The Red Judge Read Online Free PDF Page A

which it seemed to me that the light reflected in its shiny steel came from hundreds of corph candles. I knew it didn’t really, of course. But it was a relief, all the same, when the doors finally ‘tinged’ open and I was released into Intensive Care.
    I stumbled out, feeling lost, without a clue which way to turn. Signs hung over my head, with arrows pointing in every direction. I tried to work out which of them to follow, and suddenly saw my mother through a pair of swing doors. She looked just about as lost as me, standing in the middle of the ward, her usually immaculate appearance shot to pieces. Her hair was all over the place, she wore not a hint of make-up, and the expression on her face suggested that everything she’d ever worked for had been swept away.
    At the sight of her, I felt my legs turn to jelly. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t suddenly looked up and seen me. Our eyes met, and I knew I couldn’t let her know how lost I felt myself. I marched through the swing doors, a stupid smile stuck all over my face.
    â€˜How’s Cary? Is she all right? Can I see her? Where’ve they got her? Is she coming home soon? What do they say? Are they going to keep her in? Can I talk to her?’
    That’s the sort of stupid thing I said. But then I sawthe rest of them – all my Fitztalbot relatives clustered like carrion crows in the lounge at the bottom of the ward. They looked up at the commotion, and saw me, and my father looked as well.
    He was sitting by Cary’s bed, holding her hand as if he’d never let go. His face tightened at the sight of me. It actually tightened, like the skin of a drum, and my mother took his arm, as if to try and calm him down. He looked as if he was going to leap up and hit me, but she whispered in his ear and drew him down the ward out of earshot.
    They went into the lounge together and shut the door behind them, as if the last thing they wanted was to have to look at me. I was left alone, standing in the ward. I went and sat by Cary’s bed, taking my father’s place. All around me lay trolleys and machines, winking lights and miles of tubing. Things blinked and bleeped and dripped, and I didn’t have a clue what any of them were doing. All I knew was that my sister lay in the middle of them, her mouth full of lumps of plastic that were presumably doing something good for her, her head covered in bandages, her neck encased in a high yellow collar and the backs of her hands covered in fine little tubes. All the life seemed drained out of her – all signs of who she really was, completely disappeared.
    â€˜Oh Cary,’ I said, as if the words were being dragged from deep inside of me. ‘Cary, come back! You’ve got to. Cary,
you must
!’
    At the sound of my voice, a nurse looked up from her desk. She was a busy woman, but her eyes were full of sympathy. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘That’s what she needs. Talk to her. Let her hear your voice. Let herhear she’s not alone. She mightn’t answer back, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t hear.’
    She bent her head again and got on with her paperwork, as if she didn’t want to intrude on my private grief. I wanted to ask if Cary was going to die, but didn’t dare. I looked at the bed and wanted to take my sister’s hand, as my father had done. Wanted to feel her warmth, and reassure myself that she was still alive. But I didn’t dare do that either.
    In the end I pulled the chair up as close as I could get. Then I poured out my heart:
    â€˜I am so, so sorry,’ I said. ‘Everything’s my fault. If anyone should be hit by a car, I’m the one! I never should have run out into the road like that. I mean, I knew that you were right behind me. I should have thought. And I never should have been out in the town anyway. I never should have left you in the lurch. It was cowardly