Donor, The (10 page)

Turns out Kay was sicker than me. How had I not
noticed
? As I sat beside her bed, holding her hand and looking at her pretty, innocent face, I realised that she wasn’t yellow like me, so much as deathly grey. How long had she been this colour? What a crap self-centred pain in the arse of a sister I’d been to not notice. All I’d thought about was me, assuming she was all right because she always said she was.

She was asleep when the phone rang.

‘Tell her if she comes now, I’ll give her two
thousand
,’ my father had said. Where the hell was he going to get that? I knew the state he was in financially. The bank had been ringing constantly. Credit-card firms had been leaving messages every day. He had no job and wasn’t even looking for one. He spent his time fetching and ferrying for us and trying not to cry.

‘Is she coming?’ I asked him.

‘Yes.’

‘Where are you going to get the money?’

‘I dunno. Got any ideas?’

‘Yeah. Actually I have.’

My father was crying now. He was kissing Kay’s grey hand, tears streaming down his face. He was a mess. He didn’t have the means or the strength of character to help Kay.

I was certain I did.

*

The time on the digital clock on the desk outside Kay’s room didn’t appear to work. A new minute flashed on the screen once every ten minutes, or so it seemed. My father and I looked at each other every now and again, then looked away abruptly, both of us knowing there was nothing to say, and nothing to do but watch the digital clock on the desk outside the room.

Across the corridor from Kay, a little girl of about nine was lying in bed. Her left eye was swollen to the size of a tennis ball. Some kind of scary infection by the looks. She had a drip in her arm. Her mother sat on her bed reading her a story. It was
Ping!
, I think, featuring a whole bunch of Chinese ducks. The girl had a tiny smile on her face. Suddenly, a man knocked on their door. ‘Yoo hoo!’ he said, smiling broadly as he sat on the other side of the bed. He kissed the girl on the top of her head and said, ‘How’s my beautiful brave girl? Is her every need being catered for?’ He put cheese dippers and baked crisps and fruit smoothies and two new books on the bedside table, then sat down.

They linked hands – mother and father, father and daughter, daughter and mother. That’s what it should be like in this room, I thought. When she walks in, it should be exactly like that. Oozing comfortable love. Since seeing my mother in hospital earlier that day, I realised that was never going to happen because my mother had turned out to be a total waste of space.

‘What are you thinking?’ Dad asked. What an
irritating
question. He always asked me that.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘When you saw her …’ he said, ‘what … what was she like?’

‘She was shorter than I expected,’ I said.

‘Really? Hmm. Shorter.’ He paused for a while but was unable to stop himself from attempting to fill the time with small talk. ‘How old is Preston?’ he asked. ‘He sounded like a kid on the phone.’

‘Seventeen,’ I said.

Dad sighed out loud and shook his head. ‘Really! Seventeen years old?’

Forty minutes had passed. Kay was still asleep. Dad and I had taken to pacing the room and checking
ourselves
in the mirror. My lips looked thin. Dad needed to moisturise. I was pacing and he was peering when Preston came in. Dad and I froze.

‘She’s nervous,’ he said. ‘She’s in the waiting room. She asked me if I could take her the money first, to make sure.’

‘What does she want the money for?’ Dad asked.

‘She didn’t say.’

‘How did you get her to fly back?’

‘I promised her drugs.’

‘She wants more drugs, doesn’t she?’

‘I think so.’

‘Is she going to bugger off or is she going to help us? What guarantee do we have?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is she still with Heath?’

‘I think so.’

‘Has she seen him?’

‘Not yet.’

That was enough! I pushed past Preston and walked down the corridor and into the reception area. ‘Where’s the waiting room?’ I asked the nurse at the desk.

‘First left, go to the end of the hall, through the
double
doors, turn right, go down the stairs and it’s the second on your right.’

I decided not to listen halfway through. Being female, I would stop and ask again.

‘Where’s the waiting room?’ I said after getting to the double doors.

‘Down that way, there’s a sign’ the doctor said.

When I walked in, she was drinking a can of Irn Bru on a plastic chair and reading
Red
magazine. How could she read a fucking magazine now?

‘So what did you figure? We’re worth a thousand each?’ I said.

It was her turn to freeze. ‘You again? Who are you?’ she said.

‘I’m Georgie Marion. You might remember me. I used to call you Mummy.’

To my surprise, she broke into an immediate
hysteria
which involved holding her head in her hands, rocking back and forth, sobbing like a baby and
saying
my name over and over. This totally scuppered my plan, which was:

a) to tell her to go fuck herself if she thought we’d pay her anything,

b) to tell her to go fuck herself if she played the ‘I’m sick. I can’t help it’ card.

‘That’s bullshit,’ I was going to say. ‘See, I do have a disease. And so does Kay. We didn’t choose to have it. We didn’t inject it into our arms or sniff it up our noses. And we can’t decide to not have it. You, on the other hand, have chosen. You have chosen to be a
selfish
waste-of-space junkie and now you are going to choose to save your daughter.’

Then I was going to haul her to her feet and drag her, kicking and screaming, into Kay’s room, where the sight of her poor beautiful daughter would force her to help.

But she was crying her eyes out. She was saying my name over and over. ‘Oh my God, Georgie, Georgie, my Georgie.’

‘We’re not going to give you any money,’ I said.

‘Of course, of course, I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping her face with her sleeve, convulsing with tears. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking … My head’s all over the place … You are so grown up.’

I grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet. ‘Come and meet your other daughter.’

It had been thirteen years since she left. Since Will had waited at the window of their marital home, expecting her to return from a simple trip to the shops. During those years, he’d gone through the usual stages – anger and denial and all that – and until the kids had fallen ill, he had probably been firmly routed in acceptance. As he watched his lovely girl lying on the hospital bed beside him, he wondered if any of those old feelings would return. He doubted it because all he felt was worry for Kay and all he could think was how he could help her.

She wasn’t coping well with dialysis. Perhaps he hadn’t monitored her closely enough. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed that she was studying too hard, or forgetting to take her medication, or eating poorly. He would do better from now on. And perhaps there was a
longer-term
solution in the waiting room.

No, in the corridor.

Standing before him in the doorway of this hospital room.

Was that her? Was that the woman he used to adore? The one he cried over for years? The one he thought was better than him? She was frail and old looking, like an anorexic art teacher. He hated to admit such
shallow
thinking at this moment, but Cynthia was
exceedingly
unattractive. Had he really loved her once?

‘We don’t have the money,’ Will said. He looked into the eyes he used to think were deep and saw
nothing
. ‘We just have two very sick children.’

What she did next surprised him. She walked to the bed, took Kay’s hand, kissed it, fell to her knees, and prayed … ‘Dear God, let her be okay.’ She then looked up at Will and Georgie, tears streaming: ‘Of course I’ll help. I’m not a bad person. I’m a good
person
. Of course I will.’

*

In the room opposite, the nine-year-old girl had fallen asleep. Her father had gone home. Her mother was putting water in the vase. After she’d filled it and placed it on the windowsill, she looked over into Kay’s room and caught Will’s eye. She smiled at him. They were in the same boat, were they not? A sick child surrounded by an abundance of comfortable love.

This illusion was interrupted by two things. First it was by Will, who said, ‘Right, keep her here, Georgie. Don’t let her out of your sight. I’ll go get the doctor.’

And then by the doctor who had dealt with the girls since their diagnoses. Will knew where his office was. He’d sat in it many times, the last of which was when he’d asked not to be tested yet, not till he found another donor.

‘William!’ Mr Jamieson said as Will rushed through the door. ‘Are you all right? I’m glad you’re here. Sit down, sit down. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about your parents.’ Mr Jamieson turned his Van Morrison CD down. ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ faded into the
background
.

‘My parents?’

‘They came in last week.’

‘Really? I didn’t know. That’s not why I’m here … I have some amazing news.’

Mr Jamieson was taken aback by Will’s urgent excitement, but he was an important
Mister
, so his news should go first. ‘Sit down, take it easy. Relax.’

Will wouldn’t sit down.

‘They were tested, Will. They didn’t want to get your hopes up, which is probably why you hadn’t heard about it yet.’

‘They were?’ Will couldn’t believe his ears. They’d done it.

‘I’m afraid both have unsuitable tissue types. There were other considerations as well. Your mother in
particular
may not be healthy enough to withstand major surgery and recover completely. It’s not good news. They can’t be donors.’

Will’s heart sank – this was option 2) in his
notebook
, gone.

But only for a moment. It didn’t matter any more. ‘I’ve found Cynthia,’ he blurted. ‘She’s here. She’s agreed to donate. How quickly can you test us both? We want the operations done as quickly as possible.’

‘Mr Marion, calm down. I’d like you to take a seat, please.’

‘I don’t want to sit down. Didn’t you hear me? She’s here! She’s said yes!’

Mr Jamieson walked slowly to the door, closed it, then walked even more slowly back to his desk. ‘I
suggest
you sit down,’ he said.

Will could feel the optimism dribbling out his ears. He flopped into a chair and said, ‘What?’

‘I treated your ex-wife yesterday. She’d overdosed on heroin.’

‘And?’

‘And … I need to speak to her before I speak to you.’

‘Just tell me. What is it?’

‘She used heroin for over fifteen years, Will. Do you know what that can do to your body?’

Will’s neck lost its ability to hold up his head. As it dropped, all the air inside him came out.

‘In addition to the effects of the drug itself, street heroin often contains toxic contaminants or additives that can clog the blood vessels leading to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain, causing permanent damage to vital organs.’

She’d gone and screwed up her fucking kidneys. The realisation slowed every sound and every movement. Small moans infiltrated his breathing.

‘Will?’ Mr Jamieson said, walking around his desk to perch himself on the front of it. He’d learnt this technique from his wife, an oncologist in the Beatson Clinic. ‘You don’t want to touch them,’ she’d told him after her husband came home one night. He’d had a difficult session helping a patient explain to his family that he no longer wanted to dialyse – i.e. that he wanted to die. The wife had grabbed him and hugged him for four minutes. He had snot on his shoulder afterwards. ‘But you need to show them you’re human,’ his wife explained. ‘An inch of bum on the desk edge and a sigh does the trick.’

Mr Jamieson sighed. ‘I’m very sorry. We just have to wait for the right donors for your girls.’

‘Of course.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’

Will couldn’t answer him. He couldn’t even lift his head. Was he still breathing?

‘Mr Marion? I’m afraid I have to get on now.’

‘Of course,’ Will said quietly, slowly standing and leaving the room.

* * *

Will’s pace quickened as he retraced his steps back to Kay’s room. He pushed the door open so hard that it frightened Georgie and Cynthia, and woke Kay.

‘You useless bitch!’ he yelled, moving towards the still-kneeling Cynthia. ‘You fucking useless bitch!’

‘Dad!’ Georgie put herself in front of her father. He’d gone mad. He was going to kill her mother.

‘Dad, stop!’ Kay said weakly. ‘What’s going on? Who’s this?’ She pulled her hand from Cynthia’s grasp. Who was this woman? Why was she kneeling at her bed? Why was she holding her hand?

‘This?’ Will said pointing at Cynthia. ‘This is the woman who abandoned you when you were three. This is the woman who wanted to screw a drug dealer rather than look after you. This is the woman who chose heroin and a thug over us. This …’ Will was still trying to get away from Georgie’s stronghold. He wanted to hurt her. ‘This is the woman who chose to screw up her organs. You screwed them up, Cynthia. They’re useless to us. Get out of here. Go away. GET OUT OF HERE!’

Georgie released her grasp. She and Will stared at Cynthia, who was now sitting on the floor beside Kay. She’d stopped crying. She didn’t realise it, but her face was unable to hide her true feelings. She could get out of here now. She’d offered, done the right thing, been unselfish – as she always had been – and now she could go and relieve some stress and talk to Heath. He’d make her feel better. She deserved to feel better. Should she stand up straight away? Or protest first?

‘It can’t be,’ she was the kind of person to decide on the latter. ‘I must be able to help.’

‘You can’t,’ Will said. ‘As ever, we’re better off without you. Just go.’

She turned to Kay, who had said nothing. Kay’s expression was kind, but no more than that. She rolled onto her side so that Cynthia could no longer look at her. ‘You were always the pretty one,’ she said, touching Kay’s hair.

Georgie bit her lip.

‘I’ll go, then,’ Cynthia said.

The mother in the room opposite watched as Cynthia left the room. As it turned out, these two families had nothing in common.