After the End(2)

“Builder?”

“Plasterer. Big job at Gatwick airport.” She stares at Liam, her face ashen. I know that feeling: that fear, made a hundred times worse by the stillness of the ward. There’s a different atmosphere on the cancer ward. Kids up and down the corridors, in the playroom, toys all over the place. The older ones doing maths with the education team, physios helping reluctant limbs behave. You’re still worried, of course you are—Christ, you’re terrified—but . . . it’s different, that’s all. Noisier, brighter. More hopeful.

“Back again?” the nurses would say when they saw us. Soft eyes would meet mine, carrying a second conversation above the lighthearted banter. I’m sorry this is happening. You’re doing so well. It’ll be OK. “You must like it here, Dylan!”

And the funny thing was, he really did. His face would light up at the familiar faces, and if his legs were working he’d run down the corridor to the playroom and seek out the big box of Duplo, and if you saw him from a distance, intent on his tower, you’d never know he had a brain tumour.

Up close, you’d know. Up close you’d see a curve like the hook of a coat hanger, across the left side of his head, where the surgeons cut him open and removed a piece of bone so they could get at the tumour. Up close you’d see the hollows around his eyes and the waxy tone of skin starved of red blood cells. Up close, if you passed us in the street, you’d flinch before you could stop yourself.

No one flinched in the children’s ward. Dylan was one of dozens of children bearing the wounds of a war not yet won. Maybe that’s why he liked it there: he fitted in.

I liked it, too. I liked my pull-out bed, right next to Dylan’s, where I slept better than I did at home, because here, all I had to do was press a button, and someone would come running. Someone who wouldn’t panic if Dylan pulled out his Hickman line; someone to reassure me that the sores in his mouth would heal with time; to smile gently and say that bruising was quite normal following chemo.

No one panicked when I pressed the button that last time, but they didn’t smile, either.

“Pneumonitis,” the doctor said. She’d been there for the first chemo cycle, when Max and I fought tears and told each other to be brave for Dylan, and we’d seen her on each cycle since; a constant over the four months we’d spent in and out of hospital. “Chemotherapy can cause inflammation in the lungs—that’s what’s making it hard for him to breathe.”

“But the last cycle was September.” It was the end of October. What was left of the tumour after surgery wasn’t getting any bigger; we’d finished the chemo; Dylan should have been getting better, not worse.

“Symptoms can develop months afterwards, in some cases. Oxygen, please.” This last was directed to the nurse, who was already unwrapping a mask.

Two days later Dylan was transferred to paediatric intensive care on a ventilator.

The atmosphere in PICU is different. Everything’s quiet. Serious. You get used to it. You can get used to anything. But it’s still hard.

Nikki looks up. I follow her gaze to where it rests on Dylan, and for a second I see my boy through her eyes. I see his pale, clammy skin, the cannulas in both arms, and the wires that snake across his bare chest. I see his hair, thin and uneven. Dylan’s eyes flicker beneath their lids, like the tremor of a moth within your cupped hands. Nikki stares. I know what she’s thinking, although she’d never admit to it. None of us would.

She’s thinking: Let that boy be sicker than mine.

She sees me watching her and colours, dropping her gaze to the floor. “What are you knitting?” she says. A pair of needles pokes from a ball of sunny yellow yarn in the bag by my feet.

“A blanket. For Dylan’s room.” I hold up a completed square. “It was this or a scarf. I can only do straight lines.” There must be thirty or so squares in my bag, in different shades of yellow, waiting to be stitched together once I have enough to cover a bed. There are a lot of hours to fill when you’re a PICU parent. I brought books in from home at first, only to read the same page a dozen times, and still have no idea what was happening.

“What year’s Liam in?” I never ask why kids are in hospital. You pick things up, and often the parents will tell you, but I’d never ask. I ask about school instead, or what team they support. I ask about who they were before they got sick.

“Year one. He’s the youngest in his class.” Nikki’s bottom lip trembles. There’s a blue school sweater stuffed into a carrier bag at her feet. Liam’s wearing a hospital gown they’ll have put on when he was admitted.

“You can bring in pyjamas. They let you bring clothes in, but make sure you label them, because they tend to go walkabout.”

Cheryl gives a wry smile.

“You’ve got enough on your plate without chasing after a lost T-shirt, isn’t that right?” I raise my voice to include Aaron and Yin, the other two nurses on duty, in the conversation.

“We’re busy enough, certainly.” Yin smiles at Nikki. “Pip’s right, though, please do bring in clothes from home, and perhaps a favourite toy? Something washable is ideal, because of infection, but if there’s a teddy he particularly loves, of course that’s fine.”

“I’ll bring Boo.” Nikki turns to Liam. “I’ll bring Boo, shall I? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Her voice is high and unnatural. It takes practice, speaking to a sedated child. It’s not like they’re sleeping, not like when you creep into their room on your way to bed, to whisper I love you in their ear. When you stand for a moment, looking down at the mess of hair poking out from beneath the duvet, and tell them Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite. There’s no soft sigh as they hear your voice in their sleep; no echo as they half-wake and mumble a reply.