Bennett checked his watch to stop his foot tapping. It was 10.05. He was about to ask Daniel if he had remembered to tell the ward staff that Rosie was coming when the door opened and she stood there, blinking at them. She looked so willowy and tall, Bennett expected her to sway back and forth in the draught from the door as it shut behind her.
‘It took me a while to get rid of Mum,’ she said. ‘I sent her off shopping.’ She held up a bleeper. ‘They’re going to let me know when they want me back for my chemo so we’ve got a little bit of time.’
Bennett stood up and introduced himself and offered her his chair and then leant against the wall with his arms folded.
‘I don’t want to get in the way,’ he said. ‘I’m just here in case it doesn’t work, for moral support.’ And he raised a thumb at Daniel who nodded back.
Rosie sat herself down beside Daniel and looked at the man lying in front of her. ‘He looks so calm.’
‘All the sedatives are out of his system,’ said Daniel. ‘That’s what the nursing staff told us. He’s definitely in his own coma now.’
‘We’re going to do everything we can,’ said Rosie. ‘We’re going to help your dad. We’re going to find out what we can really do with these gifts of ours.’
Daniel watched her sit up straight in her chair as if preparing herself for some testing question. ‘What happens to you when we make the fit?’ he asked. ‘What do you see?’
‘A light,’ she said, staring at Daniel’s father. ‘I see a ball of bright white light inside me. And I know it’s there to help with whatever I’m trying to do. It’s there like some battery for me to draw on. It’s strange and yesterday is the first time I’ve felt it. It’s when I’m with you, Daniel. It’s only there when we make the fit.’
She took hold of Daniel’s father’s limp hand and closed her eyes. A moment later, Daniel felt little golden sparks flitting in his chest. ‘Can you see that ball of bright light?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Is it there?’
‘Yes,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s right inside me, just like it was yesterday.’
Daniel felt the golden warmth in his chest increasing as Rosie made the fit between them stronger.
‘I can feel how much your father loves you,’ she whispered. ‘I can sense it through all the things you’ve done together. All his memories are there inside him. His whole life is there for me to see.’ She was smiling. ‘You’ve done so many things together. Oh, Daniel, he loves you so much.’
‘Can he hear us? Does he know we’re here?’ Daniel sat further forward on his chair and touched his father’s arm. ‘Dad, if you can hear us then let Rosie know; please tell her so we know you’re there.’
Daniel’s chest was full of a golden heat now and he was beginning to sweat. Rosie’s white face was twitching and flickering as she made the fit stronger, trying to look deeper into the man in the bed beside her.
‘He’s very hidden,’ she said. ‘I can’t find him, the thinking part of him, the dad that you know.’
‘Keep looking,’ said Daniel. ‘Please, Rosie. Please don’t stop. There’s got to be more than just memories inside him. There can’t just be the past. He’s got to be there too.’
Rosie was flinching now and her arms were twitching. Her lips were trembling and peeling back to show her perfect white teeth. Little currents raced up and down the muscles of her throat.
Daniel put his hand to his chest when he felt the heat in it starting to become painful, just like it had done with Lawson. But when he saw his father’s face beginning to flicker he told himself to ignore it.
‘You’re doing something, Rosie,’ he told her. ‘Something’s happening!’ Daniel heard Bennett’s voice muttering in astonishment behind him, but he was too excited to turn round. His father’s whole body was twitching now and his mouth was moving as if the man was trying to speak. One of his eyelids rolled slowly back and Daniel ignored the pain in his chest and leant over.
‘Dad! Dad! Can you see me? It’s Dan! Can you hear me?’
He heard one of the machines chiming a warning sound and he looked up at Rosie, her face shining with sweat. Before he could tell her to keep going, he felt the pain rising rapidly in his chest. It was so harsh it took his breath away and for a moment it was impossible to speak.
‘St-op!’ he shouted as his breath came back to him. ‘St-op!’
But Rosie shook her head. ‘Just a little more,’ she managed to say. When she wiped her nose, a tiny smear of blood striped the back of her hand and Daniel remembered that Lawson had done exactly the same, before everything had gone wrong.
‘Stop, Rosie! Please!’ But she didn’t seem able to hear him now. He put out his arms to try and shake her, but the pain in his chest had taken all his strength away.
A sound started up inside him, a clicking noise. Steady and regular like a metronome beating time. Daniel remembered the sound and what had happened to Lawson’s hand after it had stopped. He shouted to Rosie again, but his words were slurred now. It was like chewing toffee as he tried to speak. The clicking grew faster and faster. Louder and louder. It seemed like a wasp had flown deep into his skull and was lost there, becoming angrier and angrier as it tried to get out.
Suddenly, he was dimly aware of Bennett standing beside them, drawing back his hand and striking Rosie hard across her face, the crack of his palm like a whip on her cheek.
It brought her back from whatever place she was in and her eyes snapped open and she sat back in the chair, breathing heavily, a red stripe forming on her face, sweat strung in beads across her brow.
The buzzing in Daniel’s head was already fading and the pain in his chest was softening, melting away.
‘Oh, Daniel,’ whispered Rosie. ‘I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t see your dad. There was nothing there.’
When the door opened, the nurse came rushing in, but the machine had stopped chiming and Daniel’s father was lying there peacefully as if nothing had happened at all.
Bennett brought them plastic cups of cold water filled from the reservoir beside the ward door. He said sorry to Rosie again for slapping her and told them that he had been scared and hadn’t known what else to do.
She nodded and said it was OK. But when she rubbed her face again Bennett wasn’t sure if he believed her.
‘I thought if I just pushed a bit harder I could find him,’ said Rosie. She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Daniel.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘It is. It’s me. I need to learn more about what I’m doing. We need to practise and then we can try again.’
Before Rosie could say anything else, the bleeper went off and she knew her chemotherapy infusion was ready.
‘We’ll try again. We will,’ said Rosie as she clicked the bleeper off and then she hugged Daniel and left to go back to the unit where her mother was fretting, waiting for her, asking where in the hell she had been.
After she had gone, Bennett sat down beside Daniel. ‘Do you think you can really do it? That you can really help your dad?’
‘I do in my heart, Bennett.’
‘But in your head?’
Daniel tapped his foot.
‘Daniel, do you believe it in your head?’
He looked up at Bennett. ‘Of course I do. How can I think anything else?’