Читать книгу Boy Underwater - Adam Baron, Adam Baron - Страница 13

It didn’t take long. Four stops from Blackheath to somewhere called Welling. Good name for a place with a hospital, I thought. We got off the train and walked down this long high street past a Cancer Research and a Mencap. Mum would probably have dragged me into both of them. We’re always going in charity shops, for books and coats and stuff. Christmas cards in January, because she likes to be prepared. Last summer she bought this dress from the Oxfam in Blackheath Village. She loved it and was all smiley when she wore it, though on the heath after school one day Billy Lee’s mum told her that she had one just like it.

‘Well, I used to have,’ she said. And then she did this loud sniggering laugh, and Mum went red. She doesn’t wear it any more.

After going past a Greggs that smelled of sausage rolls we turned into some side streets. Uncle Bill didn’t need a map or anything and that made me frown.

‘Have you been here before?’

Uncle Bill looked annoyed with himself. I don’t think he meant to give that away.

‘You have, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘To see my mum?’ He nodded. ‘Has she been in this hospital before?’ He nodded again and I nodded back. It probably happened in that weird time Mum sometimes speaks about: BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. An odd time that, interesting in a way, though not particularly relevant to anything. ‘Before I was …?’

‘No, Cym. When you were a baby.’

‘And Mum went into hospital? Who looked after me?’

‘I did.’

‘Oh,’ I said, and my insides felt strange. It was shaky to hear that Mum had been in hospital before, but knowing Uncle Bill had looked after me made me feel shy, and warm inside. I put my hand in his and he squeezed it.

‘Did I visit her?’

‘I took you every day.’

‘So was she in there for quite a while? How long’s she going to be in this time?’ I had a terrible thought. ‘She WILL be out for my birthday, won’t she?’

Uncle Bill looked caught out again and, suddenly, very serious. But he answered with nothing more than a shrug, and led me down some more side streets until we were walking towards the gates of a soggy-looking park.

‘Wait,’ I said, before we got there.

There was a greengrocer’s outside the park with fruit all piled up. There were flowers too, in a bucket. I led Uncle Bill towards it and picked some – red ones, Mum’s favourite colour. Uncle Bill handed them to the lady and she put paper round them. Bill gave her a fiver, which I said I’d give him back from my money box, and he gave them to me to hold. We walked into the park and I saw some swings and a duck pond, and an old-looking building over on the far side. When Uncle Bill looked at it I knew that was where we were going and I had a picture of Mum in her bed, with lots of other ladies in a row. She’d have her favourite nightie on and a bandage round her head for the headache. Mum would sit up, beaming, when she saw me. We’d put the flowers in a vase. The first thing she’d say was of course she’d be out by Saturday. I’d get my spellings out and we’d go through them like we always did on Tuesday mornings and Mum would try not to giggle at some of the answers I gave. She’d tell the other ladies I was her little champion. She’d kiss me and I’d say, ‘Get well soon,’ and then I’d be really careful not to hurt her head when I hugged her goodbye. She’d wave at me through the window when we left – her special boy.

The picture cheered me up and I told myself off. This wouldn’t be so bad. Mums went into hospital all the time. Lance’s did last year. His new-dad came to get him from school and when he came back next day his mum had had a baby.

‘So you’ve got a sister?’

‘A half-sister.’

‘Which half is your sister?’

‘The top,’ he said. ‘Definitely.’

I started to glow inside at the thought of seeing Mum and I pulled Bill to go faster. We got to the building, which was made out of dark red bricks that were black round the edges. We stood in front of a heavy blue door until a buzzer sounded and the door clicked open. We walked into a really bright reception and up to a big desk with two nurses behind it, one of them typing on a computer. The other left us standing there for a few minutes as she wrote something. Then, without looking up, she asked how she could help.