Handle With Care (7 page)

Shit, how was I going to let Ollie know what was going on? I scribbled a quick explanation for my absence on a piece of printer paper, added my mobile number, then wondered where to leave it. I wasn’t willing to pin it on the front door as an open invitation for any passing burglars to break in and help themselves.

I looked over my driveway at Mrs. F.’s front door. She was always there, wasn’t she? Moments later, I was at her door, explaining about the possible donor match. Her face softened.

“That’s wonderful news, Benjamin. I do hope it works out for you.”

I thanked her, then took a deep breath. “Would you mind handing this to my friend when he calls by later? You remember the delivery driver from the other day? The one you thought was rude?”

Mrs. F. frowned but took the letter. “How could I forget with hair like that?

Now, Benjamin, are you sure you know what you’re doing, befriending young men of his persuasion and letting them into your home?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “His
persuasion
?”

“You know what I mean.” She lowered her voice and leaned forwards.

“Homosexuals.”

How could she have picked up on Ollie, but not on me after all these years? I shook my head, glad I wasn’t the only one with faulty gaydar. “Mrs. Felpersham, I’ll choose my friends however I see fit, and I’m especially happy to have homosexual friends because I’m gay myself.”

Mrs. F.’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head, but just then I heard Zoe’s frantic beeping and was already heading back down through the gnome-infested garden.

“Just hand him the letter when you see him, yeah?”

Mrs. F. nodded, and I hurried back to grab my bag and get into Zoe’s car.

The journey to Oxford normally took only fifty minutes but the traffic was bad, and we made painfully slow progress. I couldn’t worry about that now, though. I had far more important things on my mind. I stared out the window and dug my fingernails hard into my palms. It didn’t make me feel any better, but it helped to keep me from grabbing the door handle and throwing myself out of the car before lumbering back to Reading.

The medical was a long ordeal of prodding, poking and intrusive questions before I was proclaimed fit for surgery. I asked and was told that my benefactor was a healthy, heartbeating donor—the very best kind, as he or she was brain-56

dead, but the body was still alive, so the organs would be as fresh as possible.

Most likely it was the result of a car crash, although they weren’t allowed to tell me anything about how the unlucky person died. I tried to quell the thought that it was like choosing the freshest cut of meat in the supermarket, but I wasn’t very successful.

The wait for the cross-match was even more tense than the medical, possibly because there was nothing to distract me from the wait. I couldn’t even amuse myself by scalding my mouth on a cup of hospital vending-machine tea, what with my nil-by-mouth status.

Zoe and I were sitting there in the waiting room, side by side, when I remembered my phone. I’d turned it off when entering the hospital, as per the rules, so there was no chance of a message just yet. I handed it to Zoe, and she gave me a quizzical look.

“Could you take it home with you tonight and check for any messages?”

“I’m not going to be going home.”

“Zoe!”

“What? You’re the only family I’ve got. I’m not going to leave you here until I know you’re stable.”

“You need your sleep.”

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep not knowing how you’re doing.”

She’d always been strong willed, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to win this one.

“Okay. Well, can you at least go out for a stroll and check the messages later?”

“Can’t it wait? Work’s not that important right now.”

“It’s not work. It’s personal.”

“Personal? Since when have you had a personal life?”

I felt my face heat, remembering how Ollie had looked on his knees at my feet. Had that really been only a few hours ago?

“It’s him, isn’t it? That Ollie kid.”

“He’s not a kid.”

“He’s about my age.”

“You’re my sister, not my daughter.”

I regretted the thoughtless words instantly as Zoe’s face started to crumple.

“I know. I just…I can’t help it. I don’t want to lose you.” She wrapped her arms around me and knocked the air out of my lungs.

Understanding dawned. It wasn’t so much Ollie’s age that was the issue.

She’d been like this after Mum and Dad died—clinging to me ferociously like I was going to disappear if she let me out of her sight. “You won’t lose me, silly.

Even if I’m with someone, I’ll still love you just as much.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’m just being selfish.”

“Shush now. It’s okay, it’s okay.” I rocked her for a while, like I had all those years ago, and it seemed to comfort her again. Eventually, she sniffed and eased her grip on me.

“You all right, Zo-Zo?”

She smiled at the old nickname, then took up my phone, promising to check the messages every couple of hours.

My eyes were following the pattern on the lino for the umpteenth time when the surgeon approached, a porter pushing a wheelchair in his wake. We were a good enough match to proceed, me and my brain-dead donor. It made me shudder to think that there would soon be a part of that nameless victim inside me. Two parts, in fact. It was more intimate than anything I’d yet done with Ollie, and the thought made my stomach clench.

58

Zoe squeezed my hand as I sat down in the wheelchair. Her eyes glimmered with tears, and she gave me a tremulous smile.

“You’re in good hands, Benji. Everything’s going to be fine, all right?”

She seemed to need the reassurance more than I did, so I smiled and nodded, squeezing her hand back before the porter spun the chair around and wheeled me off to theatre.

I could hear a voice somewhere. It echoed, but I wasn’t all that interested in following it. I was warm and cosy, wrapped up in a red-tinged darkness. I drifted.

Sometimes, beeps washed over me, and prickles of pain made me aware of my body. I didn’t want to inhabit it again right now. Things were calm, like I was bundled up in a cloud of cotton wool and hidden away from the world.

“Benji? Are you awake?”

I sighed and took possession of my body once more. I cracked my gritty eyes open and blinked at the bright lights. Pain stabbed through me as I coughed. It felt like I’d had a boulder dropped onto my belly. I didn’t want to look down.

“Benji!”

I turned my head towards Zoë and was rewarded with not only a dizzying wave of nausea but the sound of her bursting into tears.

“I’m okay,” I tried to say, but my mouth was so dry I could barely form the words. I managed to get my eyes to focus on the room and saw Zoe’s head buried on the mattress next to me. She looked up, her eyes bloodshot and snot bubbling out of her nose.

“Hey.” I smiled at her.

“Hey, yourself.” She smiled back, then giggled as she wiped away the mess on her face. “How are you feeling?”

Would “like shit” be a helpful answer? It was all academic anyway, because the moment I tried speaking, my voice cracked. I couldn’t seem to summon up any saliva to ease my speech, and I gave Zoe what I thought was an imploring look. “Water?” I whispered, hoping she would understand.

She sucked her lips in and shook her head. “Sorry, Benj. No can do. They said you’ll be allowed fluids tomorrow, but nothing until then.”

Bastards! I wanted to glare at the nurse when she came over to check up on me, but my eyes slipped closed again as the warm darkness claimed me.

As I drifted in and out of consciousness over the next few hours, I heard Zoe’s voice reading to me. It sounded like it was articles from one of her celebrity gossip magazines. My sleep was populated by hunky footballers and their stick insect wives, kitten-heel shoes and plastic surgery disasters. I had a brief moment of clarity when I recalled that I hadn’t managed to pack any of my own reading material because I’d been distracted by writing the note for Ollie. I wondered where he was. I’d have to ask Zoe to find him for me.

I wanted him at my bedside.

I woke again to sunlight streaming through the tall window into my private room. Zoe was by my side in an instant, the smile on her face lifting my spirits, despite my body feeling like I’d been beaten within an inch of my life.

“Morning,” she said. “You’re looking better today.”

I tried to greet her, but if anything, my mouth was even drier than yesterday.

I licked my lips in vain, my dry tongue rasping over the cracked skin. There was a sharp sting, and I tasted the metallic tang of blood, but the pain couldn’t compete with the dull throbbing in my abdomen. I attempted to lift my head so I could get a look at what they’d done to me, but my neck muscles didn’t want to cooperate. I lifted a heavy hand to beckon Zoe over, then saw the cannula in there and dropped it back onto the mattress.

“Here, I’m allowed to give you some of this today.”

I couldn’t focus on whatever it was Zoe was showing me. It looked like a kid’s lollipop made out of something spongy. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it as I didn’t think I had enough saliva to manage a lick. But then Zoe put the thing in my mouth, and I sucked the cool water from the sponge. My mouth zinged with the sensation, and I could move my tongue comfortably again.

“More,” I said in a hoarse croak. I wanted to feel water running down my throat, soothing the raw pain there.

“Um, you’ll have to ask the nurse. He said I was only to give you one, no matter how much you complained. You want me to fetch him now?”

I shook my head. “Where’s Ollie?”

Zoe looked away. “I don’t know.”

“What?” Why didn’t she know? He must have had my message by now.

“He hasn’t phoned, Benj. I’m sorry.”

Why wouldn’t he have phoned? I tried to tell myself he simply hadn’t had the message yet. Maybe Mrs. F. had missed him when he called round. Maybe he’d been delayed for some reason and never even made it.

But another, sickening possibility rose up inside me on a swell of bitter foreboding. He’d said he’d have to drive like a maniac. What if he’d had a crash.

What if…

What if that was Ollie inside me?

I don’t remember much after that. Someone said something about a sedative, but I wasn’t paying attention. It was probably the drugs screwing with my reasoning, but I’d gone from foreboding to certainty, and collided with more despair than I’d ever imagined existed. I let it pull me under, drowning me in darkness and blotting out everything else.

Pulling me back to my darkest moment.

62

The lights strobed over the dance floor, whirling and leaving trails across my vision. I wondered if there’d been anything different in that last lot of coke I’d scored, and decided if there had been, I rather liked it.

The lad leaning against the bar next to me had a great arse. I ran a hand down his back and rested it there, admiring the way it made a shelf for my hand.

He turned to look at me, and I nearly laughed at the orange spray-on tan he’d used. It was a classic home-job, complete with uneven lines at the jaw and white patches behind the ears. Jesus, couldn’t he afford a trip to a proper tanning salon?

But then what did his face matter?

“You’ve got a great arse there,” I said, squeezing it for emphasis. “I’d like to get to know it better.”

Tan-boy leered, and I didn’t even have to buy him a drink before he let me lead him to the toilets. It was still early enough that there were a couple of stalls free, so I pushed him in and down onto his knees on the hard floor.

I leaned back against the wall, enjoying his hot breath on my stomach as he quickly unzipped me. He had good technique—knew when to suck hard and when to hold back—and although it made him gag a little, he could take me all the way to the back of his throat.

My ears throbbed in time to the bassline that permeated the whole club. I looked up at the ceiling, and the light there was pulsing. My heartbeat kept the same rhythm, a frantic pounding like the one I was about to give Tan-boy.

But I wasn’t, was I? My softening dick slipped out of his lips, and my head tilted sideways, like the muscles in my neck had given up.
I haven’t come yet,
I wanted to scream, but my throat wasn’t working. The walls expanded and contracted like my lungs refused to. Darkness fuzzed the edges of my vision, narrowing everything to an orange face, staring at me with panic in its eyes.

They found me passed out on the floor after Tan-boy fled, taking with him my wallet and remaining bag of “coke”. I was rushed to hospital and spent two weeks in intensive care as my kidneys decided to give up the ghost, poisoned by whatever had been in that white powder.

Then the police arrived at my hospital bedside to tell me my wallet had been found in the pocket of a dead man, overdosed on a lethal cocktail of drugs in his shitty little bedsit. I wanted to die too. It had been the worst moment in my entire life. Blacker even than my parents dying, because this time, I knew it was my fault. I was responsible for that young man’s death, and I’d never even taken the time to learn his name. I knew it now, but it was too bloody late.

The worst moment ever.

Until now.

64

I glanced at the twenty millilitre cup of water in front of me. I knew I should drink it, but I just couldn’t summon up the energy to lift my hand. What was the point?

I was dimly aware of an argument taking place down the hall. I tuned out the raised voices. I’d insisted that Zoe go home and get some rest, but my reasons were purely selfish. I just wanted some time alone to wallow in my misery and not have to field questions about how I was feeling.

I was feeling numb, all except for my guts, which throbbed with a dull ache.

The door swung open, and a nurse peered in at me. At least, I assume she was a nurse. Her lavender-coloured outfit looked a little too much like pyjamas for me to tell for sure, although I had noticed that at this hospital they seemed to encourage the staff to wear outlandishly coloured scrubs. She cleared her throat, looking confused and a little pissed off.