by Val McDermid
‘Yes. She’s a patient here.’
‘Can you put me through to the ward she’s on?’
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, she’s in intensive care. She won’t be able to speak to you.’
I don’t remember ending the call. Just the desperate pain her words brought in their wake. I couldn’t make sense of what I was hearing. It ran counter to all I knew about HIV and AIDS. It was a matter of months since Elinor had been infected. For her to be so ill so soon was virtually unheard of. People lived with HIV for years. Some people lived with AIDS for years. It was impossible.
But the impossible had happened.
I spent the next couple of days in a frenzy of activity, staving off my alarm with action. I couldn’t afford the flight, but I managed to get the money together by borrowing from my three closest friends. I couldn’t explain to my boss why I needed the time off and we were under pressure at work, so there was no prospect of making it to London before the weekend. The rest of my spare time I spent trying to sort out a visa.
By Thursday evening, I was almost organised. The travel agent had sworn she would call first thing in the morning about last-minute flights. I’d managed to persuade a colleague to cover for me at the beginning of the following week so I had a couple of extra days in hand. And the visa was promised for the next afternoon.
I’d just walked through the door of my apartment when the phone rang. I ran across the room and grabbed it. ‘Da?’
Breathing rasped in my ear. ‘Natasha.’ Elinor’s voice was little more than a whisper but there was no mistaking it.
‘Elinor.’ I couldn’t speak through the lump in my throat.
‘I’m dying, Nat. Pneumocystis. Drug-resistant strain.’ She could only speak on the exhalation of her shallow breaths. ‘Wanted to call you. Brain’s fucked, couldn’t remember the number. Claire wouldn’t . . . bring me my organiser. Had to get nurse to get it from my office.’
‘Never mind. We’re talking now. Elinor, I’m coming over. At the weekend.’
‘No. Don’t come, Nat. Please. I love you too much. Don’t want you to remember . . . this. Remember the good stuff.’
‘I want to see you.’ Tears running down my face, I struggled to keep them out of my voice.
‘Please, no. Nat, I wanted you to know . . . loving you? Best thing that ever hit me. Wanted to say goodbye. Wanted to say, be happy.’
‘Ya tebyeh lublu,’ I gulped. ‘Don’t die on me, Elinor.’
‘Wish I had . . . choice. Trouble with being a doctor . . . you know what’s happening to you. A couple of days, Nat. Then it’s . . . DNR time. I love you.’
‘I know.’
The breathing stopped and another voice came on the line. ‘Hello? I’m sorry, Dr Stevenson is too tired to talk any more.’
‘How bad is it?’ I don’t know how I managed to speak without choking.
‘I shouldn’t really speak to anyone who isn’t immediate family,’ she hedged.
‘Please. You saw how important this call was to her. I’m a doctor too, I know the score.’
‘I’m afraid her condition is very serious. She’s not responding to treatment. It’s likely we’ll have to put her on a ventilator very soon.’
‘It’s true she’s signed a DNR?’
‘I’m very sorry,’ the nurse said after a short pause.
‘Take good care of her.’ I replaced the phone as gently as if it had been Elinor’s hand. I’d spent enough time in hospitals to read between the lines. Elinor hadn’t been mistaken. She was dying.
I never went to London. It would have been an act of selfishness. Claire never called me, which told me that she knew the truth. But the nurse from intensive care did phone, on the Sunday morning at nine twenty-seven a.m. Elinor had asked her to let me know when she died. A couple of weeks later, I wrote to Claire, saying I’d heard about Elinor’s death from a colleague and expressing my sympathy. I’m not sure why I did, but sometimes our subconscious paves the way for our future actions without bothering to inform us.
Grief twisted in me like a rusty knife for a long time. But everything transmutes eventually, and slowly it turned to anger. Generally when people die, there’s nobody to blame. But Elinor’s death wasn’t like that. The responsibility for what happened to her lay with Claire, impossible to dodge.
If Claire had not ruled her with fear, Elinor would have left her for me. If Claire had not stripped her of her self-confidence, Elinor would have stayed in Manchester and someone else would have suffered that needle stick. However you cut it, Elinor would still be alive if Claire had not made her feel like a possession.
For a long time, my anger felt pointless, a dry fire burning inside me that consumed nothing. Then out of the blue, I had an e-mail from Claire.
Hello, Natasha. I’m sorry I never got in touch with you after Elinor’s death, but as you will imagine, it was not an easy time for me. However, I am attending a conference in St Petersburg next month, and I wondered if you would like to meet up for dinner. I have such fond memories of the evening we spent together in London. It might bring us both some solace to spend some time together. Let me know if this would suit you. Best wishes, Claire Somerville.
The arrangements are made. Tonight, she will come to my apartment for dinner. I know she will seduce me. She won’t be able to resist the challenge of possessing the woman Elinor loved.
But Claire is a Russian virgin. She doesn’t understand the first thing about us. She will have no sense of the cruelty or the danger that always lurks beneath the surface, particularly in this city of the dead.
She will not suspect the narcotic in the alcohol. And when she wakes, she won’t notice the scab on the vein in the back of her knee. The syringe is loaded already, thick with virus, carefully maintained in perfect culture conditions.
It’s almost certain she’ll have longer than Elinor. But sooner or later, the black magic of those White Nights will take its revenge. And perhaps then, my dead will sleep.
The Writing on the Wall
I’ve never written anything on a toilet wall before, but I don’t know what else to do. Please help me. My boyfriend is violent towards me. He hits me and I don’t know where to turn.
Kick the bastard where it hurts. Give him a taste of his own medicine.
Get out of the relationship now before he does you serious injury. Battering men only batter with our consent.
I can’t believe these responses. I asked for help, not a lecture. I love him, don’t you realise that? He was raped and battered as a child. Are we just supposed to ignore damaged people?
If you don’t get out of the relationship, then you’re going to end up another one of the damaged people. And who will help you then?
Ask your friends for their support in dealing with him. When his violence begins, leave the house and go and stay with a friend.
I can’t walk out on him. He needs me. And I can’t tell my friends because I’m too ashamed to admit to them that I’m in a relationship with a man who batters me.
Sooner or later they’re going to notice and then they’re going to feel angry that you’ve excluded them from something so important.
How come you’re the one who’s ashamed, not him? He’s the one dishing out the violence, after all.
Like I said at the start, fight back. Let him know what being hurt feels like.
He knows what being hurt feels like. He spent his childhood being hurt. And he is ashamed of his violence. He hates himself for his behaviour, and he’s always really sorry afterwards.
Well, whoopee shit! That must really help your bruises!
This is the first time I’ve been in this loo and I can’t believe how unsupportive you’re all being to this woman! Sister, there is counselling available. You deserve help; there’s a number for the confidential helpline in th
e student handbook. Use it, please.
It’s not just you that needs counselling. Tell your boyfriend that unless he comes for counselling with you, you will leave him. If he refuses, then you know his apologies aren’t worth a toss.
Leave him; tell him you’ll only take him back once he has had counselling and learned to deal with his problem in a way that doesn’t include violence. Anything else is a betrayal of all the other women who get battered every day.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve phoned the helpline and we’re both going to meet the counsellor next week.
I still say leave him till he’s got himself sorted out. He’s only going to end up resenting you for making him go through all this shit.
I’m glad you’ve taken this step forward; let us know how you go on.
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you all. My lectures were moved out of this building for a couple of weeks because of the ceiling collapse. We’ve had three joint counselling sessions so far and I really feel that things are getting better!
You mean he only batters you once a week instead of every night?
Now he’s made the first step, you can tell him you’re going to move out till the course of counselling has finished.You owe it to yourself and to the other victimised women out there to show this batterer that he is no longer in a position of power over you.
Well done. Good luck.
I’m not moving out on him. I’m going to stick with him because he’s trying so hard. He’s really making the effort to deal with his anger and to resolve the conflicts that make him lash out at me. I love him, everybody seems to keep forgetting that. If you love somebody, you want to help them get better, not abandon them because they’re not perfect.
Answer the question; is he still hitting you?
Oh for God’s sake, leave her alone. Can’t you see she’s having enough of a struggle helping the guy she loves without having the holier-than-thou tendency on her back?
Save us from the bleeding hearts. If he’s still hitting her, she’s still collaborating with his oppressive behaviour. She should walk away while she can still walk.
So where’s she supposed to go? A woman’s refuge packed with damaged kids and mothers isn’t exactly the ideal place to study, is it?
Anywhere’s got to be better than a place where you get hurt constantly.
And you think battering someone is the only way to hurt them? Grow up!
He hasn’t hit me for over a week now. He’s made a real breakthrough. He has contacted his mother for the first time in three years and confronted her with the abuse he experienced from his stepfather. He says he feels like he’s released so much pressure just by telling her about it.
Surprise, surprise. Now he’s found a woman to blame, he’s going to be all right.
Yeah, how come he hasn’t confronted the abuser? How come he has to offload his guilt on his poor bloody mother who was probably battered too?
Leave him. You are perpetuating the circle of violence. He will see your forgiveness as condoning his behaviour. Break out. Now. If you stay, you are as bad as he is.
Don’t listen to them. Stick with him. You are making progress. People can change.
Bollocks. Been there, done that, got the bruises. Men who abuse do it because they like it, not because of some behaviour pattern they can change as easily as giving up smoking. The only way to stop being the victim of abuse is to walk away.
He is making changes. I know he is. It’s not easy for him and sometimes it feels like he hates me because I’m the one who persuaded him to confront his problems, he’s started to get really jealous and suspicious, even following me to lectures sometimes. He’s convinced that because I suggested the counselling, I’m seeing some women’s group that is trying to talk me into leaving him. If he only knew the truth! Are there any women out there who have been through this, who would be prepared to do some one-to-one counselling with me?
Ah, the power of the sisterhood of the toilet wall! He’s right, though, isn’t he? We are trying to make you see sense and get out of this destructive relationship.
Sounds like you’re swapping one problem for another. The guy is major-league bad news. Sometimes if you love people, the best thing you can do for them is to leave them.
I know what you’re going through. I’ll meet you on Saturday morning on the Kelvin walkway under the Queen Margaret Drive bridge at ten thirty. Come alone. Make sure he’s not with you. I’ll be watching. If you can’t make this Saturday, I’ll be there every week until you can.
From the Scottish Sunday Dispatch:
BODY FOUND IN RIVER KELVIN
Police launched a murder hunt last night after the battered body of a woman student was found floating in the River Kelvin.
A woman walking her dog on the river walkway near Kelvinbrige spotted the body tangled in the roots of a tree.
Police revealed that the victim, who was fully dressed, had been beaten about the head before being thrown in the river.
The woman, whose name is not being released until her family can be contacted, was a secondyear biochemistry student at Glasgow University.
Police are appealing for witnesses who may have seen the woman and her attacker on the Kelvin walkway upstream of Kelvinbridge yesterday.
A spokeswoman for the Students’ Union said last night, ‘This is a terrible tragedy. When a woman gets killed in broad daylight in a public place, you start wondering if there is anywhere that is safe for us to be.’
Keeping on the Right Side of the Law
Just imagine trying to get a straight job when you’ve been a villain all your life. Even supposing I could bullshit my way round an application form, how the fuck do I blag my way through an interview, when the only experience I’ve got of interviews, I’ve always had a brief sitting next to me reminding the thickhead dickheads on the other side of the table that I’m not obliged to answer? I mean, it’s not a technique that’s going to score points with the personnel manager, is it?
You can imagine it, can’t you? ‘Mr Finnieston, your application form was a little vague as to dates. Can you give us a more accurate picture of your career structure to date?’
Well, yeah. I started out with burglary when I was eight. My two older brothers figured I was little enough to get in toilet windows, so they taught me how to hold the glass firm with rubber suckers then cut round the edge with a glass cutter. I’d take out the window and pass it down to them, slide in through the gap and open the back door for them. Then they’d clean out the telly, the video and the stereo while I kept watch out the back.
All good things have to come to an end, though, and by the time I was eleven, I’d got too big for the toilet windows, and besides, I wanted a bigger cut than those greedy thieving bastards would give me. That’s when I started doing cars. They called me Sparky on account of I’d go out with a spark plug tied on to a piece of cord. You whirl the plug around like a cowboy with a lasso, and when it’s going fast enough, you just flick the wrist and bingo, the driver’s window shatters like one of them fake windows they use in the films. Hardly makes a sound.
Inside a minute and I’d have the stereo out. I sold them round the pubs for a fiver a time. In a good night, I could earn a fifty, just like that, no hassle.
But I’ve always been ambitious, and that was my downfall. One of my mates showed me how to hot-wire the ignition so I could have it away on my toes with the car as well as the sounds. By then, one of my brothers was doing a bit of work for a bloke who had a secondhand car pitch down Strangeways and a quiet little back-street garage where his team ringed stolen cars and turned them out with a whole new identity to sell on to mug punters who knew no better.
Only, he wasn’t as clever as he thought he was, and one night I rolled up with a Ford Escort and drove right into the middle of a raid. It was wall-to-w
all Old Bill that night, and I ended up in a different part of Strangeways, behind bars. Of course, I was too young to do proper time, and my brief got me out of there and into a juvenile detention centre faster than you could say ‘of previous good character’.
It’s true, what they say about the nick. You do learn how to be a better criminal, just so long as you do what it tells you in all them American self-help books in the prison library. You want to be successful, then hang out with successful people and do what they do. Only, of course, anybody who’s banged up is, by definition, not half as fucking successful as they should be.
Anyway, I watched and listened and learned and I made some good mates that first time inside. And when I came out, I was ready for bigger and better things. Back then, banks and Post Offices were still a nice little earner. They hadn’t learned about shatterproof glass and grilles and all that bollocks. You just ran in, waved a shooter around, jumped the counter and cleaned the place out. You could be in and out in five minutes, with enough in your sports bag to see you clear for the next few months.
I loved it.
It was a clean way to earn a living. Well, mostly it was. OK, a couple of times we ran into one of them have-a-go heroes. You’d think it was their money, honest to God you would. Now, I’ve always believed you should be able to do a job, in and out, and nobody gets hurt. But if some dickhead is standing between me and the out, and it’s me or him, I’m not going to stand there and ask him politely to move aside, am I? No, fuck it, you’ve got to show him who’s in charge. One shot into the ceiling, and if he’s still standing there, well, it’s his own fault, isn’t it? You’ve got to be professional, haven’t you? You’ve got to show you mean business.
And I must have been good at it, because I only ever got a tug the once, and they couldn’t pin a thing on me. Yeah, OK, I did end up doing a three stretch around about then, but that was for what you might call extra-curricular activities. When I found out Johnny the Hat was giving one to my brother’s wife, well, I had to make an example of him, didn’t I? I mean, family’s family. She might be a slag and a dog, but anybody that thinks they can fuck with my family is going to find out different. You’d think Johnny would have had the sense not to tell the Dibble who put him in the hospital, but some people haven’t got the brains they were born with. They had him in witness protection before the trial, but of course all that ended after I went down. And when I was getting through my three with visits from the family, I had the satisfaction of knowing that Johnny’s family were visiting his grave. Like I say, families have got to stick together.