Forbidden

I arrive home to find Kit and Tiffin in the front room watching TV, which surprises me. Not so much the fact that they are watching television, but that they are doing it simultaneously and that Tiffin is the one with the remote control. Kit is slouched down at one end of the couch, his muddy school shoes half untied, head propped up on his hand, gazing dully at the screen. Tiffin has traces of ketchup down his shirt and is kneeling up at the other end of the couch, transfixed by some violent cartoon, his eyes wide, mouth hovering open like a fish. Neither one turns as I enter.

‘Hello!’ I exclaim.

Tiffin holds up a packet of Coco Pops and shakes it vaguely in my direction, his gaze still fixed straight ahead. ‘We’re allowed,’ he a

‘Before di

‘This is di

‘What?’

‘They’ve gone to the hospital.’ Kit rolls his head round to look at me with a long-suffering air. ‘And I have to stay down here with Tiffin and live off cereal for the foreseeable future.’

I sit up slowly. ‘Lochie and Willa have gone to hospital?’ I ask, disbelief resonating in my voice.

‘Yeah,’ comes Kit’s reply.

‘What the hell happened?’ My voice rises and I jump up and start rummaging in my bag for my keys. Startled by my shout, both boys finally tear their eyes away from the screen.

‘I bet it’s nothing,’ Kit says bitterly. ‘I bet they’re going to spend all night waiting in Casualty, Willa will fall asleep and by the time she wakes up, she’ll be saying it doesn’t even hurt any more.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Tiffin turns to him, his blue eyes wide and accusing. ‘Maybe she’ll have to get an operation. Maybe they’ll amputate her—’

‘What happened?’ I yell, frantic now.

‘I du

‘I was,’ Tiffin a

‘Where have they gone?’ I grab Kit by the arm and shake him. ‘St Joseph’s?’

‘Ow, get off! Yes, that’s what he said.’

‘Neither of you move!’ I shout from the doorway. ‘Tiffin, you’re not to go outside, do you hear me? Kit, can you promise you’ll stay with Tiffin until I get back? And answer the phone as soon as it rings?’

Kit rolls his eyes dramatically. ‘Lochan’s already been through all this—’

‘Do you promise?’

‘Yes!’

‘And don’t open the door to anyone, and if there’s any problem call my mobile!’

‘OK, OK!’

I run the whole way. It’s a good two miles but the rush-hour traffic is such that taking a bus would be slower if not more torturous. Ru

I am close to tears by the time I reach the hospital, and once inside, trying to get directions almost sends me over the edge. Eventually I locate Children’s Outpatients, am told that Willa is fine but ‘resting’ and that I will be able to see her as soon as she wakes. I am shown to a small room off a long corridor and informed that Willa’s ward is just round the corner and that a doctor will come and speak to me shortly. As soon as the nurse disappears, I burst back out again.

Rounding a corner, I recognize, down at the far end of another blindingly white corridor, a familiar figure in front of the brightly painted doors of the children’s ward. Head lowered, he is leaning forward on his hands, gripping the edge of a windowsill.

‘Lochie!’

He whirls round as if struck, straightens up slowly, then approaches me rapidly, raising his hands as if in surrender.

‘She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s absolutely fine – they gave her a sedative and gas and air for the pain and were able to push the bone straight back in. I’ve just seen her and she’s fast asleep but she looks completely fine. After they X-rayed her the second time, the doctors said they were certain there’d be no long-term damage – she won’t even need a plaster cast and her shoulder will be back to normal in a week or possibly even less! They said dislocated shoulders happen to children all the time, that it’s really quite common, they see it all the time, it’s nothing to worry about!’ He is speaking insanely fast, his eyes radiating a kind of frenzied optimism, looking at me with a frantic, almost pleading look as if expecting me to start jumping up and down in relief.

I stop dead, panting hard, brushing the stray wisps of hair back from my face, and stare at him.

‘She dislocated her shoulder?’ I gasp.

He flinches, as if stung by the words. ‘Yeah, but that’s all! Nothing else! They’ve X-rayed her and everything and—’

‘What happened?’

‘She just fell off the kitchen counter!’ He tries to touch me but I move out of the way. ‘Look, she’s fine, Maya, I’m telling you! There’s nothing broken: the bone just popped out of the shoulder socket. I know it sounds dramatic, but all they had to do was push it back in. They gave her gas and air so it wasn’t too – too painful, and – and now she’s just resting.’

His manic demeanour and rapid-fire speech is faintly horrifying. His hair is on end, as if he has been ru

‘I want to see her—’

‘No!’ He catches me as I try to push past. ‘They want her to sleep off the sedative – they won’t let you in until she wakes up—’

‘I don’t give a shit! She’s my sister and she’s hurt and so I’m going in to see her and no one can stop me!’ I begin to shout.

But Lochan is forcibly restraining me and, to my astonishment, I suddenly find myself grappling with him in this long, bright, empty hospital corridor. For a moment I am almost tempted to kick him, but then I hear him gasp, ‘Don’t make a scene, you mustn’t make a scene. It’ll just make it worse.’