Ellen stared at the floor, her doll clasped tight. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay,’ Marie said. She stood upright, touched Lennon’s arm. ‘Just give me twenty minutes, all right?’
‘All right,’ Lennon said. ‘She’ll be fine.’
Worry crept over Marie’s features.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Lennon said again, firm enough to almost believe it himself.
Marie nodded, ran her fingers through Ellen’s hair, and left the two of them in the corridor. Lennon and his daughter watched her leave. Ellen’s fingers twitched against his.
‘Okay,’ Lennon said, moving along the corridor towing Ellen behind him. ‘What kind of sweets do you want?’
‘Don’t know,’ Ellen said.
‘Chocolate?’ he asked. ‘Maltesers? Minstrels? Mars bars?’
She followed, her tiny hand lost in his. ‘Don’t know.’
‘What about Skittles? Or Opal Fruits? No, they don’t call them Opal Fruits any more.’
‘Don’t know,’ she said as they reached the swinging doors.
‘Or ice cream?’ Lennon asked. ‘God help us if you don’t like ice cream.’
They walked through to the elevator bank. Ellen rubbed her nose. Lennon caught an odour on the air, something lurking between the hospital’s sickness and disinfectant smells. Something goatish, a low tang of sweat, like the wards in the mental hospital Lennon had worked in when he was a student.
He exhaled, expelled the odour, and pressed the button to call the lift. Ellen’s fingers felt small between his, cold and slippery. He looked down at her. She held her doll to her lips, whispered to it, said a word that might have been ‘Gerry.’
48
Fegan sat down hard on the edge of the bed, his breath abandoning him. Waves of trembling rolled through him, from his feet to his fingers, churning his stomach as they passed.
His gut clenched and he threw himself from the bed. He staggered to the bathroom, shouldered the door open, leaned over the toilet bowl. The spasms brought him to his knees.
Between swallows of air and bitter retches, he said, ‘Ellen.’
49
The Traveller watched them from the other side of the lobby, using a pillar for cover. The cop fished change from his pocket, struggling with his one free hand, the other clasping the child’s. A juice box and a tube of Smarties sat on the counter. The change handed over, the cop gathered the sweets and drink and led the girl out of the shop. He looked upstairs to the second level then leaned down to the child. The girl nodded and allowed the cop to lead her upwards.
The Traveller eased out from behind the pillar, keeping them in his vision for as long as he could. He took a tissue from his pocket, dabbed at his eye, hissed at the pain. Passers-by looked at him, their mouths turned down in distaste. He ignored them.
50
Lennon chose a table by the ceiling-high windows and set down his paper cup full of tea, steam rising from hole in the lid. Ellen sat opposite him while he pierced the juice box with the little straw. He placed it in front of her then prised the plastic cap from the tube of Smarties. She watched his fingers work as he spread a napkin on the table and tipped a few brightly coloured sweets onto the paper.
‘There you go,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Ellen said in the stiff manner of a child well instructed in politeness.
Lennon raised the cup to his lips and sipped hot sweet tea through the lid’s mouthpiece. He did not see this new drinking technology as an advance in civilisation. It made him feel like a toddler with a sippy cup.
Ellen moved the sweets around the napkin with her fingertips, but did not bring any to her mouth. The doll lay naked alongside the juice box like a passed-out junkie.
Lennon flinched at the association. Ellen reached for the doll and arranged it in a sitting position. She looked up at Lennon as if asking if that was better. He went to say yes, but caught himself. He blinked hard to dislodge the foolish notion from his mind.
‘So, did you like Birmingham?’ Lennon asked.
Ellen looked down and shook her head.
‘Why not?’
‘Too big,’ Ellen said. She put her hands over her ears. ‘Too noisy.’
‘You like home better?’
Ellen dropped her hands and nodded.
‘Are you glad to be back?’
Ellen shrugged.
‘It’s home. Do you like home?’
‘S’okay,’ Ellen said.
‘You don’t know who I am,’ Lennon said. It was a statement, not a question to test the child.
‘You’re Jack,’ Ellen said, her face brightening a little for remembering the detail. ‘Mummy said.’
‘Did your mummy ever mention me?’
‘Uh-uh,’ Ellen said, shaking her head. She took a sip of juice, then a Smartie. She chewed with her mouth primly closed. She took another from the napkin and popped it in her mouth, again sealing her lips shut.
‘You have very good manners,’ Lennon said.
Ellen nodded. ‘Mm-hmm.’
‘Your mummy taught you well.’
Ellen smiled.
Lennon’s throat tightened. He coughed and said, ‘Well, eat up. Then we’ll go back upstairs.’
Ellen drew on the straw, her gaze fixed somewhere behind Lennon. He looked over his shoulder, seeing only people moving between tables, their trays clutched shakily in front of them. Curved walls screened the area off, decorated with spoons and forks arranged to resemble shoals of fish against the blue-green paint.
‘What are you looking at?’ he asked.
‘People,’ Ellen said.
‘What people?’
‘All different people.’ She put the juice box back on the tabletop. ‘There’s bad people here.’
‘You mean sick people?’ Lennon asked. ‘There’s lots of sick people. Most of them will get better, though.’
Ellen picked up the juice box and drained it. She popped the lid back onto the tube of Smarties and tucked the sweets into her coat pocket. ‘For later,’ she said.
Lennon took another swig of tea, but it soured his stomach. He took Ellen’s empty juice box from the table and stood, gripping the litter in one hand. ‘Come on,’ he said.
Ellen gripped his fingers and followed him towards the litter bin beyond the curved walls, over by the kitchen. Lennon struggled to find a way through the people crushing around the till.
A cleaner tipped a tray of refuse into the bin as he and Ellen drew near. The cleaner dropped the lid and stepped aside. Lennon depressed the foot lever to open the bin. The lid didn’t budge. He tried to lift it with the hand that gripped the tray. It didn’t budge. People jostled as they tried to reach the till. Lennon suppressed a curse as shoulders nudged and shoved him. The cup slipped across the tray, and Lennon released Ellen’s fingers long enough to save it from spilling. He finally lifted the bin lid and dumped the rubbish inside. That done, he added his tray to the stack nearby and reached back for Ellen’s hand.
He found cold air.
Lennon spun to where Ellen had stood no more than moments ago. His stomach dropped through the
