Foxes (14 page)

Longing for having my best friend back… longing for someone who is not my best friend… and the guilt that causes.

If I had a single wish right now, it would be for someone to hold on to, or for someone to hold on to me. Not because they feel obliged to, or because they have to, but because they want to, because
they
want
me
.

Like I want Micky. I squeeze my eyes shut.

It’s a stupid wish, I know.

“DANNY?”

I open my eyes and quickly blink away my disorientation. I must have drifted off. Half drowning really takes it out of you.

Demi is standing by the side of my bed, a pale green hospital gown over her arm. She holds out a plastic cup of water and two tablets.

“Paracetamol.”

Someone is crying out in the corridor. I think of the forgotten old woman in the wheelchair.

“Did you send someone for the old lady?” I ask, gingerly sitting up and taking the plastic cup and the tablets. I swallow them quickly. I don’t need the water to swallow them with, but I am thirsty.

“Yes, I did.” Demi’s smile is as warm as sunshine. “Mrs. Green is on her way up to a ward. Think we can get this wet jumper off you somehow?”

With gentle hands, she helps me sit forward and tries to ease the soaking material off my arm, but I can’t stop the whimper that escapes.

“I think we’re going to have to cut it off,” she says, looking apologetic.

I don’t want to lose my jumper, but I do want it off. It’s cold and wet.

I can go to the clothing bank and get another.

My T-shirt needs cutting off too.

The cold metal of the scissors touches my skin and I shudder.

Demi doesn’t say a word about the scars that cover my body. I know she sees them, how could she not? But she’s a nurse, she’s probably seen a whole lot worse.

I stare at my hands so I don’t have to see the way she’s looking at me. So I can pretend not to hear if she asks any questions about how I got like this.

“Trousers?”

I think Demi can sense my reluctance. I’m suddenly shy. I take a deep breath. There are no scars on my legs and I’m pretty normal
down there
. I think, anyway. I like being naked—when I’m on my own.

“We can put the gown over you, and I’ll undo any buttons and zips, and you can do the rest, okay?”

I nod and reach down to take my pad out of my trouser pocket. I’m scared to look at it in case it’s completely ruined. The plastic bag doesn’t feel full of water at least. I hold it in my lap.

Where I go, my pad goes.

“A doctor is going to come and talk to you in a few minutes about what happened,” she says, holding down the gown as I start to wriggle out of my trousers.

I blink. It takes me a moment to realize that she means about the river earlier and not anything else, like the fucked-up mess of my body.

Demi probably thinks I jumped off the bridge like Dieter. I’m a suicide risk. It’s almost funny how far from the truth that is—how badly I want to live.

“I just want to go home,” I mumble, kicking my legs and hearing the soggy material that had been covering them land wetly on the floor.

“We just need to check you’re okay before that happens. Where do you live?”

Her fingers slip beneath the neck of my gown to press against my shoulder. I hold my breath to stop myself crying out. Thin white gloves cover Demi’s hands. If I close my eyes, I can imagine the touch of the cool leaves of the plant I hid behind when I was watching Dollman. Touching, but not touching.

I need to get out of here.

“Near the park…. Can I see Dieter?” I ask as Demi finishes her examination of my shoulder and pulls my gown over it.

I don’t know how I’m going to get my clothes back on to get out of here. And if I go wandering outside in just this gown, I’m going to freeze.

“I think you may have dislocated your shoulder, but I’m going to send you for an X-ray, just to be sure nothing is broken.”

“I don’t need to see anyone. I was trying to stop Dieter falling.”

Demi looks back at me steadily, her brown eyes open and honest. Not all nurses are like her. Not all people are. I want to ask her what makes her different.

“The doctor only wants to talk to you.”

“I want to see Dieter first.”

“He’s still very poorly.”

I nod. That’s hardly going to make me want to see him less.

There’s a folded-away wheelchair in the corner. Demi opens it out and helps me off the bed. I place my bare feet on the cold metal footrests and shiver.

“Are you cold?” she asks.

When I nod, she passes me the scratchy blanket off the bed and I fold it across my lap, wishing I could place it around my shoulders but knowing that would hurt too bad.

DIETER IS
in a large room with glass walls. There are two empty beds beside his. A black machine beeps at his bedside, and most of his face is hidden beneath a mask to help him breathe. He’s all hooked up to stuff—his arms, his chest—wires everywhere. It’s as if Dieter is gone and this is an alien echo of the boy who called me names and made it his official job to hate me.

He’ll probably hate me all the more now I’ve seen him without his wig. But I don’t care—I’m just glad he’s not dead.

Demi wheels me right up to his bedside.

“Two minutes,” she says softly and walks away to talk to one of the nurses putting supplies into a stark white cupboard.

Using my good arm, I reach out and tentatively poke Dieter’s hand. He’s not as cold as I thought he’d be. I’m freezing.

He doesn’t even twitch, so I know he’s completely out of it.

I don’t really want to talk to Dieter, awake or asleep, so I sit and stare at him, memorizing everything.

A weird, unsettled feeling is growing in my chest, and I know it has something to do with Dieter, but I don’t know what. I try to remember our conversation on the bridge, but it feels like my brain is trying to tune in to a really weak signal and everything is a bit fuzzy and the sound is gone.

“You ready to go?” Demi asks from behind me. Her hand touches my shoulder and I shift away, startled.

I nod. I don’t want to stay here and listen to Dieter breathing. Truthfully, that is more unsettling.

Demi wheels me down to the X-ray department and parks me in the near-empty waiting room.

When she heads over to the reception desk to sign me in, I know it’s now or never. I clutch the blanket in my fist and then tuck the plastic bag containing my notepad under my arm and get up. Without being too obvious, I look around to check no one is watching me. Then, holding my arm against my body to stop my shoulder moving too much, I half run, half walk toward the corridor with the big Exit sign on the wall we just passed.

I feel bad leaving Demi, and hope she won’t get into trouble for losing me, but I need to get out of this place.

Cold bright sunlight blinds me as I emerge from a side exit to the hospital. The freezing ground shocks my bare feet, and the air is so icy it kind of hurts to breathe. I cover my eyes with my good arm and lean against a pillar just outside the door as I wait for a wave of dizziness to pass.

I might as well be naked for all the protection this flimsy hospital gown is giving me from the weather. The wind cuts right through the thin material, and more than once I look down to check there is still fabric covering my skin.

I barely have the strength to use my good arm to throw the blanket around my good shoulder. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I only fell in the water, and yet I am so exhausted I want to curl up and sleep right here. My body is bruised and aching. Hitting the water from so high really hurt, but I did nothing else apart from keep myself afloat.

Without warning, my legs fold under me and I sink to the ground. The concrete is so cold against my legs that it’s painful. If one of the hospital staff sees me out here like this, they’ll take me back in. I can’t stay here.

I desperately want to see Micky. But turning up like this, in pain, needing to sleep, is a bad idea. Even I can see that. I want him to know how much I wanted to see him, though—that I didn’t forget, that I wasn’t too busy—and how much I wanted to make him smile. How much I still do.

The hospital is south of the river, but it’s still a good couple of miles to the swimming pool. My nest. Home.

Using strength that must come from some great power generator buried in the ground—because I certainly don’t have it—I drag myself up and put one foot in front of the other again and again, until I am out of the hospital grounds. It’s like walking but slower and more painful, and the possibility of falling over at any minute is pretty great.

In the hospital I wish I’d known where they kept the painkillers. I suspect I’m going to need them.

I DON’T
remember the walk home. I don’t remember making it to my nest. I don’t remember going to sleep. The last thing I remember is pressing my hand against a tree trunk near Battersea Park while steadying myself enough to carry on. So when I wake curled in the sunken bath in Milo’s funky-smelling little den, I’m not expecting to be here, and for a moment my heart beats so hard it threatens to crack my ribs.

After a few deep breaths, I calm down. My mouth feels horrible, my throat sore and dry.

With difficulty, I sit up and look around. Gray light spills through the tiny high-up windows. It doesn’t look as though the sun is shining, and I can’t tell what time it is by the position of the light on the walls like I can in my nest because Milo’s room is on the other side of the building.

A pile of clothes takes up one corner of the room—empty food cans another. But no Milo—unless he transforms into a pile of blankets when he sleeps.

Something smells funkier than normal. When I look down at my shoulder, I see what it is: a wad of what looks like damp grass and sticks is strapped to my shoulder with toilet paper and Sellotape. It smells like a cross between moldy oranges and blocked drains.

Carefully, I pick the Sellotape off and dump the whole lot on the floor. I give my shoulder a cautious poke. It hurts, but not as much as I was expecting. It wasn’t pain that woke me. I feel well rested. I never feel well rested. When I stand up and climb out of the bath my muscles still ache, but the ache is better—much better. Manageable.

Whatever weirdness Milo has been up to, it hasn’t done any harm. I’m ready to go back to my nest, though.

Quietly I open the door out to the swimming pool and peer out. Despite the gloom I can just about make out Milo sitting at the edge of the pool, so still he could be carved from stone. He has his back to me, but his hearing is supernatural and he swivels his head as soon as I take a step.

“The comatose one awakens!” he states a little too gaily. He struggles to get himself upright, clutching a wine bottle in his hand.

“What time is it?” I croak. I really need a drink, but I could do with it not being wine.

“About a day after you stumbled back in here.”

“A day?” I squint at him.

“From the amount of noise you made getting through the panel, I thought at least kids or an animal had found their way in. When I came out, you were collapsed over there.” Milo points to the other side of the pool near the door we use. “You’d managed to hit your head on the tiles and knock yourself out when you went down.”

Tentatively I touch my head. There is a tender spot on my right temple. I can’t believe I’ve slept a whole day away. All my nights out wandering must have finally caught up with me.

“Got a bit worried when you wouldn’t wake up. Thought about calling an ambulance for you, but….” Milo looks away.

We feel pretty similarly about hospitals. Even this damn hospital gown is unnerving.

People die from untreated concussions. They told us that at school, but I’m glad Milo didn’t call an ambulance, even if I probably would have if I’d found him unconscious.

“What was the stuff you put on my shoulder?”

“Flower Lady. I brought her back here, and she checked you over. Gave me some herbs, told me to make a poultice to help take the swelling down when you slept and to make another when you woke.” He staggers past me into his room. “She said we need to strap your shoulder up too. Said it looked like it had been dislocated.”

“Those herbs make your room smell bad.” I don’t add “Like something has died in it,” but the words are there on the tip of my tongue.

“Do they?” Milo has a fucked-up sense of smell. (He has no nerve endings in the fingers of his right hand either.) Fucking land mines, their destruction echoes on and on even if they don’t kill you.

“Come on,” he says.

I follow him back into his room. He makes me some weird-tasting yellow tea again and then helps me undo the top of my gown so he can strap up my shoulder with the duct tape Flower Lady left with him. I try and ignore the smell.

“We had to learn how to do this out in the field,” he says. I know he means his Army days. “There weren’t enough trained doctors. Everyone knew not to expect a lot of support when it was my rotation. I was so bad that eventually they left me off the rota altogether.” Milo sighs. “Before I got blown up, I had no sympathy for other people’s pain, you see.”

I nod, even though I can’t imagine what it’s like not to feel any sympathy like that. Maybe it’d be quite nice to just not care. I don’t understand how that would work, though.

Despite his words about being a bad doctor, Milo is gentle, and when I wince he becomes even gentler. My hospital gown pools around my waist as I sit on the edge of his turkish bath bed. Right now I don’t feel self-conscious about my scars or about him seeing me like this—or about anything. Milo has his own scars, and besides, he’s the closest thing I’ve had to family for so long.

“Pity you’re not female and a bit older,” he says almost absently, his fingers pressing against my collarbone as he presses the duct tape down. I’m not really paying attention to what he’s saying. Sometimes all I want is to be touched—right now it’s bliss even if there’s an edge of pain to it—and this is the first time I’ve felt someone else’s hands on my skin for as long as I can remember. “I’d like looking after someone like you. I like taking care of you.”