Hope Read online

  ‘It’s pay day tomorrow. We could get some nice food for the weekend, maybe even a meal deal? And we could go into town. I’d like to get you some new clothes for starting work, until we can get your top ordered in. I’m sure there’s a few sales on. New start next month, once you’ve finished your exams,’ she chatters, gathering up her car keys with a smile as she heads to the back door.

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ I mutter.

  She stops near the door. I watch her shoulders rise with tension and then drop with an effort. I know she’s trying, but I can’t meet her halfway, not tonight.

  ‘Hope, we’ve talked about this. You agreed. I know you don’t want to spend the summer with me at work but we made a deal.’

  I don’t want to work with her. I want to stay here in the house on my own and just…

  ‘You are not going to waste the summer hanging around the house! Moping about won’t make anything better.’ She comes back to the table and pulls out a chair. ‘It’ll just make you feel worse, trust me.’

  I want her to go and take her well-meant assumptions about my feelings with her. She’s doing her ‘I’m your parent not your best friend’ thing and tonight it’s making my skin crawl. She thinks I can just work through the summer and go to Shrewsbury Sixth-Form College, as if that’s all I’ve ever dreamed of.

  ‘You’re not the only one, are you? Callie and Aisha didn’t get in either. I guess the timing doesn’t help?’ She pauses. ‘You’re probably feeling worse about it all because you’re hormonal at the moment.’

  Hormonal is the understatement of the year. I’m getting angrier each month, more aggressive and less in control. And it’s scaring me, really scaring me. Sometimes I’ve not been able to keep it in, even at school. I can hear what I’m saying, can imagine my face contorting as the spiteful words come out of my mouth and I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be constantly apologising for whatever’s just come out of my mouth.

  I tried managing myself with fake days off each month, but Mum cottoned on and forced me out of bed. It isn’t that my periods are that painful. Then I’d take some tablets, grab a hot water bottle and eat some chocolate, just like the other girls do. But my mood swings are not like everyone else’s.

  ‘We can talk about things when I get back from the Bird’s Nest book club. Or come with me, if you want?’ She puts her copy of the new Kate Atkinson on the table as an offering.

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got loads of stuff to do. You go!’ I pull up the corners of my mouth with force, even though I know my eyes won’t match. ‘Have a good time!’

  She nods at my fake smile, kisses the top of my head and rushes out. Her long hair smells of coconut and I just manage to stop myself grabbing hold of it and wrapping it around my neck like a noose so that she can’t leave me.

  I don’t want to scare her with this, I’m not ready. Neither of us are.

  I listen to the house once she’s gone. Scout barks at someone daring to walk past, something clangs in the washing machine, there’s a whirring or a pulse coming from the walls as if the house is alive, breathing, waiting for my next move.

  I don’t know what to do once I’ve eaten. I can’t even think about revising, there’s no way any of it would go in. I stupidly presumed we’d be out celebrating. I slump over to the sofa. I don’t reach for the TV remote. I don’t glance at the shiny magazines Mum’s brought home from work. I just sit and feel blank. Scout gives me the eye but I don’t feel like taking her for a walk right now. She’s far too happy and bouncy. I close my eyes and fall into a sleep that’s filled with falling off cliffs and tripping over curbs.

  The text makes me jump. It vibrates in the back pocket of my jeans, insistent. It’s probably Callie, she’s not going to give up tonight. It might be easier to go out with her.

  It vibrates again. I shove my glasses up my nose as the third text announces its arrival. I swipe the screen to unlock it. It’s not Callie. It’s him – him from the ferry, him – Riley Santiago.

  How r y? Grand?

  Come on now, you know the deal, you’re supposed to tell me you’re alright so I don’t have to alert the guards!

  Checked your email lately? Got your attention now haven’t I! ;)

  What does he mean check my email? He hasn’t got my email address.

  I fling my phone onto the sofa. Scout barks at me in excitement as I run upstairs. My laptop hums into life when I open it. The screen says it is starting 1 of 3 updates and not to shut it down. I run back downstairs to read his texts again, trying to decode them. Scout paces back and forth, looking hopefully at the back door. Has Riley sent me an email? Has he hacked my email? Does he know something I don’t?

  Maybe… Maybe I’ve got a second chance, another audition? But how could he know that, unless he was at Dublin, too? He looked like an actor; his name is definitely showy enough, unlike mine, Hope Baldi.

  ‘Riley Santiago.’ I try the sound of his name out loud. Definitely an actor. I bet he has an Equity card. He could be a talent scout! Maybe he saw something in me? Maybe he was at the audition and disagreed with the others? It happens, you hear about it all the time. All the time.

  I run back up the stairs. My homepage is loading. I click on the envelope icon and wait. I have one new mail. I hit the key and it opens.

  Just checking in to make sure you aren’t scaring any more gulls with your screeching, banshee girl. Car’s got a flat battery. Telly’s shite. What r u doing?

  So no. He isn’t anyone. He doesn’t have anything to tell me. He’s talking about telly and cars and he can’t even type. He’s doing text talk on his email as if these are interchangeable. How did he get my email? I fire back frustration and disappointment:

  Stalker! How did you get my email?

  There’s no reply. I click the refresh button. Nothing. I thought he said he was bored.

  I put some music on to drown out my own voice. I go to the bathroom and check the spots on my forehead as a distraction – it doesn’t work. I come back and there’s an email sat there waiting. I ought to delete it but I can’t.

  Sent myself an email from yr phone on the ferry. Insurance policy in case you ignored my texts. And guess what… you did. Want to skype?

  He’s clearly a flake. He thinks we have some kind of connection. He thinks we’re what… friends? Skype? He sounds at least three beers into his evening. I’m not skyping him. I’ve got to shut this down before it gets out of hand. I need to get rid of him.

  No, I don’t want to Skype – don’t even know you. Delete me from your phone.

  I wait for his reply but there’s no response.

  ‘Hope, I’ve asked Owen and Pryia to look after you today. You can shadow them this week and then you can shadow me and Nikhil the week after?’ I’m the only trainee this summer, and despite my induction I’m nervous. Mum runs through her staff list as if I should know them. The last time – I can’t think about the last time I saw them – the last time I refused to look at them and pretended that I couldn’t hear their sympathetic words and sorries when they came back to the house afterwards. And now I’m in a place I vowed I’d never return to – a hospital. Trapped here for the whole summer.

  The automatic doors magically open as we approach. Dad’s joke about using the force to part the doors plays like an old black and white film in my head. I run up the ramp after Mum, leaving the memory behind me, and I’m hit by the stench of clinical cleanliness.

  ‘Morning, Erin. Hey, Hope.’ It’s Nikhil, Mum’s partner at work. I feel embarrassed. He’ll know all about my auditions. But he doesn’t even say ‘Sorry’ or ‘Things will work out.’

  As Mum fills out some paperwork at reception, Nikhil rubs his hands under a cleaning gel dispenser, gesturing that I should do the same. My skin absorbs the gel in seconds but I keep rubbing my hands for something to do while we stand by the lift waiting, him smiling and smelling nice, and me breathing in and out, trying not to sweat with nerves.

  In case anyone doesn�
�t know who Nikhil is, the massive capital letters SINGING MEDICINE TEAM on the back of his purple polo shirt should make it clear. Nikhil’s clean looking, like his whole body has just come out of the washing machine. His top is crisp and smells freshly ironed. As we get out of the lift, Mum is coming up from the stairwell. She never uses the lift unless she’s with a patient, says the stairs are healthier. She and Nikhil fall into step and I follow along a corridor inventively called Hospital Street.

  When we get to the staffroom, I sit next to the kettle and fiddle with the milk, feeling out of place. I watch them rushing about, gathering up purple buckets full of musical instruments, ward sheets hidden in purple plastic wallets and bottles of hand-sanitising gel. They don’t look like nurses and doctors but there’s an air of medicine about them, a smell of something clean and smart about their purple Singing Medicine polo shirts.

  ‘Come on then, Hope. Come and meet the children on Pan ward!’ Pryia says, holding open the door to a corridor full of posters, paintings and photos of smiling children. I can’t help but notice her belt. It has the Catwoman symbol on it. She sees me checking it out, grins, then passes me a name badge. I reluctantly stick it onto my new shirt, pricking my finger on the pin. Pryia passes me a Gruffalo plaster. She clicks her tongue at me as if to say to take more care.

  There’s a big sign saying RENAL outside the Peter Pan ward, which is noisy with footsteps, trolley wheels rolling, curtain rails being pulled back, spoons clattering against bowls and chatter everywhere. The patients are having their breakfast. This must be a high point in the day as the children seem a bit hyper. As I walk down the ward the noise grows. Owen is waving to the children, laughing at some of the things they say as he bounces past them. His trainers squeak on the floor like manic mice. The children’s noise is because of them – Pryia and Owen. The kids sit up looking hopeful. Some of them were watching individual TV screens pulled down over their beds but now their attention is firmly fixed on the Singing Medicine team. It’s like a celebrity has walked into the room.

  Each kid is hooked up to a machine which whirrs and clicks. A dial spins around constantly and I see red coming out of one of the tubes.

  ‘They’re having dialysis, the machine is cleaning their blood. They have to sit still for up to four hours. See that there? That’s a Hemo-Cath, which is basically their lifeline, so they can’t jump around too much,’ Pryia tells me. They’ve got tubes going into their noses as well. I’m not sure what they do – could be food or oxygen, I guess. Most have a parent holding their hand, or watching the telly with them. One parent and a little girl are doing some colouring-in, but she stops to look up when she hears Owen’s footsteps. Her face changes, excitement making her sit up.

  ‘OWEN!’ shouts a small boy with a big afro. He breaks into a smile as Owen pulls a silly face at him and shakes a maraca. Then Owen and Pryia start singing and everything changes.

  It isn’t just the atmosphere on the ward. It’s more than that. The air fills with something. Even the nurses change the way they walk: they are smoother and almost fade into the background. The singing has a soothing effect like a salve and envelops everyone in its magic.

  In the corner I spot a girl who looks much older than the others, and is almost tucked away from them behind a partition. No one sits with her. She doesn’t move as I walk up to her bed so I whisper, ‘Are you awake?’

  She doesn’t reply.

  ‘She’s awake.’ A nurse appears from nowhere. I’ve got no idea what to do as he checks her blood pressure. I look at the big machine she’s hooked up to. It says Gambro on the front and is bluey green. I try not to look at her blood – it seems way too personal, but I can’t help it. I watch her blood coming out of her body and going into the machine, which turns constantly and makes a strange sound. I wonder if you get used to it. The nurse makes notes on a clipboard at the end of the girl’s bed. I feel in the way and lean over to make sure he can get past me. I don’t know where to put myself.

  The girl doesn’t register me, as if she’s pretending she’s not in the room with us. She looks about twelve. Her hair is tucked away under a sky-blue hijab with tiny silver stars on it. I sit on the chair near the little cupboard on wheels next to her bed. I try and make myself small and let them get on with it, but the nurse shakes his head at me.

  ‘Aren’t you going to sing to her?’ He’s obviously used to the Singing Medicine team.

  ‘Um, no,’ I tell him, hoping he’ll leave me be. He stands there, looking pointedly at my name badge. I get his confusion. I’m confused too. How the hell am I going to make it through this summer in a team of singers when I can’t trust my voice anymore?

  ‘Well, make yourself useful then.’ He passes me a hot-pink book with yellow writing on the cover, holding it across the girl’s bed until I have to take it. I wait for further instruction but he walks off. He’s left me on my own with her, as if I know what I’m doing. I turn the book over in my hands and read the blurb on the back.

  Sunny, Kitty and Hannah are set for the Best. Summer. Ever.

  Of course they are, everyone’s going to have a ball this summer. I open the book to a creased-down page. I look around in search of inspiration but everyone is doing something. There’s no way I’m going to ask for help so soon. I can do this. I’m not totally useless. I tap her very gently on the shoulder and hold the book out to her, hoping she might take it, but she blanks me. I start reading aloud.

  The sign above the Harry Potter ward says Burns Unit. Owen and Pryia pause outside a small room before the doors to the main ward and I stop, wondering why we’re not going through. Owen squirts some gel from the bottle clipped onto his belt, rubs it over his hands and waits for Pryia to do the same. There’s yellow and black tape around the floor, as if the room has been cordoned off like a crime scene. The sign says Protective Isolation. Pryia follows Owen in, but holds the edge of the door so firmly, I almost crash into her.

  ‘Ah, I’d forgotten you wouldn’t be able to come in here with us. We’ll catch up with you in about ten minutes, okay?’ Behind her I see Owen put on a mask, apron and gloves, before she sharply pushes the door shut.

  ‘Where do they all come from, the patients?’ I ask Owen, when they come out of the small room ten minutes later.

  ‘Birmingham mostly and the rest of the Midlands, but we get people coming from further afield, especially north Wales. This is one of the best children’s hospitals in the UK,’ he answers, with pride in his voice. Owen is a nurse here as well as working with Singing Medicine. ‘Come on, we’re going to go onto the main burns ward now. If you need to get out you hit the green button and this is the code. I’ve written it down for you. Have you ever been on a burns ward before?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘If you feel uncomfortable, that’s understandable, but you mustn’t make the patients feel uncomfortable. Say you’ve got to go to the toilet or need to make a phone call, then leave quietly and we’ll find you when we’re done.’ He obviously thinks I’m not going to be able to cope. How bad is this going to be? Mum wouldn’t let me see anything really traumatic, would she?

  I follow Owen and Pryia, who stop in front of bright red, yellow and blue sofas that look very Ikea. A pair of crutches are propped up against one. Pryia and Owen hand out instruments and wait patiently for the kids to settle down. Parents stand awkwardly behind them, looking as if they’d rather be somewhere else. I keep my eyes on the parents for a second before forcing myself to look at the children. I tell myself not to stare at them but it doesn’t matter because they’re all busy staring at me. They whisper behind their hands but Pryia is on to them.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, a new person. Now hush it!’ she joked, grinning. ‘This is Hope. She’s going to be joining us for a bit. And I know you’ll make her feel welcome.’

  Owen winks at me and starts singing, just like that, with no introduction. He’s bordering on cheesy, but all the kids join in. I don’t know the song. I shake my tambourine, pretending that I’m fine wi
th all of this singing, smiling and generally being super happy, even though one girl’s hands are so burned that she can’t hold an instrument. She’s bandaged up to both her elbows and holds them away from her body at an awkward angle. Her eyes look squashed as if her skin has swollen up. But she’s laughing and singing and asking Owen to use rude words. Her dad rolls his eyes at her toilet humour and goes back to texting. I stop second-guessing what’s happened to these children. But I don’t sing because I can’t, nothing comes out when I try. It’s like that part of my voice box has been switched off and I’ve no idea why. I’d fake it if I could or even hum at least, but singing isn’t something you can fake, unlike my smile.

  They sing three songs, not nursery rhymes and not hymns either. They sing funny counting songs with animal sounds, then they switch and sing personal songs they must have written about healing. I didn’t realise they wrote their own songs. I mean, Mum must have mentioned it, but I didn’t take it in properly. I thought they just altered ones from a song book or something like that. They sing stories and when they use one of the kid’s names in the song you can tell who Becky, Max or Raja is because they sit up taller and don’t take their eyes off Owen or Pryia. The singing casts a spell over all the children, taking them somewhere else. I play a triangle, ambitiously moving on from the tambourine. Pryia looks at me when I don’t join in with the singing, but she doesn’t ask me why and I’m relieved. When they finish, the kids are calmer – it’s like a musical form of medicine, a bit like magic, except I’m too old to believe in that anymore.

  ‘How are you doing, Hope?’ Owen asks, steering me towards a row of blue chairs lined up against the wall. We sit down and he rubs his hands over his face, his stubble making a scratching sound like sandpaper.