by C F Dunn
“Don’t touch it,” a voice ordered, then more gently, “I’ll look at it for you.”
I sat up. “Ellie, what are you doing here?”
She bent over the attachment and moved it millimetres so that it no longer nipped my skin, watching the monitor all the while. “There,” she said, “that should do it.” She smiled cheerfully. “Matthew’s been in several times but you were asleep and he didn’t want to wake you. He said you’ll need to eat.” She withdrew a mobile from her pocket, rattled a text off at an alarming speed, and replaced it.
“I see. So Matthew thought I needed babysitting, did he? What on earth did he think I could do, strapped up to this thing?” I waved my finger in the air and the line flopped with it.
She sat down, crossing her long legs, and untangled the end of her stethoscope from her hair. Unaccustomedly shy, she hesitated before saying, “Emma, I’m sorry I wasn’t at the trial. I would have been there, but I had some medical assignments to complete and then I… well, I’m just sorry, that’s all.”
“I didn’t expect you to be there, Ellie – any of you. It’s good to see you now, though – you look very well. I love the boots.”
“Thanks,” she looked pleased. “Can I ask you something? What happened on Christmas Eve, what I did to you with the coffee – all this…” She looked at the machines and wires as if they were an accusation in themselves. “You know why I did it, don’t you? You saw into me. I… I wanted to ask you about it before, but… well…” Brass buckles on her boots jingled as she shifted her position awkwardly.
“Yes, Ellie, I know and I do understand. I’m immensely grateful to you.”
She jangled again and this time met my eyes directly. “You are?”
“I found it scary, yes, but without you I would never have known that I could do what I did.”
Confused but evidently relieved, she unwound the stethoscope and put it on top of the monitor, where the end swung to a restful full stop.
“These can come off now.” She started peeling off the sticky pads and lines dotting my body. “I didn’t understand what Maggie wanted, Emma. I knew she didn’t like you, but then she doesn’t like many people, and she never said why. And I didn’t know anything about… Monica.” At the mention of the woman’s name, we both grimaced spontaneously. “I never meant to hurt you. It’s dumb, I know, but I get so… jealous.” She stared at the monitor’s blinking eye, not able to meet my own. “That sounds so gross, doesn’t it? He’s my great-grandfather. You must think I’m sick or something.” She chanced a look at me.
“But you’re not in love with him, are you?” I asked quietly.
She shook her head vehemently, pulling a face at the same time. “No-o way, it’s not like that!”
“I don’t know if it’s the same with you, Ellie, but my grandfather helped bring me up. He meant everything to me: my father, my teacher, my best friend. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have become a historian or gone to university. He was my inspiration and my life. I loved and respected him more than anyone else in my family. I loved him, but only as my grandfather, and nothing more than that. I thought I would never find anyone else I could love as much when he died.”
She picked at a loose thread on her trousers, winding it around her index finger and snapping it off before she spoke. “Yes, that’s how it is with me, but then you did find someone – you found Matthew.”
“But not before I made a mistake with someone else.” She might as well know about Guy from me than learn about it in the local rag. “My mistake wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but I regret it now.”
She stopped fiddling and leaned forward. “What happened?”
“I let someone flatter me into making me think that I meant something to him. But I was younger than you are now, and much more foolish.”
She smiled, the corners of her mouth tipping into an attractive bow, making her pretty in a strong, feline way, and I remembered Matthew saying that she had never met anybody significant enough to bring home and introduce to the family, and that seemed a shame.
A robust knock on the door had her tutting and rising to answer it. After a short word, she came back with a tray.
“Who’s out there?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s Joel. He makes so much noise.”
“What’s he doing outside my door?” I asked, nonplussed.
She shrugged, putting the plate down on the wheeled bed tray so I could reach. “He’s just making sure you’re not disturbed.”
“By whom?”
“Anyone.”
“Blow this…” I struggled upright, pushing the bed tray out of the way and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “For goodness’ sake, I bet neither of you have eaten. Joel…!” I called.
Ellie flustered, “Don’t, Emma, you’ll pull the line.”
“I don’t need it – there’s nothing wrong with me.” I gave a sharp tug and the device clamped to my skin came away with a satisfying slup. The monitor hesitated for a second while it registered the change, then an ear-piercing wail like a lonely calf filled the room, escaping into the corridor.
“Oops,” I said, guiltily.
The door was flung open, hitting the wall with a resounding crash as Joel shot through, followed seconds later by Matthew, who took one look at me, his expression changing from apprehension to exasperation. He pressed a switch on the machine and the room fell into silence. All three looked at me.
“It sort of fell off,” I muttered.
He viewed me disbelievingly. “Hardly, I put it on.”
“Well, I might have encouraged it a little.”
He picked up the beleaguered end from where it dangled and held out his hand for mine. I gave it to him meekly and he reattached it and reset the machine. “It’s there for a purpose – leave it alone. Ellie, you have to watch Emma like a hawk.”
“It’s not Ellie’s fault,” I objected.
“I didn’t think it was,” he said.
“Well, how long do I have to be strapped to this machine for, Matthew? I thought you said it wasn’t showing anything?”
“But it might do, and I want a clear run without any interruptions from you, so leave it alone. Look at it this way: as long as you’re in here being monitored, you won’t be in that courtroom being cross-examined, right?”
“OK.”
“Got the message?”
“Uh huh.” I twiddled with the lead. “So when do I get out?”
“When I say.” Despite the hint of a growl, he fought the impulse to laugh so I couldn’t take it very seriously, especially as Joel loitered behind him with a grin the size of Marble Arch.
“Hey, Joel,” I greeted him around Matthew’s back.
He raised a hand in response. “Yo, Emma. You’re looking pretty good for a corpse. Didn’t think you’d make it this time.” He scrabbled through the cornfield of his hair. “And you don’t want to leave just yet – the press are outside waiting for blood. Seem to think you’re a meal ticket: Brit Chick Confesses All- type stuff. Great.”
“Thank you, Joel. The boy has his uses,” Matthew said dryly, “but diplomacy isn’t one of them. You’d better eat while that is still palatable.” He nodded towards the food. I curled my legs under the bedcovers, and took a mouthful to appease him. “Why were you trying to escape?”
The now lukewarm food instantly eased the corrosion in my hollow, raw stomach.
“I wasn’t, I just thought that Ellie and Joel might need something to eat – it’s so late.”
His expression softened. “Don’t worry about these two. They’re more resilient than they look.”
To me, Ellie looked as if she could do with a square meal, and Joel always looked as if he needed a nuclear reactor of food to keep him going.
“They still need to eat, Matthew,” I pointed out, reasonably, I thought.
He raised an asymmetrical smile in response. “Not as much as you might think.”
Ellie nodded. “It’s true
, Emma. We don’t need as much as you – our metabolism’s much slower than yours.”
“Yeah, sure, we like food, but we don’t need to eat as much as we choose to.” Joel leaned across my bed and pinched a disc of fried potato off my plate to illustrate. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“The Lynes gene again, I take it?” I asked Matthew.
“Yeah, fre-ak show,” Joel mused. “Hey, Emma, how’s it feel, joining the circus as one of the acts?” In answer, I held out my plate and he snaffled a few more potatoes.
Matthew took my plate from my outstretched hand and put it back on the tray in front of me. “As I said, they don’t need to eat as much as you do, so, Joel – outside if you please; Emma doesn’t need any unwelcome visitors. Ellie, please see if your grandfather has had any luck with those bloods yet. And you,” he said, lifting my chin with one finger so that I had the full impact of his eyes, “eat.”
“So you can read people’s emotions?” Matthew took my empty plate away and balanced along the length of the bed with his arm behind me; it was so good to feel him close again. “The scientist in me would very much like to know how this has developed, unless, of course, it’s been latent. You said to me – it seems like a lifetime ago – that you understand people’s motives.”
“I thought I did, but I’m not so sure now. Anyway, they were always dead so they couldn’t contradict.”
“That has its advantages,” he said in an undertone.
“But what happened in court is different and all so new I can’t quite get my head around it. I found it frightening at first because I couldn’t control it – like being on a bolting horse: exhilarating but out of control. I think there were just too many people. They seemed to have an ambient consciousness and were aware of me emotionally, and they all wanted something from me. They weren’t being aggressive or anything like that, more that they yearned for comfort and reassurance. I couldn’t help them though; I had to look after Maggie. Like a black hole, she took just about everything I could throw at her,” I wavered, wondering if this sounded like the ramblings of a mad woman. “Does any of this make sense to you?” I found a comfortable spot between his shoulder and his chest on which to rest my cheek and he adjusted his posture to accommodate me accordingly.
“I’m not sure about making sense, but it sounds very familiar. It took me years to be able to resist the pain of others so that I wasn’t consumed by it. My ability has never sat easily with science, but I’ve had to accept it as real, and yours appears to be quite similar. I think the closest we can come to giving it a name is calling it a form of synesthesia.” He tightened his grasp of my hand where it lay against his chest, and I welcomed the insistent reassurance of the pressure, and the unbroken beat of his heart against my open palm.
“You know what would have happened to us if we were suspected of having these abilities, as you call them, four hundred years ago?” I said.
“Of course; I saw it often enough. Witch trials were a pathetic, ugly affair; it’s a good thing we live when we do.”
I wasn’t sure if I could agree, and I played with the buttons of his shirt thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Judging by what we’ve been through recently, I wonder if very much has changed – trial by innuendo and public opinion and all that. I suppose that at least now we won’t end by being strung up outside the courthouse. They would have a terrible shock when you didn’t die.”
He winced. “What a cheerful thought, and I wouldn’t want to put it to the test.”
I yawned, sleepy again, and he smiled, hugging me close. “Once this is all over, whatever the outcome, I’m going to take you away – somewhere we can be together and you can rest with no expectations and no questions.”
“And no bears?” I murmured.
He kissed me softly. “And no bears,” he confirmed.
A strange, half-light filtered through the blinds, and the road noise, which had been clearly audible yesterday, sounded muffled as if I were hearing it through cotton wool.
I leaned sleepily on one elbow and attempted to see through the crack in the blind where it didn’t quite meet the edge of the window. The sound of a book being closed and a pen lid replaced came from behind me.
“It’s snowing.”
I turned over and my chest twinged sharply inside and out, reminiscent of yesterday’s battering. Matthew glanced at the monitor, but the bleep remained monotonously regular.
“What did Joel mean about me being a freak last night?”
He kept his eyes on the machine. “Apart from the bruising, how do you feel?”
I concentrated on my body, trying to pick up further signs of discomfort, but there were none. “Fine. I could run a marathon if the mood so took me.”
“That’s what Joel was referring to. You shouldn’t, you should feel appalling. Even your chest isn’t too bad, is it? You’re still just a bit bruised and tired.”
I blinked, nodded and stretched my legs and back until my toes touched the end of the bed frame. “Did the blood tests show anything?”
“No, they didn’t, but they should have done. There were no telltale signs of heart disturbance at all.”
“So is that it? Can I leave now?”
“We’ll wait and see what Eve shows up first just in case, and play it out a little longer. Duffy wants to see you. I wouldn’t let her in yesterday. Remember, you’ve had a major heart incident and you were on the verge of death so, for appearances sake and even if you feel as fit as a flea, act it up a bit.”
He went over to the window and pulled up the blind. Snow beat against the glass, faltered, then slowed. I lay there, quite content to watch him move around the room.
“I suppose this is what you have to do, isn’t it? Pretend to be something you’re not?”
“All the time; which reminds me, it’s time I caught another cold.” I laughed and his eyes gleamed briefly. “It’s so good to hear you laugh. I think, after all this is over, we’d better…” A soft knock at the door stopped him from finishing his sentence, and there were so many ways I could have finished it for him. “It’ll be Duffy. Remember what I said.” He went to open the door and I closed my eyes.
“How is she? Will she be all right?” Concern tinted Duffy’s voice and I felt like a total fraud. “Was it the stress of the trial, and all, that caused it?”
Matthew stood guard by my bed. I found I could still see him even though my eyes were shut, a shape defined by his movement and colour.
“I think it pushed her right to the edge. She’s lucky to be alive, but she’ll pull through with plenty of rest and no further stress.”
Duffy took the hint. She removed something, rustling like paper, from her bag.
“That’s why I came. I wanted to tell Emma what’s happening with the trial, you know? It might help a little.”
I sighed and rolled slightly as if on the verge of waking, and opened my eyes.
Matthew stood to one side and busied himself with the monitor and lines.
“Please keep it to a few minutes; she hasn’t as much strength as I would like.”
Duffy quietened her voice as if frightened she could cause another heart attack just by talking to me.
“Emma, honey, I’m so sorry you were taken ill, but I have some good news.” She plumped her bag on the wheeled tray next to her, the soft leather wilting in brown folds like the skin of an old bloodhound. She held up some pieces of paper in front of me. “Don’t try to talk now, hun, but the judge called me and Horatio to her chambers. It seems that, after his little outburst in court, she has ruled that Staahl has to be reassessed. Best of all, Dr Lynes – Dr Margaret Lynes, that is…” she darted a look at Matthew, but he studied a long printout, apparently absorbed in the task and oblivious to her comments, “… withdrew her evidence and issued a statement saying she is standing by her original report. Now, since it…”
“Why?” I asked, desperate to know the details so that I interrupted her a little more forcefully than I meant to. Matthew flashed a
cautionary look. “Why did she do that?” I whispered weakly.
“Hush, you save your strength now.” She squeezed my arm lightly. “It seems that Dr Lynes thinks she might have been too quick to make a judgment of Staahl’s state of mind. She says she made a mistake.”
Matthew made a sort of choking noise, which he turned into a cough and Duffy’s forehead puckered. “Anyhow, Kort Staahl is in a state institution for the foreseeable future and until fit to stand further assessment. He was just hollering as they took him away, a-wailing and moaning as if the devil’d taken his wits. He bit one of the sergeants on the chin. Poor man needed stitches, and he wasn’t that pretty to look at in the first place.”
“What does it mean for the trial?”
“It’s over, hun, that’s what I’ve been saying. The case against you has been dropped. Seems Horatio doesn’t think Staahl’s evidence would stand up to scrutiny and all, given his state of mind. Staahl’s not competent to stand trial and it looks like he never may be, in which case he will be put away indefinitely. It means we won’t get the trial and conviction we wanted against him, but nor will he be able to press his case against you…”
I closed my eyes as the significance made itself known like a reassuring clout to the back of my head. He would probably never be free to hurt anyone ever again: not me, or some random stranger, not Matthew. Anything he claimed would be discounted, nullified by madness.
“Emma, are you all right? Dr Lynes!” Her voice rose so I opened them again and smiled just enough to reassure her.
Matthew put the printout down. “I think that’s just about as much as she can handle for now. I take it there will be no more demands from the court on Dr D’Eresby from now on?”
“No, not on either of you.” She smiled sweetly as she looked first at Matthew and then at me. “You’re both free to get on with your lives.”
The door closed behind her. Leaning against it, Matthew surveyed me, lost in thought.