelle’s birthday, and last night—they were all looking at me as your boyfriend? A candidate for your Special Someone?’

  ‘If you want to put it like that. They like you.’

  Greg huffed out his breath. ‘Oh, great!’

  ‘Why does that annoy you?’

  ‘You really need me to spell it out? Your mum said I could stay the night, for Christ’s sake! Is that what you meant just now, about going round yours? Come and stay the night? What, share your bed, with everyone’s approval? I suppose even your little brother knows? You wouldn’t want to leave anyone out of confession time—’

  ‘Not Mark, of course not, he’s much too young to understand. And Mum didn’t mean share my bed. They’re open-minded, but not that open-minded.’ Jordan was starting to assume the closed-off look he often wore at school: Private, keep out. ‘Why are you annoyed? I’m not putting any pressure on you. I don’t want anything unless you want it too.’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Everyone knowing. Everyone watching. Christ—’

  ‘You don’t believe in him.’

  ‘No, and you know what?’ Greg shifted his feet. ‘I don’t believe this, either. Any of it.’ Abruptly he stood up. ‘Forget it—just forget it, this whole conversation!’

  Jordan looked up at him: reproachful, dismayed. ‘You know that’s impossible.’

  ‘Not for me it isn’t.’ Greg shook his head, thrusting his hands into his jeans pockets. ‘See you.’

  ‘Greg—’

  ‘Leave me alone!’

  Greg turned and walked away fast, slamming through double doors, hearing them clack shut behind him in the emptiness of the corridor. He did not look back.

  The Intensive Care sign loomed in front of him; he was back in the maze. He pushed open the door and marched in. By the far window, he saw Dean Brampton’s mother slumped in a chair with her back to him, beside the farthest bed. Dean lay on his back, his face still, so young—just a desperately injured boy, not the mouthy yob Greg knew.

  A nurse came towards him, both hands held up: Stop. She shepherded Greg back into the waiting area, out of sight.

  ‘What do you want? I can’t let you into the ward. Mrs Brampton’s very upset.’

  ‘I want to know how he is. Dean.’ Greg’s voice came out gruffly.

  ‘You’re not family—’
/>
  ‘No.’ Greg couldn’t bring himself to say friend either, repeating Jordan’s lie. ‘But I want to know.’

  ‘Well, he’s very poorly. As comfortable as can be expected. Not much change. That’s all I can tell you.’

  Nothing, in other words. Nothing, wrapped up in hospital euphemisms.

  ‘He’s not paralysed, is he? Will he be able to walk?’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s too early to tell.’

  ‘OK. Thanks.’

  ‘Go straight back to Reception and out that way,’ the nurse told him. ‘You shouldn’t be wandering round the hospital at this time of night.’

  The ward doors opened to his shove. He half-wanted Jordan to have followed him, and was both relieved and disappointed that he had not. The corridor stretched both ways, polished and blank. Greg grimaced, clenching his fists till his nails dug into his palms; he bit his lip hard, wanting to hurt someone. Himself, most of all.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  He had to get out of here. He walked fast, blindly, hardly noticing where the signs led him, till he found himself back at Accident and Emergency, with double doors leading out. The cool air welcomed him. He started to jog up the long entrance drive, then settled into a steady run, the rhythm of his feet pushing all thought from his head. A blur of lights from the streetlamps danced in his head, traffic noise snarled at his heels; he ran till his teeth ached and his lungs were sore. He had to keep running.

  ‘I’m recommending you for a week’s home leave,’ Captain Greenaway had told Edmund, ‘during which time I expect you—in fact I order you—to put this behind you, and come back with your mind properly on the job.’

  Edmund stood in the garden at Graveney Hall, looking over the ha-ha. It was April; the air smelled of spring and new growth; the trees were bursting into leaf. A mockery.

  Alex was dead.

  Alex was a name on a Casualty list.