Liv exhaled, looking troubled. ‘I feel bad. I should have done more to stop you.’
‘Yeah, it is your fault,’ Ali deadpanned. ‘Just sitting there taking notes on my psychotic break.’
They both managed a weak laugh at this.
They continued up the driveway of Ailesend and Ali was pulled back from the vitriol in her phone and the heinous mess she’d made of everything. She tried to relax her jaw – it had been clenched since leaving the house. He’ll wait for you, she reminded herself, though she had no idea why she felt so certain.
‘I’ve never been here at night before. Usual visiting hours are daytime only but now that no longer applies to us.’
Liv pulled up at the door and put on the handbrake. ‘I’ll be right here. All night, I promise. I’m here.’
‘What about the thesis draft? You didn’t drop it in.’
‘I’ve sorted it.’
‘That fucking thesis.’ Ali shook her head ruefully and Liv winced. ‘Don’t say sorry again,’ Ali added quickly. ‘I don’t blame you. You were right about everything. You were trying to talk sense into me. I blame me. I knew—’ The words caught in her throat. Breathe, Ali. ‘I knew that I’d lose Miles, but I thought maybe I’d make it out with Sam, ya know?’ She started to cry. ‘Why am I crying over this? My dada is going to die – why am I crying over some guy?’
Liv looked helpless. ‘You loved him too,’ she said eventually. ‘Maybe it’ll work out. Maybe I can talk to him.’
‘We shouldn’t even be talking about this – it’s not the time.’ There’d be time to deal with everything, and right now, Ali couldn’t bear the thought of screwing one more thing up. She leaned over and hugged Liv. Then she got out and retrieved her stuff from the back seat. Her phone was ringing. ‘Mini Calling’.
Ali ignored it and started to sprint through the doors into the home. If Mini was calling to say it was too late, Ali couldn’t bear to hear it over the phone.
This could be the last time I ever have to come to this place, she thought as she ran past the empty reception, not bothering to sign in. It gave her no comfort. She realised that, more than anything, she wanted him to stay. She no longer cared that the life he had was no life at all. She just wanted him to stay with her. Through the ward, down past Tabitha, who was engrossed in paper work – she’s having a normal day, Ali marvelled. She’s just at work right now. She finally got to his door. She peered through a teeny crack, holding her breath. Please don’t be gone, she willed silently. Mini was sitting at the head of the bed, clutching her phone and whispering urgently to him. Ali was flooded with relief. She gave them as long as she could and then knocked gently.
She came in and took the chair opposite her mother.
‘No change here,’ Mini said quietly. ‘But it’s close, I think. I keep thinking he’s stopped breathing and then after an age he does again.’
‘I brought a surprise.’ Ali smiled.
‘Yes, I wondered what on earth you were off doing.’
Ali produced Miles’s ukulele, grinning.
‘Oh Jesus, that thing.’ Mini started to smile.
‘Well, I was going to bring lobster for us to eat in his honour but then I thought lobster at a deathbed was a bit … ick?’
‘Yes, that’s probably why they only serve biscuits – it’s all you could stomach at a time like this,’ Mini agreed.
‘I thought you’d like it, Dad.’ Ali strummed a bit, looking at Miles.
‘Since when do you play the ukulele?’
‘Well, we’ve been sitting by this bed a long time. I’m not always on the phone, ya know.’
Ali picked out the start of a jokey song that Miles had always played at family parties. Mini would playfully shout him down, pretending to moan about it. ‘Why doesn’t he play a real instrument?’ she’d always say, amused but exasperated.
Mini was quiet for a moment, then she began to giggle. ‘You know he brought that bloody ukulele to the hospital when you were born? The nurses thought he was hilarious. So, of course, that really got him going. I was screaming for them to give him the gas and air just to shut him up. Imagine having contractions while someone’s playing ‘You Are My Sunshine’. I wanted to kill him! After you finally came out, we were holding you and wondering what on earth we were supposed to do now. Everything had finally quieted down, just like it is here now, and he sang to you. ‘Dream A Little Dream’ it was. And you …’ Mini started to break a little as the tears came. ‘You cried along! And you didn’t stop for seven weeks straight. Then I wanted to kill you!’
Time stretched and contorted that night. It was the strangest of Ali’s life. She was determined to make it beautiful somehow. They played CDs and told stories. The time Miles lost four-year-old Ali at the restaurant and it turned out she was hiding in the dumbwaiter. The time an actor had a fall during an interval and Miles stormed down to the theatre trying to muscle in on the part.
‘He’d no shame.’ Mini was giggling helplessly. ‘There was already an understudy, and he’d walked out of the restaurant in the middle of service. Utter loon!’
‘D’you remember when we went to Paris when I was seven and he took me to see the Eiffel Tower and he told me that I mustn’t be disappointed but the Eiffel Tower actually only comes up to your knee and all the pictures of it are just an optical illusion? Such odd, pointless lying, Dad! But then when we finally saw it, it was such a surprise – it actually made it more exciting.’
At times in the night the nurses came in, performing checks and making notes. At some point Ali drifted into a strange sleep that hovered just on the edge of consciousness – when she started awake, dawn was creeping in to the room. She leant forward, studying Miles. She put her hand in front of his face and pleaded silently. Don’t say I’ve missed you. Stay, stay, stay. The CD had played out. The room was quiet but for the wheeze of the air mattress pump. She held her breath as she waited for his.
