Dr Abdelbaki knew that Dad wasn’t related to Jon. And so did all the nurses. Mr McGrath probably told them. But nobody seemed that concerned. They knew that Arthur and Edna Mansfield were two wards below, probably not long for this world; they knew the background and they were pleased someone was taking an interest. Mr McGrath and Ms Green had been visiting Jon regularly and I thought he would have little time for them. I thought that they were the sworn enemy, that he would stare ahead, refuse to make eye contact, fold his arms and bury his chin in his chest. But it wasn’t like that at all. Maybe it’s like Mum said, things are only rarely as bad as your imagination can make them. Now Jon was slap bang in the middle of his nightmare, now it was happening, maybe it just wasn’t quite as nightmarish as he’d imagined.
He visited his grandparents on their ward during the days. He received the same confused stare from his gran that everyone received, and Jon admitted that she’d been like that for months now. But he sat with her every day. He changed the water in her glass and tidied her bedside table. When she said incomprehensible things about people he’d never heard of, people he wasn’t sure had ever existed, he nodded as if it all made sense. When she was agitated and scared, shouting out, he tried to calm her. He told her she was safe. He held her hand.
Jon’s granddad had calmed down since his kidnapping. He was resigned and tired. Remarkably he and Jon never spoke about the day they were dragged from their home and brought to the hospital. And they never spoke about what might happen next. Jon said he would try but his granddad would get annoyed, wave him quiet and tell him not to be bothering trouble. And Jon said that he’d always been like that. Even when his mum died, when he was dumped on their doorstep, they just opened the door and let him in, made up a bed and carried on. Things were as they were and they muddled through. When Jon arrived from his ward to sit with his gran for a while Arthur would drag himself to the hospital garden and sit on a bench in the corner and look up to the sky or just stare ahead. I saw him out there a couple of times, and part of me wanted to go and sit with him. But I knew I never would; I couldn’t think of one single thing to talk to him about. And I just didn’t dare.
Dad had reached a decision and he seemed sure. He said we would give it a go. See what we could do – if that was all right with me. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t go any further. We’d stop it now. He thought we should have a big chat, I could tell. He kept saying that this was a life-changing decision and he wanted to know my views. I told him we had no choice; it was just something we had to do. He got annoyed at that and said that it wasn’t just something we had to do. We had to make a conscious decision whether or not to go ahead and it would affect me just as much as it would affect him. I should think about what it would actually mean on a day-to-day basis. So I shrugged. That annoyed him even more. I knew it would. Sometimes it’s fun. But he knew what I thought. He was just annoyed that he wasn’t getting his big discussion. He was annoyed that I wasn’t saying that I knew it would be tough for him but it was the right thing to do. Well done, Dad. I just didn’t feel like joining in and I really did think that we didn’t have a choice. It was clear to me. He was right about one thing though. We had to speak to Jon. Neither of us knew what he thought about the whole thing.
It was getting late and Jon was tucked up in bed and it was only a few minutes until chucking-out time and Dad still hadn’t said anything. Some visitors at other beds were already pulling coats on and checking pockets for keys. I kicked at Dad’s leg underneath the bed. He glared at me. He cleared his throat and told Jon something that he already knew – that he would have to live somewhere else from now on. Jon nodded that he understood that to be the case. There was a pause before Dad asked how he would feel if the house he came to stay at was ours. Jon didn’t look at either of us. Just said quietly that it would be brilliant. Dad said, ‘Well, we’ll see what we can do, eh? See what happens … It’s out of my hands really so no promises.’ There was silence. Jon rubbed a tear into his cheek. Dad exhaled and looked up at the ceiling fan. I looked across Jon’s bed and saw the three of us reflected in the black window and started to laugh like a lunatic. I held my hand over my mouth and nose and tried to keep it down and hold it in but it bubbled up and sprayed out anyway. Dad looked annoyed and Jon looked shocked. I managed to calm myself and stifle the laughs and I apologised. I said it was just because I was nervous. And although that is true, I do laugh when I’m nervous, it was really the sight of the three of us, reflected back in the hospital window that set me off. We looked so gormless and mismatched and bloody useless. But we were having a go at least. You can’t say we weren’t doing that.
I didn’t dare look at the reflection for the next few minutes in case it set me off again but it was nearly chucking-out time anyway. Dad told Jon that he would have to talk to his granddad to see what he had to say about it all and Jon nodded that he would and then we grabbed our coats to leave. We left the ward and joined the exodus of relatives and friends back to the car park. When we got out into the cold night air Dad stopped. He rammed his hands deep into his coat pockets, leant against a pillar and breathed heavily in and out for a few seconds before jogging across the car park to catch me up.