The Angel Who Weighed a Hundred Kilos and Smelled of Cheap Coffee

The Angel Who Weighed Sixteen Stone and Smelled of Cheap Coffee

Today in the playroom at the childrens oncology ward, there was a hushbroken only by the rustle of paper and the gentle squeak of felt-tip pens. It was a fragile kind of silence, almost brittle, as if made of spun sugar. There was far too much adult-like concentration for children who hadnt yet reached their tenth birthdays. The task was simple: draw your Guardian Angel. Each child poured so much effort into it.

For me, Rebeccaa young volunteerthis day was a test. Id grown up on the proper beauty of angels: the frescoes in old English parish churches, the featherlight, fair-haired youths with eyes the colour of the summer sky. I wandered between the tables, genuinely moved by their efforts; Jacobs angel wielded an enormous sword, while Lilys had wings as fluffy as cotton wool. All delightfully canonical, touchingand, if I was honest, a bit predictable.

Then I stopped by Emilys table.

Emily was seven. Her scalp, smooth as an egg from the latest round of treatment, seemed almost translucent. She drew with such care, pink tongue poking between her lips, determined.

Peering over her shoulder, I had to stifle a gasp of surprise.

On her sheet was someone very different from the typical heavenly messenger. A rotund, sturdy man, filling the entire page. He had no wings. Instead, a huge round belly encased in something vaguely white, a balding head the colour of a new potato, and enormous, crooked spectacles perched on his nose like a button.

Emily, I asked, trying to keep my tone gentle as I knelt beside her, whos this? Were meant to be drawing angels.

That is my angel, she replied with quiet certainty, not looking up from her careful colouring of his shirt in white crayon.

But hes rather unusual, I said cautiously. Where are his wings? And why is he so large?

He has wings, she said without hesitation. He just tucks them under his coat, so they dont get mucky. Its grubby here, sometimes.

I smiled indulgently. Childrens imagination, I thought.

You could often hear heavy, wheezy breathing echoing down the ward. It approached from the corridorlike the sound of a distant train. Shuffle, shuffle. Heavy footsteps that seemed to make the linoleum tremble.

With a groan, the playroom door opened, and in he came.

Dr. Philip Wilson, head of resuscitation. The man was enormous. Hefty, his triple chin flowing over the collar of a perpetually unbuttoned white coat that strained at the seams. His face, sheened with sweat, had a greyish pallor to it. His thick-rimmed glasses were always riding down his nose, and he habitually shoved them back up with a podgy finger. He always smelled of tobacco, stale sweat, and that cheap instant coffee from the staff kitchentoday was his third straight night sleeping on the battered old sofa in the on-call room.

To me, he just looked like an exhausted, unkempt man who ought to have retired years ago, or at least found time for a shower.

All right, artists, he boomed, his voice rumbling from somewhere deep in his ample stomach. Still with us?

Were here, doctor! came a ragged chorus.

He laboured between the rows, bracing himself on the backs of chairs as he went.

He paused beside a pale boy hooked up to a drip. He placed a huge, heavy hand gently on the childs forehead.

Hang in there, hero, he murmured. The results are in. Well sort it.

Then he went to Emily. I saw her eyes light up, her arms reaching eagerly towards this hefty, tobacco-scented man.

Doing some drawing? he asked. And behind those thick spectacles, I realised for the first time, his tired eyes were still an unending blue, kindled by far too many sleepless nights.

Im drawing you, Emily whispered.

He snorted, pushing his glasses up. No need to waste your paper on meitd never hold my weight.

Suddenly, a machine shrilled in the corridoran urgent, piercing alarm.

Philip Wilson transformed instantly. His wheezing and shuffling vanished; he turned with an uncanny agility for a man his size and dashed for the door.

Nobody move! he bellowed from the corridor. Lucy, get the resus kit, now!

I stayed, clutching my hands to my chest. Beyond the wall came the chaos: sharp orders, metal clattering, and his bass voicenow steel, not gentle.

Breathe! Come on! Stay with us! Breathe!

That shout was terrifying.

It was a plea and a command at once. I shut my eyes. I was afraid.

Forty minutes crawled by, each second stretched thin with anxiety. The playroom was silent. Not a child drew. They all stared at the door.

At last, it opened. Philip Wilson appeared, sagging against the frame. His white coat was soaked through with sweat, a patch of blood staining the sleeve. He pulled off his glasses, rubbed his eyessmearing weariness across his facethen with a groan collapsed onto a childs chair, which squeaked pitifully under his bulk.

Its done, he wheezed to the quiet. Hes asleep now.

I watched him, and suddenly it was as in a story: if a foggy curtain had been whipped from my eyes. I saw differently.

I looked at Emilys drawingthe ungainly, heavy-set man. Then at Dr Wilson in the flesh.

No longer did I see only flesh and sweat. I saw substancea great, anchoring mass of love, strong enough to keep these delicate, featherweight children tethered to this world when they tried to slip away. A golden-winged cherub would be useless herefar too light, hed float away with them.

They needed this kind: weighty, solid, smelling of earth and instant coffee, whose huge hands could grab fast-fading life and growl, Im not letting go.

His bald head shone under the lights like a halonot golden, but workmanlike, glistening with honest effort.

Emily slid carefully from her chair, walked to the doctor, resting her arms around his thick legshe couldnt reach any higher.

Told you, she said quietly, looking at me with impossibly wise eyes. He hides his wings, so we dont get cold drafts.

Philip Wilson set his huge, trembling hand atop her bare head.

Just hang in there, sweethearts, he whispered. A little longer.

I turned to the window. I couldnt look anymore.

The tears Id been so afraid of finally came. I wept for my blindnessfor searching for beauty only in light and finesse, when true Beauty sat right before me on a battered chair, wiping sweat from his face with his sleeveheavy, scrubby, and the holiest thing in the world.