Beyond the High Blue Air Read Online Free Page A

says quietly, you’ll be back. I love you, Miles. How gentle he is, this other precious son of mine, his gentleness intrinsic to his strength.
    I need to ask the nurse some questions. The tube inserted into the top of his head, so dreadful to see, is monitoring the pressure in his brain and draining away the excess fluid to reduce the swelling. The tube in his mouth is intubation into the lungs from the ventilator; the one in his nose is intubation to his stomach from a bag of liquid food hanging on a hooked stand above his head. There are more tubes, for hydration, medication, monitoring the heart, a catheter draining dark yellow urine into a bag. The machines recording Miles’s new state of limbo could be the controls of a spaceship, the flickering lines and lights on screens recording his dislocated journey into the future.
    The first time I cry is in the bend of the corridor on the way back to the waiting room, out of sight of the ward. Crying in a way I don’t know about, with great racked gasps. Will’s arms are around me and I feel selfish; he must be feeling this too, it is his brother he has just seen, his closest friend and companion, but he is comforting me. We return to the waiting room and I’m conscious of composing myself to face the others, our eyes meeting first through the glass wall as they search our faces for information in a way that will become our twice daily routine over the coming weeks. Holding hands, Claudia and Marina are now led by the nurse down the corridor to see their brother.
    Tuesday morning, the second day. As I walk past the nurses’ station a young doctor comes forward and asks me if I am Miles’s mother. He hands me a copy of a letter received by fax that morning and tells me that the doctors and nurses have been reading it.
    For the attention of the Family of Miles Kemp
    We are thinking of Miles at this very tough time and wishing him the very speediest of recoveries.
    Miles has been playing a critical role in one of the BBC’s most important projects. Throughout he has shown an intelligence, professionalism, commitment and charm.
    Please let me know if there is anything we can do for Miles or yourselves at this time.
    John Smith
    Chief Executive, BBC Worldwide
    I can’t control my tears. The letter gives Miles substance, a background, the importance of which we are only beginning to learn. In each new institution he will be admitted to in the months to come he will simply be another TBI, another Traumatic Brain Injury. He’ll have no history, no personality; all that defines him will be his sex, his age and his injury. The medical staff cannot know that he is thoughtful, funny, brave, kind, impatient and irascible. They can have no idea about his lived life, its failures and achievements, the way his energy and presence seem to contain some electrical force. The only story they will have in the notes that accompany him is that he once snowboarded, not that he likes boxing and playing poker, writing poetry and playing the fool.
    Turning into Miles’s room now the shock of seeing him wired up and motionless on the bed makes a mockery of the letter in my hand. It was only ten days ago in the cosy sitting room at home with the fire lit and a glass of our favourite Rioja that we had a long discussion about his work and his plans for the future. After putting his fledgling company, K Tech, on ice two years ago he joined an international firm of management consultants and it was from there that he presented and won the account for them with the BBC. He had begun working at the BBC only a few months ago; he would be proud of this letter. Pulling up a chair next to his bed I read it aloud to him, and then I read it again, hopelessly searching his face for a reaction. Of course there is nothing, the softly flashing lights and the undulating lines on the screens above his bed the only proof that he is alive. He is