True Things About Me A Novel (Deborah Kay Davies) by Deborah Kay Davies

were deciding on the best route to the hospital. I had a fierce headache, and their soft conversation was like a light rain falling on the hot roof of my head. I held onto the door handle and made sure my seat belt was on. The fabric of the seat was coarse and warm. I ran my hands over as much as I could reach. I wanted to feel really there. Really with my parents in their neat car with the tin of icing-sugar-covered fruit sweets in its special place on the dashboard. I wanted to laugh out loud at the idea of that tin of sweets.
    What’s going on there? my mum asked. Just checking your car out, I said, and settled back, trying to think about my grandmother dying. Maybe she’d already fallen off her perch. It was funny. There was a time when I would have been hysterical at the idea of her death. Now it felt like an item of news I’d heard on the TV. Something that was happening to someone I didn’t know in a foreign country I would nevergo to. I nearly got out of the car when we stopped at some traffic lights; I had so much to sort out.
    It felt wrong though, not to care at all. I tried to whip some feelings up but the inside of my chest was as hollow as an empty rubbish bin; totally, absolutely dried up, with my poor, tiny heart lying at the bottom like a crushed coke can. The more I thought about it the more desolate the scene became. No, not a bin, more like a vast sheer-sided sinkhole. Halfway down I could make out seagulls twirling. Their demented screams spiralled on the uprushing air. I started to sob. My dad looked at me in the rear-view mirror. Poor sausage, he said, I know you loved your gran, but she’s more than ready to go. It’s time. My mother craned her head back at me and nodded, scrunching up her eyes. Oh, so that’s all right then, I said. And you two psychic ones would know. I suppose you decide when to pull the plug as well? There now, he said, you’re very upset, it’s understandable. I saw them glance at each other.
    As soon as we got inside the hospital I started to feel sick. The fag-smoking, hard faces of the nurses, who’d never fooled me; the sick people in their hundreds of rooms, breathing and oozing stuff onto their sheets; the warm air heavy with dead skin cells. I thought about the lines of trolleys full of sickening luke-warm food trundling up and down. And the sluices clogged with all kinds of gross lumps. I had to force myself to follow my parents down the endless corridors to Gran’s ward.
    I counted six beds, all occupied. Everybody looked dead as far as I could tell. One bed had the curtains pulled round. I could see a group of people through a gap sitting silently. It took ages for Mum and Dad to get chairs, and then we gathered round Gran. Her body barely made a shape under the blankets. I asked my mum if we were at the right bed. Don’t be so silly, she said, holding Gran’s hand. I wasn’t sure. It didn’t look like her. This one’s nose was far too big. And her mouth looked unfamiliar. She was wearing Gran’s rings though.
    There was a small, elegant-looking man sitting in a winged chair opposite us. He had thick, startlingly white hair, brushed back into a mane. I couldn’t help looking at him. One leg was crossed over the other and his arms were lightly resting in his lap. He smiled and nodded at me. Stop looking around, my mum hissed. Honestly, we’re here for Gran. I tried to pay attention, but nothing was happening. I wasn’t sure whether to breathe through my mouth or my nose. Neither felt safe.
    There was a flurry from the group behind the flowery curtain. And a strange, guttural, obscene sound, accompanied by sobs and murmuring. Someone rang a bell, and two nurses came running. They looked as if they’d been eating chocolates, I thought. Don’t look, mum said. The curtains heaved and bulged as if someone were having a fight inside. Then there was a huge, impossibly long burp, then silence. The nurses reappeared, and tidied their rucked-up uniforms. He’s