The Island Read Free Page A

I’ll try again tomorrow. We’ll get something soon.”
    “I know we will,” she replied, this time unable to hold his gaze. She was a year younger than him, and a qualified nurse. Even for her there was no work. Nobody could afford healthcare, and so there was no need for an excess of staff. She had red hair and pale skin dotted with freckles. Her eyes were a deep jade.
    He sat in the armchair and started to unfasten his boots. “How have things been here?”
    “Fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. We’ve been worried about you. I wish you hadn’t sold your phone.”
    “We needed the money. Besides, I can look after myself out there, don’t worry. How’s she been today?”
    Ashley blinked and looked at her hands. She had chewed her nails down to the skin. “No change. She’s awake if you want to go see her.”
    Chase wanted to tell his wife she would be okay, that they would be okay, but he wasn’t certain it was true, and didn’t want to lie to her. Instead he stared at her for a few seconds, hating himself for not being able to ease the burden he could see she was carrying. He wanted his old wife back, the one who wasn’t pale and frowning, and who had lost so much weight because she was just too stressed to eat. It hurt him to even think about it. He got up and went to one of the two bedrooms, opening the door and stepping inside.
     
    THREE
     
    Elsie Riley was just five when the lung cancer was first diagnosed. Now aged nine, it had started to win the battle with its fragile host. Chase hated to see her the way she was. Tired and sick, frightened but trying to be strong for her parents. She had her mother’s eyes and hair and his jawline and determination. Her room had been turned into a sanctuary. Soft toys lined the walls, and the portable electric heater – the only one in the house – was in here to keep the room warm against the bitter winter chill. Chase walked to the bed and sat at the foot of it, listening to the wet rasp of his daughter as she battled just to breathe.
    “Did you get a job, Daddy?” she asked, turning to face him.
    He hadn’t realised she was awake, her words startling him. “No, not this time, sweetheart.”
    “You will. I know you will.”
    He held her hand, the skin so soft, so fragile that it looked as if it could break. “We’ll get there, Elsie. I promise.”
    His daughter nodded, too weak to respond. He wanted to change the subject and turn her away from such a bleak line of questioning. “Hey, where’s little Timmy from down the hall these days? I haven’t seen him for a while.”
    A cloud of uncertainty passed over his daughters face. It was brief, but there all the same. “Timmy got sick.”
    “Oh, I didn’t know,” Chase replied, realising just how preoccupied with finding a job and setting them on the road to recovery he had been. “We’ll have to get him a card. You can write it, how does that sound?”
    That shadow passed over her face again, the uncertainty and this time, an unmistakeable flicker of fear. “He’s not here anymore, Daddy. He went to heaven.”
    It was a rare thing for Chase to be speechless, yet his daughter had managed to achieve that feat in a single sentence.
    “What happened to him?” he asked, feeling as if he were having some kind of out of body experience. “He was here a few weeks ago. He seemed fine.” Apart from that cough. The same one your daughter had before the cancer. The same one you have now.
    Of course he couldn’t say any of that. His job was to protect his daughter. Instead, he held her hand. It was all he could do.
    “He has the same thing I have, Daddy.” She sat up then, and now there was no hiding the fear. He could feel it seeping out of her. “I don’t want to go to heaven, Daddy. I don’t want to die. Timmy said there was medicine, some that would make him better. Why can’t we have that, Daddy? Why can’t I get better?”
    Although she didn’t intend it, her words were like a one two punch