One Perfect Pirouette (14 page)

chapter 22

Our house was in darkness; there were no cars in the driveway. When I let myself in, the doorhandle seemed icy, the air inside thick and stale. I turned the kitchen light on and made myself some hot chocolate, then peeled potatoes for dinner. Still there was no one home. Maybe Orrin was out running, but where was Mum? Or Dad?

The phone rang, jarring the silence, and I dropped the knife into the sink in fright.

‘Hello?'

‘Brynna, you're home. Thank goodness.'

‘Mum? Where are you?'

‘I'm at –' She took a deep breath and the sound of it chilled me down to my bones. ‘I'm at the hospital. Your dad's had an accident at work.'

‘What?' I was sure I'd heard her wrong. ‘What do you mean, “accident”? What happened?'

‘Never mind that now,' she said. ‘Orrin will be home shortly and he'll bring you back.'

‘Orrin can't drive.' I seemed to be saying stupid things, but I couldn't help it. What did she mean by ‘accident'? ‘Is Dad all right?'

‘They won't tell me anything yet. He's still in the operating theatre.'

‘But –'

‘Look, I haven't got time to discuss it. Just wait for Orrin, all right?' Her voice was high-pitched, like she was hanging on by her fingernails.

She hung up in my ear and I put the phone down gently. My whole body felt like it was made of cotton wool and I had to sit down. My head spun – what had happened? Was Dad going to die? Why wouldn't she tell me?

I hadn't even known I was crying, but now I couldn't stop. I grabbed a handful of tissues and jammed them into my eyes, held my breath and tried to stop being such a wuss. Mum wouldn't want me to bawl like a little kid and I didn't want Orrin to see me in a mess either. The tears gradually stopped and I washed my face in cold water.

A car horn tooted outside and, a few seconds later, Orrin burst in the back door. ‘Come on,' he said, ‘the taxi's waiting.'

‘Taxi'? I'd been in a taxi maybe once in my whole life. I scrambled out the door behind him and got into the back seat.

‘Back to Western General, mate, thanks,' Orrin said, and the taxi roared off down the street.

‘What's happened to Dad?' I said.

‘Didn't Mum tell you?'

‘No.'

‘He got hit by a forklift. Actually, he got hit by the load of pipes on the forklift.' He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘The guy wasn't watching where he was going – he had the load on wrong. It fell off and Dad and another guy got crushed.'

‘That's terrible! Is he going to be okay?'

‘Um –' His mouth trembled and a stab of fear went through my stomach. I held on so tight to the door handle, I nearly pulled it off the door. ‘The other guy's dead. Dad's being operated on. They said he's critical and they can't tell us anything yet.'

I couldn't speak. How could this have happened to my dad?

The hospital was quiet inside, with nurses bustling along on soft-soled shoes and murmuring to each other. We went up in a huge lift, Orrin leaning against the wall with his arms wrapped around himself. When the doors slid open, he pointed to the left and I followed him down a corridor with a shiny floor. Was Dad back in a room already? No. Around the next corner there was a waiting area with dingy lounge chairs and a couple of low tables piled with tattered magazines. Mum sat in the far corner, staring out of the darkened window at lights in the distance.

As we got nearer, she looked around and saw me, and held out her arms. I rushed to sit next to her and she hugged me tightly. ‘Brynnie, you're here.'

‘What's happening? Have they operated on Dad yet?'

‘He's still in there. We have to wait – and it could be long while.' She smiled at Orrin. ‘Thanks, love.'

Orrin nodded and slouched in the next chair with his hands in his pockets.

My tummy rumbled loudly and Mum reached for her bag. ‘You're right. It's dinner time and no one's eaten.'

‘I'm not hungry,' Orrin said.

‘Me neither.' My stomach said it was hungry, but it also said it was so churned up that eating might not be a good idea.

‘You both need to eat and I do too. If I drink any more coffee, my eyes will pop out.' She gave Orrin a twenty-dollar note. ‘Take Brynna down to the cafe and find us all some food that isn't too terrible, will you?'

He took the money and I followed him again, feeling like a sheep. We found the cafe on a lower floor and stood in front of the packets of dry-looking sandwiches and cakes. ‘It's this, or those pies and sausage rolls,' he said.

The pies looked like they'd been in the heater for days. ‘Isn't there anything else?'

‘I guess it's sandwiches then.' We picked the ones that looked edible, bought cold drinks as well and carried them back upstairs. Mum said maybe we shouldn't be eating in the waiting area, but no one else was around to tell us off, so we went ahead. My cheese and ham sandwich was like cardboard, but nothing would have tasted any different. And at least the orange juice was cold.

The hours dragged on. We all took turns pacing. We stopped to read the noticeboards and stare out the windows, then sat down again. There was nothing to talk about that made any sense, not while we were sitting there waiting to find out whether Dad was going to live or die. Every time I thought about it, my eyes burned and I had to blink hard, over and over, to stop the tears.

By eleven o'clock, both Orrin and I were lying across the lounge chairs, dozing. I'd keep hearing footsteps and jerk up to see who it was, but it was usually a nurse in the corridor. A couple of times a nurse in a different uniform came and told us there was no news yet, and each time Mum said thanks and we all went back to waiting.

Just before midnight, we heard doors opening and closing and footsteps in the corridor. We all sat up as a man in pale blue scrubs, his face tired and lined, came into the waiting area.

‘Mrs Davies?'

‘Yes?' Mum jumped up, but then she froze, like she couldn't get her feet to move any closer to him. I couldn't move either – I could hardly breathe. Had this doctor come to tell us Dad was dead?

The doctor rubbed his face with both hands as he faced Mum. ‘Your husband's out of theatre and so far he's holding his own. We'll have to keep a very close eye on him now. His head injury was the most serious and immediate thing to deal with. They'll be taking him up to intensive care in a little while.'

‘Right. Thanks,' Mum whispered.

‘Have you got any questions?'

I knew the question we all wanted to ask – was Dad going to die? But no one was game to say it. Mum shook her head. ‘No. Not at the moment.'

‘Right, then.' He looked at us, then back to Mum again. ‘If you go up to the intensive care ward in about twenty minutes, they'll let you see him for a few minutes.'

He left and Mum sank down into her seat again and burst into tears, scrabbling in her bag for tissues. Orrin and I gaped at her – Mum never cried. But something this bad had never happened to us before.

‘Don't worry,' she said, taking a shuddering breath, ‘I'll calm down in a minute. It's just all been a bit much.'

‘You go for it, Mum,' Orrin said. ‘I might even join you.'

‘Are they going to let us in to see Dad?' I said. ‘Or just you?'

‘I don't know. We'll ask when we go up.'

We sat close together, watching the clock tick over the minutes. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen – the seconds were dragging and Orrin jumped up and paced round the room, his arms folded, shoulders hunched. It was as if he had so much energy pent up inside that he couldn't stay still. Then he dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups. Mum and I couldn't believe it, but we said nothing. I wanted to join him, but instead I sat, jiggling my legs and watching the clock again.

‘Twenty minutes is up,' Orrin said.

It was only seventeen, but we leapt up and rushed towards the lift together. He jabbed at the button for the fifth floor and we stood there in silence. When the lift doors opened, it felt like slow motion as we stepped out and walked over to the nurses' station. Mum asked about Dad and a nurse pointed to a room two doors down. ‘Only for two minutes,' she said.

I wasn't sure what to expect. Would Dad be all covered in bandages? Would he look like Dad? Maybe he'd be hooked up to a dozen machines and look like a machine himself. But when we were finally allowed into his room, he was still unconscious. I was right about the machines and they beeped and flashed continuously, but I guessed that meant he was alive and doing everything he was supposed to – like breathe and have a heartbeat.

Mum was almost too scared to touch him. She laid her hand over his – the one that didn't have a tube going into it – and took a deep breath. Orrin and I stood near the end of the bed.

The bandage around Dad's head was the worst bit. It made him look like a mummy, as if he was already dead, and his face was pale and a bit whiskery. After what seemed like only about ten seconds, the nurse said we had to leave. ‘You could go home now, if you like,' she said. ‘He'll be unconscious for some time yet.'

‘Where's the waiting room here?' was all Mum said and when the nurse showed us to a room at the end of the corridor, we filed in and sat down again. Mum went to the toilet and came back with her face damp and her eyes shadowed. ‘I think you two should go home and get some sleep. I'll stay with your dad, just in case – he wakes up.'

‘I'm not going home,' said Orrin.

‘Me neither,' I added.

Mum hugged us both. ‘Better get comfortable on these chairs then.' She took out her mobile phone. ‘It's very late, but I think I'd better ring Tony and let him know what's happening.'

From Mum's end of the call, I worked out that she'd already rung Uncle Tony earlier, and that he and Aunty Sue and Tam were still up, waiting to hear from her.

‘Yes, if you want to come down, that would be great, Tony,' said Mum. ‘Yes, bring Tam, please.' She talked to Tam for a couple of minutes, telling him about Dad, and then said goodbye and pressed the
Off
button, sighing. ‘I feel better now. They'll be here by eight in the morning, he said. I did want him to bring Tam, more than anything.'

I hadn't even thought about Tam! My brain had been focused on the hospital and Dad, and watching that long corridor, waiting for someone to come and tell us the news. What would Tam say? Would he want to come back to Melbourne now because of Dad? It seemed like he'd been gone for months, but it was only a few weeks. I wondered what it had been like for him, going back to his old school. Mum had been calling him several times a week and once or twice I'd talked to him, but he wasn't into conversation much, so after a few grunts, I ended up handing the phone back to Mum.

Again, we sat in the uncomfortable chairs and stared at the floor and ceiling, and Mum leafed through another pile of old magazines. ‘Are you going to stay awake all night, Mum?' I said.

‘No, I'll try and sleep soon, even though these chairs will probably cripple me for life. Why don't you lie down? You'll fit on them better than either of us.'

‘Okay.' I stretched out across three chairs, trying to ignore the gaps and the bits digging into me. Everything was quiet, except for the hum of airconditioning and faint beeping sounds from the rooms. My eyes closed and I slept, but the chairs and Mum and Orrin talking kept waking me up, then I dipped into black depths and didn't hear another thing.

My dreams were all jumbled up, with Ricky and Ms Ellergren dancing around me, and Mimi playing the piano. Lucy and Jade were reading a huge book with pictures in it that they wouldn't show me, then suddenly I was in a hospital bed like Dad, with my whole body wrapped in bandages so I couldn't move. I knew that I wanted to dance, but a nurse kept pushing me back on the bed and Ms Ellergren stood by the door, watching a big clock. I couldn't see the time on it, because her head was in the way. Then she said, ‘Too late, you're out,' and disappeared.

I woke with a start and waved my arms around wildly, feeling as if I was about to fall off the narrow chairs. The air conditioning had got colder and I had goosebumps all over me. What had that dream been about? An awful feeling of dread curdled in my stomach and I felt like my sandwich was about to come up again. The clock above the doorway read 3:45, and outside it was still pitch black. Nowhere near dawn. I needed to go to the toilet and stood up slowly, unbending all the kinks from my body.

Mum and Orrin were both asleep, with their heads back and mouths open. Orrin was snoring lightly and Mum looked really uncomfortable. I supposed they were both like me – so tired that they slept anyway. I wandered down the corridor and found the toilets at the other end. I was too wide awake now, so I washed my face and arms and drank some water, still thinking about the dream.

Then it hit me. It was Tuesday. Today was class day, the last one before we went for our auditions. A really important class, Ms Ellergren had said. There was no way I could go and I knew I wouldn't be going to school either. How could I, with Dad lying here, nearly dead? What would we do if he died? I looked at myself in the mirror and my face said it all. I looked like a ghoul, with big black holes for eyes and white skin. Even my mouth was white. A terrible ache grew in my throat and I wanted to cry but the tears wouldn't come. Instead the ache grew bigger until I thought it was going to choke me, or my chest was going to split open.

Oh Dad, please don't die,
I begged,
please!
I couldn't imagine our lives without him. His big laugh, his capable hands fixing things for us, his arms hugging Mum, hugging me, the way he was always there when we needed something, his quiet voice that calmed me down, his faith in our talents, his hard work –