The Artificial Anatomy of Parks by Kat Gordon

Author:Kat Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785079870
Publisher: Legend Press

I call my boss to swap shifts the next day. He grumbles, but I don’t give him time to say no. When I hang up, I sit in bed for a moment, trying to work up some energy. I’d rather risk looking like a stalker and go back to Gray’s Inn than the hospital. But if Toby does agree to see me, it’ll be better to wait until all this is over.

I sit underneath the open window with my father’s old medical textbook propped up in my lap. I run my finger down the index page, and find it – Atelectasis: where alveoli may collapse or close, with the consequence of reduced or absent gas exchange. In other words, it becomes difficult to breathe. If left untreated, atelectasis can be fatal, I read. Smokers and the elderly are particularly vulnerable.

I don’t know how my grandmother escaped that particular fate; she was already wheezing heavily a month after I went to live with her. Although after our talk over the soup she started spending more time with me, so maybe I just hadn’t noticed it before.

She started to ask me more about my father, and my relationship with him, lecturing me about his responsibility, and how much he needed my support as well. I thought about trying to explain what my father had been like – how he was always away. And how he’d changed after Uncle Jack showed up. And then that day. But I could never tell her that I’d thought he killed my mother. And by that point, the effort of talking for too long made her face turn a weird shade of purple, and something warned me never to get her riled up.

It was a relief sometimes to escape to a different room with my tutor, where she couldn’t interrupt, and even more of a relief when Malkie turned up one Saturday morning, car keys jangling in his hand.

“I came to see if you wanted to run an errand with me?” he said. “I need to go into London, pick up my car from Dennis, my mechanic.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I’d enjoy the company. I could drive you back this evening.”

“Yeah, cool.”

“Don’t you need to ask Matilda?”

My grandmother appeared behind me. “Ask me what?”

“It’s really creepy when you do that,” I told her.

“Thank you, Tallulah, I’ll bear that in mind. Ask me what?”

“Can I go to London with Malkie to pick his car up?”

“That depends,” my grandmother said. “When will you be back Malkie?”

“Not too late – scout’s honour.”

“As if I’d believe you were ever in the scouts,” she said, but she nodded.

“Thanks, Grams,” I said, and kissed her cheek.

We waited thirty minutes for the train. I hooked my fingers over the top of the station sign and swung from it, showing off in front of Malkie.

“Don’t break your neck, doll,” he said.

Malkie smoked a cigarette and had a staring contest with one of the cows from the field the other side of the second platform.

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