Poor little Joe, I thought, he was in love.
I knew exactly how he felt.
We watched street magicians taking bets and cash from tourist suckers. Then we rode the open tourist bus and saw some more of Paris, the tree-lined boulevards, the Champs Élysées, and I could see why Rosie loved it here. By afternoon on Sunday, I loved it here myself.
‘We’ve worn these children out,’ said Rosie.
‘Yeah, but it was good.’ I swung Polly up on to my shoulders, took Joe’s hand. ‘One more game of tag?’ I asked him when we reached the fountain by the Centre Pompidou.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ he said.
‘Joe, are you all right?’ asked Rosie.
‘I’m just thirsty.’
Rosie offered him her water bottle. I watched him while he drank most of it down. ‘How do you feel now?’ I asked.
‘Okay, Dad,’ he said and then he shot off like a rocket. So Rosie had to chase and grab him by the collar of his T-shirt, otherwise he would have got himself mashed on the road.
We boarded Eurostar to bring us back to London. Joe was tired and fussing. But Polly was still full of life. It must have been the spinach. She annoyed her brother by tickling him and poking him and in the end he slapped her arm and she began to cry.
‘You do not slap little girls – you hear me, Joe? You do not slap anybody, right?’
‘But she drives me crazy, Dad!’
‘Come on, Joe, snuggle up with me,’ said Rosie.
So he did. He slept all through the journey and when we arrived in London it was hard to wake him up. I guess he should have had more spinach?
ROSIE
We got back to my flat at half past eight that evening.
‘Why don’t you all come in and have some supper?’ I asked Pat. ‘Then you can get a cab and take these children home to Lexie?’
‘Yeah, okay, sounds like a plan,’ he said.
Then he got his laptop out and started scrolling through his emails and the three of us became invisible. Polly toddled round the sitting room, her thumb wedged in the corner of her mouth, touching, patting everything and talking to herself. Joe flopped on the sofa and went straight to sleep again.
I felt his forehead. It was warm, not hot. But his skin was clammy, he was restless, and I had a feeling that something wasn’t right.
‘Joe isn’t well,’ I told his father.
‘Do you mean he’s sick?’ Pat glanced up from his laptop, fingers poised above the keyboard, mind a million miles away. ‘Or is he just tired?’
‘He might be running a slight fever.’ I stroked Joe’s sticky hair back from his temples. ‘He has a rash as well.’
‘Rosie, kids are always getting rashes. Polly had one a few months back, turned out it was just a wool reaction. Tylenol – or whatever you call it over here in the UK – that will soon fix Joe. I’ll get a bottle from the all-night drugstore on my way to Lexie’s place.’
‘But Pat, I think—’
‘Rosie, could you let me read a couple emails? Then I’ll help fix supper. Meantime, please quit fretting about Joe?’
But my feeling this was something bad just wouldn’t go away. ‘I think you need to take him to A and E,’ I said.
‘What’s A and E?’
‘You know – to the ER.’
‘I can’t take him to the hospital. I don’t have the forms.’
‘What do you mean, the forms?’
‘The little guy’s insurance. Lexie has a bag with all that kind of stuff in it and when I have the kids she always makes me haul it round. But when I called there Friday I forgot to pick it up.’
‘Pat, you don’t need forms! When you’re ill in London or anywhere in the UK, you get yourself to hospital. They sort you out. They don’t ask you for forms. They don’t let children die for want of forms!’
‘Joe’s not dying, Rosie.’ Pat smiled at me all calm and reassuring, as if he were telling an anxious student that his grades were fine and not to worry. ‘The kid is tired, is all. He’ll be okay after a good night’s sleep. But maybe we won’t stay for supper. I’ll take Polly to your bathroom then I’ll get these children home to my apartment, put them both to bed. They can go back to Lexie in the morning.’
Joe was moaning softly in his sleep. I had no experience of children’s ailments, didn’t know what could be wrong with him, but alarm bells rang inside my head. ‘If you won’t take him, I will,’ I told Pat.
‘Rosie, you will not take Joseph anyplace!’
Obviously exasperated with the lot of us, Pat shut down his laptop. Then he collared Polly. They went into my bathroom and he closed the door behind them – and now alarm bells rang inside my head so loud they deafened me.
I didn’t care what Pat might think, what he might say, what he might do. I only knew that someone had to get his son to hospital. So I scooped Joe up into my arms, relieved he was so little and so light – I doubted he weighed any more than Polly – ran into the street, flagged down a taxi, told the cabbie to take us to the nearest A & E.
‘What’s the problem, Mum?’ the driver asked, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror.
‘I don’t know, but something’s very wrong. Please could you hurry?’
He put his foot down hard.
We pulled up outside the A & E at the Royal, Paddington. I realised I had come without my handbag. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I began to cry. ‘I haven’t any money on me. I—’
‘It’s okay,’ the driver said. ‘You have this one on me.’ He got out of the cab and held open the door for me, something I had never seen a London cabbie do before and was sure I’d never see again. ‘Good luck, Mum,’ he added. ‘I hope your little boy will be all right.’
I stood outside the hospital with Joe half-fainting in my arms and knew I couldn’t do it. But I had to do it. I had to fight down my own selfish fears. I had to move.
I had to go into a hospital.
So, hyperventilating, feeling sick, I made a dash at it. I ran into the A & E with Joe, sprinting up the steps and charging through the automatic doors which magically opened wide for me and sucked me into hell.
I thought I’d have to wait around for ages. Then, when we were clerked, make up some story that Joe was my son and beg them on my bended knees to treat him, make him better …
But, as it turned out, I didn’t have to say a thing. As I stood there dithering with a practically unconscious child in my arms, half a dozen medical professionals swooped down on us like angels. Joe was on a trolley and they were dashing down a corridor and I was dashing with them. A nurse running beside me touched my arm. ‘It’s okay,’ she told me. ‘It’s all under control.’
‘He’s going to be all right,’ added another nurse.
I wished I could believe them.
‘What’s his name?’ the first nurse asked me as we reached a cubicle and as they got him on a bed and somebody began to wire him up to various machines.
‘Joe, it’s Joseph Riley,’ I replied, wondering if this was all a dream, or rather nightmare, the nightmare I had had a hundred times before.
‘Joe, we’re going to make you better,’ said the nurse. ‘Joseph, can you hear me? Joe, we’re going to make you well again. Mum, you hold his hand, okay, and talk to him? He needs to know you’re here.’
So I held Joe’s hand while doctors in blue scrubs and nurses in blue uniforms and plastic aprons murmured, whispered, took phials of Joe’s blood and filled in charts.
‘But what’s wrong with him?’ I wailed, as Joe’s eyelids fluttered open, closed and then reopened, as his eyes themselves rolled in their sockets so just the whites were showing, as they cut his clothes off – his Angry Birds black hoodie, his favourite H&M blue jeans, his bleeding jaws shark T-shirt – so they could attach more wires, more lines. ‘Please, can’t you tell me what’s the matter?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ a nurse replied. ‘But we need to stabilise him, get some fluid in him, help him breathe.’ When the nurse said that, I choked. I
practically forgot to breathe myself.
I thought they might send me out while doctors plugged him into yet more bleeping stuff. But they let me stay and hold his hand. ‘So I’m not wasting your time?’ I faltered.
‘No, Mrs Riley, you are not.’ The nurse looked at me kindly, reassuringly. ‘You acted on your instincts. You realised your little boy was ill and not just tired or fretting. We mums, we know these things.’
A little time, a lot of time went by. Why do I contradict myself? I honestly didn’t know if it was minutes, hours or days. Then they told me they were taking Joe up to the ICU. They needed to do various things to him which I might find distressing. So a nurse would find me somewhere I could wait until I was allowed to see him. I was taken to a room where relatives and friends could sit and fret and drive themselves insane.
I must ring Pat, I thought. He’ll be so worried. But although I had some change in my jeans pocket, so I could have made a call, there was no payphone in the little room. I didn’t have my handbag so I didn’t have my mobile. I didn’t dare to move in case they came to find me and I could not be found.
Then a doctor and a nurse came in and I could see from both their faces it must be bad news. The nurse sat down beside me, took my hand.
‘We’ve run some tests,’ the doctor told me. ‘I’m sorry, but your little boy has septicaemia. He must have picked up an infection somewhere and it’s quite a nasty one. Mrs—’
‘Miss – Miss Denham.’
‘Joe is very ill. But you got him to us in good time. If you’d waited any longer, we’d have been in lots more trouble. Now, we’re doing all we can, and hopefully we’ll—’
‘Joe is not my child. I just brought him here. He’s—’
What was Pat?
‘—he’s my partner’s son.’
‘I see.’ The doctor nodded, as if this was the most natural thing in all the world, a girlfriend bringing in a boyfriend’s critically sick or injured child. ‘We’ll need to find Joe’s parents.’
‘I don’t have my mobile.’
‘There you go.’ The doctor handed me his phone.
By the grace of God or some kind angel, I had memorised Pat’s number months ago while I was in America and obsessed with all things Pat, so now I punched the keys.
‘Rosie?’ he demanded or rather yelled at me when he picked up on the second ring.
‘Yes, it’s me. Pat, don’t get angry, listen carefully—’
‘What? I’ll give you listen carefully! When I get my hands on you – where are you?’
‘At the Royal, Paddington,’ I said, as calmly as I could. ‘You’d better get yourself here quickly. Joe is very ill.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘There isn’t any time to talk, just get here!’
‘What shall I do with Polly?’
‘You’ll need to bring her with you, obviously.’
‘Why, what’s going on? Rosie, just quit being so mysterious and say what’s wrong with Joe!’
‘Patrick, get here, will you?’
PATRICK
What if that girl had been as dumb as me?
When I carried Polly through the automatic doors, I found Rosie waiting with a nurse. She looked so worried – frightened – terrified – and I somehow knew it wasn’t down to being shouted at by me, or on account of I was mad. I wasn’t mad now, anyway. I was just plain scared.
They took us to a private room and told me what was happening. By the time they finished, I was ready to fall down and worship Rosie, kiss her feet, and I do declare I might have done so if I’d not had Polly in my arms.
The doctor said that Polly ought to have a blood test, just to make quite sure she wasn’t sick, although it was unlikely.
‘But will Joe … will he—’
I couldn’t bring myself to say the word, to ask them if my son was going to die. ‘We’re doing everything we can for Joe,’ the doctor told us. ‘Please try not to worry, Mr Riley. Joe’s in the best place.’
Nobody mentioned health insurance, asked for forms or paperwork. It seemed they were more interested in making Joseph well.
ROSIE
All through that awful night we hoped and prayed as Joe tried to decide if he was going to live or die. The grey machines went bleep, bleep, bleep. The thin green lines zig-zagged across their screens. I watched them, mesmerised. As long as they keep bleeping, I assured myself, it will be fine.
Nurses came and filled in charts, adjusted drips. They took Joe’s temperature and wiped the drool off his face and sponged him down because he had a fever now.
Pat tried and tried again to phone his wife. He left a dozen messages, two dozen, but Lexie didn’t reply.
Polly dozed on Pat’s lap or on mine. While Polly sat or lay on Pat’s lap, sucking at his cuff, I held her brother’s hand – his little soft white infant hand, the hand which was now bruised and purpled where a line went into it.
They’d given me his ruined clothes. One of his hoodie pockets was full of something light and hard and lumpy. So I emptied it into my lap. I wondered if there might be clues to what was making Joe so ill. I found a dozen pieces of a Lego hero. So would Joe grow up to be a hero, would he grow a beard or stubble, would this little boy grow up at all?
The grey machines bleeped on. Pat’s lovely Joe, his hyperactive, never still and never silent child, lay helpless on his back and let the drugs drip into him.
PATRICK
I couldn’t find my wife. Sunday went and Monday went and Tuesday came. I called and called and called. But Lex would not pick up. It always went to voicemail.
‘She might be out of range?’ suggested Rosie.
‘Out of range in London?’
‘What if she’s not in London?’
‘She should have had the kids back Sunday evening and it’s Tuesday afternoon.’
‘Why don’t you go home and get some rest? You look exhausted.’
‘So do you.’ The skin round Rosie’s eyes was purple-bruised. It looked like she was in a fight and lost. ‘I can’t go home,’ I said. ‘My place is here with Joe.’
‘Pat, your daughter needs to go to bed, poor little thing. Go back to your apartment or to mine, take Polly, go to sleep. I’ll stay with Joe today and through the night. I’ll put my feet up, rest my eyes, and tomorrow morning I’ll go home and sleep myself.’
‘You’ll call me if there’s any change?’
‘Of course I will.’
I knew I wouldn’t sleep. But I guess I must have dozed awhile. I woke to find my daughter lying on my chest and chewing on my bed sheet and to hear my cell phone ringing.
I was wide awake at once. ‘W-what’s happening?’ I stammered, feeling beyond wicked because I’d been asleep while Rosie had been watching Joe. How could I have slept when Joe was lying there so sick? Why was I not in the hospital? What kind of father was I? ‘Rosie, is he—’
‘It’s good news!’ she cried.
‘Yeah?’ I thought I must be dreaming now. ‘Rosie, are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. Pat, he’s out of danger,’ Rosie told me, saying every word so slow, so careful that I couldn’t help but understand. ‘Your son is out of danger.’
‘Who told you this?’
‘The doctor who’s been looking after him. He promised me Joe’s going to be all right. They’ve taken some of the machines away. He’s breathing by himself. He’s still on a drip, but now he’s sitting up in bed. Joe spoke to us!’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said hey, Rosie, then he asked for you. Where’s Dad – that’s what he said.’
‘Tell him I’ll be right over.’
When Poll and I came to the hospital, Joe was in a little room all by himself. But he was in a children’s ward, not in the ICU. Still hooked up to half a dozen monitors and drips, still pale and bloodless, he was lying propped against some pillows, but his eyes were open.
‘Hey, little dude,’ I said, determined not to cry.
‘Hey, Dad. Hey, Polly.’ He managed a half-smile which broke my heart. ‘The doctor says I was asleep for two whole days?’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I said. ‘You were real sick.’
‘But now I’m better?’
‘Almost better.’
‘Daddy crying,’ Polly said and hugged me round the neck, which made me cry some more.
Doctors came and went and so did nurses, an everlasting blue and green parade. They took Joe’s pulse and temperature. They checked on drips, took readings, filled in charts. They spoke with us and told us what was happening in some detail.
But I found I couldn’t handle all this information. All I had to understand was Joe was getting better. I kept right on asking them if my son was going to recover, and they kept right on telling me he would.
‘He’s not unconscious, Mr Riley,’ said a nurse, who came to check him out because he closed his eyes and then I panicked, rang the bell. ‘He’s resting, getting up his strength again.’
‘You must go home and get some sleep,’ I said to Rosie as we stood at the foot of Joseph’s bed and Polly toddled round the little room, patting on things.
‘Yes.’ Rosie shrugged. ‘Yes, that might be a plan.’
‘It definitely would – and Rosie?’
‘What?’
‘Thank you, thank you, lovely, lovely girl, for everything you did for us, for saving Joseph’s life. You were our guardian angel.’
Rosie looked at me. I thought she was half-smiling now. But then her big grey eyes filled up with tears, spilled over, runnelled down her cheeks. She turned away. She bowed her head and sobbed, her shoulders shaking. I never saw someone in such distress.
‘Hey, don’t cry, he’s going to be fine!’ I took her in my arms and rocked her like I would have rocked a little baby. ‘They said so. Did you hear them?’
But she wouldn’t stop crying. She sobbed and sobbed as if her heart would break.
‘It’s relief,’ a nurse assured me, coming by to find out what was going on and who was making all the noise. ‘I tell you what, why don’t you both sit quietly for half an hour? I’ll fetch some tea and toast.’
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