‘Do you feel sick?’ he asked.
I shook my head. I was lying. The sweet taste of stomach acid was already filling my mouth. I would have asked for a glass of water if I could remember how.
Stroke slithered back into my ears with an echo. Stroke snake stroke snake.
‘No,’ the doctor said firmly. ‘It is most likely a migraine.’ The words meant nothing to me – as though I’d heard them in a foreign tongue. I tried to separate them into pieces to find the meaning. My-grain.
‘The child’s prognosis?’ the doctor asked.
‘The consultant said it will be a matter of hours,’ the nurse replied.
‘Madam,’ the doctor said, and I felt the weight of something on my left shoulder, presumably a hand. ‘I believe you are having an ocular migraine. Have you ever experienced these symptoms before?’
I shook my head.
‘They can be brought on by stress. I can give you something for the pain, but it will make you drowsy, you may fall asleep. Given the, um, the present circumstances, do you want me to do that?’
‘No,’ I managed. How similar ‘no’ was on the tongue to ‘know’。 They were almost the same. Perhaps they were the same.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You may find you need to vomit. If you do, there is a container here. Other symptoms may include an aversion to light, intense head pain and confusion. You need to alert us if your symptoms change or worsen.’
I nodded.
‘I will ask the staff to continue to search for your husband.’
He lifted his hand off my shoulder and spoke quickly to the nurse, but the effort of decoding the sounds into meaning was too great.
‘I’ll be here if you need me,’ the nurse said, and I heard her draw the curtain around the bed. The tips of my fingers were tingling as I leant forward and felt for the edges of the mattress.
In front of me lay a baby. My baby. And it was time to say goodbye.
‘Davey,’ I said, my tongue able to remember him when nothing else sounded right. With what was left of my vision, I could see that his little eyes had opened. He was still pale, his body all wrapped up in his sleepsuit and his blanket. He looked up at me. What a sight I must have been. His mother with her hand covering her left eye. I wondered if he remembered the games of peekaboo we had played, and if that was what he thought we were doing.
I don’t know how to say goodbye to a child. I didn’t then and I don’t now. So instead I talked to him. I told him of the life he would lead, of the school uniform he would wear, of his days in the summer sunshine when I would take him to the park. I told him how he would get a part-time job in a greengrocer’s and eventually buy the place and run it himself. How he would meet a young lady who came in to buy a pineapple and they would fall in love. How they would marry and I would wear a yellow hat at the wedding. I told him of his own noisy three children and how he would grow old with them helping out in the shop, using apples to teach them to count. And his eyes stayed fixed on mine while I told him, softly, of how he’d be so incredibly happy and how he would come to visit me when I was old and grey.
I laid myself down on the bed beside him and I kissed his cheek. It was so soft and spongy. It had become one of his favourite games, where I kissed his cheek and tickled him beneath his chin, so I lay there and I kissed his cheek over and over. And I told him about my eternal love. How I would love him for ever. For the rest of my days and more.
Whatever grey absence had been dancing in my eyes grew wider until it had taken everything. Where Davey’s sweet, sleeping face should have been was nothing. I closed my eyes and made an appeal to whatever gods in the universe were listening.
I stroked Davey’s head so that he could be sure I was still there, and so that I could be sure he was still there. I rested a hand on his tiny chest and felt the gentle rise and fall of his breathing. How could there be something wrong with his heart when I could feel it beating stronger than my own? I reluctantly closed my eyes. I let the tears spill onto my arm and my sleeve, and I stroked his hair and I kissed his cheek and I told him more stories about the world, about jungles and animals and stars.
When I woke up, the migraine was gone.
Davey was gone too.
Lenni
‘LENNI, CAN YOU hear me?’
‘Lenni, talk to us, sweetheart.’
‘Lenni?’
The bed was laid flat beneath me; there were more voices.
‘It’s okay, Lenni, we’re here. Just stay calm.’
PART TWO
Lenni
WHENEVER I GO under general anaesthetic, I have the most vivid dreams. They are so vivid that in the past I have been accused of inventing them. I remember telling another girl in a different hospital in a different country about my dream, and she didn’t believe it. This dream, though, is incredible and it feels like it lasts for days and days. There is an octopus and we are the fiercest of friends. He is purple, and everything is bright and extraordinary. And I can hear the most wonderful music.