If I Could Fly (21 page)

‘I don’t know how long I’ll be a Watcher,’ he replies. ‘We all seem to disappear in the end.’

‘Where do you think you’ll go?’ It’s hard to keep
the panic out of my voice.

‘Dunno.’ He shrugs. ‘Like I said, I don’t make the rules.’

Alfie is holding my gaze. He can read the confusion in my face, the wavering of my heart. I am the one with choices, after all. If I stay, he and I could travel the world. His maps could be the start of real adventures – scaling mountains, crossing deserts, exploring jungles. We could run across oceans, hitching rides on the backs of whales. We could stand on the crown of the Statue of Liberty in New York. We could dance in the Palace of the Winds in Jaipur and sail down the Zambezi river on the snouts of hippos. In Thailand, I could race him to the top of tall coconut trees and chase him between the wooden boats in the floating markets like a mischievous sea monkey. And in the royal palace we could sit on the giant golden Buddha’s broad shoulders, smiling at tourists.

We could play forever, laugh forever, exist forever the way we are now. But something stronger is drawing
me back, reeling me in, like a fish on a hook. I want to be complete. I want to be able to speak to Little Bird. I want to feel her love – I want to finish growing up. I want to survive.

‘It’s this way, I think.’ I take Alfie’s hand and we skirt swiftly along the side of the massive buildings. A rush of air is rattling the structures, making an eerie
woo woo
sound as we pass. Is it icy cold? I have no way of knowing. I can only feel its force.

The industrial estate merges into a large housing grid and this leads to a main road. We follow it past a superstore, a football stadium, a sixth-form college. On the traffic signs, there is a red Accident and Emergency sign pointing ahead. My shakes have not subsided and are now slowing us down. Alfie takes matters into his own hands, plonking me on the back of a motorbike waiting at traffic lights. He perches behind, wedging me between the rider, a middle-aged man in leather trousers, jacket and helmet, and himself. The square box fixed above the bike’s rear
wheel reads
Pappa Pietro’s Pizza Emporium.

‘He could be going anywhere,’ I say over my shoulder. I’m grateful to have the chance to rest, though.

‘We’ll jump off as soon as we get near the town centre.’

When the lights go green, the bike accelerates away and begins to weave in and out of the traffic. It’s good that this stranger can’t feel my hands tightly gripping his waist – at least I hope he can’t. Alfie has his arms round my middle, luckily, as I’m starting to sway with a strange, dizzy sensation.

We’ve entered a one-way system, which snakes round the centre of town. I recognise where we are now. CCTV cameras mounted on aerial pedestrian walkways are tracking our progress. The traffic signs confirm that we are still travelling in the right direction for the hospital. But our driver has other plans, it seems, as he is indicating right and moving towards the centre lane. When he stops in a queue, Alfie yells at me to jump off.

‘Phew,’ he says. ‘That was close.’

We’re standing on the pavement and the motorbike is speeding out of sight. I don’t remember how we got here. My mind is full of bright, white light, which is making me squint.

‘Can’t be far now. Lean on me,’ Alfie says, putting my arm round his shoulders. We set off again on foot, moving faster than the cars next to us, covering a lot of ground with each stride.

We travel down an underpass where the air is thick with heavy fumes and the engines drone like giant bees. Red monster eyes blink at us in the dark. As we pass them, I see they are the rear lights of vehicles, ascending towards the daylight. We reach the exit and are blinded by sunshine.

My head is spinning. The red dots that have imprinted themselves on my vision are replaced by the intermittent flash of silver blue. There’s the
whoop whoop
of a slow siren and the sound of doors slamming. Alfie pulls me back as a person on a stretcher is carried
just in front of us towards sliding glass doors.

‘Are we here, Alfie?’ I ask, but he doesn’t answer. He is watching the security guards who are standing either side of the entrance, their sub-machine guns held at hip height. At least here there are no crowds fighting for anti-viral drugs.

Alfie motions for me to follow him. We stay close to the man and woman in paramedic overalls and enter a wide area with a shiny floor. It’s like a hotel foyer, with staff in surgical masks seated behind a long desk beneath an electronic notice board.
Please report to the reception desk. There is a 30 minute wait,
it reads.
If you think you have the H2Z1 virus, please exit the building immediately and proceed to the clinic at our West Street entrance
.

We head towards swing doors marked
Assessment Ward
, seizing the moment a nurse pushes them open to slip through. There are several large rooms leading from an open area and each has at least ten occupied beds. Alfie props me against a wall and makes a quick tour of the area, merging through drawn curtains,
reappearing with a glum look on his face.

‘You’re not here,’ he tells me, taking my hand and whisking me back to the main reception. He is scanning the lists of departments on the board, muttering their names as he does so.

‘Cardiac, Geriatric, Neurology, Gynaecology, Urology, Surgical, Intensive Care . . . Second floor . . . Come on!’

We’re climbing stairs in big leaps. Alfie is practically lifting me, although his feet are barely touching the ground.

Another armed security guard stands on patrol at the entrance to the second floor. He is chewing gum with his mouth open and watching the hallway. His eyes move left and right like a pendulum. We pass by him undetected and are moving quickly down a long corridor, past wards and busy waiting areas. I feel like a passenger on a platform, watching train windows speed by, the faces behind them just a blur. My brain is confused. I am the one in motion.

‘Hey!’ shouts a distressed man, sitting with his back against a wall. ‘Hey, you!’

‘Don’t look back,’ says Alfie, increasing our pace.

‘Can he see us?’ I ask, bemused and a little fearful.

‘There’ll be a lot here who can. We can’t get involved.’

The man’s voice rings in my ears. ‘I don’t feel so well, Alfie,’ I say feebly. I’m not sure if he’s heard me. He keeps repeating ‘ICU’ over and over again. We make a sharp right turn and are faced with another reception desk. A male nurse is talking quietly to two policemen. The patients in this area are silent. The only noise is made by machines, delivering fluids and oxygen and monitoring breathing. Relatives sit by bedsides, looking hopeful, afraid or exhausted.

My body almost snaps with a sudden force, making me stumble. ‘Alfie?’ I whisper, reaching for him. He eases me down into a chair and holds both my hands.

‘I’ll find you, Caly, just stay here.’ He looks intently into my eyes, then he is gone.

I’m listening to the regular pulse of medical
equipment, to the squeak of rubber soles on the polished floor, to the hushed words being spoken by the desk, to the distant noise of a television, to water splashing against a metal sink, to a phone ringing, to doors flapping shut, to a kettle boiling, to the click of a switch, to the flush of a loo, to a low moan of pain, to the jingle of keys in a pocket, to the rustle of papers, to the slam of a filing cabinet, to the clink of metal instruments being replaced in a dish.

My ears are suddenly as sensitive as satellites.

Looking out at the gulls, high on the slipstream, I feel the air filtering through their feathers and the
throb, throb, throb
of their wings as they change direction and beat against the current. Every sound of every moving creature and object on the planet is bombarding my brain. I put my head in my hands, hoping that oblivion will come quickly.

Beneath the intense sound, there is a rhythm. Slowly, the chaos of noise begins to fade and the beat becomes more distinct. It is drawing me in, like
a lighthouse might a shipwrecked sailor. It is familiar, safe, and I am starting to recognise the repetition, not just as a pulse, but a phrase. The words are becoming clear, like a signpost in the fog.

Om mani padme hum
.

My body jolts again. I gasp. My eyes stare wildly around me at the faces of strangers. No one can help me. Nobody here knows I exist. I grip the wooden arms of the chair and force myself to concentrate. I must stay conscious and wait for Alfie. I must continue to hope. I must focus on the rhythm.

Om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum
.

I fix my gaze straight ahead, past the desk, to a room along the corridor, with a glass window. There is a female police officer standing outside it. Inside, a dark-haired woman is sitting with her head bowed. Her body is motionless, but even from this distance, I can see her lips moving.

I am walking towards her with unsure steps. I can no longer feel my feet make contact with the floor. The
uniformed officer stares at me, through me. She sniffs and scratches her pretty nose. She checks her watch. She touches her neck as I stand next to her, my face very close to the glass panel, looking in at the hunched figure on the other side, whose delicate face is etched with pain.

My hands lift up to the clear glass and rest against it, merging with it. I want to reach out to her, envelop her. But I can’t disturb her fragile peace. Her eyes are closed. She is chanting, praying next to an empty bed. In her hands are my jeans, the same ones I am wearing now, except those she clutches are soaked with dark blood.

‘Little Bird, I’m here,’ I say.

There is a hand on my shoulder and Alfie is here. He takes in the scene before him, the tears streaming down my face, the Thai woman, as small as a doll, bent over in grief. Now he is beckoning with his other hand. No words, just a movement, and I am following him.

We are leaving this area and moving down a different corridor, turning left, turning right, avoiding trolleys stacked with fresh laundry and patients in wheelchairs.

There are double doors ahead and a sign that reads
Theatre 1
over them. Alfie has stopped outside them. He is looking at me intently.

‘In here?’ I ask tentatively.

He nods and pushes the door ajar. Another set of doors lies ahead and through their rectangles of clear
glass I can see a surgical team working on a patient under bright white lights. A man in green overalls with a mask and cap is bending low over the patient’s chest area.

‘Stand clear,’ he says, and the others take a step back. There is a loud noise from inside the operating room and almost instantaneously, my body jolts for a third time, sending me crashing into the wall, which I instantly merge with. Alfie pulls me back, a terrified look on his face.

‘You have to go in there, Caly,’ he says, his lip quivering noticeably. I glance back to the surgeon, who is shaking his head and pulling off his mask. The monitor next to the patient is showing a series of flat lines. The rest of the team looks despondent. A nurse is turning off switches one by one.

It has taken me a few seconds to understand all this, the fact that I am the patient on the table and that they have tried three times to resuscitate me. I turn to look at Alfie, who’s motioning for me to move forward and
holding his chest to stop it heaving at the same time.

And now I am hugging him, holding him, like I am clinging on to life itself and whispering, ‘I will never forget you,’ in his ear and planting a soft kiss on his cheek and he is saying, ‘Go, just go,’ through tears and I am pressing the metal bottle top into his hand, and saying, ‘Remember me.’ I’m releasing him and moving backwards, keeping eye contact with him until someone behind me opens the doors and the surgeon passes us and I turn and enter the theatre.

I gasp and a rush of oxygen travels down my windpipe and inflates my chest. I’m aware of three things – an ache in my ribs, a strong smell of antiseptic and a babble of surprised voices. My eyes are closed. I want to lie very still. I’m not sure what is real any more. I’m waiting for Alfie to tell me what has happened, but my craving for his voice is unanswered.

I sense a commotion and footsteps and the squeak of something heavy being wheeled aside. There is a
different energy close by. The nerves in my upper body tingle in response to it. Any moment now, my best mate will be saying something to make me smile. It’s not his fault we were too late.

A hush has descended. I feel a warmth like angel breath caressing my cheek, the softness of skin against my skin. There is jasmine in the air. My right hand is raised, enfolded in another’s, touched by lips. The contact is delicate, like being lifted on a songbird’s wing. I feel it in every cell of my body.

I am ready to open my eyes.