Katy

  ‘But you said I was going to get better! You said!’ I shouted furiously.

  ‘I didn’t, Katy. Maybe that’s what you wanted to believe and – dear God! – I want to believe it too. But I don’t want to lie to you now. It would be cruel to fob you off with empty promises. We just have to face this awful thing together.’

  Dad tried to take my hand but I pushed it away.

  ‘It’s not fair! I’m not going to let it happen! I’m going to get better, just you wait and see!’ I screamed.

  15

  I was put in a big room with three other girls. There was a twin unit the other side of the nurses’ station with four boys. The girls’ unit was painted a wishy-washy lilac, but there was a big painting on the ceiling of purple mountains and flower-strewn meadows and in the foreground a farm with cows and sheep and pigs. There was a fat farmer with a pitchfork attacking a butter-yellow haystack and a jolly soul wearing an apron feeding chickens who was probably his wife. They had children too: a little boy sailing a toy boat on a bright blue pond and a girl making a daisy chain in the emerald grass. I stared at that painting hour after hour. Sometimes I pretended I was a farm child, working hard making hay and feeding chickens like a good elder sister. Mostly though I didn’t want any company at all, even from little painted figures. I looked up until my eyeballs ached, staring at the mountains, willing myself up on the peak of the highest one, as far away as possible.

  It was so terrible to be stuck here, flat on my back, helpless. Really truly helpless. I’d looked at one of Dad’s old children’s books at home, about a man called Gulliver. It was written in a quaint old-fashioned way and I couldn’t get into the story, but I loved the illustrations, especially one where Gulliver is pinioned on his back, tethered by many small ropes, while an army of miniature people swarm all over him triumphantly. I was Gulliver all right. But at least he had a chance of wriggling free, straining against the ropes and sitting up and squashing all the tiny people between his fingers as if they were flies.

  Oh how I wanted to squash everyone around me, even my favourite nurse, Jasmine. She was round and brown and she giggled a lot, but when I cried she’d come and cuddle up beside me, running her fingers through my hair and crooning softly to me. I loved Jasmine and always prayed that I’d get her when it was time for any terrible medical or personal intervention, but sometimes I couldn’t help hating her simply because she could walk away, swishing her big bottom, her calves taut and shiny, her white Crocs squeaking on the polished floor.

  The nurses alternated, day nurses and night nurses, but they all did the same things. Sometimes these were quite ordinary things like washing us and easing us in and out of gowns. I could actually wriggle in and out of mine because my hands and arms still worked and I could feel down to my waist. Little Marnie could move too, but she was only about three or four so she had to have help anyway.

  I wasn’t sure if Naveen could move much. She didn’t try at all. She lay and cried most of the time, and when her family came to visit her every afternoon they all cried too.

  Rosemary didn’t cry. Rosemary was a beautiful little girl with caramel-coloured skin and big dark eyes. She came from the Philippines and when she was with her family she chattered in Filipino, but she spoke English to the nurses and to us. She had fallen out of a window and very nearly died, with a fractured skull as well as a broken back. She’d been in a coma but now she was conscious and very lively, talking all the time. She even sang and laughed like any normal eight-year-old, but she was far more badly injured than me. She still had big bandages round her head where she’d had an operation and she couldn’t move from her neck down.

  When Naveen or I refused to cooperate or had a crying fit the nastiest nurse, Jeannie, would hiss, ‘Shame on you. Look at little Rosemary! She’s a shining example to us all.’

  I dare say she was a truly lovely, courageous little girl, but I wanted to squash her too. In fact I wanted to squash her most of all.

  Sometimes the nurses had to do terrible things to us. Terrible for them as well as us. None of us could go to the loo properly. I had to have a catheter for my wee, with an awful little bag, which was bad enough. The nurses had to cope with my bowels. I hated the first session so much that I resolved never to eat again and then I wouldn’t need to go. It wasn’t too difficult to go on hunger strike. I didn’t have any appetite at all and the hospital food was pretty awful anyway. Cereal and soggy toast for breakfast, greasy lasagne for lunch, sandwiches and jelly for tea.

  So I didn’t eat at all and after a day or so they all started to worry. They had a little conference with Dad. He brought me in a big tub of Loseley strawberry ice cream, my favourite treat. He opened it up and put it under my nose so I could smell its delicate creamy sweetness. I wanted it badly but I kept my mouth tightly shut.

  ‘Oh Katy, what are we going to do with you? Am I going to have to spoon it into you the way I feed little Phil?’ Dad said.

  My eyes filled with tears at the thought of Philly and the other littlies.

  ‘Oh Dad, I miss them so,’ I mumbled.

  ‘And they miss you, darling, terribly. Now that you’re more stable I’ll bring them all in to see you, just for a few minutes. We mustn’t tire you too much. So you need to start eating properly to get strong.’

  But I wouldn’t eat, and let my ice cream melt into milk. I wouldn’t eat the next day either, and just took little sips of water. I heard the staff discussing me. I think they were worried I’d started to become anorexic because of the shock of the accident.

  It was dear nurse Jasmine who helped me confide the problem. She was on night duty. She crept round, checking on each bed. When she got to mine and saw I was awake she held up the covers and made a pantomime of peering underneath.

  ‘Katy? Where are you, girl? Oh my Lord, you’ve faded away so much you’ve actually gone and disappeared!’ she whispered.

  ‘I wish I could,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you’re certainly going the right way about it, honey. Why aren’t you eating, for goodness’ sake? You’re scaring everyone.’

  ‘I’m just not hungry,’ I said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Jasmine. ‘Right. I’ll be back in a tick. Don’t go to sleep on me.’

  She came back a few minutes later with a plate of hot buttered toast cut into tiny squares.

  ‘There now. I’ve made us a little midnight feast,’ she said. ‘We’ll take it in turns. A square for me, a square for you.’

  ‘No! I said I don’t want any,’ I said wretchedly.

  ‘Why not, sweetheart? You surely can’t think you’re fat? Look at you – you’re thin as a pin. You need to eat well and build up those muscles. You need to be a strong girl now, especially if you’re going to become a wheelchair champion.’

  ‘I don’t want to use a stupid wheelchair,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I think that’s you being stupid, not the wheelchair,’ said Jasmine. ‘Don’t you want to get around under your own steam? Surely you don’t want to lie in bed all the time?’

  ‘I don’t want to do anything! I don’t want to be me any more!’ I said, starting to cry.

  ‘Oh darling.’ She put her head close to mine on the pillow. ‘You’re not trying to starve yourself to death, are you?’

  I hadn’t meant anything as dramatic, but I mumbled yes because I thought she might feel extra sorry for me.

  ‘What a dreadful idea!’ she said, suddenly cross. ‘How could you think of such a thing! You’re already putting your poor family through such torment. And here we are, doing our best to help you too.’

  ‘I know you are,’ I said, crying in earnest. ‘That’s why! I hate what you all have to do to make my bowels work. So I’m not eating so I don’t have to go!’

  ‘Oh Katy!’ She hugged me tight. ‘Sweetheart, you can’t carry on like that! We can’t have you starving to death!’

  ‘Well, maybe it would be a good thing,’ I sobbed. ‘I don’t think I want to live if I can’t walk and run and
play games any more. Who would want to be a sad, pathetic cripple in a wheelchair?’

  She exclaimed when I said the word cripple, absolutely horrified.

  ‘Nobody uses that terrible word in this unit! Fond as I am of you I’ll wash your mouth out with carbolic soap if you dare say that again!’

  I thought she might be joking, but she certainly sounded indignant enough.

  ‘I’m not calling anyone else that word. Just me. Surely I can call myself anything I want?’ I said defiantly.

  ‘That’s what you think, young lady. There’s a young lad called Dexter in the boys’ ward and he started letting off steam, effing and blinding enough to make my hair curl even tighter. I soon sorted him out! You can rail all you like against fate – and you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t very angry – but no swearing and no inaccurate, unpleasant words. Do I make myself understood?’

  ‘Yes, Nurse Jasmine,’ I mumbled.

  ‘That’s good. Now, let’s get your eyes mopped and your nose wiped and sort you out good and proper. Don’t let this lovely toast get cold. Try just one little square.’

  ‘But then I’ll need help going to the toilet tomorrow and I hate that,’ I wailed.

  ‘Of course you do. But you’re going to need help every single day, so I’m afraid you have to get used to it, sweetheart. It’s the same for all of you. Harder for the poor souls who can’t even sit up, like little Rosemary. We have to do everything for her but she never makes a fuss.’

  ‘Oh, don’t go on about Rosemary. I’m sick of her being everyone’s favourite,’ I growled.

  ‘What a dreadful girl you are, Katy Carr! And it’s not true anyway. You’re my favourite, though goodness knows why, because you’re totally determined to cause me grief.’

  ‘You’re just saying that. I bet you tell every single child in the ward that they’re your favourite.’

  ‘No, I don’t, Miss Smarty Pants. My goodness, you’re a trial to me. Still at least you’ve eaten that square of toast. Come on, be a devil and munch some more.’

  I hadn’t even realized that I’d been nibbling the toast since I started arguing with her. It tasted so good, warm and comforting and buttery, that I couldn’t stop myself reaching for another square.

  I ate properly after that, though I still hated the hospital food. Dad tried again with more ice cream, and this time I ate it all and scraped my finger round and round the tub. The children brought me a big tin of Quality Street, the chocolates with the purple and yellow and red shiny wrappers that we usually had for a Christmas treat. They’d all clubbed together with their pocket money.

  ‘And we haven’t eaten a single one,’ said Dorry. ‘They’re all for you, Katy. Even the purple ones with the hazelnuts that are my special favourites.’

  ‘Oh Katy, when will you get better? I hate you being in hospital. I know your legs don’t work now. Dad told us. When you come home you can have Zebby as your special chair if you like,’ said Jonnie.

  ‘Don’t, please. You’ll make me cry,’ I said.

  ‘I cried when I was in hospital,’ said Phil. ‘It hurt when they put the stitches in, but now my finger’s completely better. Look! Can’t you have stitches in your poorly legs, Katy?’

  ‘Hush now. Don’t badger Katy so. You’ll wear her out,’ said Izzie. She looked awful, very pale, and her hair was a bit of a mess for once, scragged back in an untidy knot.

  ‘Won’t you ever be able to walk again, Katy?’ Elsie asked, her eyes big.

  ‘Elsie! I told you not to say that!’ said Izzie, so sharply that Elsie burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, don’t cry, Elsie! We mustn’t cry, you know we absolutely mustn’t, because we’ll upset Katy,’ said Clover, though tears had started to roll down her own cheeks.

  ‘Clover!’ I said, and I grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled her close. I was missing Clover so desperately, Clover most of all, because I was so used to her always being by my side, and there all through the night.

  She put her arms round my neck and cuddled as close as she could, but stuck flat on my back I couldn’t hug back properly. I was like a great big useless baby now. I might still be the eldest, but I couldn’t do anything for them any more. I wasn’t Katy the fun sister who led them on expeditions and organized wild games and helped them under fences and up trees. I was useless Katy who couldn’t do anything. They’d have to help me forever and ever and ever.

  I was crying now, terrible great wailing sobs.

  ‘Now look what you’ve started, Elsie!’ said Izzie. ‘Oh Katy, dear, don’t cry so. Shall I take the children away and leave you to have a quiet time with your dad? I wouldn’t have brought all of them, but they were pestering me so much.’

  It was all topsy-turvy, Izzie trying to consider me and snapping at Elsie. That made me feel worse, if anything. I was the invalid girl now, the disabled person who had to be considered and protected all the time. I cried harder, unable to help it, so Izzie gathered up the three littlies and Elsie and led them out of the room.

  Clover stayed, trying so hard to stop crying herself that she made little snorty noises with the effort.

  ‘Don’t, Clover,’ I gasped between my own sobs.

  ‘I can’t seem to help it,’ she howled. ‘Oh Katy, I know this is all my fault and I feel so terrible.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Clover,’ Dad said gently. ‘How could Katy’s accident possibly be your fault?’

  ‘It is, it is, because I wouldn’t go with her to Baxter Park, and if I had gone Izzie would have been mad at me too, and then I wouldn’t have been able to go swimming, so Katy and I would have been together and maybe she wouldn’t have gone to the secret garden with the rope, and even if she had maybe I could have talked her out of swinging because I always try to stop her doing dangerous things, and so it is my fault, don’t you see?’ Clover said in a great rush, her words all running together.

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s Izzie’s, because she wouldn’t let me go swimming,’ I said. The words just slipped out of my mouth. I saw the expression on Dad’s face and I felt dreadful, but I wanted to hang on to feeling that it really was Izzie’s fault. Anybody’s fault. Because if I faced up to the fact that I had no one to blame but myself, it made everything even more unbearable.

  Dad didn’t tell me off. He just shook his head sadly.

  ‘You can’t blame Izzie. You know that’s nonsense,’ he said. ‘Let’s stop all this talk of blaming. It’s utterly pointless. Clover, why don’t you tell Katy the Circus game you played with all the others yesterday? It was so clever of you to think of something they could do which would distract them a little.’

  So Clover started telling me about the game and I tried to listen and say the right things, but it was a terrible struggle. I was the one who invented new games, not Clover! And it sounded a good game too, with Clover as the ringmaster, and Dorry and Jonnie trotting round and round the house like ponies, and Phil standing on a bucket roaring his head off being a frightening lion. She even had Elsie being a performing poodle, which normally would have made me laugh delightedly.

  ‘And Tyler was part of the circus too. He’s learned a new trick, Katy. When I hold up your old hula hoop he jumps straight through it. Wait till you see him do it!’ said Clover, sniffing and wiping her eyes.

  I didn’t want to see Tyler performing his new trick. I’d been missing him so much: his warm, hairy little body, his big eyes, his waggy tail, his loving licks all over my face. I’d thought he’d be moping round the house, missing me desperately too. It hurt that he was clearly still having fun without me. I was the one who taught him tricks, not Clover.

  I’d thought that when I got home at last Tyler might creep gently on to my lap and stay by my side as my little guard dog and helper. But he wouldn’t want to do that if Clover was rushing round with him, showing him all sorts of fun tricks and making a fuss of him. He’d want to be Clover’s dog.

  ‘Yes, great … it sounds fun. But I think I want to have a nap now. Sorry, but
I’m too tired to listen,’ I said, and I shut my eyes to make my point.

  So Dad and Clover kissed me goodbye and went. I was left feeling worse than ever, hateful inside as well as out.

  16

  Every day when I woke up I’d keep my eyes tight shut, willing myself to be back in my bedroom with Clover. I listened for the sounds of the littlies giggling on the stairs, Dad walking along the landing humming some ancient old rock song, Izzie putting the kettle on down in the kitchen. I willed myself to smell my own soft clean duvet, the sweet scent of Clover’s coconut shampoo, the warm tang of Tyler’s hairy coat. I tried to feel him jumping up on the bed and licking me. I wanted to feel the slight sag in my mattress. I wanted to feel my own stomach and hips and legs and feet.

  I willed it with my fists clenched, sweat breaking out on my forehead, but I knew I was still in the hospital ward, with Marnie and Naveen and Rosemary snuffling in their sleep. There was a nurse creeping from bed to bed to check on us, and all around us there was the strange clanking sound of the hospital.

  Then I started my second struggle of the day. I tried to make my body work again. I knew in my head exactly how to move my legs, to point my feet, to wiggle my toes. I strained to do it now, peering over the thin hospital blanket in the eerie dawn light, looking for the slightest ripple of movement. There wasn’t any. The only way I could move my legs was if I sat up slowly and gingerly, because it was still painful, seized hold of them and heaved. They were thin, spindly legs but they felt like massive tree trunks and it was a huge effort to shift them.

  I’d been shown pictures of a body’s bones and nerves. Mr Pearson had explained how the damage I’d done to my spine had affected all the nerves from my waist down, but it still didn’t make sense. My legs weren’t broken, I still had strong muscles, I could sit up and feel my taut calves, so why wouldn’t they work?

  The nurses had started getting me out of bed now, which made me feel very sick and dizzy. They supported me so that I could just about stand upright, hanging on to a frame.