We Own the Sky(93)

Nev’s forehead is glistening with sweat and he wipes his hands on his

trousers. “I’d seen it with my wife, you see, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again to my Josh.”

“Your wife?”

“Yeah. She had cancer a few years before Josh. It was very quick.” Nev

swallows and takes a deep breath. “Yeah, we were walking out on the moors one weekend—she were a big walker, my Lesley—and all of a sudden, she had this terrible pain and had to go to the emergency room. And that was it. Cancer of pancreas. They said she had nine months, but she only lasted three.” Nev nods at the angels and winged horses. “These were hers. She collected them like.”

The room is silent. Just the sound of children playing and police sirens in the distance.

“That was why I went to Prague, if I’m frank with you, why I spent

everything I had. It all went on the clinic—the savings, the house, money from friends. Because I couldn’t bear to see my Josh go through what my Lesley went through.”

I think of something someone wrote on  Hope’s Place. That we were victims in all this. Victims. Just following our own paths. Doing what was best for our kids, what any parent would do.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “About your wife. But it doesn’t explain why you kept promoting the treatments when you knew they didn’t work.”

“I... I didn’t know that at the beginning, to be honest. I started promoting the clinic, talking about it on the forums when I thought Josh were getting better.

They were telling me it was working, and I believed them. I was convinced by it.

I wanted to shout it out from the rooftops, like. I started talking up the clinic because I really—honest to God, Rob—wanted to help the other kids.”

I am sitting forward in my chair, because I don’t want to miss a word. “And after Josh died?”

“Well, I kidded myself at first, didn’t I, still thinking there was something to it.

Josh did last longer than all the doctors thought he would. And maybe if he’d started sooner, then it would have worked. That’s what I told myself, that it was my fault.” Nev looks down into his lap. “It was money, as well, though. I admit that.”

“Money?”

“Yes, money.” Nev looks up at me. “I’m not trying to make excuses, like. I know I done wrong. I got in too deep, didn’t I, just too deep. It were one of Dr.

Sladkovsky’s staff, who worked in the marketing department, and they saw my posts on the forums, and then they offered me a commission for every patient I brought to the clinic. I was desperate, you see, absolutely desperate. I owed so much to Sladkovsky, over a hundred thousand pounds. The house, after all the other debts were paid off, only covered half of that. Well, they said I could pay my debts off by working for them.

“I wasn’t sure at first, because I knew I would have to lie about Josh, but then they threatened all this legal action and talking about this extradition treaty. I had already lost the house, everything like, and I was just so scared because I had to provide for Chloe, and there’s no work around here now, nothing. And then the money started coming in from Sladkovsky and it were a lot—real good money— and I started paying off the debt, and we were able to move out of me mum’s and come down here...”

“Chloe?” I say.

“Oh, sorry, yes, I’m jabbering away, aren’t I. Chloe is Josh’s sister.”

The little rain boots at the door, the pictures on the fridge, the cartoons in the background. Him and his little one.

“I knew what I were doing was wrong, but I couldn’t let Chloe down, you see.

She lost her mom, her brother, and I didn’t want her to see her dad go away to

prison. I wanted her to have a home, with her own bedroom an’ all.”

The clouds have obscured the sun, and the light is dimmer now in the front room.

“Can I, um, can I get you anything, a tea or a coffee or something?” Nev says.

I don’t answer, just shake my head.

“And your son, Jack, you said he went to Sladkovsky’s?”

“Yes, when we were out of options. Jack had a few treatments, and then we stopped.”

I don’t know why, but I take out the photo of Jack I carry around in my wallet and give it to Nev.

“Ah,” Nev says, smiling. “I think I remember him from your emails. He’s a nice-looking lad. Can definitely see the resemblance.”

I take the photo back and look at it again. It was taken in a children’s

playground, close to Regent’s Park, just around the corner from Dr. Flanagan’s office on Harley Street. I feel empty, as if I have been fasting: a gripy hollowness that cannot be filled.

A football hits the window again, and I can hear the glass shudder and bend.

Nev does not even flinch. In the corner of the room there is a pile of folded clothes, and I can see that he is ironing his daughter’s school shirts.

“So why did you stop then?” I say.

“Stop doing stuff for Sladkovsky you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want the truth?”

“It would be nice.”

“I paid off the debt,” Nev says, shrugging. “I was free. They dropped all them legal proceedings.” Nev stops speaking and looks down into his lap. “Look, I... I really am very sorry, about what I’ve done, about what happened to your Jack.”