The Last Thing I Remember

by Deborah Bee

  ‘Neurological deficits?’

  Neurological deficits.

  ‘Yes – that’s right. Whatever the brain can’t remember needs to be retaught. New channels have to be made from A to B. It may be like starting all over again. Do you see? If we were to see some movement in Sarah – anything at all, a twitch of her hand or anything – we would know that there are some old channels left or some new channels being made, that some messages are getting through.’

  ‘Getting through?’

  ‘Yes, uh huh, Mrs Beresford. Getting through. Channels. If you could keep chatting to Sarah and reminding her of special times from her childhood, you know, birthdays or holidays, maybe a party or a trip somewhere – that might just trigger her memory and pull her out of it.’

  ‘So can she hear us then, doctor, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘There’s a possibility, Mr Beresford, that Sarah has what we call locked-in syndrome. She could be listening to everything we’re saying.’

  Dad, I can hear you. DAD!

  A door clicks shut. There’s the sound of scraping chairs. It’s gone quiet, apart from the hum of the equipment. And some sniffing.

  ‘Brian?’

  ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘Is mortality rate the dying rate or the staying-alive rate?’

  I can hear you, Dad.

  DAD!

  I’m in here.

  I can’t get out.

  This is bad. All I can actually do is hear. Oh, and think. I suppose you can count that, right? I am here and I can hear, so I do not have neurological deficits. If I try really hard I could open my eyes. I must be able to. I can maybe move my nose. It’s not that far from my brain to my nose, is it? A shorter journey. Gotta be easier than, say, like, all the way to my big toe. OK, I’ll try twitching a toe. OK, a finger is nearer.

  I’m tired.

  It’s dark.

  I’m stretching my fingers out but I can’t find a door.

  I’m screaming but no one can hear.

  6

  Kelly

  Day One – 9 a.m.

  For fuck’s sake. My mum still isn’t back, the drug smuggler’s still in the corner and the mugs still have foam around them. Who knew that foam could last that long?

  I would phone my mum but you’re not allowed to use mobile phones in here. There are signs everywhere. Same clip-art rainbow writing. Someone must have had a good day on the computer. The signs say that mobiles can cause ‘INTERFERENCE WITH THE HOSPITAL COMPUTER SYSTEMS’. There’s a pink cartoon bear, frowning, with one hand on his hip and the other holding a mobile to his ear. He’s standing like a totally gay bear. Why do they put cartoons on important messages? I mean, it makes perfect sense you don’t want interference with life-support machines, right? But what’s the bear got to do with it?

  The police are here, like three of them in and out and, guess what, they are on their mobiles all the time. That’s a fuck load of interference. No one asks them to turn them off.

  I bet I could ring my mum without bringing down the entire fucking system, right?

  When Sarah first moved into our street, my mum was so happy. I mean seriously. Totally. ‘The yuppies are coming to Tottenham,’ she told everyone. I’m not even lying. Anna – from like three along, she’s Greek – she has her son and daughter-in-law and their daughter all living with her now and she’s been relegated to the front bedroom because my mum says the daughter-in-law doesn’t like her – she is the only person in the world not to know what a yuppie is. ‘Posh people are coming to Tottenham,’ my mum explained. She even told the postman.

  By the time they actually arrived, I had decided to hate Sarah. My mum hadn’t even met her and was fucking obsessed. The first time I actually saw her, she was getting out of a white car parked outside their house, which is right next door to ours. I told you that? She was wearing a beige jacket, like a posh biker jacket, and a white T-shirt and jeans. She had navy Converse – Low Tops – and her black hair was long then, and perfectly shiny – like in a TV commercial. She was perfectly perfect really. I have never seen anyone so pretty in real life. She was so pretty you just wanted to touch her. She seemed to have like golden light coming right out of her.

  She’s changed a lot in the last two years. Maybe it’s just because I got to know her and, you know, saw that she wasn’t really totally perfect. Maybe it’s because she stopped wearing any make-up. But even scrubbed clean she still radiated something. Mind you, she didn’t look the same with short hair. I don’t know why she got her hair cut that short. Adam was furious. Did I tell you yet about Adam?

  And she went thinner too. Her jeans didn’t fit properly at the back. She used to say to me, ‘Kelly, tell me the truth. Does my bum look big in these?’ And at first her bum did look big but, you know, big in a good way. Like a normal bum. But one day when she said it, I realised that she didn’t have a bum any more. I said to her, ‘You don’t have a bum any more, Sarah. Your legs just, like, meet your back’, and she laughed and then looked in the mirror. And then she looked sad and she pulled down her sweater, over her bum like girls with big bums do.

  What the fuck do you think she looks like now? They haven’t let me see her yet. I’ve been here half the fucking night and they haven’t said anything more to me.

  It’s like gone nine o’clock. Nine o’-fucking-clock and my eyes are on fucking fire. The traffic must be bad on Green Lanes. She could have come round the North Circular way but she won’t, you know. She’s so shit at driving. She will never go a different way to the one that she always goes. My mum is such a loser sometimes.

  ‘Hello. Are you Kelly?’

  A woman is sitting down next to me. She’s one of those well-meaning types who smiles a cheesy smile even when a situation is like fucking terrible. She must’ve been a hippy. You know. She has those old-fashioned lace-up shoes on that look like Cornish pasties. That’s what my mum calls them. They’re purple. They look like they’ve been dyed with like fucking beetroots or something. Look, I’m sure she means well. It’s just annoying when people try to fool you with niceness.

  ‘Hi. Yes.’ Smile back.

  ‘You’re a friend of Sarah’s.’ She consults her clipboard. ‘Kelly, I’m Gill Brannon.’ She looks me right in the eyes. I think that’s supposed to make me feel like she’s telling the truth or something. ‘I’m what’s called a victim support officer.’ She says ‘victim’ and ‘support’ very slowly, like I’m deaf or a retard or something.

  ‘She’s my mum’s friend, really,’ I say. This isn’t true, of course, but whatever a victim support officer is supposed to do, I can live without, right?

  ‘I see, Kelly,’ she writes something scribbly down on her pad.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid there’s not much you or your mum can do here at the moment. Sarah’s family are here now. They arrived an hour or so ago and the doctor is seeing them. It was good of you and your mum to come in the middle of the night to support Sarah and I’m sure she will be very grateful for that, knowing that she had someone to be with her in case she needed that.’

  She’s nodding frantically as she speaks. What a nut job.

  ‘To be honest, it’s probably best for you to go home. Are you alright to get home? Will your mum pick you up? Sarah is in a stable but critical condition and I think you’ve done a great job.’

  The drug smuggler in the corner is watching me.

  ‘I have got some homework,’ I say. As though that is relevant.

  I pick up my satchel and put the tea mug I’d been holding next to the tray by the urn. The drug smuggler is following me under her fringe.

  ‘My mum is just taking Billy to school, you see. She’s coming back any minute. I think she just thought . . .’

  ‘Kelly, Sarah’s not conscious now. Is that OK?’

  What a daft bitch. No, it’s not OK. Wake her up!

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell my mum. She’ll come tomorrow.’

  ‘Kelly . . .’

  I hate it w
hen people keep saying your name. Why do they do that? What are they trying to prove?

  ‘Kelly, could you possibly ask your mum to give me a call? Could you?’ She presses a piece of paper in my hand. It’s a pink piece of paper with her name and phone number photocopied onto it. She probably has a stack in her bag.

  ‘Get her to call before she comes. We don’t want her to waste a journey, do we? I’m sure your friend will be feeling better soon.’

  ‘She’s my mum’s friend, really,’ I say again, as though I have forgotten that I just said it.

  We start to head towards the double doors.

  ‘Bye, then,’ I say to the drug smuggler in the corner, as we move between the rows of plastic chairs. (Don’t you think that would make a totally awesome film title – ‘The Drug Smuggler in the Corner’?) She looks away. Beaten. I smile. ‘Hope your son feels better soon.’

  It’s so fucking funny when adults think you’re totally stupid.

  7

  Sarah

  Day One – 4 p.m.

  ‘Hello, my beautiful girl.’

  That’s my dad. I remember my dad.

  ‘Your mother’s gone to get some tea. Someone’s told her there’s a tea trolley nearby. And you know your mother. She’s never more than five minutes away from a cup of tea. I thought, you know . . . while she’s not here, you know. Look, I don’t know if you can hear me, love. But if you can, you need to open your eyes now and come back to us. The doctor said you could hear. Well, he said maybe you could hear. So come on then. Show me you can hear me. Show me your beautiful hands. Flutter your lovely eyelashes. Remember your red slippers? Remember how you sat on my knee and learned how to tie a bow on them. Remember? Remember how the next day you could tie your dressing-gown belt?’

  I do remember, Dad. I do. I remember a house with a yellow front door. The house was neat and regular like a picture-book house. There were two windows downstairs and two upstairs, symmetrically spaced out. All the windows had white net curtains behind them, not fancy festoony ones, just plain, patternless nylon that made the house look as though its eyes were half-closed, like it was a little bit shy. Running down the side of the house was a concrete drive. There was grass straining through cracks down the middle of it. And a brown car was waiting on it. A Mini Clubman with wooden bits around the windows. I remember sitting on your lap, Dad, holding the steering wheel in both hands and driving the car towards the garage. At least I thought that was what I was doing. And you would tell me, ‘Watch the road, chicken.’ You called me ‘chicken’. Or ‘flowerpot’. And if I had chocolate on my hands, or ice-cream that made my hot fingers stick together, you wouldn’t mind. ‘Watch the road, chicken,’ you’d say. And I’d watch the road really hard as we slowly crept up the drive. And whenever I turned my head to look at you, there’d be a twinkle in your eye. We’d reach the wooden garage doors at the end of the drive and I’d stop. You would pull on the handbrake and lean forward to pull the door handle back. I’d jump off your lap and run down the garden, in and out of a line of thin pear trees that you’d only planted the year before. And you would whip your white hanky from your trouser pocket when you thought I wasn’t looking and begin to rub away at the sugary fingerprints until the steering wheel gleamed again. Before my mum found out. The whole scene runs like an old-fashioned ciné film, tinged with golden sunshine, and buzzing with insects suspended in the air.

  ‘Hello, my beautiful girl. Time to wake up now, my darling. We need you back. Can you hear me, Sarah? Can you come back?’

  Dad, I think I’ve got lost.

  DAD. I CAN’T FIND YOU.

  ‘Afternoon, Mr Beresford. Still here? Afternoon, Sarah. Gosh, it’s turned into a nasty day. Raining, raining, raining.’

  I recognise her voice.

  ‘It’s time to get Sarah ready for the night shift, Mr Beresford. Is that OK?’

  ‘Nurse, can I just ask you something? The doctor, earlier, he said ten days. Ten days. Is that normal for this kind of thing?’

  ‘Yes, it is. But with brain injuries, it’s so hard to be precise. We’ll just have to wait and see.’

  ‘Right. OK then. Well, goodbye, dear.’

  That’s my dad. He always calls everyone ‘dear’.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Beresford. Chin up, eh?’

  I hear the click of the door and then someone else arrives.

  Another nurse. They are talking over me. Like I’m not here. Like I’m already dead. Lisa is late for her shift. Lisa is always late for her shift. Lisa is always on ‘a massive diet’. Lisa is size 6.

  ‘Did you see the way she showed us that Top Shop dress she bought but made sure the size tag was out so everyone could see it?’

  ‘I don’t care how thin she is, those leggings she wears are lewd.’

  ‘What does lewd actually mean? Is it like the same as rude?’

  ‘Yeah, but worse. Doesn’t she wear any knickers? Those leggings go all the way up her arse.’

  ‘Maybe she wears those cheese strings?’

  ‘G-strings. I think cheese strings are something else. Have you seen her camel toe?’

  ‘Oh my god? Really? She has camel’s toes?’

  ‘No, not a real camel toe. She doesn’t actually have A CAMEL’S TOE! It’s a saying, isn’t it? That’s just what they call it when you can see someone’s fanny, you know, at the front. When it’s going up their front bum. Camel toe.’

  ‘Do they? Camel toe. That’s hilarious. What’s it called when you can see a man’s bits?’

  ‘Is it . . . a nice view?’

  They are both giggling. I am giggling. Cheese strings! I found something funny. Fuck neurological deficits. The door clicks open.

  ‘Afternoon, Lisa. Nice of you to drop by.’

  ‘How was Top Shop?’

  ‘Shut up, Lucinda. I’m not even that late. I had to collect some stuff from stationery actually. Hi, Beth. Very nice, thanks. I got this great pair of leggings. I’ll show you later.’

  ‘Leggings, eh? Great.’

  ‘How’s she doing? Any change?’

  ‘Too early to tell.’

  ‘What happened then, do they know?’

  ‘Just what they said before. Mugging, they think, that went wrong. That’s what they said. Just wrong time, wrong place. Maybe someone interrupted them. Maybe the muggers got scared and lashed out. Imagine how she’s gonna feel when she finds out her husband’s dead. Maybe she’ll wish she hadn’t woken up.’

  ‘We shouldn’t talk about that in here, Lucinda, shut up. How many times do I have to remind you not to talk in front of patients. They may not look like they can hear. But don’t you believe it. We’ve had plenty who’ve woken up and told us they heard everything.’

  Husband. What husband? Everything has gone totally silent. There are no clicks, no beeps now. It’s like someone turned the volume down.

  Click.

  Gone.

  There is only black and silence.

  I had a husband.

  He is dead.

  8

  Kelly

  Day One – 7 p.m.

  As soon as I had got out of the ward, my mum was like belting down the hall towards me. If she walked at that speed all the time she wouldn’t need to go to fucking pilates. I’m not even lying. She’d got her church coat on. She only wears that for Father O’Shea or for funerals. She’d missed her mouth with her lipstick. It was all over her fucking teeth.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Kelly! Where the hell d’ya think you’re going?’ she’d yelled, but in that totally fierce whisper she saves for when we’re out.

  I told her we weren’t allowed in. That Sarah’s family was there now and that we had to ring. Ring Mrs Branston, or whatever her name was.

  So we went home. She’d parked in the hospital multi-storey and once we’d found the car – she always manages to lose the fucking car – she’d talked all the way home.

  About how Haringey didn’t used to be so rough. About the danger of joining gangs. About how
half my school were gonna get banged up any day soon. About how I’d be banged up too if I didn’t start doing my homework. And I said that she was the one who put me in a waiting room for half the fucking night, so how was I supposed to do my fucking homework? And she said she wasn’t meaning specifically that day, but in general and she said I fucking knew what she was fucking talking about so don’t be so fucking clever and stop saying fucking all the time.

  She said that they’d all been all over the local news. On breakfast TV. That it happened just by the Rec entrance – the Rec is the park down White Hart Lane. I knew that bit. It’s where Kathryn Cowell hangs out with her homies. On the edge of the Rec there’s a community centre – during the day they use it as a nursery and day-care centre for homeless people. Not at the same time obvs. In the evening they do adult-education stuff like CV writing and computer literacy for like really old people who don’t know how to switch on their screens. Some of the teachers from school volunteer there. Sarah and I went there a few times. Quite a lot of times actually. That was just after I first met her. I’d come home with this fat black eye and when my mum asked me about it I said I just had an argument with my locker door – which was halfway true. She knew I was halfway lying. But it’s not like I was gonna tell my mum what had happened. I mean, she’s one of those mums who would be all over that. Marching down the school. Grabbing someone by the ear. Having a go at the headmistress. Fact is, no one could make any difference to how things were run at the school. That was clear. So my mum asked Sarah to have a chat with me about it. Sarah was posh, you see, in my mum’s eyes. Since she’d moved in Sarah had become Mum’s NBF. Mum was always hovering by the net curtains – not in a nosey way although obvs it was nosey. More in a helpful way. Like she’d take parcels in for them off the postman. Or have a spare Hoover bag. Or she’d race out to help Sarah with the shopping. Sarah was pretty and successful – she worked for some publishing company or something, and Anna down the road saw her bank statements one time, and she said that Sarah earned like shedloads of money. Well, not shedloads, but it was better than say working in like a shop or even as a waitress with tips. And I guess my mum thought I was heading for a shop or a cafe and not for A levels and university and a proper job with a proper wage. I suppose she thought that some of Sarah’s poshness might rub off on me if she threw us together enough. And I guess she also thought I was some daft fucking twat who would open up to someone ‘more your own age’. Favourite line of my mum’s.