After the End(21)

“Someone has to.”

“I worry about you, Maman.”

“Me? Huh! Worry about yourself, Leila joon, working all hours of the day. When are you going to find time to meet a nice man?”

“There’s plenty of time to meet someone.”

“You’re thirty-four, Leila.”

“You think I should settle for someone mediocre?”

“I settled for your father.”

Leila smiles now, as she remembers Habibeh’s attempt to deliver it deadpan, before her mouth twitched, and her eyes sparkled. Leila’s parents loved each other so intensely that when Leila’s father was killed she thought her mother would die too—that the life would simply drain out of her without him at her side. Habibeh didn’t die, but she withered. She stopped going out. Stopped seeing people. Leila worries about her, alone in her apartment in Tehran.

“If I could find a man like Baba, I’d settle.”

Habibeh’s eyes softened, the joking over. “There aren’t many like him.”

“Well, then.”

Leila is still thinking about all these things when it is time to brief the incoming team. She tries to focus. “Luke Shepherd, eleven years old. Successful living-donor kidney transplant three days ago, neckline and NG tube removed yesterday.” Leila pictures Luke, a cheerful boy and an ardent Birmingham City FC fan, who regularly begs to be allowed to the family room to watch the game, and—if he continues to make progress—will soon be allowed to do so. “Wound draining well and no infection markers.”

Cheryl interrupts to tell Leila she has a visitor. She gives Leila a look she can’t quite decipher.

“Go for it.” Jo Beresford—the consultant taking over from Leila, and the only woman she knows who can look glamorous in flat shoes and a white coat—consults her notes. “We’re pretty much done, I think. Only Liam Slater left. Room one. Male, five years old, acute asthma? IVI salbutamol. Tachycardiac. Monitoring for hypokalemia.” Jo has blond, almost white hair, cut in a neat crop that would make her look boyish, were it not for her lips, which are full and red, their color enhanced only by a slick of clear balm.

“Spot-on.”

“That’s the lot, then. Go do what you need to do.”

In the corridor outside PICU, leaning against the wall with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, is Jim, the paramedic who picked Leila up off the road after her accident.

“Thought I’d see how the patient was doing.”

Leila smiles. “I’ve got some impressive bruises, but the prognosis is good. Thanks again for coming to my rescue.”

“Need any meds?”

Leila looks around, then feigns disappointment. “You didn’t bring the Entonox?”

“More than my job’s worth.” He scuffs the toe of his boot against the floor, leaving a black rubber mark. “But if you’re free one evening next week I could write you a prescription for vitamin B.”

“Vitamin B?” Leila is confused. She is mentally scrolling through a list of supplements and their benefits, when Jim raises his right hand and mimes a drinking action.

Leila laughs. Vitamin B. Beer. She reflects for a moment. Thinks of the hundred and one things she has to do. Then she thinks of her mother’s insistence that she make time to meet someone. She takes a scrap of paper from her breast pocket, checks that there is nothing important on it, and scribbles her mobile number.

“Make it a vitamin L and S, and you’re on.”

And now it is Jim’s turn to look confused, as Leila returns to work, wondering how long it will take him to work it out.



* * *





Leila waits until the end of her shift to speak to Pip and Max Adams. She wants to be sure that she will not be called away; that there are enough people on duty to deal with the day-to-day running of the ward. She wants to give Dylan’s parents all of her attention.

“Would you like anything? Tea? Water?” Cheryl is here, too. She will take notes, so that there can be no doubt at all about what was said, and by whom. Like Leila, she is quiet. Subdued.

“No, thank you,” Pip says.

“I’m fine.” Max Adams is as dark as Pip is fair, with thick hair that would curl if it wasn’t cut so short. He has the type of facial hair that is more stubble than beard, with a neat line beneath his chin confirming he hasn’t simply forgotten to shave. He’s tall—almost six foot—and in a suit he looks quite imposing. He has an air of confidence that has on occasion resulted in a new parent mistaking him for a consultant.

Max’s fingers are laced through his wife’s, their hands buried in the sofa between them. The room is simply furnished. A sofa for parents, two chairs for staff. A coffee table, and a basket of toys for siblings. A box of tissues. Plastic flowers, dusty on the windowsill.

The sign on the door says THE QUIET ROOM, and anyone can ask to use it, either for a moment of contemplation, or for a conversation away from the ward.

A difficult conversation.

Leila has never once brought parents in here to tell them their child is in remission, clear of infection, ready to go home. She has only ever delivered bad news in the quiet room, and already she can feel the air pressing down on her, heavy and expectant. The crying room, she’s heard it called.