* * *
They come to move him around midday. One by one, the tubes and wires that have plumbed him into the mighty machine are pulled, leaving only his catheter and the saline drip – the bottle of clear liquid suspended from a hat stand on wheels, which they guide along behind the bed as it travels the corridors.
He’s glad to have escaped the ICU; less enthusiastic about the ward they take him to, packed with bedridden strangers, some only just visible in their deep sleep or unconsciousness, their white skin and hair barely distinguishable from the sheets around them. Others sit raised by pillows, hands on laps, mostly staring into deep space as though lost in another life; one old man gazes chirpily around with an air of forced optimism, no doubt desperate to convince himself that being here isn’t actually his worst nightmare come true.
Nightmare or not, Alex knows the move has been a vital first step in his plan. That dreadful experience with the nurse has delivered a salutary message. He has to get better, and has to get out. Immediately. Mobility is his key to survival.
Alex needs a wheelchair.
And a perfect chance to obtain one presents itself later that day. Visiting hours have arrived, the ward already under siege from a steady stream of relatives. As an old man is wheeled in at the far end, Alex sees his moment to attract the attention of the impossibly tall black male orderly who pilots him. All afternoon, Alex has been increasingly aware of changes in his body, just the odd twinge here, a twitching muscle there, like the slow thaw of a local anaesthetic. Now he just needs to force open his mouth, push air from his lungs and call the nurse over, make wheelchair pushing movements with his hands, throw a telling look towards the corridor…
But the four paltry moans that spell out ‘Nurse…nurse…over…here’, while perfectly mimicking the phrasing and shape of each word, fail miserably to rise above the ward’s general hubbub. The nurse, having seen his patient safely into bed, refuses to scan for further volunteers. He simply withdraws his impossibly long arms and strides out, covering his tracks in barely three strides. Alex swears at his failure, lets go his straining muscles and finds himself urinating once again down his tube.
The awful waiting game resumes. The vital thing when Daniel arrives will be to get his message through. A clear, unambiguous signal. With renewed determination he concentrates his mind, travelling the nerve pathways from brain to fingertips and pushing the orders along those hidden wires. At first, nothing. Then a slight quiver of the hand, each finger assuming a tiny life of its own. And finally a result, as his index finger lifts from the sheet and rocks from side to side – not the finger he’d been targeting, but still progress of sorts. The childhood game again. In focusing so intently on his own hand, he misses the moment that Daniel actually steps into the ward.
The sight of him is something of a shock. Daniel’s whole demeanour has changed. He avoids eye contact. When he speaks, he does so quickly and coldly. Alex studies the sallow and pasty complexion and wonders if he might be ill. But his words at least offer some comfort; they’ll be going home together once the hospital gives the all-clear. He’s even brought fresh clothes for Alex to wear. Alex does everything he’s been practising to send something back. ‘Don’t wait, Daniel. Tell them to get me a chair. Let’s get the hell out of here now.’ But how to say all that with a single raised finger, a widening of the eyes, and the smallest twist to the mouth?
And suddenly the nature of Daniel’s message is shifting; casting everything into a whole new light. Those scenes of screaming and shouting he’d recalled the night before had felt to Alex like something recent enough to connect with him being here in hospital. But Daniel is now telling him of a traumatic past that spans virtually his whole life. There had been another incident – not days or weeks, but years ago – when they were just kids. Some kind of an accident had taken Alex away on that day, and not once since then had he made any effort to re-establish contact.
It’s an allegation he’s powerless either to refute or accept. The desperation to reach out and say something, at least to assure his twin brother that it means the world having him here, becomes unbearable. But Daniel is already turning to leave, not another word said; no promise to return before the hospital gives the go ahead for his release. Salvation is slipping away before his eyes, his brother exiting the ward, swallowed up by the corridor beyond.
More than a day passes before another opportunity to escape presents itself. Alex has already noticed that those who, like himself, cannot see to their own toilet needs get ‘done’ about two hours after their first feed of the day. Having been told that his own ‘conditioning of the bowel’ takes place on a two-day cycle, it’s not hard to work out when the next appointment with the truffle hunter is due. Much has changed down below since the matron’s last foray. Not only is the urge to go more tangible, but he’s sure he can now access the muscles needed for the essential push. Making this fact known is another matter. His brainwave comes only after having been turned and exposed. Hearing the rustle of papers behind him, he’s quick to pre-empt the well lubricated finger. A moment’s concentration… and Hallelujah: a peace offering – on a plate!
Within minutes of delivering his gift Alex is being wheeled out to the disabled toilets, free, albeit under supervision, to work at his own pace in his own time. The sense of achievement is everything. If not yet his passport out of the place, it’s a crucial first victory all the same, over his disability and over the system. When they return him to the bed, even the catheter is swapped for an object that looks rather like a condom, simple to put on, simple to take off, ready for the next spin in the chair. His success has put him back in the driving seat; he can think again, plan the next step. Every opportunity will be seized upon to take in more liquids and food, to boost the number of toilet trips and show everyone just how keen he is to get himself mobile.
The final reward arrives late the next morning. “I’ve some good news,” the pretty nurse says, as they make their way back from the toilets. “We think that you’re now ready to start on your rehabilitation programme.” As they turn the corner, Alex can see the beanpole black orderly waiting in the ward. “This,” she says, “is Mr Abdelgadir. He is to be your physiotherapist.”
The man gazes down from the heights with a frown. “What are you doing sat there, Mr George!? Are you waiting for next Christmas!?” His face then creases into laughter. “Time for you to get yourself in and out of this thing by yourself!”
The orderly takes over command of the chair and whisks it at speed through new corridors, the pad, pad of his giant strides slow and even behind Alex’s head. The signs they follow say only ‘Rehabilitation Ward’. When they arrive, it proves in truth to be an entire gymnasium; the equal of any well-healed sports centre or health spa. Alex can see little in it that’s likely to be of use to him. Only now is he starting to regain control over neck and shoulder muscles. But to advertise the fact might be to have the physio wheel him straight back to the ward.
“Now then, Mr. George, I want you to listen very carefully and do exactly as I tell you.” Mr Abdelgadir locks the brakes and places himself some feet ahead of the chair with arms outstretched, the pinks of his upturned palms offered like steaks to a wild animal. “You must push against the armrests until you feel yourself rolling forward. Don’t worry; your weight will do the rest.”
The instruction sounds like suicide – serious injury at best. But something tells him this giant of a man is not the sort to take no for an answer, more likely to turn up the heat, while diverting him with that impossible grin. By sheer willpower alone, Alex drags himself forward far enough to reach the tipping point. From there it’s just tumbling, the sense of it minimal, seeing only the extended arms growing suddenly larger and saving his fall, and feeling his head buffeted against the taut belly laugh. Clearly delighted, Abdelgadir helps him back into the chair, skips over to a cupboard, pulls out a selection of weights and brings them over. Engulfed by his tarantula fingers the weights seem innocuous enoug
h. On the table they look preposterously heavy. These, Alex is told, are to develop his upper arm strength. Logical enough: his arms will soon be called upon to propel the chair, to support the crutches, to feed and dress him. Fine, if his recovery were to end there. But Alex is a man in a hurry to walk. They must proceed at once with equivalent exercises for his legs. But no, next it is to be facial muscles. The chair is wheeled over towards the wall and parked in front of a tall mirror. Jaw up and down, forward, backward. Tongue in and tongue out, round and round.
For the first time Alex is presented with a view of his own face. It is indeed a striking replica of Daniel’s, minus the flesh and muscle; the same contours, only etched more deeply; less a carbon copy, more a humourless parody of his twin.
Use what you see to correct what you do. Scrunch up the face. Relax it. Mouth open as wide as it will go. And back. Smile. Frown. Blow a kiss. Look startled. And rest.
Beneath the right eye he can make out the slight swelling from the hairline fracture. One of the nurses had thought he’d been beaten up. A fist or a boot? A half memory stirs, perhaps a false one, of a boot, striking him while down on all fours. He shivers. It must have been quite a kicking. Hopefully the other guy got worse.
Make a sound. Hold that sound. Eeeee, iiiiii, aaaaa, oooo, uuuuu. Alex reckons he’s scoring about twenty-five percent on each test; his abysmal performance infuriates him. But Mr Abdelgadir just goes on chortling and smiling and incentivising and gently chastising.
After an hour of unbroken punishment they finally return to the ward, every muscle in Alex’s body on fire. Within seconds he is flat out – the first really deep sleep he’s known in days.
Perched at the foot of his bed when he reopens his eyes is a gaunt-faced, grey-haired man wearing spectacles and a crumpled suit. The man’s posture suggests he’s been standing for some time. It must have become evening. The ward has all but emptied, the nurses already shooing out the last of the visitors.
“Sorry, if I woke you,” the old man begins. Alex tries to move, but his burning muscles kick back spitefully. The stranger shuffles uneasily. “I only found out today that you were here. I thought I should visit. I… knew you. Before your accident.”
The words are enough to rally Alex’s full attention. Any light this man can shed on the last few weeks is too important to miss.
“I don’t expect you to recognise me,” the man continues, “but I’m your uncle: Martin Greenall. Maybe you remember: your father and I fought together in the Falklands. You were just a child the last time I saw you. I’ll never forget your little face – when I had to break the news to your mother about Richard.”
Even from these few words a scene begins to build in Alex’s mind. A figure at a doorway – a younger incarnation of the man before him, Alex watching heartbroken through the banisters as this man reduces his mother to tears.
This uncle of his seems oddly reticent, yet eager to talk; something decidedly confessional in his tone. “I suppose we’re two of a kind, you and me,” he says. “Two people who survived when they really should have died. The sea nearly took us both. But your father, and the others,” he shakes his head. “They weren’t so lucky that day.”
Alex wants him to pause, to allow him time to digest these words. This man is implying that his accident had been at sea. It fitted – he’d had flashbacks of a dock and of beaches. Okay, say he’d fallen and nearly drowned – it would explain the head injuries and possibly the memory loss. But where did that awful domestic scene fit in with that, battling through a room under a barrage of missiles? His assailant had given chase, followed him down to the docks, cornered him down at the breakwater and forced him to make one last bid to escape. Was that it? So Alex had jumped. Or been pushed.
No, this is all nonsense. None of it rings true at all. For one thing, in that memory he’d been the observer of the violence, not its victim. Nobody watches themselves from outside their own body in a memory. His uncle is seated now, a little way off, his head lowered and hands between his knees, only snatching the odd glance at Alex’s face over his glasses.
“It would have broken your father’s heart to know about your fall. Well, it’s something at least that he was spared that, I suppose. Did you know he kept your photos with him at all times? ‘My two sons couldn’t be more different,’ he used to tell everyone. It’s funny; he always said you could look after yourself. It was your brother he worried more about. ‘The philosopher’, he called him; the one who preferred seashells and stargazing to football. He said he regretted the way he’d treated you both, particularly Daniel. Remember when I told you that? You were very brave, you didn’t cry. I hope you told your brother.”
Alex has no idea whether he’d told Daniel or not. He is losing the thread of this narrative completely.
“He said if he ever got home again he was going to make it up to you. He said you’d know when you got your Christmas presents. You probably don’t remember what they were, but I hope you do; I hope he was right.”
At last Alex begins to understand. This is not a recent story he’s being told here. This is the same childhood incident that Daniel had talked of. He remembers one those presents. Running shoes. Now the references to the sea make sense. Wearing those shoes, running along the beach. He waits hungrily for more.
A conflict now appears to be playing across the man’s face, some sort of inner battle of conscience. He rises to draw the curtain around the bed, just enough to give them a little privacy, and sits back down. He thinks for a second and says, “You know, the way it was reported in the paper, it wasn’t fair on your father. I mean, if that’s what’s been keeping you away all this time, your shame of him, then you need to know: I was just as much to blame. There – I’ve finally said it. But I just can’t keep it to myself any more, not with you coming back like this. It’s too late for my life to change, Alex, but yours still can. What your father did, what we both did… well, he’s already paid the ultimate price for it. But not me. Every single day I’m still paying. It’s the guilt, you see. That’s the thing. It eats you up from inside.”
Alex has an idea that all this is terribly important, that these words form a crucial part of the bewildering puzzle that makes up his past. And yet the only image of his father he can muster is of a man standing in uniform, nothing that fits with newspaper reports or family shame. It’s unbearable to have the story end there. But his uncle is already back on his feet. In a bid to stop him from leaving, Alex throws everything he has into moving some part of himself and uttering a sound. Greenall stares down at the absurd wriggling and warbling, appalled, ashamed and embarrassed.
“Ah, listen to me,” he stammers. “The ramblings of a sad old fool. I’m not after your sympathy, really I’m not. I just wanted you to know that Richard didn’t deserve the mud they slung at him. He was a good seaman. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. People should know what really happened. Someone should set the record straight. Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll write to you.”
The promise, if that’s what it is, is made with back turned, as Greenall takes hold of the curtain and slides it back against the wall. “I’ve got to go,” he says, turning again. “You’ll get well. Believe me: you’re in good hands. It was your brother who told me you were here. He works for me, you see. He wrote to me to say he planned to look after you and I’m giving him time off work so that he can.”
And as mysteriously as he’d arrived, this Uncle Martin is gone.