The Boy in the Smoke

by Johnson, Maureen

  “You drowned,” Stephen said. “And they had to revive you? How long were you in there?”

  “Oh, they didn’t revive me. I was long gone, I’m afraid.”

  Stephen shook his head in confusion.

  “I’m dead,” Peter said. “Have been for quite some time. I’ve been in this blasted boathouse for far too many years now. It was a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do. I hate this boathouse. I didn’t even row. And as it turns out, Simmons probably did feel the same way. I later saw him kissing Lockhart in this very room.”

  Stephen turned and painfully craned his sore neck to make sure he could see the rope behind him. Rope still in place. Chair standing up. It made no sense at all. He had definitely kicked the chair away, and the chair was definitely upright now, and he was on the ground, alive.

  He must have gone too long without oxygen.

  He lowered himself back down into a flat position on the floor and took some deep breaths. But when he looked up again, Peter was still there.

  “It’s so nice to have someone to talk to,” Peter said. “Is this the first time you’ve ever seen anyone like me?”

  He took Stephen’s stunned silence as an answer.

  “That’s odd. There are certainly more of us around. Ghosts, I suppose you’d say.”

  “You’re a ghost,” Stephen repeated.

  Stephen wasn’t sure if it was good to engage with your own hallucinations, but still—any port in a storm.

  “I’m wondering if the damage is permanent,” Stephen said. “I think my brain has constructed you. I’m not quite sure why.”

  “It must be confusing for you, but I assure you, I am real. I died right here, in the river, all because of Simmons. You know, he came here once and stood on the spot where we kissed—or where I kissed him—and he stayed for quite a long time.

  “I think he came here because he was sorry, but he had nothing to be sorry for. My father never came. He’s in—he was in—the House of Lords. I presume he told everyone I died in a swimming accident. He would never admit his son threw himself in a river. That’s not the kind of thing our family do.”

  This, Stephen understood completely. Had he actually managed to hang himself, his parents’ main priority would probably have been figuring out what to tell the neighbours and everyone at the club. Perhaps this very sad narrative was his brain trying to help him sort out what to do next.

  “It would be wonderful to be alive now,” Peter said. “I’d have led such a different life. I see what happens now. The romances that go on here, even in the open! I could even marry now! To think of it. When I think of all I missed … I’m sorry. I don’t mean to turn the conversation to me. I’ve seen you. You’ve always seemed like a good sort to me. Quiet. Tall and stalwart and handsome, if you don’t mind my saying. But certainly one of the good ones. It always seemed like you might have a story to tell and somewhere else you would rather be. I understand that feeling. I was always thinking about what it would be like away from here. It’s all I want, really, to be away from here. If you could do anything right now, instead of being here, what would it be?”

  Stephen hesitated.

  “I’d like to go and be a policeman,” he finally said.

  “Ah.” Peter waved his hand. “Go and be a policeman. I think you’d be a good one.”

  “You don’t know me,” Stephen said.

  “I do. I told you, I’ve been in this bloody boathouse for ages. You always seemed all right to me. There’s always a few who are all right, and you’re one of them.”

  “Thanks,” Stephen said. “And … you too.”

  “That’s dashed kind of you,” Peter said, looking away in what appeared to be embarrassment. “It’s been a long time since a handsome boy had anything nice to say to me.”

  “You saved my life,” Stephen said. “I don’t know … you may be in my head, I don’t know … but you saved my life.”

  “Oh, it was nothing, really. I just moved a chair.”

  The silence between them became a bit awkward.

  “It’s almost dawn,” Peter said. “Look, I’ll take this down. I’m not very strong, but I can handle a rope. All of this will be gone. You go and … you take care of yourself. Go on. I don’t want to see you go, but it’s for the best. Come on now.”

  Peter stood and gestured for Stephen to do the same.

  “You’re right,” Stephen said. He pushed himself up slowly and opened one of the doors and saw the first show of sunlight taking over the sky, turning the night into something soft and violet-coloured and fresh-smelling. It really was like everything was new, and the gentle sound of the flowing river, the paddling ducks getting started for the day, the birds starting to sing in the trees …

  He turned to see Peter clambouring up the side of the boats. Down came the rope a moment later, and there was Peter, climbing down with a cheer.

  His life was his, and Gina would have thrown him in the river herself if she’d heard his insane plan. He could hear her yelling at him in his mind and the sound was sweet and the words were cutting: Stephen, you utter tit. How does killing yourself help me? I love you, you fool. How did they make you so stupid?

  But Gina was not there. Only Peter, who was now folding the chair away.

  “I’m going to go back now,” Stephen said.

  “Right then,” Peter replied. “And I don’t want to tell you what to do, but you really shouldn’t do that again. Things change. Never act as if situations won’t change. You’ll end up in a bloody boathouse forever. And … ”

  Stephen had a foot out the door.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “I know you think I’m not real,” Peter said. “But come back and see me, won’t you?”

  “I will,” Stephen said. “I promise.”

  It wouldn’t be long before Eton was awake, before someone saw the mark on his neck. As he walked back across one of the very spongy lawns, intentionally stepping off the path, Stephen both cursed and thanked the mark. Without it, he could have continued on and no one would have been any the wiser. But the mark was there to bring change. There was no outfit, no shirt, nothing that would cover it—nothing he could get away with wearing.

  He didn’t even try to go back into his building. Instead, he walked the high street, taking in the quiet, looking up at Windsor Castle from the end of the road, then walking back again. The first runners came out to pound the streets. They were too involved in their own running to look at Stephen closely. But as he got closer to home, Elliot Mogs, from his house, came out for his five-thirty morning run.

  “Morning, Dene … ” He stopped at once. “Your neck. What were you up to last night?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Stephen said with a laugh.

  It was Fourth of June, after all. Things happened. He could perhaps pretend it was a prank gone wrong.

  The look on Mogs’s face suggested not.

  The san wouldn’t open for a bit, though there were people there all the time, monitoring the sick bay. Stephen peered into the windows and saw other boys sleeping in the unit. He passed along until he found a nurse awake, sitting at a desk with a cup of tea, reading something on the internet. He knocked lightly on the window. This surprised her, but she came around and opened it up.

  “I did this,” he said, pointing at his neck.

  The nurse looked, paused, inhaled softly through her nose.

  “Is that a rope mark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you do that to yourself?”

  “Yes. Can I come inside?”

  “I’ll open the door,” she said.

  And she did so, then ushered him directly to one of the small examining rooms, where she sat him down.

  “Was your intention to kill yourself, or was there some other purpose?” she said.

  “It was my intention to kill myself, but I changed my mind.”

  The nurse nodded slowly.

  “I see,” she said. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”


  “Me too.”

  She nodded again, and her face was pinched in kindness.

  “Your voice is quite rough. You may have injured your larynx. Does your throat hurt?”

  “A bit,” Stephen said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Stephen Dene.”

  “My name is Janet. Do you mind if I examine your neck, Stephen, if I do it very gently?”

  Stephen lifted his chin to make his throat more accessible, and the effort pulled painfully at the ripped-up skin. Janet was as gentle as she promised, feeling the wound all the way around, having him swallow, asking him to speak again. His voice was all gravel.

  “I don’t think this is too bad,” she said. “The doctor might do an x-ray to see if there’s any damage, but the bruising could be the worst of it. I think you changed your mind fairly quickly, didn’t you?”

  She looked into Stephen’s face.

  “Your eyes are a bit bloodshot,” she added. “That will go away as well. All in all, I am very happy to see you in such good condition. Do you think you’d like a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Good. Come with me. We’ll get it together.”

  Janet put her hand on his arm and guided him to the tiny kitchen used by the staff. Together, they went about the very ordinary process of putting bags into mugs and boiling the kettle. The tea felt a bit like acid going down his throat, but somehow, it was also good and reassuring.

  “Stephen,” she said, “the physical damage is likely not too serious. Obviously, the main concern is how you are feeling.”

  “I’m feeling much better, actually,” he said. “It was stupid.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. You’ll still need to be seen by the doctor, and it’s very likely something will need to be done to help you. Do you agree that something needs to be done?”

  “I agree.”

  “That’s good. I’m going to call in Doctor Frankel, who is our resident psychiatrist. He’s quite nice and very good at what he does. Everything you say will be absolutely confidential.”

  “But you need to put this in my record,” he said. “I know everything stops here. They’ll send me somewhere.”

  “You’re not the first, Stephen. The pressures of this school … ”

  “I know I’m not the first.”

  Maybe it was the exhaustion finally hitting him, or the shock. Or maybe it was the fact that with the morning and the sun and the landing on the floor of the boathouse and taking that deep breath—Stephen was starting over. And there would be no lies, no covering up. No trying to fit within the system no matter the cost.

  “I met one who succeeded,” he said, setting down his tea. “In the boathouse. He helped me get down.”

  The nurse paused on this.

  “Who … succeeded?”

  “I realize how that sounds,” he said. “And I don’t know how it happened. But I met someone there who helped me, and he claimed to be dead. And that’s why I’m alive. I imagine this will complicate things.”

  “Well,” the nurse said, “the brain can do all sorts of things when deprived of oxygen. I’m going to phone Doctor Frankel at home. And I’ll get you a cervical collar—one of those foam neck braces. It will cover up your neck and give you a bit of support. Then I’ll have our assistant James walk back to your house with you, and you can get some things.”

  “I’m not going to do it again,” Stephen said. “I stopped. I came here.”

  “I know,” she said. “But it’s best to have some company. It’s all right, Stephen. You aren’t alone in this.”

  “I know I’m not,” he said. And for once, the morning sunlight felt hopeful, like something in him was finally lifting, something was finally free.

  III

  THE SPECIALIST

  The hospital was outside Brighton. It was a sprawling building in some vague Victorian style, all arches and big windows, painted stark white. It was a seaside kind of building, and it reminded him of a massive vanilla ice-cream—one that had sixty-nine private patient rooms and three acres of highly manicured ground, including a path to the sea and a private beach. After being assessed, he was shown to a comfortable room, one without too much character—heavy curtains at the windows, a desk, a television mounted on the wall, everything in calm, muted colours. Judged by the decor, this could have been a roadside inn. There was already a daily schedule in a small plastic frame by his door.

  Stephen was used to schedules and found himself studying it and making plans on how to get to each thing most efficiently, before he checked himself and reminded himself that he was in a hospital, not running across a town to try to get to a Latin div on time. The day was leisurely, but there was no room to sit and wallow. Breakfast at nine. A choice after that of either painting or taking a group bike ride (he’d do the bike ride), then one-on-one therapy, then lunch, then a “seaside walk”, then group therapy, then a choice between yoga and tai chi (he’d do the tai chi), then time to write in his journal (which he now had to keep), and dinner. So this was what he would be doing for the rest of June, at least, while everyone else at school finished up. Provisions would be made, he was told, to help him secure his place at Cambridge and finish the Eton year somehow, but he didn’t, he was assured, have to worry about that now.

  He found that he wasn’t worried about it at all. His room looked out at the sea, he didn’t really mind speaking to the doctor, and the dinner wasn’t that bad. He was here to get better, and the act of coming here was already a huge step.

  His parents paid the bills but did not visit. This was absolutely expected and absolutely preferred.

  The first few days passed in this way. Unsurprisingly, his doctor wanted to talk about Peter, but Stephen was hesitant. Regina—yes, he would finally discuss Regina. But something about Peter … it just wouldn’t settle. He would replay their conversation in his head as he tried to get to sleep. It wasn’t upsetting to think about Peter. On the contrary, it was reassuring. Hallucination or not, Peter was somehow—

  His friend?

  Fine. So he had an imaginary friend. But the doctor was more and more persistent each day, and each day, Stephen found himself becoming more and more reticent on the subject.

  “This figure,” the doctor would ask. “Did it speak or was it silent?”

  “I know it wasn’t there,” Stephen would answer.

  “But it did speak to you. What did it talk about?”

  “About how this was a mistake.”

  “And what else?”

  “Nothing else,” Stephen would say.

  And that was all he would give about Peter—no name, no details of the story he told. Let him remain a shimmering, faint vision in the eyes of the doctors.

  After a week of this routine, Stephen found himself sitting in the library one evening, happily reading away when an orderly came in.

  “The doctor would like to see you,” he said. “Nothing’s wrong, he just asked if you could pop in for a moment.”

  Stephen had just found himself in a comfortable place, reading in the summer evening sunlight. He wasn’t thrilled about getting up to talk again. But he was trained to obey commands, so he got up and followed the orderly, down the now-shaded hall with its soft blue carpeting. It was rare to see a carpeted hospital, and Stephen was reminded that he was basically supported by a cushion of money.

  His doctor was not alone. Next to him was a woman, maybe forty or so, with very dark black hair and skin. She wore a jolt of rose-coloured lipstick, highlighting the professionally polite smile all doctors seemed to have to wear at all times—the smile that bordered on a grimace. She was introduced as Doctor Marigold, and Stephen was informed that she would be taking over his care. Then they were left alone.

  “I don’t usually do sessions in the evening,” Stephen said.

  “I know,” the woman said. “I’m sorry to disrupt your routine.”

  “Is there a reason my doctor has been changed?”

  �
�I’m a specialist,” she said. “And please, call me Felicia. I was hoping to speak to you a little bit more about what happened to you in the boathouse—specifically, with the boy you said you saw.”

  Stephen shifted uncomfortably.

  “I’m told you don’t like to talk about this,” Felicia said.

  “Am I so ill they had to bring in someone new?”

  “No. If anything, the reports I’m reading are excellent. You’re responding very well to treatment. You really just needed a chance to decompress. No—I’m here because, as you have probably realized by now, you experienced a neurological event. I am doing research on this very subject, and you’d be providing invaluable assistance to many other people if you would consent to participate in a test.”

  “What sort of test?” Stephen asked.

  “A simple and painless one. It only takes a few hours. No pills, nothing physical. It’s quick and simple. Not only would this test provide valuable data, I believe it would be of tremendous benefit to you.”

  “How?”

  “Hallucinations are extremely common,” she said. “Much more common than people realize. We’re looking into what triggers certain types of hallucinations. We’d just check your brain function—and again, it’s absolutely pain-free and simple. I think you’d like to know what happened, to know there’s no lasting damage.”

  “Do you think there could be?” he asked.

  “Based on what I’ve read of your case, I think your prognosis is excellent. And sometimes hallucinations are quite helpful. Quite pleasant. Which is why, sometimes, people don’t want to share them. They’re private.”

  She gave him a long, understanding look.

  “I won’t pry into what you saw,” she said. “I merely want to check to see how your brain is functioning now. Would you be agreeable to that? It really would be a tremendous help.”

  Stephen didn’t really feel like having his brain tested, but if it was helpful—well, he really had no excuse to say no.

  “I suppose,” he said.

  “Very good. The facility is in London. We’d drive there and back this evening.”