Flyaway (7 page)

‘I'll call as soon as I know anything,' she says.

I go outside to find Jack. It's got overcast and cold since we've been in the hospital. He hasn't gone far. I spot him sitting on the kerb, near where the ambulances come in . . . near where Dad came in.

‘Don't think I'm happy about it either,' he mutters.

He has a handful of small stones in his hand and he's
flicking them at the ambulance tyres. I want to sit right up close to him for warmth, but he'll only shrug me off now. We wait for about five minutes before Granddad pulls up in his old brown estate. He creaks open the driver's door, gets out to find us. He looks flustered and old, out of place amidst the bright flashing lights. He squints as he peers into the A and E waiting room. Then he sees us on the kerb and shuffles over.

We look up at him. None of us say anything. Again, Granddad's eyes go back to the waiting room and I think he wants to ask something about Dad. But he doesn't. Perhaps he doesn't know what to say.

‘Dad's had an arrhythmia,' Jack explains.

I can tell by the way Granddad flinches that he knows what this is, which is more than I do. But I guess it must be the heart attack thing that happened when Dad was in the field.

Jack chucks another stone at a tyre. Hits a hub-cap. For a second Granddad looks as if he's going to tell him off, then stops himself. ‘We'd better get going then,' he says. He twists his hands over each other.

‘Don't you want to see Mum?' Jack stops chucking the stones.

Granddad nods back at his car. ‘I can't park there,' he says. An ambulance starts up, making him jump. ‘And she's got enough on her plate.'

He nods quickly, several times, which only makes him look more flustered. Then he turns back towards his car, and we
follow. He opens the doors for us and Jack takes the back seat, flopping down right across it. So I get in the front.

‘Put your seatbelt on,' Granddad says as he closes his door.

When he pulls out from the hospital car park, everything gets even darker. The ring road is pretty empty, I look out at the fields. Have we passed the one where Dad fell down? I can't be sure.

Granddad doesn't say anything, which is good. I don't feel like talking. The wave is still in my throat, ready to gush out into tears at any moment. Maybe Granddad's thinking about the last time we were all in the hospital together, when Nan died. He was the one who stayed there then, not Mum. I sat with Dad on our couch as he waited by the phone.

When we get back to his house, Granddad goes straight to the kitchen. With his head in the cupboards, looking for something to eat, he asks me about Dad. I tell him how we were running to the swans when it happened.

Granddad glances at me. Something flickers over his face, an emotion I can't quite read.

‘The swans again,' he murmurs. I don't know why.

He opens the fridge and starts rooting around. He pulls out some frozen fish fillets from the small freezer section. ‘These do?'

Jack rolls his eyes, then slopes off to stroke Dig.

I fold my arms. ‘That all you got?'

‘I'm afraid so.'

We find some fairly soft broccoli and several large potatoes that look like they've been sitting under the sink for years.
But there's vanilla ice cream too. I help him chop the potatoes into chip-sized chunks, cutting around the green and knobbly bits, and put them in the fryer. Granddad's hands shake as he places the broccoli into a pot of boiling water.

We eat sitting on the couch, with the news on. There are car bombings and floods and a kid who has been abducted. I just feel numb, watching it all. I don't care about all these bad things happening to other people. I just care about Dad, about the bad things happening to us. Jack pushes his fish to the side of his plate and hides bits of broccoli underneath it. I don't eat much of mine either. Only Granddad manages his whole fish; he stares straight ahead at the telly and shovels it in. Maybe vets aren't good with emotions. Maybe illness and emergencies are just pretty standard to him.

Mum calls when we're eating the ice cream. She speaks to Jack first, but I get close to the receiver and listen. I hear her thin, high voice telling Jack that Dad's still stable but that she hasn't been in to see him yet. She says that we might be able to visit in the morning. She's staying there overnight.

‘Why can't I take the bus back and wait with you?' Jack says. ‘Anything's better than waiting here.'

Granddad looks up from his armchair then, and Jack shuts up. When I speak to Mum, she sounds so tired. I keep asking her again and again how Dad is. It's horrible being here in Granddad's quiet house when Dad's just down the road, needing us. As I'm talking to Mum, my ice cream pools into milk. I don't feel like eating it after that. When I hang up, I let Dig lick the bowl.

Granddad pulls out some sleeping bags from a cupboard and asks us where we want to sleep. ‘There's the spare room, or the couch,' he says. ‘Or you could stay in the cottage.'

I remember the last time I was in that cottage, with Dad and Granddad and the swan. I wonder if it died there, wonder where it is now. The freezer room out back? Is it stretched out, cold and stiff? I shudder suddenly.

‘I've got the spare room,' I say.

Jack glares daggers. ‘Fine. I'll have the cottage.'

But I know he won't really sleep in there by himself. Not with all those animal ghosts. He'll end up on the couch.

When the telly switches to some programme about air disasters, I decide to go to bed early. I take the stairs up to my room. I lay the sleeping bag on the bare mattress and put my glass of water on the bedside table. There's a layer of dust, thick as moss, and the room smells of old clothes and emptiness.

Here, it's not like where we live in the middle of the city. I can't hear the main road or the drinkers in the pub on the corner, or police sirens. I lie really still, but there's only the wind moving the tree branches about. I can't even hear the muted murmur of the television anymore. Perhaps Granddad and Jack have gone to bed already.

I watch the moonlight making patterns on the carpet. It doesn't make me sleepy. I just keep thinking of the swans in that field and Dad falling down. So I do what I always do when I can't sleep.

I shut my eyes and imagine that I'm young enough to be read a story to. I imagine Dad is beside me with the fat book of Hans Christian Andersen tales on his lap. He knows the one I want, even before I say. ‘The Wild Swans'. I lie back against the pillow as Dad reads the words I know by heart. It's the story of the brothers who are turned into swans. Only it's not a good thing, it's a punishment. Their sister has to rescue them by knitting magic shirts for them to wear. The pictures are beautiful, all pastel-shaded and dreamy-looking; the swans have silver- and gold-edged wings. Dad always lowered his voice when he read the part about the sister weaving stinging nettles into the shirts. He always looked a little disappointed at the end though, almost as if he didn't want the swan-brothers to turn back into humans again.

I roll over, thump the musty-smelling pillow. I wonder if Dad's awake now, if he feels any better. I clasp my hands together and silently hope that nothing happens in the night. I take my phone from my bag and place it on my pillow, just in case Mum calls. I turn up the ring volume. Still, I don't want to sleep.

I shut my eyes and wait. I stretch my arm out across the pillow so that it brushes the phone; this way I'll feel it if it goes off. I remember Harry and the bag of fluid attached to him and the tubes going up his arm. I imagine there's a bag attached to me, too. Only it's not saline seeping into me, but sleep, turning me heavy.

CHAPTER 13

I
dream of swans. There are hundreds of them, flying on and on, swiftly and straight in two long, long lines.

I stand below them and count each bird as it passes. 1, 2, 3 . . . But as soon as I give the birds numbers, they stop beating their wings. They drop from the sky. Twist and tumble into the water below. I try to stop counting. Shake my head and try to shut my mouth. But I keep saying the numbers.

The birds keep falling.

I'm killing them. I know I am. It's my fault they're all dying. But I can't stop.

CHAPTER 14

I
'm really hot when I wake up. The sleeping bag is all tangled around my legs. I lie back and look at the ceiling, try to get rid of the images of the swans falling from the sky. For a second I don't know where I am. Then I remember.

Dad.

I'm at Granddad's.

I look at the phone on the pillow. There's a message from Mum. Suddenly I feel sick. My hands are shaking as I pick up the phone.

Call me when you get up sweetheart. Dad's a bit better. Love Mum xxx

I breathe out slowly. Check the time. 7.30 am. This time last week I was getting up to watch the swans with Dad. It feels like a lifetime ago.

I get dressed in yesterday's muddy clothes. Comb my
fingers through my hair, which is tangled with bits of grass and dirt. I pad downstairs and shake Jack awake. His eyes blink to focus on me and then widen when he remembers about Dad too. I nod at him.

‘Yeah,' I say. ‘You didn't dream it.'

Granddad's already in the kitchen, making coffee in a small silver pot on the stove.

‘Your mother called,' he says. ‘I'll drop you off there soon. Your father got a bit better in the night, apparently.'

Dig's trying to sit on Granddad's feet, getting in the way. Granddad hands me a cup. It smells so strong. I never have coffee at home, only hot chocolate or maybe tea.

‘Sugar, yes?' Granddad pushes across the sugar container. The sugar has stuck together in clumps, but I manage to get a spoonful. I hover there, unsure whether I should be saying something. I want to know if Granddad is worried about Dad; if this is like what happened with Nan. But I just stir the sugar into my cup and stare out of the window at the fields behind Granddad's house. I can see the dip in the land where the field turns into Granddad's lake.

I squint as I see something, then sort of choke on what I'm swallowing. There are birds there. They're swan-shaped. Whoopers? Without even thinking about it, I glance around the kitchen for a pair of binoculars. Of course there aren't any; Granddad hasn't been interested in birds for years. But he does come over to the window and stand beside me, looking out at where I'm staring.

‘They're just geese,' he says.

I look carefully, waiting for the light to glint onto their feathers and show me that they're white. But it doesn't and Granddad's right. The birds are geese, not swans. Canadas probably.

‘Scavenger birds,' Granddad mutters. ‘Farmers shouldn't sow winter crops if they're not going to protect them.'

He shakes his head quickly, his fingers tightening around his coffee cup. I'm surprised by the anger in his voice. He used to like birds, whatever kind they were. The first bird I ever remember watching was when I was with Granddad. It was only a robin, but Granddad made it seem so special. He stopped us mid-footstep and made us stand so quiet, finger to his lips. The robin turned its head and looked right at me. I didn't breathe out until it flew away.

Today, Granddad's not interested in watching geese. He goes into the living room, stops beside Jack to shake him awake again. But Jack's not asleep, he's just lying there. I go in and sit next to him, give him the coffee Granddad's made me. He takes it without a word. He's got a crease mark from the couch down the side of his face.

‘It's hot,' I say.

He gulps it down without tasting it. It doesn't look like he's slept a wink.