After the End(39)

“That doesn’t stop it being hard.”

They sip their drinks. Leila wonders what will happen to Pip and Max. “The parents of a patient disagree on their son’s treatment.”

Jim nods thoughtfully. “It happens. More often than people think.”

He’s thinking about the front-line quarrels he must deal with all the time. He’s not going to hospital . . . Yes he is! I’ll go with him . . . No, I will! Don’t touch him . . . Do something! Leila questions her assumption that the arguments Jim finds himself caught up in are any less serious because they’re played out in the street, in a pub, in someone’s front room. He deals with life-and-death situations every day—perhaps more often than Leila does. If anyone understands what Leila is dealing with, it’s him.

“The patient’s terminally ill.” There’s no one at the tables next to them, but Leila speaks quietly anyway. Jim frowns into his pint as he listens.

“We’re recommending end-of-life care. Mum agrees. Dad doesn’t.”

Jim looks up. “So, what happens now?”

“We go to court,” Leila tells him, with a professionalism she doesn’t feel. “And we let the judge decide.”

There’s a pause, then Jim leans back against the faded fabric of the bench seat. “I had a DNR last week. Old chap. Cardiac arrest. Riddled with cancer, in and out of hospital, and I guess he’d just had enough. He’d made it clear, the last time he’d been admitted, that he didn’t want to be resuscitated if it happened again, and his wife knew all about it.” He takes a sip of his drink, then sets the glass carefully back down. “Only, when it came down to it, she wanted us to save his life.”

“What did you do?”

“We made him comfortable, and we let him die.” Jim pauses. “And his wife called me a murderer, and even though I was looking at a DNR order signed by the man whose hand I was holding, there was a bit of me that felt like one.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He shrugs. “Like you said, it’s part of the job, isn’t it?”

They move on to easier topics—to where they grew up, and what brought them to Birmingham. Jim has a talent for mimicry, and Leila laughs so hard at his impressions of their mutual colleagues that she gets a pain in her side. They have another drink, and then another, and when Leila looks at her watch she is shocked to discover an entire evening has passed.

“We should do this again,” Jim says, as they leave the pub.

It has been good for Leila, this evening. For three hours she has laughed and talked and thought about life outside PICU, outside her own world. But as she cycles home a weight descends on her once again, and she thinks of Pip and Max, and Dylan, and her chest grows tight once more.

Like most Iranians, Leila has two sets of curtains at her front windows. Heavy, patterned ones, for drawing against cold, dark evenings, and a gossamer-thin pair, with scalloped edges picked out in gold thread, for privacy. Both are closed, but as Leila leans her bike against the railings, and puts the flowery shower cap over her seat, she can hear the strains of the shopping channel, and the tinny sound of a female presenter waxing lyrical about something with attachments. A vacuum cleaner? Food processor? She goes inside.

“Leila joon! I made torshi.”

Leila doesn’t need to look to know that her cupboards will be lined with jars filled with vegetables—cauliflower, carrots, celery—preserved in sharp, spicy vinegar. “Did Wilma come round? She said she keeps missing you.” Leila knows, of course, that Wilma cannot miss Habibeh, because Habibeh still hasn’t left the house. Her mother looks away, apparently engrossed by what Leila now sees is some sort of DIY face-lift device.

“So that’s just four minutes, for firm skin, super-enhanced elasticity, and visibly younger-looking appearance. Where do I sign up?” The presenter gives a trilling laugh. Leila feels a surge of frustration. At her mother, for ignoring Wilma’s attempts at friendship. At the shopping channel, for its superficial seductions.

“She might have done. I think I heard the door go, but my scarf was upstairs, and by the time I got there . . .” Habibeh holds up both hands and shrugs.

“Maman!” Leila picks up the remote and turns off the television.

Habibeh tuts. “I’m sure she’s a nice lady, but does she speak Farsi? No, she does not. Do I speak English? No, I do not. I’ve told you, Leila, I’m happy here. Cooking, watching my channel.” She pauses. Softens. Because she is, after all, a mother. “What’s wrong, Leila joon?”

Leila tells her about Dylan Adams. About the court case that will tear his parents’ lives apart even more than their son’s illness already has.

Habibeh holds Leila’s face in her hands, her thumbs circling Leila’s temples. “You are a good girl, Leila, and a good doctor. You can only do what you think is right.” And Leila lets her mother hold her, like she is a child again.





sixteen





Max


Gray sun loungers parade in neat rows on either side of the hotel pool, a tightly rolled towel on each mesh seat. Steam rises from a hot tub in the corner. For the past two weeks I’ve been first in the pool at six each morning, relieved to put an end to the pretense of sleep, and to fill these redundant hours before the rest of the world wakes up. I swim, and I run, and I do enough work to keep Chester off my back; biding my time till I can focus on the only thing that matters: Dylan.