Read Online This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Maggie O'Farrell
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is quite another matter.’
Niall inclines his head. He touches his binoculars, which are now zipped inside his windcheater, feels the twin rims of their lenses. His schoolbag rests on his knee and its presence there feels reassuring, apt.
‘How are you doing, anyway?’ his father says, without taking his eyes off the road. ‘You holding up?’
Niall lifts his shoulders, lets them fall and the weft of his shirt fabric catches and claws at the worst parts of his skin. Not long, he tells himself, inside his head, not long to go.
His father reaches out and turns over one of Niall’s hands. Together, they look down at the medical glove, which is spotted with rust-brown at the wrist, at the finger joints, across the palm.
‘Hmm,’ his father mutters. ‘I told her 8 we should have gone yesterday.’
Niall curls his hand back into itself. Then he looks at his father. ‘You OK?’ he says.
‘Me?’ His father seems surprised. The car pulls up at a red light and he glances at Niall. They look at each other for a moment. ‘I’m great,’ his father says, in a slightly hoarse voice, breaking eye contact. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
The funny thing about his father is that Niall can sense what he’s thinking and feeling. He can tune in to his father’s mind as if it were a radio station. 9 Right now, he can tell his father is upset but pretending not to be. He has the simmering, maddened, slightly dangerous look Niall once saw in the eyes of a horse kept back from its race. This fills him with a specific kind of dread: when his father is in this mood, anything may happen.
Niall shifts his feet, left over right, then right over left, then left over right again, trying to discern which arrangement feels appropriate for now.
‘Onwards,’ he says, and his father revs the engine by way of answer.
Niall has been coming to the Paediatric Acute Dermatology Daycare Unit 10 his whole life. It’s a place for the city’s most severe, most afflicted: you don’t get to come here if you have a bit of an itch now and then, a slight rash on the backs of your knees. This is for kids who are inflamed with eczema, head to foot, kids for whom normal clothes and unbroken sleep are impossibilities. 11
So, once a week, Daniel does what he calls rearranging his schedule and he brings Niall here, to the unit, where nurses in hats and much-washed tunics mix ingredients in little ceramic bowls and click their tongues in sympathy as they smear Niall with the cool, clay-like substance, 12 until he looks like a child ghost, a mime artist, 13 then wrap him, toe to neck, in merciful paste bandages. The relief can last a whole day, if Niall is careful, if he can manage to keep the wrappings intact.
So Niall loves the unit. It means twenty-four hours off his maddening, exhausting condition. It means an afternoon out of school. It means that he gets to sit next to Daniel in the waiting room, while Daniel grades papers. 14 His father always brings something to occupy Niall, 15 if he has work to do: a magazine or a book or set of magnets or, once, a pedometer, so that Niall could fix it to his belt and walk up and down the corridor, recording how many steps it took to get from the drinks machine to the UV lighting room.
Today, though, his father is not grading papers. He has the papers on his lap. Niall can see the half-marked one at the top of the pile, in slightly smudged black ink, but his father is not looking at it. He is glaring at the ceiling, as if it has offended him in some way, and he is tapping the end of a marker pen against his teeth.
The hardest part, Niall knows, is the waiting. It is now 14:27, almost half an hour after their appointment. The heat in the room is cranked right up 16 and sunlight fills the space, softening the plastic covers of the chairs, making the stacks of wilting magazines hot to the touch. Niall crouches by the table, setting in motion the gyroscope that Daniel has brought him today, the glinting structure
Niall inclines his head. He touches his binoculars, which are now zipped inside his windcheater, feels the twin rims of their lenses. His schoolbag rests on his knee and its presence there feels reassuring, apt.
‘How are you doing, anyway?’ his father says, without taking his eyes off the road. ‘You holding up?’
Niall lifts his shoulders, lets them fall and the weft of his shirt fabric catches and claws at the worst parts of his skin. Not long, he tells himself, inside his head, not long to go.
His father reaches out and turns over one of Niall’s hands. Together, they look down at the medical glove, which is spotted with rust-brown at the wrist, at the finger joints, across the palm.
‘Hmm,’ his father mutters. ‘I told her 8 we should have gone yesterday.’
Niall curls his hand back into itself. Then he looks at his father. ‘You OK?’ he says.
‘Me?’ His father seems surprised. The car pulls up at a red light and he glances at Niall. They look at each other for a moment. ‘I’m great,’ his father says, in a slightly hoarse voice, breaking eye contact. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
The funny thing about his father is that Niall can sense what he’s thinking and feeling. He can tune in to his father’s mind as if it were a radio station. 9 Right now, he can tell his father is upset but pretending not to be. He has the simmering, maddened, slightly dangerous look Niall once saw in the eyes of a horse kept back from its race. This fills him with a specific kind of dread: when his father is in this mood, anything may happen.
Niall shifts his feet, left over right, then right over left, then left over right again, trying to discern which arrangement feels appropriate for now.
‘Onwards,’ he says, and his father revs the engine by way of answer.
Niall has been coming to the Paediatric Acute Dermatology Daycare Unit 10 his whole life. It’s a place for the city’s most severe, most afflicted: you don’t get to come here if you have a bit of an itch now and then, a slight rash on the backs of your knees. This is for kids who are inflamed with eczema, head to foot, kids for whom normal clothes and unbroken sleep are impossibilities. 11
So, once a week, Daniel does what he calls rearranging his schedule and he brings Niall here, to the unit, where nurses in hats and much-washed tunics mix ingredients in little ceramic bowls and click their tongues in sympathy as they smear Niall with the cool, clay-like substance, 12 until he looks like a child ghost, a mime artist, 13 then wrap him, toe to neck, in merciful paste bandages. The relief can last a whole day, if Niall is careful, if he can manage to keep the wrappings intact.
So Niall loves the unit. It means twenty-four hours off his maddening, exhausting condition. It means an afternoon out of school. It means that he gets to sit next to Daniel in the waiting room, while Daniel grades papers. 14 His father always brings something to occupy Niall, 15 if he has work to do: a magazine or a book or set of magnets or, once, a pedometer, so that Niall could fix it to his belt and walk up and down the corridor, recording how many steps it took to get from the drinks machine to the UV lighting room.
Today, though, his father is not grading papers. He has the papers on his lap. Niall can see the half-marked one at the top of the pile, in slightly smudged black ink, but his father is not looking at it. He is glaring at the ceiling, as if it has offended him in some way, and he is tapping the end of a marker pen against his teeth.
The hardest part, Niall knows, is the waiting. It is now 14:27, almost half an hour after their appointment. The heat in the room is cranked right up 16 and sunlight fills the space, softening the plastic covers of the chairs, making the stacks of wilting magazines hot to the touch. Niall crouches by the table, setting in motion the gyroscope that Daniel has brought him today, the glinting structure
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