After the End(58)

“And lunch,” Habibeh adds. She hands Leila a complicated arrangement of square boxes, clipped together and finished with a metal handle. “Tiffin box,” she says proudly. “Dishwasher and freezer safe, and insulated for hot or cold food.”

“Oh, Maman, this is exactly what I needed. Thank you.” Not the food—Leila knows she couldn’t eat a bite—but her mother, with her QVC English, and her squashy embrace, and her total faith that whatever Leila does will be right.

“We’re going to Covent Garden first,” Wilma says, “then Habibeh fancies a go on the London Eye.” Leila wonders if Habibeh will think again about leaving Iran and living with Leila, now that she can see she could have a life, have friends, here.

Habibeh is looking for someone. She scans the pavement behind Leila. “Dr. Nick?” She looks disappointed.

“He’s at the hospital, Maman, he isn’t giving evidence.”

“Nice man,” she tells Wilma. “Doctor friend. Shame he . . .” She searches for the word, her fingertips pinching together as if she might be able to pluck it from the air. She exhales sharply, irritated by her lack of language, and takes out her phone.

“Be Farsi che mishaved, Maman?”

But Habibeh refuses to take the easy route. “English,” she insists, typing the word she wants into Google Translate. Leila tries to read it upside down. It’s a shame Nick is . . . what? Married, she thinks, and flushes again at the idea her mother might have so accurately read her mind.

“Divorce!” Habibeh says, triumphantly, her disapproval tempered by delight in her linguistic achievements.

“Ah.” Wilma is philosophical. “Sometimes it’s for the best, though. My daughter’s marriage broke up and it was terrible for a while, but now she’s never been happier.”

Leila is not listening to the story about Wilma’s daughter. Divorced? “Doroste?” she asks. “Are you sure?”

“Aw talaq gurefth.” He is getting divorced, Habibeh confirms. He said so at Norooz, when you were making tea. It is a shame. Like many Iranians of her generation, Habibeh disapproves of divorce. And yet there is something about the way she looks at Leila—in the fact she mentioned Nick at all—that makes Leila wonder if her instincts were right; her mother did indeed read her mind.

She cannot dwell on it. It is time to go. She kisses her mother and thanks Wilma for looking after her, and watches them head for Covent Garden, and the London Eye, and an afternoon of tourist attractions. And then she walks back into the court.



* * *





This is the final hearing of an application made by St. Elizabeth’s Children’s Hospital for St. Elizabeth’s Hospital NHS Trust pursuant to the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court in relation to Dylan Adams, who was born on the fifth of May 2010 and is now almost three years old.”

Leila watches the judge. She tries to read his expression, to find some warning of what is to come, but his poker face is well practiced.

“Where, as in this grave and difficult case, a dispute arises between parents and treating doctors regarding the proper course of treatment for a seriously ill child, the court may be asked to intervene.” He pauses, and looks around the room. “By their application dated seventh March 2013 the applicants ask the court to make the following orders. One, that Dylan, by reason of his minority, lacks capacity to make decisions regarding his medical treatment. Two, that it is lawful and in Dylan’s best interests for his treating clinicians to provide him with palliative care only. And three, that it is lawful and in Dylan’s best interests not to undergo proton beam therapy.”

Leila looks around the courtroom. Only the handful of press given permission to attend are moving, their pens making swift marks in shorthand, recording every word the judge speaks. Everyone else is quite still—watching, waiting—and Leila has the strange sensation of being frozen in time, that they might all wake, a year from now, and they will still be here in this courtroom, waiting for the ruling that will change so many lives.

“There has been much speculation about this case,” the judge says, “and I would ask that those who have not listened—as we have—to the medical evidence pertaining to Dylan Adams, do not pass judgment on the decisions made in this room.” There is a long pause before he speaks again, and when he does, he looks directly at Pip and Max.

“Many people believe that the courts should have no role to play in this process; that parents should be allowed to decide what is right for their child. However, when agreement cannot be reached—either between hospital and parent, or indeed between parents themselves—the court must step in.”

Leila swallows. If it is this hard for her, how impossible must it be for Dylan’s parents? To listen to the judge’s words? To know that in a few moments they will hear their son’s fate?

Before the break, Max and Pip Adams were sitting at opposite ends of the long bench seat behind their legal teams. They are still sitting on the bench, but the distance between them has contracted, and now they are sitting close enough to touch each other.

In fact, as Leila watches, and as the judge draws closer to his ruling, she sees movement. She could not say if Max moved first, or Pip. She can’t be certain they even know they are doing it. But as she watches, two hands venture slowly across the no-man’s-land between them, and find each other.