Before I Saw You

by Emily Houghton

  ‘In all seriousness, we’re a bit of a mixed bunch here but we’re all just trying to get ourselves back on our feet. Or in my case, foot! I don’t know about you, but I find it so weird how quickly you get used to hospital life. How long have you been here in total now?’

  Jesus, man, will you stop?

  ‘… Anyway, probably long enough to get used to people prodding and poking at your body every day. When I get out of here, I think I might actually miss it! Waking up won’t be the same without Nurse Angles giving me the once over, you know?’

  She did not know. In fact, she was actually counting the seconds until no one had to touch her again.

  And right now she was counting the seconds until he left her alone.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it. The not talking thing, I mean. It would drive me crazy.’

  The only thing driving me crazy right now is you …

  ‘Hey, neighbour, do you like puzzles?’

  He wasn’t even pretending to wait for her response now. She rolled over and closed her eyes, praying harder than ever for sleep to come and drag her away.

  ‘I’ve always been obsessed with them. Never go anywhere without a puzzle book, just in case, I don’t know, I find myself stuck on a long-term-sick hospital ward with every day full of nothing to do. It’s good to keep the brain active.’

  She hoped that his brain would shortly become very much inactive. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. The silence seemed to be egging him on, as if she was challenging him to try harder. But despite the constant stream of words bombarding her, she remained stoic and mute.

  ‘Alfie, what the hell are you doing?’ One of the nurses’ voices interrupted his monologue.

  ‘Nothing. Just talking to myself.’ He didn’t even sound a tiny bit embarrassed to be caught out. Alice rolled her eyes and silently praised the nurse for her timing.

  ‘Sure … well … you have physio now, so I need you up and out of here.’

  ‘OK, I’m coming. Give me a second to put my leg on, will you?’

  ‘Of course. Darren is waiting for you in the normal spot.’ Alice heard the nurse’s footsteps fade away.

  ‘I’ll be back in a bit, neighbour. Don’t get too lonely without me,’ he called back as she heard the curtains close behind him.

  Alice bathed in the glorious silence once more, allowing her thoughts to come and go as they pleased, an opportunity she was never really afforded in her old life. There was always something to do, somewhere to be and lists to be worked through. God, how she missed being busy. Now the only activity on her list was keeping an ear out for the sound of her neighbour’s returning footsteps.

  A mere two hours later, she was greeted once again with the sound of him.

  ‘Christ, that was a tough one.’ He was trying to sound upbeat, but Alice could hear the weariness in his voice.

  ‘Darren doesn’t go easy, does he?’

  He’s tired. He’ll shut up in a minute.

  Luckily this time Alice was right. As the day wore on, his attempts at conversation grew few and far between, and eventually, as night fell, the only sound she heard from his side were the deep sighs and yawns of someone on the cusp of dreaming.

  ‘Wake up!’

  Her eyes snapped open. It was pitch black. What the hell was going on?

  ‘Please.’

  Alice was wide awake now and hit with the sharp realization that the cries were coming from the man next door.

  ‘Ross, please.’

  His mumbling was growing more urgent. As far as she could tell, he seemed to be reliving something awful. Alice held her breath as she bore witness to his pain. The moans and the cries. It was all just muffled noise. Terrible, heart-breaking noise until—

  ‘Ross. Ross. Please God, wake up!’

  The murmurings were getting louder and more panicked. Alice prayed that someone would come and shake him awake, but no respite came. What the hell was she supposed to do? She couldn’t wake him up. Wait, what if this was some sick joke he was playing? What if this was his twisted way to get her to talk?

  Then she heard it.

  ‘Ciarán, no! No. No. No. Please no.’

  It was a cry that shook with horror, a cry that rang out with such pain it reduced Alice to tears. This was anything but a joke.

  12

  Alfie

  He woke with a start.

  ‘Jesus Christ, pull yourself together.’ He couldn’t help the words coming out. Tired of going through his own version of hell and back, Alfie’s fear had morphed into deep frustration. Why was he doing this to himself again?

  Such a weak, stupid idiot.

  As he said the words over and over in his head, his fist started to punch his surviving leg hard on the thigh. He wanted to fight this stupidity out of him, drum in some sense and logic.

  ‘Don’t do that, it’s the only one you’ve got, remember,’ a quiet voice came from just outside his curtain.

  ‘Mr P?’ Shame flooded him. Thank God his face was hidden from view.

  ‘Aye, kid. Now try and get some rest. Got some tricky crossword clues for you in the morning and I need you on top form.’

  ‘OK.’ A tear escaped down his face. Alfie closed his eyes and swallowed down the ball of sadness that had lodged itself in his throat. He heard the shuffling of his friend’s footsteps making their way back across the room. If he’d woken up Mr Peterson, there was no way his neighbour was still sleeping. Still she’d not said a word.

  As he lay there coated in sweat and barely able to breathe, he grew frustrated at how regularly he was finding himself back here. He’d spent so long trying to block out the flashbacks and bury what he couldn’t bear to remember about the accident. It seemed that just when he thought he’d done it, his brain served him up a cruel reminder that the battle wasn’t over yet.

  When he’d first come around after the crash he hadn’t been able to recall much. The head injury he’d sustained had wiped most of the details from his mind. This, he often thought, was a small blessing. Then the flashbacks started. Thick and fast. He couldn’t believe it – as soon as he was starting to feel more stable, it was as though his brain had decided to flick the switch and take him right back to square one. His mind would revisit the wreckage regularly, sometimes multiple times a day. No sleep needed. It would take him over, at random and without permission. He’d never felt so out of control in his life. This wasn’t your average nightmare. This was real. This was time travel. His nose would burn with the toxic mix of petrol and rubber. His ears would be filled with the deafening crash, the screaming and the crying. He could see the broken remains of their car from where he’d been thrown on to the tarmac. Crumpled like paper. Trapped under the lorry whose path it had been forced into. Then he’d see them, and his world would come crashing down around him all over again.

  At first he thought something specific might be triggering the flashbacks: a smell, a word, a time of day. He drove himself mad trying to pinpoint the exact things that dragged him back, kicking and screaming, to that night. No matter how hard he tried, Alfie soon had to accept that no amount of analysis would give him an answer. His brain had decided to throw rhyme and reason straight out of the window, and it was simply hijacking him as and when it felt like it.

  The worst part always seemed to be the morning after. His entire body would hurt and the sleepless night would leave him drained of all energy. But he knew that, no matter how exhausted he felt, he had to find a way to drag his positivity out of the closet and put the mask back on.

  ‘Fake it till you make it, honey,’ his mum had always told him. ‘Trust me, during the dark days it was the only thing that got me through. I’d put a smile on my face and force a couple of laughs and then one day, I didn’t have to pretend any more. If you believe in something enough, if you tell it to yourself every moment of every day, then soon enough it will come to be.’

  He knew if anyone had the means to survive the curveballs that life threw at y
ou, it was his mum. And so he faked it. He faked it every single day until it started to become normality. Some days were harder than others, of course, but no matter how he was feeling on the inside, he made sure to wear a smile on the outside. Today was no different.

  ‘Morning, Mother A!’ he called, forcing his voice to be bright and breezy.

  ‘Hi Alfie.’ She looked distracted and almost concerned. Who was that with her? Alfie watched as the two women made their way past his bed to hover just outside the closed curtains of bed thirteen.

  ‘Alice, guess what … you have a visitor today!’

  Alfie’s eyes widened. Oh God, it was really happening! Someone had come for her.

  ‘Alice, sweetheart, did you hear me? Your mum has arrived!’

  13

  Alice

  Alice didn’t even acknowledge what the nurse had said at first, because there was absolutely no way on this earth she could be talking to her. Her best friend Sarah was still safely in Australia and she’d given no one else as an emergency contact.

  ‘Alice, sweetheart, did you hear me? Your mum has arrived!’

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Was she dreaming? She’d barely got any sleep last night. Maybe she was hallucinating?

  ‘Alice, can we come in?’

  No way. There was no way in hell her mother was standing outside her curtain right now. The only people in the world who could possibly know where she was were work and Sarah. Alice knew that if Sarah had miraculously found out about the accident, she wouldn’t dare betray her in such a way. But why the hell would her mum contact her work? She wasn’t even sure her mum knew where she worked. Too many questions were firing through her brain, but there was no time to seek the answers.

  ‘Now remember, Mrs Gunnersley, Alice has been through a lot but it’s still your little girl in there. Don’t forget that.’

  That was probably the bit her mother would hate the most; that underneath all the scarring it was still the same old Alice. The same little girl she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. The same daughter she resented for being alive, ever since the day they lost him.

  Unfortunately for Alice, it was also the same mother she’d left behind. When the curtain was drawn back, Alice found herself looking into the same soulless eyes she’d done as a young girl. Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. As much as she despised the flinching and wincing when people saw her for the first time, she was surprised that the blank stare hurt more. Her mother didn’t even care enough to react.

  ‘Right …’ Even Nurse Angles was reeling from the distinct lack of emotion. ‘I’ll leave you both to it. Alice, honey, you know how to reach me if you need anything.’

  Nurse Angles took Alice’s hand and gave it a slight squeeze. She fixed her gaze on Alice and whispered quietly enough for her alone to hear, ‘I’m right outside if you need me, OK?’

  Alice managed a weak smile, appreciating the understanding that passed between her and Nurse Angles. If she needed her mother gone, all she had to do was buzz. She could be saved if she needed to be.

  As Nurse Angles turned to go, Alice sneaked a quick look at her mother, who was clearly unsure whether she would be staying long enough to warrant sitting down, or if she should just keep standing. Standing it was.

  ‘Well, I can’t say I was surprised that you didn’t tell me. But seeing you like this – good God, Alice, how could you?’

  Hold on, how could she what?

  Where the hell was her mother going with this one?

  ‘At least look at me, for Christ’s sake!’

  Alice lifted her gaze and stared at her defiantly.

  ‘How could you nearly die and not tell me? Don’t you think I’ve been through enough? You think it’s OK to let your mother lose another child without telling her? When would I have found out? Would I have even been invited to the funeral? Jesus, Alice. No reply to my texts – what was I meant to do? I had to call your office. How mortifying that a mother doesn’t know where her daughter is. Luckily your boss thought it was appropriate to tell a mother that her child was nearly dead.’

  It was quite amazing how much resentment words could carry. Her mother never raised her voice or changed the expression on her face, but it was there, spat out with every single word that came from her mouth.

  Alice could feel a fire starting to rise up inside her. It felt just as destructive as the one that had claimed her body, but this time it was working its way from the inside out. A part of her wanted to bite back. Hit this hateful woman standing in front of her with a thousand spiteful words. But all she had in her armoury was silence. She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing.

  You’re not a little girl any more, Alice.

  She repeated the words over and over in her mind until she had regained some control. She opened her eyes and smiled.

  ‘Really? They said you weren’t talking but you won’t even speak to your own mother now? Did the fire take your voice as well as your looks?’

  Alice clenched her fists tightly, fingernails digging so deeply into her flesh that she had to bite down on her lip to stop herself from screaming. Their eyes were still locked; it was clear that her mother was not willing to give up. Maybe it would be easier just to speak, but Alice’s silence was obviously more enraging to her mother than an onslaught of insults ever could be. She wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

  The stand-off lasted for what felt like hours, until finally Alice tore her eyes away and closed them again.

  ‘Well, if you really have nothing to say to me, I guess I’ll just go.’

  With a slight bow of acknowledgement, her mother turned and left. And for the first time since she was a little girl, Alice Gunnersley shed tears for her mother.

  14

  Alfie

  If following a stranger wasn’t considered such a taboo, Alfie would have been tempted to go after the little Irish lady just to make sure she was real. He couldn’t quite believe the words he’d overheard coming from the mouth of the woman he’d seen walk in just twenty minutes ago. She had looked so small and withered it was as though she was merely a paper cut-out of a human being. A small crinkled head peeped out of the collar of her jacket, revealing a face lined with desperation and exasperation. Alfie had assumed it was hearing that her daughter had nearly been killed in a fire that had knocked the wind out of her – how wrong he’d been. Even when she turned back momentarily and caught his eye, there was no emotion in her expression. She was cold through to her core.

  Should I have said something?

  He spent the rest of the morning on edge. He couldn’t seem to erase the conversation he’d been privy to from his mind. He knew that incidents like this were often best left alone – family drama was difficult enough to navigate when it was your own. He didn’t even know this woman, but to simply ignore what had happened would go against everything he strived to be as a person. Maybe he’d say something tomorrow. Let the dust settle and allow the silence to continue for a little longer. The silence that had now become a permanent fixture, hanging heavy between them like the faded blue curtain itself.

  As a way to remove the temptation, Alfie spent most of his morning up and about, hanging out in other people’s cubicles and finding every opportunity to annoy Mr Peterson.

  ‘Why are you over here again, boy? Can’t you see I’m trying to read?’

  ‘Agnes has bridge today, so I thought you might fancy the company. Plus, you’ve been on the same page for the last hour, Mr P. Don’t pretend you’re finding it interesting.’

  The old man slammed the book down on his bedside table. ‘Well, I definitely can’t concentrate with you nattering away in my ear, can I?’

  ‘Nope, that was my plan!’ Alfie grinned, pulling out a thick puzzle book.

  ‘Don’t you ever get sick of doing those things?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Fair enough. Make it an easier one today though, my brain hurts already from dealing with you.’

  An h
our of Sudoku and crosswords later, Alfie’s mind kept drifting back to the same thought.

  How was that her mother?

  Alfie had always been surrounded by love, and naively he’d assumed everyone else had too. Sure, there were hard times. There were moments when he all but wanted to disown his two older brothers, but despite the scuffles and the bickering there was always love. Alfie felt sick at the thought of what he’d do if that went.

  ‘Oi. Are you even paying attention, lad? I said, four down is ROTARY.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Alfie hurriedly scribbled the letters down.

  ‘You’d better be. You come over here, disturb my reading time, and then you don’t even have your head in the game!’ The old man tutted.

  ‘Luckily for me, I don’t need to concentrate. My brain isn’t addled with age like yours, remember?’ He flashed a wicked smile.

  ‘You’re too cheeky for your own good, Alfie. One day it will bite you in the arse, and when it does I’ll be there rubbing my hands with glee!’ The old man’s face lit up. ‘Now tell me, what more have you found out about her majesty your neighbour?’

  Alfie shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Not much.’

  ‘Pull the other one, will you? I saw that visitor lady going into her cubicle. Didn’t hang around long, did she? What were they saying? You must have heard them!’

  For a man of ninety-two, Mr Peterson was exceedingly sharp. Alfie knew those beady eyes and drooping ears never missed a trick.

  ‘Nothing gets past you, does it?’ He moved closer; he didn’t fancy anyone, especially Sharon, overhearing. ‘It was her mum.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘It was her mum. The visitor.’

  ‘Interesting … so she isn’t completely on her own, then.’ His face twisted in thought.

  ‘Based on what I heard, I’d say she’s not far off it.’

  He didn’t want to pity her. He would hate the thought of anyone feeling sorry for him or discussing his private life so publicly, but he couldn’t help himself. He would challenge anyone to overhear that conversation and not feel bad for her.