Donor, The by Helen FitzGerald Read Free Book Online

situation, he would have a terrible, unthinkable decision to make. The thought of it made him slap his face with his hand ( Don’t go there, Will. Don’t even think about it. Not now. Not ever. ) Which option would this be above? Number 5, perhaps? He hit his forehead with his palm this time and said ‘No!’ out loud. He would never choose. He would save Georgie and Kay – which meant having both donors in place at the same time – which meant finding Cynthia. She was their mother, after all. What mother would refuse? What mother would leave the fate of her beautiful children at the mercy of an unreadable, ever-increasing list – a list with at least 6,500 people on it – yet only 1,800 transplants had been carried out in the last twelve months?
    He sighed, fear overtaking his attempt at confidence, because the sort of mother who might do the above is also the sort of mother who might bugger off to the shops and never come back.
    The AA map route to Manchester Prison churned out of the printer. Was that all he needed for the journey tomorrow afternoon? He checked the list he’d written under the heading on the first page of his notebook .
    Ia) Booking (Yes, he’d booked the prison visit.)
    Ib) ID (Yes, he had the necessary identification to get through the gate.)
    Ic) Cash (He had money, just in case – £200 to be exact, leaving his flex account with a grand total of £1790.56 until next payday, in two weeks’ time.)  
     
    Will took himself to the smallest bedroom upstairs and stared at the ceiling for several hours before falling asleep.
    After Kay went off to school the following morning, he decided not to wake Georgie. The dialysis was really taking its toll on her. She needed her rest.
    He was about to make himself breakfast when the doorbell rang.
    ‘Hello, William,’ his father said. ‘We need to talk.’
    His parents visited once a month for dinner, a routine which they had insisted on after Cynthia left. Each month Will dreaded it, Georgie tried to get out of it and Kay looked on the bright side. (‘They’re our grandparents, Georgie. They love us. You can’t go out with friends!’) Will believed these three hours gave his parents a ‘get-out-of-guilt-free’ card. They’d seen their son. Tick. Asked their granddaughters about school and netball and orchestra. Tick. So off they could tootle to their show-home house in North Queensferry, which was far enough away to make further contact (i.e. help) impossible. Will’s father had been a major in the army. His mum a husband-follower who liked good port at dinner parties. They’d sent Will to boarding school aged nine, where he’d hidden his loneliness in books and music. After graduating they sent him off to uni in St Andrews, where – much to their disapproval – he buried himself in films and filmy types. As a result, Will didn’t know his parents at all. Thus far, he had no regrets. What he knew of them, he didn’t like. Will’s father had retired following the death of his uber-wealthy parents, leaving him enough money to buy twenty-three flats in Spain. He decided to rent them out and asked Will if he would like to manage the rentals for him. (‘It’s all very well wasting time on some Mickey Mouse media course, but it’s the real world now, William. You’re a father! You need to support your family.’) The job involved advertising the properties, banking money and talking to people about the firmness of the beds, proximity to beach and pool facilities and the likelihood of rain. For years, Will had logged onto the computer each day with a loud sigh. It was possibly the loneliest and most tedious job in the world. Sometimes he prayed that a film idea would pop into his brain like it used to when he was at St Andrews. It never did.
    ‘Rentals were down 30 per cent this year,’ Will’s father said. He was in one of his golfing ensembles – well-ironed grey trousers, black and red and grey argyle V-neck jumper. He’d obviously