In the Light of What We See

by Sarah Painter

  Outside, Alex was on the kerb, flagging down a taxi. ‘It’s not that late, we should get the tube.’ I waved my Oyster card. As always, I didn’t have much money and I’d blown my budget on drinks in the hotel. Ger threw an arm around me and pulled me in for a hug. He knew I was being pissy. One hug. A wry smile. The laser focus of his gaze and a few jokes during the ride back to the flat, and he was forgiven. Which, of course, he also knew.

  The next evening, Alex had come in from work and disappeared into the bathroom. Geraint had gone by then, of course, off on whatever errand or secret meeting or highly technical course he’d been sent on by his work. Alex didn’t know this and exited the bathroom in a cloud of perfumed steam. I was going to let her down gently but then she closed her bedroom door and put our getting ready to go out mix on really loudly and I decided not to disturb her. I pottered around in the tiny kitchen, fixing myself some pasta and drinking a bottle of beer. When Alex emerged looking, it must be said, smoking hot in a black silky top and jeans so tight she could’ve saved herself some cash and simply painted her legs dark blue, I raised my bottle.

  ‘You want one of these?’

  ‘I’ll wait, thanks.’ Alex smiled but I knew it wasn’t for me. It was a secret smile. A smile of anticipation and excitement. Alex was my friend and I resented her happiness. Which was petty and selfish of me, especially considering how short-lived I knew it was going to be. Ger was even worse than me at relationships. Once he started working on something (and he was always working on something), he forgot everything else. I could’ve warned Alex, of course, but I knew there was no point. I’d watched this dance a hundred times.

  Ger came back to sleep that night. He’d missed the drinks and dinner Alex had planned and dressed up for, but was in time for a nightcap. He charmed her just enough to make sure he wasn’t going to be sleeping on the sofa while I sat, hunched and goblin-like, unable to enjoy their light-hearted flirting and equally unable to tear myself away.

  Alex was sitting with her feet tucked up on the sofa, one arm stretched along the cushions to play with the back of Ger’s neck. I was trying not to stare, but I could feel her fingertips as if they were on my skin. Alex had drunk a fair amount while waiting for Ger to show up and now her eyes were bright and unfocused. She was joking around, clearly finding herself adorable. ‘You two,’ she pointed at us in turn, ‘are so similar. It’s creepy.’

  ‘We’re not,’ I said, automatically. It wasn’t exactly the first time somebody had made this observation. Ger’s shoulder-length hair was tied back in a low ponytail but it was still dark and straight, just like mine.

  Our olive complexions were the same, and our string-bean shape.

  ‘Even your ears are the same, it’s weird. Look at them.’ Alex was close to Ger’s ear, examining and comparing.

  ‘They are not,’ I said, touching my ear lobe self-consciously.

  ‘Exactly the same shape and colour. And your eyes. If I squint at you,’ Alex scrunched up her eyes, ‘you could be Ger.’

  ‘I could not,’ I said, mildly offended.

  ‘Are you, like, identical twins?’

  I waited a beat, giving Ger a chance to weigh in. He could be cutting to the terminally stupid, but he just took a swig of beer.

  ‘No,’ I said, carefully. ‘We’re not identical.’ After a beat, I added, ‘He’s a man.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Alex said. ‘But apart from that.’

  ‘Do you have difficulty with the word identical?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She stopped squinting and started frowning.

  ‘Not a thing.’ I waved my hand at her and got up from the sofa. I hadn’t decided to get another drink until I had the bottle in my hand and was prising the top off with a novelty Simpsons opener.

  Back in the living room, Alex and Geraint were kissing deeply. He was leaning on her in a way that looked more drunk than erotic, but then I probably wasn’t the best judge.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ I said.

  Ger pulled away from Alex, wiped his mouth with one hand and then proceeded to salute me with it. ‘See you bright and early,’ he said.

  ‘Are we busy?’

  He nodded. ‘Very.’

  ‘What?’ Alex had caught the scent of intimacy from us.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ger and I said at the same time.

  I was a little dizzy from the booze and as I lay in bed, the room gently spinning and music playing through my headphones to make absolutely sure I wouldn’t hear my brother’s sex noises, I felt utterly relaxed. Much as I hated all that twin-cliché crap, I did feel different when he was close. I felt safe. Like I was part of a smooth whole thing, not a broken half, my jagged edges exposed to the air.

  I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there, thinking about Geraint, but it was late and it had gone dark. I heaved myself off the sofa and moved around the flat, closing curtains and turning on lamps. I loved my flat. It was small, but it had been recently renovated and the bathroom was the nicest I’d ever had. The living room had a bay window at the front and French doors at the back, which led down some steps into the little rectangular yard. Pat had always told me never to rent a ground-floor flat, but my building had steps leading from the pavement up to the front door, so I never had people walking directly outside my window.

  Besides, ignoring Pat was a habit I couldn’t seem to shake.

  I was just arranging the cushions on the sofa and considering calling it a night, when I heard a noise. A dull thumping and a bit of a low moan, like the soundtrack to a zombie film. I picked up my phone and dialled two nines, then carried it with me as I headed in the direction of the sound. The French windows. I wished I hadn’t just pulled my thick door curtain across as now I had to move it back to see outside. I knew it would be a cat or a dog or the branch of a tree but I had to check. I forced my hand to twitch the material aside. It was Mark I saw. I recognised him instantly, which was the only thing that stopped me from screaming.

  He was leaning against the glass and I was frightened he would come right through it. I thought about the shattering glass and a worried neighbour banging on the wall, maybe even calling the police, and I opened the door.

  ‘I had to see you,’ Mark said. He ran a hand over his face and stumbled into the living room, trailing dirt from the garden on to my floor.

  ‘You can’t be here,’ I said. I crossed my arms and tried to block the way to the sofa, thinking that if I could prevent him from sitting down, he’d be more likely to leave quickly.

  It was like trying to block a linebacker. He lurched past me and on to the sofa, sitting down heavily. ‘Why didn’t you come?’

  ‘I told you,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but this thing, us, it’s over.’

  ‘Because of today?’

  He looked bewildered but I just felt annoyed. ‘That’s part of it. You’ve never respected my feelings about that. You’re always coming to see me at work. People have been talking—’

  ‘So let them,’ he said. ‘I don’t see what the problem is.’

  ‘I know.’ I took a deep breath. I had always kept things separate. Neat. When this thing had started with Mark, I’d made it clear that no one in our department could know and he’d readily agreed. ‘But you knew the deal,’ I said.

  ‘The deal?’ Mark’s face flushed red. ‘Is that how you see us?’

  ‘It’s just a word.’

  ‘It speaks volumes,’ he said. ‘I’m a transaction. A tasteless little bit of business, conducted out of hours and strictly in private.’

  He no longer looked pathetic.

  ‘I’ll call the police if you don’t leave,’ I said, going to pick up the phone.

  ‘You won’t.’ Mark stretched out on the sofa, patting the cushions, seemingly calm again. ‘You don’t like drama. Come and sit down. Let’s talk. You know we’re going to have to at some point. May as well be now.’

  ‘You’re drunk.’ I tried to make my voice sound reasonable, not like I wanted a fight. ‘We should
talk tomorrow. Go for coffee.’

  ‘I’ve been drinking,’ Mark agreed. ‘But I’m not drunk.’ He held his fingers a small distance apart. ‘Only had a little.’

  ‘Can you hear yourself?’ I said, giving up on reasonable for the time being. ‘You are the textbook definition of drunk. Complete with the unshakable idea that you are somehow adorable in your inebriated state, which, for the record, you are not.’

  ‘I love it when you talk like that.’ Mark was definitely leering now. Not a promising development.

  ‘Like what?’ I edged towards the kitchenette. My mobile phone was on the counter. I would pick it up and telephone the police and let them deal with this.

  ‘All uptight and schoolmarmish. It’s hot.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ I tried to make my tone as serious as possible without being ‘marmish’. ‘If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Mark lurched to his feet and I stepped back. He paused, a look of hurt crossing his face, then held up his hands in surrender. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Will you take me home?’ His shoulders slumped. ‘I’m so tired. And I’m very, very sad.’ He glanced up. ‘You’ve broken my heart, Meen.’

  I hated it when he shortened my name, but he did look pathetic: leaning forward, his head bent. And I owed him something, that was true. Some kindness.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But this isn’t the time for us to talk, remember? We’ll do that when you’re sober. We can meet up again, I promise.’

  ‘Right.’ Mark nodded.

  He continued with the sad but calm act all the way out of the flat, through the building and while we got into my ancient Peugeot. Once on the road, however, with the crappy windscreen wipers working overtime to clear the pouring rain, he stopped behaving.

  ‘I just want to know what I’ve done wrong.’

  ‘You haven’t done anything,’ I said, concentrating on the road ahead. Thankfully, it was quiet, because the visibility was bloody awful.

  He was wheedling now. ‘Because if I’ve done something, you can tell me and I won’t do it any more. Like, I’ll back off at work. We can keep things private, I don’t mind.’

  ‘You do mind, though,’ I said, drawn into the old argument despite my best intentions. ‘And that’s a problem.’ One of many.

  ‘So it is something I’ve done? We can work on stuff.’ Mark was relentless; his voice had taken on the patronising edge that had always made me grind my teeth. ‘That’s what people do in relationships, they work on things.’

  I wanted to say ‘I don’t love you and we can’t work on that’ but I didn’t want to be cruel. Or, more accurately, I didn’t want to set him off. Mark was an incredibly calm and reasonable man sober, but he was a belligerent drunk at the best of times. And this was not the best of times.

  I tried ignoring him, concentrating on the road while he tried to pinpoint areas we could improve. ‘I know it’s not the sex,’ he said. Irritatingly, that was true.

  ‘I’m not talking about this now. It’s late. I’m tired and—’ I stopped myself from saying ‘you’re drunk’ again.

  He was quiet for a moment. Then: ‘Is there someone else?’

  ‘No,’ I said, changing lanes to avoid some flooding. ‘I barely have time to see you. How on earth would I have time for another relationship?’

  Mark’s voice was tight and angry. ‘So it’s a matter of scheduling, not inclination?’

  ‘That’s not what I—’

  ‘So why, Meen? Why are you doing this to us?’

  ‘We’re not talking about this now,’ I said, peering through the rain-soaked windscreen. ‘And don’t call me “Meen”.’

  ‘You’re very controlling, you know? Why not now? Why do you get to make all the decisions?’ He was slurring his words again and I realised the moments of almost-sobriety had been an act. ‘You say we can’t be seen together at work. You say we have to be a secret. You say I can’t move in. You say I can’t meet your family. You say we’re splitting up. What about what I say?’

  I felt the familiar coldness inside. I knew that I should feel something else. We had been together for over a year and there had been plenty of good times. Mark was loving and attentive and extremely competent in the sack. There you go again, I thought, nudging the wipers into overdrive in an attempt to improve visibility. ‘Extremely competent’. Who thinks like that? What is wrong with me?

  Mark was still ranting, but I had the feeling he was going to start quietly crying or something awful like that. Instead, his mood went in the other direction. He grabbed my arm. ‘Listen to me, for fuck’s sake! Why won’t you listen? Why won’t you bloody hear me?’

  The car lurched sickeningly to the right and I hauled the steering wheel back to correct it before it veered into the central reservation.

  I opened my mouth to tell him to stop being an idiot but I didn’t have a chance; he grabbed the wheel with both hands and yanked it sharply. I tried to stop it from turning, but it was too sudden and he was too strong. I braked, lights blazing in the rear-view mirror, and then the car was sliding on the wet surface of the road. It was spinning, the back wheels veering to the left. Panic was present in me, but I didn’t really feel it. The outside world was a blur of smeared headlights and terrifying blanks, but at the same time it felt curious, rather than urgent. I seemed to be outside myself somehow, aware of the terror and the adrenaline but from a distance, as if I was observing the car spinning, rather than trapped inside. It was slower, more balletic, than I’d ever imagined a car crash to be. I marvelled that there was time to see the headlights of the oncoming cars getting brighter and bigger and closer. At once, they were so close they were blinding, my eyes filled with a burning white. In the next moment there was nothing, only blackness.

  GRACE

  At breakfast the next day there were twenty or so tired faces, all of them complete strangers to Grace except for Evie, who was yawning so widely her jaw cracked. Grace had never eaten breakfast with anybody other than her mother and father. She forced herself to walk into the room and take a place at one of the large tables. A couple of the nurses gave her quick smiles, but most were too busy concentrating on their meal. They seemed to move as one, grabbing food and shovelling it into waiting mouths. Grace had never seen such appetites before. She took a spoonful of her porridge and found she couldn’t swallow. The mass of it sat on her tongue, congealed and peculiar, until she spat it back on to her spoon as discreetly as she could.

  A girl opposite stuck a hand across the table for her to shake. ‘Barnes,’ she said. She had wide, cow-like eyes and pink cheeks.

  ‘Nice to meet you—’

  ‘You going to finish that?’ Barnes indicated Grace’s bowl.

  Grace pushed it across the table.

  Sister Bennett appeared at seven-fifteen sharp and stood at the head of the table. She carried a notebook and read out each nurse’s name, followed by the name of a ward. Since Grace hadn’t the slightest idea what any of the ward names meant, she had no particular care except for one desperate wish. She wasn’t at all sure that she believed in God any more but she sent a prayer up anyway: Please don’t send me to midwifery.

  ‘Nurse Kemp, Princess Mary Ward.’

  ‘Bad luck,’ Evie said, nudging her.

  ‘What is it?’ Grace hoped her voice didn’t betray her dread.

  ‘Private. You’ll be nothing but a skivvy.’

  Grace let her breath whoosh out.

  The private ward turned out to be a series of single rooms leading off a central passage but, according to the sister in charge, it might as well have been a suite at the Savoy. Only cleaner. Grace was supposed to scrub the floor in each room, before starting on the morning drinks. She couldn’t get all of the patients’ names straight and who had warm milk, hot water or sugared tea. There was a list in the kitchen, of course, but by the time she’d found the relevant room, been stopped and asked what she was doing by a nurse,
then answered a buzzer from room twelve in which the resident wanted her curtains opened a fraction of an inch, and told a wandering patient, Mr Greene, to go back to bed for the seventh time, she had mixed up everything on the tray. She ended up giving milk to Mrs Aniston, who couldn’t tolerate it but didn’t say a word until the doctor did his rounds, when she promptly threw up all over her bed.

  Grace was shouted at by the ward sister more times that first day than she had ever been before in her life and it took every ounce of her courage not to burst into tears. She was on her hands and knees scrubbing a stubborn patch of floor in an empty room when the sister swept in and told her to look lively. A new patient was being brought in and, the sister couldn’t stop a thrilling note from creeping into her voice, he was a ‘wounded officer’.

  Grace helped to make the bed and then a trolley bearing a sheeted shape appeared. The porter who wheeled the trolley was a cheerful man, who had joked with Grace earlier, but in front of Sister he confined their interaction to a stiff ‘Over here, please’ and ‘Right you are, Nurse’.

  ‘Run along, Nurse,’ Sister said as soon as the patient was settled into bed, so Grace had only the briefest peek at the officer before rushing off to mess up the afternoon drinks. When Evie asked her later what he looked like, she could only say he ‘didn’t look well’.

  Evie snorted. ‘You’re no use.’

  Grace tried again, grubbing up the memory and trying to see the details. Dark brown hair, messy from lying in bed. Eyes that seemed too big somehow. A thin face, drawn in pain. ‘He had nice eyes,’ she said.

  It was after lights out and they were whispering. Grace heard Evie shift in her bed, the springs complaining. ‘Did he have nice hands, too? Officers always have nice hands. It’s the breeding.’

  ‘I didn’t look,’ Grace said.

  ‘Look tomorrow. You’ll see.’

  The next day, Grace did look. Burrows, properly known as Captain Burrows, had his teeth clenched as the doctor checked his wounds. It was Grace’s job to assist. To hold the dish for the dirty swabs and dressings to be dropped into, and the dish of clean hot water, and to swish the curtains for the doctor to make his entrance and exit. She was also in charge of holding the patient still, but that was hardly needed. Captain Burrows clenched his teeth, fingers curled around the edge of his top blanket so hard that his knuckles stood out bright white like a row of dice.