Читать книгу The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away: A Death that Brought the Gift of Life - Cole Moreton, Cole Moreton - Страница 16

Nigel called the hospital at Nottingham again just before he boarded the plane to Pittsburgh very early on Wednesday morning in Las Vegas and he was answered by his mother-in-law, Joan. It was now the Wednesday afternoon in England, about twelve hours after Martin’s collapse. Joan said nothing had changed since the last call.

‘My wife wasn’t talking to me, she didn’t want to leave Martin to come to the phone, so I knew it was very serious. I was starting to get the feeling that this was not going to be a good outcome.’

Nobody spoke to him on the four-hour flight across Middle America, as they passed from west to east over the deserts of Utah, the mountains of Colorado, the plains of Kansas, then Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and finally, Pennsylvania. The couple in the next two seats slept all the way, so the introverted Englishman was left alone, thousands of miles from home and five miles up in the air, with dark feelings of guilt. ‘I was in the wrong place. I couldn’t have been further away from him if I had tried. It felt wrong. I was thinking about the times when the boys said I was never home.’

He loved them both dearly, more than they knew. His way of coping with all the time abroad was to crack on with work and try not to mope, but he gave them his full attention when he was home. Now the feelings that he usually tried to keep in check began to rise and threatened to flood over him. The wait at Pittsburgh International Airport was three hours. Nigel found a payphone and called the hospital straight after arrival and got through to Joan again, who said the same as before. He put the phone down, walked through the crowds to the departure lounge and found a seat in a corner. ‘That’s when it really hit me: I was going home to say goodbye and switch the life support machine off. They needed my authority. I put my coat over my head and just wept and wept, because I knew I had lost my son.’