Almost True (25 page)

I can hear their voices murmuring by my side. ‘He looks so peaceful,' says my mum, ‘He's really on the mend, isn't he?'

My dad says something which I can't really hear. . . ‘Mumble, mumble
asleep
. . .' and then she says, ‘Did I ever tell you about when he was five? He took a fancy to Emma's old doll's house and he used to play with it for hours
.
He had two Sylvanian families – one with badgers and one with little bunnies.'

My eyes snap open – what is she
saying
? – and they both laugh and he says, ‘I was right then,' and she says, ‘I knew I could wake him up.' I try and look confused and sleepy – I've been stabbed in the
liver
, they don't care at
all
– and she strokes my hair and says, ‘How are you, darling? Nice deep sleep?'

‘Yes, until your big mouth woke me up. Telling
lies
.'

Her eyes go wide, but she's laughing again. ‘Ooooh . . . lies? I don't think so . . . oh, hang on, they were sweet little squirrels, weren't they? Not bunnies.'

‘Shut
up
.' She's looking very pleased with herself, I must say. I can't think why. She's not looking very good at all – none of her clothes seem to fit her. She must've
completely forgotten her diet while she's been staying at Archie's house. She's even got a bit of a belly. She could do with a trip to Slimming World.

Then I remember that she's pregnant. Great. Well at least that means there's no way they could even be thinking about starting anything together, because that would be just too disgusting and wrong and possibly illegal.

‘Ty,' says my dad, ‘We need to talk to you about something.'

We?
They've never spoken to each other for thirteen years, and now suddenly it's ‘we' and ‘us'. It's like the whole of my life never even happened.

‘Maybe I don't want to talk to you,' I say, ‘or
her
.'

He looks a bit shocked. She narrows her eyes at me. ‘I'd have thought you'd be pleased that we're getting on. Don't get into one of your sulks, for goodness' sake.'

One of my sulks? Unbelievable. The lies she tells. I lie back on my pillow and close my eyes.

‘Listen,' she says. ‘We've been thinking about the future. Thinking about what happens when you come out of hospital.'

I've been wondering about this myself. I open one eye.

‘One thing you should know is that the boy who attacked you, he's in custody again,' says my dad.

I open the other eye. ‘Why was he out in the first place?'

‘He got parole,' said my dad. ‘The main policeman . . . DI Morris, is it? He's going to come and see you soon. Bring you up to date. Have a chat.'

I don't like DI Morris and his little chats.

‘How come you two are getting on now?' I ask. ‘How come you don't hate each other any more?'

My mum leans forward, ‘Ty, we thought you were going to die. You were in that operating theatre for hours. Something like that . . . it makes you realise what's really important. Danny saved your life. I can't deny that. We've decided to put the past behind us. We'll do what's best for you.'

‘We've both grown up a lot in the last few weeks,' says my dad. ‘There's no point trying to change what's happened. We need to find a way to go forward.'

They look annoyingly pleased with themselves. I close my eyes again.

‘Listen, Ty,' says my dad, ‘How would you like to go to live in France for a bit? My parents have a cottage there, in a little village in Provence. They're happy to let you and Nicki and your gran stay there for as long as you need to. You like languages, don't you? Everyone seems to think you would pick up French quickly enough to manage at school. It might be the best bet while things settle
down, and I could come and visit you there.'

Wow! Amazing! I'm trying to stay cross with them, but I can feel a huge smile taking over my face. They're smiling too. Then I think of a snag. ‘But Nic, you don't speak French . . . and nor does Gran. . .' I can't see them learning, either. This will never work.

‘It won't be easy. But we can learn. I'm sure most people will be able to speak English.' I'm not at all sure she's right and I can see my dad's looking a bit dubious as well. She squeezes my hand. ‘You'll have to teach us. The main thing is to be safe.'

‘Will Helen and Patrick come and visit too? And Meg?'

‘I'm sure they will,' says my dad, ‘My parents are very worried about you and they'll do everything they can to help.' He says all this while nibbling his thumb, so I'm guessing he still doesn't get on that well with his mum and dad.

‘Wow,' I say, ‘Wow. . .' Everything's falling into place. I'll go to school in France, learn to speak French really well, have French friends. . . I'll have friends and a school and a life again. I can go running on French roads. It's like I've suddenly got my future back. I'm going to have a home. I'm going to reinvent myself as a brand new French person.

Maybe my mum and gran will really get into learning
French and living in a village. They could keep hens or something. I could get a motorbike like my dad's. I could have a new French name – not Didier, not Thierry. . . Patrice is a bit close to Patrick. . . Eric. After Eric Cantona, Manchester United legend. That'd be cool.

There's only one problem, and that's Claire, but I'm sure we can write and maybe talk on the phone and perhaps she could visit too.

My mum looks at my dad and she's smiling, ‘I told you he'd be really happy,' she says, and he grins back at her. Just for a minute I feel sick. I know he fancies her. I can see it in his eyes. Her smile seems really warm and friendly. Too friendly? I can't tell.

But then I'm not very good at guessing what's going on. Maybe the thing that's pulling them together is just me.

A new doctor is looking at the scar that's usually covered up with bandages. His hands move over my body and I try and stare out of the window. I don't like being a patient. I don't like lying here almost naked while someone's touching me. My mum doesn't like it either. She's sitting next to me, and she's looking away too.

‘How's he doing?' she asks.

‘Very good,' says the doctor. ‘First class recovery. We'll have you home in no time now.'

I haven't met this doctor before. I'm guessing he's from Pakistan. His accent sounds like Mr Patel's. ‘You have been very lucky,' he says, looking at my notes. ‘If help had taken longer you could have bled to death.'

My mum gets to her feet. ‘I'm just going to the Ladies',' she says. She seems to be running off to the loo all the
time now. I don't know if it's because she's pregnant or because she's finding the hospital a bit stressful. I don't like to ask.

The doctor watches her go. ‘Tyler, I am hoping you will look after your liver from now on,' he says, ‘It has suffered a very big trauma. Look after it, and it will serve you well in the future. Do you know what your liver does for you?'

‘Umm. . .' The only thing I can think of is that if you drink too much, you get liver disease. So that means. . . ‘Does it store the alcohol in your body?'

‘Not exactly. It rids the body of toxins, such as alcohol for example. It is very efficient, a marvellous organ. It has many other roles as well. It is essential to good health.'

I get it. It's like a laundry room for the body. It can't have been good sticking a dirty knife into it.

‘OK,' I say. Then I remember something.

‘Do you speak Urdu?' I ask him – I say it in Urdu, and he nearly drops his clipboard.

‘Well!' he says, ‘This is a surprise. Such an
English-looking boy, speaking the language of my grandmother.'

My hair's gone back to its normal dark blonde again. My mum brought some scissors in yesterday and chopped the ends off. Brown hair and green eyes. English-looking. That was one thing I liked about being Joe. Black hair and brown eyes were much more international.

‘The person who taught me Urdu, he used to say “
jan e jigar”.
He told me once that
jigar
was liver. But I can't remember properly what it meant, just that it was good, a nice thing to say.'

‘Ah, yes,' he says, ‘He was wishing you the strength of the liver. In our culture the liver signifies your soul, your strength, your courage. Not so much in Western culture, that is all about the heart.'

We chat a bit in Urdu, and it's all coming back to me, which is brilliant, but then my mum comes back into the room, and the doctor says he'd better go and see some other patients and he'll send the nurse to redo my dressings. ‘You should be going home any day now,' he says.

I lie back and think about being hurt in your soul, your strength, your courage. And my mum shivers and says, ‘I hate to see you like that. Ripped to pieces,' which is not the most helpful comment she's ever come out with.

She picks up the book she's reading. It's the vampire thing that Claire was going on about,
Twilight
.

‘What's that book like?' I ask, dead casual, and she says, ‘It's not your sort of thing at all.'

‘Yeah, but what's it like?'

She looks a bit surprised – I've never shown the slightest interest in her girly books – and says, ‘It's reminded me how stupid teenage girls are when they think they're in love.'

Then the nurse arrives, and I'm disappointed because it's not my favourite nurse who is called Bee, and she's from the Philippines and she's got gorgeous black, shiny hair and quick, gentle hands. She's been teaching me Tagalog, which is one of the most interesting languages I've ever come across, because most of it is totally different from anything else I've ever learned, and then you get a word or two of English or Spanish mixed in, like meeting an old friend in a room full of strangers. I hope I get a chance to tell Patrick about it.

This nurse is called Sue, and she's as old as my mum and doesn't even bother with lipstick. She was the one who pulled out the worst tube, so I think she ought to have the decency to leave me alone. She's got scratchy nails and she smells of liquorice, so I can't even close my eyes and pretend I'm somewhere else.

Sue covers up my scar and says, ‘It's healing nicely, you're doing brilliantly, well done,' as if I had something to do with it.

Then she asks, ‘Your husband not here today?' and Mum says, ‘No, he's working. Photographing Cheryl Cole,
actually,' and Sue oohs and aahs – ‘You'd never think she's had troubles at home'. And my mum explains how my dad played bass in a band –
really?
– which did quite well, in fact, Sue has one of their CDs and saw them perform at Glastonbury –
wow
! And then he drifted into photography and he has lots of friends in the music business, so that's what he mostly takes pictures of, but he also travels to places like India and Cambodia to do ad campaigns for Oxfam and UNESCO.

In less than fifteen minutes, she's told Sue more about him than she's told me in fifteen sodding years. And she never actually says, ‘By the way, he's not my husband, until recently I hated his guts and for years he hasn't come near us.'

Sue goes away and I wait for an explanation. But she just starts reading
Twilight
again.

I ask, ‘Why did you pretend he's your husband?'

‘It's easier,' she says. ‘None of her business, what he is to me.'

‘It's my business, though.'

‘Well, you know he isn't my husband.'

‘Yeah, but I don't know what's going on now.'

‘Yes, you do. We're getting on, talking, because it's the best thing for you.'

‘He still really loves you. I know he does.'

She sighs. ‘Maybe. That's one reason why I never
wanted to see him. Selfish of me, I know, but Danny is very good at getting what he wants. He's difficult to resist.'

‘Oh. And do you want to resist him?'

I'm being very clever here, just keeping her chatting casually. But she puts down
Twilight
and smiles at me and says, ‘It's nice having time together, just you and me, isn't it? I've been missing that.'

‘Don't change the subject,' I snap. ‘I was asking you something.'

‘Yes, well. . .' she says. ‘Sometimes there aren't easy answers.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Sometimes I sit here with you and Danny, and I think yes, this is good. We can turn back the years, to when we had this sweet little baby and everything in front of us.

‘And sometimes I think of all the hurt and pain and the . . . the problems . . . and if we get too deep, it'll all start again, and how much damage that would do. I have to do all the thinking because Danny's head doesn't work like that. He never bothers about the past or the future.

‘God knows, I needed someone to share the worry of the last few days with, but it's hard too. It's bringing back all sorts of memories, things that I haven't thought about for a long time. And I have to find out . . . I have to find out if he can be relied on. Pen – Archie's mum –
she says he's changed, but I have to be sure. So I can't really answer your question.'

I can't even remember what my question was.

‘Don't you like him?' I ask.

‘It's not really about whether I like him or not,' she says. ‘It's not that simple. You like him, don't you? Is that what you want? Me and Danny back together again?'

‘No!' I say, outraged.

‘No?' She's watching me. I don't know if she wants my approval or my permission or what.

‘No!' I say. Then, ‘I don't really know. Maybe.'