Mira in the Present Tense (21 page)

“But do you think she ever had a son?” pursues Krish.

“I only know I never met him,” sighs Doris.

“Did she ever call him by his name?”

Doris stops pushing Nana for a second and looks down at Krish as if she's trying to remember.

“Do you know, I don't think she ever did.”

Krish nods.

When we get to the Staffroom, Doris slumps down in a chair next to Nana. It just feels right to ask them if I should make them a cup of tea. They both nod. I get the impression that we're only here because they don't want us on the ward with Clara lying there. After a while Question Mark appears at the door and nods to Doris.

“You want to stay here for a while?” Doris asks Nana.

She shakes her head and Doris wheels Nana back to the ward. Halfway down the corridor Krish takes hold of one of the handles of the wheelchair.

“You want to push, son?” asks Doris, smiling at him and moving aside.

As we approach the ward, Krish pauses in the entrance. The space where Clara's bed once was is empty. I wonder who else, except for our family and the staff here, will remember Clara. Not to be remembered must be a sad ending…and soon, I suppose, her place on the ward will be taken by someone new.

It feels wrong to be so easily replaced.

Dad peers round the door of the ward.

“Coming, Mum?”

Nana smiles and shakes her head. “Send them my love,” she whispers.

Music is coming from a room along the corridor.

It's Mozart, Nana's favorite. She has her eyes open and she's listening as if she's hypnotized. Then her eyelids grow heavy, like the blinking eyelids of a china doll, and she's drifting away to another place. Everything about her says, “Do not disturb.”

I follow the music and a sweet scent as it floats down the hallway from the Family Room, which has been decorated with lilies and pink and white roses. Everyone's here: Mum; Dad; Aunty Mel, jiggling Laila on her hip; and Aunty Abi and Krish, standing with some of the other visitors, patients, doctors, and nurses. Mum smiles at me.

Then I see the man from the bed nearest the door in the Men's Room, the one who's not old, Mum says, maybe thirty. He's standing next to the woman who visits him every day. She looks so pretty with her hair all folded up and held in place with two Chinese lacquered chopsticks. She's wearing a lime-green silk kimono top with a bright pink border, black silky trousers, and dainty pink and green Chinese slippers. She has long black hair and is very tall. The man is tall too, but bald, completely bald. He wears a silk Chinese dressing gown with silvery gray and lime-green patterns on the edging. I think the woman must have really thought about what would be the most comfortable and beautiful thing for them to wear and how they would fit together.

He's just a little bit taller than her, but so thin. His cancer makes him look like an old man. Framed in their archway of flowers, they stand very close, looking deep into each other's eyes, repeating the marriage vows after the priest, but you can tell that they are lost in their own private world. No one else can really hear what they're saying.

I've been to a few weddings, so I know the kind of thing the priest must be saying. Suddenly, I have this horrible thought that when he asks the question, “Does anyone know any reasons why these two cannot be joined in marriage together,” at that very moment everyone in the room shouts, “BECAUSE HE IS GOING TO DIE.”

When it gets to that moment, of course, no one says anything, but Laila does start to cry, and the bride turns round and smiles at her and I see that her eyes are brimming with tears. Aunty Mel passes Laila along the line back to Mum.

Question Mark—he must be the best man—stands next to the groom and passes him the ring. The man's hand is shaking uncontrollably, so Question Mark has to steady him and help him place the ring on the bride's finger. Then they kiss, on the lips. I mean really snog, with tongues and everything, for ages and ages and in that kiss you can really feel so much love and sadness at the same time—like the brightest and dullest colors all merging into each other.

I look around at all the people in the room. Every single person is crying except for Krish and me. After they've been locked into their kiss for what seems like forever, my brother says, “Oh! Gross,” in a really loud voice, breaking the spell. My mum, who is crying her eyes out, of course, gives Krish a hard nudge, but everyone else starts laughing.

After the wedding, there is champagne. Dad says I can have a sip, but I don't really like the sour taste. Krish wants some, but Mum says he can't because he said “gross.” Dad sneaks him a sip though, and he licks his lips. I watch Dad gulp his, like he's downing a glass of fizzy water.

My mobile rings. I still haven't found a ringtone that isn't totally shameful. I rush out into the corridor to take it, thanking Notsurewho Notsurewhat that it didn't go off during the ceremony.

“Hi, Millie,” I whisper.

“It's Jidé. Why are you whispering again?”

It takes me a few seconds of my heart beating on loudspeaker for me to think of what to say, to get over the shock of him actually calling me.

“Oh! Hi, Jidé, I'm in the hospice,” is the best that I can come up with.

“Want to come to mine after school next Friday? My mum wants to talk to you about being on some student committee for the Rec.”

“All right,” I say, trying to make myself sound not that bothered.

“How's it going, anyway?”

“I've just been to a wedding at the hospice.”

“A wedding? Are they really ill then? The people who got married?”

“One of them is…the man.”

“She must really love him.”

“She does,” I say.

I can't believe I'm standing in the hospice at a wedding talking to Jidé Jackson about love. After that there is an awkward pause when neither of us can think of anything to say.

“Well, see you later then,” says Jidé.

“See you.”

Nana was wrong about my mobile. I have got someone to call, and someone who wants to call me.

I amble along the corridor, wondering how it's possible that just that one call from Jidé can make it feel like we're properly going out together. This is turning out to be the weirdest mix-up-of-emotions day of my life.

I sit down next to Nana's bed and watch her sleeping. That's when I hear this message jump into my phone.

Forgot the xxxxxxx

JJ

I don't want to wake Nana up with the high-pitched beep that I can't work out how to silence. It sounds every time I press the keypad. At least it doesn't take me half the day to reply this time.

Me too.

xxxxxxxx

Mira

My thumb doesn't even hover over the button before I press send.

“I see you're using that phone of yours now,” sighs Nana wearily.

“Sorry, Nana. Did it wake you up?”

“Yes! So the very least you can do is tell me who you're so keen to talk to.” Nana's wearing her most wicked grin.

“I wasn't talking, I was texting.”

“Whatever!”

“It was no one,” I laugh, flipping the lid closed.

“Is that a no one no one, or a someone no one, or a someone someone?” she jokes.

I laugh but don't answer her.

“A someone someone then! Good for you,” Nana smiles, squeezing my hand. “There's nothing sweeter than first love.”

“Naaaaana!” I squirm.

“Talking of love, how was the wedding?”

“I thought it was sad.”

Nana nods and closes her eyes.

“Nana, why did they get married when he's so ill?”

She shakes her head and sighs as if she can't answer my question. “It's one of the many mysteries of the heart…They're in love.” Then she opens her eyes and smiles, like the sun breaking through a gray cloud. “Life goes on, Mira.”

I wish I could find a chain for Nana's artichoke heart charm. Suddenly I feel as if now is the time I should be wearing it.

“What are you up to on Friday?” I ask Millie as we walk into school together.

“Orchestra, as usual. Why?”

“No reason, I just forgot,” I lie.

If Notsurewho Notsurewhat's looking down on me right now, I'm in so much trouble.

Miss Poplar has laid out loads of magazines, books, and news-papers on the tables. We're supposed to pick out somebody famous we really admire and then write down the qualities of why we admire them so much. I find it impossible to decide who to choose, because I don't know the people, so how can you really tell what they're like?

“Right, does everyone have someone?”

She asks this question at the very moment Jidé and Ben stroll in. Jidé hears it and turns to me, grinning. I concentrate hard on not laughing out loud.

“What was the score?” asks Miss Poplar.

“Three nil to us. I scored two; Jidé scored one.”

“Well done, boys…now…we've all picked out someone famous who we admire, so who wants to kick off?”

Ben's on form, putting his hand up even before Millie.