Taking Flight

by Sheena Wilkinson

  Rory looked at me. ‘Come on, Vicky.’

  I took a deep breath, wrapped the pashmina round my head and followed him out into the street, hovering behind him as he squatted down beside Declan.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ It was the first time I’d heard Rory swear.

  Declan lifted his head and I gasped. Even in the dark you could see the blood running down his cheek from his hairline.

  ‘Shit,’ I breathed. ‘What happened to you?’ He tried to answer but his teeth were chattering too much. ‘Here.’ I pulled off Fiona’s coat and wrapped it round his shoulders. I kept my arm round him and his whole body shook against me.

  Rory touched Declan’s arm. ‘OK, Declan, mate, we’re going to take you to hospital. Can you move?’

  ‘Thought you weren’t meant to move people?’ I said. This was the one bit of first aid I knew.

  ‘Depends,’ said Rory. ‘Where does it hurt?’ God, he sounded like a doctor already.

  ‘Dunno.’ Declan dashed some blood away from his eye and I tried not to notice how it got on Fiona’s coat when he pulled it round him again with an awkward, one-handed movement.

  ‘He’s bleeding loads,’ I whispered.

  ‘Scalp wounds do bleed a lot,’ said Rory. ‘But it’s probably not too bad. Can you remember what happened, Declan?’

  ‘Fell down some steps.’

  ‘Were you knocked out?’

  ‘I think so, yeah, but I’m OK. I walked round here. Don’t need to go to hospital.’ He tried to stand up, but his legs buckled and I had to grab him.

  ‘You need to be checked over,’ said Rory. He sounded so calm and grown-up, like he did this sort of thing all the time. ‘Vicky, give him a hand to the car.’

  Somehow we manhandled him into the front of the car and I climbed in behind him.

  And knew, without a doubt, that this was scenario three.

  * * *

  The average waiting time tonight is two and a half hours. I’d been reading the sign on the counter of the Accident and Emergency reception obsessively, but it never changed. Maybe they just kept it like that all the time.

  ‘You look like Lady Macbeth.’ Rory sat down and handed me a plastic cup of something that was meant to be coffee. I glanced down at my dress. Dark smears of blood stood out against the turquoise silk.

  ‘Oh, Rory, your formal. I’m so sorry. I feel awful.’

  Rory shrugged. ‘It’s not your fault.’ He blew on his own drink and smiled.

  ‘He’s my cousin.’ I looked round the dismal room, trying, as I had been ever since I got in, not to look at the woman opposite who was clutching a kidney bowl and retching. Trying to filter out the wailing of a hundred children.

  ‘I suppose someone would have stopped and helped him,’ Rory said. ‘But I’d rather it was us.’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ I said. ‘Oh well. At least we didn’t have to wait two and a half hours.’

  ‘Ha! Don’t be fooled. This is only where the triage nurse sees him. Then they work out how long he should wait.’

  ‘No way! You mean we could be here for ages?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But he’s really hurt! Surely they’ll take him quickly?’

  Rory shook his head. ‘Compared to a lot of people he’s fine, Vic. He’s conscious, he’s walking and talking.’

  ‘Just about!’ A wee boy with a black eye ran past my legs and nearly made me spill my coffee. I slanted my eyes at him in the nastiest face I could. ‘Well, he’d better get seen to before that wee brat! There’s nothing much wrong with him.’ I felt an overwhelming urge to black his other eye.

  ‘Honestly. I’ve come in with my mates with far worse from rugby, and they’ve had to wait hours.’

  The woman with the kidney dish was called, thank God. I checked the clock on the wall. Amazingly, since it felt like we’d been here for ever, it was only five past eight. At the hotel, Rory’s friends would probably just have finished their starters. I looked at him. His trousers were a bit damp and he’d undone his bow-tie, but basically he looked OK. Unlike me, he wasn’t covered in blood.

  I took a deep breath. Part of this whole nightmare had been OK because of being with Rory. But …

  ‘Look, you could still go. You won’t have missed that much if you leave now. No, listen,’ I said as he started to protest, ‘I’ll be fine here. I’ll give Mum a ring after they sort Declan out. You said it would be hours yet, so she can enjoy her meal and everything. Then we can take him to our house. Maybe he’ll tell her the whole story.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  ‘But I’d be fine. And you’re head boy. It’s your –’

  ‘Vicky.’ He covered my hand with his and squeezed it. ‘We’re in this together. You’re not getting rid of me.’

  I bit my lip, tasting lip gloss, to stop the smile I felt wasn’t appropriate. ‘OK,’ I said simply. I left my hand in his.

  Just then Declan appeared from the nurse’s room. He was holding a piece of white stuff to his forehead. He’d been cleaned up a bit but he still looked terrible.

  I shifted my skirt to let him sit down. ‘Well?’

  ‘Have to get stitches in my head – no, staples, she said. And an X-ray.’

  ‘Ouch!’ I imagined a stapler stabbing through my skull.

  ‘I’ve had staples,’ Rory said, ‘when I fell off my bike. It’s not as bad as it sounds.’

  Declan held out a piece of paper, where the nurse had ticked a box saying his injuries qualified him as ‘medium priority’.

  ‘D’you want to phone your mum?’ Rory asked.

  ‘Nah, she hasn’t got a mobile, and –’ He seemed to run out of words and I tried to imagine not wanting to tell my mum immediately if anything happened to me.

  Declan seemed to notice our clothes for the first time. Shiny tracksuits and football tops were clearly the dress code in A&E on a Friday night so I suppose our formal wear – even if mine was a bit bloody – made us stand out. ‘Were you going somewhere?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘This is how we always dress on Friday nights.’

  ‘But you … oh God, I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have … I didn’t know…’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Some things are more important.’

  ‘I thought it’d be Colette.’ He sounded panicky, desperate.

  ‘She’s out for her birthday,’ I said. ‘Look, it’s fine. Honestly. Don’t worry.’ I put my hand over his. It felt cold and dry, and there were grazes all over his knuckles. Oh my God, I was practically holding his hand. ‘We’ll phone my mum in a bit,’ I said.

  Half eight. Twenty to nine. Nine o’clock. Half nine.

  * * *

  ‘Vicky! You should have phoned me immediately!’

  I returned Mum’s hug and exchanged a sheepish smile with Brian who was standing just behind her, fiddling with his car keys. ‘I didn’t want to spoil your birthday.’ Now that she was here I felt tearful.

  ‘Oh, your lovely dress!’

  I looked down at it. ‘I know.’

  ‘Where’s Declan?’ She gestured at his fleece on the chair beside me.

  ‘Getting X-rayed. Rory’s with him. He got two staples in his head.’

  ‘Ouch,’ said Mum and Brian together. I wondered how much Brian knew.

  ‘Where’s his mum?’

  ‘AWOL. He won’t say much.’

  ‘Vicky.’ Mum sounded serious. ‘I know how you feel about him. But if his mum’s – well, drinking somewhere –’

  ‘Even if she’s not,’ I put in quickly, ‘he’ll have to come home with us. He needs looking after.’

  Before she could reply, Rory and Declan came slowly along the corridor. Declan hesitated when he saw Mum but she pulled away from us and hugged him. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I’m not hurting you, am I?’

  He didn’t answer but he hugged her back, and both of them had tears in their eyes. The familiar jealousy started to rear up but I pressed it down. Remembered where Declan’s own mum was
– probably; he didn’t even know. Suddenly I knew what Mum had been getting at all those weeks she tried to make me realise how lucky I was. It was nothing much to do with living in a nice house and having a horse and computer and an iPhone and all that.

  All the same, I had to look away. At Rory.

  ‘Nothing broken,’ he said. ‘He’s cracked two ribs. His shoulder’s the worst – he says he grabbed at the banister to break his fall and he must have given it a real wrench. The rest’s only bruising.’

  He nodded at Brian and they shook hands, very man to man.

  I grabbed Declan’s fleece and Fiona’s coat. ‘Can we go home now?’

  Rory and I went out alone to his car. Walking out of the hospital, breathing the cold, damp midnight air, I shrugged off the horrible stuffy air of the hospital.

  Rory put his arms around me and I leaned into him, feeling that we’d been through something big together. Bigger than a formal – which was only a dinner and a disco in a posh dress, really. Even though we weren’t kissing, only hugging, I felt closer to him than ever before.

  ‘Ouch!’ he said and pulled away suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something sharp just stabbed me!’

  I was still clutching Declan’s fleece. The something sharp was an envelope poking out of the pocket. I pulled it out. It was grubby and smeared with blood and pebble-dashed with gravel.

  It was addressed to me.

  Chapter 39

  DECLAN

  2.35. 2.37. 2.37 still.

  I try not to look but the clock’s right in front of me and I can’t move my head cause it’s full of concrete. When I close my eyes the concrete turns to cotton wool and then the film starts up again. The Flight film’s all mixed up with Barry and the steps and waiting by the waste ground and Mum. Sometimes I forget I’m here in Colette’s house and I’m still at the bottom of the steps, only Flight is there too, bleeding everywhere and I hear footsteps and I think it’s Mum but oh, God, it’s Barry –

  ‘Hey.’ Something touches my arm and I flinch. ‘It’s OK; you’re dreaming.’ Colette.

  I can’t be dreaming, I’m not asleep, but it’s too hard to try to tell her. I open my eyes. 3.19. Colette’s sitting beside me, still holding my arm. My breath pushes out in painful gasps. The sheets are twisted sweatily round my legs and my T-shirt’s stuck to me.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whisper.

  ‘You didn’t wake me. I’m meant to be waking you, every hour, just to check you haven’t gone unconscious.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Good.’ She pushes the damp hair back from my forehead, very gently, avoiding the place where the staples are. ‘You feel hot.’

  I try to shift but darts of pain from my shoulder stab through me.

  ‘You can take more painkillers soon,’ says Colette. ‘Can I get you anything else?’ While she speaks she straightens out the sheets. I can feel her getting ready to go, thinking about her own, nice, quiet room. The only thing I want, apart from the pain to go away, is not to be on my own.

  ‘No,’ I say. You don’t like asking for help, do you? ‘Uhh – would you stay with me?’

  She sits down beside me. ‘Of course I will. It’ll seem better in the morning.’

  I close my eyes but I’m wide awake.

  ‘Declan, love,’ she whispers. ‘Where’s your mum?’

  ‘Barry’s.’

  ‘Drinking?’

  I can’t nod, it hurts my head too much, but for some reason I don’t want to say yes.

  But she knows. ‘Oh, Declan.’ She sounds sad. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you phone?’

  ‘You know why.’ I bite my lip.

  ‘Because of Flight?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I’m not hot now. I’m shivering.

  ‘That wouldn’t have made any difference.’

  ‘You couldn’t have done anything.’

  ‘I could have … oh, I don’t know. How long has she been at Barry’s? I thought they split up ages ago?’

  I wish. ‘Dunno.’ When I try to think my head throbs. ‘Wednesday.’

  ‘Wednesday!’

  ‘It’s OK. I don’t mind. It was just –’ I remember the cold seeping through the house like despair. ‘The electric ran out and there was no food. That’s why I went round there.’

  Colette sighs. ‘I’ve always known she drank. But not like that.’

  What does she mean always? Mum only started drinking – really drinking – when I got into trouble. If my head wasn’t so sore I’d ask her but the effort of thinking up the words is too much.

  When Colette speaks again it’s her remembering voice. ‘I suppose she always drank too much, even when we were kids. She and your dad used to get carry-outs and drink in the park. Everyone did. Well, except me. I was the goody-goody.’

  ‘She drank then?’

  ‘Oh yes. They always said there was nothing else to do. I used to worry because your mum’s mum died young – when we were eighteen. And she was an alcoholic. But Theresa always told me to lighten up, that I was just boring. She calmed down when she got married. Then when Gerard died I suppose it was one of the ways she coped.’

  My head tries to adjust to this new idea of Mum drinking before I was born. Drinking when I was a kid. When she was a kid. A bit of a laugh down the park. I remember my birthday. The smash of the empty bottle. Puking in an alley. That hadn’t been a laugh.

  ‘But it got worse when Gran died.’

  ‘Maybe. And you probably started to notice more then, because your gran wasn’t around any more.’

  I shiver.

  ‘Declan, you do know Gran had a bad heart, don’t you? She didn’t … it wasn’t anything to do with you, her dying. I mean, just in case you ever worried about that.’

  The pain in my arm’s clutching me tight. I don’t want to cry but the pressure’s building up behind my eyes.

  ‘OK,’ Colette says. ‘More painkillers, I think.’ She pats my good arm. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  She comes back with two cups of tea, the tablets and a hot water bottle, and helps me to sit up. My whole body feels like someone jumped on it wearing hobnailed boots. I wonder where I’d be now if I’d fallen down the whole flight of steps. Or if I hadn’t phoned Colette’s number. Or if Vicky had told me to piss off.

  * * *

  I stretch out my foot and wiggle the tap for more hot water. It gushes out in a lovely swirl. My bruises look darker under the water and the cuts stung when I first got in but now they’ve stopped. Colette put some sort of smelly stuff in the water – lavender or something. ‘It’ll help your aches and pains.’

  I close my eyes and think about washing myself but if I just lie here the dirt’ll melt away in the hot water.

  ‘Declan!’ I must have been half-asleep because I jolt and splash at Colette’s voice. ‘I’ve left you some clothes on your bed.’

  I remember what my own clothes were like last night – bloody and torn. I can’t put them on again. Does that mean I’ll have to wear girls’ clothes? Vicky’s knickers? But the trackie bottoms and sweatshirt neatly folded on the bed look like boys’ all right and the boxers definitely are.

  ‘Rory left them in for you,’ Colette explained.

  My head’s OK but the rest of me is one huge ache. I lie on the sofa with a duvet, sometimes watching TV, mostly half-dozy. Colette footers about, in and out of the room, but dead quietly. It feels unreal. I just lie there in Rory’s too-big old clothes and concentrate on not thinking.

  I jerk out of sleep to find Vicky sitting beside me reading a horsey magazine. When she sees I’m awake she chews her lips and says, ‘Um, hello.’

  ‘I thought you’d be at your Dad’s,’ I say. ‘Is it not Saturday?’

  ‘I’m going in a while,’ she says. ‘I wanted to see you first. I got your letter.’

  For a few seconds I don’t know what she means. Then I remember. ‘Oh.’

  There’s an embarrassed silence; I feel crap and I suppose she do
es too.

  ‘I wanted to say sorry,’ I say at last. ‘Like, right from the start. I just didn’t know how to.’ She doesn’t reply; she’s not going to make it easy. I swallow. ‘I know sorry’s not enough, and I know a letter’s a bit … but anyway, I … you know…’

  She looks at her magazine. ‘I know it was partly my fault. But I honestly didn’t tell Cam. I wouldn’t have done that. I was just … I was jealous of you. The way you were with Flight. It seems so stupid now. And last night …’ She looks like she’s going to cry.

  I don’t know what to say. I never thought for a second that she didn’t tell Cam. My head’s throbbing again. I lean back against the arm of the sofa and close my eyes.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I try to keep my eyes open.

  ‘Will I get you a cup of tea?’

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  I kind of know she doesn’t want to say any more for now and that suits me. I drink the tea and she goes to her dad’s and I ride out the afternoon on a fuzz of painkillers. I’m never really asleep but I’m not awake either.

  But when the doorbell goes it makes me jump. Rory? But the voice that’s following Colette’s down the hall, getting louder, isn’t Rory’s. It’s Mum’s.

  She pushes in, in front of Colette. ‘Oh, my baby!’ Her face is blotchy and puffy. She looks wrong in this room. ‘Oh, Christ, look at the state of you.’

  I struggle to sit up. ‘I’m OK.’

  Colette’s eyes suddenly blaze. ‘No, he is not OK,’ she says. She turns to me. ‘Don’t you dare pretend everything’s OK!’

  Mum’s eyes, huge in her thin face, dart from me to Colette.

  ‘You weren’t so worried about him when you let that … that animal throw him down the stairs and leave him. God, Theresa, you’re lucky he wasn’t killed!’

  ‘I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me!’ she sobs.

  ‘Someone has to tell you! You do know you left him on his own with no electric, no heating, no food – God, Theresa, I know you have a problem but that’s just –’

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me how –’

  I leap up. ‘STOP IT, BOTH OF YOU!’

  There’s a stunned silence. The only thing I can hear is my own harsh breathing and somewhere outside a car starting. The shouting and jumping make my head swim and I slump back down on to the sofa. Mum plonks herself down beside me. She reeks of smoke and drink and too much perfume and under that, stale sweat. She’s my mother and the smell of her makes me heave. She tries to put her arm round me, wrecking my shoulder, and I flinch away with a yell.