Still Life (Still Life Series Book 1)

by Isobel Hart

  I stumbled as I took a hasty step back, nodding at Elliott before scurrying off to my room, refusing to acknowledge my feelings of guilt at the confusion I’d seen on his face, his arms dropping back to his sides. I lay on top of my duvet trying to sleep, berating myself and my fickle heart for even considering succumbing to temptation, and trying to ignore the troublesome inner voice that told me I hadn’t loved Edward for a long time . . . if ever. We had shared physical intimacy but not emotional. Did that make a difference? I didn’t know. Was I lying to myself? Until he’d tried to strangle me, Edward and I had been becoming closer again. What I did know for certain was that starting something with Elliott when my life was this fucked up was definitely a bad idea, however tempting he might be. With thoughts of what a relationship with Elliott might be like, I finally fell into a restless sleep.

  ***

  I woke to silence.

  I cringed as I recalled Elliott’s and my awkward separation hours earlier. It worried me that things might continue in the same vein. If that were the case, I needed to find another place to stay – soon. Jesus, if I kept having thoughts about Elliott like the ones that had just filled my dreams then I needed to find somewhere ASAP. What the hell was I doing here anyway? Living in the house of a virtual stranger, chasing down conspiracy theories? But he didn’t feel like a stranger; in fact, he felt more real than many of the other people I called friends these days – except maybe for Heidi.

  I was hopeful Heidi would be back any day. She and Paul had to have nearly finished their Italian shagathon and, with any luck, they’d be willing to let me stay with them until I sorted myself out. Paul would doubtless be less keen on having me under their roof for any length of time, so it would only be a very short-term solution. Then again, if they were shagging every chance they got, I had no desire to be under their roof for long either. I needed to find an apartment or room of my own to rent.

  I wandered out into the lounge and found a note propped up between a decorative glass bowl and a coaster on the coffee table. It seemed Elliott had been called into work while I’d been asleep – some sort of surgical emergency. My emotions bounced between pleased to avoid any further awkwardness and disappointed not to see him.

  I found the coffee machine and started to make myself a strong cup. It was a good idea in theory, but as soon as I lifted the cup to my lips the smell didn’t appeal, and I found myself pouring what remained down the sink. Instead, I reached for the orange juice, enjoying the cool, sharp sweetness as it washed away the last vestiges of sleep from my mouth, including a persistent metallic taste, and soothed the ache in my throat. As I powered up my laptop, I grabbed an apple, and nibbled at it while I waited for the system to load.

  The Google logo flashed onto my screen. I hesitated, wondering what to type into the search box, eventually settling on “personality change after illness or accident”. I found a surprising amount of information. I read through the different types of personality changes, as they described the categories: Confusion or delirium, delusions, disorganised speech or behaviour, hallucinations or mood extremes like depression. I discounted the first four topics and focused on the last one. Again, there could be any number of causes, from the use of drugs, to mental disorders like schizophrenia to disorders that directly or indirectly affected the brain. I noted that concussions and liver disease were both listed. From what I read, it would be terribly easy to dismiss Edward’s changes as being a direct result of his injuries from the accident, if one were so inclined. Elliott had been right not to rush to the authorities. We would have been laughed out of the place.

  I moved on from the medical descriptions to sites where people raised concerns about changes in relatives. Some were clearly associated with other causes, like severe illnesses known to affect the brain, but one or two seemed less obvious. I filtered the ones I was interested in by date and concentrated on those seeming to be from after the date of the accident. There were about six in total that appeared unusual and couldn’t be easily explained away. One in particular could have been written by me: a young woman named Clare described how her boyfriend had suffered a major fall during a rock climbing expedition. They’d been out together, it was a shared passion, when a small rock fall had caught them, some of the falling boulders hitting her partner on the head. He’d fallen from the line, dropping about thirty feet. No one had expected him to survive the accident. He hadn’t been wearing a helmet, and several critical bones had been shattered in the fall, but amazingly he had lived. So far, so good, one would have imagined, but the woman went on to describe how her partner had completely changed. He no longer seemed interested in getting back out climbing. He insisted he wanted to stay at home and start a family. The woman said this would be understandable, to some extent, after such a life-changing experience, but he knew she couldn’t have kids. He’d always known, from when they very first got together. It was something they’d discussed at length, a genetic condition which prevented her from ever conceiving. They’d always agreed that if they ever decided a child was something they wanted, they’d be happy to adopt. Now, since the accident, he’d asserted adoption was no longer an option. He wanted his own child and had therefore insisted they needed to finish their relationship. Understandably she was devastated and looking for answers to explain why her lover had undergone such a complete transformation, needing to understand if there was any hope he might revert back into the man she loved.

  I scanned the comments below. There was the usual comforting “it’s normal after an accident” fare, insisting he’d become more himself over time as his brain recovered from its trauma. Some suggested depression and unexplained bursts of anger were common after serious illness or accidents as the person came to terms with everything that had changed in their life, and to “hang on in there”. Easier said than done, I imagined. From what I’d read during my research already, I knew his symptoms were common in this sort of situation, but something about this read differently to the ordinary cases. This guy had made a complete physical recovery. It was almost miraculous. The depression people normally suffered came about as a side effect of needing to adjust to the physical and lifestyle changes the accident had forced upon them. This guy didn’t have that problem. Clare had also replied to a question about anger, saying he’d become almost violently angry when she’d reminded him about her inability to have children, telling her she was “useless” and a “waste of space”. Her hurt bled into her words. I typed a quick comment, calling myself “kindredspirit”; I’m facing a similar situation following an accident. Maybe we can support each other? I left her an email address from a new Gmail account I set up quickly. That way if a load of other people wanted to spam me it would be easy to delete the emails. It also made it more difficult for anyone to trace me. I was becoming paranoid.

  I scanned the other people that seemed to meet my criteria and sent similar notes to them all. Happy I’d done what I could, I sat back and contemplated what to do with the rest of my time. I clicked into Outlook and read a few work emails, which depressed me as I read through the list of outstanding demands that had piled up in my absence. A note from HR warned me I had reached the limit on my paid sick leave period and that any further absences due to illness would be unpaid until the end of the year.

  Discouraged by what awaited me on my return to work on Monday, I picked up my camera and took out the memory card. I plugged it into the laptop and started to download pictures, deleting any that were not up to my exacting standards. The wedding pictures had already been taken off when we’d seen Victoria at the bar, but there were loads from when I’d taken shots in the park, and a few more recent ones from inside the apartment. I’d always preferred taking pictures of people, although I did have some landscapes in my collection too. I liked images where the people resembled the paintings of old, still-life portraits capturing a moment in time. I paused when I reached some of Edward – taken only a few days ago – when I’d been playing about with my camera. Given what h
ad passed since then, it felt like a lifetime. I took in his familiar features in the many different frames I’d taken, stilling when I reached one where he’d been gazing straight into the camera – straight at me. He’d fucked me moments after I’d taken the picture, and his intention bled into the expression I’d captured. This was not the image of an unhappy man, already in a relationship with another woman, looking for a way out. I stared at the picture a moment longer, before pulling up a folder from the wedding. I filtered through the pictures until I found one of Edward that I’d taken at the table during the reception, and then arranged both images so that I could view them side by side. The difference was immediately stark. An “otherness” seemed apparent in the more recent picture that hadn’t been present in the wedding photo. Like the difference between a huskie and a wolf. If I had wanted any more proof of the differences I had seen in him, the evidence sat here in front of me.

  My head started to pound, as if in response to the strain of trying to understand the differences between the images. I staggered into the bathroom in search of some paracetamol. Unsuccessful, I collapsed onto the floor, feeling sorry for myself as I cursed Elliott for not keeping any drugs in his home. My head continued to pound its steady beat.

  I was resting my temple on the cool rim of the bath, some small part of my mind grateful for the obvious cleanliness around me given my inability to lift my head, when Elliott returned.

  When he didn’t come to find me, I pulled myself to my feet. I cupped some water in my hand and brought it to my mouth, swilling away some of the fur that carpeted my tongue. I looked like shit. The light in the bathroom shone uncompromisingly bright, there was no hiding the dark bags under my eyes and the haggard sallowness of my complexion. I’d also lost weight. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to tame it, before gripping hold of the door, pulling it open and walking out into the lounge.

  Elliott crouched over the laptop, staring at the images of Edward.

  Chapter 17

  “He looks like a completely different man,” he said as I approached, his eyes flicking between the two pictures. “Sure, the physical features are all in the same place, but how he’s using his muscles, the way he’s responding, he looks so different.”

  “I agree.”

  Elliott stood, turning to look at me. “God, you look awful, Sam. Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I feel like shit. Do you have any headache tablets?” He looked concerned walking over to me and pressing the back of his hand against my forehead. “I think maybe I’ve picked up a bug. My head is killing me.”

  “You’re not hot. You’ve been through a lot over the last few days. It’s bound to take it out of you.” He walked into the kitchen, returning with a glass of water and some pills. “Maybe you need to take it a bit easier?”

  “I’ve been asleep loads. I’m not sure how much easier I can take it without putting myself into a coma,” I said with a weak laugh. “Anyway, I’m all out of paid sick leave at work, so I have to be better by Monday.” I paused, wondering how to say what I needed to.

  “Spit it out,” Elliott said, frowning at me.

  “What?”

  “Whatever has you chewing your lip like that.”

  I unclenched my jaw, releasing my lip. “I’m going to look for somewhere else to live as soon as I can. I’m sorry to be imposing on you like this.”

  “There’s really no rush.”

  “You’ve been amazingly kind to take me in at all. You barely even know me, and then there’s all this . . .” I pointed towards the images of Edward on my laptop.

  “Really, you have nothing to apologise for. I offered.”

  “And I appreciate it, but I think I need my own place. I’m hoping Heidi will be back by Tuesday and I’ll be able to stay there until I find something of my own.”

  “As I said, I’m happy to have you here.” His cheeks coloured a little as he added, “I like having the company.” He paused, eyes fixed upon some intriguing spot on the carpet, then he looked up at me again. His frown deepened, seemingly concerned with what he saw. “Can I make you something to eat? Or a cup of tea?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, both of us happy to let him move the conversation on. He vanished into the kitchen again, emerging five minutes later with two steaming mugs.

  “I didn’t know how you took it, you usually have coffee, so I guessed milk but no sugar.”

  I smiled. “Perfect.” He placed a cup down on the table in front of me.

  “So,” he said, sitting down beside me on the sofa. “I talked to a friend of mine. I was thinking about what you said, about seeing it happen – seeing someone come back to life – and I think I’ve found a way we could do it.”

  “Are you serious?” It was hard to know whether I was more shocked or horrified.

  “No, listen, it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “Watching people die is not as bad as it sounds?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Really. I’ve got a friend who works as a doctor in a hospice. Some of the patients have no friends or family, no one to be with them in their last moments. The staff are pretty stretched, as you can imagine, so people can volunteer to be there – just because it’s a scary thing to die alone, and no one should have to.” He echoed the same thoughts I’d had when Edward had been so ill. “Having someone there to hold your hand can make all the difference in the peacefulness of the passing. I just thought we could volunteer. It would be a decent thing to do, but we could also test our theory at the same time.”

  “I don’t know.” The prospect of watching someone die, even if I didn’t really know them, horrified me. “What with everything I saw Edward go through, it’s all still a bit raw. I don’t know if I can do that for someone else right now.”

  “I understand,” he said quickly. He patted my arm. “I’ll go on my own.” I felt bad for letting him down.

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me think about it for a bit. When were you thinking about going?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Tonight? Oh my God! Why so soon?”

  “Well, my friend mentioned there’s a man likely to die soon who fits the bill exactly – no family, no friends. He’s not likely to survive much longer. He’s got terminal lung cancer, with secondaries just about everywhere else now. Plus, I have this feeling the longer we leave all of this, and the more time that passes before people cotton on to what’s happening around us, the worse the position we’re going to be in. If this is happening everywhere, all over the world, then think how many people might be affected before we have the chance to stop it. The longer we let it go on, the harder it will be to go back to anything resembling normality.” I knew he was right, but I was still terrified at the prospect of watching someone die – again.

  “What if I can’t handle it?”

  “You don’t have to be there at all. And if you do come, and it gets too much, you can leave. I’ll stay. I’m more used to seeing death than you are.”

  “Jesus, I don’t know how you do it.”

  He shrugged. “Death is part of life.”

  “Maybe not. Not anymore,” I muttered, thinking about Edward.

  “And that truly terrifies me,” Elliott admitted.

  “Eternal life?” I said facetiously.

  “Or eternal death. We don’t know what we’re dealing with right now.”

  “God, this is surreal.” My laptop pinged as a new email came in. Needing the distraction, I wandered over to it. It was in my new Gmail account, from the girl I’d contacted, Clare.

  Dear kindredspirit, I got your message. Thank you. Can you give me an outline of your situation? I’ve had too many nutcases contact me to trust anyone now. Thanks, Clare

  It was fair enough that she was suspicious of me; after all, I’d randomly contacted her through the internet. I could be any kind of freak. We’d all watched Catfish. “Who is it?” Elliott asked, peering over my shoulder.

  “A girl I found on a website about personali
ty change. She sounds like she could have been affected like me.” I explained what had happened to her, and her partner, as I drafted a quick response describing the situation between Edward and me. I left out the attempted murder. I didn’t want to frighten her off completely.

  “Sounds promising,” Elliott agreed as I pressed send. I turned and faced him. He had been standing so close to me that when I turned we finished up with our bodies only centimetres apart. The physical jolt from his proximity made me jerk. His face flushed, and he took a step back. It was oddly endearing.

  “I’ll come,” I promised in a moment of rash spontaneity. Elliott looked confused. “Tonight, when you go to the hospice, I’ll come,” I clarified.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. You’re right, there’s more going on here than it seems. Someone has to shine a light on it all.”

  “If you want to leave at any time it’ll be fine. You only have to stay for as long as you’re comfortable.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled at him, and he smiled back. I tried hard not to notice the dimples in his cheeks, telling myself sternly that the last thing I needed to add into the current toxic mix of my life was any more hormones.

  ***

  Four hours later we walked through the doorway of St Francis’ Hospice, as I tried to quell the rising swell of nausea that threatened to overwhelm me as soon as the smell of disinfectant, with undertones of decay, assaulted my olfactory system. Elliott paused to speak to the nurse on reception, who smiled over at me as soon as he explained who we were and what we were there for. She called to a colleague, who led us along the corridor to a door. The nameplate declared its occupant to be Victor Holmes. The door was one of many – I tried not to think of the dying people lying in their beds inside every room. Instead, I attempted to calm my nerves, which were currently performing the conga around my intestines, by taking some deep breaths and rolling back my shoulders. I took a final deep breath, then I stepped into the room.