During the time Justin was non-responsive (no one at the hospital actually used the word ‘coma’), he was rarely alone. His parents took turns sitting with him, and when they left, one of the nurses attended him in his quarantine. Peter had been treated and released; Dorothea and Anna came with him to the hospital but were not allowed in Justin’s room for fear of contagion. The girls hung pictures of Alice in the nurses’ station and glued get-well cards to the smoky-glass window of his room. Anna’s cards, scribbled in furious frustration, read GET WELL NOW, in big black slashed letters.
Dorothea knew how she felt. Today she had brought a painting: Justin with Boy and Alice. Her picture showed him sprawled in space with silver stars pasted over a black halo of sky. In the grass to his right was Boy, in profile, beautifully rendered in light and dark greys, the soft dark wisdom of his eye expressed perfectly. To the left was Alice, drawn nearly as big as the dog. Dorothea had managed to capture a feeling for the sleepy body and the large impassive eye peering out of his white fur. It was an extraordinary portrait of three friends.
Anna and Dorothea covered as much of the glass window as they could reach with their cards. Neither of them liked looking in at Justin lying inert, stuck full of a terrifying array of needles and tubes.
‘That’s not Justin,’ Anna insisted.
Dorothea agreed. The motionless body was far too quiet, devoid of nervous energy. She wondered if an unconscious person could feel anxious.
Justin’s parents alternated attendance on their son. His mother stayed as long as her younger child would let her. She looked terrible. ‘I’ve neglected him,’ she said over and over to Peter, her face a picture of anguish. ‘I didn’t know what to do for him.’
Throughout this admission, Charlie tugged insistently at her sleeve.
I’d like to see my brother, he said. I’d like to tell him my side of the story, the side he used to know but has forgotten. I’d like to tell him to forget the big scary issues and concentrate on the ones he can control, like how much milk he gets when, and whether to look at a book. Life is easier if you break it down into little segments, little desires and needs you can satisfy right now.
‘Want milk,’ he said aloud.
His mother dug through her bag for his milk, and the child took it, smiling at Peter.
Do you understand?
After some hesitation, Peter had phoned Agnes, and later that evening she came to the hospital.
‘How is he?’ she asked one of the night nurses, and the woman shook her head.
‘Your friend do not want to wake up, honey. I never seen such a stubborn boy for staying asleep. He sleep and he sleep, and just when everybody start to think he might be getting well, he go right back to sleeping. I’m thinking he don’t want to wake up.’
Well, that would be about right, Agnes thought, then stopped herself guiltily.
Maybe it had nothing to do with will. Maybe he couldn’t wake up even if he wanted to. She tapped softly on the window of Justin’s room. His mother was just leaving and it was his father who sat reading the evening paper by the light of a miniature torch, squinting at a story about a London fashion designer, run over by a car and killed in a Luton rainstorm as he tried to rescue a goat. Justin’s father looked up at Agnes with a tired half-smile and waved. Agnes waved back, thinking how funny the man looked peering at the small pool of illuminated type, able to make out just a few words at a time. Was he actually reading the paper, or just passing the time?
He didn’t touch his son, she noticed that. Justin’s mother sat gripping his hand, whispering apologies and promises, exhorting him to acknowledge her presence, his own presence. Please, David. Agnes had seen her lips move. Please wake up.
The more Agnes observed him, the more she felt certain that the nurse was right. It was easier where he was. Poor Justin. Unable to grasp the basic notion that these people were his fate. All of them: Peter and Dorothea and Anna, his parents and brother, the doctors and nurses. Even Coach and the team and his teachers and classmates. He couldn’t escape them any more than he could escape himself. Unless he decided not to wake up. Then fate would have the last laugh after all.
‘Justin?’ She leant in close to the window and whispered. ‘Don’t screw up.’
It’s not like she’s in love with you or anything, she told you that.
Shut up.
I’m right, though, am I not? She made it perfectly clear.
Shut Up.
Let’s face it, Justin, how long do you think it will take for them to get over you when you’re gone?
What do you mean when?
You said ‘when you’re gone’.
But surely you realize it’s only a matter of time? You’re nearly finished, Justin Case.
Something like revulsion rose in him to hear the voice talk with such calm certainty about his death. His eyes flicked open, but his father had fallen asleep, and Agnes had turned away from the window.
He closed them again.