Into My Arms (36 page)

Nell led her to a chair. ‘It’s OK,’ she said soothingly. ‘They’re not out yet. You’ll be just in time.’ She turned to the man, who was standing silently in his overalls and Blundstones. ‘You must be Frank . . . and Kirra. Come in and wait with us. Arran, Hamish, John—this is Mary and Frank, Ben’s parents, and his sister Kirra. Ben asked me to contact them just before he went into theatre this morning.’

John was the first to speak. ‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I’m John. Arran’s partner. You’ve had a long drive then? Do you need a coffee?’

‘Thanks,’ said Frank. ‘That would be great. Mary?’

She nodded. ‘And an orange juice, please,’ Kirra called out as John headed again to the cafeteria.

‘This is Hamish,’ Nell continued, drawing Frank down next to Mary. ‘Skye’s husband . . . and Arran, her brother.’ She paused, and added clumsily, ‘Ben’s brother too, then, biologically.’

Kirra smiled at him. ‘You look similar. Around the eyes. Don’t they, Mum?’

Mary fought back fresh tears. ‘They do.’ She nodded. ‘They do.’

‘Skye’s the one Ben really looks like,’ Arran began, then immediately glanced across at his brother-in-law. Fuck. He’d wanted to smooth the situation, help these poor frightened people feel more at ease, but he’d just put his foot in it. Hamish didn’t need to be reminded of Skye’s likeness to Ben. The room was mined—there were booby traps all over it.

‘Can I come in?’

A slim, suited woman stood just outside the waiting area, holding two plastic bags. Molly crawled out of Hamish’s lap and toddled towards her. ‘Work lady!’ she crowed.

The woman laughed. ‘That’s right, Molly. You see me at work. You like coming into your daddy’s office, don’t you?’

Hamish quickly got up and went towards the newcomer, then ushered her into the waiting room, one hand resting gently on her back. ‘This is my colleague Ria,’ he said. ‘Ria, this is Arran, my brother-in-law, Skye’s mother, Nell, and Mary, Frank and Kirra. They’re Ben’s family—the donor.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Ria said, then turned to Hamish. ‘I brought some lunch for you all. You sounded as if you were in for a wait when you called me, and with the office just a few blocks away . . . I’d better get back there now.’

‘Don’t,’ Hamish said. ‘Please stay. I’d really like you to.’

They were a strange group, Arran reflected as he reached for one of the sandwiches that Ria had provided. This wasn’t a situation any of them had expected to find themselves in. After the flurry of introductions there didn’t seem much to say, but then Ria spread out the food she’d brought on a table in the corner of the waiting room, and John returned with coffee, buns and more donuts to add to the repast. For a few minutes everyone held back, but then Molly solemnly started passing out the buns, breaking the ice. Kirra bent down to talk to her, and Hamish moved across to join their conversation; Ria sat nearby, watching him, a half-smile on her face. Frank stood off to one side with his arms crossed until John walked over and started asking questions about the farm. Mary’s eyes darted between Kirra and Frank; Nell had squashed herself next to her and was clasping Mary’s hand. Such a disparate bunch, the nine of them crammed into a space meant for half that, but all connected somehow, tied together. And not by blood, Arran thought. Blood was overrated. Love was what linked them; love for the two members of their family who weren’t in the room. He reached for another bun before Molly got her fingers on it, then turned to talk to Mary.

‘Hey!’ came a voice from the doorway. Dr Gow stood there, still in his scrubs. ‘Sorry to break up the party,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got some news.’

40

White. Everything was white. White walls, white ceiling, the uniforms of the nurses who came to take her temperature or peer for long minutes at something hanging off the end of her bed. White sheets, white pillow . . . white noise. The clatter of the lunch trays in the hallway, the hum of the fluorescent light tube above her, a machine beeping rhythmically just out of sight. At one point she’d tried to look for it, to see what it was measuring, but the pain in her side when she attempted to roll over had made her cry out, and someone had raced in and jabbed her with a needle, turning the white back to black.

They were fighting over her, the light and the dark. Sometimes when she opened her eyes she thought it was morning, then she’d open them again and the room had grown dim. Had half an hour passed, or a day? She tried to ask but the words caught in her throat like cottonwool balls. At first Skye wondered if she’d had another baby. There was the wound on her abdomen, for a start, her inability to sit up; there were the curtains around her bed and the doctors muttering as they flicked through her chart. It all seemed so familiar, somehow . . . but there was no child being brought to her, no heat in her breasts.

Something else, then. Skye forced herself to concentrate, matching her breathing to the metronome of the machine. In . . . beep . . . out . . . beep. The darkness reached for her, but she kicked at it, clinging for safety to the rails of her bed. She was winning this time. She was clawing her way free. Why was she here?
Think
. Images slowly swam up to her. She was at home, in her studio, working on something . . . a big piece, a sculpture, only it wasn’t her home anymore, she recalled with a pang. She’d left Hamish. She’d moved out and taken Molly with her. Skye’s eyes flew open. Molly! Where was Molly? There’d been a fight, she thought, heart racing. She remembered it now. Hamish was shouting something, advancing towards her, knocking over the sculpture . . . but Molly hadn’t been there, had she? The machine went into overdrive, beeps accelerating, crashing into each other. Skye felt a scream gather itself deep in her chest, and then there was a man she didn’t know standing by her bed, smiling at her and saying, ‘Well, look who’s here.’

She’d had a transplant, he told her, when she could breathe calmly again, when she’d been reassured that Molly was fine and would soon be in to see her. A kidney transplant—one of hers had been damaged. There’d been an accident, at home . . . Normally the other kidney could take over, but Skye’s had been weakened by the preeclampsia she’d developed when she was pregnant. ‘Do you remember that?’ the doctor asked. Skye nodded warily. ‘Don’t worry if it’s still a bit vague,’ he went on. ‘You’ve been sick for almost a month now. Things will come back to you as you recover and we get you off the painkillers. The main thing is that the new kidney works beautifully. You’ll have to be monitored, of course, but it was pretty much a perfect match.’

‘It was? Where did it come from?’ asked Skye.

The doctor looked surprised. ‘Your brother. Sorry. We told you that before, when you first woke up from the surgery, but then you went back to sleep.’ He wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it across. ‘Here’s my name. Dr Gow. Paul. I’ll be in to see you every day, but if you have any more questions just ask one of the nurses to call me.’

‘Can I see him?’ asked Skye. ‘My brother. Is he here?’

‘Sure,’ said Dr Gow. ‘He’s in the next room. We’re very happy with his progress—he should be ready to go home at the beginning of next week. I’ll get a nurse to bring him in.’

He left the room and Skye sank back against the pillow, trying to take it all in. A new kidney. She’d been cut into; opened up. Gingerly she put her hands to her stomach, anxious to know more, but there were just the dressings she’d encountered before and a lone plastic tube snaking out of her side. A transplant. It seemed impossible, but more memories were coming back to her now; vivid, yet somehow familiar, things she thought she’d dreamed. Hamish’s accusations, the searing weight of the statue striking her flank, the smell of glue on her hands as she brought them up to protect herself. Newer memories too, shaded by drugs and fatigue and the pain: Nell asleep by her bed, mouth open, face lined; Molly’s damp palm against her cheek. She’d struggled up out of the blackness for that, drawn to the touch like a fish to a lure. Had they spoken? She didn’t think so, but they’d been there, Nell and Molly, waiting for her. Arran too, maybe, though she couldn’t recall it. He must have been in bed, recovering from his own surgery.

And Hamish. Hamish had also visited. At her bedside were flowers and a card in his handwriting, as well as a framed photo of Molly she knew he usually kept on his desk at work. It was good of him to bring it in, she thought, so she could see it when she awoke. Would he come back again? She supposed so. The idea neither moved nor upset her; it washed against her like a wave on a beach and then retreated back out to sea. Nothing was stirred: no passion, but no anger either, and certainly no hatred. If this was his fault, it was hers too.

The door to her room swung open and a figure appeared in a wheelchair, being pushed by a nurse. Expecting to see Arran, Skye sat up, not comprehending, her incision throbbing in protest.
Ben
? Why was he here? Then she saw his drip and his pallor and she understood.

The nurse wheeled him to her bed and bent to put the brakes on. ‘I’ll leave you two now,’ she said, straightening up. ‘I’m sure you’ve got a lot to catch up on.’ She turned to Ben. ‘Just use your sister’s buzzer to call me when you want to go back to your own room.’

Skye waited until the nurse had left; until she had closed the door and her footsteps had faded in the hallway. ‘You,’ she said, staring at him. ‘You’re the donor?’

Ben nodded. ‘Arran couldn’t do it, and Hamish didn’t match. This was Hamish’s idea—he got my address from Arran, and they came to see me. He was so worried about you, Skye . . .’

But she wasn’t listening. ‘It’s
your
kidney inside me,’ she said. ‘You gave it to me?’

Ben nodded again, but was silent. A clock ticked on the wall; the fluid in Ben’s drip caught the light from the window. They gazed at each other. Vegemite eyes, Skye thought, remembering Charlie. Her eyes, Arran’s eyes, Ben’s . . . Eyes she had recognised in the mirror in the art room, on that day long ago when she’d cut herself.

‘Can I see your scar?’ she asked. Ben rose stiffly from his chair and sat beside her on the bed, lifting his shirt. There was a patch of gauze taped to his skin. He pulled it back to reveal an eight-centimetre incision neatly held together with blue-black stitches, the edges red but healing. Skye placed her hand on the wound, gently tracing it with her fingers.

‘Now your turn,’ said Ben.

Her dressing was larger and harder to detach. Ben moved her hand away and eased back the bandage, careful not to hurt her. Her own scar lay beneath, a tattoo, a marking she would carry with her for the rest of her life, longer than Ben’s but otherwise identical. Just as she’d done, he reached out to touch it, to circumnavigate its ridges, a lone explorer on the pale plain of her flesh.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

‘You’re welcome,’ he replied, finally looking up.

Skye felt her heart racing, her pulse soar. She closed her eyes and saw herself begin to heal: the blood pumping out from her core and around her body, nourishing her organs; the new kidney, rich with life, nestled inside her like a secret, like an amulet. He was part of her. He had been part of her from the very beginning, formed with and alongside her. How she’d fought it, how they’d fought it, but this . . . this was an ending somehow, a conclusion, a completion. This was irrevocable. He would always be with her now, in some way at least, and that was enough.

Skye took Ben’s hand from her stomach and laid it in her lap. Slowly, with infinite care, she pulled him against her, pulled him down on the bed so they were lying above the covers, face to face, side by side, scar to scar; Ben’s arms around her, her arms around him. The darkness came for her again, and this time she gave in to it.

41

‘Name?’ asked the woman at the information desk.

Zia had to think. ‘Ben . . . ah . . . Cunningham,’ he said, clutching the casserole dish tighter to his chest. It was still warm, the heat radiating through his thin shirt. Cunningham. That was right, wasn’t it? It felt like a long time since he had last used Ben’s surname, since he had been his teacher rather than his friend.

‘Ward Three South, room seventeen.’ She looked up, pointing. ‘Take the lifts over there to the third level, then turn left. There’s a nurses’ station you can ask at if you have any trouble.’

Zia thanked her and returned to where Habib was waiting in the crowded foyer. ‘Three South,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

Habib rose reluctantly. ‘I’ll wait here,’ he said in Farsi, plucking nervously at the cuff of his jacket.

‘No way,’ Zia protested, switching to the same language. He grabbed Habib’s sleeve and steered him towards the lift. ‘I really want you to meet him. He runs the drop-in group, and he took me and Farid rock climbing. Plus he helped look for you, remember? With Arran, that man who drove us home from the airport. Arran started it all, trying to find you, but Ben went with him.’

Habib shuffled into the elevator behind him, careful to stay close. The doors closed, and he glanced at Zia anxiously. It was the small space, Zia realised. It must bring back memories.

‘Relax,’ he said, shifting the casserole dish to one hip and awkwardly putting his arm around his older brother. ‘We won’t stay long, I promise, and Ben won’t expect you to speak English. Except maybe hello. Can you say that? Hello?’

‘Hello,’ Habib repeated dutifully, and Zia patted him on the back. Seven years ago, in Iran, Habib had been the one who knew everything, who told him what to do, but their roles had changed now, reversed. It made Zia want to laugh and cry at the same time. Instead he jabbed at the door-open button and strode out onto level three, glancing around. He’d missed Ben, these last few weeks that he hadn’t been there at the drop-in centre. When he’d heard he was in hospital he knew he wanted to take him something, to look after Ben just as Ben had looked after him. What better way than with food? Zia had made
ghormeh sabzi
, a Persian green curry. It was bound to be better than anything Ben was being served here. Zia could smell the lamb and the turmeric as he knocked on Ben’s door, then gently pushed it open.

But the room was empty, the sheets on the bed thrown back in a tangle, as if whoever had been there had left in a hurry. Zia stood in the doorway, Habib lurking behind him.