If I Could Fly

by Jill Hucklesby

  Any moment, there could be fireworks . . .

  I don’t remember the hospital looking like this. Then again, when you’re clutching your belly and a bucket in turn, you don’t notice detail, just pain. Even if Snow White herself had appeared with the seven dwarfs, whistling a happy tune, she couldn’t have made me smile.

  A church clock struck six a while ago. The sun is just a red crescent, sinking into the sea. The air smells of salt and wood smoke, incense sticks and uncollected refuse. Gulls the size of terrier dogs are picking at abandoned black sacks on the pavement, spreading their contents with yellow beaks.

  Almost there. The hill is so steep my legs feel as if they are moving in slow motion. The windows are blazing in the last rays of light. This close, the hospital is less like a fairy castle and more like a fortress. I had forgotten the huge wall round its perimeter and the giant stone griffins standing on high pillars either side of the gateway to the main entrance. They have the bodies of lions and their eagle heads are thrown up in a massive roar.

  Holy hummingbirds, something is terribly wrong here. There are boards saying Keep Out, Private Property across the drive. There must be a mistake. A hospital never turns patients away. As my eyes scan the upper segment of the building, I notice that some of the windowpanes are broken or missing and there’s ivy creeping under the roof gables. It has an air of neglect, like a corpse left behind on the battlefield, a casualty of war.

  Look at the problem every which way, Paper Clip; the size of the barriers, the angle needed for your ascent.

  I’m jogging with heavy feet along the perimeter of the wall, hoping for an opening, an explanation, a welcome. I’m greeted by streams of black and red graffiti tags, locked doors and high metal gates chained together. I wrap my fingers round the cold bars and rest my head against them, exhausted.

  ‘No, no, no, no, NO,’ I’m saying, over and over again, in disbelief. My arms are wrenching at the gates, which make a clanking noise like a metal monster yawning, but barely move.

  I’m staring into the overgrown garden where three swings suspended from a wooden frame sway in the breeze, bumping into one another aimlessly. A rocking-horse head with grab bars has fallen off its spring and lies amongst the wild grass. Two benches lie smashed and in pieces. On a third sits a small teddy, holding a red heart. His fur is grey with dirt. His eyes are fixed in my direction, unblinking. A shiver ripples down my body from my skull to my toes. It is so unexpected, I bite my tongue.

  For some crazy reason, I want to hold the bear. I scan the road, up and down. No vehicles. No pedestrians. Only the greedy gulls peck, peck, pecking. I move back to the wall, which is about three metres high and has a ledge at the top. This would be a classic manoeuvre for the Feathers involving just three actions, so here goes:

  1. Jump up from a standing position, grabbing the ledge

  2. Pull up and anchor my body with a foot on the ledge

  3. Roll or swing over the top of the wall, landing silently

  OK, not exactly silently, but I’ve done it! Easy peasy lemon squeezy, even if I have grazed my left hand and twisted my right ankle almost out of its socket. Crease would have scaled the wall almost without touching it, but, hey, he’s Phoenix Alpha.

  I’m crouching low, checking the terrain. Red tape cordons off the grassy area in front of the main entrance. The remains of large cardboard boxes and several piles of old blankets are spread out behind it. Cans of drink are lined up against the side of the hospital’s wall and a bare rose bush is wearing a man’s jacket, bent low under the weight.

  The grounds are a mess, the tarmac driveway breaking up under pressure from weeds pushing through from the earth below. Information signs have been removed, leaving only the metal poles they were attached to.

  A lot of the windows I’m looking at now are boarded up. One of the boards even has a neat painting of a blond kid waving from inside a window. Artist joker! Must have taken ages to do. It looks quite spooky.

  There’s no one about, hardly any sound, just the distant thrum of traffic from the town and an occasional rawk-rawk of a seagull, flying overhead. I move cautiously towards the bench and its lone inhabitant, ready to run if there is so much as a whisper of danger.

  The bear looks smaller up close. I sit next to him and lift him on to my lap. He is still wet from the rain. His eyes are scratched and misty. When I squeeze his heart, he says, ‘I love you,’ in a funny voice.

  ‘I love you too,’ I reply, and give him a kiss on his damp head. He smells of wood and leaves, of night air and soggy stuffing.

  ‘You need a name, bear,’ I tell him, looking into his face. ‘You look like you were once fluffy, but now your fur is matted and flat. The seams of your paws are coming undone. You should go to teddy hospital. Maybe you came here, just like me, thinking they would make you better. Easy mistake to make. I think we’re not allowed to be sick any more, bear, that’s the truth. The doctors and nurses have vanished –’

  ‘My name is Andy. I just lerve honey.’

  ‘How did you do that? I didn’t press anything! So, you’re called Andy, are you? That’s a nice name for a bear. I’m Calypso, Caly for short.’ I take his paw in my hand and give it a shake. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  Andy doesn’t respond, just stares at me with unseeing eyes. I hold him close, his heart against mine. I can feel mine beating very fast. I can also feel a numb ache spreading up my legs and around my hips. All my energy seems suddenly to have left my body, and whooshed away amongst the scattering autumn leaves. I’m as floppy as a rag doll. If I sit here much longer, that’s what I’ll become.

  ‘Shall we stay or go, Andy?’ I ask him. ‘What’s that? You’re thinking about it. Yeah, well, one of us has to make a decision. It’s cold out here. It’s nearly dark. There’s nowhere else to head for tonight. We could sleep inside, out of the wind and rain, and make a new plan tomorrow. What do you say?’

  There is a strange hiccupping, buzzing noise from Andy. It’s a response, at least. I take it as a ‘yes’.

  ‘Here goes, then,’ I say quietly, poking the bear down the front of my hoody, in case I need to run. I move towards the front of the huge, derelict building, checking for possible entry points. Even though it looks like it doesn’t want visitors, I’m drawn to the main entrance – a vast door with cylindrical stone pillars either side. I can see my reflection in the long, thin windows. I’m shocked by how much of an urchin I look.

  I stop, take a deep breath. Everything is eerily quiet. Having Andy close is giving me courage, though. Crazy idea, Caly. It’s not like he’s a kung fu black belt, or anything useful. I walk up the three shallow steps to the entrance. This is how Alice must have felt in Wonderland. The door is so huge I imagine I am shrinking, shrinking. Soon I won’t be able to reach the big brass handle.

  Cut it out, brain. Behave.

  I walked through this entrance once before, only then there was light and bustle and the smell of antiseptic, and flowers on the reception desk and colourful mobiles of sea creatures hanging from the high ceiling above a wide staircase with a polished wooden hand rail. It’s like it was yesterday. I close my eyes and imagine I am holding Little Bird’s arm, that Dad is parking the car, that there is a bed in a pale-green ward waiting for me, that soon my problems will be over.

  I feel dizzy. My vision spins with images of roaring griffins, laughing nurses, a doctor with a syringe, Little Bird crying, Andy saying, ‘I love you,’ over and over again. I’m falling, and my thigh is tense with pain, but as I reach out to grab the handle of the door so that I can steady myself, I realise I’m experiencing a memory. A moment later, it is gone and the agony subsides.

  What was that, brain? Something from my past or a malfunction?

  Confused and shaken, I lean against the door. There is a loud creaking and it begins to give way, opening heavily on to a tiled floor, strewn with envelopes.

  Suddenly, there’s a terrible screeching noise. I put my hands over my ears just as a huge dark shape,
as big as a vulture, swoops out of the darkness inside, the draught from its wings ruffling my hair as it passes. It is a raven, ragged and probably starving. How long has it been trapped in here? It is so close to my face I look into its eye. There is just a socket, scratched raw by claws.

  Someone is screaming. I think it’s me.

  Chapter Eight

  It’s like the rainforest in the stories you’ve read me, Little Bird. Full of unknown dangers. Look! Tangled wires like tendrils hanging from a high canopy. Waay! Are there monkeys here? And what about those curled-up cables, like coiled snakes? Will they unravel and attack if I step inside?

  I’m looking in with eyes narrowed against the failing light. My legs feel like jelly. I’m so tired. So tired of being tired. So tired of the pain in my leg.

  A hundred questions hurtle into my head as I hover half in and half out of the jungle of weeds growing up through the floor. Why was the door open? Was it a mistake by the security company whose name is on the board by the road? Does it mean someone will be back to check? Are there regular patrols, maybe with dogs?

  It’s no good. The thoughts are tumbling now as fast as a waterfall’s torrent. I don’t have any answers. All I know is I can see my breath steaming like vapour from a kettle. That means one thing. Night is coming. I need somewhere to shelter.

  My legs jerk and carry me forward. I’m inside and looking up at the domed ceiling from which a sad, grey bulb hangs like a nose drip on the end of a long cable.

  Plip, plip, plop. Somewhere, a tap is leaking. The sound echoes eerily amongst the empty corridors leading away from the hallway. I’m passing the closed metal door to the lift and slowly ascending the staircase, fingers lightly resting on the dusty wooden rail, eyes straining against the gloom, feet almost arching up on my toes, ready to take flight at the drop of a hat.

  Nobody drops hats any more, Paper Clip, you know what I’m sayin’? Keep your eyes open for any kind of dodgyness.

  ‘Yeah, I know what you’re saying, Crease. Trouble is, there’s so much dodgyness it’s hard to know where to begin.’ I’m whispering back to the shadows, which is really lame, scaring myself with the sound of my own voice.

  I’ve reached the first-floor landing. My eyes do a sweep, first left, then right, down the empty corridors where kids like me used to pad about in dressing gowns and slippers. Opposite, there should be two glass-panelled doors leading to Wonderland Ward. There is just a space. The sign above the doorframe is still there, although part of it is missing. I can just make out the letters. Now it just reads Wonderland.

  Nothing could look further from the truth.

  ‘Do you believe in fairies?’ the ward sister had asked me when I arrived, all that time ago. It was a strange thing to say to someone whose face was staring at the inside of a bucket. I think I must have nodded, because then she said, ‘You can come in,’ and she showed me to a bed by the window which had a pink duvet cover. There was a row of books on the tiled sill, held up by two wooden owls either end.

  Today, Wonderland is just a long, rectangular space, empty but for a single armchair at one end. There are eight floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the overgrown garden below. Light from the streetlamps is filtering in through the dusty panes like pointy fingers, accusing me of a crime.

  Yes, I ran away, and I’m so sorry, Little Bird, for all the pain that’s causing you.

  As I walk over the bare floor, my steps echo – or is it my heart I can hear? I give Andy a squeeze. He is silent. I take him out of his hiding place and show him the spot where I once lay sick and frightened, hitched up to a tube.

  ‘I had a nice view of the garden, look,’ I say to him, holding him up to the window. His hard nose leaves a hole in the dust. He is limp and unresponsive in my hand.

  ‘I get it. You’re an “I don’t care” sort of bear,’ I say, cleaning him up and putting him back inside my hoody. Or maybe you’re really scared, just like me.

  My feet are carrying me forward again, like a sleep walker, like a drone, like a zombie. I’m approaching the chair, which seems as good a place as any to rest for a while and maybe, later, to drift off into the kind of sleep when you have one eye open, looking for dodgyness.

  The chair has wide arms and a low back covered in old dark blue velvet. Its seat is thick and inviting and when I fall back into it there is a foof as a cloud of dust rises from its worn fabric. It makes me cough and almost gag, especially when I remember that the particles swirling around me are almost ninety per cent skin. Skin from the hundreds of children who were nursed back to health here. I don’t want to think about the ones who didn’t make it. Have their souls stayed behind, to keep watch? I don’t believe in that stuff, honest to God, but it feels like there are eyes watching me from the darkness and shadows moving between the dust as it falls.

  Sprites and ghosts, ghouls and vampires. They all seem possible in the night. Keep it real, Paper Clip, Crease would say. And he would probably tell me to Sit in the chair, make a plan and stop crying. You got yourself into this mess. You can get yourself out of it.

  Did I? I could never have chosen this, never in a month of Sundays. And if they catch me? They will alter my brain. Game over.

  My thoughts are jumbled, like a stir-fry of noodles and peppers, twisting together, a mass of slippery strands. The pain in my thigh is burning like chilli in your eyes. The more you rub, the worse it gets. But the chair is soft and is letting me sink into it. It’s the nearest thing to a hug I’ve had for a long time. I realise how much I’m longing for that safe feeling of being held; to be so close to another heart you can hear its beat.

  I miss you, Mum. There are reasons why I am here and you are there. I will remember. I will understand. And maybe that’s the day I will be able to come home.

  I’ve rested here long enough. I’d like to sleep but pangs of pain are jabbing their spears into my belly. It’s so hard to move. I’ve morphed into the squishy seat. It’s sucking me into its springs and padding. My eyelids are heavy and my head is starting to loll. Grip the arms and count to three, then stand up – good plan. Here goes. One, two . . .

  ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MA CHAIR? YES, YOU, CHOP SUEY!’

  Chapter Nine

  There is no time to move. The man who shouted is standing over me. His face is so close to mine I can smell the onions on his breath and see the peppermint whites of his eyes. His dark hair hangs in straggles across his face. Under the black plastic sheet that covers his frame, I can see layers of clothes – at least two shirts and a jumper. His trousers are held up with green string. Wafts of old sock assault my nostrils. But there’s another smell lingering underneath – something unexpected but familiar.

  ‘I said, what are you doing in ma chair?’ he repeats slowly, threateningly.

  ‘Sitting,’ I reply truthfully. Idiot, Caly. You broke the rule. You got caught.

  ‘I didna give you permission to sit in ma chair.’ The man grabs my arms and pulls me upwards. The force of it sends me spinning into the wall. ‘Next time, you have to ask,’ he growls, smoothing out the velvet on the seat.

  ‘Sorry,’ I reply, stunned. You should be polite to crazy people, Gran says, because you never know what they’re going to do next. There are different types of crazy, though, from mad axe men to nice people who have lost their marbles.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asks, noticing me rubbing my elbow. The tone of his voice is softer now, kinder.

  ‘It’s nothing.’ I’m working out my chances of escape. If I run, can I make it to the stairs, flip over the banister and drop to the ground floor without breaking every bone in my body? Crease and Slee could do it. But I’m just a stupid kid, with no easy way out.

  ‘So you decided to crash my pad, then, Chop Suey?’ the man accuses.

  ‘I didn’t know it was yours,’ I reply carefully. ‘And I’m not Chinese, if that’s what you think. I’m Thai. Well, half, anyway.’

  ‘You are, are ye?’ he says, walking towards me. ‘Little Miss Saigon,
eh?’

  I don’t want to tell him that Saigon is in southern Vietnam, a totally different country. And that its proper name is Ho Chi Minh City. My neck is flushing hot with indignation and fear.

  ‘Ma pad, that’s correct. And if you want to share it there’ll have to be some rules, savvy?’ he says matter of factly.

  I feel as if I’m on a treadmill and the moving panel beneath my feet is accelerating faster and faster so that my legs won’t keep up. I wasn’t going to stay here – only for one night – but if he’s not Mad Axe Man crazy, is it such a bad idea? Just until I’m stronger? Just until I’ve worked out where I’m going?

  ‘OK, what are the rules?’ I ask, playing for time. Even in the semi-light, I can see him swallow heavily and rock backwards on his trainers, which, I notice, don’t match. Ha! So, there are no real rules, just the ones he’s about to make up.

  ‘Number one,’ he begins. ‘You don’t sit in ma chair without permission and never in the morning when I’m reading the paper.’

  ‘You get the paper?’ I ask warily. There’s only one daily now, published by the Office of Media and Communications, and photos of missing kids are always run in a banner across the centre pages with a reward offered for information.

  ‘With ma chips,’ he replies. ‘I like the crosswords. But don’t interrupt, do you hear, Miss Saigon?’

  ‘I’m Calypso,’ I state. I’ve had it with nicknames, especially ones that aren’t even geographically correct. ‘That’s what you should call me. And what should I call you?’ I demand, keeping my voice low and even, like Little Bird when she is soothing my dad’s ‘niggle niggle’ – the temper he comes home with after visiting the social club and discussing ‘the state of things’ with the crowd there.