We Own the Sky

by Luke Allnutt

  He was shaking now, his lips chapped and peeling, his eyes sunken into dark sockets, and he was still retching, but nothing would come out, just bile and foamy spit, and I held him in my arms, my beautiful, beautiful boy, and I could do nothing except empty bucket after bucket of sick.

  As I was helping him lie down again, Jack leaned close to me, and I could smell the vomit on his breath. He looked me in the eye and said his words with such clarity that I knew that I would have to honor them.

  “Dad, please, Dad. I don’t want to be ill anymore.”

  * * *

  It was the landline that broke the silence, a rare occurrence these days, and we listened as the ring echoed around the house.

  Anna wiped her eyes and walked over to the hall table. “Hampstead 270-6296.”

  “Yes, that’s me, yes, Anna Coates...”

  I watched Anna listening, her face turning pale, ever so slightly moving her lips.

  “Oh, God... Is she...”

  Her face was now a ghostly white, and she put her hand on the sideboard to steady herself.

  “Yes, of course...thanks for letting me know.”

  Anna put down the receiver, her face white and drawn. “It’s my mother,” she said without looking at me, staring out of the window. “She’s had a heart attack.”

  “God, is she...”

  “Yes, she’s alive,” Anna said quickly, her voice starting to quaver. “But it’s touch and go, apparently, and it doesn’t look good. The hospital thought it was best if I came.”

  “Which hospital is she in? I can drive you.”

  “She’s up in Norwich.”

  “Norwich?”

  “Yes, that was her friend Cynthia. She was visiting her and collapsed at the train station.” Anna swayed a little on her feet and quickly sat down.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, sorry. I just feel a little faint.”

  I went to the kitchen and brought her a glass of water. A little bit of color had come back to her face.

  “You should go,” I said.

  She looked up at me, her brow heavy, tears in her eyes. “How can I go now?” she said.

  “It will just be a day or two,” I said. “I know it’s the worst time, but you won’t forgive yourself if you don’t say...well, you know...”

  “Say goodbye,” Anna whispered, and I went over and took her in my arms. I could feel her heart beating on my chest. I knew she had to go now, otherwise it would be too late. But that wasn’t what I was thinking about as I stroked her hair. I was thinking about Jack.

  the seven sisters

  sitting in that café at the top of the seventh hill and you had got yourself cold because the weather had turned and mommy was getting worried, so we went inside, out of the wind and the rain, the spray from the gnarly sea, and we played rock-paper-scissors to warm up. you introduced dynamite, which beat everything, you said, and you just kept winning and winning and laughing so hard, your cheeks glowing red like the embers in the fire. we stayed there for a while that afternoon, happy in the cozy warm, drinking our hot chocolates with marshmallows on the side.

  17

  “Where are we going, Daddy?”

  “We’re going on holiday, beautiful.”

  “Is Mommy coming?”

  “No, she can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s with Granny.”

  Jack was sitting in the entrance hall in his parka and hat, his Finding Nemo backpack looped over both shoulders. He was a little better now that his last weekly round of chemotherapy had left his system, and I had given him some strong painkillers. But he was still pale, his body emaciated and weak. He walked slowly and gripped tightly on to my hand, visible lumps of accumulated fluid now growing on the back of his head.

  “We’re not going to Granny’s?”

  “No, not now. Granny’s not feeling very well.”

  Jack was quiet, thought about what I had said. “Are we going in the car?”

  “Well, we’re taking a taxi to the airport and then we’re getting a plane.”

  “Really? Can we take photos from the window?”

  “Of course we can.”

  “Cool,” he said, beaming. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to Prague.”

  “Is Prague the beach?”

  “No, it’s a city, like London.” The taxi beeped again outside, and I shuffled Jack out of the house.

  Just before I closed the door, I put an envelope addressed to Anna on the hall table.

  * * *

  Jack loved the plane journey and didn’t once look at his iPad or his books. He sat, his body angled away from me, with his nose glued to the window, looking out at the clouds, the spreading sky. We landed in the sunlight, the fields around us covered with snow. The airport was clean and bright, and we were efficiently swept through passport control, our bags already waiting for us. Outside, I braced myself for taxi bargaining, but there was a fleet of bright yellow cars and a dispatcher who spoke English.

  “Did Mommy call?” Jack asked as the taxi pulled away from the terminal.

  “She didn’t. But remember, she’s with Granny, and Granny’s not feeling very well.”

  “Granny has injuries, like me?”

  “Yes. Anyway, we’re going to get your injuries better.”

  Jack didn’t acknowledge what I had said. “When is Mommy coming?”

  “She’s not coming now, Jack. She has to be with her mom.”

  “Her mom?”

  “Yes, Granny is Mommy’s mom.”

  “Oh,” Jack said.

  The taxi sped through the tidy, suburban streets of the Prague outskirts. I had expected rows and rows of drab apartment buildings and graffiti-strewn bus shelters, my impression from a business trip to Katowice years ago, but at least this part of Prague looked like Austria, with large Cubist villas, expansive gardens, the flags of foreign embassies blowing in the wind.

  The taxi driver was speaking on his phone, and I listened to him speak Czech. It was unlike any language I had heard before: there seemed to be an absence of vowels, but it was still soft, precise, as if you were being counseled. Jack was happily absorbed, looking out of the window, taking pictures of the snow.

  We passed a small château and some shuttered food stands and there, nestled behind some trees, was Dr. Sladkovsky’s clinic, a modern prefabricated building made with huge blue tiles and large square windows.

  It was cold, about three degrees below freezing, but the sun was strong and the clinic sparkled like an upmarket spa. A few patients were sitting outside, reading books and magazines, wrapped up in coats and blankets. As we got closer to the entrance, I could see the garden, with a small pond glistening with ice and a winding path, which the website said was designed for barefoot walking.

  Inside, the clinic was a warm fusion of glass and soft wood. There were green pod-like chairs and large soft rectangular sofas in the waiting room.

  “Where are we, Daddy?” Jack said.

  “We’re here to see the doctor, Jack. The doctor who might be able to take some of your injuries away.”

  Jack pulled on my hand, and I could see a flash of fear in his eyes. “Daddy, they’re not giving me the medicine, are they? The chemo medicine?”

  “No, they’re not, Jack. Don’t worry.”

  I gave the receptionist my name, and we went to sit on two of the pod chairs. There was a waiting list at the clinic, but Nev was still on good terms with the receptionist and had managed to pull a few strings to get us fast-tracked. Through a glass door, I could see a café where some of the patients congregated. The patients were gaunt, but with their grooming, the expensive shawls thrown over their shoulders, they looked like they came from money.

  “Like spaceship chairs,” Jack said, his
legs dangling from the pod.

  “You look like a turtle,” I said.

  Jack smiled. “You’re a turtle.”

  * * *

  In the doctor’s office, there were black leather couches, bookcases packed with medical tomes and antique surgical instruments. On the wall, embossed awards and certificates hung alongside pictures of the doctor. Sladkovsky on a hunting expedition; Sladkovsky shaking hands with various dignitaries; Sladkovsky hiking in the mountains, a floating ledge of cloud behind him.

  When the doctor entered from a side door, he looked younger than I expected. His face had a healthy crimson hue, a mustache hiding the remnants of a hare lip, and he was wearing a tailored white coat, with his initials, Z.S., embroidered on the left breast. There was something vaguely plastic about his complexion, a waxy variegation of his skin, as if parts of his face were coated with TV makeup.

  “Mr. Coates, how are you?” Dr. Sladkovsky heartily shook my hand, and his hand felt unusually dry.

  “And you must be Jack. Hello, Jack.” Jack smiled weakly and huddled closer to me on his chair.

  “Do you like ball pits, Jack?”

  Jack nervously nodded.

  “Well, that’s good. Because we have an amazing one out there. Do you want to go with Lenka? She might even give you some candies.”

  I looked up, and a tall blonde woman had appeared through a side door. Lenka smiled and held out her hand, but Jack stayed in his seat, unsure whether to go.

  “It’s okay, Jack,” I said. “Why don’t you go and play with the nice lady?”

  Jack cautiously slipped off his seat and put his hand in Lenka’s.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Coates,” the doctor said, when Jack and Lenka left the room. I noticed for the first time his Slavic accent. There was something avuncular about it, like an elderly Polish watchmaker.

  “We are so very glad to have you with us. Thanks for sending me everything. I’ve looked through Jack’s notes and scans at length and, while his disease has progressed quite far and looks to be aggressive, I think it would be worth trying some treatments.”

  He smiled, and I noticed just how thin his top lip was when it wasn’t hidden under his mustache.

  “I assume you have an idea of our treatment here, Mr. Coates?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’ve read a fair bit and Nev—his son, Josh, was treated here for a brain tumor—has told me a lot about it.”

  “Ah, yes, Josh. Such a nice little boy. Last I heard he was doing very well. They always send me his scans,” Sladkovsky said. I noticed that he hissed on certain words, the remains of a lisp, studiously curtailed over the years. He scratched his chin and looked down at his papers.

  “As I think you discussed with one of our practitioners on the phone, in Jack’s case, we would offer you a complete course of immuno-engineering. We would also want to do more extensive genetic testing, to see what additional treatments he could be given. We have had some good results with patients like Jack.”

  “When you say good results, what do you mean? Could Jack be cured?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said quickly, holding my eyes with his. “Cured.”

  “You mean children with glioblastoma?”

  “Yes.”

  “But high-grade glioblastoma, like Jack’s.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Dr. Sladkovsky looked at me, so intensely I thought he was going to grasp my hand across the table.

  “Look, Mr. Coates, for all the time I do this job, I don’t ever find these consultations easy. Your little boy, he is certainly very ill. I would say it breaks my heart, but no, because I don’t let it. I try to keep the professional distance, but it’s hard sometimes because I also have children.” He clasped his hands together, and I noticed a large signet ring on his right hand.

  “So if I will be honest with you. I have had children come to me with glioblastoma and survive. And I have had many who have not. I offer you no guarantees of a cure for Jack. It would not be ethical for me to do so. However, other oncologists will, how you say, write off their patients, but I won’t do that. So all I can say—and please forgive me my English—is if you decide that Jack would undergo the treatment with us, then I could offer you no promise, but we could at least give you chance.”

  “Can I ask you something?” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “Would you treat your own children with immuno-engineering? I mean, if they had cancer.”

  “Yes,” he said. “In a beat of my heart. I would push them to the front of the line. They’re my children, and I would do anything for them. Who wouldn’t?”

  Sladkovsky tapped his pen lightly on the desk. “Is it just you? Is Jack’s mother here, as well?”

  “Not yet. But she’s coming. Her mother is very ill at the moment.”

  I felt a prickle of sweat on my back, imagining Anna coming home to find the note on the hall table.

  “Okay. Please think on it. If you decide that Jack will undergo treatment with us, then we would like to start as soon as possible. Just so you know, this consultation is at no charge, should you choose not to stay with us...”

  “Will it hurt?” I said suddenly.

  Sladkovsky furrowed his brow. “The immuno-engineering, the treatments you mean?”

  “Yes. Jack has gone through so much, the chemo, the recovery from the surgery. I don’t want him to be in pain.”

  “Well,” the doctor said. “I will be truthful with you. It affects people in different ways. Some patients have almost no side effects, and with children we often find that is true. But according to medical ethics, I must tell you that in perhaps 30 percent of our patients, they do experience side effects, some of them severe. Vomiting, sweating fevers, much of what you might see on chemotherapy. But I would add that we are very used to controlling these side effects. We have many, many new drugs. Was Jack scheduled for more chemotherapy in the UK?”

  “Yes, next week.”

  “Believe me, it will be no worse than that.”

  The phone on Sladkovsky’s desk rang. “Sorry, I will be one minute. I’m afraid I have to take this.”

  He picked up the receiver and, after saying a few words in Czech, pulled out a notepad on his desk. I watched as he listened, nodding, occasionally touching the end of his pen to his lips. I remembered someone on Hope’s Place calling him Dr. Sleaze. They said he tried too hard with the smart suits and doctorly bow ties, his attempt at an English upper-class accent. But as I watched him now, writing down numbers on a blank page, professorial in his trim white coat, he radiated nothing but composure.

  “So you have decided?”

  “When can we start?”

  Dr. Sladkovsky looked at me and scratched his chin. “I’m glad you would like to go ahead with the treatment, but we do have to take a few steps to check that Jack is eligible.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “This is standard practice,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. We are bound by European medical law to make sure that we are doing Jack no harm.”

  “Yes, of course, I understand.”

  I followed Dr. Sladkovsky out of the office and down a corridor until we reached an atrium with a glass ceiling where we found Jack throwing a ball back and forth with Lenka.

  “Hello, Jack,” the doctor said, but Jack didn’t smile back and clung to my trouser leg.

  “So I’d like to take Jack for his checks. Is there a suite free now, Lenka?” the doctor asked the receptionist.

  “Of course,” Lenka said, and smiled.

  “Jack,” she said, “do you want to come with me?”

  “Am I having the medicine?” Jack asked.

  Lenka paused, not knowing what to say.

  “No, Jack,” I said, putting my arm around him and guiding him out of the atrium. “Just a couple of tests. Not
hing that will hurt, I promise.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Is there a TV?”

  “There is,” Lenka said. “A big TV.”

  Lenka led us into a private room, and Jack lay down on the bed. A nurse came in and checked Jack’s heart rate and then took some blood. I held his hand when they put the needle in, but he didn’t even flinch. As we waited for the doctor, I remembered the checks we went through before Jack’s operation in London. The questionnaires, the endless medical tests and pre-op assessments. There was nothing like that here. It was all so quick. Could they really gauge his fitness from a quick blood test?

  After a little while, Dr. Sladkovsky came into the room and looked at Jack’s charts and then asked to see me outside. I felt a familiar sense of dread, a shiver as I remembered sitting with Anna on fireworks night in that cold London waiting room.

  “All good to continue,” he said. “His vitals are excellent. He’s a strong boy, and we think he would be an excellent candidate for immuno-engineering.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and it was almost like he was telling me that Jack’s cancer was gone.

  “Good. We just need you to sign some paperwork,” Sladkovsky said, as he led me down a corridor and into a busy office. “Our secretary will bring you the consent forms and all the payment information. I’ll be doing my rounds now, but if you would like to chat about anything, any concerns you might have, please talk to Lenka and I can find the time later.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and we shook hands.

  I read through the papers, embossed with the clinic’s logo. It was mostly paragraphs of legal jargon that highlighted various sections of the European Medical Code. If Anna were here, she would have been reading the small print, cross-checking paragraphs of the law.

  It was too late now. This was the only chance Jack had. I signed the papers and filled in the payment information. It was expensive, but I had the credit cards and was in the process of emptying a savings account. There would be ways offinding the rest. We could remortgage the house or raid Anna’s pension plan. We would find a way.

  * * *