Flyaway (25 page)

CHAPTER 56

W
e find the swan on the other side, near the place where she always waits for me. I stop pushing the wheelchair when I see her, and she floats towards us. I look at her carefully, searching for clues as to why she didn't just fly away. I grip the handles of Harry's chair.

‘Do you want to try again?' Harry's voice is muffled by the scarf wrapped around him.

I see how cold he is. His skin's paler than eggshells. I can almost see his veins through it. I tuck the blanket right up to his neck and the hat down over his ears. His teeth are chattering too, and he's clasping the sodden swan wings tight to his chest.

‘I have to get you back,' I say. I want to touch my lips to his and make his cheeks go pink again. ‘This was stupid, coming here.'

Harry reaches out from under the blanket and grabs my arm. ‘No, it wasn't.'

He looks at me, his eyes sparkling. Suddenly, I want more than anything to make him warm again. I glance at the swan, check where she is one last time, then wheel Harry back to the hospital. We go in the A and E entrance this time, behind a woman who's about to give birth. Everyone's too bothered about her to worry about us. It's weird, being back here; wheeling Harry past the small blue waiting room that has another family in it now.

The wheelchair leaves muddy tyre tracks behind us.

‘I think we have to ditch it,' I say. ‘Someone might follow them and find us. Are you all right to walk?'

Harry nods, but he doesn't look all right. The skin under his eyes looks bruised and dark and he's breathing heavily. I stick my arm around him. He smells like lake.

It's just gone two by the time we get back to his ward. I walk ahead of him down the corridor, checking for nurses. But we get into his room unnoticed. Harry sits on his bed and looks at the floor, his eyelids starting to close. I root around in his small cupboard until I find a pair of dry pyjamas.

‘Put these on,' I say. ‘You need to get warm.'

He just holds them on his lap and stares up at me. I think he's waiting for me to leave the room. But there's no time for being polite. I turn around and start putting away the blankets we've taken. When I think I've given him enough time to change, I turn back. He's changed his pyjama bottoms but he's struggling with the top. I go over. He's too tired to object.
I can't help glancing at his chest as I pull on his pyjama sleeves. There are two white tubes there. They look like wires, the sort you plug into the back of a TV, but they are coming directly out of him with see-through tape sticking them firmly to his chest. His skin is yellowish and bruised around where they come out. I guess these must be the tubes they feed his treatment through: his Hickman line.

When I look back at Harry's face, he's watching me carefully. Probably wondering if I'm freaked out. I am, but I'm not going to let on. So I just pick up the dry pyjama top and chuck it at him to put on.

I turn away to the window, but I'm still thinking about those tubes. I start panicking then, really panicking. What if water from the lake has got into them? What if I've just made him really, really sick? I hear him getting into bed. I open his window and chuck his wet pyjamas down into the dumpster. They land right in it.

‘Full points!'

I hear Harry's soft laugh. I turn back. His skin seems to be sagging with tiredness, his eyes so much darker. He looks so different from the way he looked at the lake only half an hour ago. He's sick again . . . sicker than I've ever seen him. Perhaps I dreamt up the boy who came with me tonight.

‘Are you OK? Seriously?' I ask.

‘Stop worrying.'

I take a towel from the cupboard and wipe the puddles on the floor. I dig back in for more of Harry's clothes.

‘Take anything you want,' Harry murmurs.

There's a pair of blue tracksuit bottoms that will be baggy on me, but at least they're not wet. I take off my jeans and slip them on instead. Again, my jeans follow the pyjamas out the window and land in the skip. I dry the wings as best I can and place these under Harry's bed.

‘Can I leave them there?' I ask. ‘Just while I go and see Dad?'

He nods. He reaches towards me and I thread my fingers through his. I place my other hand on top, warming them. I grin at him, stupidly, and still can't believe he kissed me. After a moment, his eyes start to close again. I sit next to him on his bed and lean back against the wall. I watch his lips, quivering a little with each breath he takes.

‘Please be OK,' I whisper.

I wait until I see the colour come back into his cheeks. Then I shut my eyes for a moment, too, and the room starts swaying. I feel as though I'm flying.

CHAPTER 57

H
arry's there when I wake up, close beside me. His skin is warmer now, and his breath is steady. He's still got his hand in mine. I don't want to leave him, but I don't want his nurse to come in and find me here either. Carefully, I unthread my fingers. I watch him for a moment. Did it all happen? The kiss in the lake? The flying?

I go back to A and E. I don't know why. I suppose it's one of the only places I can go where I can wait and no one wants to know why I'm there. I hug my knees to my chest and watch everyone. No one says anything to me. There's a guy about Jack's age with blood on his face, and a few other people waiting. It's started raining. I can see it pelting the bike every time the glass doors slide open. It looks like it's set in. There are no emergencies for a whole hour. I rest my head onto my knees and sleep.

When it gets to five and it's still raining, I text Mum.

Couldn't sleep so rode one of Granddad's bikes into the hospital. Can I see Dad yet?

She calls back five minutes later.

‘It's miles!' she says. ‘And it's on the main road.'

Thankfully she doesn't say anything about the rain. Perhaps she hasn't noticed that it's been continual for the last couple of hours. I walk through the corridors to meet her in the cafe, which isn't open yet. She hugs me to her.

‘Don't do that again,' she says. ‘No matter how sick Dad gets. You could have got run over; anything could have happened!'

I nod, brushing away her concern. ‘How's Dad?'

She pulls me down onto her knee. ‘He's made it through,' she says, quietly. ‘You might be able to see him in a few hours.'

‘The valve?'

‘His body seems to have accepted it, he's off the support machine.'

She rests her head on top of mine and clasps me tighter. I'm expecting her to say something about Harry's tracksuit bottoms, or something about how damp and muddy my top is . . . or even to get angry again because I cycled in. But she just breathes in deeply, and sighs.

‘You smell like trees,' she says. ‘Of wild things and rain.'

CHAPTER 58

M
um calls Granddad to tell him I'm here. I don't know what Granddad's reaction is exactly, but it's loud. Mum holds the phone away from her ear so that even I can hear him shout. She tilts her eyes skyward as she looks at me.

‘They'll come in and meet us soon,' she says as she hangs up. ‘He was worried, Isla, you shouldn't have snuck off like that.'

After the cafe is open and we've had breakfast, we go up to the Intensive Care Unit. A nurse meets us at the door.

‘He is still under the anaesthetic,' she says to Mum. ‘Still sleeping.' Her eyes scan down my clothes. ‘It might be best if you don't stay long.'

She makes us stick these plastic bag things over our shoes then leads us inside. The room feels different to anywhere else
I've been in the hospital. It's quieter, muted somehow, and it doesn't seem to smell of anything. The only sounds are beeps and shuffles and a strange soft whirring. No one is talking; perhaps it's not allowed. Sky-blue curtains surround four of the beds and I can see patients sleeping in another two.

The nurse pushes aside one set of curtains. Dad is sleeping inside with tubes leading into his nose and arms, and a beeping monitor beside his bed. Dad's bed is a lot higher than his last one, it's up to my chest. There are no chairs to sit down on. Mum closes the curtains behind us. We're in our own little world in here: me, Mum and Dad. A small, blue square world. I pull the curtains across a little further, closing up the gap to the rest of the room.

Dad's lying very still and he's making a rasping sound as he breathes. It's as if he's got a cheese grater in his throat and all the air has to go through it. Mum leans across and touches his hair. Dad's eyes flicker and I think he's going to wake up. Mum's hand tightens around mine.

‘Gray?' Mum tries to get his attention. ‘Gray, I've brought Isla for you.'

When she doesn't get a response from Dad, she looks over to me. I don't think she knows what to say. She moves her other hand to Dad's, gives it a squeeze. For a moment we're all connected, the life from me running through Mum and into Dad. But it's still so quiet; the silence wraps around us like the curtain.

I want to tell Dad everything. I want to tell him about my strange night at the reserve with Harry and the swan. I want
to tell him that we got her to fly. I even open my mouth. But the words stay inside, too loud for this ward, and Dad closes his eyes again and the moment passes.

Mum squeezes my hand. ‘Let's leave him to sleep,' she whispers.

She leans down to kiss Dad lightly on the forehead.

‘I'll bring Jack later,' she says.

I wonder if I should kiss Dad, too. I'm still a bit damp from the lake and I smell like mud. I touch the back of his hand instead. His skin is smooth and waxy, not very warm.

Jack's waiting at the ward desk.

‘Granddad went off on one,' he says, glaring at me. ‘I've never seen him so angry. Thought he was going to crash the car or something when he drove here.'

‘It was only a couple of miles,' I say. ‘I left a note.'

Jack shrugs. ‘Couldn't you just have waited until we got up?'

A nurse looks sternly at us from behind the ward desk; we're making too much noise. Mum grabs Jack and steers him in to see Dad. The nurse goes with them. I find a seat next to the desk and lean my head back against the wall, feeling my eyes close. My body starts swaying and it feels like I'm flying again, far, far above the hospital . . . right up in the clouds. There's a flock flying with me, helping to carry me forward.

Then there are cold fingers shaking me. ‘You're exhausted,' Mum whispers. ‘Better get you home.'

We walk through the corridors.

‘I want to see Harry,' I say. ‘I won't be long.'

Mum puts her hands on her hips as if she's going to stop me.

‘I'll be in the cafe in five minutes, I promise,' I say.

Jack's walking on ahead, ignoring me completely. Mum raises her eyebrows, but I hurry past, not waiting to hear what she's going to say.

A nurse clicks open the door for me. ‘Harry's pretty tired.'

‘I just need to get something I left in there,' I say. ‘I'll only be a second.'

She lets me go, but trails behind. I half-run to get ahead of her. As soon as I get in Harry's room, I take off my coat, find the wings underneath the bed and bundle them inside it. I clasp my arms around them tightly as I stand. I look at him. His eyes are still shut, his body turned towards the window now. His mouth moves a little as he dreams. I want to stay with him until he wakes.

But the nurse comes in, looking at me warily. I step around her, not wanting her to think too much about the bundle in my arms.

‘I'll come back when he's awake,' I say, squeezing out of the door.

I keep my head down as I go through the ward and make it out before anyone asks any questions. I hurry back to the cafe.

Mum looks at the bundled-up coat in my arms. ‘What's that?' she says.

‘Just my flying model.'

I try to make my voice sound casual so she doesn't ask me
anything more. She wants to, I can see in her face that she has a million questions. So I shift the model to my side, away from her, and keep walking. I get her to tell me about Dad instead.

‘Well, his temperature is still up,' she says. ‘So he's not out of the woods yet.'