A Pocketful of Stars

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.

I notice the perfume still lingering on her skin. It wafts towards me as the heater blasts it in my direction.

I lean over to cover Mum with the flower-covered throw. The smell is overpowering now; I close my eyes and take it in. But my legs start to wobble, and I almost fall into the chair.

When I next open my eyes I’m back in front of the house again.

It’s night-time. The stars wave hello, like they’ve been expecting me.

The door of the house is wide open, like it expects me too. I’m certain it’s the one from the photo. Does that mean I’m in Kuwait? As soon as I think it I know I’m right.

I look to my left, where the great big iron gates stand, and to the right where an old set of swings sway in the warm breeze, and finally back at the house again.

It stands there, like the ruined palace from Fairy Hunters, where you collect your quests. And this time I go inside.

A tunnel of green greets me as I step through the door. Plants hang from the ceiling, their leaves skating down the walls and on to the purple-and-pink marbled floor. I sweep my hand along the wall, gathering leaves. As I pass through I think of Mum growing up here in this house. I think of her as a little child, holding on to her mother’s skirt like she did in that photo. I want to swoop her up in my arms and tell her everything is going to be OK. Because that’s what I need someone to tell me.

Soon I find myself in a foyer with a round table in the middle of it. Windows line one entire side of the wall, their blinds, like the house’s eyelids, are pulled down, like it’s asleep. The pearlescent walls sparkle in the light, and an enormous canvas of the sky stands at the furthest end of the room. This is how I imagine the fairy palace would have looked before it turned to ruin. Red and gold furniture, rich colours and patterned curtains. It’s like stepping into a dream.

As I walk across the room it’s as if I can feel the house breathe beneath my feet.

Whish, whoosh. Pause. Whish, whoosh. Pause. Its steady heartbeat drumming through the floors.

Another leaf-lined hallway leads to a different part of the house, and a staircase winds upwards just next to it.

I’m about to try the other rooms, to explore more, when I see it.

A bracelet.

It’s the only thing on the glass-topped table, and it sparkles and glints at me.

Like it wants me to pick it up. In Fairy Hunters you always know when to collect objects, because they glow just a little brighter than everything else. That’s what this reminds me of.

I see something inscribed on the bracelet, but it’s in Arabic. Mum taught me it when I was younger, though we haven’t had lessons in a while. I understand Arabic much better than I can read it. Mum eventually gave up trying to teach me all the letters and how to join them together, but I think I can still read some of them.

I pick the bracelet up and try to make out what it says. Slowly.

I get as far as ‘am’ before I hear it.

Laughter. Coming from the front door.

Then I see it. Something shoots across the room, like a star.

I realize it’s a young girl, followed by another.

They pass by me so quickly I don’t see their faces – just a blur of long curly hair as they bolt up the stairs.

I jump and drop the bracelet, my heart pounding.

It clatters on the table, startling me.

When I next look up I’m back at the hospital by Mum’s bedside. My glasses have fallen from my face and on to the floor while I was sleeping.

As I put them on and look around the same thing happens as before.

The heat.

The sand.

Except this time, instead of silver branches I see leaves everywhere, crawling up Mum’s bed, reaching for her.

I rub my eyes and after that they’re gone. I wave my hand in front of my face like before and it blurs, making me feel dizzy.

I wait until the feeling passes, and then I rush out of the room without saying goodbye.

Another strange dream, I think.

Those girls . . . The curly hair. It can’t be, can it?

Then I wonder, almost hope, will it happen again?

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.