Cold Eye of Heaven, The (29 page)

‘What, Gran? Take my what time – what, Gran?'

‘Answering the question. Take your time.'

She pulls the pin out of her hat, puts it on her lap and sticks the pin back in again.

‘Ouch,' Granda Bill says, letting on to be the voice of the hat and then he knows that visiting time is only starting because the first thing Granda Bill always does is pretend to be the hat going
ouch
.

‘What did you ask me again?' he says.

‘What's your number? Your hospital number. Think now, there's a good boy.'

‘Em.'

‘What's the first number then?'

‘Five,' he says. ‘Five, like my age.'

‘Good. Now what's after that?'

‘Three like my little brother's age. Then…' he puts his hands in the air and shouts, ‘Ten like all the fingers I have!'

‘Shhh, shhh, good boy,' Gran laughs, ‘you'll waken that little ginger chap.' Then she goes, ‘Five, three – and what's another way to say ten?'

‘Don't know.'

‘One O. You can say – my hospital number is five, three, ten. Or you can say, it's five, three, one, O. Have you got that now?'

‘Here – what age is our baby?'

‘There's no baby,' Gran says. Granda Bill turns around on his seat and folds his coat over the back of it.

‘Gran?'

‘Yes lovey?'

‘Em, what was I goin to say, eh, comere. I just… O yea, the bed is too tight, it's choking me stomach. I can't move, I can't
move
.'

Gran comes to the top of the bed, tugs up the clothes and he feels it loosen. ‘Better?'

He nods and pulls the blankets down past his hips. ‘Buddy's not here, he's gone for an X. An X-ray.'

‘Is he now?'

‘What's that mean? Granda Bill, what's that mean – gone for an X-ray?'

‘Well, what happens is this – they put you behind this machine and what it does now is it takes a photograph of your insides. And you can see your skeleton.'

‘Skeleton?'

‘O yes, all your bones and behind them your heart, your guts – the works. They can see everything that's going on in there.'

‘Wait till I show you,' Gran says and she leans down to her shopping bag and for a minute he thinks she's going to take out a picture of her skeleton but it's only a newspaper that comes out of her bag. She sits back on the end of the bed and starts turning the pages, licking her finger. He wriggles his way out of the bedclothes, kneels up and crawls to her, putting his hand up to trap a whisper into her ear.

‘You're not allowed have newspapers in here. Or comics. Buddy's ma brought in a comic and the boss nurse went mental. But Buddy's ma didn't care. See, Gran, paper brings all the Germans in and they make us sick.'

Gran laughs. ‘Not
Germans
–
germs
. Did you hear that?' she asks Granda, ‘he says you're not allowed bring papers in because the Germans will make you sick. Instead of the
germs
.'

‘Same difference, some might say,' Granda Bill says and winks at him.

Gran turns him so that now he's sitting with his back to her. Her arm comes over his shoulder and she feels like a big soft chair behind him. ‘See, that's your hospital number there. Five, three, one, O,' she says. He follows her fingertip and looks at the number. ‘And that's your hospital up there.' Gran brings her finger up to the top of the page. ‘Cork Street Fever Hospital – see? That's where we are now.'

He nods at all the rows of letters and numbers.

‘And far away, way down the country your mammy and daddy are—'

‘Where down the country?'

‘A place called Cork.'

‘Cork?'

‘That's right. Anyway, they're sitting in their kitchen—'

‘What colour is their kitchen?'

‘I don't know, I've never seen it. Anyway, this very minute they're sitting down, looking at a page just like this and they're reading these words here: “5310 – continues to improve.” And they're delighted because do you know what that means?'

He shakes his head.

‘It means you're nearly better.'

‘It means you could be home before Christmas,' Granda Bill says.

‘Well, now we don't know that for certain,' Gran says, lifting a finger. ‘We don't want to be getting our hopes up.'

‘Is my da not gone fishing?'

‘Fishing?' Gran says.

Granda Bill says, ‘That's one way of putting it.'

Behind his back he feels Gran stiffen.

‘Gran?' he begins but the curly nurse comes in before he has a chance to think of a question and Gran hooshes him up and back into bed. Then she folds the paper and puts it back in her basket. Gran takes a bottle of lemonade and a little bundle wrapped up in a cloth out of her bag. She pulls the cloth away and shows him a curranty cake.

‘Nice?' she says, and puts them into his locker and he nods his head yes.

‘Nurse?' he calls out to the curly nurse. ‘What time will Buddy be back?'

‘After tea, I told you.'

‘Don't be shouting at the nurse you,' Gran says, ‘manners, please!'

He lies back on the pillows. ‘Where's Cork?' he says to Gran.

‘It's a county down the country, where your mammy and daddy are.'

‘Why?'

‘Well, your daddy has to work there for a while, so they're living there.'

‘Why can't he just work here?'

‘You see, son,' Granda Bill says, ‘because of the war there's not as much work up here for your da as there used to be, and so that's why he had to
move to Cork. Now your poor ma was too lonely up here all on her ownio so she followed him down because you see—'

‘Ah, there's no point explaining all that to him,' Gran says, ‘he's only a child.' Then she gives a big tut and tosses her eyes.

‘Buddy's ma comes every visiting day. And on the other days she stands on the street and you hear this big whistle and then when you look out there she is waving up.'

‘Lovely carry-on,' Gran says.

Granda Bill laughs. Then he puts three fingers up in the air. ‘See, son, when you think about it, there's three reasons why your ma and da can't come up to see you. One – your da has to work. Two – there's no petrol for travel. And three – if your mammy came in here she could bring the germs back to little Jackie and then he'd be sick too.' Granda puts his fingers back into his hand.

‘O. Three reasons. O.' He thinks about that for a minute then says, ‘When I'm all better will I have to live down the country?'

‘Not for a while. You'll stay with your gran and me, till you're ready and back in fighting form. Nearer the summertime.'

‘But your mammy will probably come up and see you. And she might stay for a few weeks even. Once you get the all-clear,' Gran says.

‘With my da?'

‘No. He'll have to work.'

‘And my brother?'

‘Ye-es. Yes, he'll have to come too because who's going to mind him while your daddy's at work?'

‘And fishing. Because he's too small to bring fishing.'

‘Yes.'

‘And the baby because the baby's—'

‘There's no baby, I told you,' Gran says. Granda Bill stands up, takes a breath through his teeth then slowly walks up the ward. When he gets to the top he stops at the long window looking out.

He wonders why Granda Bill wants to look out that window because there's nothing to see there, only a tin roof below. The other window
would be better to look out because it's on the far side of the ward and when you look down you can see a big piece of Cork Street and all the things going by; carts and horses, wheels of the bikes, people with all their different hats on their heads. Or Buddy's ma. The first time he ever saw Buddy's ma she was down on the street waving up. He'd only just been moved into the ward from another ward that he can't even remember now and when they heard the big whistle Buddy said that was his ma and if he liked he could look down with him and pretend she was his ma too. But when he looked down he knew there was no point in letting on really because, even though he couldn't remember his own ma that well, he knew she was too different to that big woman down there with a big man's coat on her and a scarf instead of a hat and a pram stuffed with apples and sweets instead of a baby.

‘Gran?'

‘Are you tired, love?' Gran says. ‘Here – stop picking your nose, making a show of me.'

Gran takes out a hanky and wraps a bit of it around her finger and starts picking his nose instead.

‘Are you sure there's no baby? See I remember, ow, Gran, that's hurtin me – ow – nose.'

‘Sorry, love.'

‘And I thought the name was something beginning with Bar, bar, bee. Something like that. A girl baby, Gran.'

Gran turns the hanky inside out and puts it back in her pocket.

‘What did you have for your dinner?'

‘I don't know, brown stuff.'

‘Brown stuff? Don't like the sound of that – did you eat it?'

‘Some. Anyway, I can't go home before Christmas because then see, Buddy will be on his own and anyway Santy thinks I'm here because I already sent him a letter.'

‘We can send Santy another letter. And what happens if your mammy comes all the way up from the country to see you for Christmas and you're not there. Sure that'd break her heart.'

‘Well. Well, she can't come. She'll have to stay down the country and mind my little brother and the—'

Gran sniffs her nose. ‘Why don't you go for a little sleep, lovey?'

‘I'm not tired, Gran,' he says, ‘I'm not. And I'm fed up of everyone saying I'm tired. And I'm
not
.'

But his eyes keep trying to close on their own, even when he pops them out wide.

‘Why don't you close your eyes then for a little minute? You're very whingey, that means you're tired.'

‘Ah no, I'm not whingey, I'm not. You'll only go home if I close my eyes. You'll only leave me.' He bashes his fists off the downturn of the sheet.

‘I won't. I'll stay.'

‘Do you promise but? Do you promise?'

‘I said I'll stay. I promise I'll stay.'

‘Till Buddy comes back?'

‘We'll see.'

‘Ah, don't say we'll see. I hate when you say we'll see.'

Gran puts her hands under his pillow on both sides of his head and pulls the pillow around his ears and makes it rock side to side. ‘Isn't that nice and sleepy now?' she says. ‘Isn't that nice and cosy?'

‘Till the bell rings then, Gran?'

‘Till the bell rings.'

He lets his eyes close. Orange and pink curtains. He can hear all the sounds in the ward; the different voices at the different beds. A coughing boy on the end of the row, another boy crying because his ma never came up. He can even hear the soft footsteps of the curly nurse coming up to his bed and asking Gran how things are.

‘He keeps asking about the baby,' he hears Gran say.

‘Just ignore him, pass no remark and he'll forget about it sooner or later.'

He wants to say he doesn't forget. He saw it, he smelled it and once he even held it in his arms and touched its little pink bootee. Bar bar bar. Ba.
But his eyes won't move at all now and his tongue feels fat and lazy in his mouth. Everything inside his head is gone fizzy again.

He thinks about County Cork far down the country. He thinks about Cork Street out the window. And how come you need petrol for one and not for the other and what's far away and what's not.

The boss nurse slapped him because they were playing Jumpthebeds. There were four of them playing; him, Buddy, a boy called Harry who went home the next day and the ginger boy who'd only just arrived but wouldn't tell them his name yet. There was no one in the little glass room and no sign of a nurse up and down the corridor and that's why they thought they were safe to play. He was on Buddy's team and halfway down their row of beds jumping on and off, bed after bed fast as they could go, trying not to wake the boys that were sleeping and trying to get the biggest jump out of the four empty beds because the bigger you jump the faster you go and Buddy standing at the end of the row saying, ‘Come on, come on, we're winnin we're winnin!' And then suddenly she came flying into the ward out of nowhere and Harry said after you'd think she was on a broomstick she came in that quick and that quiet.

She caught him first, pulling him down off the bed and swinging him around and then giving him a wallop on first the bum and then another smack on the back of his head. Then she leapt over to the side and trapped Buddy in the corner and for a while they were skidding this way and that, her with her arms out wide and her feet making little hops. Buddy trying to scuttle under and around her and then he got fed up with that and anyway he'd started coughing again so he just said, ‘You touch me and I'm tellin me ma the next time she comes up.' And that was the end of the slapping. Harry and the ginger boy got off free.

She shouted instead, ‘Ye get back in that bed this minute, ye shower of little gurriers or I'll schalp the lot of ya.'

After the smack he dived into bed and covered his head and first he thought he was just going to laugh like everyone else was under the covers,
but then he started to cry. And he didn't know why because the smacks didn't hurt him all that much, unless it was the fright of her long bony hands and her big angry face and unless it was because it wasn't fair that he was the only one who got slapped when it wasn't even his idea to play Jumpthebeds. And unless it was because he wished he had something to say, like Buddy had to say, about telling his ma on the next visiting day.

The curly nurse says they're too giddy. ‘You pair are too giddy by far,' she says. ‘Now, I'm warning, if you don't pipe down I'm calling the doctor to give the pair of you a big needle in the bum.'