by Bella Pollen
To have watched the boy jump; to have been able to count on that sweet trust one last time. The moment he’d felt that small heart beating against his, it had made sense to him, the hunger, the nostalgia, the unbearable yearning to be who he once was. At last the memories began to fall out of him, each more poignant than the last; the way Jamie rubbed his bare feet together for comfort; the way his eyes turned owl-round when he listened to stories; the way he gnawed the skin off an apple and let the exposed fruit turn to soft pulp in his hand. How he wished these had come to him sooner, but now he had them they would belong to him for eternity. And still he ran. He was right at the loch when it caught his eye – the bright daub of blue, fluttering in the colourless aftermath of the storm. He knew instantly what it was. Alba’s anorak, bloated with wind. It was the children’s signal, their SOS, and it should have been the flag of his own finishing line. In the background motors were idling. Above him the helicopter hovered like an angry wasp and to his dismay he realized that exhaustion had beaten him. His body had failed and he was no longer moving. He felt the sting of a dart and the world began to slow. ‘No,’ he tried to shout, ‘not yet,’ but the only sound to come out of his mouth was a croak, a hoarse animal growl, and he knew his time was running out. He pushed one leaden foot forwards. He had promised to return and he could not, would not rest until he did. At that moment, from somewhere in his peripheral vision, he saw a lone tractor breaking away from the mass of vehicles, veering erratically towards the flag. There was no mistaking the wiry islander at the wheel, his side-rolls of hair blowing in the wind, his upper body craning sideways to see around his broken windscreen, and he understood then that it would be all right.
When the sting of the second dart pricked the bear’s skin what took him by surprise was how very familiar it felt. His heart skipped a beat, like a stone skimming across a pond. He felt the acute burn of longing in his chest, for home, for forgiveness and peace. As the drug took hold, there was no pain, only the sound of rain in his head and an incredible and welcome sensation of falling.
‘Goodbye, boy,’ he whispered and he knew he would be heard.
On the floor of the cave, the boy’s eyes drifted open in his heart-shaped face and his answer came back on the last thread of the wind.
‘Goodbye, my Dada,’ he said and smiled.
82
Stornoway, Isle of Lewis
‘Your son has a fractured skull and a torn kneecap. I’ve put in a dozen or so stitches but he’s going to be fine. What I’m trying to understand is that your daughter claims he jumped, though I’m assuming she meant he fell – ’ the doctor checked his notes – ‘sixty feet?’ He arched an eyebrow in expectation of being corrected. ‘You must be familiar with the geography of this place, Mrs Fleming – is that even possible?’
Letty spread her hands, unable to trust herself to speak. Had Jamie landed an inch to the right, had the bottom of the Kettle not been cushioned by seaweed, had the tide been higher, the water deeper. What if Alba had not gone after him – or Alick not spotted her makeshift flag? And what if a helicopter hadn’t been on hand. Right there! Less than a hundred yards away, with the unconscious bear tangled in a net suspended underneath and half the island in pursuit with shovels and sticks, ready to dig out her children from under the ground. She gripped Tom’s arm.
‘Of course you get these cases from time to time,’ the doctor was saying. ‘There was one during my first-year internship. A toddler fell from the twelfth floor of a Sydney high-rise and walked away – so to speak – without a scratch.’ Letty thought of her recurring nightmare. Jamie on the stairwell, his thin arms extended to catch his father. Alba had told her as well that Jamie had jumped. Could he have thought he could join his father in some way and if so, then why hadn’t she noticed, why hadn’t she been paying attention? But what had she paid attention to these last few months other than her own pain? When, earlier, she had been taken into the curtained cubicle to see Alba, she had barely recognized the young woman lying on a narrow trolley bed. Alba looked so wan, so grown-up, her pointed little face positioned to the wall, hiding the giant wad of cotton wool taped to her cheek. Then she had turned and an expression of such child-like relief had passed across her face that Letty had sprung forward and gathered her up. ‘Oh Alba.’ She cradled her. ‘Alba, Alba.’
For a second, Alba remained limp, then Letty felt thin arms slowly encircle her and tighten.
‘I want to give you something,’ Letty said when she’d settled her back against the pillow. She pressed a small square of folded paper into Alba’s palm. Without looking up, Alba turned the paper over, her eyes brimming as she’d seen the letters IOU written on the other side.
‘Open it,’ Letty said.
Very slowly Alba peeled the note apart.
‘Read it.’
Everything will be all right. Alba had read out her mother’s promise in a whisper. From now on, it will be all right.
‘How is it possible, medically, I mean?’ Tom was asking quietly. ‘What do you think happened?’
The doctor made a frustrated gesture with his hand.
‘If the child knows no fear. If the body is completely relaxed. If someone up there is watching over him. I have no logical answer for you. The fact is, however, it happened, a miracle is a miracle and all we can be is thankful.’
‘Can I see him yet?’ Letty asked. Her hold on Tom’s arm loosened – not that she had any intention of letting go entirely. She’d taken possession of it ever since the phone had rung and Tom had quietly assumed charge. She’d clutched it in the army plane he’d commandeered, and even tighter in the waiting room where she’d sat rigid on the edge of her seat. Opposite her were other people’s family and friends, all rinsed, as she was, with a sickly tinge from the strip lighting and all struggling, as she was too, to ignore the smell of fear that no amount of disinfectant could disguise. Letty stared at these strangers, wondering who would be lucky and who not, whose lives would work out and whose would change forever, all the while trying to reassure Georgie, thank Tom – all the while sending up entreaties to God, to Nicky, to the devil himself. Those two insignificant words, ‘if only’, were no longer a hopeless exercise in wishful thinking. She would renounce whatever future she was entitled to, she would offer up her soul for sacrifice along with anything else of hers that might be of interest – if only her children could be safe – if only she could be given another chance.
‘We’re still conducting tests,’ the doctor said, ‘but as soon as I have those results, I’ll come and find you.’
‘Tests for what?’
He hesitated and Letty frowned. With his Australian accent, there was something utterly incongruous about him, incongruous yet oddly familiar.
‘Mrs Fleming, your son was hypothermic when they brought him in – both children were – and initially I put it down to that. Sometimes cold can account for these things.’
‘I’m sorry, account for what?’ she persisted.
‘When I originally assessed him, apart from quite severe concussion I noticed he had VPB, not enough to cause a—’
‘VPB?’ Tom interrupted.
‘Yes. It stands for ventricular premature beats. When your heart skips a beat – I’m sure you’ve both experienced that?’ He looked up for confirmation. ‘Well, that would be due to VPB. Do you follow?’
Tom nodded.
‘Anyway the point is that Jamie’s was not enough to cause his blood pressure to drop dangerously low, but . . .’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘I’ve just completed a fellowship in cardiology at the Peninsula General, so I’m probably a little more neurotic about matters of the heart than most residents. Jamie’s blood pressure was low enough to sound a few warning bells so I thought to myself – better get the boy an ECG and echo after you have had that head seen to—’
‘Echo?’ Letty queried faintly.
‘That’s an electrical and sound wave test of the heart called an echo cardiogram.’ He flashed her an apologetic s
mile. ‘It will tell us a bit about the heart structure.’
‘Are you saying there’s something wrong with Jamie’s heart?’
‘Let’s hope not, Mrs Fleming, but if there is, we will deal with it. In any event, I’m going to speak to your daughter again and I’ll come back to you as soon as I know what’s going on.’
83
‘I’m prepared to offer you a Fruit Salad.’
‘Which is?’ Alba inspected the doctor with narrow eyes.
‘Fruit Salad is a collective phrase for a group of stroke patients, or if you like, there’s Vegetable Garden which is a group of brain-damaged patients.’
‘Okay,’ Alba conceded. ‘One stitch for each.’
‘Too kind.’ He tilted her chin and threaded the needle through her cheek.
‘Ten Fs is a good one, but I want three stitches for it otherwise we’ll be here all day.’
‘Go on, then. If you must.’ Alba’s posturing helped cover the fear. She’d had the shakes ever since arriving in hospital and, despite the blankets and hot sugary teas, she could still feel a tremor in her hands and the weakness in her legs.
‘Fat, fair, fecund, fortyish, flatulent female with foul, frothy, floating faeces.’
Alba giggled in spite of herself. ‘Where did you learn these?’
‘Med school, Sydney. Keep still.’
‘You’re from Australia?’
‘The accent didn’t give it away?’
‘What are you doing here from Australia?’
‘My great-grandparents originally came from the north of Scotland so, you know, I thought I’d check the place out.’
‘Sounds tedious.’
‘It’s actually a pretty romantic story.’
‘I’m not the slightest bit interested in romance but I’ll take more medical slang.’
‘Last one for four stitches and the knot then?’
Alba glanced hopefully towards the curtain but she knew that her mother had finally been taken in to see Jamie and would not be out for a while. She took a deep breath and offered her cheek. The tug of the needle through flesh made her feel sick. She felt for the note in the pocket of her hospital gown. More than anything she had wanted her mother to stay, hold her hand, but she’d forgotten how to ask.
‘You’re quite brave for a Sheila.’ The doctor knotted and snipped the thread. ‘I hope you’re proud of your sister,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Saving your little brother’s life and everything.’
Georgie sat, legs folded, in the tiny upholstered chair in the corner of the cubicle. She looked at her sister, spindly as a lab monkey in her hospital gown, her cheek distorted by the railroad track of stitches. Alba had climbed down a cliff and saved Jamie’s life. She knew she ought to feel proud, but she couldn’t rid herself of the suspicion that somehow – quite how, she had no idea – Alba was responsible for at least some portion of the accident. Still, Jamie’s loyalty was such that even were this true, he would never tell. She resigned herself to the inevitability that all her future life achievements, however accomplished, would forever be overshadowed by Alba’s childhood heroics.
‘I didn’t save his life,’ Alba said.
‘Oh, who did, then?’ The doctor fiddled with his bleeper.
Alba touched a finger to the ridge of stitches. The thing was, she couldn’t erase it from her head. The ragged edge of Jamie’s wound, his plunge through the mist, the sound of the helicopter – and then that animal, the beast, so small and shrunken looking, balled up in the net. Dada will catch me, Jamie had shouted, and every time she closed her eyes she saw the mass of seaweed, moving, floating at the bottom of the Kettle. ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
After the doctor took himself off, the two sisters eyed each other like battle-weary generals. Since they’d last come together, only twenty-four hours earlier, they’d discovered between them sex and spirituality. In other words, pretty much all the complexity the world had to offer, but the accumulation of prohibited subjects that had stacked up over the last six months prevented them sharing any of these revelations. They continued to stare at each other in uncompanionable silence until Alba finally blurted it out.
‘I burnt your university offer letter.’
‘You did what?’ Georgie said, startled.
‘I burnt your university offer letter,’ Alba repeated hollowly. ‘And your A level results as well.’
Georgie gawped at her. ‘You little bitch! Why?’
Alba pulled the thin sheet up to her chin. ‘Because you’re nearly grown-up.’ She faltered. ‘Because you get to leave home and start a new life. Because I’m stuck here for another three years, for an eternity. Because there’s no way out for me.’
Georgie felt strangely disassociated from the endless drama of her sister’s selfishness.
‘You don’t understand.’ Alba’s voice rose. ‘You’ve escaped, but I’m doomed. “Oh, poor Alba,”’ she mimicked, ‘“how could she not have turned out bad, I mean, those wretched Fleming children, they had the most awful childhood.”’
‘We haven’t had a really awful childhood.’
‘Well, losing Dada happened for me at a more damaging time than it happened for you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I think my formative years might have been ruined.’
‘Rubbish, your formative years are something like two to six. These are your teenage years.’
‘I know, I know,’ Alba said piteously. ‘I’m in the middle of puberty!’
Georgie sighed and closed her eyes. She saw Aliz’s arm resting against hers. She heard the papery noise of waves against the sand. What Alba said was true. Her own clock was ticking again. She was growing up, moving on. ‘Do you know something, Alba? You’re not nearly as interesting as you think you are.’ She pushed out of her chair.
Alba’s head was turned into the pillow. ‘Please don’t leave me, Georgie,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’
‘You’re going to be fine.’ Georgie pulled aside the curtain.
‘I don’t want to be fine. I want to be better than fine, I want . . .’ Alba’s voice caught then broke. ‘I want Dada back.’
The minute that Georgie allowed to pass felt like a year. Then she turned and sat back down on the edge of Alba’s bed. Her sister still existed in the before, whilst she had moved into the after. And the after was okay, it was better. In the way that most mattered to her, she had got her father back. ‘Do you know what I think about sometimes?’ she said softly.
‘What?’ Alba wiped her nose on the sleeve of her gown.
‘That one day I will come across a door and through that door will be a room and in that room I will find all the precious things I have ever lost; that beautiful necklace Grandpa gave me, my old teddy, the Biba cardigan with the striped sleeves, and . . . you know . . . Dada.’
A fat tear trailed down Alba’s cheek.
‘Look, I’ll make you a deal.’ Georgie reached forwards and pushed a damp length of her sister’s hair away from her stitches. ‘If I defer university for a little while, if I stay with you a bit longer, will you tell me what I got in my A levels?’
84
All Letty remembered afterwards was the absoluteness of her exhaustion. She and Tom had been fetched out of the children’s ward by the doctor and having failed to find a quiet spot, had taken up position between the shiny cream walls of the second-floor corridor. The air had been warm and unpleasantly scented. Bad ventilation, Letty thought. No windows to open. No wind to blow through. Outside she could hear the noise of a siren then the rolling slide of doors opening and shutting; voices, shouting. Somebody else’s trauma was beginning.
‘And no history of heart disease in your family?’ the doctor was asking her. She’d tried to restore rhythm to her thinking, to articulate her responses, but anxiety had wound her down to nothing.
Not that I know of.’ She didn’t like the way he was looking at her – concern mingled with a certain gh
oulish curiosity adopted by the medical profession when they were in the throes of diagnosing some halfway interesting condition.
‘On either your or your husband’s side?’
‘No.’ Letty’s teeth began to work at the inside of her lip.
‘And Jamie has the two sisters, correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any health issues affecting either of them?’
‘None.’
‘What about yourself and your husband?’
‘Jamie’s father was killed in an accident earlier this year,’ Tom intervened quickly.
The doctor made a note. ‘I’m so sorry. What about Jamie’s grandparents, are they still living?’
‘All died of old age – well, apart from my husband’s real mother who died in childbirth.’
‘From anything in particular?’
‘I don’t think so, I mean, she was never terribly strong. How is this relevant exactly?’
A janitor moved through them, a dungeon-sized bunch of keys dangling from his leather belt. How late was it? Letty wondered vaguely. How long had they been there? Time in hospitals was not measured in hours and minutes but in shifts and rounds, the wait between painkillers, the number of fluid ounces pumped into arms.
‘As I mentioned earlier – ’ the doctor knuckled at his eyes, as if the sight of the night janitor had reminded him of his own fatigue – ‘I initially questioned whether Jamie’s irregular heartbeat was due to the cold, or too much adrenalin, but the results of his ECG show that he does, in fact, have a slightly dilated heart.’
‘What does that mean exactly?’ Letty reached unconsciously for Tom’s hand again.
‘I believe your son is suffering from cardiomyopathy’ Then, when this pronouncement elicited only a shocked, blank silence, he took a pen from his coat pocket and began sketching on his notes. ‘Let me see if I can make this simple for you. The engine of a heart is driven by electrical waves. The sort of waves, say, a pebble would make if you dropped it into a still pond.’ He squinted up at them.