Never Ending by Martyn Bedford Page B

fantastical. Since Declan died it’s like all of her own possible futures have closed down, become as unattainable for Shiv as her brother’s never-to-be-lived life is for him. Just to be thinking about what she might be doing a year from now, five years, or ten, or fifty, seems wrong. Grotesque. Offensive.
    How can she contemplate growing older when Dec never can?
    Then there are the times when she wishes she could wake up one morning and two or three years will have passed overnight and she won’t feel like shit any more. But that would mean not missing him, not wishing he was still alive, not remembering how he died.
    She can’t conceive of waking up to a morning like that even if she lives to be a hundred.
    When they reach the orchard behind Eden Hall, Assistant Hensher is still waiting for them: a sheepdog rounding up the last of the flock. Shiv tells Caron and Lucy to go on ahead – she’ll come and find them in the dining hall.
    “I’d like to see Mikey,” she says to Hensher, once the others are out of earshot.
    “Mikey?” Hensher can’t be much older than Nikos yet the contrast between them is about as stark as it gets. She shuts down the thought of Nikos. “I’ll have to check where he is,” the care assistant says, unclipping a radio from his belt.
    “I just want to make sure he’s OK,” Shiv says.
    Hensher manages to meet her gaze. “D’you mind me asking why?”
    “Because he’s my Buddy.”
    Mikey is in the medical room, resting, so Nurse Zena can keep an eye on him for signs of concussion. When Shiv goes in, the young nurse is sitting at a desk in an adjoining office area, writing notes on a white card. Hensher must’ve messaged her because she smiles, gestures Shiv to go on through.
    “How’s he doing?” Shiv whispers.
    Zena whispers back, “Worse than the tree, is my guess.”
    Mikey is on an adjustable bed, the back raised, his head propped up by pillows. For once, he doesn’t look agitated or keen to be anywhere except right where he is. Shiv changed out of her jumpsuit before coming here but the boy is still in his, the yellow fabric spattered in places with dried blood. His fringe is encrusted, too, like he’s tried to highlight his short, dark-blond hair with ketchup.
    “Hey,” Shiv says.
    He doesn’t reply, just looks at her through half-shuttered eyes. A dressing covers most of his forehead, his right eyebrow is zippered with soluble stitches and the skin around his eyes is several shades of purple. The rest of his face is deathly pale.
    Shiv pulls up a chair and sits beside the bed. “Most people walk round a tree,” she says, putting on a cheery grin. “Not straight through it.”
    Mikey points at her T-shirt. “What’s that mean?”
    She doesn’t look down at the slogan; she doesn’t need to. “It means if you make friends with someone it’s going to hurt when you stop being friends with each other. Or if they go away.”
    He looks unimpressed. Actually, it’s difficult to know what he’s thinking.
    “It’s from a book,” Shiv says. “ The Catcher in the Rye .”
    “Yeah?” It’s not a curious “yeah?”, more of a so-what “yeah?”.
    “It was my brother’s.” Shiv plucks at the front of the T-shirt. “My dad thinks it’s a bit morbid, me wearing his stuff.”
    Mikey just sniffs. Touches the gauze patch on his forehead, as though to check whether any blood has seeped through. It has. He wipes his fingers on the bed-sheet.
    “Your head must hurt,” Shiv says.
    “She gave me something so it wouldn’t.” A glance towards the open doorway to the nurse’s office. “I told her I didn’t want nothing but she jabbed me anyway.”
    She wonders why he asked not to have pain relief. Why he bashed his head against a tree in the first place. She doesn’t ask. Whenever she kicks off, she hates people asking why. Why? Why? Why? She suspects Mikey’s the same.
    “Got yourself out of Make anyway,” Shiv says. She starts to tell him about the