Henry Hoey Hobson (12 page)

He led me down to the emergency department on the lower ground floor.

It was like all those hospital shows on TV. Patients lying on trolleys in corridors, streams of people and activity flowing around them. Old people with drips coming out of their arms, oxygen masks on their faces, young people, dazed and bloodied, from a fight, an accident. Doctors with stethoscopes, nurses with charts, wardsmen ferrying more trolleys into and out of lifts.

Anders had told me to prepare myself, but I wasn't prepared. Not even a little bit.

The sight of her hit me like a fist in the chest. Tiny and helpless on a trolley at the end of the corridor. Tubes running out of one arm, the other strapped against her body. Bags of clear liquid hooked onto a stand attached to the side of her bed. The rigid outline of something running the length of her leg under the sheet that covered her tiny frame.

Her face was turned towards me, her eyes closed. The pain had stripped away all her defences. She looked like a little kid, exhausted, tossed onto a mattress and abandoned.

I ran towards her, but there were so many tubes and bandages, I didn't know which bit was safe to touch.

‘Mum–' I whispered.

Her eyes fluttered open, and focused with an effort on my face.

‘Honey-bun...' Tubes swayed as one hand reached up and traced the outline of my face. ‘What are you doing here?' I leaned closer to catch the wispy words as they drifted from her lips. ‘I told Manny to keep you with him tonight–'

‘I had to see you, Mum. I couldn't leave you here on your own–'

She pressed cold fingers to my mouth, her pale lips stretching in an awful attempt at a smile. ‘Didn't wear my lucky shoes, honey-bun.' Her eyelids trembled with the effort to stay open. ‘They've given me something – for the pain ... you don't need to worry, honey ... I've got room service here, they change the sheets every day...'

Her eyes closed and then snapped open, as though something from the back of her mind had clicked through to the front. Her hand slipped down and latched onto the neck of my T-shirt. She pulled me towards her, a note of panic rising in her voice. ‘Where's my bag? What have they done with my things?'

I looked around and could see nothing that looked like the shoulder bag she took to work with her every day.

‘Some nurse answered your mobile phone when I rang, so your bag must be here somewhere.'

I ducked down and checked under the bed. A plastic bag was tucked onto a shelf below the mattress. ‘I think your stuff 's in here.'

She tried to prop herself onto her good arm for a better look. ‘Is there a big yellow envelope in there?' Pain rippled across her face. ‘Oh God, tell me it's there–'

‘Calm down, I'm looking.' I pulled out her shoulder bag and emptied its contents onto her bed.

Wallet. Keys. Brochures of houses for sale. Pens. Notebook. Mobile phone.

No yellow envelope.

‘It's not here, Mum. What's in it?'

‘Oh God.' She collapsed back onto her pillow with a moan. ‘It must still be in the car.'

‘What? What's still in the car?'

‘The contract.' She took a breath. ‘Henry, you have to find it. It's a contract on that house on the river.'

Her tiny fist knotted in my shirt, a desperate note entering her voice. ‘They signed. They both signed. For one-point-nine-five million dollars. That's nearly
fifty thousand
dollars in commission. But without that contract, there's no sale. I can't get them to sign another one while I'm stuck in here. We need that money, honey-bun. Especially now.'

Her breath came in short gasps as she struggled to sit up. ‘You have to find that contract, Henry. Get Manny to help you. Caleb. Anybody. But you have to find it or somebody else will make the sale while I'm laid up in here–'

‘OK, OK, I will. Just stop, you'll hurt yourself.' I helped her settle back onto her pillow, her face ashen. ‘Don't worry, Mum. I'll find it and take it into your work in the morning. I promise.'

‘Lydia Hoey Hobson?'

A giant of a wardsman checked the chart at the foot of the bed. A huge job-stopper of a tattoo, a double strand of barbed wire, coiled around his neck. ‘Time to go get you ready for surgery, Ma'am.'

He leaned down and helped me pack everything back into the bag. ‘You might want to keep your mobile in here so your boy can talk to you. But that wallet should go somewhere safe–'

‘Take it, honey-bun. You'll need it more than I will–' She forced a smile. ‘Got room service here, remember?'

I took the wallet and stepped back as he unlocked the trolley's brakes. Her hand fell away from my shirt, but her eyes never left me. Not even when the tattooed orderly wheeled the bed around and trundled my mother away.

‘You all right, love?'

The voice was familiar; the night nurse I'd spoken to on the phone. She was neither young nor old, but something in between. She looked like someone's mum. Someone else's, not mine.

I sucked in a deep shuddering breath. ‘Where are they taking her?'

‘Fourth floor. Pre-Op, then surgery.' She looked at her watch. ‘There's no point sticking around here. It could be hours and she'll be groggy after the general anaesthetic. Not to mention exhausted, after all she's been through.'

She looked past me and smiled at someone behind me. ‘You should take your boy home. I can give you a number to call, to see how the surgery goes. But better you come back tomorrow after his mum's had a chance to get some sleep.'

Anders nodded politely. My cheeks burned, but it was easier to let it ride than to try to explain that he was practically a stranger.

I didn't want to share the story of my life, the story of my mum's life, with a night nurse at Royal Brisbane. I didn't want to admit that our family was stretched so thin that we had to rely on the kindness of strangers in a crisis.

‘Where have you been?' I asked. It sounded abrupt, even a bit rude. But he didn't react.

‘Talking to the doctor,' he said. ‘Let's go.'

He led the way back out to the car park. I found myself telling him about the lost contract, Mum's desperate need to get it back.

‘She thinks it must still be in the car. They would have towed it, wouldn't they? Where would it be now? Do the police take it? Do they have a smashed-car yard somewhere that the cars go to until their owners get out of hospital? Do you think Manny or Caleb would take me there tomorrow?'

He stopped so suddenly, I rammed right into the back of him.

‘No. I'll get it.' Something in his face warned me not to pursue it, and we walked the rest of the way to the car in silence.

It wasn't until we'd wound our way back down car park ramps and slipped into the traffic flow of Herston Road that I broached the topic again.

‘Can I come with you, tomorrow? To find the contract?' I could picture Mum's face, when I showed it to her, the relief, the sheer–

‘No.'

I swung round in my seat. ‘Why not?'

The flashing lights of an ambulance lit up his face as it swept past us, heading back the way we had just come. Something was eating him, but he couldn't put it into words.

He pulled up at the lights on Kelvin Grove Road, yanked on the handbrake and slipped the car into neutral. ‘You should go to school.'

If that was the best he could do, he could stick it. I folded my arms and stared mutinously back at him.

‘I hate school.'

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, they took on a size and importance they hadn't had the whole time I'd been bottling them up.

‘Everybody hates me. They think I'm a vampire and that I hang round with a bunch of freaks. I have to spend all the breaks by myself in the library because nobody even talks to me. Except for the principal, and that's like walking around with a big ‘L' stuck to your forehead. Nobody cares if I don't go to school. Nobody cares if my mum's in hospital. Nobody cares if her contract gets lost and we don't have any money. Nobody cares about us, OK? NOBODY CARES.'

The blip of a horn behind us told us the light had turned green. He didn't break eye contact until the second, more insistent blurt. His lips worked, but no sound came out. He released the handbrake, slipped the car into gear and we travelled the rest of the way home in silence.

Manny had made an effort with the studio.

He'd dragged in a mattress, covered it with lime-coloured sheets, a purple cotton blanket and a furry black throw rug. The desk lamp, relocated to the floor near the bed, perched on a hardcover copy of Philip Pullman's
Northern Lights.
It shone a spotlight on a fresh glass of water on the floor, and a toothbrush, still in its packaging, lay propped on the pillow.

‘Let me know if there's anything else you need,' he said, bending down and awkwardly folding back the covers. ‘Bathroom's just next door.' He straightened up, one hand massaging his hip. ‘Do you want me to grab some of your stuff from home?'

The question jarred me. Without Mum there, next door didn't feel like home, just another empty house. I shook my head. All I wanted was to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head and shut out the remains of this day.

Manny blew a breath out between his lips and cupped a giant hand on my shoulder. ‘Look, Henry, we're not what you'd call experienced when it comes to kids. But we'll do our best to look after you till your mum comes home, OK?'

I nodded, toeing the soft folds of the bed cover. The insides of my eyelids were hot and swollen. I couldn't risk looking at him in case I started blubbering.

He hesitated, then squeezed my shoulder. ‘We'll go get your stuff in the morning. Sleep tight, OK?' A final pat and he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him.

I pulled the curtains open and stared out into the night. A flickering glow came from the house on their other side. It must be the old lady that I'd seen on the verandah in the mornings, watering her hydrangeas with a hose. Now sitting alone in the dark, watching TV, waiting for another day to end.

A couple of doors further up, etched into the blackness by security lights, was the school.

I turned away from the window.

I didn't care what Anders said; I wasn't going back to that school.

First thing tomorrow I was going to get Caleb or Manny to help me find Mum's contract. Then I was going to take it in to her at the hospital, so she wouldn't have to worry about no money coming in while she was laid up. And then I was going to pull up a chair and sit with her until she got better.

Anders' sketchbook lay on the sloping desktop. Closed, just like he'd left it. I drifted towards it, drawn by the memory of his hand moving across the page; the sure, deft strokes of the charcoal, the fluency of his movements, such a contrast to his stilted and brooding presence.

My hand hovered over the cover, tempted to open it and have a quick flick through. The memory of his hand clamping down on the pages flooded back. He'd made it pretty clear that he didn't want anyone, and certainly not me, looking at his drawings.

I crawled onto the mattress, and hugged my knees to my chest. I couldn't get the thought of Mum being operated on out of my head. I ground my kneecaps into my eye sockets and rocked back and forth, but I could still see Mum's face, stripped naked by pain and worry, telling me to find that contract.

A sharp tone from somewhere in the house brought my head up; a much-needed distraction. I pushed myself to my feet, flicked off the light and cracked open my door.

Caleb and Anders stood at the far end of the dining room. They were making an effort to keep their voices low, but Caleb was fuming about something, and Anders, head bowed, was on the receiving end.

The idea of Caleb going off was novel enough to make me strain to hear more. His next words snapped out, loud enough for me to hear.

‘The real-estate agency might have been a coincidence, but signing us up for this house wasn't, was it, Anders? For God's sake, did you think that no-one was going to notice?'

Anders looked away and I couldn't catch his reply. But Caleb sure did.

‘Staying away is no longer an option.' He clawed his fingers in frustration at Anders' bowed head. ‘You have to deal with this, you owe it to–'

He broke off, and swung round as though sensing my presence. I snicked the door closed as he started towards me and threw myself on the mattress on the floor.

Moments later, the door eased open. I felt eyes searching the darkness of the room as I lay unmoving under the garish sheet.

The click of high heels across the polished wood floor grew louder and stopped in the open doorway.

‘Is he asleep?' It was Vee, her sweet, musky candle scent wafting in the open doorway.

‘I think so,' said Caleb.

My heart thudded at the uncertainty in his voice.

‘Then go,' said Vee. ‘I will make certain that he is all right.'

A moment later his footsteps retreated down the hall. The scent of candles grew stronger.

‘I think not,' she said softly. ‘Not asleep yet, are you, Henry?'

I rolled onto my back and stared up at her pale face gleaming in the moonlight.

‘How did you know?'

Her skirts rustled and billowed as she settled on the floor beside me. She leaned towards me, resting a cheek on one knee, hands clasped around the tops of her high-laced boots.

‘I have spent a lifetime awake while the rest of the world sleeps, Henry. I know the moment that conscious thought vanishes. The instant when the breath slows and sighs, and settles into a rhythm never found in the wakeful.' She smiled, teeth white against her inky lips.

‘Geez, Vee–' I struggled into a sitting position. ‘I can't believe you don't know how creepy that sounds. No wonder Angelica thinks you're a vampire–'

She laughed. ‘Is that the girl who photographed our coffin? How wonderful. We should do our best to perpetuate the illusion–'

‘Why would you want to do that?' I pushed the hair out of my eyes, irritated that she could make a joke of it.

‘Because it would be amusing?' She shrugged. ‘Illusions are more entertaining than the truth, Henry. And more comforting.'

I wasn't in the mood for this. ‘Why do you have to go out of your way to be different, Vee? To freak people out with the black lipstick, the weird clothes–'

‘But I am different, Henry.' Her black-rimmed eyes were serious, her voice, calm and matter-of-fact. ‘That's what I came here to tell you.

‘There is something you must know about me, if you are to stay here.'

I drew my legs up and rested my chin on my knees, unsure what to make of her statement.

She lifted her chin. ‘Have you ever heard of a condition called
Xeroderma pigmentosum
?

‘Zero what?'

‘
Xeroderma pigmentosum.'

‘It sounds like a curse out of
Harry Potter.'

Her black lips thinned in a humourless smile. ‘Some might call it a curse. It is a genetic condition where the skin cannot repair itself.' She paused. ‘I was born with it. The smallest amount of sunlight causes dreadful burns that turn cancerous, killing most sufferers before they reach my age. You need to know this so that you don't rip open the blinds and inadvertently expose me to sunlight while you are here.'

‘Vee, that's terrible–' I couldn't have been more shocked if she had told me that she was in fact a vampire.

She shrugged. ‘I have a mild form of the disease, but my older brother was not so fortunate. He died before I was born. My mother knew to protect her next child. When she fell pregnant with me, she took no chances. We lived in Europe for the milder summers and shorter winter days. She ensured I was never exposed to sunlight while I was growing up.'

‘What, not at all?' I couldn't get my head around a life without the sun. ‘What did you do all day? How did you go to school?'

‘I slept during the day or played indoors. I was home-schooled by my mother. In music and literature, art and science. We became creatures of the night, playing and working during the hours of darkness.'

‘How did you make friends?' I thought I had it bad at Perpetual Suckers, but it was nothing compared to this.

‘In winter, the sun set by four o'clock; I could play with the local children until their bedtime. It was more difficult during the short summers; few wished to play indoors and the other children went to bed when the sun was still high in the sky. But it became easier as I grew older.'

She dimpled a smile at me. ‘You will one day discover that there is no shortage of young people who like to party till dawn and sleep all day.'

‘But to never go outside, to never go to the beach–'

‘Oh, but I do all that, Henry. Between sunset and sunrise. Caleb and I have swum at midnight, when the phosphorescence in the water glitters like diamonds. We have ridden horses in moonlight. Danced under the stars.'

She smiled again. ‘I refuse to let a skin condition ruin my life, Henry. I write and sleep during the day; shop, go to the movies, have fun with my friends at night. When they go to bed, I curl up with my characters at the computer and make more terrible things happen in their lives than have ever happened in mine. Then, to show I am a good witch after all, I help them sort it all out by the end.'

‘You're not a witch, Vee, don't say that–'

She shrugged. ‘People see the black clothing and make-up and say Goth. Witch. Emo. They are masks that I am happy to wear; tribes I am happy to belong to...'

She rose gracefully, smoothing her skirts. ‘We all must play the hand that we are dealt in this life, Henry. Choosing to play with imagination and flair makes the game more enjoyable, no?'

I nodded, not sure what else I could do.

She kissed two fingertips and pressed them to my forehead. ‘Sleep well, Henry. And when that is not possible, come knock on my door. I can be there for you while the rest of the world sleeps.'