by Rob Ewing
Elizabeth: ‘Could you please help? Stop it, will you, and pass that over.’
I pass her a boring book. She reads the name of each tablet aloud, then drops all the ones she doesn’t want into a plastic bag she has opened out on the floor.
Me: ‘I found another packet, look!’
Elizabeth: ‘What does it say?’
Me: ‘The name on this one says … Warfarin.’
She looks it up in her book.
‘No, it’s a poison. Put it away out of reach.’
She goes back to checking her tablets. I get bored. The plastic bag at her feet fills up too slow, so I go back to playing cars, and I’m playing so seriously that I don’t notice that she’s stopped.
When I look up proper, Elizabeth is just staring at a book. It was open on the counter, yet I didn’t notice it because it seemed like from a bank or something.
The book is a list of names, medicines, all in a row – beside her mum and dad’s signatures.
‘They were writing just here,’ she says.
I try to think of what to come back with. It’s not easy. It needs to be more adult than Elizabeth even.
‘Are you able to smell your mum’s perfume on it?’
She puts her nose down on the page.
‘I can’t.’
‘Did they know how to use everything in here? All the complicated stuff, all the machines, the tablets?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s amazing. They must’ve known everything. I wouldn’t’ve known how to even start.’ I try to catch her eye. ‘Do you know how to use everything?’
‘Me?’ She stops looking, now looks back. ‘Me? How can you—’ She goes back to her work.
After a long time of searching she has three packets that sound about right.
Only one of them turns out to be an antibiotic.
Someone has cut some of the tablets out, so the packet is shaped like an L.
Me: ‘Will it make him sick if it’s the wrong kind?’
Elizabeth: ‘I really, really hope not.’
‘Are you worried about Duncan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he going to die?’
‘No … Come off it, don’t be saying things like that. I thought we all agreed not to talk about getting sick? Yes, you remember. So let’s not mention it again.’
She starts looking in the bottom cupboards for creams. Before we leave I click some switches on and off. I try the taps in the sink just to make sure they’re dry.
‘Elizabeth?’
‘What?’
‘Do you miss your mum and dad?’
‘About as much as it is possible to miss anything. About as much as you miss yours.’
I have to think about this.
‘OK then, but I never knew my dad. So it’s hard to miss him to even start with.’ I wait for Elizabeth to smile or show appreciation, but she’s busy. ‘Truly though, I do miss my mum. But I’m a lucky one. It’ll not be long before I see her again. She’s coming back. I know it.’
She stops searching. Instead she looks at me. She sits on a footstool and gives me an over-long stare.
‘You believe that? That’s really what you think?’
‘Aye, I do.’
She goes to say something but I go first: ‘She just left me for a while, that’s all. So I just have to keep waiting. Keep looking until I’ve discovered her. It’s called Pester Power. Which means not taking no for an answer.’
She holds up a packet.
‘This is it.’
‘It’s the right antibiotic? Will it work?’
‘I’m really hoping it will.’
‘Is it the yellow stuff that tastes of bananas?’
‘No, it’s a pill. Called Trimethoprim. In the book it doesn’t say it’s for skin. But I can’t find anything else.’
She sounds headed towards sad Elizabeth, so I take her hand and blow a fart onto the back of it.
‘It shall work. You don’t have to be grown-up to be a doctor. Remember our law? “Kids rule; adults drool.” We can do everything they can. Or could. That’s called teamwork.’
Elizabeth does her half-and-half smile.
When we get home Duncan is lying on a chair, still wearing his coat. He says he feels happiest when he’s left alone. But Elizabeth won’t take this for an answer; instead she helps him, moves him into her bed.
Once he’s tucked in she tries to give him the antibiotic: but Duncan won’t swallow it. She crunches it up, but the taste is bad and he spits the crumbs back at her. She mixes another tablet with water, and tries to gets him to drink that, but he refuses. To distract him I do my party-piece – rolling my eyes around until they go white – and Alex does his High Five – In the Sky – In space – In your face – routine, but Duncan just looks bored and Elizabeth says we should stop it.
In the middle of this Calum Ian comes in.
I know right away he’s been back at his house, because his face looks very stiff. I don’t want to look at him, but I can’t stop myself. He doesn’t look back at me. Elizabeth asks him over and over what’s wrong, but he won’t tell.
Alex: ‘He says the tablet tastes nasty. Well, I didn’t like my injections at first, but I got used to them.’
Me: ‘I’m going to pray for Duncan. God can decide anything he wants so long as Duncan gets better.’
Elizabeth: ‘We’ll try and give him some more later.’
Calum Ian doesn’t say a thing.
Later on I get Duncan on his own. Elizabeth has given him some soup, and he seems happier. I try to get him interested in reading, but he can’t be encouraged.
Me: ‘Will you not take your tablets?’
He doesn’t answer.
Me: ‘What are you doing?’
After a long time he says, ‘Only thinking.’
‘Thinking is never an only … what did you think?’
‘I’m wondering why I can’t remember.’
I lie beside him, sharing his pillow. His breath smells weird, like bad food, but I put up with it for being close.
Me: ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten … listen, I can’t remember plenty of stuff either. Like how adults sound … DVDs don’t count, the words in them can’t be a surprise.’
Duncan: ‘I forget … my birthday, last. What was it? It must’ve been a party, but … can’t think of it. Was it at the pool, or was it at home? Also, I can’t remember much before I was three. Only that’s not new, that’s the same for everyone, Elizabeth told me …’
Me: ‘Why do you need to remember? You’re doing fine as you are now.’
Duncan turns his red face away.
‘You remember what your mum looks like?’ he asks.
‘Easy.’
‘Go on.’
‘She … has got brown hair. A bit like mine. She’s not skinny, not fat. She likes to sing. She has a neat voice. She’s usually calm. She can be the boss, but also doesn’t mind having other people be boss as well.’
Duncan listens, then says: ‘I can’t remember what my mum looks like.’
And this makes me feel terrible, like the worst devil: because I deleted the last pictures he had.
‘She came to the school hall, remember?’ I say, feeling desperate now. ‘She helped with the Christmas decorations … She had the lights wrapped and wrapped around her arms … she was very jolly …’
Duncan looks at me, blinks, looks away.
‘The earlier bits,’ he says. ‘They got jumbled. Like I’m not sure what truly happened. I try to remember how everyone went away, but I can’t.’
Now I decide to tell Duncan what I did.
In a whisper I apologise for everything. But for some strange reason he doesn’t seem to care. His eyes just look far away, and his words are slow.
‘Equals,’ he says in the end. ‘This makes us equals.’
When it’s dark I see Elizabeth getting up and down. I hear Duncan saying No lots of times. Then Elizabeth comes past, holding a mirror. She puts it in a dr
awer out of sight.
‘Is he getting better?’
I go to her bed to bury in beside her. She looks weary about it, but too weary to argue against.
‘Not yet.’
‘Why did you hide the mirror?’
‘Because Duncan’s scared of them.’
‘Why?’
‘They used them on us – remember? To check if we were breathing. He’s worried we’ll do the same.’
Elizabeth waits for me to remember; and when I do she presses my arm to say she wanted not to tell.
She’s holding two of her toys. I don’t always like to see her do this – because I don’t want to think that Elizabeth is just a kid like me.
When I mentioned this before she got angry and said: ‘Some days I feel like being a kid too.’
I lie with my body in the warm spot she made. Elizabeth strokes my hair, not far from how Mum used to do it.
‘You had another bad dream last night,’ she says.
‘Did I?’
‘Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’
‘S’OK. My dreams are often bad. See, that’s why I need the toys. My worst dream – this is going to sound mad – is the one where I dream last year didn’t happen.’
‘That’s a great dream.’
‘Not when you wake up again it isn’t.’ She continues, ‘I used to think it would be great if there were no adults around. But it’s not. It’s just boring.’ She looks at me. ‘I’d dream them back if I could. Only I’m not sure how safe that is: living in a dreamworld.’
We have a long night: waiting to see if Duncan will get better, or worse. Waiting to see if he’s still there.
It’s even after the glow comes in the skylight and the windows that I hear him calling out – for Calum Ian, for his mum and dad – and I can’t get to sleep after this, because I can’t stop thinking about the photos: wishing, like Elizabeth’s adults, that I could dream them back.
Back Bay
Now
Mum – are you still listening?
This is the story of how I got to be here. But it isn’t an easy story for me, because it hasn’t ended yet.
It’s become a war against giving in. Against forgetting.
For knowing how to survive.
As I told you already, I did a bad thing. So now you know what the bad thing was.
So now I need to tell you, please listen, that I was only trying to make amends. But is that the right word – are there bad amends as well as good amends?
Revenge is the wrong word.
Like Duncan said: I was trying to make us equals.
This is what happens when there isn’t anyone else to talk to. You begin to forget things. Even though I’m meant to be young with a hungry brain, I always forget. So I added another rule to my longer and longer list:
23. Practise your words and memories.
And I was glad, because it gave me something to do, something new to think about besides the bad I’d done.
So I practised, and when it didn’t work at first I got scared I might have to learn every single word over.
But words are like tides: they come back. All you have to do is wait for them to roll in again.
There are two times I remember where the new world was beginning but I didn’t know it yet.
The first was in my class at school. Mrs Leonard was acting busily – we had a visitor coming, and she was trying to put up the classroom Christmas decorations before he arrived.
‘Five minutes ago I strung up that tinsel,’ she’s saying. ‘Now it’s come undone. Is it ever possible to buy anything that functions on this island?’
After she says this Mrs Leonard thins her mouth, which means she’s either thinking, or concerned. If she’s concerned it’s best to let her get on with it; if she’s thinking then her next thought will come along in a minute, so say nothing.
‘Ah children, our visitor has come.’
This morning he looks ordinary: no tie, jeans like any dad. Mrs Leonard shakes his hand and goes pure beetroot in the face like she did when the priest chose her for his dance at the end of the produce festival.
‘Children,’ she puts her hands together in a church, ‘I’d like you to give a warm welcome to Dr Schofield, who has come along today to give us a talk on the very important work he does for our community.’
Dr Schofield waves like a film star – which he isn’t – then goes to stand at the whiteboard.
Duncan MacNeil puts up his hand: but he’s too early, Mrs Leonard makes her watch it buster face at him.
Dr Schofield lifts the silver box he brought – it’s suitcase-sized – onto the desk in front. Then he points to the middle of himself and says, ‘Eeshh – Meeeshh Brian. Tha MI ag ION-sach Gaelic.’
Everyone looks at Mrs Leonard to see if she understood a word of it. My bet is she’s still waiting for the sound of his words to clump together like us – then she says,
‘The doctor is telling you his first name: Brian. And he says he’s learning Gaelic.’ To Dr Schofield she says, ‘I thought that was impeccably well put. Is fheàrr Gàidhlig bhriste na Gàidhlig sa chiste – it is better to have the Gaelic broken than dead, yes?’
I don’t agree. I thought he was very bad.
Dr Schofield waits for us to settle down then says, ‘You’ll know me from the surgery, or from the cottage hospital. Some of you I have seen: yes, some of you in this room. Coughs, colds, cuts needing glued or stitched. Broken arms, pulled elbows. Sore ears. Sore throats.’
We look around for who it might be.
‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell,’ he says. ‘And I would never tell. That’s my duty of confidentiality. I would never talk or tell anyone else about your medical problems. Unless you asked me to do so.’
All quiet.
Margaret-Anne: ‘What about our mums?’
‘So – well yes, I suppose being the age you are, yes, apart from your mums.’
Kieran: ‘What about the priest?’
‘Not the priest.’
‘I thought Father MacGill knew everything that happened?’
‘He doesn’t know about your sore throats.’
We look at Kieran – duh.
Dr Schofield puts his hands down on the silver box.
‘Now, I wonder if you’re curious about this. No? Does anybody know what I’ve got in here?’
Nobody does.
He gets us to gather in a half-circle up at the front. Using a quiet part-evil voice he says, ‘In this box I have a person. True. I keep them locked up inside until I feel kind enough to let them out. Do you want to see the person?’
His eyes look mad enough for it to be true.
He unclips the lock. There’s an ouhhh as we peer at the dark insides – there’s a face! Blonde hair!
But then he lifts out: a big doll. Man or woman? Plastic yellow hair, shit-brown tracksuit, white cheap trainers.
Straightens the legs. Puts the doll on the floor.
‘Say hello to Annie,’ he says. ‘Now can anyone tell me what we use Annie for?’
Everybody’s hand up – it’s Duncan’s reaches highest.
‘Yes, Duncan?’
‘Dad has to do first aid, for on his boat. He says that fire is the biggest worry at sea. But he said your doll is for practising the kiss of life.’
It’s stupid to be laughing at this, but everybody does.
‘That’s absolutely correct Duncan. And as Rona’s serious face tells us – the kiss of life, or what we now call rescue breathing, has nothing to do with passion – and everything to do with the business of saving a life. Would anybody like a demonstration of how we do that?’
We nod for yes.
‘Part of what we do is train for the worst. Annie’s role is in teaching us how to save lives. She’s probably one of the most important members of our team. Certainly, she has better hair than me – look.’
For showing this he takes the plastic yellow hair off the doll – it comes off in
one blob like scrambled egg – and puts it on his head.
He just looks weird. Nobody laughs. We all turn around to the teacher to see if we should be laughing. She doesn’t know either.
‘Drop the hair joke,’ Dr Schofield says.
In the next bit he tells us about his ABC – Airway, Breathing, Circulation – and Mrs Leonard gives in exchange our ABC, which is the first three trees of the Gaelic alphabet – Ailm for Elm, Beith for Birch, Coll for Hazel. It’s a good share, though we have his learnt before he learns ours.
He’s at the start of showing us the recovery position – which is easy, it’s only lying on your side – when his phone goes.
‘Work mobile,’ he says. ‘Just a moment.’
We have to return to our seats, while he sticks his finger in his ear to listen more easily.
‘Hullo.’
Mrs Leonard makes her be patient face at us.
‘Where?’
It’s funny – a big doll on the floor, him there talking.
‘Sorry?’
I’m tapping Anne-Marie on the arm to tell her about the big stupid doll and him talking. Mrs Leonard’s mouth goes into a thin slit to warn me – Behave.
‘This a hoax, you think?’
He listens, nodding even though the other person can’t see him, then he says to Mrs Leonard – ‘Look, I will maybe just take this call outside if that’s all right.’
Then he leaves us.
We get bored waiting. Mrs Leonard leaves the doll where it is; she even has to step over it on her way around to the whiteboard.
It’s weird – like a dead person in the room, which no one’s even bothering about.
‘OK,’ says Mrs Leonard. ‘Dr Schofield has obviously been detained with something important, so let’s get back to the work we were doing with symmetry and shapes. Who wants to give us all the first example?’
When I excuse myself for the toilet I find he’s still in the corridor – leaning against the wall by the back door.
Adults can lean on walls, it isn’t fair. Like a sneak I stay in the cubbyhole space before the toilet door to listen in – creaking the hinges to make it sound like I went in.
‘Which public places?’
The skylight window above – one shining speck. Planes fly over our island on their way to America, Canada.
