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.

Serious stuff!

‘I have bad news about Greg, I’m afraid, darling,’ Mum said, at last.
The look on her face was so serious that I felt an awful surge of adrenalin and suddenly my hands and legs were shaking.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What is it?’ He can’t be dead, I was telling myself, it can’t be that bad. He only rescued Biggles from the river – and he was discharged from hospital the same day! What on earth could be wrong? Maybe it was something to do with Biggles. At that thought, my heart nearly stopped, I’m sure.
‘He hasn’t had to have Biggles put down, has he?’ I said, suddenly feeling so sick that I reached for the nearly empty bowl of grapes on the coffee table. ‘They didn’t decide he was dangerous after he bit me, did they? He is so not – he’s the most gentle dog ever – that was only because he was so very distressed!’
Mum looked aghast. ‘Good grief, Kate, of course not!’ she said. ‘Everyone knows Biggles would never bite anyone normally. No, actually, Kate,’ – she looked grave – ‘it’s more serious than that. Greg has been rushed into hospital.’
‘What on earth for?’ I gasped. ‘He was fine! They sent him home!’
‘It’s because of all the river water he must have inadvertently drunk,’ said Mum. ‘At first they thought he’d just caught a cold or had the flu – but now they think it’s Leptospirosis – and that Weil’s disease might have set in.’
‘I’ve never heard of either of them,’ I said. ‘What do they do to him?’
‘Well, the leptospirosis is rather like flu but the problem with it is really that there can be nasty complications.’
‘Like what?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Greg must have them or Mum wouldn’t be looking so serious.
‘Liver failure, kidney failure – and meningitis.’
I felt as if someone had suddenly opened the door and an icy wind had blown in.
‘Meningitis?’ I said. ‘Is that what they think he’s got then?’
Mum shook her head. ‘They’re not sure. He does have a terrible headache and a stiff neck but no rash. But it’s a possibility. No, the thing they’re really worried about is liver failure. He’s become extremely jaundiced, very suddenly. It’s called Weil’s disease.’
‘I thought you said it was called lepsori – thingy whatsit.’
‘Leptospirosis. Yes, it is – Weil’s disease is a complication of it.’
‘So is he going to be all right?’
‘Kate, they can’t be sure. He’s very poorly right now. He’s in intensive care.’
I burst into tears. ‘Why did no one tell me?’ I sobbed. ‘What if I want to visit him?’
‘We didn’t tell you because we didn’t know. No one knew till the early hours of this morning when he staggered into his mum’s room with the awful headache. The thing with leptospirosis is you start with flu symptoms and then they stop – and then all the complications start – if they’re going to.’
‘And they have?’
‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘I’m afraid so.’ She handed me the box of tissues. ‘But you must remain positive, Kate. It is treatable and it’s not that rare. The doctors know what they’re doing – and he is young and strong.’
‘But how did he get it?’ I demanded. ‘Just through being in the river?’
Mum nodded. ‘Yes – it’s often passed on through rat’s urine – and he swallowed quite a lot of water. Kate, you can’t visit him at the moment, I’m afraid. No one can except his parents. He’s really, really poorly.’
She came and crouched by my side – which if she hadn’t just told me such terrible news, I couldn’t have helped smiling over. When she squats down like that, her bottom half looks like a Sumo wrestler, she has such an enormous bum. But her top half is wonderfully cuddly and I wrapped my arms around her neck and buried my nose in her hair – which is black with magenta streaks at the moment.
‘Can we pray for him?’ I whispered.
‘Of course,’ Mum said.
There are some advantages in having a mum who is a part-time vicar. Very good in the sort of crisis where there’s absolutely nothing you can do except pray! Of course, I joined in. But it was great to have her there to start me off and to keep my mind on the job. I don’t know about you but my mind wanders dreadfully when I’m praying, even when it’s something really serious. Anyway, we prayed for Greg and his Mum and Dad and when we’d finished, I felt slightly better. It must be awful if you don’t believe in praying at all. What do you do in a real crisis? What do you do when there’s someone you care about in trouble and there’s nothing else you can do? It must be agony. I think that, even if I didn’t believe in God, I’d still give prayer a go. I mean, it would be worth a try!
There was a tap on the door.
‘It’s OK, Suzie!’ Mum called. ‘You can come in now – that is all right, isn’t it, Kate?’ She got up and opened the door and then disappeared into the kitchen
I nodded, blowing my nose at the same time. I didn’t mind what state Suzie saw me in – and I still hadn’t talked to her about Ben, what with the accident and everything.
‘I didn’t know you were here,’ I said. ‘Is Ben around?’
Suzie shook her head. ‘No – I texted him to check. He knows I don’t want to see him till I’ve talked to you.’
‘He must be really fed up,’ I said. ‘He wanted me talk to you days ago.’
‘I know,’ said Suzie, ‘but you know what Ben’s like. He gets in a real state about things but then, when he’s calmed down, he’s the most laid-back person I know. That’s one of the things that’s really great about him – especially when you’re used to my family. They run on rails!’
I laughed – and then felt guilty. I had forgotten about Greg for a moment. But Suzie must be a mind-reader.
‘You can’t worry about Greg all the time,’ she said. ‘Life goes on, you know.’
‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘It’s just – how can I have forgotten the state he’s in already?’
‘You haven’t,’ said Suzie. ‘You’ve just remembered him, silly! Just pray every time he flashes through your mind. I would!’
‘Well, you’re a much better person than me,’ I said. ‘Which reminds me – we’d better get on and talk about this fiasco with Ben telling people he’d slept with you – the stupid, stupid boy.’
Suzie was looking at the floor.
‘What’s up?’ I said. ‘Lost something?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I just feel awkward with you saying that I’m a better person than you, Kate. I’m so not honestly. I’m just so not.’
I looked at her red cheeks quizzically. ‘What is it, Suzie?’ I said. ‘Something’s really worrying you, isn’t it?’
To my surprise, Suzie, who is always so jolly and buoyant, began to cry.
‘Oh Kate, you’re not going to believe this,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s bad – it’s so, very, very bad…’