Two Weeks with the Queen Page 9

  Alistair slumped onto the kitchen stool. The jungle first-aid kit slung around his neck clunked against the ironing cupboard. The lid came off and a couple of hundred kelp tablets rattled around on the floor.

  ‘Mum and Dad are getting suspicious,’ said Alistair. ‘Mum walked into my room yesterday while I was practising sucking blood out of a snakebite and she thought I was kissing my hand. She said if she catches me doing it again I’ll have to see a psychiatrist.’

  ‘Well don’t do it again,’ said Colin. ‘Practise on a cushion.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Alistair, ‘but while I’m wasting time practising on a cushion the ancient tribes of South America are probably talking to an advertising agency about marketing their cure for cancer themselves.’

  ‘That’s if they’ve got one,’ said Colin.

  The next day Ted had to see his doctor for a checkup on his foot, so Colin wheeled him to the surgery.

  The doctor was out on an emergency call and the receptionist told them he could be gone an hour or more. Ted and Colin agreed that Colin would go and spend a couple of hours with Griff, then come back and collect Ted and take him in.

  Griff looked worse than Colin had ever seen him.

  He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, making a faint rasping noise as he breathed. He didn’t even smile when he saw Colin.

  To cheer him up, Colin told him about the Bishop sisters who went swimming in their dad’s water tank and Bronwyn Bishop lost a contact lens so they let all the water out to look for it.

  Griff didn’t even smile at that.

  Oh well, thought Colin, you’ve probably got to understand how scarce water is out our way in December.

  He started telling Griff about Wal Petersen’s Holden Kingswood which had so much rust in it you could see the road through the floor.

  He thought that was of pretty universal interest, specially with Wal Petersen being a police-man, but half-way through Griff put his hand on Colin’s arm.

  ‘I don’t really feel like talking today,’ he said.

  Colin felt awful. Poor bloke’s feeling real crook and I’m rabbiting on about police corruption.

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Colin, ‘no sweat. I’ll go, eh?’

  ‘No,’ said Griff faintly, ‘I like having someone here.’

  So Colin sat quietly, watching Griff.

  He wondered if it was possible to make someone feel better by telepathy. Why not, he thought, people can bend spoons.

  He tried it.

  It seemed to work.

  Every few minutes Griff looked over at him, and, seeing him there, seemed to relax.

  Later that afternoon, when Colin returned with Ted, Griff looked much better.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Tomorrow?’ shrieked Alistair.

  Colin nodded.

  ‘You said today,’ yelled Alistair. ‘You said today would definitely be the day. You said Ted would be back on his feet today and that we would definitely be going to South America today.’

  ‘I know,’ said Colin quietly.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for over a week,’ shouted Alistair. ‘I haven’t been sleeping, I’ve got nerve rashes all over me, Mum says she’s never seen my dandruff so bad.’

  He rubbed his hair and a cloud of dandruff floated down onto his home-made grappling iron and his jungle first-aid kit.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Colin, ‘but there’s one more thing I’ve got to do.’

  ‘What,’ said Alistair bitterly, ‘go and find another million people in hospital to visit?’

  ‘The wheelchair,’ said Colin. ‘Ted’s taking it back to the hospital this morning. What if he’s caught with it and they ban him from the hospital? I took it out, it’s me who should take it back.’

  ‘If we don’t go today,’ said Alistair, ‘I’m telling Mum and Dad about you taking the lock off every day and sneaking out. And then you’ll never get to South America.’

  Colin stared at Alistair’s red, angry face. He saw Alistair meant it.

  He felt desperation grip his chest.

  ‘I’ve got to stop him trying to take it back,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all weekend. If they ban him from the hospital he can’t visit Griff.’

  ‘And if I tell,’ said Alistair, ‘you can’t visit the ancient tribes of the Amazon.’

  Colin felt a very strong urge to belt Alistair round the head with the jungle first-aid kit.

  Instead he thought fast.

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ll be back here by two-thirty. We’ll leave then.’

  ‘You’d better be,’ said Alistair.

  Colin sprinted towards the hospital, the brown paper bag clutched tightly in one hand.

  If I’m too late, he thought, I’ll boot myself all over London.

  He hadn’t planned to stop at the fruit shop next to the tube station, but as he’d been hurrying past he’d seen them and the thought had hit him how much Griff would like them.

  Australian mandarins.

  Colin ran round the corner towards the main gates, brown paper bag flapping wildly, and saw Ted.

  His first feeling was relief

  Ted wasn’t grappling with the uniformed attendant and doctors weren’t pulling the wheelchair from his grasp and policemen weren’t running at him from every side.

  His next feeling was concern. Ted was sitting on the kerb sobbing into his hands.

  Colin stopped. He watched Ted’s body shake and heave with the crying and wondered what he should do.

  Then he remembered Ted’s words the day Colin had first seen him, in much the same position, doing much the same thing.

  ‘Once a week I treat myself to a bit of a cry,’ he’d said.

  Of course, thought Colin. Poor bloke, it’s been nearly two weeks since then and this is probably the first one he’s had.

  He decided not to interrupt. Let him blub till he felt better, then they’d both go in and see Griff.

  But where was the wheelchair?

  Colin looked around, panic building inside him.

  No wheelchair.

  Was that why Ted was crying, because while he’d been buying mandarins Ted had been trying to sneak the wheelchair back in and had been caught and told never to set foot in the hospital again?

  Colin ran over to him, boots thumping on the road.

  Ted looked up and as soon as Colin saw Ted’s eyes, even before Ted had managed to take a huge ragged breath and get the words out, Colin knew.

  The numbness came to Colin immediately and was still there an hour later as he stood next to Ted in a small room in the hospital looking at Griff.

  So still.

  ‘He died this morning,’ said Ted softly.

  Colin looked at Griff lying still in the bed.

  I’m not crying, he thought, why aren’t I crying?

  He heard himself speaking from a long way off.

  ‘Were you here?’

  ‘Yes, I was, , said Ted. ‘I’ve been here all night.’

  Somewhere very distant from the numbness in his mind, Colin felt glad.

  He remembered what Griff had said. ‘You’ll probably never know how important this time is to us.’

  ‘His parents are coming this afternoon,’ said Ted. ‘They’re taking him back to Wales for his funeral.’

  Colin had never heard Griff mention his parents.

  ‘Why didn’t they come and visit him?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ted. ‘I think it was too painful for them.’

  What about Griff, thought Colin. How’s a bloke meant to feel when he’s crooker than a dog and his own family pikes out?

  Poor bloke must have missed them.

  Then, out of the blue, he found himself wondering if Luke was missing him.

  He was late.

  He sprinted from the tube station back to the house as fast as he could. Saying goodbye to Griff had taken a while, saying goodbye to Ted had taken ever longer.

  Colin ran harder
to stop himself feeling sad.

  He’d wanted to tell Ted about South America, but at the last minute he hadn’t. He’d had a feeling Ted would tell him that if any ancient tribes in South America or Africa did have a cure for cancer, there’d have been a documentary about it on TV.

  He ran down the side of the house and burst in through the back door.

  The kitchen was empty.

  ‘Alistair,’ he yelled, ‘I’m back.’

  Aunty Iris stepped out of the dining-room.

  Colin’s guts went cold.

  In her shaking hand was the back door lock.

  ‘I’m very, very disappointed in you, Colin Mudford,’ she said .. ‘We invited you over here to take your mind off things and all you’ve done is deceive us and lie to us.’

  Colin tried to say ‘sorry’ but his mouth wouldn’t work.

  Aunty Iris’s voice suddenly went very loud. ‘South America, are you out of your mind? Do you know what the sun does to Alistair’s skin?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Colin.

  ‘Bit late to apologise now,’ said Aunty Iris, ‘after you’ve been galavanting all over London with unsuitable types.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Don’t try and deny it, my lad. I finally got the names out of Alistair. Ted and Griff or what-ever it is.’

  ‘They weren’t unsuitable,’ said Colin.

  ‘How do we know,’ said Aunty Iris, waving the back door lock, ‘since we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting them?’

  Later that evening, Alistair crept into Colin’s room.

  ‘Sorry I blabbed,’ he said, ‘Mum told me keeping secrets would make my scalp worse.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Colin, staring at the wall. ‘If the ancient tribes had a cure for cancer we’d have seen it on TV by now.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Alistair, ‘probably.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Sorry I blabbed about Ted. You probably won’t be able to see him any more now.’

  ‘Yes I will,’ said Colin.

  ‘How come?’ said Alistair.

  Colin rolled over and faced Alistair.

  ‘I’ve invited him to tea.’

  ‘More tea, Ted?’ asked Aunty Iris.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Ted.

  Silence descended once more onto the tea table.

  This is a disaster, thought Colin.

  He looked at Ted, sitting glumly at the end of the table. Was this the same bloke who’d lit up a roomful of gloomy faces with a handful of chocolate frogs?

  He looked at Aunty Iris biting her lip and Uncle Bah staring at the floor and Alistair staring at the ceiling.

  He tried desperately to think of something to say.

  It was no good, he wasn’t in the mood for conversation either. He felt all tight and hollow inside, like he needed a good cry.

  He’d been trying to cry half the night, thinking of Mum and Dad and their faces when they saw him get off the plane with no doctor and no little jewelled bottle.

  No tears had come.

  ‘What do you do for a crust, Ted?’ asked Uncle Bob.

  ‘I’m unemployed,’ said Ted.

  Silence again.

  Aunty Iris suddenly got up. She went to the sideboard, opened a cupboard and took out the fruit bowl.

  Alistair and Uncle Bob stared. Colin was surprised too.

  Aunty Iris only got the fruit bowl out on very special occasions.

  She held it out to Ted.

  ‘Here, love,’ she said, ‘have one of these. Take your mind off things.’

  Colin saw that inside the bowl were five tangerines.

  Ted took one, and slowly his face began to crumple. Great sobs shook his body.

  Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob and Alistair stared in horror. Then Aunty Iris nudged Uncle Bob and Uncle Bob hurried Alistair out of the room.

  ‘Would you like another cup of tea now?’ asked Aunty Iris.

  Ted opened his mouth to try and answer but he couldn’t, so massive and heartfelt were his sobs.

  Colin tried to answer for him.

  No good.

  Colin felt his own body shudder and his own face crumple and his own tears spill out of his eyes.

  Not anger this time, but grief

  And as he wept, grief and sadness running out of him in bucketfuls, and as he watched Ted doing the same, it wasn’t Mum and Dad he was thinking of, or himself

  It was Luke.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Next morning at breakfast Colin told them.

  Aunty Iris froze in the middle of requesting Alistair not to pick his pimples at the table.

  Uncle Bob froze just as he was about to ask Alistair if he’d heard what his mother had just said.

  Colin told them again.

  ‘I want to go home and be with Luke.’

  Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob looked at each other.

  ‘You can’t, love,’ said Aunty Iris gently.

  ‘You don’t really want to go back to all that, do you?’ said Uncle Bob.

  ‘Yes,’ said Colin.

  ‘He does,’ said Alistair.

  ‘Alistair, eat your breakfast,’ said Aunty Iris. ‘Love, your Mum and Dad want you to be here. They think it’s best for you.’

  ‘I’ve got to go, Aunty Iris.’

  ‘See.’

  ‘Shut up, Alistair.’

  ‘Please, Uncle Bob.’

  ‘Let him.’

  ‘You heard what your mother said, Alistair.’

  Alistair slammed his fist onto the table. Cups, saucers and both his parents jumped into the air.

  ‘He’s going,’ said Alistair, looking steadily at his mother and father, ‘and that’s final.’

  Colin stared at Alistair, amazed.

  Uncle Bob and Aunty Iris stared at Alistair, dumbfounded.

  Alistair, breathless, grinned proudly at Colin.

  There was a long silence in which Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob opened their mouths several times to speak to Alistair and then closed them again.

  ‘Listen to me, Colin,’ said Aunty Iris finally. ‘You’re not going to Australia and that’s that. And just in case you’ve got any notions of going to the airport, don’t waste your time. They won’t let you on the plane without us to sign the forms.’

  The morning after that, just before breakfast, Colin went to the airport.

  He woke early, packed, said goodbye to Alistair, wrote down directions when Alistair said he was coming to Australia as soon as he’d figured how to get the new lock off the back door, left Alistair the screwdriver, crept downstairs while Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob were in the bathroom, left a note in the hall (‘Gone for a walk. Cricket training. Be a while.’) and slipped out the front door which Uncle Bob had unlocked to get the paper.

  At the end of the street he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  He froze.

  Then he turned round.

  It was the postman, smiling cheerily.

  ‘You Colin Mudford from number 86?’ he asked.

  Colin nodded, heart pounding.

  The postman handed him a letter.

  ‘Friends in high places, eh?’ said the postman, walking off.

  The letter was from Buckingham Palace.

  Colin stuffed it into his pocket. He’d read it later. He had a plane to catch.

  Ted was waiting for him at Heathrow airport.

  ‘Just as well you rang when you did,’ said Ted, ‘I’m off to Wales for the funeral later today.’

  Colin was about to put his bag on the conveyor belt at the check-in counter.

  He stopped.

  ‘I should really come with you,’ he said.

  Ted put the bag onto the conveyor belt.

  ‘You should go where you’re going,’ he said.

  The man at the counter checked Colin’s ticket and Ted signed the forms to allow Colin to get on the plane without an adult accompanying him.

  ‘What relationship are you to the traveller?’ the man at the counter asked Ted.
r />   ‘Mate,’ said Colin.

  ‘Friend,’ said Ted.

  ‘Guardian?’ asked the man.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Colin.

  Just before they parted at customs, Colin gave Ted his present. A scarf He’d bought it from a stall at the underground station. It was pink.

  ‘My favourite colour,’ said Ted, putting it on.

  Colin grinned. He’d always liked pink but blokes didn’t wear it where he came from.

  He decided not to make a meal of saying goodbye.

  Just a hug and a grin, and Ted flipped the scarf over his shoulder and was gone.

  ‘Bloody queen,’ said a man behind Colin.

  Colin turned and looked the man right in the eyes.

  ‘He’s not,’ he said, ‘but he should be.’

  Over Yugoslavia Colin opened the letter from the person who was.

  Dear My Mudford, it said,. Her Majesty’s sympathies are with all who suffer through illness. May I, on her behalf, wish your brother a speedy recovery.

  It was signed by a Palace Liaison Officer.

  Colin left it in the ashtray.

  Colin stopped outside Luke’s room and took a deep breath.

  He looked in through the glass panel in the door.

  There was Luke, in bed, surrounded by hospital equipment. He looked smaller than Colin remembered, and very pale. His hair was sort of wispy.

  There were Mum and Dad sitting on either side of the bed talking to Luke. They looked pale as well. And tired.

  Colin took another deep breath and walked in.

  He didn’t even look at Mum and Dad, and barely heard their amazed gasps.

  Plenty of time for that later.

  He just looked at Luke, who was staring at him in delight, sitting up in bed, flinging his arms round his neck, squealing his name joyously, hugging him as if he’d never let go.

  Colin felt the tears pouring down his cheeks and he didn’t even try to stop them.

  There wasn’t a person in the world he would have changed places with at that moment, not even the Queen of England.