31 October 2:55 a.m.
less than four hours until low tide
My mother said that it was nobody’s fault that my heart stopped that day, but I think being so scared on that stage might have had something to do with it. I have never liked people looking at me, which I think is because of all the doctors who stared at me when I was a child. They would look at my face, then stare down at the scar on my chest, then shake their heads and frown their frowns, and look very disappointed indeed. When people stared at me, it was almost always for the wrong reasons, which was why I would rather they didn’t look at me at all.
There were months of hospital visits the fifth time I died, including a trip to see yet another specialist in London the following February. The private hospital fees were paid for by Nana, who always refused to believe that there wasn’t a way to fix me. Most memories of my times in hospital have faded around the edges over the years, but I remember that week for two reasons. Firstly, it was Valentine’s Day, and the boy in the bed opposite me on the ward gave me a card. I had never received a Valentine’s card before and didn’t know quite what to make of it.
‘Why does it have a heart on the front?’ I asked.
‘Because I love you,’ he said, pushing his jam-jar glasses a little higher up his nose. He was eleven, I was nine, and I’m not convinced either of us knew too much about love.
‘Well, don’t get any funny ideas. I have a boyfriend,’ I lied.
‘No boys have ever come to visit you,’ he replied. ‘What’s his name?’
I didn’t hesitate. ‘His name is Conor Kennedy. But even if I didn’t have a boyfriend, which I definitely do, given the ward we’re on, we might both be dead by morning. So please don’t spend what might be your final hours having fanciful thoughts about me.’
From the boy’s expression, I thought maybe I shouldn’t have said what I said. But his freckled face soon recovered from the shock of my words, and he smiled, revealing shiny silver braces. ‘God will watch over us, and I’m sure we’ll both still be here for breakfast.’
I’ve never been religious, nobody in my family is. Nancy said that she believed in God until the day she found out I was broken. They had a bit of a falling-out after that, which resulted in her not speaking to God for several years, so in some ways her relationship with God wasn’t unlike her relationship with my father. I suppose the doctors were like gods to me; it was up to them whether I stayed alive. They always seemed to find a way to fix me, so maybe I should have been more optimistic about living long enough to endure another hospital meal. But I wasn’t – optimistic, that is – it’s something I’ve always struggled to be. I have a highly active imagination, and it’s been self-taught to imagine the worst.
The boy was still staring at me with a dreamy expression on his face, holding the home-made Valentine’s card. I didn’t much like the look of him, or it.
‘Why do you think you love me? You don’t even know me,’ I said.
‘Yes, I do. I’ve read all the Daisy Darker books,’ he replied with a grin.
It was my first taste of fame, and I didn’t like the flavour. Just because someone has read a book with my name on the front, it doesn’t mean that they know who I am.
I put the card on the little table, said that I needed to sleep, and asked the nurse to pull the flimsy curtain around my hospital bed. Then I tried to pretend that the boy and the rest of the ward weren’t really there. I didn’t like sleeping in a room full of sick strangers, I don’t suppose anyone does. I stared at that Valentine’s card, wondering why the red heart on the front looked absolutely nothing like the heart inside my chest. I’d seen enough posters on enough doctors’ office walls to know it was a very poor likeness. And I wondered how and why this rather ugly internal organ had become the universal symbol for love.
Over the next few days, I asked all of the doctors – who were supposed to be clever – and all of the nurses – who seemed even cleverer than the doctors to me – but nobody seemed able to answer my question. When Nana came to visit, I asked her, because Nana knew everything.
‘You’re far too young to start worrying about love. I suggest you concentrate on getting better,’ she said, pulling the curtain around my hospital bed before perching on the side of it. She was wearing a purple coat with a matching purple hat and gloves, and I could tell from her rosy cheeks that it must have been cold outside. ‘Here,’ she whispered, opening up her huge pink and purple patchwork bag. ‘I brought you a snack.’ The red-and-white tablecloth made another appearance. She laid it across the bed between us, then produced two parcels of takeaway cod and chips wrapped in newspaper. She set the makeshift table with wooden cutlery, sachets of salt and vinegar, and a pot of mushy peas mixed with green Jelly Tots. The memory still makes me smile.