Page 45 of A Long Way Back
TAY LET OUT A SILENT sigh of relief that his tablets remained undiscovered. He’d taken four after Ink had gone out this morning and he took another three now before Ink came back into the room.
After Ink had let him out for a final pee, Dog returned to the patch of sun in the living room, turned four and a half times and settled down.
“Be good,” Ink said.
Dog rolled onto his back and wagged his tail.
“You do know wagging your tail isn’t going to count for shit if you chew up something of Tay’s, right?”
Dog settled on his side again.
Ink pushed Tay’s chair down to the main road and along to the bus stop.
“Have you spoken again to your parents?” Ink asked.
“Yep.”
Tay had told his mum they were going swimming. He’d heard the pleasure in her exclamation and it struck him that he could lie throughout the time his parents were away and they’d never know. Though he’d have to ask Ink to lie too, in case they called him, and he wasn’t likely to do that if Tay sacked him.
Now that he was actually out of the flat, he was looking forward to swimming more than he’d expected to. Even if his legs weren’t as coordinated as he’d have liked, his arms would make up for it. Wheeling himself around in the chair and using the crutches had at least increased his upper body strength.
Ink stuck out his hand to stop the bus and the double decker pulled up so that the rear door was close to the wheelchair. As people got on at the front, an electric ramp slid from under the vehicle and came down onto the pavement. Ink pushed the chair onboard, parked it in an open space, then went down to the driver. Ink put his card against the reader, and came back to stand next to Tay.
“I should pay for you,” Tay said.
“I’ll keep a tab.”
“How much was it?”
“One fifty no matter how far you go. I wish we could go upstairs. I used to love sitting at the front and pretending I was driving.”
“Did you have a happy childhood? I mean, before you went into care.”
When Ink didn’t immediately answer, Tay didn’t think he was going to.
“Yeah, it was great.”
Why did Tay think that was a lie?
“What was it like being in care? If you say that was great too, I’ll know you’re lying.”
“Not great.” Ink shrugged.
Tay thought about asking more about it but changed his mind. “We could probably do one of those London bus tours and sit at the front on the top deck so you could drive. On a long trip, it would be worth the effort of getting up the steps.”
Ink smiled. “Would you like to do that? It sounds fun. What else would you like to do?”
“See the Natural History Museum. Go on the river, the London Eye, visit the top of the Shard, explore the Tower of London, go to Portobello Market, Borough Market.” Be a tourist with Ink, just for a while. “A sort of holiday.”
Tay swallowed hard. When had he last had a holiday? There hadn’t seemed any point thinking about it while he was in wheelchair, but maybe it was a good time to do something different.
“We could take Dog,” Ink said.
“He’s not going to be allowed into museums or on the London Eye.”
“He could be your service animal.”
“But he isn’t a service dog, is he?”
