Katy Read online

  I got used to transferring from my bed to my wheelchair and back again, though it was nowhere near as easy as you’d think, and if I didn’t concentrate hard I misjudged it and nearly toppled over. I did fall once and there was a great to-do. I had to be checked all over to make sure I hadn’t broken anything, which seemed so stupid seeing as I’d already broken my back.

  I even got used to the hospital food, although it was pretty disgusting and the smell of it lurked in the corridors for hours after it was served. They’d show me the menu every day and I’d think, great, macaroni cheese or fish pie, two of my favourites. But when they were dished up the macaroni would be disconcertingly pale with no crispy bits of cheese, and the pasta was so rubbery I’d chew until my jaws ached. The fish pie was even worse, the potato grey and lumpy and hard on top, and the fish so slimy it made me shudder when I swallowed.

  I thought longingly of Izzie’s macaroni cheese, golden and delicious, and her wonderful fish pie, the potato creamy and fluffy, the fish white and juicy, the little pink prawns tender and succulent.

  I went through phases of not ordering hot meals, just asking for salads and sandwiches, although they weren’t great either. I got so fed up of damp pink ham or bland tinned tuna that I only picked at them. The dietitian nagged at me, lecturing me about needing protein for my muscles. They even brought some sort of psych-person to ‘have a chat’ with me. They were clearly worrying about anorexia again, because she kept asking me if I had a voice in my head telling me I was fat. The voice in my head would have had to be totally loony, because I wasn’t fat: I was thin as a pin. I didn’t want to be thin because it made me look gawkier than ever. I just looked like a collapsed giraffe rather than one standing up or striding.

  Jasmine was cleverer than any psychiatrist. She got me helping little Marnie to eat her meals. I don’t know if Marnie had been dead picky with her food before her car accident, but she was hopeless now, pressing her lips together and turning her head away when you aimed a spoon at her mouth.

  ‘You’re a clever clogs, Katy, and so good with the little ones. I suppose it comes naturally, you being the eldest at home. See if you can do a Mary Poppins on Marnie. Otherwise we’ll have to feed her through a tube – and you know she’ll hate that,’ said Jasmine.

  ‘OK, I’ll give it a go,’ I said, proud that she’d asked me.

  So I’d sit with Marnie, our meals in front of us, and I’d make up stories. We had to climb all the way up mash mountain; we had to spear the naughty sausage; we had to count the little green pea beads. Every time I took a bite, Marnie did too. I’d carry on making up this daft kind of fairy story while Marnie and I chewed and swallowed. By the end of the story both our plates were empty.

  I also tried swapping to Naveen’s special halal food, which was a lot tastier than bland British hospital cuisine, and that was fun for a while too. I became quite friendly with Naveen. She still cried every single day, but when she cheered up she had a wicked sense of humour, almost rivalling Dexter’s. We’d whisper funny things about the nurses and the doctors and the dietitian. We were particularly rude about the physios, because they mauled us about so much and kept nag, nag, nagging. We knew they were just trying to help us achieve as much mobility as possible. We hated them all the same because they made us carry on our stupid exercises until we were exhausted, our hearts banging in our chests, our hair straggly with sweat.

  Naveen had the most wonderful hair, which she wore in a very long black plait down her back. I got her to do mine like that, but my own hair was so thin and wispy I ended up with a mouse’s tail, while Naveen’s was a thick glossy rope. I loved Naveen’s bangles too, which clanked on each arm. We weren’t supposed to wear jewellery in hospital but Naveen said her gold bangles were part of her religion so she was allowed to keep them. She winked at me later and told me she was fibbing, which made me laugh.

  So I was friends with Naveen now, friends with Marnie – and I even made friends with little Rosemary. I felt so guilty that I’d disliked her simply because she was so good and patient. I hadn’t ever been nasty to her face, but I’d mocked her to Dexter. Now I’d calmed down and wasn’t quite so angry all the time, I felt horribly mean. Rosemary wasn’t a little prig. She wasn’t even being good to get her own way and make all the nursing staff adore her. She was just a sweet, happy little girl, even now, when she was trapped in a body that wouldn’t work.

  I watched her at physio, her tiny tan face flushing with exertion as they pushed and pulled her. I saw her shrieking with laughter as they splashed her in the little pool. I loved seeing her nuzzling her head against her mum and dad when they came to visit. I heard her sometimes in the middle of the night, muttering away to herself.

  One time I managed to do a bold transfer on to the wheelchair beside my bed, even though this was strictly forbidden at night-time, and wheeled myself over to her.

  ‘Rosemary?’ I whispered.

  She lay quiet, practically holding her breath.

  ‘Rosemary, I know you’re awake; I heard you!’

  ‘Are you cross?’ she whispered back.

  ‘No, silly! Just curious. What was all that muttering?’

  ‘I was just telling myself a story,’ Rosemary said.

  ‘Oh, bless! Look, would you like me to tell you a story?’ I offered.

  She seemed willing, so I started off on another Marnie-type fairy story. Rosemary loved this, chuckling softly to herself. After ten minutes or so her breathing got slower and steadier and I realized I’d lulled her to sleep. I felt so touched I blew her a little kiss and then wheeled myself back to my own bed as silently as possible.

  I got stuck trying to transfer back again, which was nowhere near as easy, and Jeannie came along and whispered at me furiously as she heaved me back into bed – but it was worth it. I often told Rosemary special stories after that. When I ran out of ideas for my own stories I told her variations of ‘Goldilocks’ and ‘Cinderella’ and ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ and she loved them all.

  I was friends with all the girls in my unit – and friends with Dexter too. I felt much closer to them now than to Cecy, though she visited several times and wrote me emails when Dad brought his own laptop in for me to use. I was still close to Clover of course, but I couldn’t help feeling upset and left out when she told me all the different things she’d been doing with Elsie and the littlies. She seemed weirdly close to Elsie now, starting half her sentences with ‘Elsie-and-I’. Clover had always agreed with me in the past that Elsie was a pathetic little wimp who’d tell tales to Izzie if you so much as breathed on her, but now she acted like she was her best friend.

  I decided to sort that out straight away the minute I got home. I didn’t know when that would be. Naveen had only been in hospital a week longer than me, but Rosemary and Marnie had been there for months. No one would give me a precise answer. It was always, ‘It will depend on your progress,’ a pretty useless response.

  I longed and longed and longed to go home. It was like a strange, magical land I’d made up long ago. I couldn’t imagine myself back there. Sometimes I couldn’t even remember the exact details of my bedroom or the bathroom or the library downstairs. They all seemed fuzzy in my mind’s eye, as if I was squinting at them through narrowed eyelids. It was hard imagining all the children rattling around inside the house, leading their lives without me.

  I remembered that it was still the summer holidays. I felt sure they’d all be going crazy with boredom, because Clover wasn’t very good at inventing new games, and Elsie worse than useless.

  ‘Do you remember it’s our holiday this Saturday?’ Dad said one afternoon while he was visiting.

  I didn’t understand immediately. ‘It’s been the holidays for weeks, hasn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘No, I mean when we go on holiday to Nefyn, to the cottage,’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh!’ I said. So was I getting out of hospital at last? I imagined myself there, running along the sandy beach, clambering over the rocks, squealing in th