Shattered: A Shade novella (14 page)

It
starts to rain, but it doesn’t dampen our mood as we stop to spit on the Heart
of Midlothian for good luck, per tradition. Then we head down George IV Bridge,
past the wee cafe where Harry Potter was allegedly written (I take a picture
with my phone for Aura – okay, mostly for me).

Niall
takes me to a British comfort-food restaurant he says serves ‘pure ideal
sausages’. We eat ourselves into near comas, then head to his girlfriend’s pub
in time for its nightly
trad
-music session. She waves
and blows Niall a kiss across the bar before turning back to her current
customer.

He
frowns at the whisky menu. ‘Can’t decide, they’re all so fancy. I’ll let Rose
choose.’ When I reach for the menu, he pulls it away. ‘
Naw
,
Martin said not tae let ye drink.’

‘Since
when are
youse
even speaking?’

‘We
never stopped.
Hiya
, lass!’

‘Niall!’
His girl’s even more adorable close up, with blond pigtail braids like a manga
heroine. ‘Who’s
yer
mate? Is he staying over?’

‘Sorry,
you’re stuck
wi
just me the night. Rose Taggart,
Zachary Moore. Him and me and Martin went to primary school together at Glasgow
Gaelic. Then his ma and da moved him to England and America.’

‘Ah,
lucky globetrotter.’ She gives me a warm smile. ‘So what’s to drink? Belhaven
Stout, Niall, or ye feeling adventurous?’

‘I’ll
have a Rose Taggart whisky surprise.
Zach’ll
have an
Irn
Bru
.’

When
she trots off, I turn to Niall. ‘You let me have a beer at dinner.’

‘Cos
it’s legal for
yer
seventeen-year-old
arse
to drink with a meal. Suddenly now Martin’s a
bartender, he cares about these stupid laws.’

Then
Martin didn’t tell him about my medications. ‘So you and he are cool now?’

‘We
never weren’t cool, except when he was pissed off at me for being pissed off at
you. I was like, ‘Zach’s the one punched me, so why should I
apologise
?’ and Martin was like, ‘Cos Zach’s the one who
needs—’ He cuts himself off.

‘What?
What do I need?’

‘I
think “understanding” was the word he used.’

This
creates an uncomfortable moment. ‘Martin should mind his own
fuckin
’ business.’

‘Mate,
you are his business.’

‘Then
he needs a hobby. Maybe a boyfriend.’

‘I
think the last one put him off relationships for a wee while.’

I’ve
no idea who Niall means, which makes me feel like a complete
shitebag
. Before I can ask for details, Rose delivers my
Irn
Bru
and Niall’s whisky.

He
gives the glass a skeptical sniff as she walks away. ‘Roland and I’ve known
about Martin almost as long as you have.
Dunno
why he
didnae
tell Frankie and Graham till now.’

‘Cos
they’re
eejits
?’

‘Maybe.
But why’d you think
I’d
care he’s
gay?’

‘Other
than the fact ye called him a “poof”?’ I gesture to the crucifix about his
neck. ‘You’re the only one of us still goes to church Sunday mornings.’

‘Not
tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I’ll be worshipping at the altar of Rose’s sweet
fanny.’ He clinks his glass against my bottle, saluting himself. ‘As for the
“poof” thing, Martin knew it was a joke. I was just trying tae break the
tension. I didn’t know ye were
gonnae
go all psycho
on me.’ He gives me a quick look. ‘Wait, am I allowed to say “psycho”, or is
that like “retarded”? I can’t sort what’s offensive these days.’

‘I’ll
allow it.’ The word reminds me of someone besides myself. ‘Have you seen Finn
Connelly since he went into the psych hospital?’

Niall’s
eyes widen. ‘
Naw
, I’ve not seen that mad bastard
since the day he was committed. The day he killed their cat.’

My
bottle freezes halfway to my lips. ‘He did what?’

‘Martin
didn’t tell you? He was there. It was—’ He shudders. ‘It was a bad
scene.’

My phone
rings. Niall looks relieved for the interruption. As I pull it from my pocket,
he quips, ‘It’s Martin, telling us to stop talking about him.’

It’s
not Martin. My stomach drops to my ankles.

‘On
second thought,’ Niall says, ‘Martin likes people talking about him, so—’

‘Shut
it.’ I lift the phone to my ear. ‘Mum, what’s wrong? Where are you?’

‘At
Western Infirmary.’ She chokes out a sob. ‘Your father’s collapsed.’

*
  
*
  
*
  
*

I
take the world’s longest fifty-one-minute train ride back to Glasgow. Niall
offered to come with me, practically insisted, but I told him to stay with his
girl. For once, I needed to be alone.

Of
course, once I was alone, I wished I weren’t. Now I’m sitting curled up against
the wide train window, my feet propped crookedly on the table between the
seats, face buried in my knees.
Brilliant,
I’ve become
that
person on the train
.

My
father could be dead right this moment, and I’m not with him. Not because I’m
held captive, but because I tried for one night to be normal, to go out with a
mate other than Martin, my partner in codependency. To loosen my death grip on
existence. And this is what happens.

My
phone buzzes. A message from Martin:
Niall
texted me. You OK?

Yes.

How close are you?

Not. Just left
Linlithgow
.

So how crap was Edinburgh?

He’s
trying to distract me. But it’s Saturday night – his pub must be packed.
He doesn’t have time for this.

Too crap for a text
msg
,
I
tell him.

I can work while you type.

It’s
like he can read my mind. So I write a long chain of text messages about the
flashback, and the twenty-something American sisters Niall tried to chat up,
and the sheep in the ‘— of Scotland’ shop, and the quality sausage, and
the fiddler I could barely hear over the noise in Rose’s pub. By the time I
finish, another twelve minutes are gone, and I’m past Falkirk High, over
halfway to Glasgow.

Sounds shit,
Martin texts
back,
but if you fancied it, that’s what
matters.

I
almost laugh, but it feels like a sob, so I hold my breath until the impulse
fades.

Martin
adds:
I’ll come to the hospital soon as I
can.

I
pocket my phone, shut my eyes, and ask myself for the millionth time,
Why Dad?
It was almost easier when I
thought it had something to do with
Newgrange
, that
whatever happened there which caused the Shift also caused the cancer in my father
and Aura’s mum. But Maria Salvatore had already had cancer before she went to
Newgrange
, and Dad’s mesothelioma came from the asbestos
they used in the council-estate flat where he grew up. People raised in poverty
have to pay twice in life, and no paranormal phenomenon can change that.

So
there’s no mystery in Dad’s illness for me to solve, only the unwavering fight
to keep him comfortable and alive as long as the disease will let us. Tonight
we might lose that fight once and for all. My psychiatrist says there’d be
nothing wrong with feeling relief at the end.

But I
wouldn’t feel relieved, only robbed,
cos
there’s
still so much to say.

Chapter
Eleven

I
stare through the window into my father’s ICU room, watching my mother speak to
him, wiping tears from her own face. The piano intro of Death Cab for Cutie’s
‘What Sarah Said’ tumbles through my mind, but I won’t let myself think of the
lyrics that describe this exact scenario. Those words could break me.

Mum
finally turns my way. I wave at her. She stands quickly, then kisses Dad’s
forehead and squeezes his hand before coming to the door.

I’m
at her side in an instant. ‘How is he?’

‘He’s
stabilised
.’ She shuts the door behind her, then
raises bloodshot eyes to mine. ‘You can go in for a few minutes.’

‘Is
he conscious?’

‘Enough
to know you’re here.’ Mum reaches for my hand, then pulls her own back,
remembering she can’t touch her son. As she turns away, I reach for her, but
it’s too late.

Her
shoulders slump as she shuffles towards the waiting-room chairs. She looks as
alone as I feel.

I
open my father’s door, which makes no sound, then cross to his bed. He appears
tiny as a Hobbit but half as robust, his body sunken into the bedding and
surrounded by machines.
 

I sit
beside him, my heart pounding as I lift my hand. I can do this.

When
my fingers touch his, his eyes flutter open.

‘It’s
me.’ My whisper gets lost amid the beeps and whirs. ‘It’s
Sgàire
.’

The
corners of his eyes crinkle in response. He can’t talk, what with the oxygen mask
over his mouth.

‘I
love you’ is all I can think to say. It’s the only thing I know for certain,
the only statement not made of false hope and weak guesses.

He
lays his hand atop mine, pats it gently. Always the protector.

I
stare at the bleached hospital sheet, stark beneath the black sleeve of my
leather jacket. I’ve not seen sheets so white since …

Not now. Not here.

I
clutch my father’s hand, just as I did as a wean, when he’d pick me up after a bad
fall on the football pitch. His touch keeps me in this room, short-circuiting
the flashback, so that only my memory travels back to 3A. Back to Billy.

I
named my companion – I suppose you could call him a doll – after
the unstuck-in-time hero of
Slaughterhouse
Five
. Billy consisted of a knotted pillowcase, forming the head and body,
as well as a folded paper hat made from a page of one of the tedious books they
gave me. (I couldn’t draw Billy a face, because by that point, they’d taken
away my pens and pencils – fearing I’d gouge out my carotid artery with
them, I suppose.)

From
those books, I also made over a thousand paper
aeroplanes
.
They would disappear each week when my room was cleaned, but I kept a tally by
dog-earing the corresponding page number in a separate book. I’d learned the
hard way to have a backup counting system.

The
door shushes open behind me. It’s the doctor, a man even older than Dad.

‘Good
news,
Mr
Moore,’ he says to my father. ‘Your lung
function is normal – well, normal for someone in your condition. You’ve
not had a case of full respiratory arrest, you’re simply dehydrated. Also
weakened by a bladder infection.’ He checks the machines. ‘We’ll get you some
more nutrients and some antibiotics. You should be ready to go home in a day or
two.’

It
takes me a moment to absorb his meaning. ‘So – he’s going to be alright?’

The
doctor gives me an odd look, and I
realise
that’s a
tricky question concerning someone like my father.

Dad
pats my hand again and nods at me.

‘We
should let him rest a wee bit,’ the doctor says. ‘He needs his strength.’

I
lean over and kiss my father’s forehead, just as my mother did, then squeeze
his hand, just as she did. He winks at me, the old bugger.

The
doctor follows me out to join Mum in the waiting room. She’s smiling, so he
must’ve given her the good news before telling us.

‘What
I meant to ask,’ I say to him, ‘was that Dad’s not dying, right? Not tonight?’

‘Not
tonight. Of course, his lungs are always vulnerable, and the chemo makes him
susceptible to infection, but we’ll take every precaution to keep him protected
while he’s here.’

After
a few more reassuring words – which I don’t hear, my mind is so swamped
with relief – the doctor leaves us to visit another patient.

Mum
turns to me. ‘I’m going to stay. You should go home, though.’

‘I’m
not leaving you alone.’

‘I’m
not alone. Your father’s here. I’ll sleep better if I’ve only him to worry
about.’

Shame
sweeps over me. I’m another problem for her. ‘Can I bring you anything?’