Ellipsis

by Nikki Dudley

  She takes a deep breath. “What do you know?”

  “Why don’t we start with what you know for once?” I challenge her again.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what I can, if you promise one thing…”

  “And that would be?” I lean forward.

  “Not to take any action against the hospital”. She squashes her lips together and waits for my reply. I glance at Michael who half smiles and raises one shoulder in a sign of passivity.

  “Okay, I promise. And Michael can be your witness”.

  “Good”. She nods sternly, recovering her authority for a few minor seconds. Yet she doesn’t speak immediately, she rolls her tongue around in her mouth and repositions her body several times.

  Finally she says, “Daniel originally worked as an administrator at the hospital but, over time, he demonstrated his ability to create a rapport with several of the patients. Some even showed a marked improvement with his support”. Doctor Rosey gazes into the air above our heads, recalling a star pupil. Although, she quickly scolds this admiration with a downturned mouth.

  “We decided to increase his duties, make him a mentor to some of the patients who had taken to him. He had shown himself to be trustworthy, or so we thought…” She sighs here. “What we didn’t know was that he had designs on one of our patients”.

  “I’m guessing you mean me”, I predict flatly.

  “Yes...” She shakes her head as though she is faintly trying to escape a net. “You made no progress for months after you arrived and only began to speak when Daniel made an effort with you. We were happy to see you talking, at least, but we had no idea what price it came with. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Doctor Rosey is on the edge of her seat. I fear she might attempt to touch me so I sink further into the chair. Yet she doesn’t move; her soggy eyes work on her behalf to show me an extended hand.

  “Don’t you monitor things in there?”

  “We do Alice but on this occasion, we just missed it…” Doctor Rosey has transformed before us. I am the one asking questions, she is the one smashed to pieces by the bludgeon of guilt and shame. “And to our miniscule credit, we don’t think anything physical took place between the two of you before he got caught”.

  “Your credit?” I laugh. “You let some strange man take advantage of me. You have no credit!” I am ready to leap from my chair but Michael pats on my shoulder softly and this is sufficient. Yet, it doesn’t stop my eyes from tearing Doctor Rosey into strips across the room.

  “You’re right. We failed you”, she agrees, glancing aside at her clipboard for comfort, but it doesn’t move. “He was immediately fired of course”, she adds.

  “Oh that makes me feel so much better”. My mouth is oozing.

  “I can only apologise and explain this to you”.

  “How could you have let it happen? He groomed me… influenced me. How could you not see it happening?” Michael grabs my hand and squeezes it. Glancing up, I see the purple bruises smudged underneath his eyes like tribal face paint. It reminds me of all the casualties Daniel has triggered, directly or indirectly. He is the first wave that pushed us all into each other, with numerous reactions spinning and colliding like sparks wrestling in flames.

  “He was a clever man. Like you said, he groomed you so he didn’t have to worry about you telling on him. As for the staff, they trusted him and as for me… I just didn’t see it. I couldn’t get through to you and he did”.

  “So he’s better at your job than you are?”

  “There’s no need to be so cutting. After all, I did help you in the end, didn’t I?”

  “I wasn’t well enough to leave”, I whimper, covering my face with my hands.

  “We decided you were well enough, with supervision, of course”. Doctor Rosey defends her decision. She can’t face the idea of failing me twice.

  “But I know now I wasn’t well enough”, I insist, sagging into the chair. Michael puts his hands on my shoulders and attempts to lift me back up again. I try my best on his behalf. “Why don’t I remember what happened?” I ask, resting my head in Michael’s lap. He doesn’t move at first, staring down at me, and only after a long pause does he massage my neck with his thumb.

  “You were very ill and when we caught Daniel, you were still very ill. As soon as he left, you seemed to forget about him and only after a few more months did you start to talk about anything at all”, the Doctor explains.

  “We thought you had enough to deal with, Alice”, Michael adds from above and I cast one eye onto him, which is enough to make him turn his head away.

  “I’m sorry”, Michael whispers.

  “You all lied to me”.

  I move myself out of Michael’s lap and shake my head. My head is filled with helium, all I want to do is cut the cord and let it float away.

  Mum, I know I shouldn’t talk to you anymore but I think I need you still. All these people, they’ve lied and let me down but you never did.

  “We didn’t lie Alice, we just didn’t discuss this with you”, the Doctor claims but Michael betrays her with his clammy hands that leave sweat marks on the side of the chair.

  “You don’t know what this has done to me”. My voice is a metal beam bending under the weight of tonnes of rubble.

  “What has it done to you, Alice? What does that mean?”

  “You let him get inside me. You let him lead me. You let him influence me to…” I feel as if I might be sick and stumble out of the chair. “You let him mould me… how could you?” I hold onto the arm for support as the room swirls like paints being blended into one. “You don’t know what you’ve done”, I squeak as my throat closes up.

  The train is coming towards me. The lights knock me to the ground as I try to scramble away from it. Yet the train is skulking closer, the reversed stalker. Daniel’s lips are moving again but I can’t hear or guess the words he is trying to say. The cold fingers of the track have locked me in place and I wait for the monster to churn me into pulp. I scream and call for help but the blurry figures on the platform don’t respond or move.

  Mum! Mum! Help me please!

  The only figure is Daniel and he is beside me, then inside me, then I hear his voice in my brain, right on time right on time to the pulse of the monster, to the pulse of his heart, to the pulse of my own organ scratching against my rib cage. The raspy breath of the train louder now a scream, a flood of light…

  38 The Hospital Visit

  Thom wakes up in a strange room. It takes him several minutes to realise where he is. He rolls over and finds his phone stuck within the covers. It is 9:42am.

  His neck is aching and his left arm is numb from the way he has been sleeping. He can’t remember closing his eyes last night. He hasn’t even switched the main light off and he is surprised that he’d been able to sleep with it on.

  Thom familiarises himself with the room. He decides that it looks even more tragic in the daylight and opts to leave the place as soon as he can. He takes a fast shower in the bathroom down the hall, dries himself off with a stained towel, and throws on the same rags he came in with. He hopes the spots of Michael’s blood on his sleeve aren’t noticeable to anyone else. The grey swelling on his fists only underlines his shame further.

  When he has his hand on the front door, Thom realises he has no idea where he is going. He slumps back onto the bed and considers his options. First, he could go back to the house and face Aunty Val and Richard. Second, he could go and look for Sarah and talk over the revelations of yesterday night. Or third, he could try to discover more about Daniel and why he died.

  Out of fear and perhaps tiredness, Thom chooses the most familiar. He will keep investigating Daniel. He can’t talk to his family yet, and finding out more about Sarah’s lies can wait. Just because everything in his life has changed so much, it doesn’t mean he can forget his task. He has to find out about Daniel.

  But where should he go now? The lock up? Mrs Tray’s? Yet Thom feels like these are places
he has already been, places which make up the past and are not to be revisited. Where or what is he missing?

  Thom thinks back to when he met Mrs Tray and the way she played solitaire. What did she say to him? ‘Sometimes all it takes is a fresh eye’. And Thom remembers how the phrase slithered into his ear and solidified there. He has been caught in a whirlpool for weeks or months now and he needs to break out. As he always hears them say on the news, he needs ‘fresh leads’.

  So what places or people has he left out? Well there’s the station where it all began of course, but Thom isn’t sure he’s ready for that. He hasn’t even been in a tube station at all since Daniel died, let alone the one where he was smashed to pieces.

  The only other ‘lead’ he can think of is the hospital. Thom has never known enough about Daniel’s time there, and Mrs Tray made the link to it when they had talked. Therefore, this seems a sensible plan to Thom and he finally feels able to turn the door handle and leave the frowning room behind.

  Outside the air is cold and instantly stings Thom’s cheeks. He zips up his coat and makes his way towards somewhere where he hopes he can catch a bus in the vague direction of the hospital. He knows little about this hospital but he at least knows which one it is.

  Two long bus rides later, he is standing somewhere in South London, in front of an unassuming building which is actually a hospital. People walk by without even looking at the building, which Thom finds troubling as it is a grand and stony character. There is a large wall guarding it and only a small entrance at one of the sides, guarded by one man sitting in a booth, as though no one ever tries to gain entry to it. Or perhaps no one ever comes out?

  Thom hesitates as he stands on the pavement scrutinising the entrance. Standing here, the normality of the crowd threading past reassures him. At least here, his ‘madness’ of late is concentrated by all the other bodies and their sanity. But inside that hospital, his ‘madness’ will be spiked by all the insanity of the patients. In there, will he finally fall apart and reveal his strange thoughts? Will he finally tell someone he isn’t sure whether he can ever rejoin the life he left behind?

  Thom forces himself to approach the guard. He explains he is considering placing a relative into the hospital and wants to discuss his options with the managing director. The man reluctantly replaces his cigarette with the phone receiver and makes a hushed call to someone. When he replaces the phone, he nods towards the hospital and mutters, “see reception”. Thom does as he has been instructed; walking gradually towards the hospital he fears can undress him.

  Thom takes on the stairs like a warrior certain he is climbing to his death. The door of the hospital grows with each step, a mouth that will swallow him. Yet when Thom finally grasps the handle, he feels reassured by its cold stillness, and manages to navigate his trembling legs through it.

  Inside, he is buzzed through another door and is greeted by a young woman. She tells him the director would be happy to see him and discuss admissions, perhaps even give him a tour should he want one. She asks him to take a seat but Thom barely grazes the chair when he jumps up again.

  “I don’t have a sick relative”, Thom confesses. The receptionist freezes and for a strange moment Thom believes he has stabbed her in the spine and she is paralysed. Yet after a few moments of silence, she turns to face him again.

  “So what is it you want exactly?” the woman asks, her hand creeping towards the edge of the desk. Thom suspects there is an alarm there and he doesn’t blame her for reassuring herself with it. If the position were reversed, and he was the one looking at a clammy-faced man with his clothes stretched to all sides and hanging off his shoulders, he would press the alarm instantly.

  “I want to ask about my cousin”. Thom attempts to straighten his clothes, as if this will help the situation greatly.

  “Who is your cousin?” She doesn’t take her eyes off Thom.

  “Daniel Mansen”. Thom is watching the woman equally as closely as he says the two words. These two words seem to spit glass in all directions whenever they are mentioned. These two words make Thom want to duck down after he’s said them and wait for the screams.

  “Daniel”, the woman repeats, letting her arm move back towards her body. She lets go of the physical alarm in response to the alarm in her mind.

  “You knew him”, Thom states.

  The woman slowly nods and takes a step towards Thom. “Why are you here?”

  “Daniel is dead”, Thom tells her. The woman bites her lip and looks down.

  “I’m sorry”, she mumbles, drawing even closer to Thom. “But why have you come here now?”

  “I know he left his job here, but I don’t know why”.

  Thom is standing next to the woman now; they are huddled beside the reception desk, speaking in quiet tones. Thom guesses the woman can feel his pinched sticky desperation and he can see her guilty curiosity that made her let go of the alarm.

  “He didn’t tell you?” she sighs.

  “I feel like I’m really missing something here”, Thom admits. He has just summarised his feelings throughout the whole investigation. Yet Thom guesses this is the nature of an investigation: always being in a state of lack.

  “I am sorry Daniel’s dead but I don’t think I should tell you anything”.

  “I’m sorry to ask this but I need…” Thom rubs his hands over his face, “I need to know what happened. I know it’s something bad, so you don’t have to worry”.

  “But the hospital…”

  “This is about people, not about this hospital”, Thom wrestles in. “Look, I promise you I won’t say anything to anyone. I just want to know, for me”. Thom pronounces each word precisely.

  “I understand how you feel and I’m sorry…” she persists, shaking her head.

  “No, don’t say that again. You have to help me, no one else can. I need to find this out, to help me understand him. I can’t ask him, can I?” Thom knows this is unfair but he is grasping at anything, showing only traces of his once noble self.

  “What is your name anyway?”

  “Thom”, he answers and holds his hand out.

  “Kelly”, she nods, taking his hand. Thom is glad he took the bandages off this morning. After all, they had been covered in Michael’s blood. “You know, Daniel and I were friends. I was shocked when I heard he’d been fired…” Kelly pauses, expelling air loudly, “and the reason, it made me sick…”

  “Daniel was fired”, he repeats. It is meant to be a question but it comes out as a fact, a brick wall suddenly complete. Thom can’t believe he hasn’t thought of this already. He should’ve figured this out by the fact that no one in the family ever discussed it, yet at the same time it hadn’t seemed crucial when it happened. But now, everything is vital, everything is a grain that gathers together to form a giant textile. Thom wishes he didn’t have to collect all of the parts so slowly.

  “He was caught with a patient”, Kelly adds, after a few minutes of cold silence.

  “What?” Thom snaps his neck up, too fast, and massages the ache that mushrooms across the back of it. It takes about thirty seconds for it to fade.

  “He was caught kissing a patient”.

  “Oh fuck”. Thom punches the desk. Although he is ninety percent sure Aunty Val might’ve known about Daniel being forced to leave his job, he bets she doesn’t know the reason.

  “How could he do that?” Thom covers his face.

  Kelly hovers next to Thom, her fingers twitching beside his arm but not making a connection. Thom doesn’t notice this and when he uncovers his face a minute later, she has moved her fingers away.

  “I can’t tell you anything else Thom, I’m sorry”. Kelly shrugs. “And I wish I hadn’t had to tell you that”. She smiles gently.

  “I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’ve been finding out so many things about him and most of them not good”. Thom is tired, he wants to hang himself over the desk and close his eyes. How much more can he take? Was Daniel a bad person, or a good
person who’d made some bad mistakes? Had Daniel felt so bad about himself that he threw himself in front of that train?

  “Daniel seemed like a good person, but he really abused that patient’s trust, the hospital’s trust”. Kelly seems almost as broken as Thom. Yet he doubts the cracks extend as deep as his.

  “What happened to the patient?”

  “She got better”. Kelly smiles.

  “That’s good”.

  “I can’t believe Daniel’s dead…” Kelly shakes her head.

  “Me neither”.

  “I’m sorry, Thom, but I have to get back… to work”.

  “Okay”. Thom takes her hand and relishes in the warmth for a few seconds. Kelly smiles again and takes her hand with her, when she returns to her seat behind the desk. Everything is as it should be again, she behind the desk and he in front of it like a visitor. Their moments of sharing have finished.

  Thom reaches the door, still rolling the new information around in his mind and his heart. As he stands in the doorway looking out, his feet seem to curl up into balls, making his balance uneven. He holds onto the door frame to stop himself from falling. Taking a few breaths, Thom suddenly thinks of Sarah. He thinks about the revelations she shared with him yesterday night and before he has even considered this properly, he swings round and says, “Kelly, what was the name of that patient?”

  “I don’t think that’s relevant”, she dismisses.

  “I’d just like to know, out of curiosity…”

  “Okay”. Kelly leans across the desk on her elbows, like a little girl unloading a secret to her best friend. “The patient’s name was Alice”.

  39 Red Bruises

  I wake up in Michael’s guest room. The sheets are moist and my curls are pasted to my forehead. As soon as I attempt to push myself up, Michael appears at my side.

  “Don’t move”, he says quietly, stroking my sweaty curls. He lowers me back onto the pillow. I don’t want to do as he says but I feel weak and my body doesn’t have the same determination to defy him. I wonder how long I have been unconscious.