Hit and Run

by Doug Johnstone

  He smelled burning. Maybe his brain frying in the pain. He heard voices. Talking about him, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He heard a click then a few moments later received an overwhelming wash of relief, a familiar dampening down, a monumental suppression of the agony, like a glacier pushing down on the land beneath it. Morphine. Sweet fucking beautiful morphine.

  More voices, drifting away as he receded into the glorious relief of a dreamless sleep.

  Eventually he bobbed back up. He sensed that time had passed. The pain was still there, but like an echo of before, a repressed memory.

  Voices again. Two men. He recognised one of them.

  He took a slow, careful breath, as if using his lungs for the first time. He opened his eyes.

  Charlie and an older man at the end of his bed. He was in hospital. White doctor coats and antiseptic. Their lips were moving but the sound was out of sync, like a badly tracked movie clip. He closed his eyes, felt the intense weight of his eyelids, then opened them again.

  The older man looked at him, said something to Charlie, then walked away. Charlie turned to him and smiled. It was a genuine smile, but it also hid something.

  ‘Hey, Bro.’

  Billy tried to speak, but no sound came out. Charlie poured a cup of water and raised it to Billy’s mouth.

  ‘Here, small sips.’

  Billy wet his lips and tongue, felt the cool liquid slip down his throat. He pushed away the cup.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Take it easy, all in good time. You in much pain?’

  Billy felt the ghost of his earlier distress. He wasn’t in pain, but he nodded anyway.

  Charlie pushed a button connected to a drip in Billy’s arm, and more morphine flooded his body, a thick, fuzzy glow of detachment.

  Charlie sat on the bed, gearing himself up for something.

  ‘What is it?’ Billy said.

  ‘I won’t lie to you, Bro, it was fucking scary, but you should be OK.’

  Charlie looked down for a second then back up.

  ‘According to the MRI scan you had a cerebral aneurysm.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s basically when some of the blood vessels in your brain burst.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Causes vary, it can be because of high blood pressure or atherosclerosis . . .’

  ‘Wait . . .’

  ‘That’s high cholesterol in the blood.’

  Billy’s head pulsed away. He felt his throat constrict.

  Charlie looked nervous. ‘Aneurysms can also be caused by head trauma.’

  Billy stared at him for a long time. ‘The accident?’

  Charlie looked around him. ‘Keep it down. Yeah, maybe the accident. Could be that some of the cerebral artery walls were weakened in the knock you got. Just waiting to blow whenever you got the blood pumping.’

  He looked closely at Billy.

  ‘Speaking of which, do you remember where you were when you passed out?’

  Billy closed his eyes. A mess of blurry visions swam in his mind. His face melting in a mirror. A line of white powder on ceramic, snorted up through a steel straw. Adele slapping herself until she was crying, her skin raw, hair tangled over her face.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Charlie edged closer. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

  Billy shook his head.

  ‘Fucking the widow in a pub toilet?’

  ‘How . . .’

  ‘She did good, the widow. Got help straight away. Your pants were still at your ankles when the paramedics showed up. I’ve managed to keep that from Zoe. What the fuck is going on, Billy?’

  Billy struggled to breathe.

  ‘I know about the coke. Blood tests came back. I’ve managed to keep that quiet as well. I’m pulling in shitloads of favours to cover for you, I hope you realise that. You know the coke probably set off the aneurysm, that and the sex. Holy shit.’

  Billy’s lungs were full of wet concrete. Swathes of morphine still coursed through his veins, soaking into his bones, but he could already feel the smothering effects wearing off, the spectre of pain lurking in the back of his mind, ready to pounce.

  ‘Jeanie?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I had Jeanie with me. In the pub. She was tied to a table.’

  ‘While you were in the bogs snorting and screwing? Nice.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  Charlie shook his head and sighed. ‘I’ll find out. She’s probably still at the pub. Either that, or your friendly widow took her home. She turned down the offer to ride in the ambulance with you, by the way. Probably for the best, in the circumstances, don’t you think? What are you going to tell Zoe? She’ll be in to visit soon.’

  Billy pushed the heel of a hand into his eye socket, just to feel something.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She needs looking after, you know. You’re not the only one suffering in this whole mess. She doesn’t need you cheating on her with the widow of the man . . .’ He trailed off. ‘This is so fucked up.’

  Billy lifted a hand to the bump on his temple, and was surprised to touch bandages. Several layers of thick, rough cotton, by the feel of it, wrapped round the top half of his head. He ran a hand over his crown and down towards the back of his neck. Charlie reached out quickly and pulled his hand away.

  ‘Careful.’

  Billy felt a shiver go through him. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You had to undergo surgery, it was a life-threatening situation. I signed the release forms.’

  ‘What kind of surgery?’

  ‘The brain surgery kind.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘A cerebral aneurysm causes intracranial pressure. That’s pressure in the brain, in the cerebral arteries, in the cerebrospinal fluid. Your brain swelled up. Basically, your skull was like a pressure cooker. That pressure had to be released.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘There are different ways, but you weren’t responding. It was a last resort. They had to take drastic action.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘That guy I was talking to before, he’s a brain surgeon. He performed an emergency decompressive craniotomy.’

  ‘Fucking hell, Charlie, in English.’

  ‘It’s a procedure where part of the skull is removed. It gives the swelling brain room to expand without getting damaged.’

  Billy stared. ‘You mean I’ve got a fucking hole in my head.’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. I mean, it’s far from ideal . . .’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Obviously there’s a risk of infection – meningitis, brain abscess . . .’

  ‘Whoah.’

  Charlie put a hand on Billy’s leg. ‘Those are worst-case scenarios. Most likely they’ll be able to perform a cranioplasty once they’re happy that the swelling has gone down enough. They’ll put a plastic plate across the opening, it’s standard.’

  ‘I have a hole in my head.’

  ‘I know.’ Charlie tried to sound reassuring. ‘But chill your boots. The last thing you need is to get worked up about it.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say.’

  He felt an overwhelming nausea sweep through him, his tongue sweating, his gut roiling. Charlie spotted the look on his face, lifted a container out from beneath the bed and put it under his chin.

  ‘That’ll be the anaesthetic, takes a while to wear off.’

  Billy felt vomit and bile thrust up his throat and out, splattering into the container, thick mucus dribbling down his chin. He retched two more times then took the glass of water from his brother and sipped, swilling then spitting.

  ‘Done?’ Charlie said.

  Billy nodded weakly. He felt light-headed and dizzy, eased himself back into his pillows.

  Charlie got up, holding the contain
er. ‘I’ll get rid of this. You need some rest anyway. Try to get some sleep, I’ll be back in a bit.’

  Billy watched him turn and walk down the corridor of the ward. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the throbbing sensation in his brain.

  25

  He was woken by the sound of coughing in the next bed. He gently turned his head and opened his eyes. A paper-skinned old man was spitting into a cup, his hand shaking, saliva dribbling down his fingers.

  Billy looked round the ward. Sunshine was beaming in through the dirty windows. It felt like morning, which meant he’d been out for hours. Judging by the look of the others in the room, he was the youngest in here by twenty years. All men, mostly fat, all old. And him, with his missing piece of skull and swollen brain. Jesus.

  The doctor he’d seen yesterday with Charlie came striding down the corridor like he owned the place. Tidy beard, narrow eyes, distinguished grey hair. He stopped at the end of the bed and threw a desultory smile in Billy’s direction. He did that thing doctors always do, picking up the chart at the end of the bed and sucking his teeth a little.

  ‘And how are we today, Mr Blackmore?’

  Billy did a quick inventory of his body. It felt as if he’d spent a week at sea, battered by storms, eventually washed up on the shores of consciousness. Pain swarmed his body, especially his head and neck. But he was alive, breathing.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Don’t say “fine” if you don’t mean it. I have no time for pleasantries. I need to know how you feel.’

  ‘I feel fine.’

  The doctor approached him and got a torch out of his pocket. Without asking he pulled at the skin below Billy’s eyes and shone the torch at him.

  ‘Look up.’

  Billy obeyed.

  ‘You’ve certainly been in the wars.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘I believe your brother informed you about the operation I had to perform?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re a very lucky young man, Mr Blackmore. There are very few surgeons around here who could have performed that operation. None as good as me.’

  ‘Even if you do say so yourself.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  The doctor checked Billy’s other eye, then nodded at the bandages wrapped around his head.

  ‘Is it worth asking you about the cause of the head trauma?’

  Billy tried to smile but the muscle movement made his face ache. He just shrugged.

  ‘You clearly got a bump on the head here.’ The doctor lightly tapped Billy’s temple. ‘That was probably the cause. Any idea how that might have happened?’

  Billy stared at the doc. Had Charlie given him a story already? Was this guy trying to catch him out? Did he know about car crash head traumas? Maybe this was his chance to come clean.

  He kept his voice level. ‘Just a stupid drunken thing. Walked into a door.’

  The doctor narrowed his eyes. ‘And when was this?’

  ‘A few days ago. Sunday night, I think.’

  The doctor made a sceptical noise through his nose. ‘Hmmm, that could explain it, I suppose.’

  He put his torch away then placed both hands softly on Billy’s head, like a faith healer. He began probing expertly, concentrating on the back of the skull. Billy felt his brain pulse and throb.

  ‘One other thing, Mr Blackmore.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was quite a substantial amount of cocaine in your system.’

  ‘Was there?’

  ‘Don’t treat me like an idiot, Mr Blackmore. I’ve seen things in thirty years working in this hospital that would make you puke your bowels up. For the sake of your brother, who is a very promising young doctor, I’ve agreed not to contact the authorities about this.’

  ‘That’s very good of you.’

  The doctor gave Billy a hard stare. ‘For your own sake, I very strongly recommend you stick to officially prescribed medication during your recovery period. Any other forms of stimulant or narcotic could very well kill you, in your current condition.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

  ‘You do that, Mr Blackmore.’

  The doctor began to walk away then spoke over his shoulder. ‘Presuming you don’t have a relapse or infection, you could be out in a week or two.’

  He was already halfway down the corridor, white coat flapping. It was only then that Billy thought to ask about when they were going to patch up the hole in his skull, but the doctor was gone.

  Billy let his head fall back on to his pillows. Pain poured in now the distraction of talking had gone, and he pushed the button attached to his drip. The blanketing embrace of morphine smothered him. He wished he could stay under the surface like this for ever, disengaged from the real world and all its brutal horror.

  He tried to sleep but his mind was a churning, swirling mess. This was payback. Frank Whitehouse had got his revenge from beyond the grave, placing a ticking timebomb in Billy’s brain with the accident, a bomb set to go off at any minute. Ha, who was he kidding, any minute? It was set to go off at just the perfect time, the moment of sweetest justice, when he was fucking Frank’s widow. Fucking the pain and guilt away, except he wasn’t doing anything of the sort, because the pain and guilt had just come back a hundredfold, a millionfold, meting out its glorious revenge on him, literally blowing his mind, bursting his brain open, making it swell and expand so that they had to cut away his skull to let it breathe in peace.

  Fucking karma. Why didn’t he just confess right at the start? Charlie and Zoe had talked him out of it, but it was all his fault, and his alone. He was driving, drunk and wasted. He was weak and allowed himself to be persuaded not to call an ambulance, the police, whoever the fuck could’ve helped.

  But he couldn’t confess now. He was still weak, too weak for the truth. What about Adele? What about Ryan, who had lost a daddy and a dog in less than a week? What about Dean and the Mackies? He was in the middle of a terrible shitstorm and couldn’t see a way out. It would’ve been better if he hadn’t been saved, if they’d just let his brain explode and kill him. That’s what he deserved.

  He suddenly thought of Jeanie. Who would look after her if he died? And where was she anyway?

  He sat up and looked round. Where was his phone? A small bedside cabinet. He opened it and there were all his clothes, neatly folded.

  ‘Hey.’

  He looked up. Zoe, with a worried look. Christ, he didn’t deserve her. So much better than him, stronger, more together, more focused. In control. Everything he wasn’t.

  ‘I brought someone to see you,’ she said.

  He noticed she was holding a lead. A snuffling sound came from underneath the bed.

  ‘Jeanie.’

  The sound of a tail thumping on the floor, then her head popped out from under the bed, ears pinned back in sheer, uncomplicated joy.

  Zoe smiled. ‘Dogs aren’t normally allowed in here, but Charlie sweet-talked the nurses.’

  ‘Come here, girl,’ he said. She nuzzled into him. He stroked her head and tickled her chin. He rubbed her flanks, feeling the ribs still poking through the fur. He leaned down to smell her, soak her up. ‘I’m sorry I left you. I won’t ever leave you again.’

  ‘You really love that dog, don’t you?’ There was a hint of something in Zoe’s voice, a tinge of sadness.

  Billy wanted to say something in reply to that, but he couldn’t think what.

  ‘Thanks for bringing her. Where was she?’

  ‘Still in the pub. I think they wanted to adopt her. They’d made her quite at home, fed her and taken her for walks. When Charlie got back last night we headed over there and picked her up. She was upset not to see you, so I thought I’d bring her in this morning.’

  ‘What about her medication?’

  ‘It’s OK, I’ve kept up with the dosage.’

  ‘And no problems, no fits or anything?’

  ‘Billy, I
think you have a bit more to worry about than Jeanie at the moment.’

  Everything she said was weighted with a strange kind of sadness. Did she know about him and Adele in the toilets?

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she said.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed, far enough away that they weren’t touching.

  ‘Fine, considering I’ve got a swollen brain and a hole in my skull.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it.’

  ‘Who’s joking?’

  She looked down at her lap. Her hands were lying there, motionless, and she stared at them as if they belonged to someone else.

  ‘I really care about you, Billy.’

  ‘I know.’

  Jesus, was she about to dump him? He couldn’t blame her.

  ‘Charlie and I have been so worried about you.’

  That ‘Charlie and I’ made him bristle. It sounded parental, like they were a couple. He remembered the two of them mollycoddling him, persuading him not to call the authorities, not to confess. Trying to keep him medicated and calm, under their control. Had it really been like that? He couldn’t be sure, he wasn’t sure about anything any more.

  He felt Jeanie lick his hand, the roughness of her tongue on his skin. He imagined her licking up all the poisons that were leaching out of his pores, cleansing him of all the bad karma and drugs and nightmares.

  ‘Everything’s going to be OK,’ Zoe said.

  She placed a hand on top of his on the bedsheets. It was cold. She’d always had bad circulation, was always wearing more layers than him around the flat. They made a joke of her freezing extremities. Cold hands, warm heart. His own hands were hot and slippery with illness and medication and sweat. What did that say?

  He leaned over to shove his nose into the side of Jeanie’s head, pulling his hand out carefully from under Zoe’s and tickling Jeanie behind the ears. The dog smelled of something primal but comforting. Eventually he raised his face to Zoe’s. She seemed sad beyond words.

  A door slammed and they jumped. Jeanie flinched and backed away, head darting around nervously.

  ‘You fucking cunt.’

  Billy recognised the voice. Here it comes, he thought, bring it on.