A Matter of Life and Death

Fortunately, Mum had finished feeding Hayley and Rebekah and they were snuggling down in their cots. She put a finger to her lips as I came in. For reply, I beckoned urgently. She nodded and I knew she would come through shortly. I told Isabelle Mum would be with her shortly, then ran downstairs.
To my relief, Ben and Suzie were back in the land of the sane and capable, had made five mugs of tea and had dug out (inevitably, seeing as Ben was involved!) a packet of chocolate biscuits.
‘Oh thank you,’ I said, grabbing the biggest mug. ‘I so need a cup of tea!’
I was thinking I’d leave Mum to it for a few minutes and slurp my tea in peace – Ben could take some up for her and Isabelle – but at that moment, the phone rang.
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘It’ll be Chas. I told him to ring back later – but I meant much later, not now. Can you put him off for a bit, please, Ben?’
Ben pulled a face but went out into the hall.
I didn’t register that he was gone for quite a while – I was busy explaining to Suzie about Isabelle between gulps of tea and mouthfuls of biscuit. It was a shock when Ben returned a few minutes later and sat down heavily at the kitchen table looking ill and pale.
‘Ben – what is it?’ said Suzie. ‘You look dreadful!’
‘That was Greg’s mum,’ he said. ‘They’re still not sure whether he really has got meningitis or whether it’s just extreme symptoms of the other thing he’s got…’
‘Weill’s disease?’ I said.
‘Yes – that,’ said Ben, ‘but he’s really, really poorly – like, they think he might die - and she rang to ask Mum to pray for him – with her being a vicar.’
It was a good job I’d drunk all my tea because I dropped my mug. I just kind of forgot I was holding it and it slipped out of my hand.
‘But she’s busy with Isabelle…’ I said, vaguely. I couldn’t think straight. I felt as if little explosions were happening in my brain.
‘She’ll want to know though,’ said Suzie.
I sat down at the table. Suddenly my legs were shaking and I felt light-headed. ‘I can’t cope,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘I’ll go and tell her,’ said Suzie. ‘You stay here. And Kate – drink my tea. Put some sugar in it.’
Ben and I sat in silence. I had my head in my hands. I have never felt so wretched in my entire life, not even when Mum fractured her skull, not even when Gran died. I didn’t want to cry – I just felt completely drained. My wrist was throbbing in time with my heart beat which seemed to be all I could hear. Suzie and Ben, Isabelle and now Greg. It was too much. And there was still Chas wanting to tell me something urgent.
Mum walked into the kitchen, followed by Suzie.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Now stop looking quite so washed out, you two. Greg needs our prayers and you need to help. He’s not dead yet, OK?’
‘What about Isabelle?’ I asked, faintly.
‘She’s getting herself ready for bed,’ said Mum. ‘She’s gone very drowsy, just like it said on the Internet, so I’ve told her to get a good night’s sleep and we’ll talk about it in the morning. Poor kid – she’s devastated. She was trying to prove she can manage to be independent, despite her illness. This is the last thing she needed to happen – but we can talk about it later. I’ve told her not to worry, no one’s going to throw her out – or at least, certainly not until we’ve seen a doctor and discussed things – so I think she’ll be OK for now. Greg, however, is a different matter. Let’s go into the sitting room.’
Ben and I exchanged glances. We both do some praying, don’t get me wrong – but neither of us is good at the sort where you do it out loud in front of other people. Suzie’s great at it – they seem to do it in her family all the time – and for Mum it’s like falling off a log – but Ben and I? Well, we’d rather have our teeth pulled with no anaesthetic actually.
But there are moments when you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do. There was nothing we could do for Greg except pray. His life was in the hands of the doctors and of God. We couldn’t talk to the doctors and if we could, we wouldn’t know what to say – but we could talk to God. Well – it was worth a try anyway. That’s what I always think about prayer when people are saying that you don’t know there’s a God - so how do you know it’s worth bothering to pray? Well, you don’t – of course you don’t! No one knows if there’s a God or not so no one knows if it’s worth bothering to pray. But it costs nothing except your time and it just might help – so I always reckon it’s worth a go – just in case!
It was still hard though. We all sat down in the sitting room. Rover followed us in and I was jolly glad he did. He came and sat by me and laid his big, heavy black head on my lap so that I could stroke his silky ears. You have no idea how comforting that was.
Mum said not to worry if we didn’t want to pray out loud – we could just do it quietly if we wanted – but I just felt it was important to say what I wanted to say. I knew that if I didn’t, my thoughts would spin round in my head in a meaningless jumble. I needed to get them out in the open. So I waited till Mum and Suzie had prayed and then I launched in.
‘Dear God,’ I said. ‘I know I haven’t always been nice to Greg and I’m sorry. I know I’ve messed him around a bit and I’m sorry about that too. You maybe think I don’t care much about him – but I do, God, I do. Please don’t let him die. I will feel dreadful if he dies and I haven’t made things up properly with him. There’s been no real chance to talk to him since the accident – not properly anyway. I know that’s a really selfish thing to pray and of course there are far more important reasons for him not to die – but I want you to know how I feel, God, OK? So please don’t let him die! Amen.’
I was bright red in the face by the time I’d finished. I couldn’t quite believe I’d said all that in front of the others. But I did. I really did. Ben stayed quiet but the others prayed far more respectable prayers and made sure to pray for Greg’s parents too. Suzie even prayed for the dogs because she thought maybe they would be missing Greg whilst he was in hospital. Mum finished with a nice, rounding off sort of prayer and we all sat back in our seats and felt exhausted.
‘Right,‘ said Mum. ‘I think maybe I should give Greg’s mum a ring,’ she said.
But at that very moment, our phone began to ring for the third time in less than an hour.