In the Light of What We See

by Sarah Painter

  After the doctor had stepped out, the sister no doubt leading him to her room for a reviving cup of tea and a slice of cake, Grace tried to make the man more comfortable. She felt shy as she gripped his shoulders to hoist him further up the bed and had to keep reminding herself that he wasn’t Captain Burrows while he was in here, nor was he a nice-looking man with interestingly shaped lips, he was a patient. Once she’d heaved him upright and plumped his pillows and held a glass of water to those interesting lips, Grace felt nurse-like once again. The urge to blush had thankfully gone. She busied herself tidying away the spare cotton wool and straightening the top sheet.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  Grace didn’t look at him straight away and even when she did she focused on his left eyebrow, not trusting herself to take in all of his face at once. ‘Kemp.’

  ‘Don’t you have a first name?’

  Grace couldn’t stop the quick smile that escaped. ‘Nurse.’

  There was a pause. Grace stared at her hands, still resting on the edge of his blanket, which suddenly seemed like an intimate thing to be doing. Touching his bedclothes, straightening them like a mother would with her child’s or a wife with her husband’s.

  ‘Kemp, then. Get my cigarettes, would you?’

  ‘You’ve got a chest wound,’ she said. ‘It might make you cough.’

  ‘Rot,’ Burrows said, but his voice was mild. Grace risked a quick glance. His head was tipped back against the pillow and his eyes were shut. Grace was free to look at him for longer. She could see a patch under his chin that had not been shaved properly; the peak of his Adam’s apple, which gave her a strange feeling in her stomach.

  ‘So, what did you do to end up in here?’

  Grace almost jumped out of her skin. ‘What do you mean?’

  Burrows waved a hand. ‘This place. It’s just like the army, so I’m quite at home, but I can’t see why anybody else would choose it.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Not that I’m not grateful, you understand.’

  Grace concentrated on her swabs. It was peculiar to be spoken to in this manner. As if she were of the same rank in life as he. Perhaps that was another facet of him that disappeared when he put on the stiff khaki uniform. Or perhaps he was just very nice.

  She risked a glance at him, using her trick of looking at his hairline instead of his whole face. ‘It was this or teaching.’

  There was a silence and she risked another glance. He was watching her with a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘I bet you’re good with children.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ Grace said, to change the subject. His face clouded and she could’ve kicked herself. ‘Sorry. I’m a clot. I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Quite all right. I just assumed you’d know. Nurse and all.’

  ‘I’m hardly a nurse. Still training.’ She glanced over her shoulder, suddenly fearful. ‘Please don’t let Sister know I told you that or I’ll be for it.’

  He put a finger to his lips and Grace found herself staring at them all over again. Burrows closed his eyes, as if the conversation had exhausted him. Grace turned to leave but she still caught his words, quiet though they were.

  ‘Funny you said training. That’s what got me.’

  Grace turned back.

  ‘Explosives training,’ he said, opening his eyes. They were grey, fringed with very dark lashes. ‘New recruits to the regiment. One of the chaps fumbled it. I went to him but it was too late and, well . . .’ Burrows gestured downwards.

  Grace wished, more than anything, that she could take back her admission. Why had she told him she was in training? He must be furious. Worse, he was probably frightened that she would make a mistake. ‘I won’t hurt you,’ she said.

  Burrows raised his eyebrows. ‘It wasn’t his fault. Just an accident, could’ve happened to anyone.’

  ‘You’re very forgiving,’ Grace said. Perhaps he was a religious man.

  Burrows shook his head. ‘I think he’s paid enough.’

  It took Grace a moment to realise what Burrows meant. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not your fault either.’ He smiled very slightly, clearly with some effort. ‘One expects to get hurt during battle, but it’s rather embarrassing to be laid up in this way.’

  ‘I’m glad there isn’t a battle,’ Grace said. ‘And I heard Chamberlain say there won’t be one.’ She surprised herself by speaking her mind.

  ‘Ah,’ Burrows said, his smile sad now. ‘If you’d known as many leaders as I have, you wouldn’t set so much store by their words. It’s actions that count. Every single time.’

  ‘You’re frightening me,’ Grace said, feeling suddenly stupid and a little sick.

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘You don’t seem the sort. Besides, aren’t nurses supposed to be made of iron?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Grace said, conscious that she was letting herself down again, enjoying the conversation too much. She was supposed to be made of iron. She wasn’t supposed to be flesh and blood and breath that quickened. ‘Maybe one day.’

  MINA

  The pain was everywhere and everything. It was impossible to separate a ‘me’ from it. After a while, it receded just enough to allow thought and I thought: Help me. I don’t think I said anything but, for a moment, I sensed a presence nearby. There was a change in the air. I could smell something different and I heard a voice. A woman’s voice, calm, and a man’s voice further away. Deep and unhappy. An edge of worry in the voice that I saw as a red line running across the blackness behind my eyes. The red line fractured, became a web of red lines, crazy paving.

  Then more blackness.

  I knew something unhelpful must have happened to my skull, but I put that thought aside for the time being. It was too scary. My mind shied away like a horse refusing a jump. I tried to wiggle my toes and felt them move against something smooth and cool, then tried my fingers, and my arms. Not paralysed then. Just really, really fucking sore. It felt good to swear, even just in my own mind. For a moment I wondered if it was in my own mind. I might have sworn out loud or I might be on stage in the Royal Opera House, suffering from stage fright so severe it had rendered me temporarily blind, or I could be . . .

  Blackness.

  The next time I woke up I opened my eyes straight away. I was done with this no man’s land shit and I wanted to re-enter the world. The light was still too bright but I forced myself to keep at it and gradually, with a lot of blinking and more blinding head pain, I found I could see. So, I wasn’t blind either. A knot of tension that I didn’t know I’d been holding on to slid undone.

  I was in hospital. That much was made abundantly clear by the metal-framed bed and the cluster of machines. It was hushed and the curtains were drawn so I couldn’t tell if I was in a ward or a small room or what.

  My head felt enormous. It felt like it had been replaced with a big glass pumpkin. I wanted to move it from side to side, just to prove that I could, but even the thought of movement hurt. A big glass pumpkin filled with pain. I imagined raising myself up a little, trying to sit, and that was enough to make the pain explode until I thought I would throw up. I took a few deep breaths and became acutely aware that every other part of my body appeared to be hurt, too. This was bad.

  The curtain swung open and a nurse walked in. She smiled in that professionally warm way that nurses do. ‘You’re awake. How are you feeling, honey?’

  I opened my mouth to say ‘Wonderful, I’m thinking of running a marathon before lunch’, but just a wisp of breath and the hint of a strangled croak came out. I swallowed and tried again.

  ‘It’s okay, have a sip of this.’ The nurse slipped a hand underneath my neck and raised my head, bringing a cup of water to my lips. The pain bloomed anew and I wanted to punch her. Then the liquid eased into my mouth and down my throat and I wanted to hug her. Perhaps getting my head bashed in had given me multiple personality disorder. I wanted to ask her if it was normal for a person in my situation to be full of rage, but I didn’t trust mysel
f to speak and, besides that, I didn’t really want an answer. If it was ‘no’ then I was most likely just a horrible person.

  I must have fallen asleep – or lost consciousness, or whatever – as the nurse disappeared and some of the machinery was different, or moved. A big thing that had gone ‘beep’ in a reassuringly regular way was further from the bed and wasn’t making any sounds at all. The curtains had been pulled back, too, and I could see that I was in Intensive Care. The light that I had thought blinding was actually quite dim and there were what seemed like hundreds of medical people doing important-looking things with instruments.

  One of these peeled away from a bed further up the room and walked towards me. I kept my head turned and watched him approach. He looked too young to be a doctor, which made me feel old, then I panicked as I realised I wasn’t sure of my age. I was hyperventilating a little bit by the time he was looming over me, another professional smile hovering in my sight line.

  ‘Hello, Mina. I’m Dr Adams. You’re in the hospital.’

  Tell me something I don’t know. Like, at this moment, literally anything else.

  ‘You’ve suffered a serious head injury and have been unconscious for quite a while. We’re really glad to see you awake.’ He shone a little light in my eyes as he spoke, holding my eyelids open as if I was a plastic doll.

  He smiled with more warmth. ‘How’s the pain?’

  ‘Painful,’ I managed. ‘And I can’t sit up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t try just yet,’ he said, looking serious again. ‘You’ve been through a lot. It’s best to take things slowly.’

  ‘I want to,’ I said, realising that I sounded like a toddler.

  He reached out as if to touch my shoulder, then hesitated. ‘I can help you sit up, but it’d probably really hurt. If you wait another day or so, it’ll hurt less. It’s your call.’

  ‘Sit up now,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll give you a little dose and then we’ll give it a go.’ He fiddled with the tube that led into a shunt in the back of my hand. I felt a tiny rush of something and then the edges of my vision went black, swiftly followed by the rest. Tricksy bastard, I thought, before slipping into unconsciousness. Again.

  More time passed before I could stay awake for any length of it. Eventually I was well enough to sit up. Then it was like someone was hammering spikes into my skull and I couldn’t manage it for long. Today I was feeling marginally better. I was sitting up, pillows arranged behind me by the smiling West Indian nurse, and the pain in my head had receded enough to allow me to think at least a little. I managed to ask the question that had been forming for what felt like days. I licked my dry lips. ‘What happened to me?’

  ‘You don’t remember?’ The nurse wheeled a table so that it sat over the bed. She poured a plastic cup of water and slid it towards me. I turned my concentration to my arm and hand, willing them to obey me, not to shake or to miss the cup the way they had earlier when I’d misjudged and swiped it on to the floor. Not this time.

  By the time I had the cup to my lips and was drinking sweet liquid, the nurse had gone and it wasn’t until I’d successfully drunk without dribbling and replaced the cup on the table that I remembered I’d had a question to ask. Frankly, it was frightening. One thing you could say about me: I was a brain. Top-of-my-class type in school, at least until my rebellious phase began, and after all that, I’d gone to the local college, done the A-levels I’d missed and gone to university to do . . . Something. I had a momentary blank on what, exactly, I’d done for my degree and that was terrifying so I skipped over it. I knew I’d worked hard, though, refused all distractions. I also knew that it had been easy for me. Something I’d always counted on, taken for granted, really, was my intelligence and now it appeared to be on the fritz.

  The curtain swished but instead of a nurse or doctor, it was a man in a cheap suit. My old instincts kicked in. I knew he was police before he flashed his warrant card. ‘Nothing to worry about, routine visit,’ he said. Perhaps he was aiming for avuncular, but he had a shiny face and the look of a man who was anticipating his lunchtime pint a little too much. I didn’t like him, but then that was nothing unusual. As I spent more time conscious, my sense of self had returned and I remembered that I wasn’t a very nice person.

  He flipped open a small notebook. ‘You’ve been here for seven days, correct?’

  A week? Now that surprised me. I felt sick. A week spent mostly unconscious. That didn’t seem good. I hadn’t asked about my injury or injuries and nobody had told me. Which, now I came to think of it, was a bit odd. Wasn’t that the kind of thing doctors and nurses did? Although maybe not when you were seriously hurt. Perhaps the rules were different then. Seriously hurt. I tried to swallow the lump that formed in my throat.

  ‘Do you remember what happened before you were brought here?’

  I thought better of shaking my head and said ‘no’ instead. It came out in a whisper making me sound like a proper ill person. Like a plucky heroine in a made-for-television movie. Damaged but still beautiful. Hah!

  ‘You had an accident. Do you remember that?’

  ‘No,’ I said, my voice stronger now, with shock. Which was stupid. Of course I was in an accident. What else could’ve happened? It was obvious, which was why I was spooked. Why hadn’t I been thinking about this stuff already? Why hadn’t I been wondering? And why the fuck couldn’t I remember anything?

  ‘It was a car accident. Do you remember driving your car?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t remember where you were going?’

  ‘No.’

  He sucked his teeth and scribbled something in his little book. I realised he didn’t believe me.

  ‘I don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, what’s the last thing you do remember?’

  ‘Before waking up here?’

  He nodded. Show off.

  I thought. Nothing. Blank screen. I began to panic. That couldn’t be right. I ran through some facts. My name was Mina Morgan. I worked as a medical physicist. Fuck. I worked in a hospital.

  ‘Where am I?’

  The policeman frowned. ‘In hospital, love. You’re in hospital.’

  ‘Which one?’

  His frown cleared. ‘Royal Sussex.’

  Yep, that sounded familiar. I worked in the Royal Sussex. I remembered the big scanning machines of the radiotherapy department, downstairs in the basement. I pictured my job title, written on my business cards, the NHS logo in the right-hand corner.

  The nurse came in. ‘I said two minutes.’ She didn’t look at me, angling her substantial body between my bed and the policeman. I felt a rush of affection for her. I needed a moment to process what he’d just told me. I was in the Royal Sussex. My place of work. Where people knew me and I usually projected professionalism. My job in the hospital was important and I was proud of it. I signed off on treatment plans, which went to the oncology consultants. And now I was flat on my back with a messed-up head. Like some kind of victim.

  ‘This is just routine,’ the policeman was saying. ‘I need to confirm the circumstances of the incident for my report.’

  ‘You’ll have to come back later,’ my saviour-in-nurse-form said.

  The policeman heaved a sigh. He took out a business card and put it on the table. ‘Call me if she gets her memory back. I’ll try to pop by in a week or so, but it’ll depend. Workload, you know?’

  He was trying for solidarity with my nurse now, but she wasn’t having any of it.

  After she’d shooed him out, she came back in. Natalie? I tried to focus on her name badge.

  ‘Don’t worry, honey, it’ll come back to you when you’re ready for it. Sometimes our minds just protect us for a little while.’

  I didn’t like the idea that my mind was doing this deliberately. Conspiring against me. ‘I really can’t remember,’ I said. Suddenly, it seemed important that she should believe me.

  ‘Makes no difference to me, honey. If I judged people who came in here, I
couldn’t do my job.’ She poured me another cup of water. ‘Besides, I didn’t want him tiring you out, not when your sweetie is waiting to see you, too.’

  ‘My sweetie?’

  ‘Shall I show him in?’ Maybe-Natalie’s eyes were bright. A romantic then. I was back in the afternoon movie. I knew how this went. My amnesia would be magically healed by a kiss from my loving boyfriend or, I felt a lurch in my stomach, my husband. I looked at my hands. No rings. No telltale tan line on my wedding finger. Boyfriend then. I had a boyfriend. I tried to summon a picture, a name, anything.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, exhausted by the effort of wracking my poor bruised brain. I’d just meet the guy.

  As soon as he walked up to the bed I recognised him. Mark. It was Mark. My boss in the radiology department for three years. My lover for the last year and a half. I was so relieved to have remembered something, to recognise somebody, that I didn’t even have to fake being pleased to see him.

  ‘Hello, you.’ He leaned over and hesitated, as if working out where to kiss me. I wondered how bad I looked. He settled a little to the left of my lips and I caught a whiff of his familiar smell. Paco Rabanne aftershave. Soap. Mark. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you first woke up. They said I had to wait. Not being family.’

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘No grapes?’

  Mark’s eyes crinkled. ‘I wasn’t sure if you were back on solids yet.’ He indicated the drip in my arm.

  ‘It’s tradition,’ I said. ‘Plus, I was allowed a vanilla yoghurt this morning so I’m fully expecting beef bourguignon and a glass of red this evening.’

  Mark looked around for a chair. I patted the bed. ‘No chairs. They’re not kidding about government cuts.’

  Mark sat at the end of the bed, below my feet. There was plenty of room so I added ‘short’ to the list of things I knew about myself. ‘How are you feeling?’