by Nicci French
Suddenly the nurse was sounding like an air stewardess. I thought of those demonstrations with the life jacket In the unlikely event of a landing on water.
"I don't even know what a CAT scan is," I said, as I signed.
"Don't worry. The technologist will explain it all to you in a minute."
I was led into a large, fiercely bright room. I saw the hi-tech trolley where I was going to lie, padded and concave in the middle, and, behind it, a white tunnel into the heart of the machine. It looked like a toilet bowl turned on its side.
"Ms Devereaux, my name is Jan Carlton. Won't you sit down for a minute?" A tall spindly woman in an overall gestured to a chair. "Do you know what a CAT scan is?"
"It's one of those names you hear," I said cautiously.
"We like you to be prepared. Is there anything you're unsure about?"
"Everything, really."
"It's really just an X-ray enhanced by a computer, which is in another room. Think of your body as a giant loaf of bread."
"A loaf?"
"Yes. The CAT scan looks at a particular area of your body in slices, you see, then it puts together the slices into a three-dimensional view."
"Oh, you meant a sliced loaf ?"
"It's just a comparison."
"I thought scans were for cancer."
"They are. It's just a way of looking inside the body. It's a standard procedure for anyone who has had an injury, severe headaches, trauma."
"What do I have to do?"
"We'll just pop you on the table and slide you into that thing that looks like a white doughnut. You'll hear humming, and you'll probably see the track spinning around. It won't last long at all. All you have to do is lie completely still."
I had to put on a hospital robe again. I lay down on the table and stared at the ceiling.
"This will feel a little cold."
She rubbed gel into my temples, smearing it over my newly washed hair. She slid a hard metal helmet under my skull.
"I'm tightening these screws. It might feel a bit uncomfortable." She fastened some straps over my shoulders, arms and stomach, pulling them taut. "The table is about to start moving."
"Table?" I said feebly, as I slid slowly away from her and through the tunnel. I was lying inside a metal chamber and, yes, there was that humming. I swallowed hard. It wasn't quite dark in here. I could see lines moving round above me. Out there, a few feet away, was a bright room with a competent woman in it, making sure everything was as it should be. Beyond that was another room with a computer showing pictures of my brain. Upstairs there were wards, patients, nurses, doctors, cleaners, porters, visitors, people carrying clipboards and pushing trolleys. Outside, there was a wind coming in from the east and it might well snow. And here I was, lying in a humming metal tube.
I thought that some people, having gone through what I had gone through, might find it difficult to be confined like this. I closed my eyes. I could make up my own pictures. I could remember the blue sky that I'd seen this morning; the electric-blue that stretched from horizon to horizon and sparkled so. I could imagine the snow falling gently out of the dull, low sky and settling on houses, cars, bare trees. But in the darkness the sound of humming seemed to change. It sounded more like a kind of wheezing. And I could hear footsteps. There were footsteps coming towards me. Footsteps in the darkness. I opened my mouth to call out, but I couldn't speak or make a sound, except for a strangled whimper.
What was happening? I tried again but it was as if something was blocking my mouth. I couldn't breathe properly. I couldn't draw air through my mouth; I was gasping but nothing was happening. I was going to suffocate in here. My chest was hurting. I couldn't draw breath, not properly. It came in ragged bursts that gave me no relief. The footsteps came closer. I was trapped and I was drowning. Drowning in the air. A roaring built up in my head and I opened my eyes and it was still dark and I closed them and there was red behind my eyes. My eyes were burning in my sockets. Then the roaring split apart, as if my head had burst open to let out all the horror.
I was screaming at last. The tube was filled with the sound of my howling. My ears throbbed and my throat tore with it and I couldn't stop. I tried to make the screams into words. I tried to say, "Help!" or "Please," anything, but all the sounds crashed and bubbled and streamed together. Everything was shaking and then there were bright lights in my eyes and hands on me. Hands that held me down, that wouldn't let me go. I screamed again. Wailed. Screams were pouring out of me. I couldn't see in the light. Everything stung. Everything around me bore down on me. There were new sounds, voices somewhere, someone calling my name. Eyes looking at me out of the dazzling light; watching me and there was nowhere to hide because I couldn't move. Fingers touching me. Cold metal on my skin. On my arm. Something wet. Something sharp. Something piercing my skin.
Then suddenly everything was quiet and it was as if the light that hurt and the terrible sounds were gradually fading away from me. Everything was fading and going grey and far off, like night falling, and you just want it to be day. Just want it to be snow.
When I woke up, I didn't know if it was the next morning or many mornings later. The world was in black and white but I knew that it wasn't the world. It was me. I felt like there was a grey filter over my eyes, bleaching the colour out. My tongue felt dry and fluffy. I
felt fidgety and irritable. I wanted to scratch myself or scratch somebody else. I wanted to get up and do something, but I didn't know what. Breakfast tasted of cardboard and cotton wool. Every noise made me wince.
I lay in the bed and thought dark thoughts and then made plans, which involved getting up and finding someone, anyone, in authority and telling them that it was time for me to go home, and then finding Detective Inspector Cross and telling him to bloody get on with his inquiry, and somewhere in the middle of this a woman came in. No nurse's uniform, no white coat. She must have been in her fifties. Red-haired, pale freckly skin, rimless glasses. She wore a honey-coloured sweater, shiny grey trousers. She smiled at me.
"I'm Dr. Beddoes," she said. There was a pause. "Irene Beddoes." That was Irene rhyming with 'sheen' and 'clean' rather than with 'eenymeeny'. "I saw you yesterday afternoon. Do you remember our conversation?"
"No."
"You were drifting in and out of sleep. I wasn't sure how much you were taking in."
I had slept and still I felt tired. Tired and grey.
"I've been seen by a neurologist," I said. "He tested my memory. I've been put into a machine. I've been examined for physical injuries and been patched up a bit. What are you here for?"
Her concerned smile only wavered a little. "We thought you might like someone to talk to."
"I've talked to the police."
"I know."
"Are you a psychiatrist?"
"Among other things." She gestured at the chair. "Do you mind if I sit down?"
"No, of course not."
She dragged it over and sat by the bed. She smelt nice; subtly fragrant. I thought of spring flowers.
"I talked to Jack Cross," she said. "He told me your story. You've been through a terrifying ordeal."
"I'm just happy to have escaped," I said. "I don't want you to see me as some sort of victim. I think I'm doing OK, you know. For several days I was dead. It may sound stupid but it was true. I was above ground, I was breathing and eating, but I knew I was dead. I didn't exist in the same world that everyone else occupied. What do you call it? The land of the living. The place where people worry about money and sex and paying bills. Mainly through luck I escaped and I'm alive again and I just think every day is something I never thought I'd be allowed."
"Yes," Dr. Beddoes said, but still looking concerned for me.
"The other thing is that I'm not ill. I know I was knocked around a bit. I know that I've got a problem with my memory because I got a bang on the head. But I feel fine on the whole. A bit unreal, maybe. And this isn't how I imagined it would be."
"What would be?"
"Being free. I'm lying in this bed in an old itchy nightie that doesn't belong to me and people bringing me awful food on a trolley and people coming and sitting next to my bed and looking at me with anxious expressions on their faces and talking to me in a soft voice as if they were trying to talk me off a window-sill. What I really want is to get back to my flat and get on with my life. See my friends. Go to a pub again, to a cafe, walk down ordinary streets in my own clothes, go dancing, lie in bed on a Sunday morning with the sun streaming in through the windows, eat what I want when I want, go for a walk at night down by the river .. . But he's still out there, in the world I want to be in. If you want to know, that's what I really can't get out of my mind, the idea that he's still walking the streets."
There was a silence and I felt a bit embarrassed by my outburst. But she didn't look too disconcerted.
"Your flat," she said. "Where's that?"
"It's not exactly mine," I said. "It actually belongs to my ... to the guy I live with. Terry."
"Has he been in to see you?"
"He's away. I've tried calling but he must be working somewhere he travels a lot."
"Have you seen anyone else? Family or friends?"
"No. I just want to get out of here and then I'll call them." She looked at me and I felt a need to explain. "I guess I'm putting off telling my story," I admitted. "I don't know where to begin. I don't know how to tell it because it's still not finished. I want there to be a proper ending to it before I begin, if you see what I mean."
"You want him to be caught first?"
"Yes."
"But maybe, in the meantime, you could talk to me."
"Maybe," I said cautiously. "What I really want to do, though -the one thing I know I need is to get out of here. It's as if this hospital is a half-way house between being in prison and being free. I'm in limbo here."
Dr. Beddoes contemplated me for a moment. "Something terrible happened to you, Abbie. You're being dealt with by about five different speciali ties at the hospital and that's not to mention the police. It's quite a logistical struggle to get everybody to communicate. But as far as I understand there is a general agreement that you should stay here for at least a couple more days. For a start, I know that the neurologists want to keep you under observation for a time, just in case. And the police obviously are very worried indeed. The man you encountered must be exceptionally dangerous and they would rather have you in a more secure environment while they make certain decisions."
"Do they think I might be under threat?"
"I can't speak for them, but I think it's extremely difficult to assess. That's part of the problem. What I want to say is that I would like to use the next couple of days to talk to you. Obviously it's up to you but I think I could be helpful to you. Not just that. It's possible that if we talk things over we might come up with details that could assist the police, but that would only be by the way. You talk about just wanting to get back to your normal life." There was now a sudden, long pause that I found disconcerting. "I'm thinking about how to put this. You might not find it as easy to return to your life as you assume. It may be that you take things with you from an experience like this."
"You think I'm contaminated by it?"
"Contaminated?" She looked for a moment as if she were smelling the contamination, or trying to sniff it out. "No. But you had a normal life, then suddenly you were thrown out of it into a terrible horror. Now you have to return to normality. You have to decide what to do with this thing that happened. We all need to find ways of accommodating things that have happened to us. I think that if we talked, I could help you do that."
I looked away from her and I saw the greyness of the world again. When I spoke it was as much to myself as to her. "I don't know how I'm supposed to accommodate someone wanting to kidnap and kill me. That's the first thing. The second is that my life wasn't as smooth as all that before it happened. But I'll give it a try."
"We'll meet for a chat," she said. "And you aren't going to have to lie on a couch. We can do it in more pleasant surroundings, if you like."
"That would be great."
"I may even be able to find somewhere that serves proper coffee."
"That would be the most therapeutic thing of all."
She smiled and stood up and shook my hand and left. When Dr. Beddoes arrived, I had wanted to turn my back to her and close my eyes. Now that she had gone, I was shocked to realize that I already missed her.
"Sadie?"
"Abbie!" Her voice was warm and clear, and relief spread through me. "Where are you calling from?" she said. "Are you still on holiday?"
"Holiday? No. No, I'm in hospital, Sadie."
"My God! What's wrong?"
"Can you come and see me? I can't talk about it over the phone."
"How do I know he didn't rape me?"
Jack Cross was sitting on the chair by my bed, fiddling with the tight knot of his tie. He nodded at the question, then said: "We can't know for sure, but there's no suggestion of that."
"How do you know?"
"When you were admitted to hospital, you were, well, examined, et cetera, et cetera."
"And?"
"And there was no evidence of sexual assault."
"That's something, at least." I felt curiously blank. "So what else has happened?"
"We're building up a picture," he said carefully.
"But.. ."
"One of the people we obviously want to talk to is your boyfriend, Terence Wilmott."
"And?"
"How would you describe your relationship with him?"
"Why on earth should I say anything about it at all? What's Terry got to do with anything?"
"As I said, we're building up a picture."
"Well, we're fine," I said defensively. "We have our ups and downs, of course."
"What sort of downs?"
"It wasn't Terry, if that's what you're thinking."
"What?"
"He didn't do this. I know the man concealed his voice and I didn't see him but it wasn't Terry. I know Terry's smell. I know him backwards and forwards. He'll be back soon from wherever he's gone off to and then you can talk to him."
"He's not abroad."
"Oh?" I looked at him then. "Why do you say that?"
"His passport's still in his flat."
"Is it? Well, he must be in the UK, then."
"Yes. Somewhere."
I stood in front of the mirror and saw a stranger there. I was no longer me. I was someone else. A thin woman with matted hair and a bruised face. Chalky-grey skin. Sharp bones. Glassy, frightened eyes. I looked like a dead person.
I met Dr. Beddoes in a courtyard in the hospital because, although it was so cold, I had a longing to be outside. The nurses had found me a giant strawberry-pink quilted coat. The courtyard had clearly been designed to be soothing to neurotic patients. It was too shady for grass, but there were plants with huge dark green fronds and the centrepiece was a water feature. A large bronze pot was full and permanently overflowing with water running down the outside. I was alone for a few minutes, so I wandered over and examined it. It looked like a machine for wasting water but I noticed an opening around the base, so I supposed that it was sucked back up again. Round and round for ever.
Irene Beddoes had brought us both mugs of coffee and biscuits wrapped in Cellophane. We sat on a slightly damp wooden bench. She gestured at the wet ornament.
"They got that because I thought it would be relaxing in a Japanese, Zen sort of way," she said. "I find it rather creepy."
"Why?"
"Wasn't there someone in hell who was condemned to spend the whole of eternity trying to fill a huge earthenware jar with water a jar that had a hole in it?"
"I didn't know that."
"I shouldn't have told you. I may have spoiled it for you."
"I like it; I like the sound. It's a happy sound."
"That's the spirit," she said.
It felt wonderful but a bit strange to be sittin
g outside on this sunny winter day. I only sipped at my mug of coffee. I had to be careful. I already felt on edge. Too much caffeine would turn me into a basket case.
"How are you doing?" she asked. It seemed a fairly inept beginning.
"You know what I hate about being in hospital? People are being nice and everything and I've got my own room and a T V, but still there's something about being in a room where people don't have to knock before they come in. People I've never seen before come in and clean or bring food and the nice ones give me a nod and the others just get on with it."
"Do you get scared?"
I didn't answer at first. I took another sip of coffee and a bite of my biscuit. Then I said, "Yes, of course. I mean, I think I get scared in different ways I'm scared thinking about what it was like; remembering it all over again, almost as if I was still inside it and had never got away. The whole thing kind of closes in on me, like I'm underwater or something. Drowning in it. Most of the time I try not to let myself remember. I try and push it away from me. Perhaps I shouldn't do that. Do you think it's healthier to go over it?" I didn't give her time to answer. "And the other thing I get scared about is the idea that he hasn't been caught. And that maybe he's just waiting for me to come out and then he'll grab me again. When I let myself think of that I can't breathe properly. Everything in my body seems to be breaking up with fear. So, yes. I get scared. Not always, though. Sometimes I just feel very, very lucky to be alive. But I wish they'd catch him. I don't suppose I'll be able to feel safe again, until that happens."
Irene Beddoes was the first person I'd met whom I could talk to about what had happened to me in that room, and what I had felt. She wasn't a friend. I could tell her about my sense of losing myself, of being turned, bit by bit, into an animal, or an object. I told her about his laugh, his whisper, the bucket. I told her I'd wet myself. I told her about how I would have done anything, let him do anything to me, in order to stay alive. And she listened, saying nothing. I talked and I talked until my voice grew weary. Then I stopped and leant towards her. "Do you think you can help me remember my lost days?"
"My concern, my job, is what's happening in your head, what you've been going through and what you are still going through. If it results in anything that helps the investigation, then that's a bonus. The police are doing everything they can, Abbie."