by Meg Rosoff
‘Bugles!’ cried Jonathan, struggling to free himself from the gurney.
‘Don’t worry about the dogs, Jay. I’ll take care of them. Hang on in there, buddy.’
The ambulance men rolled him into the service elevator and disappeared.
Back in the conference room, no one except Louise had moved or uttered a word. It was simpler to stand up, walk to the door and leave. It was simpler, and so that’s what everyone did. Wes and Greeley remained behind, not meeting each other’s eyes. Eduardo’s perfectly tanned face had turned grey. He walked into his office and shut the door.
Jonathan began to feel drowsy even before the ambulance gained speed and, when he asked what was happening, found he could only say, ‘Oblong fish prince.’ The nice young medic reassured him that he didn’t have to talk, and that he wasn’t in any immediate danger. For the first time in days, he dropped into a deep sleep.
22
Jonathan dreamed of a tall doctor with a curly smile who said she had neutered hundreds of patients and he shouldn’t worry. He awoke sweating and disoriented, relieved to discover (after some discreet investigation) that he was still in possession of all relevant body parts, after which he drifted off, waking sometime later in a crisp white sandwich of hospital sheets with Felix the Cat staring down at him. He blinked.
‘Jonathan?’ Felix spoke.
He gazed up at the face with its loopy black and white eyes and a grin that spread from ear to ear in a gigantic ‘U’.
‘How are you feeling?’
The voice was Julie’s but the face stubbornly belonged to Felix. Jonathan felt confused. ‘Pink paper tree.’
Felix frowned. ‘Don’t talk. They told me not to tire you out. I’ll just stay here while you rest.’
‘Limpopo gleam?’
‘Close your eyes and sleep now.’
He felt a sudden surge of panic and struggled to sit up. ‘Dobbins!’
‘Don’t worry, Max brought the dogs home. I’m taking care of them.’
He sank back, closed his eyes and subsided into unconsciousness once more.
When he woke again, Wilma the dog was talking to Felix. Jonathan shut his eyes for a moment.
When next he opened them, a young doctor dressed in green scrubs stood beside his bed, staring at Jonathan’s chart. ‘Hello, Jonathan. My name is Dr Devi. You’ve had quite a day.’
He stared at the doctor. Dr Devi had long black fur and buttons for eyes.
‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Jonathan nodded.
‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Dibling,’ Jonathan said, peering sideways at the doctor, whose ears appeared to be made of felt.
‘No pain, no headache, no tingling in the fingers?’
Jonathan shook his head.
‘Poor thing is very confused,’ Julie said.
‘Are you hearing anything strange? Voices, static, ringing in the ears?’
He shook his head again while Dr Devi made notes. Jonathan lifted one hand a few inches off the bed, barely resisting the urge to stroke the doctor’s soft fur.
‘No recent head injury?’
‘None,’ Julie said.
‘Any history of mental illness?’
Julie looked at the floor.
‘Schizophrenia, bipolar, mood disorders, mania, paranoia?’
Jonathan shook his head, firmly.
‘Anything else I should know about?’
Jonathan didn’t know how to express the fact that nearly everyone had turned into cartoons and his doctor was a plush toy.
‘Cattoons,’ he said. ‘Looney spoons.’
They both looked at him blankly.
‘Looney spoons! Gull wrinkle!’ Frustration caused him to ball his hands into fists. ‘MILKY MOOSE!’
Julie shrugged.
Dr Devi glanced at her with sympathy and made notes on his chart. ‘The senior neurologist has ordered more scans . . .’ When he looked up again, Jonathan was staring at him with peculiar intensity.
A few minutes later, as Dr Devi stood by the nursing station, Julie approached tentatively. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Hello.’
‘I’m actually Jonathan’s fiancée. We’re supposed to be getting married soon. Do you think he’ll be in any . . . I mean, do you think we should postpone the wedding?’
‘Ah.’ Dr Devi seemed discomfited by the question. ‘How soon, exactly, is soon?’
‘Three weeks.’
Dr Devi nodded slowly. ‘Well. It’s impossible to say what’s wrong with your boyfriend, but I think you’d agree that he doesn’t seem . . . right. That’s the technical term,’ he said, and smiled at Julie. ‘I’m afraid I can’t really give absolute advice at this point but if it were me? I would certainly think twice about going ahead with your plans.’
‘Oh,’ said Julie, eyes filling with tears.
‘That’s probably not the answer you wanted,’ he said. They were interrupted by his pager. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.’
When Jonathan woke again, the first thing he saw was Felix. She had three large white fingers on each hand. Jonathan knew this wasn’t right, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t change her back into his girlfriend. Like it or not, he was engaged to Felix the Cat.
Someone else arrived.
‘Hi, Lorenza.’ He heard Julie’s greeting. ‘So nice of you to come.’
‘How is he?’
‘Sleeping now. About the same.’
‘You think he’ll be ready for the wedding? If not, we’re going to have to start looking for a sub.’
‘Lorenza, it could be a stroke. Or a brain tumour.’
Jonathan could almost hear her shrug. ‘Anyone else you’ve considered marrying? Because I can’t pull the plug on the whole operation at this stage.’
A brain tumour? That hadn’t occurred to him. It would make sense, though. Was there such a thing as a tumour that converted people into cartoons? Or turned doctors into stuffed toys? He cracked open an eye. Oh God. Lorenza was Daffy Duck. Well that figured. None of your cheerful Disney characters for her, just malevolent sarcasm with a great big clacking orange beak.
When Julie excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, Daffy stood very close to Jonathan’s bed, bent down and clacked her horrible beak in his ear: ‘Pretty elaborate way to get out of a wedding, Jack. If you’ve got cold feet, maybe you should just screw up your courage and tell Julie it’s off?’
Jonathan closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears.
Daffy stared down at him. ‘You might as well. She’d have to be crazy to marry you now.’
He squeezed his eyes tighter in an attempt to stop her clacking him to death with her big scary beak. Clack clack clack.
Felix returned to the room and took her place across from Daffy. Both were leaning over him now.
‘So, Julie. Seriously. No one on your B list?’ Clackity clack clack.
Julie glared at her. ‘Honestly, Lorenza, even you can’t think I’ve got some substitute husband up my sleeve.’
Daffy looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose I could ask Helen and Ingy. They might go for it. Ingy would fit the suit with a bit of alteration. Lesbians always pull in the crowds.’
Jonathan didn’t actually think he’d had a stroke. Or a brain tumour. It felt like something simpler. Some kind of systems shutdown. His head hurt. He wanted everyone to leave him alone now, preferably forever.
He opened his eyes, picked up the pen and scribbled a note to Lorenza. GOA HAY.
She stared at the note and turned it sideways. He snatched it back.
PORK TOFF, he scribbled. PORK TOFF.
Julie looked at the note. ‘I think maybe he wants to be left alone.’
Daffy shrugged.
Felix got up, kissed her fiancée and promised to return as soon as possible. ‘Feel better, Jonathan.’
Pork toff, thought Jonathan. And stay porked toff.
23
Much to his surprise, Jonathan�
��s breakdown signalled a positive shift in his relationship with Julie, aka Felix the Cat, who spent hours at the hospital and didn’t once mention the wedding.
Do you take this woman to be your awful wedded wife? To have and to hold?
Bag balm.
His parents came to visit disguised as Tom and Jerry and he watched with delight as they chased each other around his hospital room. He felt quite sad when they had to go, but the nurse told them his temperature was up and he needed rest.
Max came the next day after work, looking entirely like his usual self. Jonathan blinked. No Superman, Spider-Man, Elmer Fudd? Huh.
‘How you doing, Jaybird?’
Jonathan grimaced and waved one hand in a half-hearted gesture of dismissal.
‘You still talking funny?’
‘Organ.’
‘Organ to you too, pal. Don’t try to talk. I’ll give you the highlights. Work is good. I mean, not good, obviously. But everyone loves the fact that Broadway Depot caused you to have a stroke or a breakdown or whatever it is you’ve had. We’re not happy you’re in here, obviously, but drama-wise it’s fantastic. Eduardo’s spending every waking hour hiding under his desk and talking to lawyers, worried you’ll die and he’ll get done for manslaughter. I’m not suggesting you die just to satisfy an office pool, but if you did, I promise I’d throw you a slap-up wake.’
‘Panacea.’
‘Exactly the word I’d use. You die, Eduardo goes bankrupt, I win the office pool, who’s not happy?’
They sat in silence for a moment. Max shifted in his chair.
‘Look, Jay. What about this wedding? You’re not going through with it, are you? Maybe someone’s trying to tell you something with this whole speaking-in-tongues hoopla. Like you’re a total fuckwit and this was the worst idea you ever had. Not to kick a guy when he’s down but.’
Jonathan looked at him.
‘Metaphor, pal: big shiny semi-electric Korean people carrier with weather sensors and four-wheel-drive. Holds eight and’ll get you to Seoul on a tank of gas. Heated seats, anti-skid brakes. That’s Julie. All great. Except that what you need is a road bike – takes you everywhere, makes you happy on the way. The thing is – are you following me here? You probably don’t even want a car. You can take the bus if it rains.’
‘Ali Baba trout.’ Jonathan felt a rush of affection for his friend.
‘You know I want you happy. But you can’t marry Julie. And you’ve got a cast-iron get-out right here. Julie’s . . . let’s just say I’ve known you a long time and, honestly, I can’t see it.’
‘Papa Doc banana float.’
‘Yeah, OK.’ Max shrugged. ‘No one’s going to tell you what to do but,’ he lowered his voice. ‘Postpone for now? See how you feel when you’re better?’
‘Leipzig.’
‘Look, buddy.’ He got up. ‘I gotta go now but think about what I’m saying. I’ve always wanted a Deluxe Popcorn Master 5000. I’m totally cool keeping it for myself. Or you can have it anyway, without getting married. Whatever.’
Jonathan closed his eyes and when he opened them again Max was gone.
The hospital kept him in for three days of scans and tests and evaluations and interviews. His symptoms were not normal – the neurologists had never before had a patient who translated people into cartoons. Other symptoms came and went, like a tendency to hear ghosts breathing and an inability to recognize his own hands. But his scans showed nothing suspicious and none of it added up to a known syndrome.
‘From your speech anomalies, we might normally guess that the connecting tissue between the Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas in the upper portion of the temporal lobe, here,’ the senior neurologist pointed to a section of the brain that Jonathan thought looked rather like Madagascar, ‘may have experienced damage or trauma of some sort – resulting in an expressive aphasia. But you’re not reporting any blows to the head and I’m not seeing anything on the scans. There’s no doubt that you’re experiencing a misfire between thought and word. Your grammar appears relatively intact, but the content is random. We sometimes use the term “word salad”.’
Word salad. Nice.
Julie raised her hand a little, like a child in elementary school. ‘Has he had a stroke?’
‘Damage to the arcuate fasciculus could be caused by a stroke but there’s no evidence of stroke, or any other sinister event. Sometimes we find a lesion, but nothing’s leaping out at me here. That doesn’t mean nothing’s happened, but based on Mr Trefoil’s low-risk factors, I’d be inclined not to intervene for the short term. We’ll wait and see if his symptoms resolve. At your age,’ the neurologist smiled at Jonathan, a bit wearily, ‘and without any particular clinical evidence, diagnosis is mostly guesswork.’
Julie looked from the doctor to Jonathan and back again. ‘I’m not suggesting he’s made it up or anything, but could it possibly be, you know . . .’
‘Psychosomatic?’ The doctor shrugged. ‘I’ve seen stranger things.’
The three sat in silence.
‘What happens next?’ Julie’s hands gripped the handle of her bag so hard her knuckles showed white.
‘What he mostly needs is rest. I’ll arrange a letter for his employer and we’ll see him in two weeks. Obviously, if he experiences any more symptoms, particularly any more peculiar symptoms, let us know at once.’
Julie wondered whether symptoms more peculiar than the ones Jonathan was experiencing even existed.
Neither Jonathan nor Julie asked whether expressive aphasia would contraindicate a wedding. Jonathan expected Julie to ask, whereas Julie hoped that, by not asking, she might avoid hearing something she didn’t want to hear, whatever that might be. ‘Absolutely no wedding’ might be less devastating than ‘No reason you can’t go right ahead with it.’
As they left the waiting room, they ran into Dr Devi.
‘Fraud,’ said Jonathan.
Dr Devi looked serious. ‘Still not getting his words straight?’
Julie shook her head.
‘Good luck with . . . etc.,’ he said and sped away.
Set adrift by the medical establishment, Jonathan wondered how he was ever going to earn a living. What if his condition lasted forever? Who would have sex with a person who couldn’t even say the word sex? Voulez-vous sauté avec moi?
Julie took him home, where the dogs greeted him with wild delight. Tears came to his eyes and he thought, My pack.
Over the next few days, Julie took care of him and the dogs. She seemed perfectly happy to keep communication to a minimum until his speech returned to normal, and while he remained in a state of medically sanctioned peculiarity, she was less critical of him. They got along better now that he couldn’t talk, and when they lay together in bed, he felt closer to her than ever.
After a few days at home, Julie’s Felix the Cat aspect faded and she returned to something considerably more like a person. She continued to look odd, however, as if someone unknown to him had been given extensive Julie-like plastic surgery.
All in all, despite the neurologist’s theory about damage to the arcuate fasciculus, Jonathan couldn’t escape a sense that he’d developed a sudden and extreme emotional reaction to certain aspects of the world, and that Julie might well be one of those aspects.
He closed his eyes and dreamed of Dr Clare. Which was surprising, but nice.
24
After the acrobatic flamboyance of their greeting, Sissy and Dante padded around the apartment, silent as snakes, taking it in turns to guard him.
His normal speech showed no sign of returning.
‘Toast or eggs, Jonathan?’
‘Blimp.’
Julie brought him toast, which wasn’t what he’d wanted, but he smiled and gave her two thumbs-up anyway.
‘Orc?’
‘Work was good. Everyone’s wishing you well and hoping you’ll be better in time for the wedding.’ She took his hand. ‘Not that I want you leaping out of bed just so my magazine can go through with their em
ployee issue, but we need to decide if you think you can’t make it.’ In fact, Ingy and Helen had agreed in principle to step in. Whether they were a dream couple was open to debate, but they were photogenic enough, offered good gender diversity and more or less fitted the clothes.
Jonathan closed his eyes. His brother arrived a week from Sunday. His parents were driving into town the following day. Everyone he’d invited had said yes. He had to go through with it.
He phoned Max.
‘Hello?’
‘Trinket.’
‘That you, Jay?’
‘Obligation antifreeze.’
‘How you feeling?’
‘Carp.’
‘That’s tough, buddy. Anything I can do?’
‘Whirligig freedom toy.’
‘Wedding off?’
‘Opal figurine.’
Max sighed. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but you know I’ll be there for you. Hope you don’t mind but I’ve used your popcorn popper. Just once. But holy shit, it is so great. You’re gonna love it.’
‘Glump.’
‘Aww, don’t be glump, guy. You want me to come over?’
‘Pond asylum.’
‘You sure? I could bring some brews and a DVD.’
‘Poop in a tree.’
‘Well, OK, if you’re sure. Could be worse, you know, you could be at work. Ed says hi, by the way. Just kidding, he’s forgotten all about you. Stay strong. Peace out, bro.’
Jonathan hung up, feeling slightly better. Julie would be home soon. She was helping him with improvised verbal rehab.
‘Repeat after me: dog.’
‘Boudoir.’
‘Cat.’
‘Ogle.’
Julie frowned. ‘Red.’
He was trying, really he was. ‘Loopyloo.’
‘Are you concentrating, Jonathan? Spot.’
‘Duck duck duck!’ Brow furrowed, eyes squinty, his mouth twisted as he tried to shape the words. Even Julie had to admit he seemed earnest. But he couldn’t do it. Sometimes he felt sure that the next word out of his mouth would be exactly right, but instead it was exactly wrong. Loopyloo.
‘Bastard!’ he said, tears of frustration filling his eyes.