Chapter 40

The Wrong Direction



Mum has strict rules about no shoes on the carpet. She’s sitting on the sofa in muddy boots and her winter coat with a vacant stare. In the kitchen, I find a half-made cup of tea, over-steeped and cold. I make a fresh cup and place it into her hands.

‘Thank you, Luke,’ she says. ‘Are you coming into the hospital with us?’

I don’t want to give her even more reason to think I don’t care, but…‘No. Call me when she gets out of surgery, though. I want to be there when she wakes up.’

‘It might be late,’ Mum says. ‘The surgery will take five or six hours.’

‘Six hours?’ I’ve never managed to stay in a trance for anywhere near that long.

Mum says, ‘Last night…’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘It was terrible timing. But I’m scared about today. And I needed to stop being scared about anything else.’

‘Luca had a panic attack at school,’ Lily says from the doorway.

‘Lily!’ I say.

‘What? She needs to know,’ Lily says. ‘What you said to him wasn’t fair, Mum.’

The fact that Lily can see past her own fear makes me so proud, and hopeful that the fear won’t trap her when she’s under the knife.

‘Oh, Luke, you should have told us,’ Mum says. I just shrug. We both know why I couldn’t do that. Terrible timing.

‘Don’t worry,’ I tell them. ‘The things that were making me so anxious…I reckon I’ve dealt with them now.’

Mum sighs and I wish I hadn’t made her feel guilty on top of everything else.

‘I’m going to check I’ve packed everything we need for the hospital,’ she says. She’s almost out of the room when she calls me. ‘Luca.’

My insides turn into caramel. She pronounced it ‘Luke-a,’ as if she’d changed her mind halfway through—but I’ll take it.

‘I love you,’ she says.

‘Yeah. It’s okay.’ There’s so much more to be said, but we don’t need to say it.

‘Aren’t you scared?’ I ask Lily when Mum has gone.

‘Of course. I’m freaking terrified,’ Lily says, ‘but I don’t want Mum and Dad to know—they’re upset enough already. I have to put on a brave face for them.’

‘But not for me?’ I ask wryly.

‘No, not for you! You’re my big broth—sibling. You’re supposed to be the strong one.’

I lunge forward and grab her, pulling her tightly against my chest. She lets out an ‘oomph,’ but her skinny arms sneak around my waist. I will myself not to cry.

‘I promise I’ll be there with you the whole way through,’ I choke out.

‘They won’t exactly let you in the operating theatre,’ she sniffles.

‘No, I don’t mean that—I mean, in your head. I’ll be there. I will.’

She laughs shakily. ‘That sounds weird. And creepy. No, nice. I wish you could.’

I can. I’ll find a way.

They leave for the hospital at eleven o’clock, all bundled up in coats and winter hats like a scene in a Christmas movie. More elves and fewer scalpels, please. The surgery is scheduled to begin at one. I should do some meditation to prepare, but I pace around the living room and chew my fingernails instead.

I’ve faced down a literal demon of fear. I can do this.

But the thought of Lily sedated on an operating table is more terrifying than a monster with glowing purple eyes. It’s harder to fight an enemy you can’t see.

It’s time. No more doubts.

Cross-legged on my bed, propped up against the headboard, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I close my eyes and let the world dissolve. Fall inwards until I step out of my lamppost. Lily is so familiar to me, such a deep emotional bond, that it’s easy to find her amongst this city of metal trees. The fog-shrouded light is still shining strongly.

I lean into the cold metal. It lets me through, but there’s resistance, like I’m pressing my way into a viscous syrup. Being unconscious is not the same as being asleep. I’m in unfamiliar territory.

When I finally fight my way in, I’m standing on a thin pathway suspended in darkness. Within this vast space, many more narrow walkways loop and cross, occasionally lit by a streak of blue electricity running through them. It’s like being inside a picture of a neural network. At a nexus in front of me, Lily is standing in an open-backed hospital gown.

I conjure a pink fluffy dressing-gown and wrap her up in it. Above the bulky cloth, her patchy shaved head looks small and vulnerable.

‘It’s a labyrinth,’ Lily says, ‘but I know which way to go. It’s calling me. Are you going to come with me, Luca?’

‘Of course,’ I tell her, a big happy bubble in my chest. I’m right where she needs me to be, and she’s gained enough strength from all the dreaming we’ve done together to be able to handle even this.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

‘Well, this is my brain,’ she says, ‘and even though I can’t feel anything I know it’s all messed up. So I’m going to hide from my brain and it will all go away.’ It’s the sort of little-kid logic which makes no sense and yet seems perfectly correct at the same time.

Lily starts walking along one of the imaginary nerves, arms held out for balance, and I follow. A spear of blue light passes under our feet, illuminating where we’re headed. A boat made out of half a walnut shell, with a triangle of paper for a sail, is moored at the end of the path. It’s big enough for the two of us to squeeze into. The boat sails itself, bobbing up and down as if it was floating on water rather than on an ocean of consciousness. We float away from the stylised brain and everything around us starts to dissolve, wavering like the shimmer of heat-haze over a road. Lily stares dreamily into the distance, humming under her breath. Her detachment is beginning to feel eerie.

‘Lily?’ I say as the world around us disintegrates into tendrils of grey smoke, ‘Are you sure this is the right way?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she says as the smoky air fills with sparking fireflies, weaving mesmerising patterns around our tiny vessel. ‘I’m going away from everything.’

All the pin-pricks of light coalesce into a single flame hovering in the air in front of us, a giant candle burning without any wax or wick. It gives off a gentle heat, but everything in me goes cold. This is not the right direction. Not at all.

The flame encloses us. To my imaginary body, it’s just a gentle warm breeze—but my thoughts are being scoured, the fire trying to burn away all sense of who I am. If we stay here, all our memories will be devoured, our personalities erased.

‘No!’ I shout, standing up so that the boat rocks madly. We shoot out of the flame into an ocean of white. There is nothing. No depth, no shadows. No pathway out.

Lily heaves a deep sigh of contentment. We’re deep in her mind now, beyond her fear and pain. She’s sailing towards death. She’s leaving everything behind: the sickness and worry, the chemo and vomiting. Along with all the potential for happiness and health and teenage dramas and university and careers and children. It would be so easy to let it all go. But if this year’s taught me anything, it’s that the easy option isn’t always right.

‘Lily,’ I say, ‘you have to turn this boat around. I can’t do this for you. It has to be what you want. You have to want to live.’

‘But it’s so peaceful here,’ Lily says. ‘What if—back there—it all goes wrong? What if I let myself hope…and it hurts too much?’

‘Hope is worth the pain,’ I tell her. ‘A surgeon is working really hard right now to save your body. You need to work to save your self.’

‘Will it work?’ she asks, sounding so young.

I hesitate. I want to assure her that of course, she will survive the operation. That the cancer will never recur. But I can’t lie. Here, in this vast, empty space of the mind, it would be impossible to deceive her.

‘There’s a chance,’ I tell her, ‘and I want you to take that chance even if it’s painful. Because it’s worth it. And because I don’t want to lose you.’

I brush a tear off her cheek. Her soft little fingers brush a tear off mine.

‘Okay,’ she says with the sort of bravery that takes a soldier into battle. ‘You’ve helped me get home before, haven’t you, Luca?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I will always take you home.’

With her wishes bending the dream in that direction, it should be easy. Just reach out for the in-between, get a grip on her lamppost, pull her back up nearer the surface of her consciousness and find a nice dream to hang around in until the surgery is over. Some more unicorns, perhaps…

But there is no in-between. There is nothing but this whiteness; nothing for me to latch onto, no lever to catapult us out. Only blank emptiness and my racing heartbeat.

I don’t know how to take Lily home. I don’t even know how to get out myself.

What would Aliya do? Certainly not panic like I’m starting to. She always finds a solution. I need Aliya here.

Impossible. But so many things are. And we’ve still done them: me and Aliya, together.

I can’t wake up, but maybe I can go to sleep again.

I think of my body, now unconscious on my bed at home, waiting for an occupant who may never return. To get back, I have to travel even further away.

‘I promise I’ll get us home, Lily,’ I say. ‘I’m going to go to sleep now, and I’ll bring help back from my dreams.’