Infinite Sky (20 page)

I was leaving when Sam started to shake. He lay on his back, limbs and torso thrashing madly. I couldn’t remember what to do. I checked there was nothing hard under his head, but the whole
ground was covered in stones.

Pink foam pooled at the corner of his mouth, blood and spit mixed. It spurted out of him, and I wiped it away with the corner of my T-shirt. I asked him to please wake up, and told him he was
going to be all right, and all the time blood trickled from the side of his head.

I told Trick not to dare leave my brother, and I went to get help.

My teeth were chattering and my lungs about to burst when I got to the paddock. Trick’s uncle’s trailer had been moved to block the entrance. Nan’s face
dropped when she saw me. She stood in the doorway of her caravan, wrapped in a long wool cardigan now. The tractor was so loud. The little black dog yapped at her ankles, but I couldn’t hear
it. I could see the feet of one of Trick’s little sisters poking out behind her. The greyhounds barked at the tractor tyres, scratching at the ground underneath them.

Once you were in the glare of the tractor’s lights, the rest of the field disappeared. Dad was bent in front of one the caravans. Its tow bar had been looped with chains and stacked with
timber, and Dad was grunting with the effort of shifting it. The tea towel he’d wrapped around his knuckles was covered in black grease.

‘What?’ he shouted over the noise of the tractor engine, and he sounded annoyed until he saw my expression.

‘Where’s Sam?’ he said.

‘There’s been an accident,’ I said, and the words vibrated through my teeth. ‘I’ve rung for an ambulance.’

He waved his arms at the pig farmer, shouted to turn the bloody engine off. The tractor coughed to silence. The lights cut. The field stank of exhaust fumes.

‘There’s been a fight,’ I stuttered. ‘Sam’s hurt. He’s at the top of the road. The ambulance is coming.’

In the moonlight, Dad’s skin was grey. He put his hands on my shoulders, looking as if he was about to ask another question, then he grabbed a torch from Fraz, and took off. I followed,
stumbling over the tufts of long grass. A bird flew up from somewhere near my feet.

I thought I would fall, but my legs kept moving and my lungs kept filling up. The moon floated above me.

I was crying now, and shivering. I couldn’t stop. Sam was dead. I knew it. He’d lost so much blood.

I chased Dad up the lane. His torchbeam caught the tyre marks that scarred the dirt track, and I looked at them, hoping somehow Sam wouldn’t be there, that he’d be sitting at the
side of the road, that he’d only been unconscious, but he was exactly where I’d left him.

Trick had gone. I was so angry. Then something caught my eye. He was in the pig farmer’s field, a few metres off. He crouched behind a patch of nettles, on the other side of the hedge, and
his face showed no sign that he’d seen me, though his eyes were on mine.

It was like we were seeing each other for the first or last time. Something went through me, and then he turned and ran, towards the stepping stones and the paddock.

In the torchlight, I saw Sam’s face. His nostrils were crusted with blood, and his nose was a mess, flat where it shouldn’t be. Blood had turned the hair around the cut on his head
black and thick and glossy, and there was a shiny pool of it beneath him.

‘My God,’ Dad said.

He held his ear over Sam’s mouth, listening for breath. He checked his pulse.

‘Sam,’ I said. ‘Wake up. Sammy? Can you hear me?’

His hand was warm against mine. ‘Is he there?’ I kept saying, instead of is
it
there, meaning his pulse, but I couldn’t hear Dad’s answer because my teeth were
chattering so much. The night was balmy, but I was freezing cold.

Dad found the cleanest part of his tea towel and pressed it to Sam’s temple. He told me to hold it there, to keep the pressure on, and I was scared in case I made it worse, but he shouted
until I pressed as hard as he wanted. He took his jumper off and lay it across Sam’s chest.

‘Sam,’ Dad called sharply. ‘Can you hear me? Sam? Say something. God, I’m so sorry, Sam. You’re all right though, you’re all right, boy. You’re going to
be all right.’

Sam groaned. His eyes opened.

‘Dad?’

‘I’m so sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry.’

‘What for?’

Putting his thumb in his mouth, he hooked his broken nose with his finger. He felt for his chicken pock scar then winced. ‘I’ve got toothache.’

‘Yeah, we’re going to get that sorted,’ Dad said. ‘We’re going to the dentist now. Are you warm enough?’

Sam rolled over and spat a mouthful of blood. His brown eyes settled on mine. I couldn’t think. I stroked his stubbly head.

‘Hiya, Sam,’ I said, stupidly, and then he lay back and his eyes closed again.

‘That’s it, nice and warm now,’ Dad said, tucking his jumper under Sam’s chin.

He rubbed one hand over his chest.

‘Nice and warm,’ he said.

He took my hand and squeezed it, and we sat like that, the three of us, me and Dad watching the lights of the cars on Ashbourne Road swing by, hoping that the next ones would be blue, that they
would slow down and turn towards us.

I sat in the waiting room of Intensive Care with my head throbbing. I felt like I was sitting in a foggy room. When I turned my head I saw stars. We’d watched the
paramedics bring Sam in on a stretcher. They’d put IVs in his arms, and given him a tetanus jab, and rushed him to have a CT scan.

He was almost the same colour as his pillow, and just as still, and Dad had clutched my shoulders as they wheeled him to where he needed to be. I’d been checked over and except for a lump
and bit of bruising, I was fine; a mild concussion.

Dad sat beside me, and I realised my hand was boiling hot because he was holding it. He rubbed it between his palms, and I felt his chapped skin.

He half shouted my name, and I opened my eyes, frightened.

‘You can’t sleep, Eye. Remember,’ he said, gently.

He held out a plastic cup of tea, and I wondered where it had come from. Strip lights blinded me. There was a fuzzy feeling in my head, like my brain had been swapped for a huge bumblebee. I
narrowed my eyes as it shifted position.

A pale nurse with long dark hair and red lips walked out from Sam’s ward. Dad told me to wait while he tried to talk to her.

I sipped the too sweet tea.

He caught up with her at another doorway. He looked really old next to the young nurse.

She shook her head, and her dark ponytail brushed against her back. Dad rubbed his face. She shook her head again and touched his arm, and Dad nodded slowly, and then she went away.

‘Nothing new. A doctor will come and talk to us soon,’ he said.

He sat back down.

Sam had been sedated to stop the seizures. They’d gotten worse after we arrived.

Dad asked again what the hell had happened out there. From the start, he said. He took my shoulders, and looked into my eyes.

‘Who was out there, Iris? Was it that gypsy? Was Punky there?’

I couldn’t answer. I thought of Trick’s fingers scrabbling on the ground, the wet sound of Sam’s nose breaking. I opened my mouth. Dad had oil on his cheek.

‘Iris. Your brother could . . . Sam could . . .’ His voice buckled before he finished the sentence, and he looked away, down the never-ending tunnel of the hospital corridor.

I wiped my eyes. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘
I know
. But I
don’t know
.’ And it sounded so mournful it could have been true.

He held me away from him, and checked my expression.

‘You don’t remember?’

He examined the lump on my head.

‘Because that isn’t good.’

He began looking around for a nurse, but there were only more people like us – confused and scared, or worn down and used to it, flicking blindly through magazines. He pressed the side of
my head and I winced.

‘Sam’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘And your memory will come back. It’s just the concussion. You’ll be all right.’

He let go of my hand and stood, looking up and down the corridors for a nurse. He rubbed his hand over his chin, and sat down again.

‘Us Dancys are tough,’ he said. ‘Specially our noggins.’

He tried to smile. There were stars behind my eyes. They floated around the edges of things. The walls of the waiting room were a dull blue.

I heard the noise of them scratching and grunting and scraping. I heard Leanne’s high-pitched laugh. I saw Sam’s head in a pool of blood. I wanted to sleep.

Dad put his arm round me.

‘No sleep. Come on. Talk to me.’

He rubbed my arm too hard, and I opened my eyes.

‘The police will need to talk to you. Soon as your brother wakes up. You’ll have to give a statement. Tell them who did it.’

I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut against his chest. I wanted to tell him everything, but I couldn’t speak.

The doctor arrived. She introduced herself as Dr Kang, and gave us a quick, kind smile. She took the plastic seat beside Dad. Her perfume was sweet, and there was a big ink spot on the pocket of
her white shirt. She started talking straight away.

‘Your son’s stable for the moment. We’ve put him on anti-convulsant medications to control the seizures. I’m afraid the CT scan showed a skull fracture, and swelling as
well as bleeding in the brain. Your son needs emergency surgery. We’re preparing to take him to the operating theatre.’

She explained how surgeons would cut a small hole in Sam’s skull and insert a plastic tube to drain some of the fluid from inside the brain and help relieve the pressure. They would take
out the blood clots too. We nodded, as if we could understand. I kept thinking about
how
they would cut a small hole in Sam’s skull.

As Dr Kang was getting up to go, Dad told her that my concussion was worse than we’d thought, that I didn’t remember anything about what had happened at all. I thought I’d see
suspicion in her brown eyes, but she only said I would be fine, as long as he watched the symptoms carefully and saw a doctor if they got any worse. She said the best thing he could do for me was
take me home to get some rest.

‘We’d rather wait here,’ Dad said, and the doctor talked about the possibility of a family room, but Dad said we were fine where we were. She gave a pointed look to me, but I
agreed with him.