Ways to Live Forever (8 page)

It felt weird being back on our ward again. The nurse on the nurses’ station was new and didn’t recognize us. She said Felix had a private room. I trailed the tips of my fingers along the corridor walls as I followed Mum, remembering. Felix always used to say the sicker you got, the better service they gave you. Once, him and me emptied a whole bottle of vampire blood over his sheets to try and get this student nurse to bring us a bottle of Coke from the machine. She went
absolutely
white and screamed for one of the proper nurses to come. We didn’t half get told off.

And
she never got the Coke for us.

“There you are!”

I jumped. It was Mickey, Felix’s brother, smiling at me and Mum over two cups of plastic hospital tea. He looked the same as always: big and rumpled, like a sleepy bear, with what looked like egg yolk down his T-shirt. He started talking to Mum. I listened at first, in case they said anything about Felix, but they just went on about his dad and his grandparents and someone else I’d never heard of. I stopped listening. I went and stood by his door, wanting to go in but not daring.

I felt sick.

When we finally did go in, it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. Felix was lying in bed, on his back, in ordinary pyjamas. He looked asleep. His mum was sitting by the bed, holding his hand. She turned when we came in. She and Mum stared at each other, over the bed.

Then her face seemed to crumple and she burst into tears.

Me and Mum and Mickey just stood there in the doorway. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen Felix’s mum cry before. Maybe Mum had, though. She went right over to her and put her arms around her.

“Shh. . .” she said. “Shh . . . It’s all right. It’s all right.” With her arm around her shoulder, she guided her towards the door, still talking in the same quiet voice. “Come on. Come on, now. Let’s go somewhere quiet.” And just like that, they were gone.

“It’s all right,” said Mickey. “There’s a special room to flap in.”

“I know,” I said. I suddenly remembered what Felix had said, that he didn’t want his mum to be there when he died, in case she got upset. I looked quickly at him. He hadn’t moved.

“Would you like to come sit by him?” said Mickey. I nodded. He gave me a little push towards the chair.

“Hold his hand if you want. And talk to him. Let him know you’re here.”

“Can he hear?”

“Maybe.”

I wondered if he was in a coma or just asleep. Probably a coma, I thought. You can’t hear people when you’re asleep. I wondered what would happen if I shook him and yelled, “Wake up!”

Maybe he’d open his eyes and shout, “Where’s my Coke, then?”

Maybe not.

I sat in the chair but I didn’t hold his hand. I felt very silly, sitting there. I know it was awful, but I couldn’t help it. I wondered if he
could
see us, or hear us. If he could, I bet he was laughing at me.

“Hello,” I said.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not with Mickey there. But Mickey seemed to understand. He said, “I’d better give Mum her tea. Would you like a cup?”

“Yes,” I said. “Please.”

“You’ll be all right on your own, won’t you?” he said. “You won’t be frightened?”

“No,” I said.

I wasn’t frightened. He was just Felix.

He looked just like he was asleep.

What happened next was something incredible.

Something I didn’t tell Mickey or Felix’s mum or anyone.

Something secret.

I felt better after Mickey had gone. I sat in my chair looking at Felix, scuffing the soles of my trainers across the floor. It was quiet. Nice. Just the two of us.

“I wish you’d hurry up and wake up,” I said. I knew he wasn’t going to, really, but I still said it.

And then he opened his eyes.

He was looking right at me. I stared at him. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe I should shout for Mickey, but I couldn’t move. It was like he wanted me to do something, or say something, and I didn’t know what.

“It’s all right,” I said.

He kept on looking. Then, suddenly, he smiled. More than smiled. He
grinned
, a big, wide, face-splitting grin. He looked so pleased that I found myself smiling back, without meaning to.

And then his eyes closed and his body relaxed.

I sat there on my black plastic hospital chair, by the bed, next to him. I knew I ought to go and get Mickey or a nurse or someone, but I didn’t. I just sat there, quiet and close beside him, until they all came back.

Death: The final cessation of vital functions in an organism; the ending of life.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary
, Ninth Edition

When someone dies it means their body no longer works. Their heart stops beating, they no longer need to eat or sleep and they do not have any pain. They do not need their bodies any longer (which is good because their body doesn’t work). Because dead people do not need their bodies we can no longer see them like we used to do before they died.

Children and Death
by Danai Papadatou and

Costas Papadatos

I didn’t sleep much the night Felix died. I felt very, very tired, but I didn’t sleep. I stayed awake and listened. I listened to the central heating making noises. I listened to the rain pattering on the roof. I followed the familiar shapes of the shadows and tried to remember what each one was.
That
was my notice board, stuck up with all my cards.
That
was a laundry basket, full of clothes waiting to be put away. I lay awake and tried to breathe it in and save it up somewhere where I would remember it always.

Very late at night, I heard footsteps creaking down the stairs and my door opened. It was Ella. She was holding her big stuffed elephant and crying. I sat up in bed and looked at her. She didn’t say anything. I think she was half asleep still. She padded over to the bed and sort of patted me, as if making sure I was still there. Then she climbed into bed beside me, wrapped her arms round the elephant and closed her eyes.

She’s never done anything like that before.

I lay for a while pressed up against the wall, feeling her cold toes against my leg and the soft warmth of her body through her pyjamas. Then something seemed to relax inside me, and I closed my eyes and slept.

I stayed in bed the next day. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I didn’t get up. Outside was grey and cold and full of rain. Annie came in the morning, but Mrs Willis didn’t. Mum kept putting her head round the door and saying, “Are you all right?” or “Don’t you want something to eat?”

I felt strange and heavy and not quite there. My bones were hurting again.

Mum kept looking like she wanted to say something and then not. I didn’t want to talk to her. I didn’t know what to say.

I could see she had been crying. Her face was red and watery and full of tears.

That evening, she came and sat by my bed.

“Sam. . .” she said. “Sam, do you think you could eat something? For me?”

I shook my head. My insides were all churned up, as if I was on a ship that wouldn’t stay still, as if the whole world was a ship, rocking and swaying in a storm. Mum nodded once or twice. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Maybe you could have some milkshake. . .”

She went away and made me some milkshake. I held the glass, awkwardly. It felt smooth and heavy between my fingers. The skin on my hand felt tender and numb at the same time. I could feel every prickle of my jersey against my arms and my neck.

Mum was looking at me.

“Please,” she said.

I drank about half of the milk. And then I was sick, all over the duvet and down my jersey.

Mum just sat there looking at me.

I began to shake. I couldn’t stop myself. And then I realized I was crying, although whether it was because of Felix, or because I’d been sick, or because I felt so tired and ill, I don’t know.

Mum reached out and put her arm around me but I cried out, because it hurt. So then she took her arms away and she was crying too.

“I hate it,” I said. My voice came out in this high squeak, all shaken up with sobs. “I hate it. I
hate
it.”

Mum nodded. Her face was shiny with tears.

“So do I,” she said. “Oh, love. So do I.”

I can’t remember how long we cried for. But I do remember when we were finished she gave me some tissue and I rubbed my face with it and she dried her eyes. And I could see how much she wanted to make it all right again, but she couldn’t. So she went and got a new duvet cover and helped me put on a clean T-shirt. And she brought me a night light on a saucer and turned out the big light so that there was just this one little circle of candlelight on my bedside table. And then she sat there on the chair, beside the bed, beside me, until I fell asleep.

I woke late next morning. I lay on my side and listened to the noises of my family. Ella was watching Saturday morning cartoons. I could hear the muffled noise of the television and Ella laughing. Mum was in the kitchen, clattering about with the pans. She was listening to Radio Four and talking to Dad. I could hear their conversation but not what they were saying; just the old, familiar sounds of their voices, rising and falling, as if from underwater or from a long, long way away.

“This is what it’ll be like when I’m gone,” I thought. I felt half gone already, lying there behind my door. I was very tired. I thought about Felix. Felix, locked in a box and dropped down a hole. I closed my eyes.

I don’t know how long I’d been lying there when someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” I said.

Ella opened the door and stood there, looking at me.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

She came in a little further.

“You don’t look all right,” she said.

She was standing on one foot in the doorframe, her dark hair all about her face. She looked so pink and solid I wanted to hit her. “Lemme alone,” I said. “I’m fine. Go away.”

“I’m getting Mum,” she said, and she vanished. I moaned and buried my head in my pillow. I didn’t want to face Mum again.

I heard someone come into the room and felt the bed move as they sat down beside me. I kept my head in the pillow.

“Sam?” Mum said. “Sam? Are you all right, love?”

“I’m
fine
!” I said, into my pillow.

Mum smoothed my hair off my forehead. I jerked my head away.

“Did that hurt?”

“No!” I said.

She touched my shoulder. I cried out.

Mum sighed. “Maybe we should call Annie—”

“Leave me alone!” I shouted. And then, because I knew she was going to argue, “I want to go and see Felix.”

Mum drew in her breath. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Then she said, “I don’t know that that’s a very good idea.”

“I want to,” I said.

“I know you do. But . . . it can be quite upsetting, seeing someone who’s dead. And you’re really not very well. Wouldn’t it be better just to remember him like he was?”

“No,” I said. “No!” I turned my head away. All the time I was thinking, ‘Why can’t I see him? What does he look like? What’s wrong with him?’

“You’ve got to let me see him,” I said. “It’ll make me worse, if you don’t let me.”

Mum drew a deep breath.

“Sam,” she said. She was almost pleading. “Let’s not fight. Please. Not now.”

“I’m not fighting,” I said. “
You’re
the one fighting. If you’d let me go, we wouldn’t have to fight.”

Mum’s face was very pale. Her lips were pressed in a pink line.

“Well,” she said. “If that’s what you want to think, then you go on thinking that. I’m not going to argue with you.”

I hated her then.
Hated
her. Hated her for the tight, unhappy look that I knew was my fault. Hated her for not letting me win. Hated her because I was terrified of what might have happened to Felix, of what no one ever told me.

“You have to do what I say,” I said, furious. “Everyone has to. Because I’m going to die and then you’ll be sorry.”

Mum sat perfectly still, pressing her lips together. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then she turned and ran out of the room.

I clenched my teeth and buried my head in my pillow. Good, I thought. Good. Serves her right. But I didn’t feel any happier.

I just felt miserable. And angry. And lonely.

I lay in bed for a long time, listening. I heard Ella’s urgent voice.

“What’s the matter? Mum? Mum? What’s the matter?”

I heard Mum and Dad talking, and Mum crying, on and on. I think I must have fallen asleep, because then I heard Granny’s voice and I don’t remember the doorbell ringing.

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” That’s what she said, very loud. And then, “Well, why shouldn’t he, if he wants to?” And then there was Dad, murmuring something.

After a while, Granny came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Your mother’s talked to Gillian,” she said. “She says you can go and see Felix this afternoon, if you’re well enough.”

“I’m well enough,” I said.

She made a sort of tutting noise. “You’ll have to do better than that, my lad,” she said. “You look like the baby who was washed down the plughole with the bath water. Why don’t you have something to eat, and then we’ll see?”

I’d pushed myself up on my elbows, but when she said that, I flopped back down again on the bed.

“I’m not hungry,” I said. I wasn’t. I didn’t feel sick any more, but sort of empty, as though my stomach had shrivelled up inside me. Granny looked at me.

“We don’t want any of that,” she said. “Your poor mother’s worried sick about you. She’s got enough on her plate, without you playing her up.”

This was so unfair that I sat right up.

“I’m not!” I said.

Granny gave a brisk nod. “That’s more like it,” she said. “I’ll go and find you some food.”