Little Fingers! Read Online Free PDF Page A

the raft of life”. You may think that was my analogy,
but you should be able to tell from the clunk it gave that the
words came directly from a euphemism-wielding medical
professional.
    Hope started
low, leapt high in the air, followed by progress, regress, and
finally digress. By the end we were consulting anyone at all no
matter how unlikely their treatment régimes. Louise was an innocent
child led by the hand from waiting room to waiting room. She
carried her toys with her, knowing that she would be there most of
the day, and that there would be another “there”
tomorrow.
    Throughout her
extended ordeal she remained good-natured and calm, a professional
patient carefully examining patient professionals. Perhaps that was
the problem. Perhaps we should have taken her to someone who would
have shouted and screamed and railed at the injustice of it all,
and actually done something. There is a belief that the true
professional is the one with the reassuring manner, however, in my
experience, it is the over-the-top raging lunatic who is the one
you should back every time in a crisis. They really fight on your
behalf, and absolutely refuse to let you go. Your death is their
death, and they aren't about to give up on either of you. That is
what my surgeon was like. I was lucky.
    On the other
hand, if you are a parent, your biggest anxiety is that your
mortally sick child becomes either frightened or intimidated. You
quiz your friends and acquaintances over the reputation of each
consultant, waiting for someone to say that Mr. So-and-So really
looks like he knows what he is doing. Unfortunately, the one who
will actually do what is necessary is often the one everyone
describes as “a bit out on a limb.” We are talking about the
consultancy business here. The most successful consultants, in
terms of revenue and reputation, are those who look the part and
offer a safe, if fatal, choice.
    Inevitably,
Louise's slow slide towards the grave raised the question of “Why
her?” On the basis of any sort of merit where life is the prize, it
was inconceivable that this plucky, beautiful, courageous,
honourable and frail child should be singled out for this gruesome
treatment. “Why her?” My mother discussed it many times with her
priest, who confessed that he could not begin to phrase an answer.
She questioned each successive medical professional how it could
have happened. Each one had his own list of potential causes from
electro-magnetic currents, to pollution, to diet, to genes, but
none was conclusive. We asked each other the question many more
times besides, knowing it was rhetorical, and that we were more
giving expression to despair than expecting the other to attempt an
answer. The only acceptable and appropriate response was for me to
shake my head dolefully, and ask her if there was anything she
needed, giving her the opportunity to suggest once again “a
miracle”. Please, please.
    From what I
know now, I can still not venture any explanation beyond that life
is morally random. Lottery winners are seldom saints, and child
victims are rarely sinners.
    You can
comfort yourself with the notion that we all have to experience
life, and for the very best of us God says after only a few years
“They are ready for the next life. They have nothing more to prove.
They have graduated”, before whisking them away. I think that this
is rubbish, but it is some consolation.
    Strangely,
Louise never asked “Why me?”, or at least not that I ever
overheard. She accepted that it was her immediately, and followed
the trail of her fate with great thoughtfulness, and minimal
dissent. It was all happening to a child who had her body, and who
wasn't really her. It is a remarkable phenomenon to watch, and a
much better one to be spared.
    The second to
last time I saw Louise, she was lying on the grass in the garden,
watching some ants. She liked ants. Our mother had bought an ant
colony kit which was a plastic container into which she