by James Ellis
‘That or thereabouts. We put the collar on you just in case, but I think that can come off now. Any discomfort around your neck? No? There’s no damage to your back, thank goodness. No chipped vertebrae. As for that bump on your head’ – he leaned forwards again and lifted up the bandaging, his podgy face near to Tom’s – ‘it seems to be more surface bruising than anything we need to worry about. No corresponding lesions or bruises on the right hemisphere of your brain, the so-called creative side, or anywhere else for that matter. Have you noticed any changes in your thoughts? In the world around you?’
‘Just the slight lack of memory.’
Wiley nodded and looked at his notes again. ‘There’s nothing we can do for the tooth. It’s snapped along the gum-line. You’ll have to have the root out. Do you have a good dentist? Mine’s a butcher. If you can afford it, go for an implant. If you can’t afford it, still go for an implant. Bridges fly out in restaurants and you’re too young to have a plate.’
He closed the folder, dropped it onto the end of the bed, heaved himself into an upright position and leaned forwards, his hands on his knees.
‘I’d like to keep you here for another day or so. Not too long. Just to see how things work out. I think we may do one more scan too. Any questions?’
‘I’m not… there’s no damage? To my brain?’
‘Not as far as we can tell. We’ll keep an eye on you, and if you feel any loss or impairments or changes to your thoughts, your moods, or anything like that, then you tell us.’
He looked at his watch.
‘You’ve been here for twenty-four hours and for most of that time you’ve been asleep. It’s very early days. Don’t be surprised if your thoughts are a bit foggy. Things might come back over time, or suddenly, or not at all. Beware false memories, though. There will be a temptation to fill in the gaps. Confabulation. Don’t try to force it. If you remember, you remember. If you don’t, you don’t. To me, you seem to be functioning perfectly normally. You’ll meet Doctor Muller later. She’ll talk to you about a possible discharge plan and perhaps a visit to the memory clinic. Do you have a family, Mister Hannah?’
‘Yes. I have a wife, Karen.’
‘Children?’
‘Two. Teenagers. Holly and Dan.’
‘Well, you may have to lean on them for a little while. Lead a healthy lifestyle and try not to worry about things. Easier said than done, I know, but it works. Keep an eye on your weight too because you’re a big fellow. I know I can’t talk but I’m not lying in a hospital bed. Physically, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t make a full recovery but don’t pretend that this hasn’t happened. It has.’
Tom’s day continued as if he were the fixed point in a revolving carousel. Nurses made notes and took his blood pressure and temperature; porters collected and deposited patients; cleaners mopped floors and sprayed surfaces with their blue-gloved hands. A magazine trolley went past and then a tea-trolley and then a drugs trolley, followed by the magazine trolley again.
Towards lunchtime a stern, silent doctor stopped by, looked at Tom’s notes, peered into his eyes and left without a word. Was she really a doctor? Tom wondered. She could have been a vet or a mortician for all he knew. The sounds of hospital life, the beeps and buzzers and bells, became entwined with Tom’s own background hiss that ebbed and flowed between his ears until he couldn’t be completely sure if what he was hearing was inside or outside his head.
Bee came by and gave him painkillers, removed the dressing from his head and took away his collar as if he were being unwrapped and prepared for display. And then, not long before lunch, she and Maggie returned with towels and a bowl, and took down his Nil-By-Mouth sign.
‘Hungry?’
‘Starving, but I’ll need a straw.’ His mouth was still swollen, hidden beneath his monstrous moustache. He looked at the towels. ‘You’re not going to give me a bed-bath are you?’
‘Would you like one?’ said Bee.
‘No.’
Maggie laughed. ‘We’re joking, but talking of straws…’ She drew the curtains and put on a pair of her own blue gloves. Ten minutes later his catheter had been removed. Together they helped him off his rubber ring and into a chair while they remade the bed and gave him clean hospital pyjamas instead of the thin gown he’d been wearing. The pyjamas were far too small: the trousers flew above his ankles and the jacket stretched across his back and squeezed his stomach into a series of button-bursting bulges.
‘They’re a bit snug,’ said Bee. ‘I’ll try to get something bigger. Can your wife bring something in?’
‘I’ll ask her.’
‘That reminds me,’ said Maggie. ‘I still owe you a phone. You can use the bathroom now, if you want. I’ll show you where it is. You haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday so you’ll be a bit wobbly. We’ll make sure you get something to eat when the lunch comes round.’ She opened the curtains, and Tom stood up and assumed his full height. He towered over Maggie and Bee. He felt like Colossus returning from the grave, his massive head turning this way and that, surveying the landscape.
‘How do you feel?’ Maggie said. ‘Tell me if you are dizzy.’
He felt wobbly but not too bad. ‘I’m okay.’
He followed Maggie to the toilet where she left him with a warning: ‘The first time you go after the catheter has been removed, it can feel a bit uncomfortable,’ she said. ‘Call one of us if you have any problems.’ Tom entered the toilet and locked the door. On the wall beside him, over the wash-basin, was a mirror. He turned and looked at himself.
Sometimes on medieval tombs the faces of the dead occupants are captured in images cut from stone and pock-marked by years of erosion and neglect. Tom’s stone-lidded eyes and wildly curling hair, beard and moustache had the same look. His beard was mostly stubble but the moustache was huge and luxuriant and as wide as his head. It was not a moustache that could be grown over a weekend, or a week, or even a month. It was a commitment; a long-term project; a way of life.
He lifted his head and studied his swollen lip, battered gum and the gap where his tooth had been. He stuck his tongue into it and wiggled it about, then closed his eyes and tried to imagine poking a memory into the gap in his mind and wiggling it about.
He opened his eyes again and looked at the bruise beside his right eye. It was bright purple, about the size of an egg, and it had lifted part of his eyebrow outwards, as if he did indeed have a small egg under his skin. He looked more closely, searching for some indentation or mark that might give a clue as to what had caused it. But he could see nothing.
He turned his attention to urinating. There was a moment of inaction and then agony. It was like passing shards of broken glass. Had he been one of his own cartoon characters, then jagged lightning bolts would have emanated from his groin while he danced a jig of pain. He made a mental note to question Maggie on her use of the phrase ‘a bit uncomfortable’.
He washed his hands, left the toilet and walked back towards his bay. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling were heavy on his eyelids and he felt as if he had stood up after half an hour in a very hot bath. He stopped walking and leaned against a wall to keep his balance.
At the far end of the ward, near the entrance to his bay, he saw a stout woman with a lunch trolley. She had stopped to read a newspaper. She seemed engrossed. ‘Hi,’ he called out. ‘What’s on the menu today?’ His voice sounded over-loud in his ears and he wished he hadn’t said anything.
She looked up. She seemed familiar. There were stains on her chef’s jacket and he could see strands of hair that had escaped her headband, and wrinkles on her forehead. Her chest rose and fell beneath her over-long apron, and there was something odd about her shoes. They were black, rubbery and formless, with thick laces tied in a large bow.
You were never good at drawing feet.
He bent over and smelled blood in his nose. He felt very sick.
‘Can you hear it?’ she said.
Her voice was flat. It was
a voice to be seen and not heard; a voice unused to creating waves that could tickle his eardrums; a voice used to being heard inside, not out. Tom looked at her again and into her eyes. They were small, red-rimmed and blue. She had small, blue eyes; eyes, not dots. He took a step backwards. She looked angry; very, very angry. She had a rolling pin in her hand.
‘You…’ he said, and then gave up. His mouth felt clumsy, sticky and dry, and his tongue stuck to the gap in his teeth.
‘The dog,’ she said. ‘Can you hear it?’
Tom looked around. Where were all the nurses? He shook his head. ‘No.’ But suddenly, in the distance, came the sound of a dog barking, and like the hiss between his ears he thought it had always been there. How had he missed it? He walked with stiff legs back to his bay and climbed into his bed.
‘Are you in a dream?’ he said to himself. He could have been. It was possible he had fainted in the toilet or keeled over when he had leant against the wall. Or perhaps the anaesthetic was still in his system, filling the black hole in his brain with its sweet, seductive, sickliness again.
Heavy footsteps walked along the corridor towards his bay. Tom closed his eyes. He could smell stale cooking and stale grease and fat from frying and roasting and butchering.
‘Don’t,’ he said in a loud voice that seemed to click and scratch against the air.
‘Don’t what?’ said a friendly voice.
Tom opened his eyes. It was Maggie. She was by his bed with a cup of tea in her hand.
‘Are you all right?’
The light behind her seemed brighter than usual, heavier, a weight pushing down on his eyelids, and for an awful moment he couldn’t remember who he was or where he was. It was like waking in a room without air. He was suffocating, unable to find the door, unable to get out, unable to breathe.
‘Tom, what’s the matter?’ Now Maggie sounded like a nurse. ‘Come on, sit up. Sit up, Tom, and look at me. Look at me.’
Tom looked at her and the panic subsided. He was breathing again. He had always been breathing. Maggie’s hands were on his shoulder. She looked at him carefully, searching his face as he’d searched his bruise, searching for a clue. He pushed his moustache upwards and outwards, and ran his tongue around his swollen gum. He felt very weak.
‘Wow,’ he said and took a deep breath.
‘What happened?’
I saw one of my cartoon characters walking down the corridor.
Oh really?
Is that normal?
Sure. That happens all the time. Meet my friend, Harv ey.
‘Nothing,’ Tom said. ‘Just a wobbly moment. I think going to the toilet took it out of me. It’s not going to hurt that much every time, is it?’
Maggie studied him. ‘You look pale,’ she said, and then, ‘I’ve brought you some tea. I think you should eat something too. Lunch will be here soon. We’ve ordered you something already. You can have normal food but mind your tooth.’ She stood by his bed with the look of a builder assessing whether or not the concrete had set properly. Tom wondered if it had. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Fine. Really.’ He heard the trolley rattling along the top of the ward, coming towards his bay. ‘Actually, I’m not that hungry.’
‘You should eat.’
‘I don’t think I could manage anything.’
He looked away, towards the window, and for the first time noticed that the view was onto the hospital car park – a multi-storey car park. That was sensitive.
The trolley stopped.
‘Normally you choose in the morning but you were exempt earlier so we ordered for you.’
Tom turned to look. A man was waiting to hand out the food. Maggie passed Tom the plate.
‘Chicken pie?’
‘Lovely.’
While he ate, Maggie worked at the nurses’ station. He was aware that she glanced up at him now and then, and when he had finished she came over.
‘How are you feeling? Better than before?’
‘Much better, thank you.’
‘Good. What happened? You looked upset.’
Tom shook his head and smiled. ‘Really, it was nothing. Just the excitement of going to the toilet. I think I may have been dreaming. I think I got into bed and dropped off. Like a sudden power nap.’
‘You think you dropped off? You were asleep?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you didn’t have some kind of… episode.’
‘Not at all.’
‘You didn’t look asleep. You looked distressed.’
‘I look like that sometimes.’
‘When you’re asleep.’
‘Yes.’
She looked unimpressed. ‘That’s unusual. And how’s the memory?’
‘Getting better, I think. You know those moments when you’re falling asleep while you’re driving and you don’t know it? You see a road and cars in front of you, and then you blink for a second and when you open your eyes the car is closer, and then you doze some more and the car is right in front of you, and if you’re not careful you’ll crash. You don’t see the gaps but you know they’re there. That’s how I feel.’
Maggie nodded. ‘I saw a film like that. Somebody was driving while they were asleep and when they woke up their car was covered in hay and chickens. They drove through a house and came out the other side with a washing line on them.’
‘I’ve seen that film too. That’s how it feels. Not like a car with washing on it but like the bit about nodding off. I know there are gaps but most of it hangs together.’
‘And you remember yesterday?’
‘No. Yesterday is still a hidden chocolate.’
‘Pardon?’
‘The advent calendar.’
Maggie laughed and sat down in the chair by his bed. ‘I remember I was driving home one night and the car in front was going slowly and kept braking, and I thought they had a dog on the back seat, and I don’t know why but I started waving, and I poked my tongue out and waggled my fingers and did everything I could to make it do something. And then when we reached a set of lights and I pulled up behind, I saw it wasn’t a dog at all, it was an old woman wearing a neck brace – and then I saw the disabled sticker in the window and I knew she was in a wheelchair facing backwards.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I pretended I was looking for something in my bag and waited for the lights to change.’
Tom laughed. ‘Embarrassing.’
‘Very. Things aren’t always what they seem. Like those optical illusions. One moment it’s an old woman’s face, and the next it’s a young woman looking away. How can an old woman in a neck brace look like a dog? But she did. Sometimes the mind plays tricks like that.’
Tom nodded. ‘Noted. So, we’re still talking about me looking distressed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think my mind is playing tricks on me? You don’t think I just dropped off and had a dream.’
‘I don’t know, did you?’
‘Do you ever wake up from a dream and wish it was true?’
‘All the time.’
They looked at each other in silence and then Tom said, ‘Even if my mind is playing tricks then that’s normal, don’t you think? Have you ever caught sight of your reflection when you’re not expecting it? It’s like seeing a stranger. That’s because you don’t expect to see yourself. You’re out of context. It takes a moment for the brain to catch up. It’s the same when you hear your own voice on a tape. It sounds boxy. You don’t sound like you think you sound. I don’t mean you specifically, I mean in general.’
‘Is that how you feel? Boxy?’
‘No, I’m just saying. I’m not used to being in hospital. I don’t usually fall off car parks. It’s all a bit strange. Normal things are out of context. When I see myself unexpectedly, I look like Herman Munster with a moustache. But that’s because I don’t expect to see myself, so my mind makes an association. The wrong association.’
‘Herman who?’
‘Herman Munster. Don’t say you’ve never heard of him. He had bolts in his neck to hold his head on. Played by Fred Gwynne. But do you see what I’m saying?’
‘You’re saying I don’t have to write anything in my blue folder. You just had a bad dream.’
‘Exactly. And I felt panicky, that’s all. Just for a moment.’
‘I don’t want you to confuse wanting to go home with getting better. If you don’t feel right, then you should tell me or one of the other nurses. Or the doctors.’
‘I will.’
Maggie sighed and then laughed. ‘Okay. Good. See that you do.’ She stood up, smoothing her tunic. ‘I’d better get back to work.’
‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For taking the time to talk.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll look up Herman Munster later.’
‘Do. He was a great character. And bolts are a good idea, too. If you have a headache you can take your head off, rinse it out and put it back on. All neat and tidy.’
‘Is that what you do in your cartoons?’
Tom looked up. He was surprised.
‘Bee recognised you and we looked you up on the internet.’
‘I’m flattered. What did you find?’
‘Well, lots about Scraps but not much about you – mostly interviews.’
‘I’m a social media non-combatant. I keep out of sight as much as possible. Difficult when you’re six-feet four inches and weigh 18 stone.’
‘There is still a lot out there – Scraps blogs, forums, books, models. There’s even a website devoted to your moustache. I think it’s got its own fan-base. I didn’t realise how big it is.’
‘My moustache?’
Maggie laughed. ‘No. Your cartoon. You must be good at it.’
‘It’s all I can do. I have no other skills.’
‘Did you always want to be a cartoonist?’
‘Always. Did you always want to be a nurse?’
‘I wanted to be a zoologist,’ she said. ‘When I was little I wanted to wear safari shorts and drive around in a Jeep and have a pet lion. Then one day I walked round to see my friend and a dog chased me all the way home. That was the end of that ambition.’