Then we drive to the hospital – and all the warmth of Aunty Mavis’s home drains out of us. Samson wakes up and starts crying as we start the long trek down the corridors. At long last we get near Mum. I hang back, eyes shut, willing it to be different this time. Mum will sit up and smile and open her arms wide – and I’ll leap up on the bed and hug her to bits, and all this long, lonely nightmare will be over. But when I go up to her bed, she doesn’t sit up, she just lies there. She isn’t smiling, she’s looking so sad and odd and awful. She doesn’t open her arms wide. They stay limp by her side, her hands at odd angles, so that she looks like a broken doll.
‘Hello, darling,’ Jack says. ‘I’ve brought our little boy to see you. Here he is.’ He arranges Samson on Mum’s chest. We wait for him to quieten but he wails dismally.
‘Come on, Sue. Give him a little cuddle,’ says Jack.
Mum doesn’t move. Samson cries harder. A nurse comes in to see what’s going on. She’s young and rosy-cheeked, with black curly hair.
‘Oh dear,’ she says. She looks at Samson, she looks at Mum, she looks at Jack and me.
‘He usually calms down when I lay him on my wife,’ Jack says. He sighs. ‘But it’s not working today.’
He picks Samson up and gives him to me. ‘You give Sam a cuddle, Ella.’
Then he moves close to the nurse as she takes Mum’s temperature and blood pressure. ‘Is there any improvement at all?’ he whispers.
‘She’s in a very stable condition at the moment, Mr Winters.’
‘Yes, but that’s a totally meaningless statement. Of course she’s stable, she’s in a coma.’
‘She’s doing well, considering. There’s no sign of any infections, her lungs aren’t congested, we’re giving her physio on her hands and feet to keep them in a good position—’
‘But she’s not showing any signs of recovery whatsoever, is she?’
‘Well . . .’ The nurse is starting to sound a bit panicky now.
‘Do you think Sue will ever get properly better?’ Jack whispers. His voice is very low but I hear every word, even though Samson is howling.
‘I couldn’t possibly say, Mr Winters.’
‘Yes, you can. You must have nursed patients before in this sort of state. How many of them recover?’
‘Some do, Jack. I’ve got some printouts from newspapers. Lots of coma patients recover,’ I say.
‘Shh, Ella. Why don’t you take Sam for a little walk along the corridor?’ he says. He takes hold of the nurse by the arm. ‘I just want you to tell me the truth. I’m going crazy here. I see you and your colleagues giving me pitying looks, like you think it’s all hopeless. I just want to know the odds. I’m not going to give up, I’m not going to do anything dramatic, I just need to know.’
‘You can always make an appointment to see Dr Clegg – he’s your wife’s neurologist.’
‘Yes, I know, I’ve been trying to see him, but he’s never around when I am. I’m not even sure he’ll tell me either. I want to know what will happen to Sue. You’re not going to keep her here indefinitely, are you?’
‘Well, at some stage other arrangements will be made,’ she says desperately.
‘Yes, but what?’
‘There are residential homes for people with PVS,’ she says.
‘PVS?’ Jack says, screwing up his face.
‘Persistent vegetative state,’ says the nurse.
‘What?’ Jack sounds horrified.
‘Look, I don’t know, I’m just here to give your wife nursing care. You must see Dr Clegg – he’s the one who’ll make the decisions – or you can ask the ward sister, but I can’t tell you anything, I don’t know anything.’ The nurse hurries out of the room.
‘Good riddance!’ Jack yells after her. He goes to Mum and takes her hand. ‘Did you hear any of that, Sue? Don’t you worry, darling. You aren’t in this bloody PVS condition. I’m not going to put you in a home. You’re going to come home with us, where you belong. You and me and our little boy.’
I hold my breath.
‘And Ella,’ he says. I sound very much an afterthought.
We barely talk on the way home. The house seems horribly empty. Samson wails forlornly.
‘I’ll feed him and you feed your guinea pig,’ Jack says.
I feed Butterscotch, putting my hand right into his cage and stroking his head very gently as he nibbles away. ‘Do you miss your mum, Butterscotch?’ I ask.
I think of him aching for his warm soft mum every day, scurrying round and round his cage looking for her. I feel terrible. I’ll try to make it up to him. I’ll make his life as lovely as I can. I wrinkle my nose. I could make his cage much comfier.
‘Jack, Butterscotch’s cage is starting to smell,’ I say, my nose twitching.
Jack lays Samson on the floor, changing his nappy. ‘I know,’ he says shortly. ‘Hold still, Sammy.’
‘It needs cleaning,’ I say.
‘Yes, of course it needs cleaning. He’s your pet. You do it.’
I pause. I look at Butterscotch scrabbling. I look at his cage and all the dirty straw. ‘I don’t know how,’ I say.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t be so hopeless,’ says Jack.
That’s just what I feel. Hope-less. I try to remember what the nurse said.
‘What did that nurse say Mum had?’ I ask.
‘Oh, Ella. We’re not taking any notice of that stupid nurse,’ says Jack. ‘There you are, Sam, all clean and tidy. You’ll past muster, even if the rest of us won’t. Now, we’ll strap you in your little chair and you can kick your legs and whistle a happy tune while I start our tea and Ella clears out that wretched cage.’
‘I said, I don’t know how,’ I say – but he can’t divert me that easily. ‘Jack, what does it mean? The veggie thing?’
‘Don’t call it that,’ Jack says sharply. Then he takes a deep breath. ‘She said “persistent vegetative state”. It’s a horrible term used to describe a person whose body is alive but whose brain isn’t working.’
‘Like Mum?’ I whisper.
‘No! Not like Mum. Don’t you start, Ella. You’re the one who always says she’s going to get completely better.’
‘Well, she is,’ I say. I start pulling nasty straw that’s sticky with black bits out onto the carpet.
‘What are you doing? Not like that, with the guinea pig still in the cage. You need to find a cardboard box to put him in. Then put all the soiled straw and all those manky dandelion leaves and whatnot into a rubbish bag. When the cage is clean, get some fresh bedding and put the guinea pig back. Come on, Ella, it’s not rocket science.’
‘He’s getting a bit bigger already,’ I say, cradling Butterscotch in my cupped hands. ‘It’s a shame he has to be stuck in his cage all the time.’
‘Well, when I’ve got a spare moment I’ll make him a special pen in the garden so he can run about. But just at the moment I’m a bit pushed for time, seeing as I’m running backwards and forwards to your school and my school and the hospital, and we’ve still got to have our tea, and then I’ve got to mark a whole pile of homework and sort out my lesson plans for the week – so I’m not playing Grand Designs for guinea pigs right this minute.’
‘Oh ha ha,’ I mutter. I pull out an extra nasty clump of straw and drop it with a squeal. ‘Yuck!’
‘Don’t drop it all over the carpet! Oh here, let me do it. Wash your hands – thoroughly – and then go and have a scrabble through Liz’s frozen meals and stick one in the microwave. You can use the microwave, I take it?’
‘Of course I can.’
‘Just be careful taking it out when it’s done.’
I cook our supper, Jack cleans out Butterscotch, and then we eat our meals on trays while we watch television. Jack flicks through all the channels irritably, rushing past several hospital soaps. Then he finds the Eden nature channel.
‘Whales!’ I shout.
It’s a whole programme about predators, and I watch as Miss Anderson’s food chains
swim before my eyes: plankton, herrings, sea lions . . . and twelve humpback whales fishing together, spiralling through the air and diving down with vast splashes, hoovering up their supper. I wonder about phoning Sally to tell her to watch, but I don’t think she’d really be interested.
I suddenly think of Joseph. I don’t know his phone number, but his surname’s Antscherl and there can’t be many of them in the directory. I look it up and dial.
‘Are you ringing Sally?’ Jack asks.
‘Nope.’
‘Not your dad?’
‘Nope.’
‘Your boyfriend?’ says Jack, acting silly, fluttering his eyelashes and making kissy-kissy noises.
I sigh at him.
‘Mrs Antscherl? I’m Ella, I’m in Joseph’s class at school. Please can I talk to him?’
Jack raises his eyebrows. ‘It is a boyfriend!’
I stick my tongue out at him.
‘Ella?’ Joseph sounds astonished when he comes to the phone.
‘Joseph, there’s a programme right now on the Eden channel all about whales – do watch!’
‘OK. Right. Well, thank you, Ella.’
I ring off.
Jack nods at me. ‘Joseph, eh?’
‘He likes whales too.’
‘Well, it was sweet of you to phone him. You’ll be able to discuss the programme together at school tomorrow.’
Oh dear. I wish I didn’t have to go. It’s Tuesday, and that means swimming down at the pool. I hate swimming. I tried to get out of it once, accidentally on purpose forgetting my swimsuit, but it didn’t work. Miss Anderson keeps a couple of awful old-fashioned manky costumes in a locker and you have to wear one of them. Sally’s brilliant at swimming. She can swim a whole mile, easy-peasy. She’s in the top group for swimming, with Dory. Martha’s in the middle group. I’m stuck in the bottom group, and I’m sadly bottom of that. I can’t actually swim yet. I do lots of strokes, going faster and faster, until my arms and legs ache, but I don’t really get anywhere. I’m terrified I’ll start sinking so I keep my head sticking right up like a meerkat. The swimming coach tries to get us all to bob down under the water, but I hate it. The water stings my eyes and goes up my nose and gets inside my ears. The first time I ducked down, I came up crying and everyone laughed at me for being a baby – even Sally.
I’m still worrying about it when I go to bed. Whenever I had a worry keeping me awake, Mum would always know, even if I had the light off and lay still as still. She’d lie down on the bed beside me, snuggling into my pillow, and whisper, ‘Come on, little worry, jump out of Ella’s head.’
I would imagine my worry like a little buzzing fly. It would squeeze out of the creases in my forehead and I’d say, ‘It’s out, it’s out!’
Mum would run her hand over my face in the dark, pretending to chase it, and then she’d suddenly swat it. ‘There, I’ve flattened it! The little worry’s dead and gone.’ It was always so weird because it worked. Mum hadn’t solved anything – she often didn’t know what the worry even was – but she made it go away.
I try to sort my worry myself. ‘Come on, little worry, out you come,’ I whisper, and then I try swatting at my own head. I swat too hard and bang my nose and it hurts – and it’s all pointless, because the worry’s still inside my head. It’s not just the Tuesday swimming worry. There’s the great big cockroach-size worry about Mum, and then all the horrid stinging worries about Jack and my dad, and then the biting-ant worries about Sally and Dory and Martha. I feel like one of those silly celebrities in the Australian bush with their heads stuck in a helmet of creepy-crawlies. I keep tossing and turning, trying not to cry out.
About midnight Jack opens my bedroom door and peers in. ‘Are you OK, Ella?’ he whispers.
I lie very still, breathing heavily, pretending to be asleep.
‘I’ll try to get to your school a bit earlier tomorrow, I promise.’
I still don’t say a word – though perhaps I really want to.
‘Oh well, night-night,’ Jack says, and goes away.
I wonder if Mum is sometimes pretending with us. Maybe she can move a little, maybe she can even talk, but she’s too tired or cross or scared to shift or speak. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I don’t want to talk to Jack. I don’t know anything. Yes, I do. I know a lot about whales. I run through all my whale facts in my mind.
I think of humpback whales swimming ten thousand miles every year to find a mate, singing their love songs. I remember the Latin name for humpback – megaptera novaengliae – and I whisper it over and over, like a magic spell. At last I fall asleep . . . and then I’m swimming through the turquoise ocean, deep down in the cool water, and it’s not hard, it’s not scary, I don’t choke and splutter, I glide and arch and swoop with a flick of my flukes. I rise up to the surface and blow, and I leap up into the sunlight and then dive down down down again, swimming steadily, acting out my love for Mum, knowing she’s waiting patiently for me to find her.
I wake up before I get to her, and I try hard to go back to sleep because it’s such a beautiful dream. I was so very near Mum, and my heart is going to burst if I can’t find her . . . but I can hear Samson crying and Jack’s footsteps going up and down the stairs, and I know that it’s time to get up.
Chapter 13
It’s Tuesday and it’s swimming day – but now I wonder if it’s quite so bad. I can still feel that wonderful gliding thrill of swimming through the ocean like a whale. Maybe that’s the way it will be now. I’ll swim all the way to the other side and back without stopping once, and I’ll be put into the top group straight away. I’ll be the best swimmer in the whole class, even better than Sally. Everyone says swimming is just a knack, a matter of confidence, just like riding a bike – and once you’ve learned you never forget. I’ve learned to swim properly now and I’ll never forget.
I run into the bathroom, have a quick wash and then pull on my school clothes. I find Jack in the armchair downstairs, giving Samson his bottle.
‘Morning, Jack, morning, Samson, morning, Butterscotch,’ I chant.
I give Butterscotch fresh water, a bowl of nuggets, a few carrots and a dandelion salad. He squeaks appreciatively at this little feast.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I ask Jack, putting the kettle on.
‘Yes, please! My, you’re in a cheery mood this morning, Ella. Regular little ray of sunshine. How lovely!’
I’m not sure whether he’s being sarcastic or not, but I give him the benefit of the doubt and smile at him. I make us both a cup of tea and we sit Samson in his baby chair while we have our breakfast. Samson is in a good mood too, kicking his little legs and waving his arms around.
‘He’s excited because he likes going to Aunty Mavis’s house,’ I say. ‘I wish I was little enough to go there.’
‘I wish I was too,’ says Jack. He finishes his tea. ‘Come on then, kids, let’s get the show on the road. Have you got your school bag packed, Ella?’
‘Yep. I’ve even remembered my towel and swimsuit because we go to the pool today.’
‘Good girl! Are you sure you’re Ella? You haven’t locked her in a cupboard somewhere and taken her place?’
We get in the car and drop Samson off at Aunty Mavis’s. She gives me a chocolate brownie to eat later, carefully wrapped up in foil. Sally loves anything chocolatey. We can share it on the coach on the way back from swimming.
I look for her as I go into the playground but I’m waylaid by Joseph.
‘Hey, Ella, thanks for telling me about that programme! It was great, especially when all the humpbacks made that circle and fished together.’
We start talking whale-facts. Joseph says he’s found two new whale books in the library.
‘The school library? I looked, but I couldn’t find anything.’
‘No, the public library. We often go there on the way home from school. It’s great – heaps bigger than the school one. You should come some time.’
‘Yeah, I will.’
r /> ‘After school? With me?’
‘Well, I have to wait for my stepdad, and then we pick up my little brother from his childminder, and then we go home for tea, and then we go to the hospital to see my mum.’
‘Oh. Well, maybe you could come and have tea with me some day?’ Joseph asks. His brown eyes are very bright, though he blinks a lot because his fringe gets in them.
I reach out and make little scissor chops with my fingers. ‘Your fringe needs cutting, just like mine.’
‘Yes, I know, but I hate it all short and bristly. My dad keeps nagging me about it though. You know what dads are like.’
Do I? I suppose my dad would fuss about hair. Then I think of Jack cuddling Samson, nuzzling his cheek against Samson’s soft dandelion-fluff wisps. I can’t see him ever nagging Samson to get his hair cut if he didn’t want to. Does that make him a good dad or a bad one? And should I say yes, I’ll go to tea with Joseph and be his friend? I like Joseph and we enjoy talking about the same things – but none of the other girls have boys for their friends. And anyway, I’ve got Sally, haven’t I?
I look round for Sally. There she is, arm in arm with Dory, heads together, talking earnestly. There’s Martha too, jumping right up on the playground wall and walking along it, which is dangerous and strictly forbidden, but she doesn’t care – she just wants everyone to look at her and be impressed.
Miss Anderson comes into the playground and is distinctly unimpressed. Martha is made to come down and severely told off, but she just laughs, pretending not to care – or maybe she really doesn’t care.
I sometimes wish I could be like Martha.
We go into school for registration and I sit in my usual place beside Sally, and she asks me how Mum is and whether little Samson is sleeping OK. She even asks about Butterscotch and laughs when I do a guinea-pig imitation, twitching my nose and curling my hands in the air.
I start to think everything’s fine. I wait before getting on the coach to go swimming, telling Joseph that I’d love to come round to his place to see his whale books. Then I jump up the steps of the coach. Dory has bagged the best seat at the front. She pats the place next to her . . . and Sally sits down beside her! I can’t believe my eyes. Sally is sitting with Dory, not with me.