A Pocketful of Stars, page 3
It seems to be open. Maybe I can ask them to tell me where I am. Maybe they can explain why it’s so hot, why there are trees I’ve never seen in England before, and why I keep hearing someone call my name.
I don’t seem to have anything on me, even though I could swear my phone was in my pocket when I got to the hospital.
I run across the street, eyes darting left and right, looking out for people and cars. But as my foot hits the pavement on the other side of the road, the corner shop starts to shake and crumble. The roof sinks in and the walls tumble down, down, down, like a sandcastle washed away by the ocean.
The park turns to ash. Replacing it is a barren wasteland of sand for miles, mounds of it everywhere.
I turn round, but the house has disappeared too.
Before I have the chance to panic I hear another voice, a different one this time.
‘Visiting hours are over, love,’ someone says from a distance.
I whip my head up. I had been sitting next to Mum’s hospital bed, my head resting just next to her right arm.
‘Sorry to wake you,’ the nurse, Amanda, adds. I try to make sense of my surroundings again. ‘I’ll give you five minutes,’ she says, before retreating behind the curtain.
What a strange dream, I think as I try to reorient myself. It felt so real – like a hallucination, or something. Every time I blink it feels like I’m still in it, like my body and mind has been split into two. It was warm there, and I feel hot in my coat, even though it’s freezing outside.
From the corner of my eye I see silver branches crawling up the wall and along the floor, reaching for me. I look down and see sand. But then I blink and I see the branches are only wires from Mum’s monitor, and the sand is the shine from the fluorescent lighting.
I try to shake off my sense of panic, but it feels as if there are party poppers going off in my chest. I check my phone. It’s been twenty minutes since Elle texted me. How did so much happen in that time?
A violent shiver passes through me as I make to leave, and suddenly I can feel the midwinter chill again. It’s like I’ve been dunked in ice-cold water. It slams against my chest and for a second I can’t breathe.
I lean against the curtain rail next to Mum’s bed. My limbs feel tingly, like they’re not quite attached to me, and my head is swirling with the dream.
Eventually, after I say goodbye to Mum, I make my way back to the reception desk, where I find Dad, and notice again the room with the old man in it. It feels like a lifetime since I first saw him. A young woman and two children surround him now. He’s chatting and smiling with her while they play with the settings on his bed. He has a pile of books on his bedside and a tartan blanket by his feet. They make the room look alive.
I’ll bring some of Mum’s things next time, I think.
When we get home I still feel a little strange. I wave my hand in front of my face and I swear it blurs, just like in the dream. It makes me wonder if I’m still asleep. I blink once, then twice, and hope that everything becomes normal again. But nothing’s normal any more, is it?
I want so much to go back to last week, before everything went wrong. We’re going to see Mum again tomorrow after school, but what am I supposed to do until then?
My feet tread the familiar path up to my room, and I automatically jump on to my computer, without really meaning to. But as soon as my headphones are on, it feels like the rest of the world disappears.
I click on the button, which resembles an old scroll, and wait for the screen to load.
My bedroom walls pull apart brick by brick, and in their place sprouts an ancient fairy palace; my bed folds up into a giant nest; and, instead of street lamps and terraced houses, my windows show me a dense forest as tall as the eye can see. And, all at once, I feel calm.
The world of Fairy Hunters unfolds around me. I’ve been playing it since I was ten, and I’m getting pretty good at it now. It’s an online game where you’re put into teams to battle it out – fairies against wizards. I always choose Team Fairy. The aim of the game is to protect our nest of eggs from the wizards, who try to steal them to make potions.
There are four kinds of fairy on each team – earth, fire, water and wind. Earth fairies are the protectors; they go in first as they have the best defensive spells to protect their team. Then come the fire fairies – the close-range spellcasters. They need to cast quickly and attack the wizards before they have the chance to defend themselves. Next are the water fairies, the long-range spellcasters. Their job is to cast spells that take more time to conjure but are more powerful. They usually hang back. Then there are the wind fairies. I’m one of them. Our job is to help the rest of the team. Most people don’t like playing as wind fairies, because they think we’re useless.
We’re not. A lot of the time we’re the difference between winning and losing the game.
As I walk through the map and see the ruined palace in the distance – ivy growing all over it, walls cracked – I can’t help but remember the house from my dream with the silver branches. The park, too, looks similar. Except, instead of palm trees, in Fairy Hunters, the trees are oak; and, instead of a corner shop, there’s the Wicked Woodlands where the wizards live.
Almost an hour later I’m just about to be crowned most valuable player when Dad’s voice floats up from the living room beneath me. ‘Safiya!’ he calls, piercing the bubble that my headphones have formed. ‘Dinner!’
And, just like that, the spell is broken.
The next day at school everything’s a little strange. The teachers keep talking to me in really high-pitched voices, eyes creased with sympathy. It’s the way strangers talk to Lady in the street. Usually she wees on them in response. She does that a lot when people are nice to her.
As I was getting ready to leave Maths for lunch Ms Belgrave called me over, handed me a pack of sweets and winked, like it was a secret. Except, instead of winking she kind of just twitched her eye. I didn’t wee on her, the way Lady would, I just took the sweets and said thank you.
I suppose Dad will have told the teachers about Mum, but that doesn’t explain why everyone else is staring at me. I keep checking to see if I have toilet roll on my shoe or a giant spot in the middle of my nose.
‘What do you think, Saff?’ Elle asks halfway through lunch.
I turn to her, eyes wide. I realize I haven’t been listening. I’d been thinking about the strange dream I had at the hospital yesterday.
Izzy saves me. ‘I think he’s cool,’ she says.
That’s when I realize they’re talking about Matty Chung, Elle’s latest crush. I glance over at him, where he sits with his best friends Jonnie and David.
I don’t know how to respond because I don’t really think anything of him, or any boys, for that matter.
I remember when we were in Year Seven and no one else talked to us. Sounds weird, but I preferred it. We used to have a sleepover at Elle’s house every Friday night. We would do our homework first while Elle’s mum baked. It was usually cookies or a cake that she would let us have as a treat before dinner. Afterwards we always watched a film and then stayed up late chatting or playing silly games in bed when we were supposed to be sleeping.
But then Year Eight happened, and we made more friends, and now everyone wants to hang out at Maccies after school or go to the cinema with boys. Everything’s changing so quickly that it feels like my world is crumbling, just like in the dream. Like everything I’ve ever known is made of sand; one big wave could wash it away into the ocean.
‘Saff !’ Elle whispers furiously. ‘Don’t stare at him. He’ll know we’re talking about him.’
‘Sorry.’ I smile sheepishly and turn back to my lasagne.
‘What’s the latest anyway?’ Elle asks. ‘How’s your mum?’
Three pairs of eyes turn to me just then, and I want to shrink away from their sympathy, hide from their curiosity.
‘I don’t really know,’ I admit, playing with my food. ‘Mum’s in a coma still. Apparently she had some sort of stroke. There’s a fancy name for it, but I can’t really remember it now.’
What I do know is that being in a coma is kind of like you’re asleep, except you can’t be woken up by loud noises or dogs licking your face in the morning.
Often the patient – which is how they keep referring to Mum – wakes up after a few weeks, once their body has recovered from the trauma. I don’t think about the other outcome, which is that some patients never wake up.
The doctors asked Dad and me if Mum had any symptoms in the weeks leading up to the stroke. The main symptom, they explained, was a headache about a week or two before.
My heart dropped when they said that, because Mum had complained about a headache during our argument. And then I’d . . .
I didn’t tell the doctors about it, though, because that would mean I would have to tell them about the argument, and I don’t know if I could bear to find out that it was all my fault.
‘She had an operation on the first night, so now all we can do is . . . wait,’ I finish lamely.
Waiting feels so . . . wrong. I want to do something, to help. But instead I just have to live life like normal.
Dad said it was important to maintain my routine, whatever that means, and carry on with school and friends. But why pretend everything’s fine when it’s all wrong, wrong, wrong?
Suddenly tears well up in my eyes.
‘D-does anyone want some sweets?’ I ask to avoid the embarrassment of crying. ‘Ms Belgrave gave them to me,’ I add, accidentally spilling the contents all over the table.
‘Oh, Saff !’ Elle says, grabbing my hand. Izzy goes to get a tissue, while Abir strokes my shoulder. ‘We’re here for you. Anything you need . . .’
I nod. ‘Thank you.’ I smile back at them, even though I want to keep crying.
I try to focus on doing something, instead of sitting here and moping. That’s when I get an idea.
‘Actually . . .’ I say. ‘There is something you could do for me . . .’
A little while later I leave school just before the bell rings for the end of lunch. I asked Elle and the others to let our form tutor know I’ve gone home.
Except that’s not really where I’m going.
With shaking hands I put the key in the lock and let myself inside. My first thought is that it’s really quiet. Usually the TV is on, or some music. I switch on the lights, take off my coat, and turn on the TV for background noise. My second thought is that it smells like her – Mum’s flat.
It’s a full minute, maybe more, before I can bear to step inside any further. It’s as if I’m glued to the door, paralysed, like a wizard has trapped me in a snare. My blood is pumping around my body too quickly and I feel my limbs tingling, too heavy to lift. I crouch down at the threshold for a moment until the feeling passes.
The living room’s a bit of a mess. The house phone is on the floor. Dad said Mum called the ambulance herself. She could tell something was happening to her. The coffee table has been shoved aside – that must have been the paramedics. Then there’s papers scattered all over, and a big beige stain has ruined the white carpet. Coffee. Mum never drank anything else. Her mug – the posh floral one I got her for her birthday – stands upright on the table.
The papers look like a report from one of Mum’s cases. I gather them up, careful to make sure they’re stacked in order. If Mum gets home she’ll . . .
When . . . I think instead. Because Mum’s going to be OK. I know she is.
There’s a bunch of post by the door that must’ve been delivered after Mum went into hospital: some letters and a delivery card. I put them on the table too.
Next, I make my way to the kitchen.
I almost can’t go inside when I see the table set for two, and the remnants of the meal Mum was cooking laid out on the counter. My heart lurches. I should’ve been there. She thought I was still going to come over. Or maybe she hoped.
Some of it has been put away, like someone’s tried to tidy after her, but they didn’t do it properly, and the smell of herbs still lingers.
Mum’s always been a messy cook; it drove Dad up the wall. He usually did all the cooking, and he could never quite handle it whenever she insisted that it was her turn. He would hover, cleaning up behind her. Dad is all about order. Mum was . . . is . . . free.
I decide to finish the tidying. When I’m done and everything looks normal again I stand and look around, feeling a little strange, like I’m trespassing.
Like in the dream.
What have I come here to do?
I think back to the man at the hospital with his tartan blanket and his books, and then stare around Mum’s flat. What shall I take in for her?
I think of the mug on the table, but she can’t exactly use it, can she?
In the end I settle for a throw she always keeps on the sofa, covered in yellow flowers, and a worn-out cushion that’s shaped like a fox. That’ll make her hospital room prettier, won’t it?
I decide to try her bedroom next. As soon as I walk in her signature perfume envelops me. It’s musky: some sort of wood, rose and maybe orange? It smells like comfort and childhood and home. But I daren’t touch it. It’s too special.
Instead I reach for her hand cream. Mum was always moisturizing her hands. She would offer me some every time, but I always refused.
‘They make my fingers greasy,’ I once moaned.
‘Oh, don’t be so silly!’ she said, chasing me around the room. Eventually Mum caught me and slathered my palms in lotion. ‘You’ll thank me when you’re my age and have the hands of a toddler.’
‘That sounds so weird,’ I said, grinning. At the time I imagined grown-up Mum walking around with tiny hands.
I still remember the way Mum laughed at that. Each note of it floated up, up, up, filling the room with joy, like birds singing on the first day of spring.
I put a pea-sized amount of hand cream on my palms, and rub it in carefully, the way Mum always does.
As I leave Mum’s room I notice a photo by her bed. It’s of my grandmother standing in front of a great big house. I’ve never met her, only seen photos. She died before I was born, but Mum used to say her soul went into my body, so it’s like she’s still here. Toddler Mum stands next to my grandmother, clinging to her skirt.
I’m so focused on my mother and grandmother that I barely notice the house. But when I do I almost gasp. Apart from the silver branches it looks exactly like the one in . . .
‘My dream,’ I say aloud.
When Dad and I get to the hospital in the evening Edward waves me through right away. ‘Your mum’s doing well today,’ he says with a smile, though I’m not exactly sure what that means. She’s still in a coma after all.
When I walk into Mum’s room I see it as if for the first time. Yesterday I was too focused on Mum to notice anything else. There are two other beds in the room, alongside Mum’s, and the patients in them are asleep. I wonder what their stories are, what happened to them. I can hear their machines humming in unison, pumping air through their bodies like an orchestra. Then there’s Mum’s, just out of time with the others.
I walk over to her curtain and seeing her again sends a wave of something through me. Shock? Fear?
It’s something else, something I can’t quite pinpoint.
‘Hello, lovely.’ It’s Amanda, the nurse who helped me yesterday. She’s peering round the curtain now. I feel embarrassed to see her. ‘How are you doing today?’
‘Good, thanks.’ I smile awkwardly. I can’t stop thinking about how I cried in front of her. ‘I . . . uh . . . brought some stuff in for Mum.’ Suddenly I feel all shy again. ‘Is it OK if . . .’ My sentence fizzles out into nothing.
Amanda beams, peering into my bag. ‘Let me help you with that.’
Instead of saying thanks like a normal person, I make an indiscernible noise that sounds a bit like a cow trying to sing.
Stop being weird, Saff.
The thing is, sometimes my brain just goes blank. It’s like standing in a dark room where I try to reach for words, any words, but there’s nothing there.
Amanda picks up the throw and places it over Mum’s blanket, while I position the fox cushion at the top of her bed.
‘Well then, you look much better today,’ Amanda says when we’re done, glancing in my direction. ‘School went well?’ She eyes up my snot-green uniform.
‘Yeah!’ I answer a little too enthusiastically.
She nods. ‘Anyway, these are lovely!’ she says, pointing at the blanket and cushion. She fluffs the cushion up and places it next to Mum’s head, and speaks again before I have to think up a response.
‘It’ll be really good for your mum to have familiar things around her. Home comforts.’ She smiles.
‘Yeah,’ I say again, grinning at her like a maniac.
Say something else, Saff.
But I can’t. It feels weird to be making small talk with a virtual stranger across the bed of my unconscious mother.
‘All right,’ Amanda sings, unfazed. ‘I’ll leave you to it!’ She pulls the curtains shut with finality, and I’m left alone with Mum again. The sudden silence is jarring.
I try to hold Mum’s hand, but it’s cold, like a corpse’s, and I pull back. I try again. I wrap my fingers round hers, avoiding the tube protruding from her wrist that is keeping her body nourished. I want to warm her skin. I want her to feel my touch.
I reach into my bag and pull out Mum’s hand cream. I put a little in my palms and rub them together. Then I rub it on her hands, one at a time. When I’m done I look up at Mum again. I imagine her brown eyes creasing up as she smiles, sparkling with life. I want to see them now. I want her to look at me. Even if it is one of her angry looks. Right now I’d take anything.
Open your eyes, Mum. ‘Open your eyes.’ I say it aloud without meaning to and cover my mouth with my hand, the other still clinging to hers, my grip firm, desperate. ‘Please,’ I add quietly.
She doesn’t of course, because Mum’s always been stubborn.
