After the End(61)

A hush descends as I straighten the piece of paper in my hand, on which is scribbled my hastily drafted statement.

“A few moments ago, the Honorable Mr. Justice Merritt refused to grant a court order that would have brought about the death of an innocent child.” I look up. “Justice has been done.” There is another cheer. I scan the fringes of the crowd but can’t see Pip. Emma and Jamie wave at me from the crowd, their banners on stakes wedged into their daughter’s pushchair. “We are under no illusions that the road ahead will be easy, and we know that taking Dylan to America for treatment will not guarantee success, but we owe it to him to try.”

We. Pip was torn—she said as much in her evidence—but now the decision’s been made for her, all she has to do is focus on Dylan getting better.

“We are grateful for the medical care provided to Dylan by St. Elizabeth’s Children’s Hospital, and we will continue to work with them over the coming weeks, as we prepare to move Dylan to Houston ProTherapy. We are grateful, too, for the support shown to us by people around the world, and for the donations made to Dylan’s crowdfunding page. Dr. Sanders has generously waived his charges for Dylan’s proton beam therapy, but the associated costs are extremely high, and we will not be able to get there without your help.” My mouth is dry; my heart pitter-patters in my chest. I want to find Pip. I want to see Dylan. I don’t want to be here, outside the court, in front of a woman who is weeping for a child she’s never met. I look around at the faces in the crowd, at Emma and Jamie, at the woman in the red beanie hat, at the strangers with Dylan’s face on their T-shirts. I look at them all, and despite their cheers, their shouts, their cries, I see no one I know. No one I feel safe with.

Pip. I need Pip.

“Finally”—I make myself slow down—“these last few months have been incredibly stressful for us as a family, and I ask that you now give us the time and privacy we need to move forward.” Where is Pip? Tomorrow, there will be as much speculation in the papers about our marriage as there will be about Dylan’s treatment.

I look at Laura and nod, and we walk swiftly away from the court. For a few meters we are followed by reporters wanting something more, something exclusive, but we are firm with our We have nothing further to add at this time, and they fall away.

In the next street, we part company.

“I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.” I shake Laura’s hand again. She gives a crisp smile.

“Could have gone either way, to be brutally honest. I’m glad we got the result you wanted.”

The result you wanted.

It’s carefully phrased, a world away from yesterday’s conviction, and as I walk away I wonder what she really thinks. I wonder if she would have argued just as easily on the side of the hospital. Are you one hundred percent certain you want this to go to court? she said, at our first meeting. Whatever the outcome, this is going to have a lasting impact on you and your family.

It doesn’t matter what she thinks. This isn’t about me. It’s about Dylan. It’s about getting him better, about putting my family back together. For the first time in months I feel a ray of hope pushing its way skyward.





after





twenty-six





Pip


   2013


Dylan died nineteen days before his third birthday.

“But we were going to have balloons,” I said stupidly. Cheryl cried as she helped me clear the locker next to Dylan’s empty cot. They took him away after we’d said goodbye—Take as much time as you need—and I couldn’t bear to think of him spending his birthday in the hospital morgue.

“I want the funeral before May fifth,” I said to Max. He nodded mutely, and together we made arrangements that no parent should ever have to make.

The service lasts thirty-five minutes. One for each month of Dylan’s life.

We slide into seats still warm from the previous occupants, filing out thirty-five minutes later to find reception already noisy with mourners. I hear Haven’t you grown and This can’t be Alice, and it might as well be a wedding, for all the hugging and shaking hands and sharing of laughter, the cheerful ties and smart heeled shoes. Someone old, I think, even before I see the Granddad picked out in carnations. Someone who lived enough years for sadness to become relief; for a funeral to become a celebration of their life.

Today isn’t what I wanted. I wanted bright colours and songs sung tearfully but enthusiastically by everyone we knew. I wanted friends and family, work colleagues and neighbours. Standing room for the latecomers, orders of service shared three ways, soaring balloons in a cloudless sky.

“I’d suggest keeping things low-key,” the police officer said, when they’d filled out the paperwork. “Less chance of the location getting out.” On the table between us, a brown paper bag containing my coat.

“You’ll get it back after the trial,” his colleague told me. She’d written Max Mara as one word on the exhibit label. “You might be able to get it cleaned.”

I didn’t want it back. No amount of chemicals would lift that stain, or take away the metallic smell that still clung to my nostrils.

Pig’s blood, she’d told the police. The woman who did it. She was still outside PICU when they arrested her, standing in her red beanie hat, with the tight knot of pro-lifers who had moved from the court to the hospital and who never seemed to go home. She seemed unfazed by the CCTV, by the handcuffs, the charges of criminal damage and common assault.