“Ninth floor,” she barks, and I’m invisible again.
“Ninth floor,” I roll my eyes and repeat to Jess.
The hospital is bustling with people walking in and out of different doors, some chatting, some grim-faced and sobbing, others making earnest phone calls. I’ve never really been in hospital. There was that time my cousin tried to pick me up when I was a toddler. He dropped me straight on my head and split my eyebrow open. I don’t remember it at all, but it’s gone down in family history and we take a photo to recreate it every year. Families are weird.
We walk towards the lifts and a little kid presses the button excitedly. I smile and let my attention wander as we wait. My gaze snags on a slim figure in a baseball cap, leaning against the wall behind us, watching me. His (or is it her? Don’t assume gender, Niamh) face is in shadow, so I can’t make out their features, though I can feel the piercing gaze from here. I nudge Jess.
“Don’t look now, but that person in the hat is giving me the creeps.” To her credit, Jess does a half decent job of not looking too conspicuous as she turns to look.
“Where?” she murmurs.
“Th. . .” The word dies in my throat as I look around. There’s no one behind us at all.
The kid in front of us cheers as the lift arrives. We shuffle in behind his family and Jess asks him to press our button. He beams.
I say quietly, “There was someone watching us.”
“You need some sleep.” Jess gives my arm a squeeze. “I’m sure they weren’t watching you. You’re just on edge.”
“Yeah.” Even to my own ears I sound pretty unconvinced. “Maybe.”
We emerge from the lift and approach yet another desk in silence. There’s a nurse behind this one and I’m glad to see she’s smiling as we approach.
“Can I help you?” she says. I wonder what it would be like to work here every day. I don’t think I’d be so cheerful.
“Hi, yes, we’re here to see Tasha.” She tilts her head to one side, smile frozen.
“Tasha?”
“Sorry, um Natasha. Natasha Moss.”
“Family?”
“No, just, er, friends. I’m on the drama course she was on, I heard she’d woken up and. . .”
“Oh.” Her smile has dropped completely. “You’re one of those.” She clearly met Jasmine yesterday; she hadn’t been lying about visiting, after all. “I’m not sure your visiting would be a good idea.”
“Please!” I plead. “I’ve been awful worried about her. I brought some magazines and stuff.” I brandish the bag and try for puppy dog eyes. They work on Daddy.
“All right,” she relents. “Just for a few minutes.
“Thank you! Erm, where is she?”
“Room 4, second door on the right.”
“Thanks a million.” I turn to Jess, who’s pumping antibacterial gel on to her hands from a dispenser on the wall. “Ready?”
“Yep.” She holds her hands in the air, like a surgeon about to go and operate. “You should do yours, too.” I follow her lead, rubbing the gel into my hands, wearing the plastic bag around my wrist like a bracelet.
Room 4 turns out to be a ward. The paper curtains are closed around most beds – I count six, altogether – but a couple are open and I can just about make out human forms under the starched white sheets. It’s deathly quiet, bar the odd mumble of families visiting loved ones inside the makeshift cubicles. A whiteboard on the far wall matches names to numbers, all scrawled in a marker on the verge of running out. I go and look at it and see that Natasha Moss has been allocated to cubicle five.
We pause outside her closed curtain. Jess is playing with her hair again.
“What’s up?” I whisper.
“I’ve never met Tasha. Maybe I should wait out here until you see how she is?” she says awkwardly and I nod. Awkward is a new look on Jess.
“Um, hi, Tasha?” I call lightly through the curtain. No answer. “Tasha? Are you awake? It’s Niamh.”
