It’s weird, but I think that maybe I’ve got a sort of mind-mail communication going with Tracey. Telepathy, I think it’s called. Anyway, whatever it’s called, it works. I’ve done it a few times now and I think it’s really working. One moment I’m thinking something, and the next she’s talking about it. It’s like I can almost make her think things. Is that cool or what?
This morning I had definite proof of it. After Dr Smellybreath had examined me – again – he said something to Tracey over by the door, where he thought I couldn’t hear, something I can’t put out of my mind. He said: “Robbie’s not looking good this morning, Tracey, not good at all. I’m beginning to think we may lose him.” Lose me? Lose me? I was thinking…Who does old Smellybreath think he is? I’m not going to die. I’ll show him. Like Zola said, I’ll show him. I’ll show all of them. The doctor was feeling my forehead. “How long is it exactly?” he said. “How long’s he been with us?”
“Six weeks tomorrow,” said Tracey. “But he’s still fighting, Doctor. I know he is. He wants to come out of it so badly. And he will. I know he will. It’s funny, doctor – of course he’s never spoken a word to me – but sometimes I feel I really know Robbie, know what he’s thinking. And I just know he’s determined to live.”
“Well, I’ll be back to see him later,” said Dr Smellybreath as he went out, leaving the door squeaking and clunking behind him.
“Bed bath for you, Robbie,” said Tracey.
I was almost sure this mind-mail communication thing was really real, that I wasn’t inventing it, but I decided I’d put it to the test. I lay there forcing myself to think about one thing and one thing only. I focused my mind entirely on Zola’s shirt. Inside my head I said to her: “Tracey, I want you to put it on me. I want to wear it. Ever since Zola came to see me and gave me his number 25 shirt I’ve wanted to wear it. It’ll bring me luck. I know it will. Put it on me, Tracey. I want to feel its magic.” And that’s all I thought of as Tracey was giving me my bedbath. “Put the shirt on me, Tracey. Please. Please.” I tried not to listen to anything she was saying, tried to close my ears, to shut out her voice. Zola’s shirt. Zola’s shirt. Number 25. Chelsea Blue. Chelsea 1, Arsenal 1. It’s the shirt he wore against West Ham. I pictured me in it. I pictured Zola in it, and those were the pictures I kept trying to send into Tracey’s mind.
At first it didn’t seem to work. No matter how hard I tried I just could not make her understand. So in the end I gave up trying altogether. I’d been kidding myself all along. Of course I couldn’t make contact. Vegetables can’t communicate, and I’m a vegetable, nothing but a lousy vegetable. I was feeling very angry with myself for ever believing that such a thing was even possible.
She was brushing my hair and arranging my pillows when she suddenly said it. “I know what you want, Robbie. You want your Zola shirt on, don’t you? You want to wear it. I’ve hung it up on the back of the door so it would be the very first thing you see when you wake up. But I think you’re trying to tell me you want to wear it. All right, if that’s what you want, Robbie. It’s your shirt. It’ll be a bit big, mind, but who cares?”
It took her a while to wriggle me out of my hospital gown and into my Chelsea shirt. She was right. It was big for me, big and loose and lovely. I lay there basking in my bed in Zola’s Number 25 shirt. And then Tracey said: “Hey Robbie, you look cool, really cool. And you look happy too.” And I was. I am. Not only because I’m wearing his shirt, my shirt, but because I told her what I wanted her to hear, and she heard it. I had passed a mind-mail message from me to her and she had received it! I don’t feel alone any more, and it’s the greatest feeling in the world.
Dad’s just come in. “Hello Robbie. You all right, then?” Same old Dad. But when he kisses me, I know it isn’t the same old Dad at all. It’s someone else, someone softer who smells a lot like Mum. It is Mum! It’s her! They’ve come. Mum, Dad, they’re both here, together! I wonder if Ellie is there too, but she isn’t. There’s no one leaping on the bed, no wet licky kiss in my ear. I miss that. I like her being here. She makes me laugh inside. But this is cool. I’ve got Mum and Dad together again. Maybe it took me being knocked down and Lucky being killed to bring them together, but between us we did it.
The funny thing is that no one’s saying a word. Not me, not them. Then Dad’s whispering to Mum, “You first. You tell him.”
“No, you.” And suddenly I have this horrible thought in my head. Maybe they’ve come here to tell me the worst news, that they’ve decided it’s not worth keeping me alive any longer. They’re going to unplug me from my life support system, and let me drift away and die. I’ve seen it on TV, when someone’s been in a coma for ages and ages, and they just make up their minds that there’s no point in going on any more. They just flick the switch and that’s that.
“Robbie?” It’s Mum, and she’s sounding so solemn, and serious, and sad. Don’t say it, Mum. Please, I’m fine inside here. I’m going to wake up. Just give me time. Don’t do it, Mum.
“Robbie, your Dad and me have been talking.”
Oh God! Please, Mum. Can’t you be like Tracey? Can’t you read my thoughts? I want to live, Mum. I want to stay with you. Please.
“Well, it’s like this, Robbie. Your Dad and me, we’ve decided…we’ve decided to try again – you know, being together like we were. Only not like we were. Better. Happier. We’ve made a mess of things, we know that, and we know how much that’s upset you, upset Ellie. It upset us, too. But that’s all over now.”
They’re not going to switch me off! They’re not going to give up on me! I feel as if I’m swimming in deep warm water up towards the light, up towards the air. But I can’t reach the light. I can’t breathe the air. Dad’s holding one of my hands, Mum’s got the other. They’re trying to pull me up and out, trying to save me from drowning, willing me to break free. But something’s still holding me back.
“Robbie, are you hearing this?” Dad this time. “It’s you that’s done this, Robbie, you and Lucky and all that’s happened to you. You made us stop and think. When I’ve been in here with you sometimes, I could really feel you wanting us all to be together again. And Mum says she’s felt just the same. So we’re going to try – for us, for you, for Ellie. We’re going to do our very best to make it work, Robbie. Only we want you with us. We want you to be here with us, Robbie, to come home.”
Me too, Dad, me too.
“Your Dad moved back home yesterday, Robbie,” Mum’s saying. “So far so good.” And they were both laughing like they used to do when Lucky did his party tricks, and I can hear they’re easy together again, and happy.
So I should be happy too, shouldn’t I? Gianfranco Zola has been in to see me and he’s given me the shirt off his back – sort of. And Mum and Dad are back together. What more could I possibly want? I have this picture in my head of all of us out in the garden together, and Lucky’s rolling over and over and bowing to the queen, and standing up on his little hind legs and they’re all laughing and Ellie’s giggling her head off.
But then I’m suddenly sad because I know Lucky is gone and will never come back. It was Lucky that always made us all laugh. I remember how I was laughing myself silly when he went skittering off after that cat, before I noticed the front gate was open, before he went under the car.
He had two black eyes like a panda, and a stubby little tail that never stopped wagging, and I loved him. We all did. He was our clown, our joker, and he was our best friend. Marty and everyone thought he was the coolest dog around, even when he came to the park and spoilt our football game, chasing after the ball, biting it, snarling at it. And when we shouted at him, he’d go running off all smiley and panting and tongue-hanging-happy. I should have put the lead on him. I should have remembered. He was dead and it was my fault.
The house would be so quiet without Lucky. Who would bite the post when it came through the door? Who would go mad and chase his tail when the telephone rang? Who would dig up Mum’s flowers and send her potty? Even if I did wake up, things would never be the same without Lucky. I’m lying here with so many of my dreams come true, and yet so sad inside, as sad as I’ve ever been.
“That shirt suits you,” says Dad. “Like Zola said, it really suits you. Wasn’t he the best, coming to see you like that? It’s been in all the papers, you know. Picture of him. Picture of you. I’ll keep them for you, for when you come home, all right?” They’re whispering together again. I can hear Mum crying and Dad’s holding her, trying to comfort her. I know he is. They’re going out and I wish they wouldn’t. I’m trying to call out to them to come back. But no sound comes out. The door’s squeaking and clunking. They’ve gone. And I’m alone. I hate being left alone. I hate it.
Tracey comes in. She’s singing again. It’s her other song – Imagine. John Lennon. She’s a big John Lennon fan. So’s Dad. “Imagine all the people…” And she sings it all the way through really well. She could be a popstar, but I’m glad she’s not, otherwise she wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be able to send her my mind-mail messages. I’m telling her now about Mum and Dad.
“Nice to see your mum and dad together,” she says. She’s hearing me, she’s really hearing me! She’s closing the curtains now. “Nasty out there. Raining.” And then she comes and sits on my bed. “You hang in there for me, Robbie. You can do it. I know you can. I’m going off duty now. I’ve got a date with Trevor, and tomorrow we’re going to look for a flat. He makes me really happy, you know – and he likes John Lennon. I’ll see you the day after, right? Stay cool. See you.”
And I’m thinking: Will you, Tracey? Will you? I’m not so sure. Maybe I’ll be dead by then. I am so tired, Tracey. I’m tired of living like this, half alive, half dead. Maybe dying won’t be so bad. Maybe I’ll get to see Lucky again. I really hope so.