After the End(3)

An alarm sounds, a light flashing next to Darcy’s cot. Yin crosses the room, reattaches the oximeter to the baby’s foot, and the alarm stops, Darcy’s oxygen levels reading normal again. I glance at Nikki and see the panic in her eyes. “Darcy’s a wriggler,” I explain. It’s a while before you stop jumping at every buzzer, every alarm. “Her parents are normally here in the evenings, but it’s their wedding anniversary today. They’ve gone to see a musical.”

“Ooh, what are they seeing?” Yin has seen West Side Story eleven times. Pinned to the lanyard around her neck are badges from Phantom, Les Mis, Matilda . . .

“Wicked, I think.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant! I saw it with Imogen Sinclair as Glinda. They’ll love it.”

Eight-month-old Darcy has meningitis. Had meningitis: another reason why her parents are having a rare evening away from PICU. They’re finally through the worst.

“My husband’s away, too,” I tell Nikki. “He travels a lot, with work.” I turn to Dylan. “Daddy’s missing your big day, isn’t he?”

“His birthday?”

“Better than a birthday.” I touch the wooden arm of my chair, an instinctive gesture I must do a hundred times a day. I think of all the parents who have sat in this chair before me; of the surreptitious strokes from superstitious fingers. “Dylan’s coming off the ventilator tomorrow.” I look at Cheryl. “We’ve tried a few times, haven’t we, but this little monkey . . . Fingers crossed, eh?”

“Fingers crossed,” Cheryl says.

“Is that a big step forward?” Nikki asks.

I grin. “The biggest.” I stand up. “Right, my darling, I’ll be off.” It feels odd, at first, talking like this, with other families all around you. You’re self-conscious. Like making phone calls in an open-plan office, or when you go to the gym for the first time and you think everyone’s looking at you. They’re not, of course, they’re too busy thinking about their own phone call, their own workout, their own sick child.

So, you start talking, and three months later you’re like me—unable to stop.

“Nanny’s coming to see you at the weekend—that’ll be nice, won’t it? She’s missed you terribly, but she didn’t want to come anywhere near you, not with that horrible cold she had. Poor Nanny.”

It’s become a habit now, this prattling on. I’ll catch myself talking out loud in the car, at the shops, at home; filling the space where See the tractor? and Time for bed and Look with your eyes, Dylan, not your hands should be. They tell you it’s good to talk to the kids. That they find it reassuring to hear Mum and Dad’s voices. I think it’s us who find it reassuring. It’s a reminder of who we were before we were PICU parents.

I drop the side of Dylan’s cot, so I can lean over him, my forearms resting either side of him, and our noses touching. “Eskimo kiss,” I say softly. He never let us forget that final good-night kiss, no matter how many cuddles had been given, how many raspberries blown.

“Keemo!” he’d insist, and I’d drop the cot side once more, and lean for a final good night, and he’d press his nose against mine and wrap his fingers around my hair.

“Love you, baby boy,” I tell him now. I close my eyes, imagining warm breath on my face, sweet from bedtime milk. Tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow they’ll take out the tube, and this time it won’t go back in. I kiss his forehead and raise the cot side, making sure it clicks safely into place so he can’t fall out. “Night, Cheryl. Bye, Aaron, Yin. See you tomorrow?”

“Off for three days,” Yin says, holding up both hands in a hallelujah.

“Oh, so you are—you’re going to visit your sister, aren’t you? Have a lovely time.” I look at Nikki Slater, who has pulled her chair a little closer to her son, so she can rest her head beside his. “Get some rest if you can,” I say gently. “It’s a long road we’re all on.”

I say good night to the girls at the nurses’ station, and to Paul, the porter who brought Dylan from the cancer ward to PICU, and who always asks after him. I collect my coat, find my keys, and walk to the car park, where I feed another ten pounds into the ticket machine.

You can buy season tickets, if you’re visiting someone in intensive care. I always make sure new parents know about it, because it all adds up, doesn’t it? Especially when you have to bring two cars here, like Max and I often do. It’s ten pounds to park for twenty-four hours, but they’ll give you a week for twenty quid, or a whole month for forty. I bought the month ticket in November, and again in December, but when January came and I stood by the office with my purse in my hand, I couldn’t bear to ask for another month’s parking. It felt so . . . defeatist. We wouldn’t be here for another four weeks, surely? Not when Dylan was so much more stable.

Frost glitters the tarmac. I scrape the ice off the windscreen with an Aretha Franklin CD case, and put the heating on full blast till the glass clears of mist. By the time I can see, it’s so hot I have to open the window to stop myself from falling asleep.

The drive home takes a little over an hour. The hospital has accommodation for parents—three bedsits with tiny kitchens as new as the day they were installed, because who thinks about cooking when your child’s in intensive care? We stayed there for most of November, and then Max had to work, and Dylan was critical but stable, and it felt right to give up the flat for someone who needed it more. I don’t mind the drive. I stick on one of my programmes and before I know it I’m pulling up on the drive.