Lucas’s anger still follows him around like a shadow.
Yet I can’t blame Lucas for not being here. The one person who really should be standing by my side today is Isla’s father.
I am brought back to the moment when I hear someone say, ‘Time for a drink, everyone.’ There’s an orange table laid out with jugs of water and squash.
‘Wine!’ Isla shouts out, making everyone laugh and look at me.
‘I could do with a glass,’ mutters one of the parents to me, as the session draws to a close and we’re told in what order we’re to see the doctor.
The doctor is a tall distinguished-looking man with wispy brown hair and glasses. He’s taken off his white coat and is dressed in a blue shirt and striped tie, a stethoscope around his neck. I take a seat opposite him. Isla is crawling towards the weighing scales by the examination bed. Next she’s tugging the floral curtain. ‘Leave her,’ he says, glancing at his notes. ‘Well, needless to say, we’ve really enjoyed working with Isla.’
‘Thank you.’ My heart is racing.
‘She can certainly crawl at a pace. She’d give Jenson Button a run for his money.’
I’m grateful he’s kind and human, but inside I’m screaming, ‘Just tell me, get it over with.’
The doctor looks at the empty chair next to mine, clearly used to talking to couples in this scenario. ‘Isla has cerebral palsy.’
‘Cerebral palsy,’ I repeat, in a voice so quiet I can barely hear myself.
‘I’m very sorry. I imagine it’s a shock.’
I knew all along.
‘Do you have support? I know it’s a lot to take in.’
‘I’m on my own, but I have family.’
He nods, before explaining what CP means, but I’m unable to listen. All I can think is this cannot be happening, it can’t be true.
At the end of our meeting the doctor hands me a blue information pack. ‘It’s all the basics about the condition, along with help lines and support groups,’ he says.
Numbly I put it into my handbag, but want to chuck it straight into his bin or better still, throw it against the wall and scream, ‘Why didn’t anyone ever listen to me?’
18
2014
It’s Thursday morning and I’m on the tube, watching the woman opposite me applying mascara. She looks at herself in the small mirror of her compact, puckers her lips. Next to her is a man reading the papers, a shiny black suitcase in front of him. I wonder where he’s going. To my right is a woman, maybe in her mid-fifties, who is gossiping to her neighbour, rare for this time of the morning. She looks like a Hell’s Angel, her arms covered in tattoos. Maybe she’s coming home after an all-night bender. I am drawn to a dolphin tattoo on her right arm, with the name ‘David’ above it. An old lover? She must catch me staring at it. ‘David,’ she says, ‘loved dolphins, had them everywhere in his bedroom, he did. Dreamed of swimming with them. I lost him when he was seven.’
The man looks up from his paper. The woman snaps the lid of her compact.
‘He saw a heart specialist, but they sent us away, told me it was nothing. All the doctors said I was neurotic. I kept on asking them to do tests. There was something wrong with his lungs and his joints were swelling up. “Test for meningitis,” I begged ’em. Then he had a rash on his feet that went up his legs within a day. I rushed him into hospital, soon he was having trouble breathing, needed an oxygen mask. The poor little devil was screaming when the nurses stuck needles in him. I was so angry by then, my little boy in agony. The nurse goes to me, “He’s so starved of oxygen we don’t know if he will ever speak again,” and I say, “I don’t care if he won’t speak, just get him out of that bloody pain.” A nurse then says, “David has meningococcal meningitis.” His last words were, “Mum, I feel ever so tired and sleepy.” He died on the third of February.’
Finally everyone in the carriage breathes.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, noticing the woman opposite me dabbing her eye with a tissue, and the man next to her shifting awkwardly in his seat.
‘I’m going to visit him this morning.’ She gestures to some flowers in her bag that I hadn’t noticed. ‘I visit him most days.’
As she steps off the tube, I can’t help saying, ‘He’s probably swimming with dolphins now.’
She waves at me. ‘Bless you, love.’
As the train rattles on I can’t stop thinking of how unimaginable that would have been, to see your seven-year-old boy die so suddenly and in all that pain. Then I think about Isla and me and the day we’d received the bombshell diagnosis from the doctor. I didn’t want Isla to pick up on my fear and anger. If anyone had seen or watched us chatting on the bus on our way home from the hospital, they would have seen what appeared to be a normal mother and child talking about banana smoothies. We never know what goes on behind closed doors, do we?
With only one stop left I picture Ward meeting Isla last week. We haven’t mentioned it since, probably because he’s been in and out of the office most days, although I sense he’s avoided the subject too. I feel as if there is a ladder between us, neither one daring to step on and climb.
