I stand stock-still, staring at them. ‘Sally!’ I whisper.
Sally wriggles, not quite looking me in the eye. ‘Dory saved the seat for me,’ she says.
‘But you always sit next to me!’
‘Yes, but Dory wanted to sit with me.’ Sally takes a deep breath. ‘Tell you what, you come and sit with us too.’
‘But there are three of us. The seat’s only for two.’
‘It doesn’t matter. We can squash up, can’t we, Dory?’ says Sally, smiling now she thinks she’s solved the problem. ‘There, we can all sit together now.’
But Mr Hodgkins, the horrible strict Year Six teacher who comes swimming with us, barges up from the back of the coach.
‘What are you three silly little girls playing at? Come on, one of you get up and sit somewhere else.’
I look round for Miss Anderson, but she’s busy talking to some girl who’s forgotten her costume.
‘We want to sit together, all three of us, Mr Hodgkins,’ says Sally. She says it very sweetly, with a smile. Sally usually gets round all the teachers because she’s got this soft little girly voice and she looks so pretty with her big eyes and blonde curly hair. But Mr Hodgkins doesn’t smile back at her.
‘You can’t possibly sit three on a double seat. You won’t be able to use your seat belts properly. Stop being so silly. One of you get up.’ He gives me a little prod. ‘Come on, you sit further down the coach.’
‘But Sally’s my best friend. I always sit with her.’
‘For heaven’s sake, you’re not going on a day trip. It’s a ten-minute drive. Now move, this instant!’
So I move, though it’s so not fair – and there isn’t anyone I can sit with. I look for Joseph, but he’s sitting with Toby, so there certainly isn’t room for another one on their seat – and anyway, the boys all sit together and the girls do too. There’s only one seat left now, and, oh horror, it’s the one next to Martha. I’m not not not sitting next to Martha. I’d sooner sit next to a rabid warthog. She clearly feels the same way too, spreading herself right over the seat and glaring at me.
‘You, girl!’ Mr Hodgkins bellows. ‘Sit down.’
I sit right on the very edge of the seat.
‘Get off! This is my seat,’ says Martha, pushing me.
‘You shut up. I can’t help it. I don’t want to sit next to you, but I’ve got to.’
‘I don’t know why you’re bothering to come swimming anyway, seeing as you can’t swim, baby.’
‘I can so swim,’ I retort furiously.
‘No, you can’t! I’ve seen you puffing along with one foot on the bottom. You’re absolutely hopeless. Everyone looks at you and laughs.’
‘No they don’t! They laugh at you because you look so stupid.’ I try hard to think why she might look stupid. ‘Yeah, your bum sticks out, especially when you swim, wiggle waggle, wiggle waggle.’
Bull’s eye! Martha looks outraged.
‘It does not stick out,’ she says, and she pulls up her feet and kicks at me with her sandals. ‘Get off my seat! Go on, get off!’
‘You get off it, waggle-bum,’ I say, and kick her back.
Then suddenly Mr Hodgkins’s head is hovering over us, and his hands are pushing all our feet back on the floor.
‘Will you two behave!’ He glares at me in particular. ‘If I have to speak to you one more time today, I’m sending you to see Mrs Raynor the moment you get back to school.’
I sit seething but silent until we get to the pool. Sally comes to find me in the changing rooms.
‘Your face is all red, Ella,’ she says. ‘Are you OK?’
‘No, I’m not OK. I had to sit with Martha because you sat with Dory,’ I sniff.
‘Oh dear. I’m sorry. But I did try to get you sitting with us,’ Sally says.
‘Will you sit with me on the way home?’
‘Well . . .’ Sally pauses. ‘I wish I could, but I’ve just promised Dory—’
‘Oh, see if I care. I don’t want to sit with you anyway,’ I say, and slam into a cubicle to get changed into my swimsuit.
I tear my clothes off in a rage and finish changing much more quickly than usual. I pad past the closed cubicle in my bare feet. I hear Sally talking to Dory behind one of the doors. She’s whispering but I still hear.
‘She’s so moody now. She’s just no fun at all. I know it’s ever so sad about her mum – and my mum says I’ve got to be extra nice to her, and I am trying, but she gets so cross if I don’t do everything she wants,’ Sally whispers.
‘I know, I know,’ Dory whispers back. ‘Martha’s exactly the same.’
It’s so unfair! I’m not a bit like Martha. I can’t bear it that Sally’s saying such awful things about me.
I stomp off to the side of the baths. The boys are larking around, trying to push each other in. The girls are clustered in little groups, looking like boiled eggs in their swimming hats. Martha is standing with her back to the wall, her face screwed up. Maybe she thinks she’s really got a waggle-bottom. Well, good. She’s so mean to me it’s great to be mean back. Though she looks so sad staring at Dory and Sally as they saunter up, arm in arm. They start doing ridiculous stretching exercises, like they’re Olympic athletes. I turn my back on them and look at the boys instead.
Joseph looks thinner without his clothes, his arms little sticks, his shoulders narrow, his neck too tiny to support his big head and unruly hair. He reminds me of Samson in a weird way. If there were just the two of us together I’d put my arm round him, he looks so little. Whereas Toby looks big – much bigger without his clothes – his belly huge, but he doesn’t seem to mind at all. He’s waddling around pretending to be a gorilla, thumping himself on his wobbly chest and growling.
Mr Hodgkins comes stomping along and tells him to stop messing about – but he ruffles Toby’s hair. No one can be cross with Toby for long.
We have to divide into our groups, and there am I, stuck with all the doggy-paddle splash-and-scream beginners – and I’m the worst of the lot. We have to stay in the shallow end and do silly stuff like blowing bubbles in the water and kicking our legs while holding onto the side. I do this obediently for a while, but this isn’t swimming. I want to see if my dream can come true, if I can glide through the water as easily and powerfully as a little whale. So while the swimming instructor is busy with silly Maddy, who breathes in instead of blowing out and is now having a choking fit, I suddenly duck right down in the water and push off from the side.
I glide. Yes, I’m gliding, I’m really slipping through the water – I’m not moving my arms or legs but I’m still swimming, I really am. I can do it, so long as I don’t put my head up and start gasping. I must stay down down down, almost scraping my tummy on the pool mosaic floor. It’s so easy, so simple. My chest’s feeling tight now, but I don’t need to breathe just yet. I can manage much longer. Whales can wait a whole hour before they come up to breathe. I want to stay down here in the dim turquoise depths. My heart is banging and my hands are scrabbling in the water, but I’m not giving in, I’m staying right where I am, I’m—
Something’s got me! I’m being savagely attacked, hauled along, up into the air. There’s sudden light and shouting and splashing, and then I’m thrown onto the hard tiles at the edge of the pool, and someone’s thump-thump-thumping on my chest until I cough and splutter and a little sick dribbles out of my mouth. Then I’m wrapped up in a towel and carried out, and everyone’s looking and pointing. I can’t work out exactly what’s happening, and I still feel sick. Where are my clothes? They’re taking me outside and into a car and I’m just in my soaking swimsuit. Are they mad?
I struggle, and Miss Anderson holds me tightly and says, ‘There, there, you’re going to be fine, Ella, don’t worry. I’ve got you safe.’ I’m almost on her lap in the back of the car and she’s got her arms right round me! But where are we going? Where is she taking me? Some strange man is driving us, whizzing along the roads and rushing through amber lights. Are they kidnapp
ing me?
But then the roads start to look familiar, we turn down Milestone Road, and there’s the great grey hospital looming at the end. Are they taking me to Mum?
We go in the A & E entrance. Miss Anderson is still holding me as if I’m a little baby. I’m being taken straight past all the waiting people into a little curtained cubicle, and there’s a lady doctor – not lovely Dr Wilmot, I’ve never seen this one before.
‘Oh, Doctor, she nearly drowned!’ Miss Anderson says as the doctor takes my pulse and blood pressure and listens to my chest with her stethoscope.
I nearly drowned! I feel a thrill of excitement. But surely she’s wrong. I was only under the water a minute or so. Whales stay under so much longer—
‘Well, she seems reasonably all right now, if a bit damp and shivery! We’ll keep an eye on her for a little while. Have her parents been told?’
‘Well, that’s part of the problem,’ says Miss Anderson, and then she murmurs something to the doctor. They both peer at me anxiously.
I’m starting to feel anxious too. I am all right now, aren’t I? I feel a bit strange and sick and shivery still, though I’ve got another blanket round me now, and a huge sheet of tinfoil so that I feel like a giant turkey. Every time I move, I crackle, so I lie as still as possible – but then I feel sick again and I have to sit up. I start retching, and the doctor gives me an odd cardboard bowl. I’m not very sick, but I feel so embarrassed doing it in front of Miss Anderson.
She’s lovely to me though, holding my hair out of the way and rubbing my back. When I’ve finished and lie down again, she carries on stroking my shoulder and murmuring to me just like a mum. Oh, how I want my mum. I think I’m crying but my eyes are shut. I feel so tired. I just want to sleep a little . . .
Then someone’s taking hold of me by the shoulders, shaking me, and I open my eyes. It’s Jack! His face is grey-white, his eyes are bloodshot, he looks awful.
‘Oh, Jack, is it Mum?’ I gasp.
‘No, no, you idiot, it’s you!’ says Jack. He flings his arms round me and hugs me hard.
We never hug – we mostly never even touch – yet here’s Jack practically lying on me, his tousled hair tickling my face. I want to push him away. He’s not my dad, he’s only my stepdad, and I don’t like him, I’ve never liked him – but he’s all I’ve got, and my arms go round his neck and I hang on tight.
‘Ella, you can’t swim, can you?’ says Jack, his voice muffled against my head.
‘No, not really. Well, just a little bit.’
‘But they said you deliberately went under the water – and stayed under . . . as if – as if you were trying to drown,’ Jack says.
‘What? No, I wasn’t trying to drown – though I nearly did, they said.’
‘So what on earth were you playing at?’
‘I was playing at being a whale,’ I say truthfully.
‘Oh, for God’s sake – you and your wretched whales!’ says Jack, and he starts shaking.
‘Are you . . . crying?’ I whisper.
‘I’m mostly laughing, because you’re such an idiot. Don’t you dare play silly tricks like that again. I just about had a heart attack when they phoned me at school. What would I have done if you had drowned? How could I ever tell your mum?’
‘Don’t let’s tell her now – she might worry so,’ I say, suddenly very ashamed.
‘You bet she’ll worry, so we won’t tell her. But you promise me you’ll never ever do anything as daft again?’
‘I promise. Jack, can we go upstairs and see Mum now – not to say anything, just to see her.’
‘I don’t see why not, when they’ve given you another check-up to make sure you’re OK. Though look at you! You can’t go dripping down all the corridors in your swimming gear. What’s happened to your clothes?’
Luckily Miss Anderson has had the presence of mind to bring them with her. She has another whispered conversation with Jack while I’m getting dressed. Then she comes and sits beside me.
‘Ella, your dad says it was just a silly accident. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ I say, in a very tiny voice. ‘I truly wasn’t trying to drown myself, Miss Anderson. I was just trying to swim underwater like a whale.’
‘Well, don’t ever do that again! You scared us all terribly.’
‘Aren’t I going to be allowed to go swimming again, Miss Anderson?’ I ask hopefully.
‘Yes, but we’ll be watching you like hawks, and woe betide you if you try any tricks like that ever again!’ she says. ‘Ella, I know it’s a very bad time for you at the moment, but you do know you can always come and have a little chat with me whenever you need to?’
‘Yes, Miss Anderson,’ I say – but the only person I really want to chat to is my mum.
But Jack’s right, I can’t tell her about nearly drowning because if she hears that, she’ll start worrying so badly. So when the doctors say I’m perfectly OK and Jack and I go up to Mum, I don’t breathe a word about it. I just stand by Mum’s head and whisper, ‘I-love-you-I-love-you-I-love-you,’ into her ear. My hair is still damp and it trickles on Mum’s face.
‘Sorry, Mum, am I getting you all wet? I was just pretending to be a whale,’ I say.
Jack frowns at me.
‘So if I’m wet like a whale, I can sing you my special love song,’ I say. ‘I told you about the humpback who sang for twenty-two hours, didn’t I? I wonder if he found a special lady love after all that time? I do hope so. If I sing you a love song for twenty-two hours – breaking it up into little bits, ten minutes here, twenty minutes there – will you wake up then? Will you open your eyes and smile at me and tell me you love me back?’
Mum sighs. She really sighs. I hear her clearly. I look at Jack. He’s heard her too.
‘Sue?’ he says urgently, gripping her hand.
She doesn’t move. Her eyes stay shut. She doesn’t make any more sounds. But we both know what we heard.
‘Don’t be too excited, Ella. The nurses all say it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just something she does involuntarily. All their machines show she’s deeply unconscious.’
‘She’s not going to talk to machines, is she?’ I say. ‘She’s trying to talk to us, Jack.’
‘I hope so.’
‘And we’ll go on and on talking to her.’
‘Of course we will,’ says Jack.
‘Can we stay a bit longer now?’
‘Well – I’ve left my class totally in the lurch – but yes, why not.’
So we sit one on each side of Mum, and we’re allowed to stay even when the nurses wash her and wipe her eyes and check all her tubes and give her a clean nightgown.
‘Mum’s got a really pretty new nightie at home. Can she wear that one day?’ I ask.
‘Yes, of course she can, dear,’ says the nicest nurse.
She’s called Niamh and she’s got lovely short hair and a smiley face. Some of the nurses treat Mum just like she’s part of the hospital bed; some of them treat her like a doll, which is even worse; but Niamh treats Mum like a proper person. She’s always very gentle with her, and talks softly to her all the time. ‘Now, Sue, I’m just going to peer into your eyes. It won’t take a minute. There now. You’ve got lovely blue eyes and such long dark lashes. I bet you don’t ever need to fuss with mascara.’
When she takes Mum’s pulse and blood pressure, she holds her hand afterwards, giving her a little massage, smoothing her fingers out, and takes infinite pains to get Mum lying in a comfortable position.
‘Get a move on, Niamh, Dr Clegg’s due any minute,’ says one of the nurses, rushing past.
Jack sits up straight. ‘Dr Clegg? He’s Sue’s consultant, right? Good, there’s all sorts of things I want to ask him.’
Niamh pulls a face. ‘You’ll be lucky,’ she says. ‘I think you’ll have to make an appointment.’
‘Yes, but I could just have a few words with him now.’
‘Well, you can try, but I rather think his wife has to make a
n appointment to ask him what he wants for his supper. He’s that kind of fellow.’
We see what she means when Dr Clegg parades down the ward, little entourage grovelling behind him. Lovely Dr Wilmot is there, and she smiles at Jack and me and mouths hello. Dr Clegg is a tall thin man with a long nose. It’s very easy for him to look down it. His mouth is thin too and doesn’t look as if it knows how to smile.
‘I wasn’t aware that we’d changed our visiting hours,’ he says crisply, standing at the foot of Mum’s bed.
‘We were at the hospital anyway this morning, Ella fetched up in A & E,’ says Jack, standing up and bravely offering his hand to Dr Clegg. ‘I’m Jack Winters, Sue’s husband. I’d like to ask you—’
‘Yes, yes, Mr Winters, we’ll have a proper meeting to discuss your wife’s condition. You can make an appointment through my secretary.’
‘Yes, I know, but as we’re both here now, can you tell me if my wife’s made any progress whatsoever, and just what sort of treatment you’ve got in mind for her.’
Dr Clegg sighs. ‘Your wife is in a stable condition. There’s no sign of any chest infection, no pressure ulcers – the nurses are clearly doing an excellent job.’
The nurses flutter happily.
Dr Clegg nods and seems about to move on.
‘And her treatment?’ Jack says. ‘Why isn’t she having any treatment?’
‘What sort of treatment did you have in mind, Mr Winters?’ Dr Clegg asks icily.
Jack stands his ground. ‘Well, I’m not sure, obviously, because I’m not a medical man. I don’t know if there are any kind of new drugs you can give her?’
Dr Clegg makes an irritated little puffing sound with his thin lips.
‘And what about more extensive physiotherapy?’ Jack says desperately. ‘Something to help get her moving? Or a special therapist to help her learn to talk again?’
‘Mr Winters, I’m not sure you quite understand. Very sadly, your wife isn’t responding to any sort of stimulation. She’s in a profound state of unconsciousness.’