know, I listened to your message. I can help. It’s nice to see you.’ He smiled. ‘You look …’ I didn’t know how I looked. I hadn’t checked for a long time, not since before I’d got ready to go to the supermarket with Mum that afternoon. Suddenly I was conscious of what I might look like; the tangled hair, the mascara that had probably run, the eyes all puffed and glazed with tears.
But he smiled like he didn’t mind any of it. ‘You look like you’ve just woken up.’
For a moment we stood there – him inside his house, me on the doorstep – listening to the sounds of fun in the background. A music track with a sing-song voice, bass and drums, a party popper, laughter, the high pitch of a woman’s voice. And then he was stepping over the threshold, quickly, to me, and pulling the front door to, slowly and silently – as if he were trying not to wake a sleeping baby.
‘Dinner. I’d ask you in, but …’
‘No, God, no, thank you—’
‘Believe it or not it’s only the three of us in there. We try and make sure we eat together once a week, on a Sunday usually, because things get so busy. There’s school, treatments, work and the charity. Rachel, that’s my daughter’ – he said it like I’d forgotten, but I’d remembered – ‘she likes to get out the party poppers and streamers. And she loves her music. Sometimes we save time and she uses party blowers as part of her physio. Like now, can you hear? You have to blow through them really hard to get your lungs moving.’
‘Sounds like a lot of fun,’ I said, imagining the scarlet and emerald shine of coned party hats, a pot roast, wine, talk and laughter. And the muted and colourless dinners I’d had with Dave since we tried to make a family.
‘It is fun,’ he smiled. ‘But it’s also loud. I could do with a break. Come with me.’
‘Are you sure? I don’t want to take you away from your family. I need, I only need …’
But he took me by the arm and led me towards the entrance of the grey shed. I hesitated at the threshold, looked up at the trees – all willowed and gentle, their leaves like black paper cut-outs against the darkening blue of the sky – and felt him stand behind me, for a moment, as if he too felt the shape of another person between us.
‘Cath?’ He said my name again, this time like he’d read it from the engraving on a precious antique. Curious about its provenance. Amazed that its shape had survived time.
I stepped out of the twilight and into the darkness of the shed where I breathed damp wood and engine oil. He grabbed me abruptly, painfully, by the elbow before I even knew I was falling, over a coiled snake of hose on the floor.
‘I’m sorry, I … There was …’ My hand went to my hair.
He let go.
A standard lamp with a pale silken shade sprang to glowing life as he hit a switch behind me. ‘Sit down,’ he said, as if my clumsiness had never happened. He pushed a wooden tea box towards me, borders thick with rusted metal, brushed it down and motioned for me to sit. There was a rich Persian rung laid across the concrete floor, and candles that had guttered leaving stunted stalagmites of wax. Underneath the shelves of engine oil, spanners and metal tins of this and that, stood a wooden trestle table with TV, a closed laptop and at least two cups of greying tea.
‘Who lives here?’ I said.
‘No one! This is my shed and my island. It’s where I come to get some peace and quiet when Rachel has her friends round. Another rule for dealing with cystic fibrosis and children: always have somewhere you can escape to for a moment. You are that rarest of things: a guest here.’
His eyes were shy but his smile sparked – so bright and wide and inviting, it drew my gaze to his lips. I looked into his eyes then and away again, towards the glow of the lamp. Confused and delighted by how he made me feel as if he were reading something in me that I didn’t know how to.
‘The pharmacies are all closed,’ I said, too abruptly, wanting to move on from that moment with him and yet wanting to stay. ‘The hospital pharmacy is closed. I didn’t know where else to go. I need to give her antibiotics before tomorrow morning. She shouldn’t miss a dose. She’s got a cold, she’ll have got it from Dave or me. It’s not a cough, yet, but—’
‘It’s OK. Really it is. I’m always talking to the pharmacy for Rachel’s meds and I’ve built a stockpile big enough to get us through the most violent of atomic wars.’ He smiled and I smiled. ‘Seriously,’ he said. ‘I can give you anything you want. How much do you need?’ His voice was gentle and his gaze steady and I didn’t look away.
‘One bottle. I, you see …’
He was the one to look away then, leaving without further remark and returning only a few minutes later with a blue plastic bag.
I took it tentatively, hooking it with one finger. His brow rumpled in confusion at my hesitation.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s only that I’ve read so much about cross infection, perhaps too much, but anyway, you know, like the woman at the parents’ meeting said. I don’t want our children to pass anything between them.’ I looked at the silver-grey concrete beneath me – striated with veins of deep purple, like a steak on the turn – and the dark vermillion, Persian rug with its soft, deep pile. I should go, I thought. ‘We wouldn’t want to be unknowing vehicles. Isn’t that what she said?’
‘That’s unlikely. It’s not like we’re touching each other right now.’
I looked down before I said, ‘No.’
‘You’re safe,’ he said. ‘These antibiotics come from my store cupboard and Rachel is far more interested in boys than her medication stores. These will be a different concentration to the one you’re using for Mia. Do you know how to check dosage equivalents?’
‘I think so.’
‘Good. This stuff’s still in date. Small miracle really. Almost everything else she takes is a tablet now.’
‘Thank you, I do appreciate your help.’ There was a beat. ‘And how is Rachel at the moment?’
‘She’s great!’ His smile was so wide and his eyes shone. There was so much … I couldn’t put my finger on it … life in him. ‘Great, actually. We’re in a calm waters phase. She’s got the usual, but—’
‘What’s the usual?’ I said. ‘I’m sorry to ask, and I’m just checking, is all, because I’ve read that some bugs are more persistent on surfaces than others.’ I felt for the packet of antiseptic wipes in my jeans pocket because despite what he said I would use them to clean the boxes when I was back in the car. ‘I’m sorry, I hope what I’m saying isn’t offending you. It’s the bugs, not the people I worry about.’
‘I understand.’ His words were slow, like he was thinking too much between them. I hadn’t offended him but I’d done something else, I wasn’t sure what. ‘You’ll be all right, Cath. I promise it will get easier. At the start it’s impossible to see the wood for the trees. Everything is a threat to your child’s life. Every wood, every tree, as it were.’
‘Yes,’ I smiled.
‘Anyway, that lot should see Mia through,’ he said.
