Two Weeks with the Queen (8 page)

Famous doctors, thought Colin. The geniuses who gave us Modern Medicine and all its wondrous technology. The operating theatre and the X-ray machine and the Band-aid that doesn't leave a sticky black outline when you pull it off.

He moved down the corridor, peeking into rooms. Most of them had big dark wooden desks in them and ancient leather armchairs. Others were full of gleaming, modern equipment.

Colin was impressed. You didn't often come across blokes with those sorts of desks and those sorts of armchairs who knew how to operate that sort of equipment.

‘You lost?'

Colin spun round. Looking at him was a nurse, her eyebrows raised.

‘No, I'm right, thanks,' said Colin.

She nodded and gave him a kind smile.

‘Looked as though you were lost.'

‘I was just checking that this is the best cancer hospital in London,' said Colin.

The nurse grinned and leant towards him.

‘Best in London?' she said. ‘It's the best in the world. People come in here, their relatives have already started squabbling over their furniture. When they leave, some of them, they go round to their Aunty Maud's, get their sideboard back and carry it home by themselves.'

She grinned again and walked off.

Colin grinned too. He had a vision of Luke, cured and laughing, staggering home from Bayliss's Department Store carrying the bunk bed with the built-in cubby house that had been number two on his Chrissie list.

Colin hurried along the corridor. At the end he turned left and found himself in a huge ward full of bustling nurses and rows of beds with patients in them.

Then he saw him, standing next to a bed, surrounded by student doctors.

The Best Doctor In The World.

He looked exactly like Colin had imagined he would. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a wise, important face and thick grey hair just like the Dad in Dynasty.

‘Accessibility is paramount,' he said to the student doctors.

Colin's chest thumped with excitement.

He even spoke important.

‘In other words,' said the doctor, ‘the patient must always feel that he can speak to you, that you've got time for him.'

The student doctors scribbled furiously on their notepads, then went back to staring at the doctor in awe.

The doctor picked up the hand of the patient in the bed, patted it, put it back down and moved on to the next bed.

Now's my chance, thought Colin, blood pounding in his ears.

He pushed through the student doctors, got a stethoscope hooked round his arm, pulled himself free, and found himself in front of the doctor.

The doctor stared down at him.

Words rushed around in Colin's head. He opened his mouth and let them out.

‘I know you're real busy here and everything but you've got to come to Australia and fix up Luke. They reckon he's gunna die but I just reckon they're being slack and you can do it, I know you can.'

The doctor frowned.

‘Who is this?' he boomed.

‘Luke,' said Colin, ‘my brother.'

The doctor pointed to Colin.

‘I mean who is this boy?' he thundered.

The student doctors looked at each other in alarm. A couple looked at their notepads.

‘We'll pay your fare,' said Colin, ‘or if you've got a Lear jet we'll pay the petrol.'

A couple of the student doctors tittered. Several patients grinned.

‘Matron,' roared the doctor, and turned and swept along to the next bed.

Colin tried to follow, but a large matron hurried across and grabbed his arm.

He stamped on her foot, pulled himself free and went after the doctor.

‘Please,' yelled Colin, ‘you've got to do it, it'll only take a few days, you've got to.'

The doctor turned and glared at the nurses who were standing all around, frozen.

‘I am trying to do my rounds,' he roared, his face flushing red. with anger. ‘Will somebody please remove this child.'

Colin felt panic stabbing him in the guts.

It wasn't working.

The Best Doctor In The World hadn't put his hand on his shoulder and smiled down and said, ‘Leave it to me, son.'

‘He's got cancer,' pleaded Colin. ‘He could die.'

‘Everyone here has got cancer,' thundered the doctor, sweeping his arm around the ward. ‘They could all die.'

Suddenly none of the patients were grinning.

‘If your brother needs treatment, there are proper channels. I will not have my ward round disrupted like this.'

‘Please,' said Colin.

The Worst Doctor In The World thumped his hand onto Colin's shoulder and glared down and roared, ‘Go away!'

‘No!' screamed Colin, throwing himself at the doctor. But before he could land a punch he was grabbed from behind by several pairs of hands and suddenly he was upside down and the doctor, also upside down, was getting smaller and smaller and then was gone.

Colin saw the corridor walls blurring past him. He kicked and struggled, but the two male nurses and the uniformed attendant had him in a bone-crusher grip.

They took him into an office and held him down in a chair while a supervisor gave him some forms that the patient's parent or guardian could fill out if the patient's doctor and/or senior medical administrator agreed.

Then the uniformed attendant marched Colin out of the hospital.

Chapter Ten

Colin sat on the kerb and felt a hot pricking in his eyes that meant either Arnie Strachan had just blown cigarette smoke in his face or he was going to cry.

Arnie Strachan was twelve thousand miles away, so it must be that he was going to cry.

Colin decided he wasn't going to cry.

He closed his eyes and thought of Dad. Dad never cried, not even the time Colin bowled a Malcolm Marshall special off an extra long run-up and it bounced crooked off a cow-pat and slammed Dad in the privates.

It's not a disaster, thought Colin.

He'd gone for the wrong doctor, that's all. He'd gone for the doctor who looked like The World's Best Doctor. He'd been fooled by a Dynasty haircut. The real World's Best Doctor was probably bald with glasses.

All Colin had to do was go back into the Best Cancer Hospital In London (avoiding the uniformed attendant) and find him.

He was wondering how best to avoid the uniformed attendant (should he smuggle himself in with the clean sheets or go in through the drains?) when he noticed something across the street.

A bloke sitting on the kerb.

Crying.

Not sniffing and blinking back prickles in his eyes, but really crying, his whole body shaking with massive sobs.

Colin realised he'd never seen a bloke really blub. Kids, yes, but not an adult bloke. Adults put on Brave Faces and said, ‘Mmmm, I'm starving.'

Colin wondered why this one wasn't.

He went over.

‘You OK?' he asked.

The bloke looked up at him, startled.

‘No, I'm not, I'm crying,' he said and looked away and sniffed and blinked a few times. When he looked back up at Colin he'd stopped crying. ‘But ta for asking,' he said and grinned.

He was much younger than Dad. He looked to Colin about the same age as Mr Blair at school, 25, except that Mr Blair didn't wear a leather jacket and didn't grin.

The bloke sniffed and wiped his eyes.

‘I needed that,' he said.

Colin had only ever heard a bloke say that after a beer.

‘Why did you need it?' he asked.

‘I've got a friend in there who's very sick,' said the bloke, pointing to the hospital across the road. ‘Normally I'm OK, but once a week I treat myself to a bit of a cry.'

Colin could tell from the way he swallowed after saying ‘very sick' that the friend wasn't just a workmate or someone he played pool with.

Must be his girlfriend.

‘Cancer?' asked Colin. He felt like booting himself in the bum. Course it was cancer.

The bloke opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and nodded. He looked closely at Colin.

‘You're the one who was making all the commotion in the ward, right?'

‘Colin Mudford,' said Colin,. holding out his hand.

‘Ted Caldicot,' replied the bloke, shaking it. ‘What were you doing, pinching grapes?'

‘No,' said Colin, ‘trying to find a doctor for my brother.'

Ted looked down at the road and his soft voice, with its accent Colin couldn't quite place, became even softer.

‘I'm sorry. Has your brother got cancer?'

At last. An adult who wasn't a doctor had actually said the word.

Colin sat down on the kerb next to Ted and told him about Luke and the Queen and the Best Doctor In The World.

By the time he'd finished, Ted was grinning again.

‘Incredible,' he said, ‘You, Colin, are an inspiration to us all. Come and have a cup of tea.'

The hospital cafeteria was full of people who looked exactly like they'd just been visiting other people with cancer. Long faces, round shoulders, bowed heads.

That was the first thing Colin noticed as he stood in the queue with Ted.

The second was Ted's tattoo.

It was a small one on the back of his hand. Leaves and flowers around a word Colin couldn't read properly. A foreign word.

‘What does that say?' asked Colin, pointing to it.

‘It's Welsh,' said Ted. ‘Means “Forever".”

Colin was impressed. The only other tattoo he'd seen up dose was Doug Beale's uncle's and that had said ‘Death Before Disco'. ‘Forever' was much better.

‘Where I come from in Wales,' said Ted, ‘people get them done when they're in love.'

‘Has your friend got one?' asked Colin.

Ted nodded and turned away.

Colin felt like booting himself in the bum again.

But Ted had only turned away because they were at the front of the queue and a brawny woman in a white apron was waiting to serve them.

‘Two teas love, ta,' said Ted, ‘and thirty chocolate frogs.'

Thirty?

Colin thought he'd heard wrong, but there was the woman, grumpily counting out thirty of the little chocolate frogs in silver paper that you were supposed to buy while you waited for your change.

There were thirty-four in the box and Ted took the lot.

They found an empty table and put their teas on it. Then Ted handed the box of frogs to Colin and climbed on to the table himself

‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,' he said, ‘excuse me.'

The low murmur of conversation in the room went even lower. People stared up at Ted.

Colin stared up at Ted. That's all he needed. A cup of tea with a loony.

‘We're all here for the same reason,' said Ted to the frowning and suspicious faces looking up at him, ‘and we've all got people in there who need us very much. What they don't need is for us to turn into misery-guts. If anyone here thinks they might be turning into a misery-guts, I'd strongly recommend a chocolate frog from my young friend.'

Colin felt the blood rush to his cheeks as all eyes turned to him.

For a moment there was nothing but a sea of frowning and suspicious faces.

Then a face just to his left broke into a smile and a hand reached into the box and took a frog. Another smile. Another hand. A murmur went round the room and smiles were breaking out all over the place.

‘Go on, Col,' said Ted, jumping down, ‘do the rounds.'

Colin took the box around the cafeteria and in two minutes there wasn't a frog left.

‘Have to get some more of those in,' said the woman behind the counter, grinning hugely at Colin.

Colin didn't know what to say. He hadn't enjoyed himself so much for months.

He and Ted sat down and drank their tea.

‘I've been thinking,' said Ted. ‘I know a couple of the doctors here pretty well. What if I have a word to them about Luke?'

A jab of excitement hit Colin in the guts.

‘Yes,' he said, ‘please.'

‘OK,' said Ted. ‘Tomorrow's Saturday. I don't know if they're rostered on for the weekend. Why don't you meet me here at midday on Monday and we'll go and see them then.'

‘Thanks,' said Colin, ‘thanks a lot.'

‘I've got to go back to my friend now,' said Ted. ‘Write the name of Luke's hospital down for me.'

Colin was so excited he could hardly hold the pen.

He went back to the house, replaced the back door lock, calmed Alistair down, and by the time Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob got home, he was sitting in an armchair looking as though he'd just had a quiet day with the Do-It-Yourself magazines instead of swinging punches at pathologists, meeting incredible blokes who blubbed and gave away chocolate frogs, and arranging to see doctors who were going to save Luke's life.

After tea Mum and Dad rang.

‘I haven't said anything about the Buckingham Palace business,' said Aunty Iris as she handed the phone to Colin, ‘and if you carry on behaving yourself I hope I won't have to.'

Mum asked Colin how he was and he said fine. He asked how Luke was and she said that Luke was as well as could be expected. She said she and Dad were as well as could be expected too.

Colin could hardly hear her because she wasn't using her usual long-distance voice. Her voice sounded small and very weary and very sad.

He glanced round to make sure Aunty Iris had gone back into the living-room.

‘Mum,' he said, ‘everything's going to be OK. You don't have to worry any more. I'm going to see one of London's top cancer doctors on Monday and he's going to cure Luke.'

He waited for her relief and delight to come pouring out of the phone. But all he heard were faint sobs coming from the other end.

‘Mum,' he said, ‘are you all right?'

Then he remembered that mums sometimes cried when they were very happy.

Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob announced next morning that they were going to take Colin out over the weekend to get his mind off ‘things'.