'Cause the Hardest Part of This is Leaving You.

Blood spills from my nose. I stand in front of the hall mirror and watch it pour down my chin and through my fingers until my hands are slippery with it. It drips onto the floor and spreads into the weave of the carpet.

" Please, " I whisper. " Not now. Not tonight. "

But it doesn’t stop.

Upstairs, I hear Dad say goodnight to Mikey. He closes his bedroom door and goes into the bathroom. I wait, listening to him pee, then the flush of the toilet. I imagine him washing his hands at the sink, drying them on the towel. Perhaps he looks at his self in the mirror, just as I’m doing down here. I wonder if he feels as far away as I do, as dazed by his own reflection.

He closes the bathroom door and comes down the stairs. I step into her path as he appears on the bottom step.
" Oh my God! "

" I’ve got a nosebleed. "

" It’s pumping out of you! " He flaps his arms at me.
" In here, quick! " He pushes me into the lounge. Heavy, dull drops splash the carpet as I walk. Poppies blooming at my feet.
" Sit down, " He commands. " Lean back and pinch your nose. "

This is the opposite of what you’re supposed to do, so I ignore him. Frank’ll be here in ten minutes and we’re going dancing.

Dad stands watching me for a moment, then rushes out of the room. I think maybe he’s gone to throw up, but he comes back with a tea towel and thrusts it at me.
" Lean back. Press this against your nose. "

Since my way’s not working, I do as he says. Blood leaks down my
throat. I swallow as much as I can, but loads of it goes in my mouth and I can’t really breathe. I sit forward and spit onto the tea towel. A big clot glistens back at me, alien dark. It’s definitely not something that’s supposed to be outside my body.

" Give that to me, " Dad says.

I hand it over and he looks at it closely before wrapping it up. His hands, like mine, are smeared with blood now.

" What am I going to do, Dad? He’ll be here soon. "

" It’ll stop in a minute. "

" Look at my clothes! "

He shakes his head at me in despair. " You better lie down. "

This is also the wrong thing to do, but it’s not stopping, so everything’s ruined anyway. Dad sits on the edge of the sofa. I lie back and watch shapes brighten and dissolve. I imagine I’m on a sinking ship. A shadow flaps its wings at me.

Dad says, " Does that feel any better? "

" Much. "
I don’t think he believes me, because he goes out to the kitchen and comes back with the ice-cube tray. He squats next to the sofa and empties it onto his lap. Ice cubes skate off his jeans and onto the carpet. He picks one up, wipes the fluff off and hands it to me.
" Hold this on your nose. "

" Frozen peas would be better, Dad. "
He thinks about this for a second, then rushes off again, returning with a packet of sweetcorn.

" Will this do? There weren’t any peas. "

It makes me laugh, which I guess is something.

" What?’ He says. ‘What’s so funny? "

I reach for his arm and he helps me sit up. I feel ancient. I swing my legs onto the floor and pinch the top of my nose between two fingers like they showed me at the hospital. My pulse is pounding against my head.

" It’s not stopping, is it? I’m going to call Mom. "

" She’ll think you can’t cope. "

" Let her. "

He dials her number quickly. He gets it wrong, re-dials.
" Come on, come on, " He says under his breath.
The room is very pale. All the ornaments on the mantelpiece bleached as bones.

" She’s not answering. Why isn’t she answering? How noisy can it be at a bowling alley? "

" It’s her first night out for weeks, Dad. Leave her. We’ll manage."
His face crashes. He hasn’t dealt with a single transfusion or lumbar puncture. He wasn’t allowed near me for the bone-marrow transplant, but he could have been there for any number of diagnoses, and wasn’t. Even his promises to visit more often have faded away with Christmas. It’s his turn to taste some reality.

" You have to take me to hospital, Dad. "

He looks horrified. " Mom’s got the car. "

" Call a cab. "

" What about Mikey? "

" He’s asleep, isn’t he? "

He nods forlornly, the logistics beyond him.
" Write her a note. "

" We can’t leave him on his own! "

" He’s eleven, Dad, practically a grown-up. "

He hesitates only briefly, then scrolls through his address book to dial a cab. I watch his face, but my focus won’t really hold. All I get is an impression of fear and bewilderment. I close my eyes and think of a father I saw in a film once. He lived on a mountain with a gun and lots of children. He was sure and certain. I stick this father on top of mine, like plaster on a wound

When I open my eyes again, he’s clutching armfuls of towels and tugging at my coat. " You probably shouldn’t go to sleep, " He says. " Come on, let’s get you up. That was the door. "

I feel dazed and hot, as if everything might be a dream. He hauls me up and we shuffle out to the hallway together. I can hear whispering coming from the wall.

But it’s not the cab, it’s Frank, all dressed up for our date. I try and hide, try and stumble back into the lounge, but he sees me.
" Gee, " he says. " Oh my God! What’s happened? "

" Nosebleed, " Dad tells him. " We thought you were the cab. "

" You’re going to the hospital? I’ll take you in my dad’s car. "
He steps into the hallway and tries to put his arm around me as if we’re all just going to walk to his car and get in. As if he’s going to drive and I’m going to bleed all over the dashboard and none of it matters. I look like road kill. Doesn’t he understand that he really shouldn’t be seeing me like this?

I shove him off. " Go home, Frank. "

" I’m taking you to the hospital, " he says again, as if perhaps I didn’t hear him the first time, or maybe the blood has made me stupid.

Dad takes his arm and gently leads him back out of the door.
" We’ll manage, " he says. " It’s all right. Anyway, look, the cab’s here now. "

" I want to be with him. "

" I know, " He tells him. " I’m sorry. "

He touches my hand as I walk past him up the path. " Gee, "
he says.I don’t answer. I don’t even look at him, because his voice is so clear that if I look I might change my mind. To find love just as I go and have to give it up – it’s such a bad joke. But I have to. For him and for me. Before it starts hurting even more than this.

Dad spreads a towel across the back seat of the cab, makes sure we’re belted up, then encourages the driver to do a very dramatic U-turn outside the gate

" That’s it, " Dad tells him. " Put your foot down. " He sounds as if he’s in a movie.

Frank watches from the gate. He waves. He gets smaller and smaller as we drive away.

Dad says, " That was kind of him. "
I close my eyes. I feel as if I’m falling even though I’m sitting down.

Dad nudges me with his elbow. " Stay awake. "
The moon bounces through the window. In the headlights – mist.
We were going dancing. I wanted to try alcohol again. I wanted to stand on tables and sing cheering songs. I wanted to climb over the fence in the park, steal a boat and circle the lake. I wanted to go back to Frank’s house and creep up to his room and make love.

" Frank, " I say under my breath. But it gets covered in blood like everything else.

At the hospital, they find me a wheelchair and make me sit in it. I’m an emergency, they tell me as they rush me away from the reception area. We leave behind the ordinary victims of pub brawls, bad drugs and late-night domestics and we speed down the corridor to somewhere more important.

I find the layers of a hospital strangely reassuring. This is a duplicate world with its own rules and everyone has their place. In the emergency rooms will be the young men with fast cars and crap brakes. The motorcyclists who took a bend too sharply.
In the operating theaters are the people who got followed home by a psychopath. Also, the victims of random accident – the child whose hair got caught in an escalator.
And in bed, deep inside the building, are all the headaches that won’t go away. The failed kidneys, the rashes, the lumps on the breast, the coughs that have turned nasty.
In the Ward on the fourth floor are the kids with cancer. Their bodies secretly and slowly being consumed.
And then there’s the mortuary, where the dead lie in refrigerated drawers with name tags on their feet.

The room I end up in is bright and sterile. There’s a bed, a sink, a doctor and a nurse.

" I think he’s thirsty, " Dad says. " He’s lost so much blood. shouldn’t he have a drink?’

The doctor dismisses this with a wave of his hand. " We need to pack his nose. "

" Pack it? "

The nurse ushers Dad to a chair and sits down next to him.
" The doctor will put strips of gauze in his nose to stop the
blood, " she says. " You’re welcome to stay. "

I’m shivering. The nurse gets up to give me a blanket and pulls it up to my chin. I shiver again.

" Someone’s dreaming about you, " Dad says. " That’s what that means. "

I always thought it meant that, in another life, someone was standing on my grave.

The doctor pinches my nose, peers in my mouth, feels my throat and the back of my neck. " Dad, " he says.

He looks startled, sits upright in his chair. " Me? "

" Any signs of thrombocytopenia before today? "

" Sorry? "

" Has he complained of a headache? Have you noticed any pinprick bruising? "

‘I didn’t look."

The doctor sighs, clocks in a moment that this is a whole new language for her, yet, strangely, persists.

" When was the last platelet transfusion? "

Dad looks increasingly bewildered. " I’m not sure. "

" Has he used aspirin products recently? "

" I’m sorry. I don’t know any of this. "

I decide to save him. He’s not strong enough, and he might just walk out if it gets too difficult.

" December the twenty-first was the last platelet transfusion, "
I say. My voice sounds raspy. Blood bubbles in my throat.

The doctor frowns at me. " Don’t talk. Dad, get yourself over here and take your son’s hand. "
He obediently comes to sit on the edge of the bed.

" Squeeze your dad’s hand once for yes, " The doctor tells me.
" Twice for no. Understand? "

" Yes. "

" Shush, " he says. " Squeeze. Don’t talk. "

We go through the same routine – the bruising, the headaches, the aspirin, but this time Dad knows the answers.

" Bonjela or Teejel? " The doctor asks.

Two squeezes. " No, " Dad tells him. " He hasn’t used them. "

" Anti-inflammatories? "

" No, " Dad says. He looks me in the eyes. He speaks my language at last.

" Good, " the doctor says. " I’m going to pack the front of your nose with gauze. If that doesn’t do it, we’ll pack the back, and if the bleeding still persists, we’ll have to cauterize. Have you had your nose cauterized before? "

I squeeze Mum’s hand so hard that she winces. " Yes, he has. "
It hurts like hell. I could smell my own flesh burning for days.

" We’ll need to check your platelets, " he goes on. " I’d be surprised if you weren’t below twenty. " He touches my knee through the blanket. " I’m sorry. It’s a rotten night for you. "

" Below twenty? " Dad echoes.

" He’ll probably need a couple of units, " he explains. " Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take more than an hour. "

As he packs sterile cotton into my nose, I try and concentrate on simple things – a chair, the twin silver birch trees in Frank’s garden and the way their leaves shiver in sunlight.

But I can’t hold onto it.

I feel as if I’ve eaten a sanitary towel; my mouth is dry and it’s hard to breathe. I look at Dad, but all I see is that he’s feeling squeamish and has turned his face away. How can I feel older than my own father? I close my eyes so I don’t have to see him fail.

" Uncomfortable? " The doctor asks. " Dad, any chance of distracting him? "

I wish he hadn’t said that. What’s he going to do? Dance for us? Sing? Perhaps he’ll do her famous disappearing act and walk out of the door.

The silence goes on a long time. Then, " Do you remember the day we all tried oysters, and how your Mom was spewing in the bin at the end of the pier?’

I open my eyes. Whatever shadows are in the room disappear with the brightness of his words. Even the nurse smiles.

" They tasted exactly of the sea, " he says. " Do you remember? "

I do. We bought four, one for each of us. Dad tipped his head right back and swallowed his whole. I did the same. But Mom chewed hers' and it got stuck in her teeth. She ran down the pier clutching her stomach, and when she came back, she drank a whole can of lemonade without pausing for breath. Mikey didn’t like them either.

He goes on to describe a seaside town and a hotel, a short walk to the beach and days when the sun shone bright and warm.
" You loved it there, " he says. " You’d collect shells and pebbles for hours. Once you tied some rope to a lump of driftwood and spent an entire day dragging it up and down the beach pretending you had a dog. "

The nurse laughs at this and Dad smiles. " You were an imaginative little boy, " he tells me. " Such an easy child. "

And if I could talk, I’d ask him why, then, did he leave me? And maybe he’d speak at last of the woman he left Mom for. He might tell me of a love so big that I’d begin to understand.

But I can’t talk. My throat feels small and feverish.

So instead, I listen as Dad explores an old sun, faded days, past beauty. It’s good. He’s very inventive. Even the doctor looks as if he’s enjoying himself. In his story, the sky shimmers, and day after day we see dolphins playing in the sea.

" Supplementary oxygen, " The doctor says. And he winks at me as if he’s offering me dope. " No need to cauterize. Well done. " He has a word with the nurse, then turns in the doorway to wave goodbye. " Best customer tonight so far, " he tells me, then he gives Dad an elbow shove. " And you weren’t so bad either. "

*------*

" Well, what a night that was! " Dad says as we finally climb into a cab to take us home.

" I liked you being with me. "

He looks surprised, pleased even. " I’m not sure how much use I was. "

Early-morning light spills from the sky onto the road. It’s cold in the taxi, the air rarefied, like inside a church.

" Here, " Dad says, and he unbuttons his coat and wraps it round my shoulders.

" Step on it, " He tells the driver, and we both chuckle.

We drive back the way we came. He’s very talkative, full of plans for spring and Easter. He wants to spend more time at our house, he says. He wants to invite some of his and Mom’s old friends for dinner. He might want a party for my birthday in April
Perhaps he means it this time.

" Do you know, " he says, " every night when the market stalls are being packed away, I go out and collect vegetables and fruit off the ground. Sometimes they chuck away whole boxes of mangoes. Last week I got five sea bass just lying there in a plastic bag. If I begin to put things in Mom’s freezer, we’ll have plenty for parties and dinners and it won’t cost your mother a penny.’

He talks of bands and entertainers; he hires the local community hall and covers it in streamers and balloons. I nudge up next to him and put my head on his shoulder. I’m his son after all. I try and keep really still because I don’t want it to change. It’s lovely being lulled by his words and the warmth of his coat.

" Look, " he says. " That’s strange. "

It’s a struggle to open my eyes. " What is? "

" There on the bridge. That wasn’t there before. "

We’ve stopped at the traffic lights outside the railway station. Even at this early hour it’s busy, with taxis dropping off commuters determined to beat the rush. On the bridge, high above the road, letters have blossomed during the night.
Several people are looking. There’s a wobbly GE, a jagged R, and four interlinked curves for the A and R. At the end, bigger than the other letters, there’s a mountainous A.

Dad says, " That’s a coincidence. "

But it’s not.

My phone’s in my pocket. My fingers furl and unfurl.

He would’ve done this last night. It would’ve been dark. He climbed the wall, straddled it, then leaned right over.

My heart hurts. I get out my phone and text: R U ALIVE?

The lights change through amber to green. The cab moves under the bridge and along the High Street
It’s half past six. Will he even be awake? What if he lost his balance and plummeted onto the road below?

" Oh goodness, " Dad says. " You’re everywhere! "

The shops in the street still have their metal grilles down, blank-eyed and sleeping. My name is scrawled across them all. I’m outside a Post Office. I’m on the expensive shutters of the health food store. I’m massive on the furniture shop, King’s Chicken Joint and the Barbecue, the Café. I thread the pavement outside the bank and all the way to Mothercare. I’ve possessed the road and am a glistening circle at the roundabout.

" It’s a miracle! " Dad whispers.

" It’s Frank. "

" From next door? " He sounds amazed, as if there’s magic afoot.

My phone bleeps. AM ALIVE. U?

I laugh out loud. When I get back, I’m going to knock on his door and tell him I’m sorry. He’s going to smile at me the way he did yesterday when he was carrying garden rubbish down the path and he saw me watching and said, ‘Just can’t keep away, can you?’ It made me laugh, because actually it was true, but saying it out loud made it not so painful.

" Frank did this for you? " Dad shivers with excitement. He always did believe in romance.

I text him back. AM ALIVE 2. CMING HME NOW.

Lindsey asked me once, "What’s the best moment of your life so far?" And I told her about the time I was practicing handstands with a friend. I was eight. I lay on the grass holding my friends hand, dizzy with happiness and absolutely certain that the world was good. Lindsey thought I was nuts. But really, it was the first time I’d ever known I was happy in such a conscious way

Kissing Frank replaced it.
Making love replaced that.
And now he’s done this for me.He’s made me famous.
He’s put my name on the world.

I’ve been in hospital all night, my head’s stuffed with cotton. I’m clutching a paper bag full of antibiotics and painkillers, and my arm aches from two units of platelets delivered through my portacath. And yet, it’s extraordinary how happy I feel.