We Own the Sky(68)

“Yes, next week.”

“Believe me, it will be no worse than that.”

The phone on Sladkovsky’s desk rang. “Sorry, I will be one minute. I’m afraid I have to take this.”

He picked up the receiver and, after saying a few words in Czech, pulled out a notepad on his desk. I watched as he listened, nodding, occasionally touching the end of his pen to his lips. I remembered someone on  Hope’s Place calling him Dr. Sleaze. They said he tried too hard with the smart suits and doctorly bow ties, his attempt at an English upper-class accent. But as I watched him now, writing down numbers on a blank page, professorial in his trim white coat, he radiated nothing but composure.

“So you have decided?”

“When can we start?”

Dr. Sladkovsky looked at me and scratched his chin. “I’m glad you would like to go ahead with the treatment, but we do have to take a few steps to check that Jack is eligible.”

“Of course,” I said.

“This is standard practice,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. We are bound by European medical law to make sure that we are doing Jack no harm.”

“Yes, of course, I understand.”

I followed Dr. Sladkovsky out of the office and down a corridor until we

reached an atrium with a glass ceiling where we found Jack throwing a ball back and forth with Lenka.

“Hello, Jack,” the doctor said, but Jack didn’t smile back and clung to my trouser leg.

“So I’d like to take Jack for his checks. Is there a suite free now, Lenka?” the doctor asked the receptionist.

“Of course,” Lenka said, and smiled.

“Jack,” she said, “do you want to come with me?”

“Am I having the medicine?” Jack asked.

Lenka paused, not knowing what to say.

“No, Jack,” I said, putting my arm around him and guiding him out of the

atrium. “Just a couple of tests. Nothing that will hurt, I promise.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “Is there a TV?”

“There is,” Lenka said. “A big TV.”

Lenka led us into a private room, and Jack lay down on the bed. A nurse came in and checked Jack’s heart rate and then took some blood. I held his hand when they put the needle in, but he didn’t even flinch. As we waited for the doctor, I remembered the checks we went through before Jack’s operation in London. The questionnaires, the endless medical tests and pre-op assessments. There was nothing like that here. It was all so quick. Could they really gauge his fitness from a quick blood test?

After a little while, Dr. Sladkovsky came into the room and looked at Jack’s charts and then asked to see me outside. I felt a familiar sense of dread, a shiver as I remembered sitting with Anna on fireworks night in that cold London waiting room.

“All good to continue,” he said. “His vitals are excellent. He’s a strong boy, and we think he would be an excellent candidate for immuno-engineering.”

“Thank you,” I said, and it was almost like he was telling me that Jack’s cancer was gone.

“Good. We just need you to sign some paperwork,” Sladkovsky said, as he led me down a corridor and into a busy office. “Our secretary will bring you the consent forms and all the payment information. I’ll be doing my rounds now, but if you would like to chat about anything, any concerns you might have, please talk to Lenka and I can find the time later.”

“Thank you,” I said, and we shook hands.

I read through the papers, embossed with the clinic’s logo. It was mostly paragraphs of legal jargon that highlighted various sections of the European Medical Code. If Anna were here, she would have been reading the small print, cross-checking paragraphs of the law.

It was too late now. This was the only chance Jack had. I signed the papers and filled in the payment information. It was expensive, but I had the credit cards and was in the process of emptying a savings account. There would be ways offinding the rest. We could remortgage the house or raid Anna’s pension plan. We would find a way.

  *

“Look at all the lasers, Jack,” I said, after the nurse had come to take his blood.

In the private room, where Jack would have his first infusion, there were white instruments, machines that looked like space cannons, but Jack wasn’t looking at them. He was staring down into his lap.

“Daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Am I having the medicine?”

“Well,” I said, hesitating, “it’s a different medicine. But it’s going to help make you better.”

Jack was silent, didn’t look convinced.

I started showing Jack something on the iPad, when Dr. Sladkovsky came into the room. He walked over to a cart, shook out a pill from a bottle and put it in a small medicine cup.

“Now,” he said, “we would like to give Jack a light sedative, if that’s okay.

But I do need your permission for that. It just makes the process more relaxing

for the patient. Is that okay? It’s extremely fast-acting.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Good. Jack, will you take this little pill?” the doctor said, holding out the cup and a glass of water.

“Okay,” he said, expertly putting the pill on his tongue and swallowing with a quick sip.