for that, but we’ve had to up the dosage several times already, and one of the side effects is heart arrhythmia. That’s what happened in there. We’ve shocked him out of it for now, but if he has multiple episodes, there’s really nothing for us to do.”
“Why didn’t you drain the blood?” Susanna demanded, sharply enough that I jumped. “From the hemorrhage?”
The doctor barely glanced at her. “We’re doing everything that’s appropriate.”
“Standard procedure is to drain the blood right away, to relieve the pressure on the brain. Why didn’t you—”
“For Doctor Google, maybe.” A half smile, but it was animal and tooth-baring, a warning. “But when your uncle came in, his prognosis wasn’t good. We don’t know how long he’d been down before he was found; it could have been anything up to twenty minutes. We managed to get him breathing again, but there’s no way to know how much damage was done in the meantime. And that’s on top of his pre-existing terminal condition. Even if the hemorrhage resolves, there’s a high probability he’ll be left in a permanent vegetative state.”
Susanna said, “He’s old and he’s dying anyway and he came in from police custody, so he wasn’t worth the hassle and resources of surgery.”
The doctor’s eyes slid away like she bored him. He said, “You’ll just have to accept that everything we’ve done has been within best-practice guidelines,” which sounded strange to me, like I had heard it somewhere before; for a second there his voice even sounded different, everything sideslipping— But then he turned his shoulder to Susanna and said in his own voice, to my father and Oliver and especially Phil: “We need to decide what to do the next time his heart goes into arrhythmia. Do we shock him again? Give CPR? Or do we leave it?”
“‘The next time,’” my father said. “You think it’s going to happen again.”
“There’s no way to be sure. But almost definitely, yes.”
“And you don’t think there’s any chance he’ll wake up. If you keep stabilizing his heart, I mean, to give the hemorrhage time to resolve.”
“Not with any quality of life, no. We’ve all heard the stories about people coming out of comas after ten years, but that’s not going to happen here.”
Silence. Leon looked like he might throw up. Then:
“Leave it,” Phil said. My father nodded, one small jerk of his head. Susanna took a breath and then let it out again.
“We’ll keep him comfortable,” the doctor said, almost gently. “You can go in and see him now.”
We went in and out, one by one, two by two. I knew we were supposed to say our good-byes and any final messages, but there was nothing I could find to say that wouldn’t have been either idiotic or dangerous—Rafferty, stubbled and eyebagged by now, back in his chair—or both. Hugo, I said in the end, into his ear. He smelled musty and medical, nothing like himself. It’s Toby. Thank you for everything. And I’m so sorry. There was something crusted at the corners of his lips; Susanna found a wipe in her bag and cleaned it off, gently, telling him some long story too low and close for me to hear.
Everyone phoning, texting. Oliver pacing the waiting area with his phone pressed to one ear and his finger in the other, talking fast and harshly. Tom bustling in babbling about childcare arrangements to anyone who would listen, which was no one. My mother, Louisa, Miriam with tears pouring down her face as she cast about for someone to hug and the rest of us looked away.
And there we all were, waiting. Far below the window, traffic jammed up in the rain: streaks of light glistening on wet tarmac, pedestrians scurrying, umbrellas flapping wildly.
“They could be wrong,” Leon said, at my shoulder. “Doctors make mistakes all the time.”
He looked awful, pinched and peaky, with a greasy sheen to his face. “What are you talking about?” I said.
“He could wake up. I don’t like that doctor, the way he bullied our dads into—”
“Even if he does wake up, he’ll still have cancer. We’ll just have to do this all over again in a few weeks. And he’s not going to wake up.”
“I can’t think,” Leon said. “I’ve been so fucking tense, for so long, my brain won’t . . .” He shoved his hair out of his face with the back of his wrist. “Listen. About the other night.”
“I was a prick to you,” I said. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK. I’ve probably been