The Ghosts & Jamal

by Bridget Blankley

  ‘We’ll have to sort something out before he goes,’ he said. ‘The seizures could kill him if they’re not controlled. Don’t let him leave us until I’ve discussed his case. In the meantime, make sure he can take his meds without help.’

  The doctor went back to the papers on his desk, drawing patterns on them. He saw Jamal looking at him, but he didn’t say goodbye. I was right, thought Jamal, he is simple – he doesn’t even know how to be polite. Jamal felt very sorry for the doctor.

  ‘Now,’ said the nurse. ‘What about that haircut? Have you been to the barber before or did your mother cut your hair?’

  Jamal was about to tell her that the Imam would shave his head when he visited because his family didn’t want to touch him but he didn’t get the chance. The nurse took Jamal’s hand and led him out of the compound. I suppose, he thought, that nurses are very brave, because they don’t mind touching me. He wondered if they understood about the spirits. Probably not. After all, there had been no spirits since he had been in the hospital.

  A Trip to Town

  Jamal didn’t remember arriving at the hospital compound and he hadn’t left the compound since then. He was excited to be going into the town and planned on finding out more about the place. Also, he decided to look for signs of the ghosts when he was outside the compound; it might help him work out where to go when he left the hospital. He had never wandered far from his home before the ghosts came and the only other person he had spoken to on his walk was his grandfather. He had seen other people, lots of other people, but Jamal decided that he wasn’t going to count dead people. Counting them might make them more real and he preferred to think of the ghosts and the people and his auntie falling in the fire as a sort of enormous dream. He didn’t remember actually dreaming since he arrived at the hospital, but that was probably a good thing. There were things that Jamal didn’t want to dream about ever again.

  ‘Do not let go of my hand,’ the nurse said to him.

  She didn’t need to say anything. Jamal had never seen so many people, even dead people, and the people here were very much alive. Alive and shouting. Jamal thought the whole town was shouting, each person a little louder than the next. The hospital had been so quiet and the town was so loud. He wanted to cover his ears with his hands, but that would have meant letting go of the nurse’s hand. He was sure he would get completely lost if he did.

  There was something else that Jamal hadn’t expected: the smell. The smell was delicious and awful. He could smell every kind of food he had ever eaten, or could ever wish to eat. The problem was that he could also smell every kind of terrible smell that was ever invented. He could smell the sweat of a thousand old men standing in the sun, mixed with the smell of sick goats and fat sheep. All of this was combined with the smell of waste: rubbish, animal dung and things that Jamal didn’t want to think about. How could a place smell so terrible and so good at the same time?

  Just as Jamal was beginning to enjoy the noise and the colours and the confusion, the nurse halted at a stall, so Jamal stopped looking around and concentrated on what she was saying.

  ‘For him. Your best price now, no games.’

  Jamal wondered why they had paused at such a boring stall.

  ‘The size I’ve got,’ said the stallholder, ‘but he’s not worn shoes before, has he? He’ll complain – you know that, don’t you? Don’t blame my shoes and come here asking for your money back. His feet aren’t used to shoes.’

  The nurse and the old man argued for a while then the nurse gave the man some money and the man gave the nurse some shoes. Funny, thought Jamal, they don’t look like the sort of shoes she wears.

  ‘Where next?’ he asked.

  But they walked only a few steps and stopped at an even more boring stall.

  ‘Socks, vests, underpants, all for him,’ said the nurse.

  A very fat lady was in charge of this stall. She looked about the same age as the nurse and they chatted and laughed as if they were sisters. If they were sisters they weren’t close sisters, thought Jamal. Maybe the same father or maybe the same milk mother, but not close sisters, not like his cousins Teya and Teema. He felt a bit sad thinking about his cousins. They used to laugh just like these two women. He missed them.

  ‘Got his shoes yet?’ asked the woman from the underwear stall. ‘Then let him put them on. You never know what’s on the floor round here.’

  The nurse pushed Jamal behind the stall, still chatting as she did so. Then, while Jamal sat on a little stool, she wiped his feet with an old cloth and put the socks and shoes on him. Jamal was not very pleased. No one had asked him if he wanted shoes and he was sure that he didn’t. How would he know where he was going if he couldn’t feel the road? He did like how the shoes looked, he just didn’t like how they felt.

  ‘Now, cousin, doesn’t he look smart?’

  That explained everything, thought Jamal: not sisters but cousins. Jamal knew that cousins didn’t have to look alike – they didn’t even have to be related really, just part of one of those families that twisted in and out of each other. A bit like his family.

  ‘Now let’s sort out that hair, shall we?’ said the nurse. ‘Then maybe we can get some tea and a little something sweet.’

  They went to a barber’s shop where a man with electric clippers took all the hair from Jamal’s head. It was a very strange feeling. When he’d finished, Jamal ran his hand over his head – it was completely smooth. He liked his haircut much more than his shoes.

  They went to another stall for tea and sweet cakes. Jamal rubbed his head when they sat down and again when they stood up to leave. He was very happy with the feel of his soft, smooth skull. He was very happy about almost everything, except the shoes, and the fact that he would soon be sent to the orphanage.

  When they got back to the hospital, the cook said that he looked good with his new haircut.

  The cleaner told him how smart he looked in his new shoes, and the soldier had left a kitbag on his bed. She had even left six bottles of Sprite and two bottles of Coke inside. Jamal had never had a bottle of Coke so he thought he would try it, just to see what it was like. He decided it was his favourite drink in the whole world. He sat on the bed next to the soldier’s bag and drank the whole bottle. Then he burped. It was so loud that the nurse ran into the room to see what was wrong.

  Jamal was sure that this had been the best day of his life. It would have been perfect if it wasn’t one day closer to when he had to leave.

  Every Time It’s Easier

  That night, two important things happened. The first was when the cleaner left a laundry trolley by Jamal’s bed when he was called away. Jamal changed his own sheets, tucking the old one in his locker, then he changed another two beds, so the cleaner wouldn’t know which sheet was missing. He told himself that it wasn’t really stealing because he took the sheet from his own bed. Deep inside, though, he knew it was. Stealing had got easier and easier, but he still expected to be found out and punished. Maybe the cleaner would tell the soldiers and they would lock him up in jail. Maybe the nurses would send him straight to the orphanage and tell the nuns to keep him locked up. Or worse, maybe the spirits were watching, even though they had left him alone since he’d been in the hospital. And if they were watching they would definitely punish him, they always did.

  The second important thing was that the nurse taught him about his medicine. Jamal hadn’t realised how much medicine he had been taking. For the little drinks that he was given every evening turned out to be medicine. Jamal had thought that he hadn’t been taking any medicine because the nurses had never told him to take any pills. These nurses are very sneaky, he said to himself. He learnt that the medicine made him sleepy and he had to be sure he was somewhere safe before he drank it. Jamal wondered what counted as safe. Did he have to be in bed, or could he just be sitting under a tree? The nurse said, ‘Don’t be silly, just make sure you’re safe, you understand?’

  Not next to a fire then, and not near Grand
father either, thought Jamal.

  He learnt that he had to take the medicine after breakfast and after lunch and at bedtime and each time he went to sleep.

  ‘What happens if I don’t have breakfast?’ he asked. ‘Or what about if I can’t get any lunch?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jamal. Just take the medicine after your meals like you are told.’

  Jamal didn’t think he was being silly. He could think of plenty of times when there was not enough food for everyone to have breakfast and quite a few times when there was not enough food for lunch either. He wondered if the nurse had ever gone without breakfast. Probably not, he thought; she looked as if she had a larder full of food at home.

  The next thing she told him was that his medicine must be kept in the fridge.

  ‘What happens if there is no fridge?’ he asked.

  ‘Then you must throw that medicine away and buy some more,’ the nurse said. ‘And you must have a generator – the fridge needs to work all the time, not just when the electricity is on. You understand? Tell your grandfather he must buy a generator.’

  Jamal wanted to laugh. He thought of the mountain where his grandfather lived, his smelly cave and the steep climb to get there. There was no electricity on the mountain, and no chance of dragging a generator up there, even if Grandfather could have afforded one. There was a fridge in the kitchen where the cook kept the meat, another in the room where the nurses had their tea and he’d seen a fridge in the coffee shop that they went to in the town. They were the only fridges he had seen. He didn’t know if they had generators in the coffee shop, but there was a big generator on the compound. The watchman turned it on whenever the electricity from the town shut down. He was always trying to fix it, pouring oil here or tightening a bolt there, coaxing it until it roared into life and puffed black smoke into the night like the other generators. Grandfather wouldn’t be able to do that. He would just throw stones at the generator if it didn’t work and throwing stones wouldn’t help – it never did. Overall, he thought, taking medicine could be much more complicated than it seemed. He decided that he would never be able to look after the medicine like the nurses did.

  ‘I’ll give you the medicine tonight,’ said the nurse. ‘Tomorrow I’ll watch you while you take it yourself.’

  Jamal felt worried. If the medicine was very important like the nurse said, why hadn’t it been important when he lived at home? And what about the fridge and the safe place and breakfast and lunch?

  ‘What will happen if I don’t take the medicine?’ he asked.

  ‘You must take your medicine. You must take it exactly how you have been told.’

  ‘Yes, but what if I don’t? What happens then?’

  The nurse bent down so her face was very close to his. She looked at him very hard then said, ‘You must take your medicine, Jamal. You must take it every day and you must keep it in the fridge. You will be very sick if you don’t take it. It will not work if it isn’t kept cold. You must take it every day, Jamal. Do you understand?’

  Jamal nodded. He understood, he just didn’t think it would be possible.

  Then the nurse patted Jamal’s cheek. ‘Well done,’ she said, and smiled at him.

  She showed him how to measure just the right amount of medicine, then she watched him drink it. He had planned on only pretending to drink it, but the nurse was watching him so he took his medicine and went to sleep almost straight away.

  He woke up when it was dark. He always did. But instead of going back to sleep Jamal got up and went into the compound. If he was going to leave before he got sent to the orphanage he would have to work out the right time to go. Afiba might change his mind about helping. So he had to make plans on his own, just in case. The best time to leave would definitely be at night. Almost everyone was asleep, except the night watchman and the guards at the main gate. But Jamal thought that the guards might not be that good at staying awake if no one was watching them. He decided to go and check.

  He had no problem getting from his bed to the door. The door was closed, but not locked, so he slipped into the compound without making a sound. There were lights in some of the rooms but no noise, so he guessed that the lights had been left burning overnight. It wasn’t really dark though, not dark like it was at home. Outside the compound the town was full of lights. It was full of noise too – the people there didn’t seem to sleep at night. They must be more like bats or bush-babies, hunting at night for easy prey. Jamal wanted to know how easy it would be to leave the compound; he wasn’t ready to think about how he’d get across the town, or where he’d go after that.

  As he walked across the compound the dogs lifted their heads and the chains on their necks rattled. But the dogs were used to Jamal so they settled back down to sleep, more interested in their dreams than why a small boy was walking about in the dark. He reached the entrance to the compound. The big metal gate was locked. So was the small gate by the watchman’s hut. What was worse, the watchman was awake. Jamal hadn’t expected that. He shone his torch towards Jamal.

  ‘Hey, you, what are you doing?’

  The light shone right in Jamal’s eyes and he stood still; he couldn’t see anything but its glare.

  ‘Why are you out of bed, boy? You shouldn’t be here.’

  Jamal stood quite still. He didn’t know what to do. The watchman had always seemed so lazy, sleeping in the shade and chewing betel all day, but now he was wide awake, and there was someone else in his hut. Jamal couldn’t see who, but the watchman had spoken to someone when he left the hut, before he shut the door and turned on his torch. Jamal had to think of a reason for wandering round the compound at night, and he had to think quickly.

  ‘It’s OK, boy, I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve seen you around, I know you’re not a thief. Go back to bed now. Go back to bed.’

  Jamal let his breath out. He hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath but now he wasn’t frightened he took great gulps of air. Then he turned around and ran back to his bed. Now he’d been seen he wasn’t trying to be quiet and he slammed into the door to the ward. A nurse – one he hadn’t seen before – was waiting for him. Jamal thought that the nurse would be cross, but she wasn’t.

  ‘Having bad dreams? Guess you’re worried about all the changes, eh?’

  Jamal nodded his head and shivered a little. It had been damp outside and, suddenly, he wanted to get back into his bed.

  ‘Into bed with you and I’ll bring you a drink of tea. That will keep the ghosts and ghouls away.’

  Jamal got into bed wondering if the nurse was right and if tea would really send the ghosts back to where they came from. That was something he would have to think about. He snuggled down under the sheet hoping that tea was the answer to his problems.

  Another Plan

  Jamal woke up very early the next morning, before it was even light. Too early to go down for breakfast, too early even to have a shower. Instead he went for a walk outside to think about what the nurse had said. He wanted to work out if tea really did keep the ghosts away. Jamal sat under his favourite tree and considered. It was true that he had drunk tea more often since he had been in the hospital. It was also true that he couldn’t remember seeing any trace of the ghosts since he’d been there. So maybe the tea was keeping the ghosts away.

  The problem, Jamal thought, was that lots of other things had changed since he’d been at the hospital. There was enough food to have breakfast every day, so maybe it was breakfast that kept the ghosts at bay. Plus he had drunk the medicine that made him sleepy. Therefore it could have been the medicine which saw them off. Or maybe they simply didn’t come when he was asleep.

  Jamal sat going over everything that had happened. He remembered that the first time the ghosts had appeared he had been asleep in his hut. And so it wasn’t sleep which stopped them coming.

  He stopped thinking then and went outside. It wasn’t quite dawn but the early animals had started to wake and there were parrots streaming across the sky. Outsi
de, the town was waking up as well. The cars and the horns and the shouts of people in a hurry were all getting louder as the sky was becoming lighter. The watchman unlocked the small gate, then he fetched his mat and left the hut for his morning prayers.

  ‘This is the time to go,’ said Jamal. ‘Not in the night when people are on the lookout for thieves but early in the morning when everyone’s busy.’ He said it out loud, but, of course, no one heard him. Everyone was busy getting ready for the rest of the day and no one had time to notice what other people were doing. Jamal went back inside and had a nice long shower before anyone else was up. He got dressed then went out for breakfast.

  ‘You got the weight of the world on your shoulders this morning? Or isn’t my cooking up to scratch?’

  Jamal smiled at the cook’s joke and took an extra couple of bean fritters to go with his bowl of Koko. It was a perfect breakfast.

  ‘No complaints, Uncle,’ he said. ‘See, I’m taking extra just to prove it.’

  Afiba winked at him from behind the cook.

  ‘The akara are good,’ he whispered. ‘I made them myself.’

  It was true. Jamal had no complaints about the breakfast, or about any of the meals. In fact, Jamal thought that the cook was probably the best cook in the world, or maybe the second best if Afiba had made the bean cakes. That was part of the reason he had felt so miserable when he came out for breakfast: Jamal knew how much he’d miss all this food when he left.

  When he went back inside the nurse was waiting for him. She watched as Jamal took the correct bottle of medicine out of the little fridge, poured the right amount of the pale green liquid into the tiny cup and drank it down in just the right way. Then, before he went to rest on his bed he hugged the nurse.

  ‘Are you feeling OK, Jamal? You’ve not felt the need to hand out hugs before.’

  The nurse sounded surprised.

  ‘Just wanted to say, well, I’ll sort of miss you.’