THEY FOUND JOHNNIE in the South Yorkshire Infirmary in Sheffield. He had been brought there by ambulance, his injuries deemed too severe for the staff at Matlow General to deal with.
The hospital receptionist was middle-aged, bleached blonde, kindly. She was relieved when Annie and Marie turned up asking about a seventeen-year-old, redheaded lad because the one who had come in earlier had no identification on him. Marie described the St Christopher Johnnie always wore around his neck and the receptionist said it was definitely the right boy.
‘We didn’t know who he was, or who to contact,’ the woman said. ‘I’m a mother myself and I didn’t like to think of the lad lying there on his own, with nobody knowing his name.’
‘How is he?’ Marie asked. ‘Is he all right? What happened to him? Where is he?’
‘Just wait here a moment and I’ll find out for you,’ said the receptionist. She smiled. ‘Try not to worry,’ she added. ‘He’s in the best place.’
Marie turned away while the receptionist picked up the telephone and dialled. Annie followed her mother into a waiting area. An assortment of tired people were spread untidily about on battered chairs. Some were reading magazines or newspapers. Most were just waiting.
‘I’ll kill him,’ Marie muttered. ‘I’ll kill your father. The only time his family bloody needs him and he has to go and get himself arrested.’
‘He wasn’t to know about Johnnie.’
‘Selfish bastard, he is. Always acts first, thinks later.’
‘Mrs Jackson?’
The receptionist was standing behind them. Annie didn’t like the look on her face. It was supposed to be reassuring but there was a definite panic in her eyes.
‘You can see Johnnie, but first I need you to have a little word with the consultant.’
Marie nodded.
‘I’ll take you to the private waiting room. It’s nice in there. You can have a bit of peace and quiet.’
‘Thank you,’ said Marie.
They were shown into a hot little room with no windows but quasi-religious pictures of doves and clouds on the wall. The room made Annie more worried than ever. She suspected the lack of windows and the doves were clues that this was the room where relatives were brought to be told their loved ones had passed away. Marie sat on a chair with her hands on her lap and her back straight and she stared at the door, willing the doctor to hurry.
Eventually he came. He was brisk and explained Johnnie’s injuries and their implications precisely and in detail. His words came and went in and out of Annie’s mind like images in a dream. She glanced at Marie, who looked as dazed and lost as Annie felt.
‘I don’t understand,’ Marie said. ‘What are you saying? Is my son going to be all right or not?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s too early to tell.’
‘What happened to him?’ Annie asked.
‘The injuries are consistent with a motorcycle accident. I understand the people who found him said his helmet had come off. He’s cracked his skull. The bleeding is putting pressure on his brain.’
Marie was white-faced; her lips were a scarlet line. ‘The straps were broken on his helmet,’ she said.
‘That would explain it.’
‘I told Den to fix that helmet. I told him a thousand times. I said: “Our lad’s going to have an accident, Den.” I told him, and he didn’t listen.’
‘What does that mean?’ Annie asked. ‘Is Johnnie’s brain … is it damaged?’
‘The honest answer is, we don’t know. We’ll have a much better idea of his condition in a few days.’
‘How many days?’
‘Four days. Five maybe. Perhaps a little longer.’
‘Thank you,’ said Marie. ‘Thank you very much, Doctor.’
‘There’s one more thing. His left arm was partially severed. We’ve done our best but I can’t promise we can save it.’
‘Thank you,’ repeated Marie. She was shaking. ‘Severed,’ she whispered to Annie. ‘Severed!’
Annie put her arm around her mother. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said gently.
‘You can go through, if you like,’ said the doctor. ‘Talk to him. His appearance will be a shock to you. Try not to be alarmed.’
Annie took hold of her mother’s hand and held it tight. Marie squeezed back. The two women followed the doctor’s white coat along a warren of corridors, through double doors, and into a brightly lit room. There was a bed in the centre of the room surrounded by machines.
‘That’s not our Johnnie,’ Marie said.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ said the doctor.
Marie walked slowly towards the bed. Then she pulled up a chair and sat down beside her son. She took hold of Johnnie’s right hand, lifted it, kissed his fingers. Annie went to the other side of the bed. Johnnie’s left arm was bandaged from the shoulder and raised above his body by a hoist. He was covered to the waist by a sheet. Monitors were wired to his skinny boy chest. He lay flat on the bed. His head had been shaved and his skull looked bare and vulnerable. A plastic tube fed oxygen into his mouth, held in place by a bandage wrapped between his nose and his upper lip.
Marie talked to Johnnie, speaking quietly and slowly, as if addressing a much younger child. She told him a story about when he was seven and he fell off the yard wall and broke his collarbone, and how they had to wait in Casualty with all the Saturday drunks, and how one of them kept trying to feed Johnnie crusts of bread that he kept in his pocket for the pigeons. It was an old story, one she had not told for years. She kept forgetting details, correcting herself as she went along. Her voice was gritty, but gentle. Annie remembered that voice from when she was young. It was the voice Marie used for children, for old people, for the vulnerable.
After a while she looked up at Annie and said: ‘It’s important to keep talking to him.’
‘Yes.’
‘We could bring some music in tomorrow, couldn’t we? We could pick out some of his favourite tapes and bring his cassette player in. The Specials. He likes The Specials.’
‘That’s a good idea.’
‘Four days,’ Marie said. She turned back to Johnnie and stroked the back of his hand very softly. ‘The doctor said we’ve got four days of talking to you, love, until you come round. And we’re going to make the most of it while you can’t talk back.’ She tweaked his finger to show she was teasing.
Annie glanced at her mother. ‘He said in four days we’d know more about Johnnie’s condition.’
Marie ignored her daughter. ‘That means you’ll be coming back to us on Saturday,’ she said. ‘You were born on a Saturday, Johnnie, it’s always been your lucky day.’