Sticks and Stones Read online

  ‘Wow, that would be amazing,’ Lou replied with real feeling, earning her a small smile from Frankie.

  It took a while to shift all the stuff up to Lou’s room, and after some persistence on her part, Lou had managed to get Frankie to say more than two words. By the time they were finished Lou knew that, behind her barrier of shyness and inexplicable fear, Frankie was not only kind but extremely funny in her own quiet, dry sort of way.

  Lou made a point of finding out where Frankie’s room was, and the next night she dragged her out to the first fresher event, shamelessly getting her steaming drunk. On their return back to the halls Lou managed to extract the whole bleak story from Frankie of why she was how she was. Lou had been bullied by her mother, but never her peers. When she was at school her forceful personality had been put to use squashing any hint of bullying. Her natural inbuilt sense of justice just could not stand any form of oppression. She vowed that Frankie was going to bloody well enjoy her Uni days, whatever it took.

  If it took giving up something that she desperately wanted then maybe that was just the price she had to pay.

  Lou’s head snapped up and she stared straight into those piercing eyes. It wasn’t as if she was even giving him up for Frankie, she reasoned. She’d never stood a chance with him in the first place.

  ‘Frankie has what you might call social phobia, so someone like you is particularly intimidating to her.’

  ‘What do you mean “someone like me”?’

  ‘I mean that you are her absolute opposite. You’re the most social person on the planet, in more ways than one.’ Despite only having spent a few weeks at medical school there were very few people he didn’t know, and even less girls he hadn’t flirted with.

  ‘You’re not exactly a shrinking violet babes,’ he returned. ‘And she’s okay with you.’

  ‘She trusts me dipshit. Your size doesn’t help either.’

  Dylan smirked. ‘Can’t help my physical prowess babe,’ he said, flexing his biceps. ‘Not much I can do to hide these boys, especially in summer. Sun’s out guns’ out. You know what I mean?’

  Lou rolled her eyes and pressed her lips together to stop herself laughing. ‘Okay don’t get all roidy on me Swansea boy. I’m just telling you to tone yourself down a bit with her. Go gently. She deserves gentle after the crap she’s been through.’

  ‘What’s she been through?’

  Lou looked at him and took a deep breath. Maybe they weren’t her secrets to share, but Dylan was right when he said he would be good for Frankie. And Lou knew that without her help he was unlikely to pierce that armour.

  The next day he broke through. And yes he was good for her, but not in the way he thought he wanted.

  Chapter 19

  A bit late to present the history

  Lou stared at the sharps bin leaning up against the side of the corridor, contemplating her options. Since arriving at the hospital in Milawi six months ago she had encountered countless similar dilemmas. The sharps bin in front of her was overflowing, needles and syringes spilling out onto the floor. She winced as she saw a family with a curious toddler walking down the corridor, and used her body to shield the container from the child’s inquisitive gaze. Turning back to it again after they passed she bit her lip and then jumped a mile high, clutching her chest when Jimbo’s loud voice cut through her thoughts.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he barked at her.

  Lou rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not stu –‘

  ‘Let the guys with some protective gear come to sort it Lou.’

  ‘But what if someone - ?’

  ‘Don’t you think they know not to touch dirty needles around here sis? Give them some credit.’

  ‘But what if a child – ?’

  Jimbo sighed; he knew from bitter experience just how stubborn his sister could be.

  ‘Wait here, I’ll get some stuff.’

  Fifteen minutes later Lou grinned up at her brother and handed him back the thick protective gloves. Two full sharps bins sat side by side in front of her.

  ‘Come on freak, let’s get some food,’ Jimbo grumbled.

  ‘Ooh! Can you take me to the market?’ she asked. ‘There was a sort of skewery kebab type thing that caught my eye last time.’

  ‘No way,’ Jimbo replied, his skin developing a green tinge with the mention of unidentified meat. ‘Last time you forced me to eat there I was sick for days.’

  ‘God, how are we related? You’re such a weakling.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Weak am I?’ he asked in a dangerous voice. ‘Care to take that back?’ Lou slipped out from under his arm and took a step backwards, holding up both arms to ward him off.

  ‘Now Jim – oomph!’ Jimbo surged forward, grabbed her into a headlock and slapping her repeatedly on the forehead.

  ‘Take it back,’ he said, completely unfazed by her wild struggles. His arm was like iron around her neck and as always she was no match for his strength. He started to walk down the corridor with her still under his arm amid cheers from the ‘asthma room’.

  ‘Okay I take it back, you big bully,’ she spluttered, her voice muffled against his side.

  ‘I take it back. You are big and strong and my lord and master for all time.’

  Lou was silent for a moment until Jimbo used his free hand to tickle her side, years of know-how allowing him to zero in on her weak spots. ‘Okay… I take it back… big, strong… Lord and Master.’ She choked out between her giggles and was finally released. Her face was red as she straightened up, hair flying everywhere.

  ‘Are you ever going to grow up,’ she snapped, punching him in the shoulder and trying hard to suppress her smile. In truth this playful version of her brother was far preferable to the forlorn, serious one he was when she’d arrived. His decision to take his boyfriend of two years home to meet their parents had been a disastrous one. Jimbo, having never been on the receiving end of their mother’s wrath growing up (something she had reserved mainly for Lou and also something that Lou strove to protect her younger brother from at all costs), did not anticipate her venomous reaction. Somehow their mother had managed to not only insult Jimbo’s other half but also undermine the entire relationship; she was simply that good at manipulation.

  After a couple more weeks of Jimbo struggling to rebuild his relationship, it came to an abrupt end and left him devastated. She knew he’d loved him, his devotion had been written all over him when she saw them together. But it had all gone horribly wrong, and a broken-hearted Jimbo had decided to cut his losses and quit his high paying job in the city in favour of working for an African charity. It wasn’t like he needed the money; they both had trust funds from their Grandfather who had founded the luxury car business their dad inherited. The trust funds were so large that their fortunes far outstripped their parents’ (something which Lou suspected may have contributed to her mother’s resentment of her). After starting work he’d quickly agreed to live in Malawi for a year to oversee the allocation of funding, leaving behind the heartbreak and any contact with their parents.

  As it turned out he didn’t just oversee where the money was spent; he dug wells, helped in the construction of birth centres, in fact he would volunteer for any manual labour going. When Lou asked about it he had shrugged saying, ‘Spent a hundred a month on gym membership in London, out here I can get more buff than ever and it’s all for free. And anyway I might be straight-buff but I’m gay-fat; we have higher standards’. With his sandy blond hair, clear blue eyes, tall frame and the deep tan he was sporting she could appreciate, even though he was her brother, the loss to the sisterhood.

  ‘What brings you down here anyway?’ she asked, once she had straightened her clothes and smoothed her hair.

  ‘Can’t I just want lunch with my sister whom I love and adore?’ Lou raised her eyebrows and waited.

  ‘Okay, you need to help me decide about allocation of funding within the hospital. I’ve got to break it down to specifics and produce a report.’ He g
ave her the puppy dog eyes, which he’d been using successfully to get his way since he was three and she was five.

  ‘Okay, I’ll help,’ she relented. ‘I’m not writing it for you though.’ He stepped up the big pleading eyes, and even added in quivering bottom lip. ‘Stop that,’ she snapped. ‘The last one took ages.’ They drew to a halt outside the medical ward. ‘Look I’ve got to do a quick ward round then we can have lunch okay?’

  ‘Sure sis,’ he replied happily, switching out of his pout now that he knew she’d cave. ‘I’ll go grab something,’ he shook his head when he saw her about to speak. ‘Not unknown, Giardia-ridden food from the market. Meet you back here?’

  ‘Fine,’ she snapped

  ‘Fine.’

  She left him smiling after her as she flounced off onto the ward, finding the others gathered round one of the rickety beds.

  ‘What’s the history?’ the consultant asked Milo, who was a first year qualified doctor on the ward. Milo puffed up his chest and looked down at his notes. Lou instead looked at the motionless figure on the bed.

  ‘Twenty-two, HIV positive with PCP, came in with shortness of – ‘

  ‘Um, Milo honey,’ Lou interrupted softly, laying her hand on his arm. ‘I think it’s a bit late to present the history.

  ‘What? No look I – ‘

  She stepped forward and laid two fingers on the carotid pulse, before fishing her pen torch from her pocket and shining a light into the fixed dilated pupils. After a minute she moved to pull the curtains around the bed, closed the body’s eyelids and pulled the sheet up to cover her face.

  ‘Jesus, when the hell were the last obs done?’ Milo’s face, which had paled as Lou had covered the body, now went an alarming shade of red. He was a relatively new volunteer, and so the shock value of the poor care these patients received had yet to fully sink in. He snatched up the chart and his face got even redder, something that Lou wouldn’t have thought physically possible. ‘The fluid I wrote up last night hasn’t even been given.’ He made to storm off in the direction of the deserted nurses’ station but Lou stopped him with her hand on his arm.

  ‘There’s hardly any staff Milo. If the patient really needs iv fluids then you’ve got to put them up yourself.’ He sagged where he stood for a moment, before drawing back the curtains and going out into the rest of the ward. All around them lay emaciated bodies, some with hacking coughs, some shaking with fevers, but all with the same desolate emptiness in their eyes of the hopeless.

  They did what they could as they went round the rest, but as always the feeling that their efforts were just a drop in the ocean of the patients’ pain and suffering was prevalent.

  *****

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Lou snapped at Jimbo as she sat down opposite him in the canteen, frowning at the sad cheese sandwich he presented her with.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘The report, I’ll do it.’

  ‘Wow Lou, that would be great – ‘

  ‘Not just for general medicine, for the whole hospital,’ she interrupted, her mouth set in a firm line. Then pushing her cheese sandwich aside she pulled a pen out of her hair and started frantically writing on the back of one of the envelopes Jimbo had stashed in his clipboard.

  ‘Okay we’ll start with the nursing staff.’

  ‘I thought you were going home in a month?’ Jimbo asked.

  ‘I’m doing this goddamn report Jimbo,’ she said, her eyes lifting to his. ‘Something’s got to change. The least these people should be able to expect is to have minimal suffering as they die. I’m not leaving until I know where the funding’s going.’

  ‘What about Frankie? What about Dyl – ‘

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ Lou interrupted and Jimbo sighed, knowing exactly what she meant. Ever since she arrived six months ago he wasn’t allowed to mention that name. Ever. He had looked over her shoulder a fair few times when she was on the computer, and he knew she deleted Dylan’s emails unread. Somehow the persistent bastard had even managed to find out how to send post so that it would actually get to her, which was in itself a minor miracle. But those letters were also left unopened, and usually chucked in the bin before she even got back to the flat. ‘Anyway I’ll meet Lucy soon enough, Frankie’s got Tom and everyone around. Who do these people have?’

  ‘Ugh, I should never have asked you to come,’ Jimbo muttered into his plate.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Lou asked, frowning at him.

  ‘I mean that this whole thing is like a red rag to a bull with you. You’ve always hated injustice, always wanted to save everyone, and now I’ve brought you to Africa where the whole bloody continent needs saving. It’ll take a nuclear explosion to prize you away.

  ‘Loser,’ Lou said, shaking her head but smiling as she continued to frantically pour all her ideas out onto the paper.

  Chapter 20

  Done

  As it turned out it wasn’t a nuclear explosion that drove Lou home, but a nasty bout of malaria six months later. It was so severe she was left weak and pretty much reliant on a terrified Jimbo for two weeks, who was not in any way used to his courageous big sister needing his help in any way. In the throes of some of her worst fevers she’d said the banned name a too many times to count, sometimes sobbing and begging him to come to her. If she remembered this she certainly never let on to Jimbo, and he wasn’t about to mention it once she’d come back to herself.

  When she could manage the flight she came back to the UK. She was still weak but at least could manage to fend for herself. Jimbo had rung Frankie and told her Lou was coming and what flight she was on. This was after Lou had told him specially not to bother anyone - she did not think that Frankie needed the extra stress of picking Lou up from the airport with a six month old baby in tow, and she knew that once Frankie got a look at her in her current state there was no way she would let her go home alone.

  *****

  Lucy squirmed in Frankie’s arms as Frankie stood on tiptoes, straining to see a blonde head among the arrivals.

  ‘Let me take her,’ Dylan said, snatching Lucy from her and nervously bouncing her on his hip. Lucy, who was used to having everyone in her vicinity’s undivided attention, was less than impressed with this state of affairs, and communicated this with a high-pitched shriek and saliva-soaked tiny fist in his face.

  ‘Okay trouble,’ Dylan smiled down at her pouting face, and then dipped his head into her soft neck to blow a huge raspberry. When she was suitably placated Dylan went back to staring at the arrivals gate, his tall frame making it much easier to see than it was for Frankie.

  ‘Relax okay,’ he heard Frankie say. When he felt her small hand on his forearm he realized that his whole body was tensed almost to the point of pain. ‘It’s been over a year. Even Lou can’t hold a grudge for that long.’

  Dylan turned away from the arrivals gate briefly, raising an eyebrow at Frankie before continuing his intense surveillance of the people streaming through the gate.

  ‘You’ll win her over you know,’ she said and he nodded distractedly. In truth he wasn’t so sure. A year was a long time not to respond to a single email, leave alone the letters he’d wrote.

  Frankie sighed. Over the last year, out of desperation and a pathetic need to know how Lou was doing, he’d told Frankie everything that had happened. Understandably Frankie had been furious but she’d gradually softened towards him when she could see how truly miserable he was over the weeks after Lou’s departure, and how hurt he was when she ignored all his attempts to contact her.

  *****

  What really tipped the scales for Frankie was the fact that Dylan was quite obviously in love with her friend. The clues were everywhere: his weight loss, the long moments he spent staring into space, his complete lack of interest in the opposite sex for over a year, but most of all it was the subtle loss of his sparkle. Big personalities like Dylan always sparkled. Whatever the situation, whatever the company they always shone through. Irrepressible, that was the word t
o describe Dylan. But, since the loss of Lou, that formerly irrepressible light had dimmed. It was as if he just didn’t work properly without her, and Frankie realized that although Lou and Dylan had never been a couple, they also had never really been apart. They had bounced their humour off each other for over ten years. Dylan seemed completely lost on his own.

  And that wasn’t all.

  Frankie had started to remember things, things about Lou’s behaviour over the years. Clues which she’d only just linked together recently: the way Lou would watch Dylan, the look on her face after he took yet another girl home, the way she took care of him – helping him through his exams, feeding him when he was hung-over, making him honey and lemon when he was sick because she knew that was what his mum used to do for him back home. So she knew why Lou was so furious with Dylan that she hadn’t spoken to him in over a year. She knew why Lou had been so hurt by what he did.

  Lucy squeaked again, having realized Dylan’s attention had been diverted. Just as he bent to blow a quick air kiss in her neck, the crowd in front of Frankie parted.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Frankie breathed as she caught her first glimpse of Lou coming through the gate. Dylan’s head immediately snapped up.

  ‘What the –?‘

  The screams of both girls drowned him out, as Lou pushed her way through the throng of bodies and launched herself into Frankie’s arms.

  ‘You’re skin and bones,’ Frankie sobbed into Lou’s hair. The shock of seeing her glorious Lou with sunken in cheekbones and dark circles under her make-up free eyes was too much for Frankie. Lou looked as though a sharp gust of wind could snap her in two.

  ‘Where’s … ?’ Lou’s smile died when she caught sight of Dylan, but her eyes lit again when they fell on the gorgeous dark-haired beauty in his arms.

  ‘Wow, you’re even cuter in the flesh,’ Lou cooed, reaching for her. Lucy went to her easily, being well used to her face with the amount of skyping the girls had done over the last year. ‘Oh, and you’re so much more smudgy in the flesh,’ she said, cuddling her close and nuzzling her neck. She only acknowledged Dylan’s presence after she had done a full baby inspection, right down to counting her little toes.