12 January 2000
‘No one is looking. But you’ve got to hurry!’
Blood rushes in my ears as Joel scuttles out of the bay behind me, towards the double doors.
I don’t want him to leave the safety of the ward, but if I don’t help, he’s threatened to sneak out alone, and I can’t risk that. Plus, I need him to trust me tonight.
The nurses are distracted by undertaking painstaking surgery on a lemon drizzle cake brought in by someone’s relative. They don’t see us dash along the corridor and into the emergency stairwell. We’re planning to walk down to the WRVS cafe together.
Except now he’s panting like a pensioner on eighty fags a day. ‘Maybe we should take the lift after all,’ I say.
He doesn’t even have the puff to argue, so we wait for him to get his breath back. We’re on the fifth floor and I stand guard next to the top step, so if Joel does collapse, at least he won’t tumble down the stairs.
This is the new me: ready for action. In the dinner queue, on the bus, at Churchill Square Shopping Centre, I scan the people nearby for signs of imminent cardiac arrest.
Airway, Breathing, Circulation is written through me now, like words in a stick of rock. The muscles in my arms have finally stopped aching but they’re primed to pump and pummel someone else’s chest, to the beat of ‘Nellie the Elephant . . .’
‘Kerry, I’ll need to . . . borrow your coat.’
I am halfway through taking it off before I realize what he means. ‘Oh no. No way are you going outside. It’s below zero.’
Joel shrugs, and the movement makes him wince: the cartilage between his ribs could take another month to mend, the doctors say. ‘All I’ve smelled for the last twelve days is hospital food, bedpans and antiseptic. I need fresh air.’
‘You won’t be told, will you?’
‘I usually get my own way because I’m so charming.’
Charming is the last thing Joel has been over the last few days.
We both hear the lift ding as it arrives on our floor.
‘Act normal,’ he says, and straightens up, but I see the pain in his face as he pulls open the fire door. There are several patients plus a nurse in the lift already. She looks at us suspiciously. We’re out of place in the hospital: too young, too alive.
‘Lovely afternoon for a stroll,’ Joel says, and the nurse glances pointedly at his slippers.
He waits until everyone has left the lift before shuffling out. ‘Please, Kerry? I haven’t even breathed year 2000 air yet, have I?’ He fixes me with deep amber puppy-dog eyes. I blink away the memory of those same eyes staring sightlessly up at the black sky.
I make a decision I could come to regret. ‘Are you hungry?’
Joel shrugs. ‘I’ve forgotten what real food is like.’
The chippie is empty except for us. The windows are steamed up and, while we wait for our order, I clear a patch of glass with the palm of my hand so I can see the hospital’s lights just up the hill; I’m already worried Joel won’t manage the incline heading back. He’s taken ages to catch his breath after the walk downhill.
‘You see, the air’s exactly the same as it was last century.’
He shrugs. ‘Yeah, but the smell of those chips beats the farts from the old guys in my ward.’
His jokes give me hope that the old Joel might gradually win the battle against the new, nasty version. He’s still beautiful – ordinary words like good-looking or fanciable aren’t up to the job. But his skin is greyish and his eyes sink into their sockets.
The guy who took our order comes out from behind the counter with the warm parcel. ‘Not gonna die on us, is he?’ he asks me.
Joel and I exchange another look: a shared knowledge. If only you knew, mate.
I start giggling and so does Joel, and it’s turning into one of those back-row-of-assembly laughs, the ones you try to contain but just can’t, because the hilariousness grows out of proportion and has to find a way out.
He laughs and coughs, laughs and coughs, and the chippie man brings over a mugful of water.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘My sides are splitting,’ Joel says and that pushes us over the edge again.
Eventually he runs out of energy. I unwrap the chips; the trapped steam has made them soggy and delicious. This is the smell of our hometown.
We eat. Or rather, I watch Joel eat. I’m not hungry. It’s partly the stress of being responsible for him, but mostly because I’ve already had a traitor’s afternoon tea.
His parents picked me up from school earlier, took me to the Grand. I thought it was a thank-you treat, but the scones stuck in my throat when I realized what they wanted from me in return. Joel has to have the operation, Lynette kept repeating, and it felt strange to hear that persuasive voice, so familiar from TV shows and adverts, directed at me.
I don’t think she’s used to people saying no.
Water dribbles down the pane in droplets, Joel is still stuffing his face.
‘Don’t eat so fast,’ I say. ‘I’m not so confident about my Heimlich manoeuvre.’
‘Is it not as good as your kiss of life?’
He gazes at me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was flirting. But no one flirts with Kerry Smith, especially not Joel Greenaway. ‘You’re not nearly dead enough for that.’
He looks away, eats another handful of chips. ‘You’re really gonna be a doctor, then?’
‘So long as I get the grades.’
‘Once they let me out, I won’t be seen dead in a hospital again.’ He grins.
‘Have they said when you might be discharged?’ I stare ahead so he can’t read my face. I already know the answer. His parents told me everything.
‘Soon. They’ve run out of tests to do on me.’
‘Have they found what caused it?’
He sniffs. ‘No. Just bad luck. But lightning doesn’t strike twice.’
‘Except, if they haven’t found the problem, what’s to stop your heart stopping again, Joel? Next time someone might not be there to help.’
‘Fuck’s sake. You sound like my mum. They’re sending me home with pills, it’ll be fine.’
I take a deep breath, taste bile and strawberry jam in my throat. ‘Only . . . isn’t there some operation they can do? I read about it. Some gadget to fix your heart if it does misbehave again.’
Joel’s mum held up a cigarette packet to show how ‘tiny’ the implant would be. But I’ve seen Joel’s body. Forcing a metal box into his toned torso would be like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa.
Didn’t someone already do that? Tim would know.
‘They got to you,’ Joel says. ‘My parents.’
I can’t deny it. ‘That’s not why I’m saying this. But ever since it happened,’ I say very quietly, ‘I wake up every night, just before midnight, from the same nightmare. We’re on the Lawns. You fall but I can’t run. The fireworks go off and you’re there, lying on the ground, and nobody sees you except me.’
‘Get over it, Kerry. It’s only a pathetic dream.’
A flash of anger lights me up inside. ‘You know, they’ll never let you play again if there’s the slightest risk you could drop dead on the pitch.’
He gawps at me.
‘Face it, Joel. Without the operation, you’re done as a footballer.’
His jaw drops further. I want to take my words back, even though they’re true.
‘Fuck you, Kerry. If I can’t ever play again, there’s no fucking point to anything.’
Now he’s stumbling towards the door, but he doesn’t even have the strength to open it. I follow and do it for him, hating the helpless expression on his face.
‘Joel, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that—’
He stares at me. ‘They’ll let me play, with the box thing?’
I didn’t dare ask his parents that question, though I have my doubts. Joel plays an elegant game, but football is a rough sport. Would any team field a player with an implant that’s vulnerable to the smash of a ball or even a deliberate tackle? I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that the metal box is the only guarantee he’ll stay alive. So I smile as I reach for his elbow to help haul him back uphill. ‘I think it’s got to be your best shot.’