Anthem for Jackson Dawes (8 page)

‘Thank you,' Megan said later. Her eyes felt swollen and sore with so much crying.

‘For what …?'

‘I don't know. Being here, I suppose.'

But it was more than that. It was everything else.

It was Jackson making her feel that it didn't matter if she cried. It was him making everything seem just that little bit more simple, that little bit less confusing. It was Jackson making her feel safe, there in the window, with the black sky all around her.

At last she moved away, gently shrugging off his arm from around her shoulders. ‘We should get back, I suppose. Before they come and find us.'

‘Let them. What're they going to do. Sack us? Send us home?' His face shone in the moonlight. He was smiling.

It was a nice smile, not one which laughed at her, for a change. Megan knew that Jackson was trying to be her friend, trying to help, when there was no Gemma to talk to, no Twins to make silly jokes about everything as if they understood what it was like to be in hospital, to have cancer.

Megan gave Jackson a watery smile.

He really was all she had. She'd have to be nice to him, stop treating him like he was in the way all the time. Jackson leaned in as if he knew all of this. Megan could feel his breath on her face, clean, toothpaste breath.

‘Let's just stay here,' he whispered, as if that would solve everything.

But how could it?

‘Where else can we go?' Megan said, surprising herself with the bitterness she felt all of a sudden. ‘There's just this stupid ward, this stupid place.' The words came out in short bursts, as if Jackson was to blame for everything when clearly he wasn't.

Yet she couldn't help it.

The anger wouldn't go away.
Just staying here
meant she couldn't get away, but would be sucked into the hospital, into Jackson's world and end up like him, always in trouble, or like Kipper, upset about her cat.

She didn't want to be in trouble, didn't want to be upset. She wanted to be normal and away from here and not have cancer any more. It was rubbish. Everything. And Jackson
couldn't
help. No one could and there was no point in
just staying here
.

It was then that Jackson bent his face to hers and kissed her with the softest peck of his lips. Megan moved away. ‘Don't.'

Jackson stood very still, as if paused by the press of a button. The air between them almost crackled. Megan couldn't tell if he was hurt, amused or angry. She could easily un-pause him, easily feel him close to her again through the thin material of her dressing gown, breathe in every breath he took. She could easily kiss him back.

But no.

It wasn't right. Nothing was.

The space between them grew bigger and deeper than a canyon. The air cooled.

‘It's OK. I get it,' Jackson said.

‘No! You don't get it! It's just …' The words wouldn't come. Megan felt even more hollow inside.

But didn't you have to feel at least a little bit happy to want to kiss someone?

Megan tried to make her way to the door, only now, in the dark, the furniture seemed bigger than before, her drip stand seemed to have grown more feet, more wheels. It kept colliding into things.

‘Don't go,' Jackson said. ‘Stay a bit longer. I'm sorry. Promise I won't try anything else.'

There was that grin in his voice once more, which said nothing had upset him. Nothing and no one, not even she, could ever really hurt him.

It made Megan smile, just a little bit, as if it was all a bad dream, all the upset she felt, and now she was awake.

Jackson began to fold himself down on to the low chairs lining the back wall.

‘
What are you doing?
' Megan said.

‘Sometimes I just lay me down to sleep.' He sounded like his mother or someone older even.

‘On
those
?'

‘Yeah. Try it.'

Megan slumped down on the row of seats opposite. They weren't uncomfortable, not really. She drew up her feet, wrapping her dressing gown around them like a blanket. She could fall asleep quite easily. Had Jackson ever done that? For the whole night? Had anyone ever caught him? She gazed at him as he stretched out like a cat in its basket.

‘Jackson?' she whispered.

‘Sssssh! I'm planning.'

Megan frowned. ‘Planning what?' There was a chuckle in answer, nothing more. Oh no. Surely he wasn't aiming to go off the ward tonight? ‘Are you going to escape again?'

No answer.

‘You're going to drive them crazy, you know.'

Another chuckle, then silence. Obviously, Jackson didn't care about upsetting nurses or doctors, he didn't bother about rules and regulations, except to break them, to get away just for a little while.

If only she could do the same.

Megan wanted a place to go, just like Jackson, somewhere which wasn't her room, wasn't the ward, or the visitors' waiting area, or the place they called
School
, but which was just a table, a couple of chairs and a computer in the corner of the playroom.

‘Where d'you really get to?' she said. ‘When you go off the ward?'

Jackson propped himself up on his elbow. Megan could feel him watching her, as if he was trying to
work her out. ‘Well, it's a big hospital,' he said. ‘Hundreds of floors, and buildings and lifts. Then there's the old bit, lots of corridors, and shadows and things you don't want to meet in dead of night …'

‘Stop it, Jackson,' Megan warned. ‘Keep that stuff for Becky and Laura. Come on. Out with it!'

There was a laugh from low in his throat. ‘OK … well … the porters' place, staff restaurant, laundry, visitors' restaurant, chapel …' He paused as if for breath, or to see what she made of it so far.

Megan looked at Jackson, imagining him not stopping at the chapel, or the laundry, imagining him walking very casually, very coolly, out through the main doors, down the path, away into the street.

‘… the doctors' residence, the nurses' home … at least I think that's what it was …'

‘You haven't been to all those places.'

‘I so have.'

‘Why?'

‘Why not?' Jackson grinned, his teeth white in the moonlight. ‘It reminds them I'm still here. They'll miss me when I'm gone.'

‘Like a hole in the head.'

A clock struck, kept on striking, each note a low boom across the city. It was midnight. Mr Henry would be out and about rat-catching, creeping over rooftops, climbing buildings, sitting on windowsills, peering in at people who should be asleep.

‘So apart from drawing,' Jackson said, as if talking about himself was suddenly boring, ‘what else do you do?'

‘Football,' Megan answered.

Jackson made a pillow of his arms. ‘Football? You watch it, right?'

‘I play it.'

‘But you're a girl! Girls don't do football,' Jackson mocked. ‘I don't know what Becky and Laura will say about that! And Kipper, come to think of it. You're meant to do proper girl stuff, like … I don't know … clothes, shopping, make-up.'

‘That's not all girls do!'

‘Isn't it? The girls
I
know don't play football.'

Megan rolled her eyes. ‘Well … duh … ! I do!' There was a pause while Jackson digested this.

‘Any good?'

‘I was the only girl in the school team,' she answered. ‘We were doing all right.'

Jackson made a noise, which she supposed meant he was impressed. ‘You must be good, then.'

The defiance left her. What was the point of talking about something she might not do again? She'd never be as good and they'd hardly let her back on the team, after so long away from it.

‘I
was
.'

‘Hey, it'll be OK. You'll see.' Jackson might have been reading her mind. ‘When they let us out of here for good, I'm back in the band and you're back in the
squad.' He yawned and stretched once more, his limbs looking even longer, more supple, more sinewy. He nudged his drip stand out of the way to make more room. ‘In fact, they're letting me out. Tomorrow.'

‘Home?' Megan's heart tripped. How would she get through to the end of this week without him? ‘For good?'

‘Nah. Back in a few weeks.' There was a pause. Megan looked over at him. He was gazing at her. ‘Will you be here?'

‘Maybe.'

Jackson said nothing, as if he hadn't heard, or didn't care either way. Or perhaps it was because he was no longer awake. He was breathing slowly, rhythmically; there was an occasional little snore. His knees moved slightly, one on top of the other, as he settled further into sleep. There was a twitch of his arm. Megan watched the rise and fall of his chest, watched as the moon came back out and found him, resting its light on his skin.

He had taken off his hat. Long fingers curled around the rim as he held it across his lean stomach. It breathed along with him.

Megan yawned. They should both be back in their own rooms. If the night staff came in, there'd be trouble. Double trouble. But she didn't care, not if Jackson didn't.

Megan curled up into a comfortable ball. She closed her eyes and saw herself and Jackson moving
through the city, wrapped in strings of light. They headed further and further away from the hospital till they were just small specks in the black night, walking straight through till dawn.

Jackson was going home. He was busy packing his stuff with his mum. Megan left them to it though she wanted to be in the room with them. Which was stupid. She'd be going home herself in a couple of days. What a wimp to get upset. She could look after herself. She wasn't a kid. She'd go walkabout on her own.

Only perhaps she'd just have a wander to the main ward, rather than round the whole hospital. She was still tired. It didn't take much to have her wanting to lie back down and sleep. Not that sleeping helped. She still woke up tired.

Megan pushed her drip stand along the corridor in the opposite direction to Jackson's room, nudged through the double doors, and the first thing she saw was Kipper.

Her face was stormy and pink. She was sitting in the middle of her bed. Siobhan was with her. So was her mum, who only barely resembled the woman who'd talked to her the other night. She looked like she'd just got out of bed after a sleepless week.

‘Don't want it,' Kipper was saying.

‘It's just medicine. To make you feel better,' her mum said. ‘Siobhan's brought it special. Just for you.'

Kipper shook her head.

Her mum tried again.

Nothing.

The whole thing was being watched by a small child who was lying on his side clutching a teddy bear which was wearing a tiny nurse's cap with a big red cross on it. His fingers dug deeply into the teddy's tummy, so that it doubled over as if in agony.

‘It's just a tiny wee cup,' Siobhan said. ‘And it'll make you feel better.'

‘No. It won't.'

‘Mikey's had his, haven't you, Mikey?' The small boy with the teddy bear nodded. ‘See! And he's feeling better, aren't you?'

Another nod. The teddy bear's cap slipped.

Kipper twisted her mouth.

The phone rang at the Nurses' Station. A doctor, shuffling papers about as if looking for one important thing, picked up and listened. ‘Sister Brewster, it's for you.' He waved the receiver in the air and continued with his search.

‘I'll take it. She's busy.' A nurse appeared behind him, took the phone out of his hand and began to talk into it.

Meanwhile, a baby cried and its mum hushed it with a stroke of its head. A toddler banged the side of his cot with Thomas the Tank Engine, who didn't seem to mind, whose smile stayed put.

A woman with a ‘Physiotherapist' badge pinned to her white tunic sat with another child, making him breathe in and out to see if the stuffed mouse on his chest would move. ‘There you are. That's much better. Nice deep breaths make the mouse move. You're just like a trampoline!' The boy looked up at her with amazed eyes. ‘Clever little man! Let's try some more.'

Then Jackson was there, standing at the top of the ward.

Without his drip and with a jacket and jeans, a small rucksack over his shoulder, he looked normal. No, not normal. He looked stunning.

The whole ward seemed to pause as a number of eyes turned to gaze at him. Even the steady click of machines appeared to stutter for a second as if caught off guard by him.

Megan smiled. He'd come to see her before he'd left. There was a tingle of happiness, an ache of regret. But Jackson headed straight for Kipper, who stopped complaining. The boy with the teddy bear gazed up at him. Thomas the Tank Engine stopped in mid-air.
The mouse moved up and down but the child was peering past the shoulder of the physiotherapist.

‘Hiya, Siobhan, what you got there?' Jackson took the small pot of medicine from her hand and waved it under his nose. He closed his eyes as if it was the best thing ever. ‘Hmmm,' he said, nodding. ‘Essence of strawberry. A hint of ice cream. A scatter of hundreds and thousands.' He opened his eyes once more, made them enormous. There was a giggle from somewhere. ‘Can I have this, please?'

Siobhan shook her head. ‘Now, Jackson, you know it's not for you. Give it back this minute. You've got your own to take home with you.' Her voice sparkled with amusement.

Jackson frowned at her. ‘
You're
going to drink it, aren't you? I don't believe it! A nurse! Stealing Kipper's medicine?' He held it up high, out of Siobhan's reach.

Kipper watched open-mouthed, eyes big as barrels. Her mum sat with a faint smile on her lips and pushed back a strand of hair from her face.

‘I shall return this to its rightful owner,' said Jackson, tipping the medicine into Kipper's mouth before she could clamp it shut. Very gently he closed her mouth, his fingers resting under her chin, to stop her spitting it back out.