The Magpies by Mark Edwards Page A

sleeping off the results of the accident like a bad hangover. Jamie and Paul used to joke that after a night on the beer, Paul would slip into a coma, and that nothing could wake him but time. Of course, Jamie knew that this coma had nothing to do with alcohol or over-indulgence, but something told him that the same principle applied. All they had to do was wait.
    ‘He’s suffered a serious head injury,’ said the doctor at Bromley Hospital, where the ambulance had taken Paul after the accident. ‘It’s very difficult to say at this point what the long-term outcome will be.’
    After a day, Paul fell into a coma. The doctor told them that he might never come out of that coma, and if he did he might be brain damaged. He might not be able to talk. He might have lost the use of his limbs. On the other hand, he could make a full recovery, although it would not be quick. He could spend months or years in therapy.
    ‘All we can do,’ said the doctor, ‘is wait and hope. And pray, if you’re that way inclined.’
    ‘So there’s a possibility that he might never wake up?’ said Heather. She was trying to maintain her professional nurse’s stoicism, but was not succeeding. Her voice cracked as she spoke. Jamie’s parents had shuffled off to get coffee from the machine down the corridor.
    The doctor spoke softly. ‘There is that chance, yes. He might slip into a vegetative state, in which case the family would have to make a decision. Or the coma could continue for a long time. If at any point his brain stopped functioning completely – if it died, in effect – we could keep him alive with machines, but as you know…well, is that really living?’
    Heather, Kirsty and Jamie looked at each other. Heather started to cry, and Kirsty put her arms around her. Jamie stood there, wishing he was somewhere else, wishing life was like TiVo: that he could press rewind to change history, or even fast forward to find out what would happen.
    He could still see the look of joy and cocky assuredness on Paul’s face when he first climbed into the go-kart. And then he saw Chris, standing on the other side of the track, not catching anyone’s eye.
    After the accident, Chris and Lucy had driven straight home. They hadn’t visited the hospital, or even phoned to see how Paul was. Jamie hadn’t noticed at the time – he had been too preoccupied to worry about the actions of his neighbours – but afterwards, when he began to process what had happened, dwelling on it on sleepless nights, he began to feel outraged that the people who were responsible for Paul being at the track in the first place hadn’t bothered to find out how he was. They hadn’t even sent a card, or expressed any sort of regret. Chris, for God’s sake, had even been involved in the accident! And now he was hiding.
    No, that wasn’t right. He was acting as if nothing had happened.
    Three days after the accident, Chris came up to Jamie and Kirsty’s and asked them if they wanted their windows cleaned: he knew a window cleaner who could do it cheap.
    ‘I’ve noticed your back windows are looking a bit grubby.’
    Jamie was speechless. He had only come home to take a bath and change his clothes. In ten minutes he would be heading back to Bromley to sit in a room with his comatose best mate.
    ‘I don’t give a toss about the windows,’ he said after a long pause, and Chris looked surprised.
    ‘There’s no need to be rude,’ he said, and he turned around and walked off, leaving Jamie, once again, speechless.
    Jamie and Kirsty hadn’t spoken to their downstairs neighbours since. They saw them coming and going, but they didn’t even attempt smalltalk. Jamie was waiting for Chris to say something about the accident, or ask after Paul’s health. But it never happened. Most of the time he didn’t think about it. His annoyance and anger were there in the background, but that was all. He felt too weakened by what had happened to Paul to care much about anything