Longest Whale Song Read online

  Then we drive to the hospital – and all the warmth of Aunty Mavis’s home drains out of us. Samson wakes up and starts crying as we start the long trek down the corridors. At long last we get near Mum. I hang back, eyes shut, willing it to be different this time. Mum will sit up and smile and open her arms wide – and I’ll leap up on the bed and hug her to bits, and all this long, lonely nightmare will be over. But when I go up to her bed, she doesn’t sit up, she just lies there. She isn’t smiling, she’s looking so sad and odd and awful. She doesn’t open her arms wide. They stay limp by her side, her hands at odd angles, so that she looks like a broken doll.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ Jack says. ‘I’ve brought our little boy to see you. Here he is.’ He arranges Samson on Mum’s chest. We wait for him to quieten but he wails dismally.

  ‘Come on, Sue. Give him a little cuddle,’ says Jack.

  Mum doesn’t move. Samson cries harder. A nurse comes in to see what’s going on. She’s young and rosy-cheeked, with black curly hair.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she says. She looks at Samson, she looks at Mum, she looks at Jack and me.

  ‘He usually calms down when I lay him on my wife,’ Jack says. He sighs. ‘But it’s not working today.’

  He picks Samson up and gives him to me. ‘You give Sam a cuddle, Ella.’

  Then he moves close to the nurse as she takes Mum’s temperature and blood pressure. ‘Is there any improvement at all?’ he whispers.

  ‘She’s in a very stable condition at the moment, Mr Winters.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s a totally meaningless statement. Of course she’s stable, she’s in a coma.’

  ‘She’s doing well, considering. There’s no sign of any infections, her lungs aren’t congested, we’re giving her physio on her hands and feet to keep them in a good position—’

  ‘But she’s not showing any signs of recovery whatsoever, is she?’

  ‘Well . . .’ The nurse is starting to sound a bit panicky now.

  ‘Do you think Sue will ever get properly better?’ Jack whispers. His voice is very low but I hear every word, even though Samson is howling.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly say, Mr Winters.’

  ‘Yes, you can. You must have nursed patients before in this sort of state. How many of them recover?’

  ‘Some do, Jack. I’ve got some printouts from newspapers. Lots of coma patients recover,’ I say.

  ‘Shh, Ella. Why don’t you take Sam for a little walk along the corridor?’ he says. He takes hold of the nurse by the arm. ‘I just want you to tell me the truth. I’m going crazy here. I see you and your colleagues giving me pitying looks, like you think it’s all hopeless. I just want to know the odds. I’m not going to give up, I’m not going to do anything dramatic, I just need to know.’

  ‘You can always make an appointment to see Dr Clegg – he’s your wife’s neurologist.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I’ve been trying to see him, but he’s never around when I am. I’m not even sure he’ll tell me either. I want to know what will happen to Sue. You’re not going to keep her here indefinitely, are you?’

  ‘Well, at some stage other arrangements will be made,’ she says desperately.

  ‘Yes, but what?’

  ‘There are residential homes for people with PVS,’ she says.

  ‘PVS?’ Jack says, screwing up his face.

  ‘Persistent vegetative state,’ says the nurse.

  ‘What?’ Jack sounds horrified.

  ‘Look, I don’t know, I’m just here to give your wife nursing care. You must see Dr Clegg – he’s the one who’ll make the decisions – or you can ask the ward sister, but I can’t tell you anything, I don’t know anything.’ The nurse hurries out of the room.

  ‘Good riddance!’ Jack yells after her. He goes to Mum and takes her hand. ‘Did you hear any of that, Sue? Don’t you worry, darling. You aren’t in this bloody PVS condition. I’m not going to put you in a home. You’re going to come home with us, where you belong. You and me and our little boy.’

  I hold my breath.

  ‘And Ella,’ he says. I sound very much an afterthought.

  We barely talk on the way home. The house seems horribly empty. Samson wails forlornly.

  ‘I’ll feed him and you feed your guinea pig,’ Jack says.

  I feed Butterscotch, putting my hand right into his cage and stroking his head very gently as he nibbles away. ‘Do you miss your mum, Butterscotch?’ I ask.

  I think of him aching for his warm soft mum every day, scurrying round and round his cage looking for her. I feel terrible. I’ll try to make it up to him. I’ll make his life as lovely as I can. I wrinkle my nose. I could make his cage much comfier.

  ‘Jack, Butterscotch’s cage is starting to smell,’ I say, my nose twitching.

  Jack lays Samson on the floor, changing his nappy. ‘I know,’ he says shortly. ‘Hold still, Sammy.’

  ‘It needs cleaning,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, of course it needs cleaning. He’s your pet. You do it.’

  I pause. I look at Butterscotch scrabbling. I look at his cage and all the dirty straw. ‘I don’t know how,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t be so hopeless,’ says Jack.

  That’s just what I feel. Hope-less. I try to remember what the nurse said.

  ‘What did that nurse say Mum had?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, Ella. We’re not taking any notice of that stupid nurse,’ says Jack. ‘There you are, Sam, all clean and tidy. You’ll past muster, even if the rest of us won’t. Now, we’ll strap you in your little chair and you can kick your legs and whistle a happy tune while I start our tea and Ella clears out that wretched cage.’

  ‘I said, I don’t know how,’ I say – but he can’t divert me that easily. ‘Jack, what does it mean? The veggie thing?’

  ‘Don’t call it that,’ Jack says sharply. Then he takes a deep breath. ‘She said “persistent vegetative state”. It’s a horrible term used to describe a person whose body is alive but whose brain isn’t working.’

  ‘Like Mum?’ I whisper.

  ‘No! Not like Mum. Don’t you start, Ella. You’re the one who always says she’s going to get completely better.’

  ‘Well, she is,’ I say. I start pulling nasty straw that’s sticky with black bits out onto the carpet.

  ‘What are you doing? Not like that, with the guinea pig still in the cage. You need to find a cardboard box to put him in. Then put all the soiled straw and all those manky dandelion leaves and whatnot into a rubbish bag. When the cage is clean, get some fresh bedding and put the guinea pig back. Come on, Ella, it’s not rocket science.’

  ‘He’s getting a bit bigger already,’ I say, cradling Butterscotch in my cupped hands. ‘It’s a shame he has to be stuck in his cage all the time.’

  ‘Well, when I’ve got a spare moment I’ll make him a special pen in the garden so he can run about. But just at the moment I’m a bit pushed for time, seeing as I’m running backwards and forwards to your school and my school and the hospital, and we’ve still got to have our tea, and then I’ve got to mark a whole pile of homework and sort out my lesson plans for the week – so I’m not playing Grand Designs for guinea pigs right this minute.’

  ‘Oh ha ha,’ I mutter. I pull out an extra nasty clump of straw and drop it with a squeal. ‘Yuck!’

  ‘Don’t drop it all over the carpet! Oh here, let me do it. Wash your hands – thoroughly – and then go and have a scrabble through Liz’s frozen meals and stick one in the microwave. You can use the microwave, I take it?’

  ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘Just be careful taking it out when it’s done.’

  I cook our supper, Jack cleans out Butterscotch, and then we eat our meals on trays while we watch television. Jack flicks through all the channels irritably, rushing past several hospital soaps. Then he finds the Eden nature channel.

  ‘Whales!’ I shout.

  It’s a whole programme about predators, and I watch as Miss Anderson’s food chains