by D C Grant
Chapter Twenty-seven
The next day his father drove them all into the city. Constable Woodward had phoned the previous day and asked that Josh come to the police station to give a full statement. When he was finished his mother insisted that he should visit Hayden. He didn’t want to go. To see Hayden and his mother would mean acknowledging the way he had treated Hayden and admitting that it hadn’t been much better than the way Bevan had treated him. He also had to deal with the guilt that it should have been him who was hit by the car and not Hayden. But he knew he would have to face up to it.
At the hospital, his mother led the way down the corridor and stopped at a door. “He’s in here,” she whispered. “I’ll check that it’s okay.”
Josh hung back with his father who was holding Cyndi’s hand. Even she was silenced by the hush in the hospital ward. Josh shivered in the cool air. There was an aura of death in the intensive care ward as if the souls of those who lay fighting for their lives were hovering in the atmosphere.
His mother came back out of the room, leaving the door open for Josh.
“Penny says it’s fine,” she said, signalling for Josh to come forward.
He hesitated, then his father gave him a little push from behind and he stumbled forward. After that, his legs carried him through the door and into the intensive care room.
The sight of Hayden on the bed pulled him up short. There were tubes all over the place and machines that beeped, bopped, squeaked and hissed. The lower half of his body was covered with a curved tent over which a blanket was draped. There was music coming from a portable CD player in the corner. The door closed behind him.
“Hello, Mrs Wade,” Josh said softly. “How is he?”
“They think he’s going to be alright. It’s just a matter of waiting for him to wake up. They say that the hearing is the first of the senses to return and I just didn’t want the first sound he heard to be all these machines, so I brought some of his music down.”
“I didn’t know he liked Coldplay,” Josh said, thinking there were probably a lot of other things he didn’t know about Hayden.
“Yes, he does. I don’t like it myself, but at this moment I don’t care. It’s just good to have him still here with me.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs Wade. It’s my fault he was hit.” He hesitated. “I’m afraid I wasn’t a good friend,” he admitted.
“He seemed to like you,” she said. “He talked about you a lot and how you were teaching him to surf.”
“But I wasn’t very nice to him,” Josh blurted out. He could feel tears stinging his eyes.
“It’s all right, Josh.” Penny said as she reached for his hand and clasped it tightly. “He was tired of everyone being nice to him because his father had died. Sometimes people don’t know how to deal with someone who’s going through grief, but Hayden said you treated him as if none of that stuff had happened. He always knew where he stood with you.”
“I guess that’s true but I hope I can make it up to him,” he said, glancing over at Hayden. He didn’t like looking at the inert body, so still in the bed apart for the rise and fall of his chest.
“I’m sure you can, but it won’t be for some time yet,” she said. “We’ve got a long way to go, but please come and visit as much as you can. When Hayden wakes up I’m sure he’d like someone other than me to talk to.”
“I’ll do that, Mrs Wade,” he said knowing he was being told of a way to make amends. “He was a good friend to me and at least I can be a friend to him.”
She nodded and he knew that he should leave. He turned to the door, leaving the small room with its disturbing noises and entering the peacefulness of the hospital corridor. His family sat on a row of plastic hospitals chairs just outside.
“The nurse said that the boy you rescued yesterday is here as well,” his mother said. “He’s asking for you.”
“I don’t want to see him,” Josh said.
“I think you should,” his mother insisted, and he found himself being led by his mother towards the stairwell. They went down two floors and ended up in an open ward. His mother spoke to the nurse at the duty desk who pointed down the row of beds.
“Thank you,” she said to the nurse and turned to Josh. “Third bed from the left. He’s only allowed one visitor at a time so we’ll meet you in the café downstairs.”
Josh nodded and his family left. He was unsure. He didn’t want to face Bevan again, he’d had quite enough of the bully in the last few days and part of him was glad that he was lying in a hospital bed.
But he knew that Bevan had almost died and that even bullies don’t deserve to drown. He forced himself to walk forward to the bed where Bevan lay, apparently asleep.
A woman, possibly Bevan’s mother, was sitting next to the bed reading a magazine and she looked up at him as he approached.
“Yes?” she asked.
“I … I’m Josh. I helped Bevan yesterday.”
Her hostile look vanished. She dropped the magazine and stood up with a smile on her face.
“Josh! I understand you pulled him out of the water. You deserve a reward. What would you like?”
“I … um … don’t need anything,” Josh said, surprised. “I’m just here to talk to Bevan.”
“Oh, yes, he’s been asking for you.” She leant over and shook Bevan’s shoulder. “Bevan, Josh is here,” she said as he opened his eyes. She smiled at Josh and said, “I’ll go and get some coffee so you two can talk,” and moved off down the row of beds.
Bevan watched her go. Josh noticed that the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, his face was pale and there was still a blue tinge around his lips. A plastic tube fed oxygen into his nostrils and Josh could hear it hissing as it passed through the regulator attached to the wall at the head of the bed.
“Has she gone?” Bevan asked, looking around. His voice was raspy.
“Your mum? Yes, she’s gone.”
“Thank goodness, she’s driving me crazy. Anyone would think I died or something.”
“You did,” Josh said as he sat in the chair Bevan’s mother had vacated.
“Yes, I guess, I did,” Bevan said as he closed his eyes again. “I’m so tired” he said, his voice faint. “But I can’t sleep. I keep thinking I’m back in the sea, going under, trying to reach the top and not getting there.” He hesitated, breathing in deeply, catching his breath. “If I fall asleep, I see your face, and your hand reaches for me, but I never quite grab it. Then I wake with a jolt. It takes ages for me to realise I’m not in the water anymore.”
“You’re not in the water,” Josh said, not knowing what else to say.
“No, thanks to you, I’m not,” Bevan said, turning his head to look at Josh. “You saved my life.”
Josh shrugged. Bevan was silent and closed his eyes. Josh thought he was drifting off to sleep until Bevan asked, “Do you believe in life after death?”
“Well … er … yes … I guess so.”
“When I was on the beach,” Bevan continued, his eyes open and looking directly at Josh, “when they were doing CPR, I had that whole out-of-body experience. You know, floating above my own body, looking down on everything. I saw you sitting on the sand and I could hear Chris talking to you. There was a light and everything was so … so … peaceful. I wasn’t scared.” He stopped and coughed.
Josh leant back in the chair. This wasn’t the Bevan he knew.
“Don’t look at me like that, Josh. I haven’t gone mad,” Bevan said. “You’re the only one I’ve told this to. I died out there, I know I did.”
“But you didn’t.” Josh leaned forward. “This may sound strange, but I had dreamt about what happened to you.”
“What?”
“I kept having this dream that I was drowning. I began to think it was a premonition. Last night I realised that the dream was the same as what happened to you. It’s the strangest thing and I still don’t understand it.”
“Up there with the out-of-body experience?”
“
Perhaps,” Josh said with a shrug. “I didn’t have the dream again last night. I don’t think I ever will.”
“Listen, I owe you something,” Bevan said. “I’ll leave you alone and if Gina wants to go out with you … well … I guess you could.”
“I don’t know that she does.”
“I thought you two were tight?”
“I thought so, but now I’m not so sure. It was you she wanted. She didn’t try to stop Rhys throwing me out, did she?”
“No, I guess not.”
“There’s just one thing.”
“What?”
“If she’s going to be your girlfriend, then go easy on her. She may not know what she wants, but it’s not me. I don’t know what you two were fighting about, but maybe you should forget it and start again.”
Bevan was quiet after Josh had said this and Josh thought his speech had been wasted on him. He might as well have talked to the wall. Perhaps Bevan hadn’t changed after all.
Then Bevan surprised him. “I promise to go easy on her,” Bevan said. “Thanks, man, for saving my life. I didn’t deserve it.”
“I couldn’t let you drown,” Josh said, echoing the words he’d spoken to his father.
“Oh yes you could after all I did to you.” Bevan looked towards the doorway of the ward and said, “Uh-oh, here she comes.”
Josh turned and saw Bevan’s mother coming back into the ward.
“My Mum thinks everything can be solved with the application of money,” Bevan said, his voice becoming softer. He was tiring. “I heard her when you got here. She’ll be offering you the crown jewels next. Tell her I’m asleep, will you?”
Josh got up from the chair as Bevan’s mother came closer.
“Well, did you talk?” she asked.
“Yes, but he’s gone to sleep,” Josh said, stepping away from the bed. “When is he getting out of here?”
“They’re keeping him in for another twenty-four hours, so he’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“That’s good,” Josh said.
“Did you have a think about what you would like as a reward?” Bevan’s mother asked as Josh turned to go.
He looked at her and smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “I’d like Bevan keep his promise.”
“His promise?” she said, puzzled. “What promise?”
“He knows.”
“Is that all?” she asked.
“Yes,” Josh said looking over at the bed. Bevan, lying with his eyes closed, smiled. Josh knew that he’d heard. He backed away from the bed and walked between the aisle of beds to the lifts at the end of the ward. He found his father standing there, waiting for him.
“I thought you’d gone to the café,” Josh said.
“No, I decided to wait for you. How did that go?”
Josh shrugged. “Strange. He’s different.”
“Almost drowning can do that, I guess. I remember when you first started to learn how to surf, I’d be there on the beach every day to watch you, to make sure you didn’t get into trouble. I was frightened you’d die out there.”
“You don’t have to watch me anymore.”
The lift arrived. It was empty. They got in and his father pressed the button for the ground floor.
“I know that now, Josh.” He put his arm across Josh’s shoulders. “Suddenly you’re all grown up.”
“Not grown up enough to stop making mistakes.”
“We all make mistakes, Josh, even when we’re older. The thing is to learn from the mistakes and move on.”
“Are we moving on?”
“I think we are. We’ll make it through this, Josh.”
Josh turned to him. They were eye to eye; the same height.
“I know we will, Dad. You know I think I’ll take Chris up on his offer.”
“What offer?”
The offer to stay in the surf club in the holidays in return for lifesaving duties.”
“Trust you to find a way to stay in Piha even after the bach is sold!”
“You can’t keep me away.”
They were still laughing when they arrived at the ground floor. Smiling they made their way to the café where his mother and sister waited.
