Almost True (24 page)

‘I'm sorry,' he says, ‘There's nothing I can do.'

Then she swallows and says, ‘Do you mind me asking . . . is Alistair Webster here?' And I'm staring at her, suddenly cold and shivery and thinking she's gone completely mad and the man says, ‘Yes, he got here just over a month ago. No problem with
his
admission.'

And a tornado of dust swirls around me, and a voice says, ‘We're going to wheel him down to theatre now.'

When I wake up, I think I must still be at that gate with my mum, because I'm hot and my throat aches and I can hear her voice going on and on. But I'm lying down.
Maybe I'm on the dusty road – it feels lumpy – but I can't move. I can't even open my eyes.

‘He's a good boy,' she's saying, ‘a really good boy, no trouble to anyone, so sweet. He always does his homework. All this trouble, all this . . . it just came out of the blue. I don't understand it.'

She's obviously bypassed the man with the clipboard and is talking to his boss. But why am I lying down? I can hear a low mumble, a male voice.

‘You mustn't get the wrong idea about him,' she says, ‘He's not as grown up as he looks. Honestly, Danny . . . he's just a baby . . . he only stopped sucking his thumb a few years ago.'

Jesus.
I force my eyes open and say, ‘Nic . . . shut up!' But it comes out as a low moaning noise.

She's right by my side, holding my hand and saying, ‘Oh, thank God you're all right . . . you are all right, aren't you? How do you feel, darling?'

I'm blinking. We're not on the road at all. The gate has disappeared. We're in a completely white room with incredibly bright lights. Machines bleep and flash. There's a sink, some chairs, a strong smell of bleach. I'm trying to put all the bits together. Then I catch sight of my hand, which has a tube coming out of it. Christ. I'm in hospital. Was this where the gate led? What's going on?

Then I spot my dad on the other side of the bed,
and I give up trying to work out what's going on because I feel so hot and strange and I'm not sure why I'm in hospital because nothing actually hurts.

I close my eyes and I'm drifting in space and sometimes I can hear voices and sometimes I'm just blank.

And then, fantastically clear and loud, right by my ear: ‘If you all stopped messing around and just got hold of Claire and brought her here, I'm sure he'd be fine.'

I open my eyes. Archie! I knew it. He's slouching in the chair next to me. My dad's next to him and he has his arms crossed and he's looking at Archie like he's a piece of spat-out gum. My mum's really pale and she's got no make-up on and her hair is all frizzy and she's looking unusually fat.

‘Yo, Arch. . .' I say, and the words come out OK, although my voice sounds kind of weird. My mum lunges forward to clutch my right hand and my dad elbows Archie out of the way to grab the left.

‘Yo,' says Archie, looking really chuffed, ‘Thought you were going to snuff it.'

‘Yeah. . .' I say, but my voice seems to be on the blink. It doesn't hurt, though. In fact I feel great, kind of floaty and really relaxed.

Archie says, ‘Did you know there's a massive bag of something that looks like piss hooked onto your bed?'

‘No . . . urgh. . .'

‘Why don't you leave us in peace and go and get yourself a drink, Archie?' growls my dad, sounding amazingly like Patrick. Archie gets up to go but I try and shake my head and croak, ‘No . . . Archie . . . stay. . .'

And then my dad says, ‘God, Nicki, are you OK?' He rushes round the bed to her side, and she grabs his shirt and says, ‘I just feel a bit . . . a bit woozy,' and he puts his arm around her and says, ‘You need some fresh air. Ty, she's been at your side for the last forty-eight hours, non-stop. She needs some food . . . a rest. . . Archie, you stay with Ty while I just . . . I'll be back as soon as I can.' And then he virtually carries her out of the room.

She can't have been drinking in a hospital, can she?

I'm dying to sit up and talk to Archie properly, but there's no way. There seem to be tubes everywhere – I might be seeing double – and just thinking about what Archie said about the bag hooked to my bed has made me realise that something very odd is going on in a bit of my body that ought to be completely private. I'd be a lot more worried about this if I wasn't so spaced.

I'm best off just lying very still and listening to Archie, who's making a big deal of handing over my Manchester United scarf, which I'm glad to see again.

‘Bloody hell, mate,' he says, ‘Trust you. Stabbed in
the sodding liver. They thought you were going to die. They were rummaging inside you in the operating theatre for hours.'

‘Nah,' I say, ‘Nothing hurts. You got it wrong, Arch.'

‘Nothing hurts because they are pumping Class A drugs into you,' he says. ‘Top grade morphine. Street value hundreds of pounds. You better enjoy it while you can.'

‘Oh,' I say. ‘Wow.' And then I vaguely remember that he must know a load of stuff that I missed out on. ‘Claire. . .?' I ask.

‘OK. So. Your mum turned up at the hostel, along with Claire's parents. Bloody hell. They were all going completely mental when they realised neither of you were there. Everyone thought you'd run off together. Claire's mum was crying and your mum was shouting and then it turned out you'd spewed your guts out over the PE guy – and then Claire shows up, and she was crying too, because you'd given her the slip.'

I try and shake my head, but I don't seem to have great control. I think I do it in slow motion.

‘And then my mum turned up – straight off the plane from Chicago, jet-lagged and dangerous.'

‘Claire?'

‘Claire's parents were going on at her, and then the police arrived and started asking loads of questions.'

‘Police?'

‘Plain clothes cops. Talking to Claire and your mum . . . and me a bit. Then my ma realised I'd liberated some cash from her account, using the bank card I'd borrowed in case of emergencies.'

Oh. . . Archie's stash. . .

‘And she's
totally
unreasonable about it, and says I'm definitely going to Allingham bloody Priory. As soon as we've got the sodding uniform. So running away didn't really work, although it was definitely worth it because Zoe is completely amazing. Incredibly hot. We're definitely keeping in touch. And then my mum took me and your mum back to our house. I tell you, your ma goes on a bit.'

I want to hear more. I want to ask him loads of questions. But my eyes are sticky and I've got that fuzzy, blurred feeling that means sleep.

‘Archie . . . tell them . . . get Claire . . . here,' I say.

‘I'll tell them,' he says, ‘but I don't think they'll listen to me. You should tell them yourself.'

‘No, you . . . you tell. . .' I'm too tired to talk. Also I may be dribbling.

‘Oh OK. I tell you something, your mum is really fit. It's amazing to think she gave birth to someone as ugly as you.'

I open one eye and give him a look.

‘He . . . your dad . . . he's always staring at her.'

‘Oh yeah?' But I can't keep going any more. My eyes are shut and I'm crumbling into sleep.

Archie comes and sees me every day. He's a pain, but to be honest his stupid comments make a change from watching my dad watch my mum and my mum watch me.

Today he's bouncing around on his chair like frigging Tigger. ‘Did you know there's a cop outside your room with a machine gun?' he asks, ‘Do you think he'd let me hold it, if I asked him?'

‘Yeah, Archie, great idea . . . why don't you go up to him and say, “Please, Mr Policeman, can I touch your great big weapon?” I'm sure he'd be only too happy to let you.'

‘You're a lot better,' he says, ‘You'd have totally missed that two days ago, when you were still drooling and babbling.'

I glare at him. He waves a piece of paper at me. ‘Look, it's a printout of my email from Zoe. She talks about Claire. I thought you'd like to see it.'

He shoves it under my nose, but I'm still having problems focussing and I push it away and say, ‘Read it to me.'

He puts on a high girly voice. ‘
Archie . . . I can't stop thinking about you and how fit you are
. . .'

‘Not interested. Tell me about Claire.'

‘Killjoy. OK, here we are.
Claire is still really sad about Joe and I've had to work hard to stop her getting all mopey again. You wouldn't believe it but she used to be a real emo, only not in a cool way, self-harming and everything, and she looked a total mess. I haven't told her about Joe being in hospital, because that might just push her over the edge, know what I mean
.'

He lowers the paper, ‘Zoe's so caring and sensitive, isn't she? I'd never have thought of that.'

‘Keep reading, muppet.' I croak.

‘
I'm going to try and cheer her up tonight by taking her to Emily's party. Don't worry though, I'll only be thinking about you
.'

‘Is that it? Jesus.'

‘Umm . . . no. . .
Claire seems to be feeling really guilty about something. I'm going to have a heart-to-heart, find out what's going on. It's amazing – no one could believe it when someone as hot as Joe turned out to be shagging her. But now all the boys are desperate to go out with her. It'd probably be best for her if she got off with someone like Jordan or Max
. . . errr . . . that's it. She goes on a bit about some athletics competition. . .'

Jordan?
Max?
‘I
wasn't
shagging her,' I say bitterly. I can't begin to explain to Archie what I feel about Claire, how much I care about her, how great it is to
find someone you can totally trust and who needs you, how Claire is my friend, my best friend not just someone I may or may not be shagging – and that's no one's business anyway . . . anyway.

Archie says, ‘That's OK, mate, it's me you're talking to, not her granny.'

So I'm stuck in hospital full of tubes, under police guard, and Claire is going to parties to be chased by every guy there. And OK, it's not very likely she's going to go for pizza-face Jordan or mini Max, but there'll be a load of year tens and elevens after her too. Anyway, even if I lived next door, her parents would never ever let her see me again.

‘Archie, did you ask if they'd bring her here?' I need someone to persuade Claire's parents that I'm so ill that she needs to dash to my side. After all, I did virtually save her life that time, so they might feel in my debt – at least, they
should
– but nothing's happened, and annoyingly I seem to be getting better, so it's not really so obvious why she'd need to be here.

I make out I'm in loads of pain and feeling really ill, but I don't think I'm managing to fool anyone except my mum and dad, who spend ages discussing whether I'm getting properly cared for. I'm pinning my hopes on them, even if it's the weirdest thing in the world to think of them as ‘them'.

‘I did ask your mum –' says Archie, ‘I've told you this about three times already – and she said she'd think about it. But in the car, when we drove back to Fulham from the hostel, she was saying that Claire's mum was a small-minded old cow and you were too good for Claire, so I wouldn't hold your breath.'

‘OK. You'll have to do it. Give me a piece of paper.'

I carefully write Claire's email address for him. My hand's a bit shaky, and the writing looks like a six-year-old's.

‘Write to her. Tell her I need to see her. Please, Archie, tell her where I am and how important it is.'

‘OK, but they won't let her come and visit you. No one can come and see you. Not your gran, or Grandma and Grandpa, no one.'

‘You can.'

‘Yes, but that's only because I come with your mum and dad. It's meant to be just them. My mum lends them her car and then they bring me.'

‘They're both staying with you?'

‘Yeah. Separate bedrooms. They seem to be getting on all right. They've been talking a lot. My mum is going mental trying to work out what's going on with them. She's really nosy. That's why she lends them the car . . . so I can spy on them for her.'

‘Oh. And?'

‘They talk a lot about you. About when you were little and what you were like at school. It's really boring. He's always fussing over her – makes her food, checks she's OK all the time. The other day he was actually spooning soup into her mouth. It was really weird.'

That is truly weird. We spend a few seconds in silence thinking about how weird that is.

‘My mum's sure he's still in love with her,' he goes on. ‘She said, “My little brother isn't the brightest banana in the bunch at the best of times, and he loses the few brain cells he has when Nicki's around.”'

‘She said that to
you
?'

‘No, she was on the phone to my dad and I was listening on the other line.'

‘Oh. Well. Tell me if you . . . if you see . . . or hear anything. . . Anyway, if Claire came here, they'd have to let her in. They'd have to. Or I'd have to get out of here somehow. . .'

This is about as much talking as I've done in all the time I've been in here, and I can feel my breathing getting shorter and puffier and the words dragging out slower. My eyes feel sore, and I have to close them because they're really hurting.

‘You look bad, man,' he says, sounding slightly worried. ‘I'd better go and find them. See you around.'

‘Yeah. . .' But my voice is just a whisper and I lie back
and rest my eyes. I don't let them flicker when I hear my mum and dad come into the room. There's definitely something going on, and pretending to be asleep is the best way to find out what it is.