The Good Neighbour (20 page)

‘What did he say?’ Cath took another slow, calming breath, and said more gently, ‘He’s a little boy, Minette. He doesn’t have any idea what’s going on.’

‘If I tell you, I want your solemn oath that you won’t be angry with him.’

‘Is that what you think of me?’

‘I don’t honestly know what I think, right now.’

‘Scout’s honour.’ Cath did the salute, trying to keep her tone light.

‘He said you know he can walk.’

Minette sat back with the expression of someone who’s done their bit. Oh, the confidence of her middle-class certainty. It’s not me who’s screwing around, lovie, Cath thought, so you can take that self-satisfied look right off your face. She swallowed this down in less than a second, and said, ‘Let me tell you about Davey. He was four when he started limping. I knew straight away what it was, I’d just been nursing a kid with Duchenne and his mother told me it began with a limp. And in a fortnight Davey went from being able to walk upstairs to being full-time in a wheelchair. With the diagnosis comes a shortened life expectancy, did you know that? He’ll have to have his back straightened when he’s older, to prevent his spine from crushing his lungs. But even so, he probably won’t make it past thirty.’

‘Cath, you’re shouting.’

Minette was staring at her, and Cath quickly pulled it together. ‘Sorry for going on,’ she said, in a normal volume. ‘Bit upset. You’ve just misunderstood, lovie. He can walk a tiny bit, that’s it. That’s what he means, when he says that I know.’

Minette looked at her watch, and stood up. ‘I’ll have to take over from Abe, he’s got to go to work.’

‘I’d hate that you were thinking badly of me,’ Cath said, trying not to sound desperate. She followed Minette to the front door. ‘Are we all right?’

‘Yes. I just need to have a think.’

‘Of course.’ Cath knew she needed to let Minette go, much as she wanted to force her to stay, to talk until she convinced her. ‘It’s been very weird for us, having to start a whole new life. I wish I’d told you more before. I don’t always know who I can trust.’

‘I don’t either. I’m really sorry you’ve had such a horrible time.’

Cath felt sure Minette wouldn’t want hostility between them. ‘Thank you. I knew you’d understand what it’s like to face aggression, after your experience with the Miltons.’

Minette said coolly, ‘Well, I wouldn’t say it was quite the same thing.’ She opened the door, said, ‘See you,’ and went out without a kiss.

Cath went back into the kitchen and sank into a chair.
Let the feelings come out.
A net was closing round her. Andy was a loose cannon. God knows what he had told Minette. For the dozenth time she cursed herself for leaving his number on her phone, or at least for not hiding it more subtly than ‘Hubby’. She assumed it would be protected by the passcode but somehow the hospital had managed to get past that. She was so exhausted, she could barely lift her hand to push a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

How blissful it had been to wake up in hospital. For those first few minutes, before she knew they would insist on keeping her in, going so far as sedating her ‘for your own safety’, she was the happiest she had been for months. Maybe years.

She’d seen the car door opening ahead of her in slow motion. She had time to stop. It was a split-second decision not to. She didn’t know she was going to let fate sweep her along until she did it. She was just so damn tired of keeping everything going. She knew that if she didn’t brake there would be a short period of not being in control. That desire, to hand over responsibility, overwhelmed her, stopped her thinking about the pain. She loved being in control. But she sometimes hated it too. The door opened, making the decision for her, and knocked her off the bike, a whooshing sound as she arced into the air, patch of blue sky, feathery clouds, mackerel clouds her mother used to call them, she thought she heard her mother saying, ‘Oh my little one, let me kiss it better,’ and then she woke in the clean white sheets of a hospital bed, a familiar smell and bustle around her. Nurses. Busy, careful hands keeping her safe. Home.

She’d only made two slight miscalculations. Firstly, she’d not took into account how terrified of lawsuits hospitals were now. Five years ago she’d have been allowed out, soon as she said she felt fine. Now they couldn’t risk the tiny chance that she might black out on the way home and sue the backside off them. Secondly, she’d got wrong by one day Gina’s holiday dates. So hard to remember everything. So hard, when you’re tired.

Come on, little one. Feel better for mummy. Right. Onwards. There was a lot to do. She was just going to have to move faster, that was all. She’d reckoned to being here between six months and a year. So what if it was three months? Verna had made it clear that she was completely flexible.

Cath logged onto her site to blog her latest training stats, and checked the current total amount: £9,245. The newspaper must have come out, that was another big jump. Put that together with all the other money: the quiz, sponsorship, Minette’s pledges, and the nursery, and it would be pushing eighteen grand. She’d been really pleased about the nursery, that had turned out better than she expected. And then there was Liam. She hadn’t even spoken to him yet. She needed to find the right moment.

She got everything ready that she needed for Davey’s appointment, then drove to school to collect him. On the way she stopped at a garage to buy the
Hove Gazette
. Her article was on page five, accompanied by two large photos she’d sent them: one of cute Jerry in the wheelchair, the other of a mangled bike. Not her bike, sure, and not her child, but no one would check. She smiled when she saw that they’d printed the complete url of the ‘Doing it for Davey’ page. They really were desperate to fill the space.

DAVEY’S MUM COLLECTED
him from school in the middle of a spelling test, so he wasn’t sorry to leave. He knew he’d got ‘disappointed’ wrong. His mum was quiet all the way to Haywards Heath. All she said was, ‘We’ve got to get this right, Davey, OK?’

‘OK,’ he said.

The clinic was very white and there were comics and his mum let him buy a KitKat from the machine. The doctor, a lady, took them into a room and asked his mum lots of questions. Davey got bored, so he told Adam his five favourite doctors.

1. The one in Harrogate who gave him six stickers when he was only meant to have one. Plus he let Davey have a go at listening to Lola’s chest with the stethoscope.
   
2. Dr Barry in Accident and Emergency, that wasn’t for him, it was when Lola had eaten tuna. He had funny eyebrows he could wiggle and he told them lots of knock-knock jokes. The best one was Knock Knock! Who’s there? Interrupting cow. Interrupt … Then you had to say moo! You had to say it quickly before they finished saying interrupting cow. He told it to his dad later and his dad laughed, and said, ‘That’s a good one!’
   
3. Dr Patel who fitted him with his wheelchair and said Davey got the hang of it very quickly.
   
4. The one at Eastbourne when they were at Gina’s, and they’d run out of steroids. That doctor kept saying, ‘I don’t think this boy should be on steroids, they are not necessary.’ His mum said all huffy, ‘No offence doctor, but his specialist at our last hospital would disagree with you.’ And the doctor said, ‘We are all only human and doing our best, madam.’
   
5. The doctor in Liverpool, he couldn’t remember much about her because they moved away when he was little, but she had long swishy hair and a smiley face.
   

When Davey started concentrating on the doctor again, he realised his mum was getting a bit upset. ‘I have explained all this a hundred times already,’ she said.

‘I understand, Ms Brooke,’ the lady said. She wore a red shirt and black trousers. She had three patterned gold rings on one hand, and her name badge said Dr Chowdry. ‘I know it is annoying to have to repeat yourself. But please bear with me, as I want to go through it for my own satisfaction. So Davey has not yet had his muscle biopsy?’

‘Yes, in our last town, but we don’t have any record of it! When will you people do any kind of joined-up working? I already told Dr Persaud and Dr Ogueh in Brighton about our situation, and they agreed we could postpone the repeat biopsy.’

‘That is fine.’ The doctor made a note on her paper. ‘I’m scheduling it for six months’ time. Now, without the biopsy we are going to have to do the diagnostic blood test.’

‘Just to let you know, doctor, that his last creatine kinase test showed clearly the very high levels in his blood.’

The doctor looked at Davey’s mum with a serious expression, like a teacher. Davey felt excited. Was she going to tell his mum off?

‘Ms Brooke, in the absence of Davey’s records, we obviously have to do the test again.’

His mum sighed and said, ‘Well, I suppose you can’t just take my word for it.’

‘Not really, no.’

‘Typical NHS bureaucracy.’ Davey realised his mum was now in a good mood. ‘Worse than when I was nursing, and it was bad enough then.’

The doctor laughed. ‘Ah yes, where would we be without our paperwork, eh?’ She didn’t, Davey noticed, ask his mum about being a nurse, like most other doctors did.

She turned to Davey. ‘How are you getting on at school, Davey?’

‘All right.’

‘He’s at mainstream school, yes?’

Davey’s mum nodded.

‘OK Davey, so you are going to see a few different doctors today, I’m sorry about that. One will take a blood test, the physiotherapist will look at your legs and give you some exercises to try, then we will check whether you are on the appropriate medication. The dose of prednisolone, the steroid you are on,’ she looked at her paper, ‘is quite strong but on the other hand you do seem to have good muscle strength so maybe they are helping with that. We will take some X-rays of your back to check the steroids are not causing bone problems.’

‘Jumping snakes, Davey, we’ll be here all day.’

‘I hope not.’ The doctor smiled. ‘Please take a seat back outside.’

Davey added the doctor to his list of top five, replacing the swishy-haired doctor. He liked the way she spoke to his mum, as if she wasn’t afraid of her.

Back in the waiting room, his mum said, ‘Come in the loo, I need a pee.’ They went into the disabled loo together, and his mum locked the door. She unzipped her bag and took out some cotton wool and white tape. ‘Give me your arm, lovie.’ Davey held out his arm and his mum rolled up his sleeve. ‘There’s not enough room in here to swing a cat, is there?’ Just above his elbow she put a piece of cotton wool and stuck it in place with the tape. ‘It’s totally unnecessary to repeat the test, we’ve done it before.’ She rolled his sleeve back down. Then she went back into her bag and took out a little glass tube.

‘Here’s one I prepared earlier.’ She grinned and put it in her pocket. ‘Now I just need to see what initials they put on these, and which colour lid, and then we’re done.’

‘Shall we tell them?’

‘No, lovie, we won’t. I won’t, and you won’t either, OK? We don’t want to have a blood test if we don’t need to, do we? A horrid scratchy needle?’ His mum held his chin in her hand, and turned his face to look at her. ‘Can I just remind you again of our golden rule, Davey? Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sometimes I’m not sure you do. What was going on in your mind, for instance, when Minette stayed that night?’ Her face was very close to his. He could see the pattern of lines underneath her eyes, like a noughts-and-crosses grid, and big holes on her skin. Pores, they were called. ‘You must have been pretty noisy for her to wake up.’

‘I needed the loo.’

‘Funny how you never normally need it in the night.’ He couldn’t move his face to look away, so he turned his eyes up to the ceiling.

‘Hmm,’ she said. She let go his chin. ‘Remember, lovie.’ She pretended she was zipping up her mouth. ‘Zip! That’s what I do.’

They went back outside, and Davey’s mum went over to the desk to look at the blood bottles. She took a yellow lid when no one was looking, and went into the loo again to write on the label. When she came out, Davey watched as she carefully put the sample in the box on the desk.

A different doctor examined Davey’s legs. ‘The calf muscles are in very good shape,’ he said. ‘If anything, they are smaller than we would expect. Many children with muscular dystrophy have enlarged calf muscles.’

‘I know,’ Davey’s mum said. ‘I’m a paediatric nurse.’

‘Oh, are you?’ the doctor said, all smiley.

‘Well, I’m not working at the moment of course, got enough on my plate right now.’

The doctor patted Davey’s head. ‘Well young man, you’re clearly in very good hands here.’ He showed Davey some ankle exercises. Davey copied the doctor, and was told how very good he was at them. ‘Please encourage him to do these, Ms Brooke,’ he said. ‘Try and make them fun and part of the daily routine.’

‘Of course, doctor,’ Davey’s mum said.

Davey wanted to tell the doctor that he didn’t need the exercises, that every morning and every night he practised walking round and round his bedroom. He didn’t want to forget how to do it. But he thought the golden rule would probably say not to. Instead, he said that he liked the doctor’s watch. It was silver, with three little clocks on its face. Davey liked those extra clocks.

‘You’re an observant boy,’ the doctor said. ‘It’s a Breitling, a gift from a grateful patient.’ He looked at Davey’s mum and laughed. ‘A grateful and wealthy patient!’

They went back to the waiting room, and after a while a nurse said she would take a blood sample.

‘Oh!’ Davey’s mum said, all smiling and surprised, ‘We’ve already had one.’

‘Really?’ The nurse’s badge said Helen McLaine. ‘That’s odd.’

‘Show the nice nurse, Davey,’ his mum said, and Davey rolled up his sleeve so she could see the place where his mum had put the cotton wool and tape. ‘It was another nurse,’ his mum went on. ‘I don’t know her name. She had the initials SR?’

‘That’d be Stella. She was here first thing but she’s gone off to do another clinic.’

‘Yes, that’s what she told us. We were one of her last ones.’

‘I thought she’d already left when I came in.’ The nurse looked from her clipboard to Davey’s arm. ‘Hang on a minute.’ She went over to the desk.