Daniel and Bennett decided to wait and see if Rosie came back. But the longer they sat there talking, trying to involve Daniel’s father in their conversation, the more certain they became that she wouldn’t.
Bennett suggested they watch YouTube clips from Daniel’s father’s favourite films on his phone, saying he had been reading up on coma patients and what might help. So they played scenes from classic movies like Jaws and Star Wars that Daniel’s dad was always quoting lines from and they joined in loudly when the most famous lines came up. They went through clips from Alien and Blade Runner and comedies like Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop and The Breakfast Club.
They tried playing songs that Daniel knew his father liked, singing along to rock tunes and dancing to house music and banging their heads to grunge.
Eventually, the battery on the phone was too low to play any more and Bennett said he had to go and he told Daniel that he should go home too.
‘I can’t,’ Daniel replied. ‘My feet feel like they’re stuck to the floor.’
‘Why don’t you think of one memory then?’ suggested Bennett. ‘A really special one your dad might like to hear. Then you’ll know that you’ve tried your best for today.’
Daniel rubbed his head as if trying to summon a personal genie to tell him the very best memory he had. ‘We went fishing once,’ he said eventually. ‘Fly-fishing. It feels stupid now, talking about it.’ He shrugged like it was a bad idea. ‘Maybe—’
‘Go on,’ said Bennett.
‘But nothing really happened.’
‘Tell me what it was like. I want to hear.’
So Daniel told him everything he could remember about it. How it had been an early August morning last summer when they had been staying in a holiday cottage in Devon. His father had found two fly rods in the attic and had knocked on Daniel’s bedroom door as the world was breaking open for the day.
‘They were two-piece canes as light as bones,’ said Daniel. ‘Each one had a cork handle, and they were so dainty you could balance them on a finger. There was a river a mile from where we were staying. After we walked there, we found a spot clear of trees and started to cast. I’d never tried fishing before.’
He described to Bennett how the cane rods whipped and the wet lines hissed as they peeled up off the water, unfurling behind them, then hurtling forward with a flick of the wrist to land soft on the face of the river.
‘We aimed the flies for spots that looked likely. Dark holes in the water or pools or beneath an overhanging branch. The first tug of a trout I felt, I struck too hard and yanked the fly out of the water in a coil of line. Three times I missed a fish. And after the third time, as I was pulling back to cast again, I saw a tiny fish hooked to the end, a parr Dad called it. It was so small I hadn’t felt it. I was so shocked I lost control and shanked the line and it caught in a branch, leaving the tiny fish hanging like a Christmas decoration, flipping and sparkling, gasping in the air. We cut it down and I slid it off my hand back into the water, watching it swim safely back into the deep.’
He told Bennett how they spent three hours fishing in the sharp morning light with the blue sky hardening above them and the air starting to bake as the sun burned off the mist. And they barely spoke. Somehow, the silence made them one with each other and at one with everything around them. It was a memory to cherish.
‘I remember it all, Dad,’ said Daniel. ‘It’ll stay with me forever.’
As they left through the ward security door, Bennett immediately recognised the junior doctor, James, coming the other way along the corridor. They said hello and Bennett told Daniel that James had been at university at the same time as Bennett’s brother where they had been best friends.
‘We drank a lot together,’ said James ruefully. ‘And did some silly things along the way to getting a degree. Just.’ He tapped his lips and then asked if he could speak to Daniel alone for a moment.
‘You can speak to both of us. Bennett’s my best friend. That’s why he’s here.’
James nodded. Tucked the folder of notes he was holding tighter under his arm. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about what you were asking yesterday, about why things happen and how to explain them. It reminded me of a book I read a few years ago by a man called Viktor Frankl. I thumbed through it again last night.’ James cupped his chin in his hand and thought for a moment. ‘How about we say it doesn’t matter why things happen, but only what they can do for you.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ said Daniel.
James drummed his fingers on the folder of notes he was holding.
‘Imagine you switch your brain from trying to figure out why something happens to you to thinking about how to respond to it. If you do that then the power’s with you to decide who you want to be, what sort of person you want to become. The most important thing isn’t about trying to work out why things occur, or how the world works, it’s about discovering who you are in the face of everything that happens to you, the good as well as the bad, and even the somewhere in between.’ He smiled at Daniel. ‘I thought it might help in some tiny way, to have something positive to ponder rather than all the dark inside you. Daniel, if there’s anything you want to talk about, anything at all, then please ask and I’ll do whatever I can to help. The ward staff know how to get hold of me.’ He bade them goodbye and then went on his way.
Bennett leant in close to Daniel as they walked towards the lift. ‘James was like you, you know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was in the papers as well, about ten years ago. My brother told me what happened. He was a bit younger than you when he ran away and got kidnapped by travellers. My brother said James told him there was some weird stuff that happened. Black magic stuff, the sort that people would never believe if they knew about it.’
‘Like what?’
‘Maybe you should ask him. Maybe he can help you and Rosie with the fit. He might know something?’
Daniel shrugged as he punched the call button for the lift. ‘He’s a doctor, Bennett. I bet he wouldn’t know anything about how it works.’
On the bus ride home, Daniel thought about everything James had told him. But it was hard to stop wishing for answers about the sinkhole and what had happened to his father, and how he had found a way out of the ground. He didn’t want to think about who he was supposed to be now, he wanted to be the same person he had always been, the boy his dad had always known and would recognise when he woke up.
A buzzing in his pocket made him flinch, scattering his thoughts, because he knew what it was immediately. But he didn’t look at Mason’s text straightaway. He sat there, pretending that Mason lived in a different world to the one he was in. But when the phone started to buzz again and again he checked the messages. They all said the same thing:
Will pick u up tomorrow. Hospital. 12pm. Bring Rosie. Mxx
Seeing ‘M xx’ at the end of every message made Daniel so angry that when he stepped off the bus at his stop he only managed to walk a few steps before he hurled the phone against the wall and heard the screen crack.