All Sorts of Possible

by Rupert Wallis

  The silence deepened. But Daniel kept staring. And then the consultant helped him out of the cubicle around his bed and on through the stares and the whispers in the rest of the ward.

  They walked slowly down corridors, Daniel’s ill-fitting hospital slippers slapping the floor. When they passed a ward with its double doors open, Daniel saw elderly patients frocked in green tunics, like some weird cult seeing out its end of days together.

  They came to a quiet corner of the hospital and the doctor spoke into an intercom on the wall and they were buzzed through. Then on into a ward of eight single rooms linked in an octagon, each one with floor-to-ceiling glass that faced on to a nurse at her station in the centre, light from her desk lamp splashing on to the paperwork piled in front of her.

  Standing beside a door to one of the rooms, Daniel could see through the glass that somebody was lying in a bed, their two feet like tiny tent poles beneath the sheet.

  Before he could ask anything, the consultant pushed the handle and waited for him to go in.

  His father was lying, tubed and silent, wearing a white smock just like Daniel’s, his arms resting on top of the sheet. His head was bandaged. A ventilator was breathing for him.

  Daniel touched the top of his father’s hand and felt the warmth coming off it.

  ‘He’s been placed in an induced coma,’ said the consultant. ‘That means he’s being kept asleep for now. Your father needed life-saving surgery because his brain was bleeding and now it has to have time to recover. The team on the ward here will be able to tell you more.’

  Daniel squeezed his father’s hand harder. ‘Can he hear us?’

  The consultant shook her head. ‘He’s heavily sedated. Daniel, your father is very poorly. Who would you like us to contact? There doesn’t seem—’

  ‘There’s just us.’

  ‘No other relatives?’

  ‘Only my aunt. But she lives in America and I’ve never met her. My dad doesn’t speak to her because they fell out, so I don’t think she’d come. Can I stay with him for a bit now?’

  The consultant was about to ask something else, but then she just nodded. ‘For a little while. You need to rest as well. Get yourself stronger too.’

  When the consultant closed the door, Daniel looked round, shocked by the gentle click.

  ‘Dad?’ The walls began fraying at the edges of Daniel’s eyes because it was always his father who had told him about the important things. ‘Dad, I’m here. But I don’t know how.’

  12

  When the nurse from the station opened the door, Daniel was curled up asleep on his father’s bed, twitching like a dog in its dreaming. She stood watching because she didn’t have the heart to wake him up.

  But then he cried out, clicking his teeth together, catching the cuts on his lips and scattering gobbets of blood over the sheet where they bloomed like tiny roses around him. When he woke himself up, the nurse hugged him as hard as she dared, feeling his heart thumping against her chest.

  ‘It was just a dream, Daniel. You’re safe now. You came back.’

  He looked at her with big, blinking eyes, sucking up the blood from between his teeth, nodding as he remembered where he was.

  His father had not moved.

  Not one centimetre.

  Daniel screwed up his face. Pushed knuckles into his eyes to stop himself crying. ‘Do you think he’s going to be OK?’

  ‘Daniel, when a patient like your father turns up unconscious, there’s no way of knowing early on if they’re going to make a full recovery or not. All we can do is wait and see what happens. He’ll be kept sedated for now, in what we call an induced coma, to help give his brain time to recover. When the doctors think it’s time to try and wake him up, we’ll start to know more about his condition.’

  ‘We were supposed to be going camping. And the last thing I said was I hated him because I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay at home and be on my stupid PlayStation.’

  ‘What happened wasn’t your fault, Daniel.’

  ‘Then why did it happen?’

  The nurse shook her head, unsure what to say. She took hold of one of Daniel’s hands and ran her thumbs across his palm, stroking the skin as though reading a secret in the lines.

  ‘When I heard you’d been found, I thought it was payback for all the kids who’ve gone missing in the world, for the ones who never got to grow up. I said to myself, “Finally, the world’s given us one back.” And, even though it’s still waiting on what to do with your father, I’m hoping it’s going to bring him back too.’

  Daniel thought about what she was saying. ‘I’ve got to wait and hope he gets better, haven’t I?’ He wiped his eyes when he felt them getting hot again. ‘But . . .’ He paused until he was ready to try a second time, his voice stuttering as he spoke. ‘But . . . how do I do that?’

  The nurse hugged him close and whispered to him. ‘I know how hard it’ll be. I do. But you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, and I should know because you get to be an expert about a thing like that working here.’

  The Fit

  13

  In those few days afterwards, staying in the hospital and growing stronger, the corridors were a strange comfort to Daniel. White and bright and dry with signs that took him wherever he wanted to go. He mapped them, and the walkways and stairways that connected them, by heart, grateful he could never become lost, always returning to his father and sitting with him whenever he was allowed. Whispering to him that he was there. Stroking his arms. Helping to wash his hands in a bowl of warm water after the nurse had shown him how.

  He noticed the doctors and nurses nodding when they passed him in the corridors. Occasionally, they paused and asked how he was. Patients did too. Sometimes those who looked the most ill touched his arm as they spoke to him, as though he was a charm that might bring them good luck.

  Daniel smiled it off at first.

  But, on the morning of the third day after arriving in the hospital, he passed by the shop on the ground floor and stopped when he saw the newspapers calling his survival a ‘miracle’. The word was written in a headline next to his photo, and the longer he stopped to look at it, the more it sent his mind whirring. When a man bent down to ask if he was all right, Daniel reeled away, flushed with embarrassment, until the corridors were winding him back exactly where he wanted to go.

  He sat by his father’s bed in his hospital dressing gown, then closed his eyes and asked for another miracle. Over and over he repeated it inside his head, like a prayer, or a piece of magic that would only work if he really believed in it, trying to remember exactly how he had asked for help underground.

  But, when he looked, nothing had changed. His father was still lying there in exactly the same position. Eyes closed. The ventilator inflating his lungs, then sucking them small.

  Daniel studied the small undulations in the rubber floor, trying to imagine how many people had walked in and out of this particular room and what their stories were.

  ‘I hate seeing you like this,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m scared you won’t wake up and be like you were, that things aren’t ever going to be the same again.’

  Daniel leant forward in his chair until he could see the pores in his father’s nose. ‘You have to make sure you get better,’ he whispered. ‘Please. I don’t know what to do if you don’t. I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here or what’ll happen when I go home. The social worker who came to see me yesterday was talking about getting in contact with Aunt Jane.’

  When the door opened, Daniel sat back abruptly in the plastic chair. But it wasn’t a nurse or a doctor. It was a man, wearing a dark, single-breasted suit, with wide turn-ups resting on the laces of his brown shoes. Beneath his jacket was a white shirt and a dirty yellow tie, dangling like a strip of flypaper as he set his black briefcase on the grey rubber floor where it stood like a low headstone.

  14

  ‘It’s Daniel, isn’t it? We met downstairs in the shop.’ The man held
up one of the newspapers and tapped his finger beside Daniel’s picture on the front page. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you earlier.’ Daniel couldn’t remember anything about the face that had bent down and looked into his. ‘You were busy chewing things over. I understand.’ And the man smiled as though he could see right inside Daniel, at what he was really thinking.

  Daniel watched the tops of his feet winking in their hospital slippers as he thought about leaving. But the nurse had vanished from her station, and abandoning his father with someone he didn’t know felt wrong, however ordinary the man might look in his suit, his dark hair flecked with grey. Like any businessman who had just stepped off a train.

  ‘Do you know my dad from work? Is that why the nurse let you into the ward? Are you an accountant like him?’

  The man just smiled. ‘How’s your father doing?’

  ‘No change.’

  ‘No worse then.’ And the man grinned as though it was the best news in the world. ‘I’m sure he’s going to be fine, Daniel.’

  ‘Not even the doctors know that yet.’ Daniel took hold of his father’s hand quickly, afraid of having said something not meant to be heard.

  ‘It was a terrible thing to happen to you both. You must have been very scared down there in the dark.’

  Daniel nodded and pressed his hands together, making his fingers click.

  The man placed the newspaper down on the bed and Daniel shook his head at the headline.

  ‘It wasn’t a miracle,’ he said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because what was the point if it was?’ Daniel glanced at his father’s pale face. Not a flicker.

  ‘Actually, I have a theory about that that I wanted to talk to you about,’ replied the man, producing a business card from the inside pocket of his jacket and holding it out between two fingers as slender as chicken bones.

  Daniel reached forward and took the card. Written in fine black print was:

  The Very Revd Samuel Lawson

  ‘I’m retired now,’ said Lawson. ‘But I’m very interested in speaking to you about what happened. If you turn the card over—’

  But Daniel tore the card in half and threw the pieces at the bin. Lawson just kept staring at the boy, as if nothing had happened at all.

  ‘I think you should leave,’ said Daniel. ‘My dad isn’t into God. Neither am I. It was luck I got out, that’s all.’

  Lawson shook his head. ‘I think you might have been rescued . . . saved, to go on and do things you could never have dreamt of being able to do before.’

  ‘I’ll call for the nurse,’ warned Daniel, stretching out a hand for the bell beside the bed. But, before he could reach it, a golden spot of heat blossomed suddenly behind his ribs, making him stop. It was ticklish, not uncomfortable or painful, but odd enough to make a hand fly to his chest in a panic and he looked up at Lawson to tell him that something was wrong. But the man was smiling, nodding gently as if he already knew. His body was straining slightly, the muscles around his eyes twitching.

  ‘The talent you have is very powerful, Daniel. I saw it downstairs in the shop, as bright as a star inside you. I can look right into a person and see things about them. That’s why I know what happened to you down there in the dark. I know you asked to be saved, that you whispered to the rock you were lying on and told it you wanted to grow up and be someone. I also know you scratched a word on it too, which none of the newspapers have mentioned. I wrote it down on the back of that business card after we met downstairs so you’d believe me.’ He gestured at the two pieces on the floor.

  Daniel’s fingers pressed harder on his chest because he wanted to touch the wonderful golden heat inside him. ‘Who are you?’ he whispered.

  ‘A man with my own talents too. Daniel, there’s so much more to the world than people realize but I’m willing to show you everything I know. We have a chance to make the fit, you and I.’ He glanced at the door, head cocked as though listening to something outside the room. ‘I think I can show you what I mean, just a flavour, if you’ll let me.’

  Before Daniel could ask anything more, Lawson’s face began to tighten and, as it did so, the boy felt the golden spot inside his chest expand, making him gasp, but not from pain because the sensation was too calm and gentle for that. He felt light-headed. Relaxed. All the tension that had been in his neck and shoulders melted away.

  ‘Can you hear them?’ asked Lawson, the muscles in his face twitching and his brow lit by a sheen of sweat. ‘Tell me if you can.’

  Daniel nodded when he heard the distant sound of voices somewhere inside him. ‘Who are they? What’s going on?’

  ‘They’ll be here in a few minutes. They’re coming to see you and your father to tell you what’s going to happen next. I know that because your talent allows me to see and know things that my own gifts wouldn’t ordinarily allow.’

  As the voices grew louder, Daniel began to feel dizzy. He started to panic. Shook his head. ‘I don’t like it. Stop it. Please. It feels too strange. I’m scared.’ As his fear grew, he felt the warm golden spot in his chest begin to dim.

  Suddenly, the strain in Lawson’s face eased and the sound of the voices inside Daniel disappeared, and the heat in his chest vanished, leaving a cold dark spot.

  Lawson was already picking up his briefcase and heading for the door as Daniel began to start thinking for himself again. Lawson turned and looked at the boy before he left. ‘Daniel, if we’re to make the best fit we can then it’s up to you. You’re going to have to trust me, open your heart to me. The fit can only work properly if two people want to work together. You and I have the chance of doing incredible things, perhaps even helping your father. That’s what you want most of all, isn’t it, to help him? Making a fit might be the only way. But it’s up to you to make it happen.’

  The door closed with a thunk and Daniel heard Lawson’s footsteps ticking quickly over the tiled floor. Gradually fading. By the time they were gone, Daniel felt strong enough to stand, and he pulled his dressing gown closer and walked a few wobbly paces until he was bending down and picking up the two pieces of Lawson’s business card. He laid them face down on a small table in the corner of the room, spelling out a single word written in black ink on the back:

  HELP

  Daniel kept staring at the word on the torn bits of card because it looked like he had scrawled it there in his own hand for a second time.

  Thoughts clicked and ticked.

  He was only dimly aware of the door opening again as he put his hand to his chest, wishing for the cold, empty spot beneath his ribs to be warm again, wondering how Lawson had done that.

  He thought he heard someone saying his name.

  When a hand touched his shoulder, Daniel flinched and gripped the table. Something sweet and lemony prickled his nose as he looked round into the face of a middle-aged woman.

  ‘Daniel?’ she said with an American twang in her voice. He opened his mouth and then closed it. ‘Daniel, I’m Jane. Your aunt.’ But all he could think about was Lawson. About the questions he had for the man. ‘Daniel, what’s the matter? Are you feeling ill?’

  ‘Nothing. Please, I want to go.’ He swept up the pieces of Lawson’s card from the table into a cupped hand. But when he tried to walk away his aunt grabbed his arm, staring at him with grey eyes that looked like tiny rings of granite drilled through from the inside.

  ‘But I’ve just got here. Don’t you have anything to say to me? I’ve come from the other side of the world. From California. To look after you.’

  Daniel thought about that.

  ‘But you and Dad hate each other. I’ve told everyone at the hospital that.’

  His aunt glanced at the doctor and the nurse standing by the door and then took Daniel’s hand in hers. She squeezed his fingers and he squeezed back, but only because he wanted all this now to be a dream, so he could wake up.

  But he didn’t.

  ‘I know you’re upset,’ said his aunt. ‘That we don’t kno
w each other too well because of what’s gone on between your father and me. But I’m the only family you have. And right now you need someone looking out for you. So how do you feel about me taking you home? The doctors think you’re well enough. I bought you some clothes at the airport because I came here as soon as I landed. We’ll come visit your father every day, I promise.’ And she kept staring at Daniel, waiting for him to say yes as she felt his fingers squeezing harder and harder.

  15

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared of,’ said his aunt as she drove the rental car.

  ‘I’m OK,’ said Daniel, unhooking his hands from the edge of the seat and flexing his palms pink again. But when he stared at the road ahead he imagined it falling away, remembering how the sinkhole had opened like a magic trick. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to our car,’ he said when he realized his aunt was still glancing over at him and trying to drive at the same time. ‘Where all our things have gone.’

  She nodded and smiled and cooed that she would buy him anything he needed.

  Daniel wound down the window to keep himself cool and breathed in the day, all the sounds and the smells and the sunshine, until he was calm and clear-headed.

  ‘I want to know more,’ he whispered into the world. ‘About the fit and what to do.’

  But there was only the wind in his ears.

  16

  ‘I know we’re like strangers right now,’ said his aunt, dumping her bags in the hallway, ‘so we’re going to have to take it a day at a time. We’re flesh and blood. We must have things in common.’

  But it didn’t seem like it, not when she opened her arms to him and they hugged, their elbows bumping awkwardly and Daniel treading on her toes.

  ‘Now,’ she said, fixing him with her pale grey eyes, ‘it must feel good to be home at least.’

  Daniel took a deep breath, then let it out and nodded. But there was a photograph of his father on the dresser and when he caught sight of it he couldn’t look away.