by Rhian Ivory
‘Fine,’ I lie. ‘How come I couldn’t go in that isolation room with you?’ I can’t help asking.
He pauses to search for the right answer.
‘Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry if you can’t tell me. I shouldn’t have asked.’ I’m not a member of the team so there’s obviously stuff they can’t tell me. And that’s completely fine.
‘The patient has only just been moved from HDU. The patient is now in isolation, so that complicates things a little.’
‘What’s HDU?’ I feel like I should already know. I wish he’d stop saying ‘the patient’.
‘High Dependency Unit. It isn’t quite as critical as an ICU – you know Intensive Care – it’s more of an intermediate measure before going back to the main ward,’ he explains, tucking the bottom of his polo shirt into the top of his trousers. I delete ICU from my mind before it can pin me to the floor and stop me breathing. I have to change the subject.
‘What about that girl on the renal ward, Pan Ward? The older one, what’s the matter with her?’ I gulp in air and force out the question.
‘Fatima? She’s here on dialysis, but now she desperately needs a kidney transplant. She’s been waiting a long time for a donor match.’
‘Long waiting list?’
‘It isn’t just that, it’s more about the patient’s ethnicity. About twenty-five per cent of the organ donor waiting list is made up of black or ethnic minority patients but only eight per cent of the population are black or from ethnic minority groups and not everyone wants to be a donor,’ he explains, adding, ‘she’s got the best chance here in Birmingham but we just don’t know how long she could be waiting. Not all faiths believe in organ donation. That can mean we have fewer kidneys for girls like Fatima.’
‘I knew there was a shortage of donors but I didn’t realise it had anything to do with religion.’
‘Well, now you know.’ He gets to his feet. I don’t know what to say so I get up too and follow him and Pryia down the corridor.
At lunchtime I check my phone because it makes me look busy. There’s another text from Callie about meeting up. I hover my fingers over the screen, wondering which excuse to roll out this time, as my phone buzzes in another text. I almost say his name out loud in disbelief. I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel cross, stalked or something else. Mum has picked a table right in front of the specials board in Joe’s Café. I order pumpkin soup with pecan and honey bread then open the text, turning away from Mum. I don’t need to worry, she’s knee deep in conversation with Nikhil about this year’s big charity concert.
How r u? I’m grand thanks for asking. Wait, you didn’t ask. Rude!
Is that it? Why bother sending such a tragic text? I put the phone down on the table and sip my Diet Coke. I eavesdrop on four different conversations but can’t settle on any of them. I take my glasses off and wipe underneath my eyes, checking my finger for mascara. My soup’s arrived but it’s too hot to eat. I pick up the phone and I text back.
Bet your name isn’t even Riley Santiago. I’ve tried to find you. You don’t exist. Or you’ve given me a fake name.
I press send before I can stop myself and turn my phone over. Mum finishes her conversation with Nikhil and turns to me.
‘How is it going?’ She looks anxious. ‘You look tired. You’re not worrying about your exam results, are you?’ Before I can think of an answer she carries on. ‘I know it must feel like you’ve got so much to think about at the moment, but just try to enjoy the summer?’
I nod and smile and pretend that I can just switch off. What if I fail all my GCSEs? Or don’t pass enough to get into Shrewsbury College? If I can’t do drama, what’ll I study? What if I fail A levels too, and can’t get on a good university course, and can’t get a decent job to pay off all the student loans I’m going to have to take out? Will I still be living with Mum when I’m thirty because I can’t afford a mortgage?
As if she senses this swirl terrorising my head, she puts her hot hand on my cheek. She smells of coconut and something else, something chemical. She’s poised to offer more advice when Pryia taps her on the arm to ask about a hospital in Oxford.
I look around the room. Everyone is talking to someone, reading or doing something on a phone. I turn my phone over.
I am wounded. Mortally wounded that you’d think I’d make up a fake name. I’ve no time for social media shite like Shitchat, Instagrime, FakeBook or Twatter so there’s no point in trying to stalk me.
I’m not the stalker here!
Talking of fake names I’ve decided that your name isn’t really Hope. It’s a joke isn’t it?
So you did hear me then? If you think my name’s a joke let’s not even start on my surname.
Ah here, you have to tell me now!
Nope. Not a chance.
Alright then, what would you change your name to if you could?
A name that doesn’t have another meaning like mine does. What about you?
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it sweetheart. Seriously now, I’ve already got a deadly name.
I’d like to change my age too. I’d love to fast forward and not be sixteen.
Ah, shite. Are you only 16? You look at least 18.
Of course I look older, that’s the whole point isn’t it.
Sounds sexy, tell me more Mature Martha.
I wouldn’t pick Martha.
What’s wrong with Martha? I used to know a grand girl called Martha…
Ugh! Way too early in the morning to hear about you and your back catalogue.
Calm down Cassie. And I don’t exactly keep a catalogue ;)
Cassie’s nice, that might work.
And where would you go, what would you do as this Cassie one?
I dunno. Maybe go somewhere like Africa and help build a school or do something that might actually make a real difference.
One life live it! Sorry, me Da has Land Rover slogans all over the place.
But I don’t have the money to take a gap year and travel.
Get a job. That’s my grand plan. Earn some euros and get out of here.
I’ve already got a job.
Then stop your whingeing Wendy and start saving.
I wouldn’t pick Wendy, she does herself no favours massaging Peter Pan’s tender little ego.
Er… maybe we didn’t watch the same Disney cartoon? I would have definitely remembered Wendy giving Peter a massage. For the record I prefer your version.
Disappointing, Dublin, deeply disappointing. So, moving on, are you off to Thailand or Australia, Mr Cliché?
Lucky guess Lorna, I’m going to both! Come with me it’ll be a gas.
I don’t know what to text back, so I wait for him to say more but that’s it, he’s gone, and I’m left wondering if he means it.
Mum pulls onto the dual carriageway and puts her foot down, heading for the motorway junction, as I prise off my new heels and rub my sweaty feet. Trainers next week, I decide, before registering that there’ll be a next week, that I’ll be coming back. I still don’t have a plan B; nothing has miraculously pinged into my inbox. Must be too full of rejection emails.
When we get home, Mum does her usual Friday-night routine which I’ve never really understood before, but now I get. She has a long shower without any music. She calls it her wind down and I’ve always thought it was a bit melodramatic but now I understand. The house is silent, there’s no TV on, not even the kettle boiling like a rocket ship ready to launch, yet all I can hear is chatter, screaming, singing, laughing and crying. I can hear the wheels of the nurse’s trollies going up and down the echoey hallways. Pens clicking, scratching across charts which clang as they are clipped back on the ends of metal bed frames. Shoes squeaking across the ward. I can smell disinfectant and something else, a sweet smell that is almost sickly, that hospital smell that’s indescribable but you know it when you smell it. It makes me think of fear.
I wait for Mum to get out of the shower, wishing we had more than one. When I get in,
I turn the water on full blast and just stand there, letting it pummel down on my head, in my eyes, over my shoulders. I stay in there until the water isn’t hot anymore.
Later, after we’ve finished the reheated chilli, Mum puts the TV on and I sit next to her on the sofa, restless. The leather sticks against my leg, making a slurping noise.
‘There’s a Jane Austen on, want to watch it with me?’ Mum asks. I shake my head. ‘But you loved Pride and Prejudice…’ She looks confused.
‘That was last year, Mum. I’m not into costume dramas anymore.’
‘Come on, give it the ten-minute test? This one’s called Sense and Sensibility.’ She moves up the sofa for me.
‘Ten minutes. But if someone falls in love at first sight I’m out of here,’ I warn.
She offers me a bar of chocolate. I put my feet up on her lap and make a space by my hip for Scout. Mum pretends to frown but she’s even softer than I am on the dog. Within five minutes Scout is lying on top of me and snoring, her velvet spaniel ears drooping over my thigh.
After the film has finished, and Marianne has finally worked out that the Alan Rickman character was THE ONE all along, not instalove Willoughby, I prise myself away from Mum and Scout and go up to my room. I drop down onto my desk chair. I am wide awake, it’s only nine o’clock. I could read a book, sort out my room or do a witch hazel face mask. Instead, before I’ve really thought it through, I open my inbox and scroll through my emails. Another boring one from Spotify and some junk mail. I check my spam folder, I even check my trash can. Nothing.
I close my laptop, not allowing myself to click the Facebook icon or the little blue bird. As a delaying tactic I clean my glasses before unlocking my mobile, lying back on my bed. I press on the envelope and see a shiny new email flashing provocatively at me. I tell myself to ignore it and not be so weak, so needy and well … desperate. Then I open it.
Dear Miss Baldi, thank you for attending the Young RADA audition day in Dublin. Unfortunately you didn’t…
I don’t read any more, I just can’t. I press the delete button down hard and hold it until my finger starts to go purpley blue. I knew there’d be a letter, something official on nice paper, but I hadn’t thought they’d email me too. How many more ways can they tell me?
I keep thinking if I can just forget it then I’ll be able to move on or get past it. I’ve been getting used to forgetting stuff lately, but I don’t seem to have any control over which information my brain chooses to hold on to. And for some reason this particular scene has been deleted and I’m left standing on an empty stage with all the lights out.
On Tuesday morning Mum gets another letter from the bank. I hate seeing the symbol on the front. I shove them down the side of the microwave or in the recycling bin, so she doesn’t have to see them. The letters used to come for Mr and Mrs Baldi but now they’re just for her. At first it was brutal to see his name dropping through the letterbox in the mornings, as if nothing had happened. But now I miss seeing his name on letters and even the junk mail. I miss seeing his name. To the bank it is as if he doesn’t even exist anymore. There’s only one place left I could see his name now and I can’t go there because Mum isn’t talking to Nonno, after the huge argument they had about organ donation. Dad is buried in the Baldi family plot in Italy and we are left here without him.
I can’t think about the different parts of him she gave away, the organs that might be inside someone else right now, making them breathe and walk around when he cannot. I don’t know what I feel about it. His heart stopped working so surely the rest of him would too? I left ICU each time Mum and Nonno started arguing – I couldn’t bear to listen to them discuss Dad like he was just a list of body parts. And because of that I didn’t get to say goodbye.
The letters were yellow and full of cells and light. I can see the sign for ICU as if it is in front of me again. I am sitting on that blue chair waiting outside Dad’s room and all I can see is the sign – ICU. I read it until the symbols lose all meaning. The letters look like another language someone has made up. I can’t interpret it or understand. I am not in the room with them because they are arguing, again. I can’t go back with Mum and Nonno and hear them discuss what to do if, what will happen if, what if he doesn’t… Someone asks me something, someone in uniform. No sound comes out of my throat. I am mute. Voiceless. Soundlessly I ignore them and hope they’ll go away. I hope they’ll do the right thing and just leave me be, sat outside ICU on my own.
I read the sign again, it’s still there, bright yellow in my eyes, but then there’s more than one of them, there’s two, then three, then six or seven in uniform appearing from different directions. They’re running past me, they’re shouting words in their alien hospital code and someone is pushing a cart with equipment on it and Dad’s door is swung open. Then Dad’s door closes and I stand outside it. I want to ask someone for help. I want to call out to one of the running people to come and help me open the door because I’ve forgotten how to make it work. My hand is shaking so badly and I’ve forgotten how to do the handle. I am on the outside looking in and the noises coming from his room are loud and frightening, filling my ears so that I can’t even hear my own voice anymore or any of the thoughts in my head. There’s no running commentary or internal monologue at all, there’s just silence.
And then a beeping replaces the silence.
The beeping penetrates and establishes a rhythm that I move to, swaying back and forth in front of his door like a pendulum. I read the sign again: Intensive Care Unit.
Beeping. Yellow.
I read it over and over.
Yellow. Beeping.
And then the beeping stops.
There is silence inside and outside of me.
And when I sit back down on the blue chair the yellow of the light goes out.
I watch Mum as she slips her shoes on in the hallway, her long auburn hair pulled up into a sharp bun this morning. She looks very serious.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s a letter from the bank. Another letter about your dad’s estate,’ she adds, the word sounding awkward.
‘Estate?’ I want to laugh, but it’s not funny. ‘He was hardly Lord of the Manor, more like the groundsman.’ I try humour, but it fails.
‘It’s a bank term, it doesn’t mean… Oh, don’t worry.’ She folds the letter back up. But I do worry.
‘Is everything alright?’
She looks at me as if she’s about to say something but then changes her mind.
‘With the bank, I mean. Is everything okay?’
‘There was some paperwork I should have returned, they say that I’ve missed a date. I need to find his death certificate again.’ The words are too heavy for her to hold in her mouth. She’s crying. I gently take the envelope from her and hide it behind my back.
‘I thought I was keeping on top of things, all this legal paperwork and…’ She stops, like she’s lost track and then looks at me. ‘Did you see any letters they sent?’
I think about all the letters I stuffed into a drawer, or down the side of the microwave and the ones that I recycled.
‘Um, not really,’ I lie.
‘You would tell me? I know what you’re like for stuffing things in places. If I’ve missed something on the life insurance… I’m sure I made a list but I can’t find that either,’ she admits.
‘I might have accidentally put a few letters in the bin,’ I confess.
Her eyes, mouth and the lines under her eyes all narrow, homing in on me. Her cheeks dip, the bones caving in under the pressure, and I can’t stop staring at them.
‘But I told you not to! Why can’t you just listen?’
‘I’m sorry, I thought it was just junk mail,’ I lie again without meeting her eyes.
‘Oh, come on. You’re not stupid; you know the difference. Have you been opening your dad’s mail? Or my letters from the bank? There’s private things in there, private details!’ She’s shouting at me now, pacing up and down the h
all. ‘There’s no privacy in this house! None at all!’
‘I haven’t opened any of his mail, or yours either! Why would I open your post?’ I ask, righteous in my innocence.
‘If you hide it from me then I might miss something and then God knows what would happen…’
I don’t know what she’s on about. What would happen has already happened, surely there isn’t anything worse to worry about?
’Just stop putting letters in the bin. I’m not a child, you don’t need to hide things from me! I’m the adult here,’ she adds as if I need reminding. I know who holds all the power and decision-making privileges in this house.
‘I was just trying to help…’ I start but she interrupts again.
‘But you’re not helping. Can’t you see that? You’re making things harder for me,’ she says. ‘I’m trying my best to keep things together and you’re…’
Now I interrupt her. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘No, you don’t. And you’re not supposed to, there’s no reason why you should. Just leave it to me and stop interfering in things that are none of your business!’ She says it like she’s said it a hundred times already today. As if I’m a child. Just some toddler who needs disciplining. She’s at the front door now. Clearly the conversation is over for her.
‘I was only hiding the stuff with his name on because…’ I stop myself.
‘Well, don’t. Okay?’ She starts marching up the street to find the car.
I only hid them because I didn’t want her to end up on the floor again, slumped against the wall, crying so hard that she had to stumble to the downstairs loo to be sick. I can’t tell her that.
Another failure of a Friday night and a long and empty weekend stretches ahead of me. This has to stop, I decide, as I flip open my laptop. I can’t keep pretending everything’s fine when each week pushes me closer to the edge of summer and whatever comes after it. I can’t keep avoiding Callie. Texts aren’t enough. I need to see her.
She’s been my best friend since our first tutor time in Year 7. We had to bring in something from home that would show everyone who we were. We both brought in a snow globe. When I went back to her house for the first time and saw all the snow globes on the shelves in her bedroom I knew I’d found her, found my ONE. I felt ‘Here you are’ as if I’d been waiting for her but hadn’t realised it. I can remember Mum asking if I’d made any new friends and my answer was always the same. ‘I’ve got Callie.’ I really miss her. I miss the others, too, but not in the same way. She’s not ‘the others’. We’re an us.