Free Incendiary by Chris Cleave Page B

bad. The smell of my puke was rising from the floor. He smiled at me but you could still see him thinking I am the prince of puke and one day I shall be king of it.
    —I’m so sorry your royal majesty.
    —Please don’t worry, he said. It’s quite alright.
    But we both knew it wasn’t.
    After Prince William was gone they unplugged all of the kidney dialysis machines and they wheeled them out but they left us where we were.
    *                  *                  *
    That woman in the tweed suit was a grief counsellor. All the time I stayed in hospital we met twice a week to talk through my loss. She honestly thought it would help. She’d never lost anything more serious than car keys. One day she said I might want to join a group of other mothers who lost their children on May Day but I said nah I mean I’ve never been much of a joiner.
    In the end the view out of my window did me more good than talking. They moved me to a bed by the window where there was day and night again and I could look out on the whole city. The hospital I was in was Guy’s. Maybe you know it Osama? Maybe you’ve studied just how to blow it up?
    Guy’s is tall and grubby and full of poorly people. You can see it from all over London if you ever need reminding you’re going to get very poorly and die one day. From my window at the top of Guy’s Hospital I could see everything from Canary Wharf to St. Paul’s with the Thames cutting under it all like a fat slow wound.
    London and me healed slowly. They worked on the city to make it stronger and they worked on me too. How they fixed me up was they put plaster casts on my broken hand and knee and stitched me up inside to stop the bleeding. I had 4 operations and then that was that. There was nothing to do except lie there and wait for myself to get better. For 6 weeks I just stared out of the window watching them fortify London.
    Mena was my favourite nurse. She was a nice girl. She lived in Peckham but her family was from the East. Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan or one of those Stans anyway. She told me 2 or 3 times the name of the place but I never could recall it. I remember she said it was much nicer than Peckham but that doesn’t rule out much of the world does it?
    Mena’s shift was earlies. She took my temperature at 5 a.m. every morning she always started with me because I was always awake. Then if the other ladies on the ward were still asleep she’d sit on the end of my bed and we’d watch the sun rising up over the docklands. First the towers glowed rosy pink. Then the sun rose huge and dirty orange like a soft warm egg yolk. It wobbled up through the haze getting smaller and harder and brighter until you couldn’t look at it any more. Mena used to hold my hand while we looked out over the city. Her hand was small and hard like the sun.
    —So many people down there, she used to say. So many people under this sunrise. So many people waking up right at this moment. And all those people want is to get through today.
    She was like that was Mena. Philosophical. I’d definitely of killed myself if it hadn’t of been for her.
    Mena’s philosophy started with Valium. Every morning she brought me 2 of them from the medical store. Little blue pills they were. I took 2 of those pills each day. One for my husband and one for my boy. Mena used to take a couple herself. That’s how come she was always so calm. You can’t blame her for that Osama you’d probably be the same if you had to live in Peckham.
    The weeks went by like that without any fuss. 2 Valium to be taken with sunrise. The nicest prescription. Me and Mena watched each morning what they were doing to London. First they stopped boats using the river. All those boat buses and disco ships and sightseeing barges. Well they just stopped them. They did it so you couldn’t blow up the Houses of Parliament Osama. With some horrible floating disco full of Semtex and Dexys Midnight Runners. They drained