Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke (13 page)

“Good. I’ll leave you for a minute, but give me an address before you go.”

I nodded, and when the nurse left me I pressed my face and hands against the glass and watched her sleeping.

What was going on in her head? Did she still have a brain? Was she dreaming or was her mind a blank, a place where nothing would do nothing for the rest of her life? The bits of her I could see, her arms and her face, were white and shiny under the lights, almost transparent, almost lost. And as I looked at her, the last week began to collapse inside me, all the stupidity and blood tumbling through my body like stones and wire. I felt heavy and lost and smoky, and all I wanted to do was break through the glass and bleed to death on her dying body. Too much dying, too much endlessness, and all the world did was carry on its selfish way.

I’d visited hospitals before, but I’d never been a patient. I didn’t like it. The food was watery and the air smelt sick, and the other patients snored and moaned. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to leave Sam, didn’t want to leave her lying so alone and drifted, like a piece of wood at sea.

I lay in my bed and stared out of the window at the tops of the buildings on the other side of a car park, and I watched the nurses as they did their work. And I slept a dozy sleep, one that slipped in and out of vague dreams and thoughts and fears. One minute I was imagining Dickens appearing in a doctor’s coat, leaning over me with poison in a syringe, the next I was seeing Spike in a dream, struggling in the waves of a sea storm, lifted up and dropped down again, always just out of my reach. Then I’d see Sam’s smiling face, blood trickling from a wound in the top of her head, her mouth opening and closing, and her eyes black. And slowly, as the hours went by and the thoughts curdled in my head, I began to hate myself, the things I’d done and the weakness I’d shown. I tried to think of a way out of the mess, but couldn’t, and every time I tried to think of something else in an attempt to chase away the bad thoughts, I failed. I was cursed and haunted.

The next time I went down to see Sam, a man and a woman were sitting by her bed. The nurse told me they were her parents, and I could wait to talk to them if I wanted. I stood for a moment and looked at them as they sat and stared at their daughter. Her mother was holding a handkerchief in her hand, screwing it slowly this way and that. Her father was leaning forwards and resting his hand on hers. He had a grey face, hers was wet, Sam’s was white. I couldn’t look for very long, and I couldn’t stare. I was a coward. I didn’t know what they’d say to me, but I knew they’d blame me and want me to answer questions I couldn’t face, so I said to the nurse, “I think I’ll come back later.”

“You want me to tell them you were here?”

“No. Don’t do that. I haven’t met them before. I don’t think this would be the right time.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t suppose it would be.”

“I’ll come down later.” And after a last look at Sam I went back to my ward and the smell and my thoughts.

A doctor came to see me in the afternoon, looked at my leg, read some notes and said, “How are you feeling?”

“Not bad. I’d feel better at home.”

“Well,” he said, and he scribbled something on the notes, “I think we can let you go in the morning.”

“Thanks.”

“And you ride a bit slower next time.”

I didn’t bother to tell him that riding slower had nothing to do with why I was there. I just nodded and watched him walk down the ward to the nurses’ station, and then turned my face away and stared at curtains that hung around my bed. They were yellow and gave me no comfort at all.

I got no comfort when I went to see Sam again. When I asked how she was, a nurse said, “She’s in a coma, but we think she can hear us. So sit with her for a bit and talk to her. She’ll be able to feel you too…”

“A coma?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s like she’s sleeping, but she’s not…”

“I don’t understand.”

“She could wake up in a minute or she might…”

“Might what?”

“Not wake up for weeks.”

“Or months?”

She nodded.

“Or ever?”

“I don’t know about that.”

I didn’t want to get angry, but it was difficult to bite my tongue. I was going to ask if the nurse knew anything, but then I told myself to stop it, leave it, just be quiet. If Sam could hear me, I didn’t want her to hear me shout or swear, so I nodded, sat down, touched the top of her hand and said, “Hello Sam. It’s Elliot…”

I looked at the nurse. She nodded and smiled and went back to her desk.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt awkward and guilty, so I just let the words hang in the air and stroked her hand and stared at her for half an hour. That, I thought, was enough. If she could hear me, she’d know I was there, and if she could feel, then she’d know my hand was warm. And if she could see something in the dark, then maybe she could see a field of flowers and birds in the singing sky, and a river running through the woods, and a place where we could sit and dangle our feet in the water. And maybe all these things could take her pain away and make her better, and form themselves into a promise she could hold in her coma, and in finding her way back to real life.

I tried to sleep. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. I had one of those nights where nothing seems or feels right for the night. When I woke up, I went back to intensive care, sat with Sam for half an hour, said goodbye and told her I’d be back soon. I collected my stuff from the ward, signed a form, and a man drove me back to Ashbrittle. He tried to talk to me as he drove, but I didn’t have anything to say. I just stared at the streets and houses, and when the streets and houses turned to hedges and fields I stared at the hedges and fields. I still felt heavy and lost and smoky, but other things had added themselves to these feelings. Here was fury and here was rage, and they were walking with grief and the nagging idea that none of this was real, that I was simply drowning in a dream of my own making. A stupid idea, and I chased it out of my head with a stick, beat it to death in a corner and turned my back on it.

Mum had my old room ready for me. For a moment I thought I was going to get a lecture. I waited for her to tell me that the signs had been in the clouds or the song of birds or the tracks of rabbits, but she said nothing except that I should go to bed and she’d bring me a cup of tea. I did as I was told for half an hour, but I couldn’t rest or keep still. When she came up, she asked me about Sam, and I told her everything I knew. She tried to reassure me, and told me about someone she’d read about in the newspaper who fell out of a window and banged her head and the doctors thought she’d never recover, but she did, and now she was a concert pianist. “They do miracles these days,” she said.

“I know.”

“And I’ll think of something that might help.”

“What sort of thing?”

She tapped the side of her nose. “I’ll tell you when I’ve thought of it. But in the meantime you’re not to worry.”

Not to worry? I drank the tea and stared out of the window at the village green and the familiar cars, but I did nothing but worry. It was impossible not to. It took chunks out of me, chewed me, spat me out and took another chunk. I got up and went downstairs. I stood in the kitchen, and the cat came and rubbed itself against my good leg, then went to look for a patch of sunshine. My bike had been collected from the field, and was leaning against Dad’s shed. I went outside and stood over it. The front wheel was buckled, the tank was dented and the wing mirrors were smashed. I didn’t know where to start, but I thought that I should try and mend it. I went inside the shed to look for some tools.

Dad’s gardening tools hung on the back wall, flower pots and a bag of compost were stacked behind the door, and a work bench stood by the window. Random jam jars were filled with nuts and bolts, nails and screws, cup hooks and washers, and some hand tools were arranged in a rack. I didn’t know what I was looking for, so I picked up a wooden box, opened it and looked at a small collection of metal brackets, coils of wire and string. For some reason I was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness, a sadness that took me by the hand and begged me to weep. I suppose it was the way Dad had saved and collected stuff he’d never use, and the idea that one day it would be my job to come to this shed and gather the same stuff up and throw it away. Why had he saved a rusted water tap, two cork tiles and a bicycle bell that didn’t work? Or a single boot with a hole in the sole, a small bag of bottle tops and a hardened paint brush with a piece of twine wrapped around its cracked handle? The force of nostalgia or the promise of potential? I didn’t know, but I did care. Everything in the shed was part of Dad, like his eyes or hands or his voice. I could smell him in everything I touched, feel his wishes and dreams.

The shed was his place, and he didn’t like other people rummaging through his stuff, so when I saw him coming down the garden path I stepped outside. And before he could have a go at me, I said, “Sorry Dad. I was looking for a spanner.”

“What for?”

“That.” I pointed at the bike.

“Oh don’t worry about that. I’ll fix it for you. It’ll be as good as new.”

“You sure?”

“Of course. It’ll be a project for me.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Oh, and Mr Evans called. He said you’re to take all the time you need.”

“He’s a good old boy,” I said.

“And you’re to listen to your mother,” he said. “I know sometimes she says things you might not understand, but there’s a lot going on up there.” He tapped the side of his head.

“I know,” I said, “and I do listen to her.” And when he went back to his lettuces I left the garden and walked up to the churchyard and the yew.

The yew. I’ve heard it whisper and cry, and I’ve heard it hum and sing. There are stories about it, stories about the old religions and the roots of the tree drinking blood while its branches made patterns in the air. Once, the warm guts of living men were nailed to its trunks, and the men forced to walk around the tree, unravelling their entrails, bees humming, women laughing and yelling to their mad gods, children in lines singing pretty songs and waving ribbons in the air. Gods looking on, laughing back and nodding satisfaction and waiting for the next man to be brought for slaughter. The blood running, dogs howling and waiting to eat, sick smells in the air. Music played on instruments people smashed and burned a long time ago. Purple. I believe it was purple in those days, but now the colour was green, and it was cool in its shade like a still draught, and birds chirped in the branches. Someone had put a posy in a crack in the bark, little yellow and blue flowers that had faded now. I touched them: petals dropped away, and the church clock began to chime the hour.

The yew’s trunk is hollow and split into six smaller trunks, and even now people bring sick babies to its shade and pass them through the trunks, and the babies are healed. I sat in its hollow, rested my head and looked up at the branches. The bark was flaked and pale and running with ants. I suppose I was thinking that the tree gives itself to anyone who believes, and maybe it could help me. That if Sam’s head died, but her body lived, I could bring her here and thread her through these trunks. That Spike could be made to change if he slept beneath these branches. That violent men could be calmed by its sight. Or maybe not.

I sat for an hour, and when I stood up I did feel stronger, my leg felt better and my thoughts were running straight and easy. I walked to the far end of the churchyard, left by the top gate and stood outside Pump Court. I was going to knock on the door, but I couldn’t. I was trapped between guilt and fear. Sam’s parents would have called her friends, they’d have told them the news. I couldn’t tell them anything more. I walked down the road towards the green and the telephone box.

I stood in the box for a couple of minutes, holding the receiver in my hand, listening to the buzz. It started beeping. I put the receiver down, picked it up again and called Pollock.

“Where have you been?” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you. What’s been going on?”

“I had an accident.”

“What sort of accident?”

I explained. I told him about the chasing car and the crash and the hospital and Sam, and as I talked I heard him light a cigarette and take a long, deep drag. When I’d finished, he said, “You’re all right?”

“I’m OK. I can walk.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because we’re ready to move.”

“When?”

“We have to meet.”

“You’ll have to pick me up. My bike’s fucked.”

“All right. I’ll be over. This afternoon?”

“OK.”

“Tell me where.”

“I’ll walk to Tracebridge, at the bottom of Ashbrittle Hill, and wait on the bridge. You can’t miss it. You’ll feel the place before you see it.”

“What?”

“Never mind…”

“I’ll feel the place?”

“Forget it…” I said, and I could hear Pollock’s silence. He was wondering something. Eventually he said, “Half-two?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good,” he said, and that was that.

After I’d hung up, I waited in the box for a couple of minutes, then crossed the road and let myself into the house. Mum was in the kitchen, Dad was in the garden. I went upstairs and lay on my bed, stared at the ceiling and listened to the familiar sounds of the world. There was comfort there, and pleasure and familiarity, and I let myself float in it while I could. I felt held and loved and wanted, and thought that my visit to the yew tree had given me a greater power. “Yes,” I said to the ceiling, and I let the single word bounce back at me like a ball and settle on my forehead.

An hour later I was waiting on the bridge. The river was weak and slow, and the trees were high. Wood pigeons were making their sounds and, in a field above the valley, sheep were making theirs. A light breeze was twirling through the leaves, and the sun was strong, but the sense of malevolence the old witch had left at the place was there, and gave the air a chill. I tried to find a pocket of warmth, a place where the sun broke through and couldn’t fail, but there was none. So I waited behind a tree, hid myself there and watched.

I watched a magpie, a single chattering bird that hopped from branch to branch to branch and back again like the evil shadow of its own image. Mum always told me to salute the magpie, but I wondered; are the old superstitions simply reflections of our fears, and do we make the superstitions real by acknowledging our fears? Sometimes I surprised myself with the things I thought. Another magpie appeared. Joy. And then another. A girl. How did it go? And how did it end? Eight is a kiss, nine is a wish, ten is a chance never to be missed. I waited. I didn’t see more than three.

Pollock arrived on time. He was alone. I stepped out from behind the tree and walked to the car, and for a moment he looked a bit surprised. Surprise faded to nonchalance. He leant across, opened the passenger door, said, “Get in,” and I did as I was told. He turned the car around and drove back towards Apply Cross, down through Greenham and up to the main road. We headed towards the Blackdowns, and when he’d found a quiet spot beside a dry stream, he pulled in and let the car settle. As it clicked and cooled, he turned to me and said, “You’re a lucky man, Elliot.”