Our Song

by Dani Atkins

  ‘The doctors are back with him again. They asked us to wait in here. They said they’d come to see us when they were done.’

  I heard a slight rustling from behind me and knew, without even looking, that my mother had straightened in her seat.

  We sat in silence. Waiting. The table was littered with drained coffee-stained Styrofoam cups, and rounds of unappetising cellophane-wrapped sandwiches, which no one had the stomach to open, much less eat. I had passed one to Charlotte, when she had returned briefly to the Relatives’ Room. She had looked at it for a long time, as though she had forgotten what food was, or hunger. Then she had smiled distractedly, and slipped the packet into her designer handbag, where I could practically guarantee it was still sitting, uneaten.

  At seventeen minutes and twenty seconds past ten, my world changed.

  The door to the Relatives’ Room opened and the two doctors who I recognised as having been the physicians who had examined Joe earlier, stood at its opening. ‘Mrs Taylor, I wonder if we could have a word with you now?’ I remember waiting for them to enter the room, but instead the younger of the two men looked at me, and everything I didn’t want to see was written in his eyes. ‘Please come with us. It will be easier to talk somewhere a little quieter with more privacy,’ he suggested, as an orderly trundled past, pushing an overloaded laundry cart.

  ‘My in-laws, Joe’s parents, can they come too?’ Whose voice was that, it certainly didn’t sound like mine.

  ‘But of course.’ The doctor smiled kindly at the elderly couple.

  We fell in step behind them, a reluctant triad, shell-shocked and wounded even before the explosion went off.

  ‘What about Joe?’ Kaye cried, clutching at my hand, her fingers bone brittle but surprisingly strong. ‘Joe’s alone. We can’t all go and leave him. Someone should stay with him. What if he wakes up and we’re not there?’

  ‘I’ll sit with Joe until you get back, Kaye,’ my mother said kindly, and although there wasn’t much between them in calendar years, my mother sounded decades younger. But when we followed the doctors as they led us off the ICU ward, I glanced back gratefully at my mum making her way towards Joe’s bedside, and saw she was quietly crying. I knew then what was coming. Knew it, in every fibre of my body.

  I couldn’t tell you what the room they led us to looked like. I have no idea why they deemed this to be a preferable location. Were the more comfortable chairs meant to cushion the blow of what they were about to say? The physicians introduced themselves, but I have no recollection of their names. They offered us glasses of water from a pitcher on a low table, but we all declined. I doubt any of us were capable of holding one without spilling it everywhere. One of the doctors poured water in the three upturned glasses anyway, and the slow splash as they filled was yet another torturous delay, although it could only have taken a matter of seconds.

  The wait was agony, made worse because I already knew what they were about to say. I remember looking up at the ceiling, seeing an invisible guillotine about to fall. I needed them to tell me. To tell me right now. To end the awful not-knowing of it all.

  ‘Mrs Taylor, we are most dreadfully sorry. But we are afraid it is not good news.’

  ‘Nooooo.’ The word was an anguished wail, and for one horrible moment I thought it had come from me, but it hadn’t. The sound was from Joe’s mother who was bent double in her chair, her thin, stick-like arms cradled around her body, as though she could protect it from a blow that no woman her age should have to bear. I was aware of Frank leaving his own chair and going to his wife, burying her face against his body. His gnarled fingers threaded like a skeleton’s hand through her tight grey curls.

  The doctors were kind. It was clear they had done this many times before. They gave us the news in small portions, allowing us time to take in their words. But I felt like a boxer in a ring, defenceless against an opponent who was battering them down with unstoppable blows.

  ‘But he’s still breathing. We were just with him. Our boy’s still breathing. I saw it.’

  The doctor leaned across and laid his hand on Frank’s shoulder. ‘The ventilator is breathing for him. It’s keeping his heart beating, keeping the blood flowing through his body. But when we briefly removed Joe from the machine a short while ago, he was unable to breathe alone.’

  ‘But he just needs time. He needs more time to get better. You hear about these things all the time. They’re on the news. They make the papers. People are in comas for years and years and then, one day they just wake up. And they’re fine . . .’ Frank’s voice faltered and then cracked. ‘They’re absolutely fine.’

  I couldn’t help him, and I knew that Joe’s parents had failed to take in all that the doctors had so carefully told us. They hadn’t heard, because the reality was just too terrible.

  ‘Please, can you explain it to us again? These tests . . . these brain stem tests you’ve done. What if they’re wrong?’

  The two doctors looked at me, shaking their heads sadly. ‘We have both independently examined Joe twice now, and regrettably our findings are conclusive. There is no perceivable brain activity. However, we will certainly examine him again, if that’s what you wish, although I don’t want to give you false hope. Your husband shows no sign of recoverable life.’

  Charlotte

  I hadn’t expected that meeting Ally’s son would affect me quite as badly as it did. I needed every one of the five minutes I remained in the deserted stairwell before returning to David. I had to be sure I could trust myself not to run into his room and blurt out something ridiculous like ‘You won’t believe this, but I’ve just met the child you never knew you had.’ But when I saw how unwell he looked, I knew there was no way I could risk saying anything that could cause him a single moment of stress or anxiety. When he’s better, when he’s stronger, that’s when I’ll tell him, I promised myself, speaking firmly over the voice that quietly asked: What if he doesn’t get better? What if you lose him . . . and he never gets to know that a part of him will always live on?

  I pressed my fingertips against my closed lids, as though to dispel the image of a small boy with my husband’s eyes, which was burned into the back of my retina like a negative.

  ‘Bad day at the office?’ asked David, his hand pulling the oxygen mask from his face as he spoke.

  Very gently I repositioned the mask, my fingers lingering in his thick, dark hair. ‘You could put it like that.’

  ‘You should go home, get some rest,’ David said on a breathy gasp. ‘You look tired.’

  ‘You should stop talking nonsense,’ I countered. ‘I leave when you leave.’

  My heart constricted painfully when his eyes went to mine, the love in them threatening to break me. ‘How did I get so lucky as to find you?’

  I was re-filling David’s water jug in the main ward when I noticed Ally and her in-laws being led from the unit by two doctors. For no reason at all, I felt my heartbeat skip and quicken, and the sharp taste of bile rose in my throat. There was something about the sad procession that was impossible to ignore; it was there in the droop of Ally’s shoulders, and the way she supported the arm of the elderly woman beside her. It seemed almost inconceivable that I should care this much about what was happening to her. But I did.

  The nurses talking at the desk had their backs to me. I wasn’t intending to eavesdrop, and they clearly had no idea I was there, or they never would have spoken so candidly. Their words carried and suddenly the background noise of the ward faded away to nothing.

  ‘He’s got a son, you know. Cute little thing. He doesn’t look any older than eight at the most.’

  They weren’t talking about David, I was almost sure of it, but still my footsteps slowed to a crawl, keeping me within earshot.

  ‘Oh, has he? That’s terrible.’

  What? I wanted to interject. What’s terrible? But I knew I was likely to learn more by remaining silent than by asking questions.

  ‘Have the family been told?’


  ‘They’re doing it now.’

  My fingers tightened around the white plastic handle of the water jug, and the liquid within it slopped dangerously. Small trickles escaped from the spout and ran over my hand, dripping down to the floor, and I never even noticed them.

  ‘What will happen now?’

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘God, that’s so sad. It makes you want to go home and hug your family, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Every time. Every single time.’

  Tears, unexpected and red hot, rained silently from my eyes as the meaning of their words became clear. I let them fall unchecked. They slid from my cheeks and dripped like raindrops on to the spilled water at my feet.

  Ally

  ‘We’ll come and talk to you again. In a little while,’ one of the doctors said. I got shakily to my feet, then had to steady myself against the back of the chair, for the room was now a centrifuge, spinning wildly around me. I saw Joe’s parents flash past, locked together in a grief-struck embrace; I saw the white-coated physicians, their features a blur of sympathy; I saw the door and headed unsteadily towards it. I had to get out of there. I had to leave.

  This was what I’d been fearing; it’s what I’d been dreading every single second since the policemen had first come knocking at our front door. On some level I should have been better prepared than this. Yet still the shock of it, the realisation that my very worst nightmare was about to become my new reality was almost too much to absorb.

  There was a hole opening up inside me, a huge yawning space where Joe belonged, and as much as I tried, as much as I loved him, I wasn’t going to be able to fill it or hold on to him, because I was losing him – had already lost him – if what they said was true.

  ‘Can I see him now?’ I asked, my voice shaking. ‘I really need to see him now. I can still do that, can’t I?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Let me take you back.’

  But I was at the door before he could reach me. I was through it and half stumbling, half running back down the corridor. Frank and Kaye were temporarily forgotten, erased from my thoughts by the burning need to return to Joe. While I still could.

  I collided with a tall figure just inside the entrance to the ward. He was an immobile wall of lean muscle dressed in a dark woollen coat, wheeling an expensive Samsonite suitcase. His arms went around me and I noticed distractedly that his coat was damp. It must be snowing again.

  ‘Ally. Ally, slow down, it’s me.’

  I flung my arms around his neck, his expensive cologne not quite masking the lingering aroma of numerous cups of coffee, nor the musty traces of a man who had travelled halfway across the world to be with me.

  ‘Max, oh Max. You’re here. Thank God you’re here.’

  ‘How’s Joe? How’s he doing?’

  My mouth was against his shoulder, I opened it to speak, but instead of words a sound came from it, the cry of an animal in pain.

  Max gasped, and his arms tightened around me. ‘Am I too late? Have I got here too late?’

  ‘There’s been no change at all since they brought Joe in,’ I replied brokenly. There was a moment of relief on my old friend’s face. A moment when – even then – he still didn’t grasp what I was saying. ‘And there won’t be. That’s what they’ve just told me. So no, you’re not too late. There’s still time to see him . . . and say goodbye.’

  We entered Joe’s room together and my mother leapt from her chair, her arms encircling me. She rocked me against her, and I clung to her in a way I hadn’t done in decades. There was no need to tell her what the doctors had said. She’d known it anyway, even before I did.

  ‘I am so sorry, Ally. I can’t believe this is happening.’

  ‘Could we get another opinion? Is there a specialist somewhere? Anywhere? They don’t have to be in this country. We could fly them in from wherever.’

  There was a sad smile on my mother’s face as she turned to the man she had known since he was a little boy. ‘Hello, Max. It’s so good to see you again. Thank you for coming. Ally needs you.’

  I wanted to pull away from her then, in denial. It wasn’t Max I needed, it was Joe. I needed him, Jake needed him, his parents needed him. But none of that mattered, because we were all going to lose him anyway. Soon, horribly and heart-breakingly soon, the people who loved and needed Joe most were going to have to make the hardest decision of our lives and turn off the machines that were keeping him with us.

  They let us stay with Joe, all five of us, and somehow the suspension of the ‘two-visitors-at-a-time’ rule was the final underscore of proof that time was running out. Joe’s parents sat on one side of his hospital bed, and I sat on the other, my husband’s hand clasped in mine, the way it should have been allowed to do for the next fifty years or so. Max was brilliant, getting us whatever we needed, and showing no sign of jet lag or exhaustion. And when he wasn’t running errands, he would simply stand behind my chair like a sentry, his hand resting lightly upon my shoulder, just letting me know he was there for me. It helped. A little.

  The doctors conducted their third and final examination just before noon, and I don’t think any of us were surprised at the outcome.

  ‘We are so very sorry . . .’ they began, joining our small sad assembly in the Relatives’ Room.

  ‘Has everything been done that could be done?’ asked Max into the hushed silence left in the wake of the doctors’ words. ‘I don’t want to sound crass here, but if it’s a question of money, or—’ The doctors didn’t appear to take offence. They were probably well used to the frantic grasping-at-straws by family and friends.

  ‘Mr Taylor’s condition was extremely grave from the moment he first got here. Our efforts to revive him have been exhaustive.’ The doctor turned in the seat he had taken beside me, and gently laid his hand over mine. His voice softened. ‘We’ve tried so hard to save him, because we know why he was here. A young boy lives, only because of your husband’s bravery. We really didn’t want to lose this fight, you have to know that.’

  My throat twisted to a close, allowing no words to escape, but I nodded fiercely at him through my tears, believing his obvious sincerity.

  ‘I know this is a difficult and terrible time for all of you, but there are decisions that you now have to make, as a family.’ My eyes went to my in-laws, who were facing the loss of their only son. On their faces, in their eyes, in everything about them, the sheer wrongness of the situation was plainly visible. They were old. They were meant to go first. No parent – ever – should outlive their child, especially not ones in their seventies.

  ‘With your permission,’ the doctor continued, ‘someone from the hospital will be along to talk to you in a little while. Someone from another team.’ My mother, who was sitting beside me, suddenly slipped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against her. I realised that, yet again, she knew what was coming. ‘A member of the transplant team would like to meet with you.’ He paused. ‘You were aware that your husband carried a donor card in his wallet, I assume?’

  The resistance came from somewhere unexpected, as did the approval. ‘I don’t bloody believe it. I’m sorry, Ally, they sound like vultures. For Christ’s sake, Joe’s not even gone and they want to talk to you about . . . about that,’ exploded Max when the doctors had gone.

  ‘That’s the way they have to do it, son,’ replied Frank quietly. Tears were running openly down his face, and he did nothing to wipe them away. ‘That’s the only way it works. They have to keep everything . . . working . . . until, until . . . the last moment.’ His hand groped blindly for Kaye’s, and found it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, feeling the weight of an impossible decision I should never be having to make, cleaving my already shattered heart in two. ‘I don’t think I can give them permission to . . .’ I gulped, trying to find the words. ‘I mean, yes, I know he carried a card, but still . . .’

  ‘It’s what he wanted.’ Hearing those words from the woman who had brought Joe into the world was somehow dou
bly shocking. Kaye reached into her handbag and pulled out an embroidered handkerchief, dabbing it ineffectively at her red-rimmed eyes, before turning to her husband. ‘Ever since he was a little boy, not much older than Jake is now. It’s what he said he wanted. Ever since Eric. He had to wait until he was older of course, but he never forgot, not once.’

  Small fragments of a long past conversation started coming back to me then, twisting and turning through the thousands of other memories. ‘His uncle,’ I said, realisation dawning, as the details began to crystallise.

  Frank smiled, although his tears still showed no signs of slowing. I wondered if they ever would. ‘He told you, then? He told you about my older brother, about Eric. He’d been ill all his life, but it got worse when Joe was no more than a lad. My brother never married, never had a family of his own, but he thought the world of our boy, and the feeling was mutual. Eric had a kidney transplant when Joe was about eight or so; it saved his life. From then on, Joe always said that if anything ever happened to him, he would want to be a donor. Quite insistent about it he was, as I recall.’ Frank turned to look at his wife, and I could see the image of their small earnest child shining brightly in their memories almost as clearly as they could. It wasn’t hard, because he was replicated in almost every last detail in our own son.

  Frank closed his eyes, and despite everything I could count the cost of his next words. ‘Obviously Ally, you’re his wife and you have to make your own decision. But as far as his mother and I go,’ he turned to Kaye and she nodded, giving him her agreement. ‘Well, we would want to honour Joe’s wishes. Let some good come out of this terrible tragedy. Let him do what he’s done for all of his wonderful and amazing life. Let Joe help someone.’

  The woman from the transplant team was quietly spoken, respectful and compassionate, yet meeting with her was – without doubt – one of the worst things I have ever had to do. She explained the procedure in detail, and told us how many people would benefit from Joe’s generosity (those were her words, not mine). Up to eight lives could be saved if I said ‘yes’, she carefully informed me. So that would be nine senseless deaths if I said ‘no’, I realised sadly, if you included Joe’s. But it wasn’t just about the maths, I knew that.