An extract from a novel.
Tessa rekindled a flame under wood in the grate and arranged three logs on the hearth, so heat would draw out their moisture. Wetness hissed in the fire. Pulling her shrunken jumper down over her belt, she passed Solange in the armchair embroidering another hassock and walked to the kitchen where, near the lit stove, Marcel was painting. He should have been at school, but minus ten was extreme, and his cough was back. Not that he cared, sneaking outside with those bloody binoculars. Still, here he was now, safely in the warm.
‘I like your eagle,’ she said, standing behind his chair.
‘This wing’s bigger than that one.’
‘The feathers remind me of that outfit from your old dressing-up box. How d’you do the white dapples?’
‘I used the side of the bristles, like this. Works best if the paint’s running out.’
‘That’s clever,’ she said. ‘Right, better fetch some dry logs.’
She wrapped up and headed out to the wood-stack. The sky was of the purest blue, and the freezing air pricked her cheeks. Patting her gloved hands together, she looked down the valley, where the sun was striking the skeleton trees, casting shadow lines on the snow. She filled the sack with logs and dragged it up the path, over slips of black ice and into the house. With her foot, she closed the door. Mustn’t let in the cold. Even these logs were wet at the end that had faced the elements, so she stood them like stalagmites around the hearth, and went out for one last load before it snowed.
By the time she returned Solange was asleep. Quietly, she rested her sack by the fire, laid the edelweiss blanket over her mother-in-law’s knees, and rested the hassock on top. Removing her own coat and gloves, yet leaving her hat on, she went to the kitchen to be with Marcel.
He wasn’t at the table. His binoculars, brushes, paper, and paints were still spread across its surface. She looked at his art: the eagle was unfinished, so the black tips of its wing-feathers looked like floating fingers; the curve of the beak was perfect, but the left wing was wrong, as he’d said. His skills were coming along — she’d get back to her ceramics one day. She picked up his jar to change the darkened water, pushed in his chair to get to the sink, and it was then that she spotted his red-socked feet: he was on the floor by the back door. His torso was bent, his head down.
‘Marcel!’ Dumping the jar on the draining board, she darted to his side. ‘Is it hard to breathe?’
Raising his head, he opened his eyes, and there was that panic from Paris. She had to calm him.
‘Let me get your inhaler,’ she said, but the blue one wasn’t on the shelf, so she opened the top drawer, shoved aside pens, bills, scissors, memos, grabbed the inhaler, knocked over the jug, and knelt with Marcel. ‘Here.’
His shoulders heaved, while she fumbled the cap off the inhaler and shoved it into the spacer. When she held it to his face, he put his hands on hers and brought it to his lips. Her heart pounding, she pressed the canister. His neck was all sucked in skin, tendons like buttress roots.
‘Can you hold it?’ she said, hating to leave him, but running for the phone in the lounge, then dialling 112. ‘My son’s having an asthma attack and he has a lung condition, I. . .’ She shook Solange, making her jump and look about. ‘Talk to the ambulance,’ said Tessa, thrusting the phone at her.
Open-mouthed, Solange got to her feet, the hassock tumbling from her lap. ‘What’s happening?’
‘It’s Marcel. He’s having an attack,’ said Tessa, pushing the receiver against her soft belly, and stepping towards the kitchen.
Marcel’s face had gone white, and he was gasping, chest lifting, for the air that was all around him. She grasped the spacer, clipped his teeth as she pushed it in, and released the Ventolin.
‘Be calm Marcel — it’s going to be all right.’
But it wasn’t all right. The medication wasn’t enough. She wanted to open his ribs, stretch his airways with her bare hands, let in the oxygen.
‘Where’s the ambulance?’ she shouted.
Marcel was tapping his chest. She tried to shift his back straighter, maybe free his diaphragm. She must do something. Come on, please. His face contorted.
Then, Solange was the other side of him. ‘They say they’ll be here as soon as they —’
‘Marcel, look at me, try to relax. Try to breathe.’ Tessa imitated deep breathing, as if he might copy her. The blink of his eyelids slowed. ‘Paper bag. Have we got one?’
‘I think. . . the pastries,’ said Solange, and she rustled about near the kettle, then handed Tessa a bakery bag.
‘Breathe in here,’ said Tessa, a buttery smell wafting as she opened it.
Flakes of croissant fell onto his hoodie. Grease had made little see-through patches on the paper bag, but Marcel’s breath couldn’t inflate it.
‘Where are they? Phone someone,’ said Tessa. ‘Who’s got a car?’
‘The paramedics are best, what if. . . I’ll go out, wave them in.’
‘Get help.’
Marcel dropped the bag. She touched his lips — they were losing colour. No, no, no. She wasn’t going to let him. . . Breathe! She made a fist and bit down on her forefinger. The neighbour’s dog barked. Again, she tried the inhaler.
‘You’ve got to. . .’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Here,’ she said, forcing herself to keep it together. ‘Open.’
The dog barked and barked. She tilted Marcel’s head in her hand. Was that? Yes — a siren.
‘I can hear the ambulance. They’ll be seconds now.’
Marcel’s face didn’t register.
Boots running up the path, bashing through the hall.
‘In here!’ she said, then put her mouth to Marcel’s ear, his sweat wetting her cheek. ‘They’re here. It’s all right now.’
She turned to see a paramedic rush through the kitchen door. Swiftly, he unpacked, speaking in solid sounds.
‘Asthma, yes?’
‘Quick!’ said Tessa. ‘He has COPA syndrome, as well.’
The paramedic fixed a nebuliser mask over Marcel’s mouth and nose. The skin of the backs of his hands was smooth, his face taut. Just out of college — better know what he’s doing. She clenched her teeth and watched him flush in the drugs.
‘Give it a minute,’ he said. ‘COPA. . . I’ve never —’
‘It’s not working,’ Tessa said.
As he measured Marcel’s pulse, another paramedic arrived, banging the door against the worktop.
‘We’ll take this one in,’ the young medic said.
‘Right,’ said his colleague, turning to leave.
‘His lungs,’ said Tessa, ‘his condition — they could haemorrhage.’
Marcel’s eyes closed above the mask. From outside came Solange’s voice, then the second medic clattering about. The back door opened, chilling her midriff, and Tessa stayed close as they carried Marcel into the icy air, and onto a trolley to wheel him to the ambulance. She climbed in after him, and as they shut the doors, Solange was on the path, making the sign of the cross.
Marcel seemed smaller on the trolley in the ambulance, the mask still on. Tessa sat holding his hand, talking to him. This was worse than last time — he wouldn’t reply, so she squeezed his pale fingers. Please squeeze back. Marcel? The paramedic was checking his pulse every few minutes, asking her endless questions, and radioing the hospital. Even inside the ambulance its siren was loud and, though they were travelling fast enough for speed to pin her to the seat, they were taking too long.
‘Must be nearly there,’ she said, grabbing the rail as they swerved.
The engine laboured uphill.
‘Two minutes,’ said the paramedic.
On arrival they pushed Marcel into A&E, and she tried to stay close without obstructing the medics. A flock of doctors and nurses in white glided Marcel into a side room, and she followed, catching snatches of their voices.
‘Ipratropium bromide.’
‘He’s entering severe respiratory failure. . . where’s the. . .’
They were saying his name, but he wasn’t responding. She wanted to push through, but she mustn’t hinder them.
‘Intravenous ketamine. . . dose. . . administering now.’
‘Intubation. . . Airway checked?’
They fed a tube down Marcel’s throat. She cracked her knuckles. They’d make him vomit like that and rip him inside. She stepped forward.
‘Ventilation. . . Five centimetres H2O.’
They moved as a mass, connecting Marcel and his tube to a machine, calling figures: tidal volume, flow rate, oxygen — too many numbers. Her stomach was tight.
‘Hypoxic.’
They quickened now. Someone pressed an alarm, and another doctor strode through the flock.
‘Prepare isoflurane.’
A flurry of movement. Beep, beep — the monitor.
‘Seventy over. . . Severe hypotension.’
A shriek caught in her.
And that’s when someone appeared behind her. ‘Madame. You must come.’
‘No —’
‘This way, please.’
Tessa was pulled by the shoulders. As she turned her head, she glimpsed only his feet in his red socks, for the flock had engulfed him now. She stuck to the strip-lit tiles, until the nurse led her away to meet her sadness.
Emile paced and questioned, but Tessa’s words lodged like pebbles. Yellow walls enclosed them with the red lights, the beep and the beep and the tubes. Marcel’s hand was heavy when she held it — could he feel her?
Sitting. Watching.
She fiddled with the hat on her lap, pulling at a loose strand, unravelling the wool. Emile swiped and tapped the screen of his phone, presented coffees in thin, plastic cups.
On the fourth day, Marcel spoke. ‘My throat hurts.’
His hoarse voice released hers. ‘Oh! Marcel.’
He lifted his chin to swallow and screwed his eyes.
‘Here, have a sip of water,’ she said, supporting his head for him to drink then resting it on the pillow.
‘I was scared, Maman.’
‘I know, darling.’
‘It was like someone put a plug in my throat.’
Placing the beaker on the table, she leaned to kiss his forehead and said, ‘I love you so.’
Like a storm the danger passed, and Marcel was moved to a paediatric ward that smelled of antiseptic and nappies. Outside intensive care, nurses were shared between too many patients, and seemed always to be hurrying past the foot of his bed; though they would know if he stopped breathing — they would hear the beep of his machine — she stayed. The children were quiet apart from a girl who cried for her dad, and a toddler who banged his toy on his cot like a crow with a snail. Picture books, too young for Marcel, were among the plastic games, and she chose animal stories for him to read. When he dozed, she stared at the red-light numbers on his blood oxygen machine, and she planned — she couldn’t let it happen again.
In the hospital lobby, where visitors in coats stared at coded signs and outpatients waited on seats in rows, Tessa found the payphone and called Aurore. She didn’t need someone to comfort her, to tell her he was in good hands — she needed to protect Marcel. When she had told Aurore everything, she asked:
‘Did you pass on my number to the gene therapy trial?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘We have to go down that route, now. They haven’t called — will you ask them again for me?’
‘Of course, I will.’
Replacing the receiver Tessa turned to check around her, though Emile had returned to Paris.