‘Are we here, Alfie?’ I ask, but he doesn’t answer. He is watching the security guards who are standing either side of the entrance, their sub-machine guns held at hip height. At least here there are no crowds fighting for anti-viral drugs.
Alfie motions for me to follow him. We stay close to the man and woman in paramedic overalls and enter a wide area with a shiny floor. It’s like a hotel foyer, with staff in surgical masks seated behind a long desk beneath an electronic notice board. Please report to the reception desk. There is a 30 minute wait, it reads. If you think you have the H2Z1 virus, please exit the building immediately and proceed to the clinic at our West Street entrance.
We head towards swing doors marked Assessment Ward, seizing the moment a nurse pushes them open to slip through. There are several large rooms leading from an open area and each has at least ten occupied beds. Alfie props me against a wall and makes a quick tour of the area, merging through drawn curtains, reappearing with a glum look on his face.
‘You’re not here,’ he tells me, taking my hand and whisking me back to the main reception. He is scanning the lists of departments on the board, muttering their names as he does so.
‘Cardiac, Geriatric, Neurology, Gynaecology, Urology, Surgical, Intensive Care . . . Second floor . . . Come on!’
We’re climbing stairs in big leaps. Alfie is practically lifting me, although his feet are barely touching the ground.
Another armed security guard stands on patrol at the entrance to the second floor. He is chewing gum with his mouth open and watching the hallway. His eyes move left and right like a pendulum. We pass by him undetected and are moving quickly down a long corridor, past wards and busy waiting areas. I feel like a passenger on a platform, watching train windows speed by, the faces behind them just a blur. My brain is confused. I am the one in motion.
‘Hey!’ shouts a distressed man, sitting with his back against a wall. ‘Hey, you!’
‘Don’t look back,’ says Alfie, increasing our pace.
‘Can he see us?’ I ask, bemused and a little fearful.
‘There’ll be a lot here who can. We can’t get involved.’
The man’s voice rings in my ears. ‘I don’t feel so well, Alfie,’ I say feebly. I’m not sure if he’s heard me. He keeps repeating ‘ICU’ over and over again. We make a sharp right turn and are faced with another reception desk. A male nurse is talking quietly to two policemen. The patients in this area are silent. The only noise is made by machines, delivering fluids and oxygen and monitoring breathing. Relatives sit by bedsides, looking hopeful, afraid or exhausted.
My body almost snaps with a sudden force, making me stumble. ‘Alfie?’ I whisper, reaching for him. He eases me down into a chair and holds both my hands.
‘I’ll find you, Caly, just stay here.’ He looks intently into my eyes, then he is gone.
I’m listening to the regular pulse of medical equipment, to the squeak of rubber soles on the polished floor, to the hushed words being spoken by the desk, to the distant noise of a television, to water splashing against a metal sink, to a phone ringing, to doors flapping shut, to a kettle boiling, to the click of a switch, to the flush of a loo, to a low moan of pain, to the jingle of keys in a pocket, to the rustle of papers, to the slam of a filing cabinet, to the clink of metal instruments being replaced in a dish.
My ears are suddenly as sensitive as satellites.
Looking out at the gulls, high on the slipstream, I feel the air filtering through their feathers and the throb, throb, throb of their wings as they change direction and beat against the current. Every sound of every moving creature and object on the planet is bombarding my brain. I put my head in my hands, hoping that oblivion will come quickly.
Beneath the intense sound, there is a rhythm. Slowly, the chaos of noise begins to fade and the beat becomes more distinct. It is drawing me in, like a lighthouse might a shipwrecked sailor. It is familiar, safe, and I am starting to recognise the repetition, not just as a pulse, but a phrase. The words are becoming clear, like a signpost in the fog.
Om mani padme hum.
My body jolts again. I gasp. My eyes stare wildly around me at the faces of strangers. No one can help me. Nobody here knows I exist. I grip the wooden arms of the chair and force myself to concentrate. I must stay conscious and wait for Alfie. I must continue to hope. I must focus on the rhythm.
Om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum.
I fix my gaze straight ahead, past the desk, to a room along the corridor, with a glass window. There is a female police officer standing outside it. Inside, a dark-haired woman is sitting with her head bowed. Her body is motionless, but even from this distance, I can see her lips moving.
I am walking towards her with unsure steps. I can no longer feel my feet make contact with the floor. The uniformed officer stares at me, through me. She sniffs and scratches her pretty nose. She checks her watch. She touches her neck as I stand next to her, my face very close to the glass panel, looking in at the hunched figure on the other side, whose delicate face is etched with pain.
My hands lift up to the clear glass and rest against it, merging with it. I want to reach out to her, envelop her. But I can’t disturb her fragile peace. Her eyes are closed. She is chanting, praying next to an empty bed. In her hands are my jeans, the same ones I am wearing now, except those she clutches are soaked with dark blood.
‘Little Bird, I’m here,’ I say.
Chapter Thirty-four
There is a hand on my shoulder and Alfie is here. He takes in the scene before him, the tears streaming down my face, the Thai woman, as small as a doll, bent over in grief. Now he is beckoning with his other hand. No words, just a movement, and I am following him.
We are leaving this area and moving down a different corridor, turning left, turning right, avoiding trolleys stacked with fresh laundry and patients in wheelchairs.
There are double doors ahead and a sign that reads Theatre 1 over them. Alfie has stopped outside them. He is looking at me intently.
‘In here?’ I ask tentatively.
He nods and pushes the door ajar. Another set of doors lies ahead and through their rectangles of clear glass I can see a surgical team working on a patient under bright white lights. A man in green overalls with a mask and cap is bending low over the patient’s chest area.
‘Stand clear,’ he says, and the others take a step back. There is a loud noise from inside the operating room and almost instantaneously, my body jolts for a third time, sending me crashing into the wall, which I instantly merge with. Alfie pulls me back, a terrified look on his face.
‘You have to go in there, Caly,’ he says, his lip quivering noticeably. I glance back to the surgeon, who is shaking his head and pulling off his mask. The monitor next to the patient is showing a series of flat lines. The rest of the team looks despondent. A nurse is turning off switches one by one.
It has taken me a few seconds to understand all this, the fact that I am the patient on the table and that they have tried three times to resuscitate me. I turn to look at Alfie, who’s motioning for me to move forward and holding his chest to stop it heaving at the same time.
And now I am hugging him, holding him, like I am clinging on to life itself and whispering, ‘I will never forget you,’ in his ear and planting a soft kiss on his cheek and he is saying, ‘Go, just go,’ through tears and I am pressing the metal bottle top into his hand, and saying, ‘Remember me.’ I’m releasing him and moving backwards, keeping eye contact with him until someone behind me opens the doors and the surgeon passes us and I turn and enter the theatre.
I gasp and a rush of oxygen travels down my windpipe and inflates my chest. I’m aware of three things – an ache in my ribs, a strong smell of antiseptic and a babble of surprised voices. My eyes are closed. I want to lie very still. I’m not sure what is real any more. I’m waiting for Alfie to tell me what has happened, but my craving for his voice is unanswered.
I sense a commotion and footsteps and the
squeak of something heavy being wheeled aside. There is a different energy close by. The nerves in my upper body tingle in response to it. Any moment now, my best mate will be saying something to make me smile. It’s not his fault we were too late.
A hush has descended. I feel a warmth like angel breath caressing my cheek, the softness of skin against my skin. There is jasmine in the air. My right hand is raised, enfolded in another’s, touched by lips. The contact is delicate, like being lifted on a songbird’s wing. I feel it in every cell of my body.
I am ready to open my eyes.
Meet Jill Hucklesby
Hi, Jill. Tell us a bit about your childhood and teenage years. Where did you live, and what were your interests?
I was born in Brighton and lived at the top of a hill with my parents, my sister and brothers in a flat with a spooky cellar. You could hear trains passing by in deep tunnels underneath. It made me think there was a subterranean world existing beneath my bed.
Growing up was a bit of a bumpy time involving loss and the arrival of step family. I often escaped into imaginary worlds! I discovered a love for music and drama, and I also learned to sail.
As a teenager, I worked in a sweet shop (bliss!), then at M&S, so life became a blur of school exams, bras and knickers (my department) and dates with a dark-haired student at college . . .
Did you have any favourite books or authors?
Yes, I loved stories about animals. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Call of the Wild by Jack London (cried for days), Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson (ditto). Later, I studied English Lit and loved everything by D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster and Thomas Hardy, especially Tess of the D’Urbervilles. And if we’re including dramatists, Will Shakespeare, of course.
Who’s your favourite fictional character?
Two favourites: Tess from Tess of the D’Urbervilles, who is stalked by tragedy despite her innocence, and Flora Poste from Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm, who hauls her mad, rural relatives into the twentieth century with cool, common sense. It’s one of the funniest books I’ve read.
In If I Could Fly, Caly sometimes longs to go and live in Thailand, and there are some beautiful descriptions of the country. Have you ever been there? Is there anywhere you would especially love to live?
I travelled for several weeks through Thailand a few years ago with my young family, and fell completely in love with the country. The vibrant colours of the temples and night markets have stayed with me, together with the sounds of monkeys chattering in the trees and elephants bathing in the rivers. And I’ve never seen a sky so full of stars.
I feel very lucky to live by the sea in Sussex, close to wonderful downland walks and four miles from a buzzy, cultural city. I love the open landscape here. It’s where my roots are and I can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Caly builds a house of books, and collects bits and bobs to make her feel more at home in the hospital. What is your most treasured possession?
Can that be plural? If so, I would say my photo albums. They hold so many memories, especially of my daughter growing up and our adventures with our three rescued retrievers, Luke, Zack and now Henry the hooligan.
When did you first start writing? What did you do before you were a published author?
I wrote poems and stories from an early age and started to do it seriously when I was studying for a degree in English and Drama. After working in theatre and journalism, I trained as a screenwriter and wrote for children’s TV. I also got involved in a musical theatre development group in London. An idea for a TV drama series was then optioned for production and when it didn’t go ahead, the producer suggested I write the book instead. So my first novel, Deeper Than Blue, started to take shape and was published in 2007. Happily, I am about to write my sixth book!
Where do your ideas come from? What inspired you to write If I Could Fly?
Ideas are strange things. They are always tumbling about, probably because there has always been an alternative world going on in my head. Sometimes a title will come first. Or it might just be a feeling, a rhythm, a voice. Or a question – what if? I usually let them float about for a few days to see if they are going to stay. If they do, I write a short outline, to see where the story will go.
If I Could Fly began to form in the spring of 2009. All my previous books have been about teens who have to face big challenges in their lives, but I wanted this new one to have an extra element – a twist. I could hear Caly running in my head, but for a long time I didn’t know what she was running from. I liked the unfolding mystery of her situation. Hope readers will too!
Do you have any advice for readers who are hoping to follow in your footsteps?
I think if it’s in you to write, you will write. It’s a sort of natural compulsion. The good news is that, while publishing deals are always elusive, there are many markets out there for writing – and many ways to be a writer. The internet has opened up massive opportunities for people to reach an audience through personal websites, blogs and networking communities. Some publishers keep a close eye on the net for signs of talent!
There are creative writing courses and degrees up and down the country, which can inspire or maybe buy you the time to get your brilliant work finished. And there are lots of annual competitions to enter. So take a deep breath, begin, explore, develop, keep your spirits up (despite rejections), be exciting, brave, persistent and very flexible. Keep the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook by your side for advice, contacts in the industry and submission guidelines. And good luck!
Watch out for more stunning fiction from Jill Hucklesby. Coming Soon!
EGMONT PRESS: ETHICAL PUBLISHING
Egmont Press is about turning writers into successful authors and children into passionate readers – producing books that enrich and entertain. As a responsible children’s publisher, we go even further, considering the world in which our consumers are growing up.
Safety First
Naturally, all of our books meet legal safety requirements. But we go further than this; every book with play value is tested to the highest standards – if it fails, it’s back to the drawing-board.
Made Fairly
We are working to ensure that the workers involved in our supply chain – the people that make our books – are treated with fairness and respect.
Responsible Forestry
We are committed to ensuring all our papers come from environmentally and socially responsible forest sources.
For more information, please visit our website at
www.egmont.co.uk/ethical
Egmont is passionate about helping to preserve the world’s remaining ancient forests. We only use paper from legal and sustainable forest sources, so we know where every single tree comes from that goes into every paper that makes up every book.
This book is made from paper certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), an organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of forest resources. For more information on the FSC, please visit www.fsc.org. To learn more about Egmont’s sustainable paper policy, please visit www.egmont.co.uk/ethical.
If I Could Fly Page 15