“I know you wouldn’t,” she replied, and pushed the pram down the street in the direction of Charlie’s house, her jaw set at a stubborn angle. “But I would.”
“This is my friend’s! I’ll be back for it in a little while,” Charlie shouted up the stairs at Grandpa Fitz as he parked the pram just inside the door.
“What the blazes—” Grandpa Fitz began, but Charlie shut the door as fast as he dared. Biscuits just missed getting her tail smashed as she materialized between his feet.
“No. Not a good idea. Not after last time.”
Biscuits chirped and wrapped her tail around her paws, angelic and innocent of all crime.
“No. They’ll recognize you in a second and they’ll run us off the property or—or have us arrested or something. You can’t come, do you hear me? You are going to stay right here.”
“You’re bringing that cat with you?” Mellie asked from where she was waiting on the sidewalk.
Charlie sniffed and didn’t answer. Biscuits rubbed herself against Mellie’s legs, purring so loud Charlie knew she was just being petty.
“Don’t even think about it, beast,” Mellie said to Biscuits. They glared at each other for a long minute before Biscuits turned on her heel and started off down the sidewalk, her tail held high as a flag. Pudge cooed a greeting to Biscuits as they marched past. Biscuits was careful to ignore him.
25
CHARLIE WAS OF THE OPINION THAT THE WHOLE business of walking up the steps and shouldering open the brass-handled doors of Mary, Queen of Peace Convalescent Hospital was quite a bit more dramatic than was necessary. That it took multiple attempts and some considerable coordination between his scrawny arms and Mellie’s even scrawnier ones to drag the door open did nothing to set him at ease. It made all intents of secrecy a bit of a nonstarter, which was a rather dispiriting note to begin on.
He escorted Mellie with as much dignity as he could muster up to the high counter of the front desk, where a woman with round spectacles was watching their progress with raised eyebrows.
“Do you need medical attention, sir?” The woman behind the desk looked from Mellie’s gnarled hands to her unwashed hair and finally down to Charlie, whose coat suddenly felt far too big.
“Er, no,” Charlie started, his voice cracking. “I’m actually here to visit Mr. Pemberton-Ashby? Lieutenant Pemberton-Ashby, I mean? Reginald Pemberton-Ashby?” Charlie said. Saying Reggie’s fancy surnames so many times in a row made it sound like gibberish.
“The dashing lieutenant himself! But I’m afraid he’s not accepting visitors right now.”
The woman had to crane her neck to see him. He stood up on his tiptoes to peer over the desk at her. “Aggie let me visit him before. Aggie Carlisle—that is, Agatha. Ma’am. Miss. Um.”
“Oh, Aggie! You should’ve said. Everyone knows Aggie.” The nurse threw her head back and laughed. “Well, that makes sense. You just follow me, love.”
Charlie looked over at Mellie and, after a moment’s hesitation, offered her his own arm. She flashed her gummy smile at him and grabbed his elbow in a vise grip. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye—her deep blue eyes were darting all over the place, and she was very pale under her surface layer of grime and wrinkles. Her hand on his arm was shaking. Charlie put his free hand over Mellie’s and squeezed it, very gently. She slowly let out a breath and they followed after Ward Sister Radcliffe.
The echoes of their footsteps seemed much louder in the empty hall than they should have been, and Mellie jumped a bit every time a door slammed shut somewhere else in the hospital.
After what seemed like a mile of clean, waxed tile, they were back at the door he remembered from his night in the snow. And there, in the same bed, was Reggie, reading in a wedge of lamplight and frowning in concentration.
“Lieutenant, we have some guests for you!”
Reggie looked up and saw him, something almost like relief in his expression. “Quite lovely, Nurse Radcliffe. I’m so very popular lately, you mustn’t let it go to my head.”
Nurse Radcliffe gave a tittering laugh and blushed pink. “I’ll leave you lot to it, then.”
“It’s wonderful to see you, Charlie. Reggie Pemberton-Ashby, madame,” he said to Mellie, offering his hand. She presented her own with great dignity, and Reggie gave her knuckles a polite brush of his lips. Mellie did not blush, but she seemed pleased in a way that caused her to glow slightly.
“Melinda Jenkins,” she said primly, and Charlie gaped. It had somehow never occurred to him that Mellie was short for anything. Or that she had a last name. These were shocking revelations.
“What can I do for you today, Charlie—”
“You have got some cheek showing up here again, my friend,” said a voice from behind them all.
A bucket of ice water dumped itself down Charlie’s back. Aggie was framed by the curtain circled all round Reggie’s bed, hands on her hips and her red-lipstick mouth pursed underneath furrowed eyebrows.
“I—”
“You are quite lucky you’ve got the face of an angel or we would be having words, my friend.” Aggie strode forward and bent down close enough that Charlie could smell her perfume—and then she was holding something small and furry and white-and-marmalade-y, which she was frowning at with great authority.
“I will have none of that tomfoolery this time, young lady. Do we understand each other? Yes? Good. Introduce me to your friend.”
Biscuits leaped down to the floor and butted her head against Charlie’s knee, purring about as loud as a Spitfire plane.
“Yes, I know sweet Charlie. I meant the rest.”
“Brrrrrpt!” said Biscuits.
“Well, that’s hardly declarative. Charlie, would you take over for your miscreant friend . . . ?”
“Biscuits,” Charlie finished, mortified.
“Would you take over for Biscuits and kindly introduce me to your friend?”
“Oh, this is Mellie,” Charlie said.
“Pleasure,” said Aggie. Mellie ignored her, her set shoulders and serene expression giving her a very Biscuits-ish air.
“Same to you, love,” said Aggie, smiling. “Now, Charlie, what on earth can I do for you and your varied and sundry compatriots?”
“I—you—that is—”
“Charlie here was hoping to have a word with me about his brother, Ward Sister Carlisle,” said Reggie, smooth as butter.
“Mmm, his other brother, I suppose? Does he bear more of a family resemblance?”
Reggie smiled, wide and charming, and for just a second Charlie could see who he must have been before the war. He had the sort of smile you could only get with a lot of practice, deep lines crinkling up his eyes.
“There may have been a slight communication error on that front, for which I, in my fragile state, take full responsibility.”
Aggie rolled her eyes heavenwards. “Fine, don’t tell me, then.”
Now Charlie wanted to crawl under the bed. He wiped sweaty palms against his knees. Even rolled, the sleeves of Dad’s coat came down almost to his knuckles. He focused on the scratchy itch of wool against chapped skin.
“My brother—my real brother, Theo, the one who I was actually telling you about last week—he . . .” He swallowed hard, twice, his whole face feeling very hot, then the wooly itch against his hand was replaced by a warm, downy silkiness.
Biscuits crawled into his lap, tucking her feet underneath her, quite dainty. She said she needed someone to take care of, once she got big enough. She said she just needed a little help getting to the big enough part. Do you think she could look after you, Charlie? Would you mind? Dad’s northern burr echoed in Charlie’s mind, steadying his hands.
“I’m going to help him,” Charlie finally said. He looked up to meet her eyes, stubborn and determined.
Aggie stared at him for a long moment before plopping down on the foot of Reggie’s bed with a loud sigh. “God help the poor girls when you grow a few feet, Charlie. How on earth does your mum ever say no to
that sweet face?”
Charlie was torn between explaining that Mum was excellent at saying no to him, or throwing up from embarrassment all over the glossy hospital floor; he wasn’t quite sure which. He opted to never speak again, instead.
“All right,” Aggie went on, squinting with deep suspicion at each of them in succession. “Walk with me, Charlie.” Charlie looked back at Reggie, anxious to speak with him about the war wolves.
“Actually, I was going to speak with Reggie about—” Aggie pointed at him with one eyebrow raised to menacing heights.
“I am the nurse in charge of this ward and everyone in it, which currently includes both of you. And how I manage the welfare of every in my charge is up to me.”
Aggie’s tone brooked no argument. Charlie had to scramble to catch up with her rapidly retreating footsteps. Biscuits made to follow him, but he made a frantic shooing gesture and she planted herself on Reggie’s lap, as though that had been her plan all along.
When he caught up to Aggie in the corridor, she had her hands on her hips and was looking at him with an expression somewhere between fond and exasperated. Charlie was quite familiar with this look. Mum wore it often.
“C’mon, love, let’s get some medicine into you and we’ll have a chat about it.”
Aggie stashed him in a small room with a sign that read “Lesser Lounge,” which he suspected might actually be a broom cupboard that had gotten notions. Against one wall sat a squashy-looking sofa where there was a lump of blankets that might have begun the day as a nurse.
“Don’t worry about waking her, she’ll be out like a light till swing shift starts,” said Aggie, and she gestured towards a smaller sofa that had a few obvious holes but otherwise looked very comfortable. “You have a seat and don’t go off on any adventures till I’m back.”
She ducked out the door and returned a minute later ladened with two enormous white mugs of tea. Then she settled herself down next to Charlie.
“Drink your tea and then tell Aggie what’s weighing on you.” Aggie kicked off her pointy shoes and tucked her feet up underneath her in a very Biscuits-ish way, then took a sip of tea that left a cherry-red kiss-print behind. After a moment, she nudged him with an elbow. “Go on. Unburden yourself.”
Charlie twisted the mug around in his hands.
“What happens if your heart gets too hard, Aggie? Can you . . . does it hurt?”
“D’you mean like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?”
Charlie blinked several times.
“No, I thought not.” Aggie paused to gulp down half her mug of tea in one go. “Hearts are beastly complicated things, Charlie. There are so very many things that can go wrong with them and they’re the very devil to fix.”
“I know,” Charlie said into his tea.
“I know that’s what a lot of people—nurses and doctors, you know, the people I worked with—took away from the war. How very fragile the human body is, all the different ways there are for it to get hurt. But you know what always struck me from day one over there?”
Charlie shook his head.
“How bloody resilient the human body is. It is absolutely astonishing what you can live through. The most incredible things can go wrong and the body finds a way to fix itself enough to keep going.”
“Hearts, too?”
“Hearts especially, darling. The heart’s the strongest muscle in the human body, did you know that? Think about all the different muscles you use every day, how much work you do with them. But the heart doesn’t ever get to stop, does it? Just about every other muscle in your body gets to take a breather occasionally, but the heart? Always awake, always working like anything to keep you going. So hearts have to be strong; they’re made that way, made to never stop.”
“That sounds exhausting.” Charlie now considered himself something of an expert on exhaustion.
Aggie made a clucking sound, very much like one of Mellie’s pigeons, and touched her thumb to his cheek, quick as a kiss. “And that’s why you’ve got to be as kind to your heart as you can, whenever you can, Charlie. Our hearts work so very hard for us.”
“But what if you haven’t been kind to it? Or you just can’t? What if it’s already . . .” Charlie searched for the right word. “Wrong?”
“You can live for a long time with a broken heart if you learn to take care of it right. Did you know that sometimes broken bones heal stronger than they were in the first place? Not always, I mean. Sometimes they just break in the same place over and over again. But that’s usually because they weren’t set quite right the first time.”
“But what can you do if it wasn’t set right? A long time ago, I mean. Is it too late? To make it like it was?”
“Well, did you know there’s talk about actually transplanting a heart from one patient into another someday soon?”
“What, when you’re still alive?”
“Like, if someone died in an accident, you could take out that person’s heart and swap it in for someone with a damaged or unhealthy heart. Isn’t that absolutely and beautifully mad?”
“I wouldn’t want someone to have to die so I could have a new heart.”
Aggie smiled at him and pulled the blanket back over the sleeping nurse, who had wriggled out of it a bit in her sleep. “I know. That’s how I know your heart isn’t hard at all. Listen, sometimes having a hard heart is worse than having no heart. Don’t let the world make your heart hard. Keep it soft, and wide open, as long as you can, as much as you can bear. And even when you can’t bear it. It’s all right that your heart hurts—that’s how you know it’s still there.”
“Why are you always so nice to me?”
“Why on earth wouldn’t I be? What did being horrible ever get anyone?”
“Lots of things, I’m pretty sure.”
“Nothing worth having has to be taken from someone else. You can quote me on that. Ask your mum to cross-stitch it on a pillow for you.” Aggie stretched out her legs in front of her and her arms towards the ceiling and rolled her head around several times, knees popping and neck cracking like machine-gun fire. “Come on now, your granddad will be waiting for you, and I’ve got a round of bed checks calling my name.”
Charlie got up and set his cup down on a little table by the blanket-nurse, who gave a contented snore. One had to admire the absolute dedication to her nap.
Down the hall and back to Reggie’s room they went, where they found everyone asleep, except for Reggie himself, who was doing his best to read his book around the lump of sleeping cat that had grown on top of his chest.
Reggie met their eyes over the top of his book and held a finger to his lips, which were curved into a smile.
“I’ll leave you here for now, love,” Aggie whispered into Charlie’s ear. “Leave whenever you’re ready. But don’t forget, Charlie: your heart can take just about anything the world can throw at it. It’s the very strongest part of you.”
Then she leaned down and kissed his cheek. Charlie felt himself go very red, but he it made him feel warm and safe right down to his toes. He kept his head ducked down until he heard the tap of her shoes fade away. When he had managed to compose himself a bit, he looked up to find Reggie and Biscuits smirking at him.
“What?” said Charlie.
“Nothing,” said Reggie.
“Brrrpt,” said Biscuits.
Mellie startled awake and glared up at him out of sleep-squinted eyes. “Well, now that you’ve concluded your pressing business,” she said testily.
“Yes, what brings you to visit, Charlie?” Reggie’s smile was warm, but there was a tired sort of resignation there, too. He already knew what Charlie was going to ask, but was hoping he was wrong.
“You said you saw the wolves here in the hospital, when you were first admitted?”
Reggie’s shoulders fell, just a little. “Yes.” It was as if the word hurt coming out of his mouth. “I saw one, here in the hospital, when they first brought me.” His dark eyes were huge in his pale face. �
��It was night. I heard it walking down the corridor, its nails . . .” He closed his eyes and took three long, deep breaths before continuing. “I didn’t bother pretending to be asleep. It’s so horrible, you know, to feel dread but not fear. To know that it was just . . . waiting. Looking for its next meal. You can’t warn people; I’m sure you’ve tried, too. How could you? If you can’t see them, you don’t know to be afraid of them until it’s too late. And once you can see them . . . it’s too late anyway.” He seemed to realize what he’d said, wincing. “I didn’t mean that. It’s not too late for you, Charlie.”
But Charlie waved him off, wild excitement buzzing inside him. “No, I’m close, Reggie, I’m so close. I only need one more key, and then I can find them, I can get into the War Room, and I can make them give me Theo’s heart back. Don’t you see? I can really do it, Reggie.” And saying the words, just then, he believed it, that he could make everything okay again. He almost grinned in frantic excitement. “I just need your help to find the last wolf.”
But Reggie was shaking his head no, rubbing his forehead hard with his knuckles, like he was trying to keep the thoughts inside. “The wolves found me, they find you, they always find you. If they’ve left you alone, Charlie, that’s a good thing. Don’t you see? It’s an absolute blessing that you can’t find them, that you can let this go.”
“No, you’re not listening—”
Reggie was shaking his head again. “I’ve had a lot of time to think since the last time you were here, asking about the wolves. I shouldn’t have told you all that, I should never have encouraged this. If I really were your brother, I would tell you that you’ve done enough, Charlie. How much has it cost you already? How much have they taken from you?”
Charlie thought of Remorse and Wrath, licking their lips. Blood and tears, that’s all. I’ve got plenty of both. More than enough.
“I didn’t know how to say this before, but I’m saying it now to you: you can’t get his heart back, Charlie. It’s eaten, it’s gone. You need to accept that this is who you brother is. It’s not fixable. There’s no cure.”
“You’re just saying that because you’ve given up,” Charlie snapped. That coal from the disastrous dinner with the Cleavers flared to life again in his chest. “You don’t want to be with your family, so you don’t think Theo should be with his. But he’s different, he’s going get better, because I’m going to make him like he was before, you’ll see.”
Hollow Chest Page 19
