One Boy Missing(72)

He spoke to Patrick. ‘Keep checking.’

‘I can still feel it.’

Moy flew down Ayr Street. One of the shops was open and a man was tiling the floor; he looked up, surprised, as they flew past, heading for the final winding road that led to the hospital.

Moy slowed. A mule-kick of memory. Charlie, he nearly said, nearly turning around, nearly looking. He could feel his heart racing and his own mouth drying. The body, he sensed, was on the back seat, and he was overcome with a feeling of despair.

I did nothing to cause this, he thought. Nothing. And yet here I am…‘Patrick?’

‘He’s okay.’

He pulled into the hospital drive. Slowed; searched for signs of life. Came to a stop at a pair of sliding doors. Then he sounded his horn, switched on the siren, turned off the engine and got out.

Nothing. He hammered on the doors. ‘Hello?’

‘The intercom,’ Patrick said.

Moy pressed a button. ‘Hello?’

Eventually: ‘Yes?’

‘My father, I think he’s had a heart attack.’

The line dropped out. A few moments later the doors opened and an orderly appeared with a gurney. He peered into the back seat. ‘Your dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where am I?’ George asked.

Moy almost smiled. ‘Hospital.’

‘Fuck.’ George grimaced, and felt his chest. ‘Bloody ticker, I suppose.’

Patrick looked at Moy; took his hand and squeezed it. Another orderly came out to help.

PATRICK WAITED OUTSIDE the room as they changed George into a gown; laid him on the bed like a frozen fillet left to thaw; connected a heart monitor and studied the trace, printing out a long strip of paper that said, somehow, the old man wouldn’t die, today at least. As they inserted a drip (Heparin, 1000 units per hour GTN) into his arm and taped it down. As the ECG was watched, and adjusted, words like infarct muttered, shoulders shrugged, water sipped. All with the conclusion, ‘I think he got off pretty lightly.’

Moy came out and sat beside Patrick. ‘He’s okay. It was a little heart attack.’

Patrick was unsure. ‘And he’ll get better?’

‘Of course.’

Then the boy’s head dropped, staring at well-worn carpet. There was a vending machine but he hadn’t even bothered looking to see what it contained. And prints, all along the wall. Flowers sitting in pots the shapes of animals. It all seemed out of place. With the trolleys and wheelchairs, machines (all tubes and buttons) and little posters showing you how to wash your hands.

‘We had fried chicken the other day,’ Patrick said.

‘It wasn’t that.’

Moy was on a first-name basis with the bain-marie woman at Dempsey’s Takeaway and any of the half-dozen people who worked at the pizza bar. But worse, there’d been a late-night adventure all the way to Port Louis for a feed of KFC, a couple of hours for the three of them to get there and back. On the way home Moy had said, ‘You’re not to mention this to anyone, understand? I could get in trouble for using the car.’

Patrick was nearly asleep in the hospital corridor.

‘Come on,’ Moy said. They went into George’s room, Patrick looking shocked to see the sleeping figure with leads coming off his chest, feeding into a flashing box like the comms screen in the car. His face fatter, his hands larger, his fingers longer.

‘Here,’ Moy said, indicating a long couch.

Patrick took the few steps and lay down and Moy wedged a pillow beneath his head. He drifted off almost straight away, but not before he felt a rug settling over his body, before he saw Moy, sitting down in an armchair beside his father, taking and reading some notes, tilting his head, as if trying to understand something. But then leaning back, folding his arms and closing his eyes.

THE NIGHT WAS warm and the room hummed. Moy looked at a clock that marked every moment with clinical precision. It was just after five; enough time to salvage some sleep. He went next door and found a foam mattress and laid it on the floor beside his father; sheets, rugs, and two pillows that smelt of menthol. He rested, watching the vents rhythmically feeding them air. He closed then opened his eyes. Looked at his father, convinced that it might happen again at any moment. He was watching him shovel spilled grain into a wheelbarrow.

Can I help?

No.

Returning to his house, looking back at the angry figure working against the last bit of light. As he still was. The same neurons firing, cardiac muscle working.

He noticed Patrick peeling off his rug and sitting up. Heard his father saying, ‘No, go back to sleep.’

The boy stood up and approached George. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’m fine. These things happen when you get old. No point making a big drama.’