Chapter 16
16
They followed a rocky, even at times gravelly and slippery, path away from the road and down the side of the steep hill they’d climbed in the car. All of them used the lights from their phones to guide their footsteps.
‘Take care,’ Lucie warned Zoe as she heard the scrape of a shoe sliding in the gravel over the dusty earth.
‘I’m fine,’ Zoe insisted.
In the dim darkness, Lucie could already see the outline of things on the ground; from this distance, it looked like bags, sleeping bags and other items. And yes, as they approached, it was obvious that there was someone in one of the bags.
Pete began to speak in his native language as they approached the person in the sleeping bag.
‘This him,’ he turned to tell Lucie and Zoe. ‘This my brother.’
‘What’s his name?’ Zoe asked. ‘His real name, if that’s OK.’
‘Fikru,’ Pete replied.
Carefully, Zoe lowered herself down until she was kneeling, so she could take a close look at the young man lying in the scruffy bag on the ground.
‘Can you shine the light for me, Mum? But at a distance and not in his eyes,’ she asked.
‘No problem,’ Lucie told her, and she redirected the beam from her phone.
‘Hello, Fikru,’ Zoe began, ‘I’m Zoe. I’m a nurse and I’m going to check you over and make sure you’re OK.’
As Zoe unzipped the first aid kit and brought out a thermometer and a stethoscope, it was already obvious to Lucie that Fikru, who looked even younger than his brother, was not OK.
He was only dimly aware of them. He could open his eyes a little but he didn’t lift his head.
Zoe had the thermometer in his mouth and was now opening the sleeping bag so she could listen to his heartbeat.
‘Tell me when he started to be ill, Pete?’ she asked the concerned young man, who was now kneeling on the other side of his brother.
Pete looked at her, worried and not fully understanding the question.
‘Two days sick?’ Zoe asked, holding up two fingers. ‘Three days sick?’
‘Yes.’ Pete began to nod. ‘Three days sick.’
Lucie took a moment to look around at this place where these young brothers had been living, possibly for a few days. There were only the barest essentials here: some empty water bottles, several plastic carrier bags with maybe food, maybe a handful of belongings inside. There was a big box – something battery-operated, she guessed – attached to an extension cord with a row of plugs, and in those plugs, two phone chargers. But out here, no one could get a signal.
Lucie imagined the boys at night, hunkered down beside this row of plugs, trying to send messages to their family back home, trying to keep track of other friends on the move across other countries. All of them trying to find somewhere else to lead their lives. Imagine if her child was on a perilous journey into the unknown like this.
She had no idea what the answer was to enormous international problems like immigration. But she did know that her lack of trust and her suspicion were quickly being replaced by sympathy and what she most of all wanted was to be helpful and kind.
‘A cut?’ was Zoe’s next question. ‘Is he injured?’
When Pete didn’t follow what was meant, she asked, ‘Blood? Bleeding? Pain?’ in the hope that any of these words would trigger his understanding.
Then she gestured sawing at the skin on her forearm and pinching it.
Finally, Pete seemed to understand. He unzipped the sleeping bag fully and pulled up the leg of his brother’s tracksuit trousers. Lucie shone the light onto the leg and they could all see a large swelling with an oozing opening in the centre.
Pete made a buzzing sound and moved his finger to indicate an insect.
‘An insect bite?’ Lucie asked. ‘That’s got infected?’
‘I think so, and it’s serious,’ Zoe said. ‘I’m worried about sepsis and we’ve got to get him to hospital.’
Looking up at Pete, Zoe said slowly and clearly, ‘I have medicine,’ and she held up the small box of antibiotic tablets that she carried in her first aid kit.
Pete looked almost tearfully relieved.
‘Take medicine… be OK?’ he asked hopefully.
But Zoe shook her head. ‘No, we must take him to the car. We go to hospital.’
These words seemed to alarm Pete.
He shook his head and repeated, ‘Take medicine, be OK.’
‘No, Pete. He could die.’ Zoe did her best imitation of a dead person here. ‘Hospital,’ she repeated. ‘Hospital now.’
The cause of the distress quickly became obvious as Pete began to urgently tell them: ‘No moneys, no papers. No moneys, no papers.’
Zoe gave the universal calming hands gesture. ‘Is OK, is OK,’ she soothed. ‘Need doctor first.’
‘You doctor?’ Pete pointed at her and sounded almost as if he was accusing her of not doing what she should do.
‘Nurse,’ she said, pointing at herself, ‘not doctor. Need hospital. Need big, big medicine.’
‘How on earth are we going to get him to the car?’ Lucie asked, beginning to feel properly worried by how quickly this situation was unravelling.
‘I don’t know, but we have to try,’ Zoe said. ‘He could die out here. Honestly, if we don’t have him in hospital within a few hours, he might not make it. Even in hospital he might not make it.’
The words were frightening, but Zoe’s tone was completely calm and controlled, which helped Lucie to breathe and to calm down too.
‘Is it that bad?’ she asked her daughter.
‘Yes, it’s bad, but luckily we’re here now.’
As they helped Fikru swallow the pills with some sips of water, Lucie couldn’t help feeling that it was amazing to watch a human being that you’d once carried on your arm, read bedtime stories to, blown the nose of, helped with her Maths homework – all those other tiny hours, days, years of parenting – it was amazing to see her as a fully separate, professional, human being, doing her difficult and responsible job. There she was, the all grown-up Zoe, doing what she was trained to do and doing it so well. She could tell that the boys were now trusting her to take charge just as much as Lucie was.
‘Pete, we must take Fikru to the car,’ Lucie said, thinking that two voices telling him this was what had to happen were better than one.
‘I get things,’ Pete said, and in just a few rushed moments, he’d packed up the power source, plugs, chargers and carrier bags into one much bigger plastic bag.
Then it took all three of them to get Fikru to his feet, where he wobbled and swayed against Lucie and Zoe as Pete hastily draped the two sleeping bags over his shoulder and scoured the ground to make sure he hadn’t left any of their few belongings behind.
‘No point asking him to leave the sleeping bags and heavier things for now?’ Lucie asked her daughter.
Zoe shook her head. ‘Looks like everything is very precious. He would just worry even more.’
‘How are we going to do this?’ Lucie asked.
‘You and me with Fikru between us… Pete carrying everything else? We’ll have to try. I’ll shine the phone light ahead of us. Just one step at a time,’ she encouraged her mother.
It was steep, and gravelly. It was very hard work. All Fikru could do was keep his feet on the ground and bear some of his weight for part of the walk. At other times, Lucie and Zoe were almost dragging him along, bearing his full weight. Not that it was much, because, just like his brother, he was slim and slight, making Lucie wonder when he and Pete had last eaten a full meal.
Just as they reached the brow of the hill, Deva spotted them and hurried out of the car to help.
Then together, they all made progress towards the Jag.
‘Come on,’ Zoe said, urging them onwards, ‘we need to get on our way. We need to get to this town and hope there’s some help for him there.’
‘I too in car?’ Pete asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ Lucie replied, ‘big car.’
And so, instructed by Zoe, Pete put his sleeping bags and possessions into the boot alongside their bags. Then he got into the back of the car, while they all managed to help guide weak and barely conscious Fikru into the middle, so he could rest his head on Pete’s chest, then Deva got in beside them. Zoe took up her place in the passenger’s seat and Lucie got behind the wheel.
For a moment, she looked in turn at all of her passengers, not quite able to believe how this day had developed, but it was certainly different from the usual and she was proud that hopefully she, Zoe and Deva were going to be able to help and do something useful today.
She put her key into the ignition and turned. There was a grinding, followed by almost a mechanical sort of cough, then the engine started and turned over… and kept turning without any strange sound.
‘Oh, that’s amazing, he’s actually managed to do it,’ she exclaimed.
‘Slow, slow,’ Pete instructed from the back seat.
Lucie made a very awkward five-point turn at the top of the hill, sure that she’d heard the crunch of the bumper meeting a fence post, but never mind that now. Then, with the car going at no more than ten miles per hour, she drove down the hill, listening nervously to the engine for any sign or sound that something may have gone wrong again. She listened also to the sound of Fikru’s small groans and Pete’s soothing words to his brother.
‘Do you think he’s going to be OK?’ she asked her daughter.
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ Zoe replied. ‘Depends how soon we can get him treated. I mean, will this town have a hospital? With an A he needs a hospital. He needs IV antibiotics as soon as possible. But I know you have to drive slowly. Better to drive slowly and get there than break down again and leave us all stranded… That would be a disaster right now.’
‘Yes,’ Lucie said, her fingers tight around the steering wheel as she willed the repair to hold and the car to keep going.
‘He really needs help,’ Zoe said.
‘You’ve given him some medicine though, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, as much as I can for now…’
‘Well, let’s just keep driving and hoping,’ Lucie said, trying to stay calm and focused, both on the road ahead and on the patient propped on the seat behind them, who she glanced in the mirror to look at every few minutes.
‘He sort of reminds me of Rafi,’ Zoe said after a little while. ‘Fikru,’ she added, to clarify. ‘I know that sounds strange because we’ve not been able to exchange even any words, but he’s got the same kind of bone structure and he’s very sensitive to touch… So a few parallels there.’
‘Sensitive to touch… and bright light?’ Deva asked from the back seat.
It was almost a little startling to hear Deva speak, as he’d been quiet ever since the car had set off.
‘Rafi? Yes, he is,’ Zoe confirmed, ‘and totally not a hugger.’
When Lucie turned to look at her daughter with her eyebrows raised, Zoe added, ‘Well, so long as he’s prepared, ready for me…’ She smiled. ‘But he jumps if you make unexpected moves.’
‘OK, here we are at the junction, turn right for Brive La Gaillarde… five kilometres. Fingers, toes, everything very, very crossed that we’re going to get there.’
‘Brive La Gaillarde?’ Deva repeated.
‘Yes, have I heard you mention that place?’ Lucie asked.
‘Brive La Gaillarde… This is the dream…’ Deva said, but quickly added, ‘Although obviously it’s a nightmare for our poor friend back here.’
‘So I’m guessing it’s a Chanel destination?’ Lucie asked.
‘Oh yeah…’ and Deva’s full-on enthusiasm was right back, but in consideration for the patient beside him, he kept his voice low. ‘Brive was where Chanel…’ he began, but then stopped himself and added, ‘You know, for now, never mind. I’m not sure if everyone wants to hear all the ins and outs of Coco’s early years right now, do they?’
‘Maybe not,’ Lucie agreed, ‘but I will ask you all about it when the time is right.’
‘Deal… but if it’s OK, there was something I was going to say to Zoe…’ Deva went on in a quiet voice.
‘Go for it, Deva, I’m all ears,’ Zoe replied from the front seat.
‘Well… don’t take this as anything other than one friend, well, in fact, cousin, just thinking out loud to another friend… cousin.’
‘Of course, it’s fine, go ahead, think out loud to me,’ Zoe assured him.
‘Well, you’ve heard of the “gaydar”, I’m sure?’
Zoe laughed a little uncertainly. ‘I don’t like to think of gaydars. I find it’s best just to not make any assumptions about anyone’s sexuality. We should all just mind our own business on that.’
‘No, I mean, yes, I totally agree… and what I was going to say is I have no clue about the gaydar; I mean, I don’t even know if I’m gay,’ he blurted. ‘I really have no clue. But I do have the “A-dar”.’
‘The A-dar?’ Zoe repeated. ‘What on earth is that?’
‘Just a sense when someone is on the spectrum like me, but they don’t know it yet. I know what to look for, and I’ve developed this feeling about when people might be… The word I like is “spectrumy”.’
‘I am a nurse, Deva. I have heard of autism,’ Zoe replied.
‘Yeah, and sometimes it’s obvious. But sometimes people miss the subtle things. I was just going to suggest, from what you’ve said… I could meet Rafi and see if my A-dar picks anything up.’
‘Rafi? Look, just because he lives alone and likes computers doesn’t mean… And anyway, I don’t know if that would help.’
Zoe sounded a little frosty now.
At this, Deva threw his head back and let out a long sigh. ‘Everyone says that. Everyone thinks they don’t want a label and how would it help? But, I promise, it is always better to know. If you’re diabetic, it’s better to know. If you’re manic depressive, it’s better to know. So, if you’re on the spectrum, it’s better to know.’
Then he went on, ‘And it’s a spectrum. No two people are the same. But it’s very easy to mis-read us, misunderstand us. And as for the myth that people on the spectrum are insensitive. Sometimes, it’s the opposite; sometimes we are so sensitive, we can hardly even… live ,’ he declared.
‘It’s better to know you’re diabetic because there are treatments for diabetes, but…’ Zoe began, then she petered out and seemed to think better of it.
‘There are treatments for all the things that come with autism,’ Deva countered. ‘There are treatments for the anxiety, the OCD or the insomnia… and then there’s all the psyche stuff – the understanding, self-care, self-management. That’s the really important bit. Plus, if you know you’re on the spectrum, you join the club of all the awesome auti people… like Chanel, is my guess. In fact, I want to go back through history and “out” all the autistic people.’
‘Why Chanel?’ Lucie asked him.
‘She had an incredible sense of smell… It was usually her first comment about people and places, how they smelled. She had a phobia of dirt, could never be a morning person, was obsessive about work, but it’s not fair to judge people you don’t know. You can have autistic traits from growing up in a family where maybe one parent is on the spectrum without being the full bhoona.’
‘Full bhoona?’ Lucie asked.
‘I think it’s a Glasgow thing. The whole hog?’
‘Right.’
‘I don’t think you should judge people you haven’t met,’ was Zoe’s verdict.
‘No! Of course not,’ Deva was quick to add. ‘But all I’m saying is that it is honestly better to know. Helps you to understand yourself… and helps other people to understand you. That’s all.’
Lucie glanced over at Zoe, but Zoe’s arms were folded over defensively. Whatever Deva might be getting at, Zoe didn’t appear to be interested.
Lucie drove on, carefully, steadily, listening all the time to the engine, and when she didn’t hear anything suspicious, she picked the pace up slightly to the 20 mph mark. And the miles passed. Her passengers didn’t talk much. They were tired and of course deeply concerned about the young man in a semi-conscious state on the back seat. She did hear Deva asking Pete where he was from and Pete replying ‘Eritrea’ before asking where Deva was from. ‘Scotland,’ Deva said, but he followed this up with, ‘My dad was a refugee from Sri Lanka.’
And even though Lucie had known this, she’d never really thought about it. She’d never thought about what it might really mean to have to leave your homeland and possibly all of your family because of war, or famine, or a political regime that suddenly meant you were on the wrong side and had to get out. Imagine leaving Sri Lanka and landing in Glasgow. That must have been a culture shock.
Now, she could see that there were a few houses appearing at the side of the road, the first signs that they were out of the deep countryside and approaching the town.
Then came a series of beeps and buzzing sounds and Zoe dived for the handbag at her feet, saying, ‘It’s my phone! We must have signal again.’
‘Thank God! Try the map,’ Lucie instructed. ‘See if you can get it to direct us to a hospital.’
After a few moments, Zoe exclaimed, ‘It’s working! L’h?pital in two kilometres.’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Lucie exclaimed as Zoe turned to Pete in the back seat and told him as simply as she could, ‘Hospital, doctors, very soon. In ten minutes.’ She held up her ten fingers to demonstrate.
‘Does anyone speak a decent level of French?’ Zoe asked next. ‘We need to explain what I think could be wrong.’
‘Google translate,’ Deva said. ‘Let’s look up everything you need to say.’
Arriving at the hospital, everyone was nervy. Lucie wasn’t sure where to put the car, while anxious Pete kept repeating ‘No paperis , no papières …’
Zoe made her mother drive right up to the A&E entrance, while she practised the sentence in French that Deva had found for her on Google translate: ‘Emergency – I have a patient in the car with suspected sepsis. I am a nurse.’
Turning to them all, as the car approached the A&E area, she said, ‘Don’t panic. This is my territory, I’ve got this. I’m going to get help.’
Then she smoothed down her hair, took a tiny moment to apply full-blooded wine-red lipstick, then, pulling herself out of the car, despite being rumpled and exhausted from a full day in a broken-down car on the hillside at almost eight months pregnant, she looked tall and powerful and magnificent.
This was Zoe, Lucie couldn’t help thinking, her own person, making her own choices, living her own life. Lucie was still her mother, of course, but the active childhood part of parenting and influencing was over now. This was Zoe, fully in charge of her own life. And Lucie realised she could let go and be fully proud of who her daughter was becoming.
‘There’s my wonderful girl,’ Lucie said out loud with tears welling up in her eyes. ‘She’s a nurse. And what a nurse!’