Rob Ewing - The Last of Us

Once he’s tucked in she tries to give him the antibiotic: but Duncan won’t swallow it. She crunches it up, but the taste is bad and he spits the crumbs back at her. She mixes another tablet with water, and tries to gets him to drink that, but he refuses. To distract him I do my party-piece – rolling my eyes around until they go white – and Alex does his High Five – In the Sky – In space – In your face – routine, but Duncan just looks bored and Elizabeth says we should stop it.

In the middle of this Calum Ian comes in.

I know right away he’s been back at his house, because his face looks very stiff. I don’t want to look at him, but I can’t stop myself. He doesn’t look back at me. Elizabeth asks him over and over what’s wrong, but he won’t tell.

Alex: ‘He says the tablet tastes nasty. Well, I didn’t like my injections at first, but I got used to them. ’

Me: ‘I’m going to pray for Duncan. God can decide anything he wants so long as Duncan gets better.’

Elizabeth: ‘We’ll try and give him some more later.’

Calum Ian doesn’t say a thing.

Later on I get Duncan on his own. Elizabeth has given him some soup, and he seems happier. I try to get him interested in reading, but he can’t be encouraged.

Me: ‘Will you not take your tablets?’

He doesn’t answer.

Me: ‘What are you doing?’

After a long time he says, ‘Only thinking.’

‘Thinking is never an only… what did you think?’

‘I’m wondering why I can’t remember.’

I lie beside him, sharing his pillow. His breath smells weird, like bad food, but I put up with it for being close.

Me: ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten… listen, I can’t remember plenty of stuff either. Like how adults sound… DVDs don’t count, the words in them can’t be a surprise.’

Duncan: ‘I forget… my birthday, last. What was it? It must’ve been a party, but… can’t think of it. Was it at the pool, or was it at home? Also, I can’t remember much before I was three. Only that’s not new, that’s the same for everyone, Elizabeth told me…’

Me: ‘Why do you need to remember? You’re doing fine as you are now.’

Duncan turns his red face away.

‘You remember what your mum looks like?’ he asks.

‘Easy.’

‘Go on.’

‘She… has got brown hair. A bit like mine. She’s not skinny, not fat. She likes to sing. She has a neat voice. She’s usually calm. She can be the boss, but also doesn’t mind having other people be boss as well.’

Duncan listens, then says: ‘I can’t remember what my mum looks like.’

And this makes me feel terrible, like the worst devil: because I deleted the last pictures he had.

‘She came to the school hall, remember?’ I say, feeling desperate now. ‘She helped with the Christmas decorations… She had the lights wrapped and wrapped around her arms… she was very jolly…’

Duncan looks at me, blinks, looks away.

‘The earlier bits,’ he says. ‘They got jumbled. Like I’m not sure what truly happened. I try to remember how everyone went away, but I can’t.’

Now I decide to tell Duncan what I did.

In a whisper I apologise for everything. But for some strange reason he doesn’t seem to care. His eyes just look far away, and his words are slow.

‘Equals,’ he says in the end. ‘This makes us equals.’

When it’s dark I see Elizabeth getting up and down. I hear Duncan saying No lots of times. Then Elizabeth comes past, holding a mirror. She puts it in a drawer out of sight.

‘Is he getting better?’

I go to her bed to bury in beside her. She looks weary about it, but too weary to argue against.

‘Not yet.’

‘Why did you hide the mirror?’

‘Because Duncan’s scared of them.’

‘Why?’

‘They used them on us – remember? To check if we were breathing. He’s worried we’ll do the same.’

Elizabeth waits for me to remember; and when I do she presses my arm to say she wanted not to tell.

She’s holding two of her toys. I don’t always like to see her do this – because I don’t want to think that Elizabeth is just a kid like me.

When I mentioned this before she got angry and said: ‘Some days I feel like being a kid too.’

I lie with my body in the warm spot she made. Elizabeth strokes my hair, not far from how Mum used to do it.

‘You had another bad dream last night,’ she says.

‘Did I?’

‘Don’t you remember?’

‘No.’

‘S’OK. My dreams are often bad. See, that’s why I need the toys. My worst dream – this is going to sound mad – is the one where I dream last year didn’t happen.’

‘That’s a great dream.’

‘Not when you wake up again it isn’t.’ She continues, ‘I used to think it would be great if there were no adults around. But it’s not. It’s just boring.’ She looks at me. ‘I’d dream them back if I could. Only I’m not sure how safe that is: living in a dreamworld.’

We have a long night: waiting to see if Duncan will get better, or worse. Waiting to see if he’s still there.

It’s even after the glow comes in the skylight and the windows that I hear him calling out – for Calum Ian, for his mum and dad – and I can’t get to sleep after this, because I can’t stop thinking about the photos: wishing, like Elizabeth’s adults, that I could dream them back.

Mum – are you still listening?

This is the story of how I got to be here. But it isn’t an easy story for me, because it hasn’t ended yet.

It’s become a war against giving in. Against forgetting.

For knowing how to survive.

As I told you already, I did a bad thing. So now you know what the bad thing was.

So now I need to tell you, please listen, that I was only trying to make amends. But is that the right word – are there bad amends as well as good amends?

Revenge is the wrong word.

Like Duncan said: I was trying to make us equals.

This is what happens when there isn’t anyone else to talk to. You begin to forget things. Even though I’m meant to be young with a hungry brain, I always forget. So I added another rule to my longer and longer list:

23. Practise your words and memories.

And I was glad, because it gave me something to do, something new to think about besides the bad I’d done.

So I practised, and when it didn’t work at first I got scared I might have to learn every single word over.

But words are like tides: they come back. All you have to do is wait for them to roll in again.

There are two times I remember where the new world was beginning but I didn’t know it yet.

The first was in my class at school. Mrs Leonard was acting busily – we had a visitor coming, and she was trying to put up the classroom Christmas decorations before he arrived.

‘Five minutes ago I strung up that tinsel,’ she’s saying. ‘Now it’s come undone. Is it ever possible to buy anything that functions on this island?’

After she says this Mrs Leonard thins her mouth, which means she’s either thinking, or concerned. If she’s concerned it’s best to let her get on with it; if she’s thinking then her next thought will come along in a minute, so say nothing.

‘Ah children, our visitor has come.’

This morning he looks ordinary: no tie, jeans like any dad. Mrs Leonard shakes his hand and goes pure beetroot in the face like she did when the priest chose her for his dance at the end of the produce festival.

‘Children,’ she puts her hands together in a church, ‘I’d like you to give a warm welcome to Dr Schofield, who has come along today to give us a talk on the very important work he does for our community.’