epsom downs
do you remember that day, jack? mummy was at work and we braved the traffic to go to epsom downs and you took your pictures, practicing zooming in and out, and then we ate our packed lunches in the car, looking out over the city. you’ve probably forgotten what happened on the way home, but you needed to pee and wouldn’t do it by the side of the road because you said you’d get in trouble with the man and go to prison, so you just held it in, all the way home. you were so funny, jack, grimacing a little, your legs crossed, complaining every time i went over a bump.
11
We had gone out to get some supplies: Jack’s favorite cartons of orange juice, Jaffa Cakes, his superhero magazines. We had left him with Anna’s mother and when we came back, she was sitting on his hospital bed, leaning back on the pillows, with Jack cuddled up next to her.
“Can we do the whale again?” Jack asked.
“You like that one, don’t you?”
Jack nodded, and Anna’s mother began the story again, how Jonah had angered God and brought on the storm before the sailors threw him into the sea. And then it was God, in all his righteous mercy, who sent the whale to save him.
Since we had got to the hospital, there had been a constant stream of visitors to Jack’s bed: surgeons, junior residents, various nurses. Jack was examined and reexamined and prodded and poked. They took his blood, swabbed under his tongue, hooked him up to an ECG. This morning, they took him for an MRI to map his brain and he emerged, his head shaved, with little doughnut-shaped stickers attached to his scalp to guide the surgeons.
“That was very nice of God after Jonah was naughty,” Jack said.
“Well, that’s what God is like,” Janet said, with an eye in my direction. “He will always help you. He helps everyone. And that’s what He does in heaven.”
I looked at Anna with incredulity, expecting her to say something, to tell her mother to stop, but she was silent, thinking about something else.
“Janet,” I said quietly, as the nurse was busy with Jack. “Please don’t talk to him about these things. These Bible stories about death and heaven.”
“Why on earth not?” she said. “He loves the stories.”
“He might do,” I said, lowering my voice, “it’s just that we don’t want to talk to him about heaven or anything like that...”
“Well, Anna never said anything,” she said, avoiding my gaze. I looked at Anna, but she was tidying Jack’s bedside table, mopping up some spilled drops from the water jug.
In the last few weeks, Janet had been making noises about Jack getting baptized. Now was the time, she said, cautiously at first, feeling her way, but then, as she saw Anna wavering, her lobbying became more intense. I thought Anna would eventually falter, the daughter of missionaries, all those years spent at Bible class and Sunday school, but she didn’t. Absolutely not, I had said, expecting an argument, but to my surprise, even though I knew it still gnawed at her, Anna acquiesced.
As I was thinking how to respond to Janet, Lola walked in with India and a huge bunch of balloons. Jack’s face lit up, because they weren’t just any balloons, but plump and swelling as if they were about to burst, in a rainbow of carefully assorted colors, with bespoke, plaited wool strings. Emblazoned on the side of each one was #JackStrong.
“Hello, darlings,” she said, kissing Anna on both cheeks. “And hello, lovely,” she said, kissing Jack on the head.
“Hello, Auntie Lola.”
Anna smiled. She always seemed to relax when Lola was around.
“Now, they’re all for you, Jack, but would you like to choose one to hold?”
Jack’s face flushed with joy. He had always loved balloons. He sought them out on the street, the ones given out for free by phone companies and campaigning politicians. At children’s parties, he would ask if he was allowed to take an extra one home.
“So here’s the thing,” Lola said, after Jack had chosen a red one. “I’ve done the balloons with the hashtag, #JackStrong, and I’ve started a little campaign on Twitter, just for well-wishers really, and we already have some retweets, someone from that Essex program and that nice Scarlett girl from Gogglebox.”
“What’s Gogglebox?” Anna said.
“Oh, you have to see it. Terribly funny. Anyway, I thought it would be good to raise awareness about Jack’s illness, but sometimes getting these celebrities involved on Twitter can be a real game changer. Trips to Disneyland, balloon rides et cetera, et cetera.”
She was speaking about him as if he was dying. Everyone was speaking about him as if he was dying.
“India,” Lola said, placing all the wool strings into her daughter’s little clenched fist, “do you want to give Jack the rest of the balloons?”
India hesitated. For a moment she was uncharacteristically shy, but Lola nudged her forward, and she stood next to Jack’s bed, in her little pink dress and woven headscarf. She presented the balloons one at a time, Jack making sure they were securely in his hand.
As we were watching Jack and India, there was a knock at the door. A nurse walked in and handed Jack a parcel.
“Is it for me?” Jack said.
“Is your name Jack Coates?”
Jack nodded excitedly and stared at the box, feeling it, gently shaking it, the way he would do with the Christmas presents under the tree.
With Anna’s help, he opened the package, neatly tearing off the paper, then folding it and putting it on the bed. Inside was a scrapbook and on the cover it said “Dear Jack, From All Your Friends In 1A.”
Jack opened the scrapbook as if each page were made of the most precious, delicate petals. On the
