In the Light of What We See

by Sarah Painter

  I paused, wondering which of my pains to mention first. ‘Confused,’ I said, finally. ‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how I ended up in here. And my head is killing me.’ This last bit wasn’t true. Not any more. It hurt, yes, but compared to the nauseating, all-encompassing pain of the first few days, it was nothing. It had hurt so badly I’d thought I was dying. It had hurt so much I’d wanted to die.

  ‘You must’ve hit it pretty badly when you crashed.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’ An awful thought struck me then, made worse by the guilt that it had only just occurred to me. ‘Did I hurt anyone else? What did I crash into?’

  ‘Central reservation on the dual carriageway but no one else was involved. Miraculous, really.’

  I sank back against the pillows. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘You really don’t remember anything?’

  ‘No.’ I still wasn’t up to head shaking. So I just said it again, for emphasis. ‘No. I don’t remember getting into my car; I don’t remember where I was going. A policeman was just here and I told him the same.’

  ‘Hey.’ Mark leaned forwards, patted my hand through the blankets. ‘It’s okay. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘We don’t know that, though, do we? I can’t remember so who knows what I was doing? I could’ve hurt someone.’

  ‘You hurt yourself. You just need to get better. Don’t be upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset,’ I said, then realised that my face was wet. There were fat drops of moisture landing on my chest. I reached for a tissue from the box on the table and my head exploded. When I woke up next I was flat on my back again, Mark was gone and it was as dark as it ever got in hospital.

  I was angry with myself. With my weakness. I’d wanted to be with Mark for longer. I’d wanted to look at his face and enjoy the act of recognising it, remembering it. I kept probing the gaps in my memory like I was checking out missing teeth with my tongue.

  I was thirsty, too. I knew that if I struggled to sit up on my own, there was a good chance I’d black out again. Part of me wanted to, actually; it might be a relief to get back to sleep so instantly. On the other hand, I was sick of being at the mercy of my bad head. I was sick of not knowing what had happened to me. I was sick of lying down, trapped with my own broken thoughts.

  The curtain next to my bed fluttered, as if there was a breeze. I waited a moment, expecting Maybe-Natalie or one of the other nurses to appear. When they didn’t, I turned my head away, trying to find a cool spot on the pillow and, perhaps, get comfortable enough to slide back to sleep.

  Instead I very nearly screamed. A figure was standing next to my bed. At first I thought it was a girl – she was very slight – but as I looked more closely, I realised she was a young woman. She had light brown hair that was severely tied back and a neat little fringe that was curled inwards, like it had been set with tongs. I didn’t feel like screaming any more. She had such a pleasant face, a pale oval set with soft brown eyes and a pretty mouth. She was wearing a costume of some kind, but before my brain could begin to catalogue it, she gave me a half-smile that was so sad, I felt tears pricking my eyes. I was about to ask if she’d help me to sit up – which was odd as I wasn’t in the habit of asking complete strangers for help – when she disappeared.

  Now that I was awake for longer periods, Dr Adams decided I was strong enough to be given the rundown of my injuries. He said my right knee was the worst – something I could’ve told him – and talked about the posterior cruciate ligament and how lucky I was that the fracture of my patella wasn’t worse. He declined to elaborate on my ongoing memory-scramble, giving me platitudes about time and relaxation and post-traumatic stress and how lucky I was to have come out of the coma. Now that the pain of the knee itself was more manageable, I had begun to feel the other injuries. I lifted the bed sheet and stared at the soft white dressing that covered my left leg from thigh to ankle. My right knee – the bad one – was in plaster but below that was another dressing, strapped into place with tape, and below that, mottled red skin. As soon as I looked at it, it began to throb and itch, as if showing off under the new attention. ‘What happened?’

  The nurse tilted her head. ‘In the accident, lovey. You still don’t remember?’

  I shrugged a tiny bit. Just to show I didn’t. ‘Dr Adams said that my knee probably got broken hitting the dashboard. That looks disgusting.’

  ‘Looked worse when you came in,’ she said. ‘It’s healing really well underneath those. You’ll have the dressings off in no time.’

  ‘It hurts,’ I said. Although that didn’t feel true any more. Not now I had the fresh memory of the pain in my head to compare it with. ‘Well, it’s a bit sore. Tingly.’

  The nurse smiled widely. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard second-degree burns described as tingly. I’m going to miss you.’

  ‘I’m going home?’

  ‘No, bless you. New ward. Medical or ortho, depending on where has the space.’

  ‘I don’t want to move,’ I said. ‘I like it here.’

  ‘It’s a good thing you’re well enough to leave the ICU. That’s cause for celebration. I’ll see if I can’t find us a cake.’

  My stomach turned over at the thought.

  ‘When will I remember?’

  ‘I don’t know that, lovey.’

  ‘But on average. People like me. How long before they remember?’

  ‘I’ve never had one like you.’

  I thought she was being kind, saying what I’d want to hear. That I was a unique little snowflake and our nurse–patient bond was special. The sort of nonsense that probably worked on most of the pathetic creatures she dealt with, made them feel cared for and safe. It worked on me too, of course, but I didn’t have the energy to be annoyed about it.

  After she’d left and I was alone with the tingling in my legs that now seemed to contain the memory of heat, I saw the young woman appear again. This time I saw her emerge from the curtain, coalescing from folds in the fabric into a recognisable figure. I blinked several times but she didn’t disappear.

  Then Mark swished aside the curtain, displacing the folds of fabric, and she was gone again.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ He was being excessively cheery. Hearty almost. I curled my hands into fists, digging my nails into my palms.

  ‘Have you heard the good news?’ I sat up a little. ‘I’m being moved to medical. Or ortho, whatever that is. Somewhere that isn’t Intensive Care, at any rate.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Mark said. He leaned down and kissed me and I fought the sudden urge to flinch away. I didn’t know what it was about him, but I seemed really jumpy whenever he came near. I looked at his suit, the skin of his neck and the way his hair grew up from his forehead. He had a bit of a widow’s peak and his forehead, already high, was extenuated. The strangeness disappeared and he appeared dear to me. There was something vulnerable about the downward droop of his eyes.

  ‘I’m so proud of you,’ he said, taking off his raincoat and sitting down.

  At once the warm feeling disappeared. In my sudden irritation he seemed older. I couldn’t force a smile so I told him my knee was hurting. He jumped up and went to find a nurse.

  I wished I knew what was wrong with me. Mark was my boyfriend. That didn’t sound right. He was my partner. My lover. Why wasn’t I happy to see him? That wasn’t true. I was happy, but then, within minutes or seconds, I wanted him to leave. Had I always been like this?

  He appeared again. ‘She says you’re not due more painkillers for another hour. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay. Thanks for trying.’

  Mark had a funny expression on his face.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re being very calm, that’s all.’

  ‘Am I not usually?’ I hated the thought that I’d changed.

  ‘Not as such, no.’

  ‘I remember things,’ I began. ‘But some of them I’m not so s
ure I’m pleased to remember.’

  Mark was suddenly pale. He glanced away and I wondered why I’d upset him.

  I sighed in frustration. ‘I wish I could remember properly. Everything is so fragmented. And sometimes it feels like maybe I wasn’t very nice.’

  ‘You weren’t,’ Mark said, colour returning to his cheeks.

  ‘Oh.’ The sick feeling in my stomach got worse.

  ‘I don’t mean that in a bad way. But “nice” is a bit of a wishy-washy word.’ Mark smiled faintly. ‘You weren’t wishy-washy.’

  ‘Not like now. I’m very wishy-washy now.’ I didn’t add that I felt insubstantial. Like I would run away down the plug hole if I had a bath.

  ‘You could never be that,’ he said.

  The next day I dismissed my disappearing woman as another fun trick of serious head injury. A little something to go with the excruciating pain and memory loss. A nurse I didn’t recognise arrived with my doctor. I looked more closely at him today and identified laughter lines and a certain coarseness to the skin along his jaw. Not as young as I’d first feared. Maybe even a little older than I was. Which I’d remembered. Twenty-nine. ‘I’m very pleased with you,’ he said, flashing his eye crinkles. ‘I think we can move you out of the ICU this afternoon.’

  ‘Yay,’ I said. ‘When can I go home?’

  He gave a short laugh as if I’d tried to make a joke and, although it wasn’t funny, he was giving me marks for trying.

  ‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘When can I go home?’

  The eye crinkles disappeared. ‘Not for a while. You are lucky to be alive, you know.’

  ‘I thought they only said that on the telly.’

  ‘I say it all the time. Especially when it’s true.’

  ‘Okay.’ I considered risking a small nod, then decided I was too chicken. Plus, if I passed out, he might reconsider my move out of critical care.

  ‘You must’ve hit your head pretty hard in the accident,’ Dr Adams said. ‘There was inter-cranial pressure, which is what caused you to fall unconscious. We drained the excess fluid with a shunt, but we didn’t know how much damage had occurred until you woke up.’

  My mouth was flooded with saliva and I swallowed hard. That didn’t sound good but there was something more worrying on my mind. ‘Had I been drinking? I don’t remember what happened, why I crashed the car.’

  ‘Definitely not. No drugs – prescription or otherwise – either.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and meant it.

  After Dr Adams had scribbled some notes on my chart and rushed away to something more important, the nurse fussed with my IV for a bit. ‘You’ll most likely be in trauma orthopaedics. Or general med if there isn’t a space in orthopaedics.’

  I turned my head and tried not to think about the needle in my arm. The metal that was piercing a vein. I knew I should be braver, being lucky to be alive and all that, but it gave me the dry heaves.

  Later, after I’d wowed the nurses with my ability to sit up, lift a cup of water, and feed myself glutinous mushroom soup without either throwing up, passing out or crying, I was moved to a less critical ward. I didn’t catch the name, but something like ‘ortho’, so I wasn’t surprised when I found myself in a large ward full of uncomfortable souls with either a leg hoisted high or their arms sticking out at funny angles in comedy casts. I was immensely grateful that I only had one leg immobilised and that it didn’t require a pulley-system of any kind.

  I wasn’t ready to make social chit-chat, so I asked for my curtains to be pulled. I lay and stared at the wall until visiting hours started. I heard the main door open and people arriving. Parents and partners, friends and their kids. Who brought kids to a hospital? My curtain billowed as a set of feet tramped past and I imagined the family they belonged to. I caught rough accents and was filling in a paunchy dad with a gold sovereign ring, a mum with a slicked back ponytail and too-small jeans, and a sullen ten-year-old head to toe in Nike, when my curtain swished and an enormous flower arrangement appeared. The flowers were beautiful, cascading out of a pale green box. The kind of hand-tied artisan bouquet provided by upmarket florists. Mark put them on the tiny locker by the bed and leaned over to kiss me. I turned my head a little so that the kiss landed on my lips. I wanted contact. I wanted to remind myself of my boyfriend. Of my feelings. I desperately wanted to feel like myself again. It was a nice kiss. His lips were soft but not sloppy. It was familiar and that was enough to make me want to throw myself into his arms.

  ‘Still no grapes,’ I said to hide my sudden attack of feelings. I didn’t do feelings. I was remembering more and more about myself and I knew that the weepy mess Mark had visited before was not the real me. Or, at least, not the old me.

  ‘You look better.’ He sat on the chair by the bed. Now that I wasn’t hooked up to a bank of space-age machines, there was room for one.

  ‘Since my head isn’t as sore, I can feel all the other pains. I feel like I’ve been boxing.’ My chest hurt, my back hurt, my legs ached, my left hip pulsed. I wiggled my toes; the only things that seemed to be working properly. ‘I’ve got physio today. Walking, I think.’ An irritatingly cheerful woman had been to see me that morning, talking about mobilisation until I felt I could run down the ward just to get away from her.

  ‘That’s good,’ Mark said.

  ‘Is it?’ I didn’t say the thing I was thinking which was this: what if I can’t walk? What if my motor skills were banjaxed along with my memory? Was this the training montage part of my lifetime movie in which I stumbled along behind a Zimmer frame, drooling, while a peppy nurse shouted encouragement?

  ‘Everyone misses you at work.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ I tried to picture my work. The people. All I got were fuzzy black-and-white images and it took me a second to realise I was thinking about X-rays. I swallowed back the panic. The doctor said that it would take time for my brain to get back to normal. I had to trust that it would. That this strange lag in my thought processes, the disconnect, and the gaps in my memory, would magically heal.

  Mark put his hand on mine. ‘I miss you.’

  ‘I’m right here,’ I said, even though I knew what he meant. I missed me, too.

  ‘Everything’s fine at the flat.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, still thinking about the strange landscape of my mind. The blind alleys, the twisted steps that led nowhere, the blank areas that were filled with fog. I knew there was terrain there – complex, beautiful terrain with mountains and valleys and cities – but it was hidden.

  ‘I’m even keeping on top of the washing up.’

  I focused on Mark and realised that he was looking at me with an intensity that seemed at odds with the subject matter. Maybe I’d been a real bitch about the dishes?

  ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be in here,’ I said.

  Mark reached for my hand. He looked relieved, as if he’d been expecting me to say something else. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere and when you’re ready, you can come home.’

  I tried to smile. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to my flat. Our flat. Like so many things, I couldn’t picture it, but I knew I wanted to go there. I took a deep breath that hurt my ribs. ‘Tell me about it,’ I said.

  ‘The flat?’

  ‘I can’t bloody remember anything. It’s driving me mental. Can you describe it?’

  Mark was holding my good hand with both of his. It was lost inside them, and the warmth and the contact were anchoring me. It felt nice.

  ‘It’s on Grove Street.’ He raised his eyebrows a little and I shook my head.

  ‘It’s on the ground floor, which isn’t ideal from a safety point of view but as soon as you saw it had a garden you wouldn’t listen to me.’

  ‘A garden?’

  ‘Tiny strip of muddy grass and the bins.’ He smiled. ‘You keep saying you’re going to grow stuff but the evidence has yet to appear.’

  ‘I’m probably biding my time,’ I said. ‘You can’t rush garde
ning, everyone knows that.’

  ‘The front door is a bit scabby, to be honest, and the shared entrance hall, but the inside of the flat is nice. There’s a living room and a kitchen and a bedroom. And a bathroom, of course.’

  ‘Can you be more specific? This could be anywhere.’

  ‘Sorry, right.’ Mark started to stroke the top of my hand with his thumb and it made me want to pull away. I didn’t, though, as I didn’t want to stop him talking.

  ‘The walls are all painted white but you’ve got loads of stuff hanging up. Art and postcards and these weird crochet flowers on a string. The sofa is purple velvet with little turned wooden legs. You got it on eBay for a hundred and fifty quid and didn’t stop talking about it for a week.’

  ‘Okay. Good.’ I couldn’t pull up an image of my sofa. A memory. But I inserted a picture of the kind of purple sofa I would like to find going cheap on eBay and used that. ‘What else?’

  ‘The television is ancient and the screen’s too small. It’s rubbish.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘There’s a big stripy rug in the living room. All different colours. There’s a pink stain in the middle, which you hide with the coffee table.’

  ‘Red wine?’

  ‘From your housewarming, I think. I didn’t know you very well then.’ Mark shifted slightly. ‘The bedroom is a bit small. There isn’t really enough storage space.’

  ‘Romantic,’ I said.

  Mark smiled. ‘I was going to describe the bed but I suddenly felt a bit weird.’ He lowered his voice, leaned closer. ‘Anyone could be listening.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘Comfortable.’

  ‘Wow. We really have been together for ages, haven’t we?’

  Mark laughed and patted my hand. ‘Plenty of time for that once you’re better.’

  Suddenly, I was irritated and wanted him to go. Thankfully, a nurse arrived and swished the curtains back. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I need to take your blood pressure.’