Infinite Sky

by Cj Flood

  Pink foam pooled at the corner of his mouth, blood and spit mixed. It spurted out of him, and I wiped it away with the corner of my T-shirt. I asked him to please wake up, and told him he was going to be all right, and all the time blood trickled from the side of his head.

  I told Trick not to dare leave my brother, and I went to get help.

  Twenty-five

  My teeth were chattering and my lungs about to burst when I got to the paddock. Trick’s uncle’s trailer had been moved to block the entrance. Nan’s face dropped when she saw me. She stood in the doorway of her caravan, wrapped in a long wool cardigan now. The tractor was so loud. The little black dog yapped at her ankles, but I couldn’t hear it. I could see the feet of one of Trick’s little sisters poking out behind her. The greyhounds barked at the tractor tyres, scratching at the ground underneath them.

  Once you were in the glare of the tractor’s lights, the rest of the field disappeared. Dad was bent in front of one the caravans. Its tow bar had been looped with chains and stacked with timber, and Dad was grunting with the effort of shifting it. The tea towel he’d wrapped around his knuckles was covered in black grease.

  ‘What?’ he shouted over the noise of the tractor engine, and he sounded annoyed until he saw my expression.

  ‘Where’s Sam?’ he said.

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ I said, and the words vibrated through my teeth. ‘I’ve rung for an ambulance.’

  He waved his arms at the pig farmer, shouted to turn the bloody engine off. The tractor coughed to silence. The lights cut. The field stank of exhaust fumes.

  ‘There’s been a fight,’ I stuttered. ‘Sam’s hurt. He’s at the top of the road. The ambulance is coming.’

  In the moonlight, Dad’s skin was grey. He put his hands on my shoulders, looking as if he was about to ask another question, then he grabbed a torch from Fraz, and took off. I followed, stumbling over the tufts of long grass. A bird flew up from somewhere near my feet.

  I thought I would fall, but my legs kept moving and my lungs kept filling up. The moon floated above me.

  I was crying now, and shivering. I couldn’t stop. Sam was dead. I knew it. He’d lost so much blood.

  I chased Dad up the lane. His torchbeam caught the tyre marks that scarred the dirt track, and I looked at them, hoping somehow Sam wouldn’t be there, that he’d be sitting at the side of the road, that he’d only been unconscious, but he was exactly where I’d left him.

  Trick had gone. I was so angry. Then something caught my eye. He was in the pig farmer’s field, a few metres off. He crouched behind a patch of nettles, on the other side of the hedge, and his face showed no sign that he’d seen me, though his eyes were on mine.

  It was like we were seeing each other for the first or last time. Something went through me, and then he turned and ran, towards the stepping stones and the paddock.

  In the torchlight, I saw Sam’s face. His nostrils were crusted with blood, and his nose was a mess, flat where it shouldn’t be. Blood had turned the hair around the cut on his head black and thick and glossy, and there was a shiny pool of it beneath him.

  ‘My God,’ Dad said.

  He held his ear over Sam’s mouth, listening for breath. He checked his pulse.

  ‘Sam,’ I said. ‘Wake up. Sammy? Can you hear me?’

  His hand was warm against mine. ‘Is he there?’ I kept saying, instead of is it there, meaning his pulse, but I couldn’t hear Dad’s answer because my teeth were chattering so much. The night was balmy, but I was freezing cold.

  Dad found the cleanest part of his tea towel and pressed it to Sam’s temple. He told me to hold it there, to keep the pressure on, and I was scared in case I made it worse, but he shouted until I pressed as hard as he wanted. He took his jumper off and lay it across Sam’s chest.

  ‘Sam,’ Dad called sharply. ‘Can you hear me? Sam? Say something. God, I’m so sorry, Sam. You’re all right though, you’re all right, boy. You’re going to be all right.’

  Sam groaned. His eyes opened.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  Putting his thumb in his mouth, he hooked his broken nose with his finger. He felt for his chicken pock scar then winced. ‘I’ve got toothache.’

  ‘Yeah, we’re going to get that sorted,’ Dad said. ‘We’re going to the dentist now. Are you warm enough?’

  Sam rolled over and spat a mouthful of blood. His brown eyes settled on mine. I couldn’t think. I stroked his stubbly head.

  ‘Hiya, Sam,’ I said, stupidly, and then he lay back and his eyes closed again.

  ‘That’s it, nice and warm now,’ Dad said, tucking his jumper under Sam’s chin.

  He rubbed one hand over his chest.

  ‘Nice and warm,’ he said.

  He took my hand and squeezed it, and we sat like that, the three of us, me and Dad watching the lights of the cars on Ashbourne Road swing by, hoping that the next ones would be blue, that they would slow down and turn towards us.

  Twenty-six

  I sat in the waiting room of Intensive Care with my head throbbing. I felt like I was sitting in a foggy room. When I turned my head I saw stars. We’d watched the paramedics bring Sam in on a stretcher. They’d put IVs in his arms, and given him a tetanus jab, and rushed him to have a CT scan.

  He was almost the same colour as his pillow, and just as still, and Dad had clutched my shoulders as they wheeled him to where he needed to be. I’d been checked over and except for a lump and bit of bruising, I was fine; a mild concussion.

  Dad sat beside me, and I realised my hand was boiling hot because he was holding it. He rubbed it between his palms, and I felt his chapped skin.

  He half shouted my name, and I opened my eyes, frightened.

  ‘You can’t sleep, Eye. Remember,’ he said, gently.

  He held out a plastic cup of tea, and I wondered where it had come from. Strip lights blinded me. There was a fuzzy feeling in my head, like my brain had been swapped for a huge bumblebee. I narrowed my eyes as it shifted position.

  A pale nurse with long dark hair and red lips walked out from Sam’s ward. Dad told me to wait while he tried to talk to her.

  I sipped the too sweet tea.

  He caught up with her at another doorway. He looked really old next to the young nurse.

  She shook her head, and her dark ponytail brushed against her back. Dad rubbed his face. She shook her head again and touched his arm, and Dad nodded slowly, and then she went away.

  ‘Nothing new. A doctor will come and talk to us soon,’ he said.

  He sat back down.

  Sam had been sedated to stop the seizures. They’d gotten worse after we arrived.

  Dad asked again what the hell had happened out there. From the start, he said. He took my shoulders, and looked into my eyes.

  ‘Who was out there, Iris? Was it that gypsy? Was Punky there?’

  I couldn’t answer. I thought of Trick’s fingers scrabbling on the ground, the wet sound of Sam’s nose breaking. I opened my mouth. Dad had oil on his cheek.

  ‘Iris. Your brother could . . . Sam could . . .’ His voice buckled before he finished the sentence, and he looked away, down the never-ending tunnel of the hospital corridor.

  I wiped my eyes. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know. But I don’t know.’ And it sounded so mournful it could have been true.

  He held me away from him, and checked my expression.

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  He examined the lump on my head.

  ‘Because that isn’t good.’

  He began looking around for a nurse, but there were only more people like us – confused and scared, or worn down and used to it, flicking blindly through magazines. He pressed the side of my head and I winced.

  ‘Sam’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘And your memory will come back. It’s just the concussion. You’ll be all right.’

  He let go of my hand and stood, looking up and d
own the corridors for a nurse. He rubbed his hand over his chin, and sat down again.

  ‘Us Dancys are tough,’ he said. ‘Specially our noggins.’

  He tried to smile. There were stars behind my eyes. They floated around the edges of things. The walls of the waiting room were a dull blue.

  I heard the noise of them scratching and grunting and scraping. I heard Leanne’s high-pitched laugh. I saw Sam’s head in a pool of blood. I wanted to sleep.

  Dad put his arm round me.

  ‘No sleep. Come on. Talk to me.’

  He rubbed my arm too hard, and I opened my eyes.

  ‘The police will need to talk to you. Soon as your brother wakes up. You’ll have to give a statement. Tell them who did it.’

  I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut against his chest. I wanted to tell him everything, but I couldn’t speak.

  The doctor arrived. She introduced herself as Dr Kang, and gave us a quick, kind smile. She took the plastic seat beside Dad. Her perfume was sweet, and there was a big ink spot on the pocket of her white shirt. She started talking straight away.

  ‘Your son’s stable for the moment. We’ve put him on anti-convulsant medications to control the seizures. I’m afraid the CT scan showed a skull fracture, and swelling as well as bleeding in the brain. Your son needs emergency surgery. We’re preparing to take him to the operating theatre.’

  She explained how surgeons would cut a small hole in Sam’s skull and insert a plastic tube to drain some of the fluid from inside the brain and help relieve the pressure. They would take out the blood clots too. We nodded, as if we could understand. I kept thinking about how they would cut a small hole in Sam’s skull.

  As Dr Kang was getting up to go, Dad told her that my concussion was worse than we’d thought, that I didn’t remember anything about what had happened at all. I thought I’d see suspicion in her brown eyes, but she only said I would be fine, as long as he watched the symptoms carefully and saw a doctor if they got any worse. She said the best thing he could do for me was take me home to get some rest.

  ‘We’d rather wait here,’ Dad said, and the doctor talked about the possibility of a family room, but Dad said we were fine where we were. She gave a pointed look to me, but I agreed with him.

  ‘We won’t be comfortable anywhere,’ I said.

  Before she left, she told Dad not to rush me.

  ‘These things can be very traumatic for young witnesses,’ she said, and I wanted to hug her, until the words sank in.

  I was now a witness.

  Twenty-seven

  We were allowed to see Sam for a few minutes during the night. He had a tube coming out of bandages on his head. Something about keeping the pressure in his brain under control. It looked scary. He was still pale, and more tubes came out of his mouth and nose, and he had little suckered wires stuck to his chest as well as IVs in each arm.

  The room was cold, because the doctors were lowering Sam’s temperature to try and decrease the swelling in his skull. He’d been put on a ventilator. The sucking, wheezing sounds made me think of my lungs inside me.

  Dad held Sam’s hand and told him he was proud of him, that he loved him, that he was sorry.

  ‘When you wake up, I’ll make it up to you,’ he said, really quietly, and he looked half embarrassed as he spoke.

  I stood at the foot of the bed, unable to think anything except: You’re my brother, you’re my brother, you’re my brother.

  Twenty-eight

  I woke curled across two seats with my head on the jumper Dad had used to cover Sam. It smelled of metal, and when I lifted it, I saw blood. I felt sick.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked, but Dad didn’t answer. He was looking out the window. We were high up, on the fifth floor. I could see fields out the window, and a white water tower.

  ‘You wouldn’t hold back, would you? You’d just tell the truth, wouldn’t you?’

  He turned to study me, and I nodded, but my throat was closing, and I wondered if I’d ever be able to talk to him again.

  ‘Things I said to him, Iris. Why would I say those things?’

  He looked so confused.

  The sun was beginning to filter through the blinds that covered the windows, and he pulled at the cord, but it didn’t do anything. He let go, and it rattled for a few seconds.

  ‘All that blood,’ he choked, and I felt myself drowning in it too.

  Twenty-nine

  At eight o’clock, Dr Kang came to talk to us. She had a clean shirt on and the same sweet perfume. She asked how my head was, then started talking in her rapid way.

  ‘The plan now is to see if we can bring your son out of his coma. We’ll turn the lorazepam off and see if he’s seizure free. If we can successfully bring him off the lorazepam, that will tell us a lot. Off the meds we’ll be able to see how well his brain is functioning, for better or worse.’

  We had questions as always, but she couldn’t give us any answers.

  ‘It sounds basic, but I’m afraid it’s true. All we can do at this point is wait and see. We won’t know the extent of the damage until we can bring him out of the coma. Until then, we do everything we can to make him comfortable.’

  I’d read the pamphlets they’d left. Brain damage could result in paralysis, amnesia, loss of vision, loss of intellect, loss of speech, changes in personality. Dad said he didn’t care, as long as Sam woke up, but what if he woke up dribbling and dense and needing a nappy?

  We got a taxi home to change our clothes, and clean our teeth and collect things for Sam. At the top of our road Dad asked the taxi driver to stop. He wanted to walk.

  The sky was bright blue and white, and the firs choked with birdsong. In a garden nearby somebody yodelled as they watered the plants.

  Trees hadn’t uprooted and stones hadn’t split. Birds hadn’t fallen from the sky, didn’t lie rotting on the ground, but a few metres from where Sam had fallen we found the motorbike. Its scorched black frame leaned in a pool of melted rubber and metal, and I imagined Punky and Leanne and Dean coming back to leave it here in the early hours of the morning, dropping a match into the petrol tank in Sam’s honour, and running as fast as they could, listening out for the explosion.

  The bottom half of each tyre had turned to charcoal and ash, but the tops were untouched, and the track there was still perfect. Dad lifted a teardrop of liquefied metal from the ruins, and held it out to me like a jewel.

  ‘This jog your memory?’

  He wouldn’t stop looking at me, and I couldn’t tell when would be a normal time to stop shaking my head.

  He put the jewel in his pocket, and we trudged back to the house.

  Big Chapmun’s tractor sat on the drive. It was caked in mud, but it gleamed in the sun. I remembered Trick’s hair glowing in its lights a thousand years ago when he’d shouted at them to stop, but just as quickly he was gone.

  Thirty

  I was cleaning my teeth when Dad shouted.

  ‘Iris? Come up here a minute.’

  He was standing by the window in his bedroom. I knew what I’d see before I saw it.

  The paddock was empty.

  The hollow feeling in my gut expanded. It pressed against my throat.

  The fire had been kicked out, and there was a scalded black patch left. Charred logs were strewn in the long grass nearby. Two yellow rectangles marked where the caravans had been. Rubbish had spread further around the paddock: nappies and the insides of toilet rolls and empty food cartons and scrunches of tin foil. The pile of scrap. The washing line that had been attached to one of the caravans drooped to the ground, still attached to an alder.

  Dad sat on his bed. The mattress wheezed as he shifted position. I didn’t ever want to stop looking out the window.

  The sky was cartoon-bright, big white clouds against the blue, and across the brook, the maize flowers of the cornfield waved in the breeze.

  I could feel Dad looking at me, working it out, and I dropped onto the bed beside him. The silence between us gre
w into a gigantic, living thing. It pressed against my neck and forced me to start talking.

  I told him the truth, all of it – that I’d gone to see Trick after the argument, that I was hiding by the ditch when he’d arrived in the tractor, that Sam had started it – and my voice sounded small and far away, like it was coming from a radio somewhere high above us.

  When I got to the bit where it was Sam, Punky and Dean against Trick, Dad raised a finger. He put it very close to my face.

  ‘Don’t you dare defend him,’ he said, and he spoke very quietly and slowly. The muscles in his face were working like mad. ‘I don’t ever want to hear you defend that thug again.’

  I felt the corn den and Trick, and this whole summer, the way it had been, slipping away from me, becoming something else.

  After a million years, he looked at me again, and his eyes were cold.

  ‘You know, not very long ago, I wouldn’t have believed you could lie to me. Not very long ago at all.’

  Outside the window the poplars shimmied in the breeze, and I noticed how if you really looked, each leaf had its own little dance. They never stopped moving, just did their dance up there, over and over, and for nobody.

  Thirty-one

  A cobweb heavy with dust hung from my bedroom ceiling. I noticed how even when you couldn’t cry any more, your body hurt with wanting to. Trick was gone. Dad had been right. Sam might die. The insides of my veins ached, and my fingertips throbbed. Fiasco squirmed beside me, trying to lick my face.

  Dad was in the shower now. Water slapped the bath as he washed. The sun shone through my curtains, and I watched the shadow of the rose bush dance across the wall.

  I had drifted into a kind of trance when I realised the shadow had swollen, that there was a scratching noise at the glass.