Nightingale Point

by Luan Goldie

  ‘How old do you think Olisa is?’

  Malachi shrugs.

  ‘I know sixteen is too young for her but I want to keep the dream alive. Though I get the feeling she’s swaying more in your direction. She wants your chocolate sauce, man.’

  Why is everything still a joke to him? This is serious. There’s so much at stake. They need to make plans and sort their lives out.

  ‘Tristan?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dr Gonsalkorale isn’t convinced you should leave this week. There’s still a high risk of infection in your ankle so she’s not going to discharge you yet.’

  Tristan’s face falls and he lays his head back on the pillow.

  ‘Sorry. She only told me now. You knew this would be a possibility. What’s another week?’

  ‘Maybe I had plans.’ Tristan reaches for a bag of sweets on the cabinet, but his bandaged fingers struggle with the packaging. ‘For fuck’s sake, man.’

  Malachi takes the bag of sweets and unwraps one for each of them. ‘I know it’s not what you wanted to hear today. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Where are you getting all these sweets from anyway?’ Malachi asks, keen to change the subject.

  ‘Annie Wilkes over there.’ He points to a matronly looking nurse, who smiles back. ‘She loves me. She’ll be the one to mash up my other foot.’ But there’s little bravado in his joke. His mood is down.

  ‘You feeling all right, Tris? Still up for meeting Elvis later?’

  Tristan flinches as he chews. ‘I can feel my stitches pulling.’

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  ‘I know,’ he snaps. ‘I’m thinking about it.’ Tristan puts out his hand for another sweet, then says, ‘Awkward. Pure awkward.’ He turns to Malachi. ‘Since we’re on this whole telling each other everything, I need to tell you that I’ve met Elvis before.’

  ‘Yeah? What, around the estate? I’d never seen him.’

  ‘Well, actually, it was that day. He was, erm, following me about. It was weird.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Tristan sighs. ‘He caught me having a little smoke in the stairwell and threatened to report me to the police, so we had a bit of an altercation.’

  ‘An altercation? Why are you only telling me this now?’

  ‘’Cause there’s kind of been other stuff to cover,’ he snaps. ‘You know what I’m like, Mal, how I can lose the plot a bit easily, especially if I’ve been smoking.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Tristan looks off and it’s clear he’s trying to get his excuses straight, to justify something to himself. ‘I called him some names and I …’

  It has to be more than that. Malachi almost doesn’t want to hear it.

  ‘I spat on him.’

  Malachi stands. The curtain tears slightly from the hooks as he opens it and walks down the ward. The Annie Wilkes nurse approaches him.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  He manages to utter something but feels all his energy going towards not screaming or pushing Tristan off the bed. He steps outside the ward and seriously considers disappearing, just running off and never dealing with any of this again. But he can’t, he knows he can’t. Tristan is his responsibility.

  As Malachi returns, even the way Tristan looks, so sheepish, small and bandaged, can’t calm him down.

  ‘Mal, think about it. Ever since I remembered this I’ve been questioning why he didn’t just leave me to die in the stairwell. Like, if I was him—’

  ‘Not only did he save you, but he also visited you every day you were out. Talking to you, checking that you were getting better. I did think it was weird that he kept putting off coming to see you once you woke up. But now it makes sense.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Did you know he had a carer? A carer that died in the flat while making his lunch, ’cause Elvis can’t even make his own lunch. That’s how much support he needs.’

  ‘I didn’t think I could feel any worse about this, but I do now.’

  ‘What were you thinking? Surely you could see he was a vulnerable person.’

  ‘Yeah, course I could, but I also didn’t give a shit. But that was before. I don’t know why he helped me. I really don’t. I can only say sorry and try and pay him back. But I don’t even know how to do that. Mal, how do I pay him back?’

  ‘You can’t.’

  Elvis is almost an hour late. The timing is terrible as it forces Malachi to spend time with Tristan when all he really wants to do is go back to Harris’s and sleep off the morning. He’s furious with Tristan and embarrassed.

  George comes over and shakes Malachi’s hand, and they make small talk while Elvis takes his time walking slowly up the ward, showing the potted plant in his hands to everyone polite enough to give him their time.

  ‘Mr Popular,’ George says. ‘It’s like this constantly at the moment.’

  Elvis breaks into his wide childlike smile and encloses Malachi in one of the big, tight hugs he always gives, the plant bashing up against the side of Malachi’s face.

  ‘Hello,’ Elvis says into Malachi’s ear, too loudly, as he holds him.

  ‘Hey, Elvis. How you doing?’

  He nods, smiling, then covers his mouth with one of his large freckled hands. ‘Is Tristan Roberts really awake?’ he asks.

  This is it, Malachi could stop the meeting from going ahead. What right does Tristan have to talk to Elvis anyway? He can never make up for what he did that day.

  ‘I bought a Solanum lycopersicum,’ Elvis says, lifting the pot. ‘That’s the posh name for a tomato plant.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know that. You brought one of these before, didn’t you?’

  Tristan was still unconscious when the plant had first arrived on the bedside cabinet, and Malachi was too out of it to care for another thing. But he does remember sitting by Tristan’s bed, listening to the machines beep and watching the leaves turn yellow and fall off.

  ‘Solanum lycopersicum can be a little bit tricky to look after at first and sometimes you can kill them by accident. But if you keep trying you will be able to keep them alive one day. Do you think Tristan Roberts will keep trying?’

  Malachi shrugs. ‘Maybe you should ask him yourself.’

  Tristan is sitting up on the bed as they near, putting on the poker face he perfected on the estate to protect himself from being seen as soft.

  ‘Hi,’ he says. His bottom lip quivers and his eyes keep darting up to Malachi, as if asking for advice on what to do. Then he can’t hold it in anymore, he starts to cry, a few tears that he wipes away quickly with his arm as Elvis leans across the bed to hug him.

  It’s almost too intimate to watch, and Malachi crosses his arms in front of his chest and turns to George. ‘I’m going to get some teas or something.’

  He takes the long way over to the café, stalling at the chiller and reading the labels on every drink, panini and pie.

  He knows it’s too late for him to have a reunion with anyone saved from the tower, to have a second chance to start over and say sorry for messing up the last time. He knows, but still it’s hard to accept.

  It’s quiet around the bed as he walks back over, carrying a tray of teas and chocolate bars. George has been keeping the small talk going, asking Tristan about his injuries, which is always the last thing he wants to talk about, while Elvis sits quietly until he spots the tray.

  ‘Oh, KitKat’s are my favourite.’

  ‘Mine too,’ Tristan says, and holds out his hands to catch one.

  They all crowd around the bed drinking their teas and listening to the man in the next bed over snore. Elvis giggles.

  ‘What you doing?’ Tristan asks Elvis. ‘You can’t eat a KitKat like that. Look.’ He demonstrates biting the edges off the ends of each stick of chocolate and sipping his tea through it. Elvis copies and George laughs, happy they’ve bonded, like this is enough.

  It fills the time.
r />   ‘Why didn’t you leave me?’ Tristan asks.

  Elvis blushes, the butterflied scar on his forehead turning pink.

  ‘Seriously, I need to know to why. Because I was such a dick to you.’

  George bristles at the language. ‘Tristan, Elvis sometimes finds it difficult to explain his actions.’

  ‘No, he must know why. He had a reason. Why didn’t you leave me?’

  Elvis says, ‘Because you cannot leave people behind.’

  Tristan fingers the leaves of the Solanum lycopersicum and nods. ‘I don’t know how I can ever repay you, but I will.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Chapter Thirty-Two ,Elvis

  Tristan Roberts was fifteen when the bad plane crash happened but now he is sixteen, as today is his birthday. Elvis has brought him a videotape of Dr No as a present, because even though Tristan Roberts says he likes Bond films he has not seen Dr No, which Elvis thinks is very strange as it is the best Bond film.

  Elvis likes the Queen Elizabeth Hospital a lot more today than when he came before to have his forehead stitched up, and much more than the time when his arm was broken by the car and he bit the nurse. George, his care worker, is here too. He came in his car, which smells like Aztec the Labrador dog, but Elvis came all by himself on the 138 bus. The 138 bus stops right outside the Waterside Centre, where Elvis now lives again, but in a different room from where he lived before. But it is kind of the same as it has a small bathroom attached to the bedroom, paintings of lily ponds in the hallways and Tuesday night bingo with Bill.

  Tristan Roberts has a little beige remote control in his hand. When he presses it his bed sits up and then lies down again, which makes Elvis laugh.

  A nurse comes over with a trolley of drinks. She is singing a Celine Dion song, which Elvis has heard on the radio and would like to join in with but cannot because he does not know all of the words.

  ‘Hey, Sweet Sixteen,’ the nurse says to Tristan Roberts as she pours him a cup of juice. But she does not say ‘hey’ to Elvis or George. She does not even offer them anything from her trolley of juice, which is a little bit rude.

  Elvis enjoys visiting Tristan Roberts. He does not even mind when he has to wait outside the ward for visiting hours to begin. Elvis loves that the ward is called Xion, which sounds like the kind of planet a superhero would be born on. He also loves the green plastic chairs that make a clicking noise when you rock on them. But he especially loves the friendly doctors, who ask him how he is and remark on the scar across on his forehead by saying things like, ‘Wow, quite a gash you got there’.

  When Elvis visits Tristan Roberts, sometimes he sits up and together they look around the ward at other people. But most of the time Tristan Roberts sleeps, which Elvis does not mind. Yesterday was the first time he had seen Tristan Roberts’ head without any bandages and Elvis was upset that the little zigzags he used to have shaved in his hair had all grown out and instead there was fluffy, furry hair, which Elvis really wanted to feel but knew it was rude to feel black people’s hair. He had done it once before as he queued up in Tesco. He stroked a black lady’s hair because it looked so nice and soft, and he did not think she would notice if he did it inconspicuously, but she did notice and shouted at him, ‘Do I look like an animal for you to stroke?’

  Malachi Roberts is here too but is very busy chatting to a lady doctor, who has a very strange name and does not wear a white coat. Malachi Roberts is here every day. He always buys Elvis a cup of tea and a KitKat from the café, and Elvis practises the special tea-drinking trick Tristan Roberts taught him. But today there are no KitKats, today there are special Chelsea buns to celebrate Tristan Roberts’ birthday.

  Malachi Roberts comes over and gives out the buns, and everyone sits down and says ‘Happy Birthday’ and eats.

  Elvis feels embarrassed that he eats his Chelsea bun the quickest and hopes the brothers will not think he is greedy and understand that he only eats nice things fast in case George tries to take them off him. Elvis is meant to be on a diet because his tummy is getting so huge. George says that Elvis is getting a big tummy because all the cooks feel sorry for him and keep giving him extra food and that when this happens he does not always need to take it. But Elvis feels sorry for himself sometimes so when the cooks offer him extra chips or a second ladle of custard with his Jamaican ginger cake, he thinks of the deep gash on his forehead and ugly Edward Scissorhand stitches, and of the sad message he had to write in the card with the cross for Lina’s family, and he takes the food.

  ‘You all right, Elvis?’ Tristan Roberts asks.

  Elvis knows he must have gone ‘somewhere else’. This is what George calls it when Elvis stops paying attention to what is happening around him because he is too busy thinking about Nightingale Point and being sad.

  He nods and tries to listen to the conversation that is about ‘being sixteen’. Elvis would like to join in this conversation but he cannot because Tristan Roberts is getting out of bed and sliding into his wheelchair.

  ‘Elvis, let’s go. You push,’ he says and begins to wheel himself away.

  His brother stands up too. ‘Tris, where you going?’

  Elvis thinks Malachi does not like it when they are separated. Elvis understands this because if he had a brother he would never want to be separated from him either.

  ‘Not as far as I’d like to. Come on.’

  Elvis pushes the handles of the wheelchair and they leave the ward. ‘Where are we going?’ he asks Tristan Roberts.

  ‘Anywhere you like.’

  This makes Elvis happy as it is not often people allow him to choose where is best to go. They go around the main corridors, past the flower shop and out into the patient gardens, where Elvis points out some of his favourite plants.

  ‘So, Elvis, do you have a garden at the … er … the place you live?’

  ‘At the Waterside Centre, yes, we share one. I am going to grow some more Solanum lycopersicum, which is—’

  ‘The posh name for tomatoes. See, I’m learning.’ He smiles. ‘But what’s it like there? Do you enjoy it? Does it feel like home?’

  Elvis has to think about this. ‘Yes. It is my home. But it is not as perfect as Nightingale Point, which had all my perfect things, like my TV and my James Bond books and my Merlin Premier League sticker album and my jar of shells from Margate and my …’ Elvis stops talking as it is upsetting him to think about all these lovely things he no longer has.

  ‘It’s okay, man. I understand. Here.’ Tristan Roberts pulls a packet of tissues from his pocket. ‘Can’t believe I’ve become the kind of person that carries tissues around with me. But it’s tough, isn’t it? There’s always so much to deal with. It never ends. Getting out of the building should have been the hardest thing we had to do.’ He shakes his head. ‘But sometimes it feels like that was only the start.’

  Elvis’s nose runs and the tissue gets soggy so he takes another one.

  ‘I know it’s sad you lost your stuff, but it’s just stuff. You’re still here and that’s the important thing. And anyway, when this is over and I’m a world-famous, half-blind rapper, I’ll buy it all back for you.’

  ‘You cannot buy shells. You have to collect them yourself.’

  ‘Well, then, I guess we’re going to Margate.’ Elvis smiles. It will be fun to go to Margate with Tristan Roberts one day.

  ‘Let’s head back inside before Mal gets his knickers in a twist.’

  Back on the ward there is a very boring and serious conversation happening about where the Roberts are going to live.

  ‘Has the council rehoused you?’ George asks.

  ‘Not yet, but we’re seeing some places soon,’ Malachi Roberts answers. ‘But for now we’re going to stay with a friend.’

  ‘Friend of a friend,’ Tristan Roberts says as he gets back onto the bed.

  ‘Good to hear the council are getting on with it,’ George says. ‘They’re being slated in the papers over their handling of this. There are still hundre
ds of people scattered in hostels all over the city, far from their schools, families, jobs. Anyway, glad to hear you’re on the mend Tristan, we better leave you to rest. Come on, Elvis, I’ll give you a lift back.’

  Elvis kneels down by the bed. ‘I have to go now.’

  Tristan Roberts winks his one good eye, which makes Elvis smile.

  Elvis follows George into the dog-smelling car and sits quietly the whole way to his new home, which is really his old home at the Waterside Centre. Elvis is always happy when he returns to his new room there as it is so full of perfect things. Like his blue and white stripy bed sheets and his bookshelf of James Bond books and the sparkly silver frame with a photo of himself smiling in the newspaper after he saved Tristan Roberts from the bad explosion at Nightingale Point. But he does miss Nightingale Point. Just a little bit.

  ‘Elvis?’ George stands in the hallway. He does not come into Elvis’s perfect room. ‘There’s a painting class in the activities room. Are you going?’

  Elvis enjoys painting, especially when the class is run by Serena. Serena is from Trinidad and has a speaking voice that sounds like singing. It makes Elvis smile and want to sway at the same time. Usually on Tuesdays, after finishing his cottage pie, Elvis rushes straight away to painting class to get a seat right by Serena’s side, but today he does not really feel like it. Today he does not really feel like anything. He often feels like this after he visits Tristan Roberts.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Okay. Maybe next time then,’ George says.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Elvis says. ‘I’m going for a little rest now.’ He kicks off his shoes and lies on the bed with its lovely nautical stripes. He waits but does not hear George move and opens one eyelid to peek at him. George shakes his head and finally closes the bedroom door. Elvis bounces up. He lied, he does not really want to have a little rest. He gets out his new notepad and pencil case from under the bed and draws a huge lightning bolt across the first clean page with a red felt-tip pen. His scar. He likes drawing things from the plane crash and bad explosion that happened after. It helps him remember because sometimes he forgets bits and worries someone has put a magic spell on him and soon he will forget everything. At least if he draws it, he can remember. In his notepad he also has a drawing of the coffee-smelling doctor who stitched up his head. Underneath the drawing he has written Dr Ross for fun, even though his name was not really Dr Ross.