The Cairo Pulse

by B. B. Kindred

  A nurse brought me soup and a sandwich with a cup of tea. How did they manage to make food smell institutional? It was like they had a special anti-appetite stimulator they sprinkled over everything. Despite the bouquet of overcooked slop, I was ravenous, but didn’t eat or drink in case an agent of sedation was disguised within. Why should I be so paranoid? I decided to feign sleep as a way of gaining privacy, but each time I drifted, a melange of images and feelings wavered, whilst thoughts of Gabriel Meredith had me bent double with churning. Why were we in the MRI? It was like I’d taken a film, cut all the pieces up and thrown half of them away, then rearranged what was left in no particular order. Despite the gripes of fear and hunger, exhaustion got the better of me and the sleep was no longer feigned.

  I woke tortured by nameless distress to find Tabitha Shore by my side.

  “Hi Mum.” Calling her mum always seemed strange. I loved her and she’d been wonderful to me, but she wasn’t what you’d call the motherly type. It was only to be expected, you didn’t generally get to be a consultant neurologist without a supreme talent for detachment. My real mum was the poster girl for how not to live your life, but she was always very affectionate. Still, Tabitha’s efficient and immaculate manner, incarnated in a navy suit, perfectly bobbed hair and just the right amount of make-up was reassuring enough.

  She asked me the questions I’d expect her to ask, tutting at the absence of a chart. She leaned towards me speaking in a stage whisper. “Bugger protocol. I intend to get you out of here.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as humanly possible. They’ve declared a Major Internal Incident because the hospital can’t cope with all the patients that should be going to the Royal. Quite frankly, they’ll be desperate to give the bed to someone who patently needs it. So, you’re in luck. I don’t mean that like it sounds.”

  “Are the others here, Gizmo, Vik, Joe, Bentley?”

  “Yes, nearby.”

  “I’m not going without them. I don’t mean Bentley, forget about him.”

  I didn’t care too much if Bentley spilled the beans, providing he was the only one who did. Then he’d just look like the head case he was.

  “You’ve got your adamant face on, even I know better than to argue with that. Right, all of you it is.”

  She kissed me on the forehead, a novel event.

  “Christ, I’m not dying, am I?”

  “No, you’re not dying, in fact they say you’re in remarkable shape considering, you just don’t realise how much you can be like me. And in the past few days, I appear to have discovered the extent of my maternal instinct regarding your safety and well-being.”

  “I love you, too, Tabitha. Everything feels grotesque and eerie.”

  “You know the score, my love, stress and trauma. Adrenaline, norepinephrine, cortisol – need I go on? You’re running on a killer cocktail of hormones, it’s a wonder you can string a sentence together. Have you eaten anything?”

  “No.”

  “Your blood glucose is probably sinking slowly into the west, too. Try to keep calm, there’ll be plenty of time for questions later. Let’s go home, eh?”

  You know what to tell them, don’t you?” I said.

  “You’ve been through a deeply traumatic event and it would be much better for you to be returned to the familiar. I’ll offer to stay with you to ensure that any medical needs are met and if they don’t like it, we’ll get the big guns out and cause such a holy stink they’ll wish they said yes in the first place. We’ll promise to submit to any tests they might want to do down the line.”

  “That’s my girl.” I said.

  “I think it’s me who’s supposed to say that, actually.”

  “Pick on the psychologist.” I said. “She’s all pastry and no filling.”

  Twenty-six

  Despite the enthusiasm to free the beds, it had taken a good few hours to arrange the discharge. Tabitha had sent her housekeeper over in advance with a chicken casserole, shopping and instructions to ensure that the house looked cosy and lived in when we returned, because Tabitha generally thought of everything. I was glad I’d given her spare keys because I didn’t have the faintest idea what had happened to mine. When we walked in, it was like we’d never left and I drank in the solidity and comforting smells as keenly as I’d gulped down the water the soldier gave me. As soon as Tabitha was out of sight, Gizmo said, “Do you remember the beach?” I nodded, as did the others.

  “What did you tell them?” I said.

  “I couldn’t remember anything. They said we’d been out of it for three days. It wasn’t three days.”

  I looked at Joe and Vik, who nodded again.

  “Keep quiet for now.” I said. “We’ll work it out later.”

  We ate in silence, hunched around the kitchen table, dazed and exhausted, like we’d returned from bloody battle and the adrenaline had worn off, a unit of compatriots who’d travelled beyond words in their knowledge of each other and what had passed. The food made us all drowsy, but I hung back while the others drifted off, Vik taking charge of Joe’s guest status and escorting him to the spare room, except the humble posture and Indian accent had disappeared. Vik was Vikram again.

  “Fancy a cup of coffee, Mum?”

  “Yes, but you’re having decaf.”

  I was tempted to say ‘Oh, Mum’ in a younger voice, but it never worked when I was younger, so it probably wouldn’t work now. You didn’t want to go up against Tabitha Shore when she knew what was best for you.

  We sat opposite each other on the sofas, nursing our cups in an echoic gesture. The feeling that I’d been away for months, rather than days offered me a new appreciation of home, although I could have sworn the stairs used to turn after the first four steps. It was a small thing, but rattled me, nevertheless.

  “Tell me what you know.” I said.

  “When you first went into the MRI suite, you were with Gabriel Meredith. He’s missing, as is anyone else who was in the vicinity. It’s a miracle you’re unscathed. On the night of the event, Gabriel took his father from the nursing home. Joe suffers from dementia, apparently, although I see no sign of it, but then, I don’t suppose he’s had much to say. And while we’re on that subject, Vik’s borrowed identity syndrome also seems to have resolved itself. Maybe we should put all our patients in the eye of an electro-magnetic storm.”

  She examined my face with intensity. I did my best to cultivate an expression of interested innocence. It wasn’t easy to fool Tabitha Shore.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “this is no time to be flippant. I shouldn’t have mentioned the stuff about Joe and Vik, I’m overloading you. How are you feeling?”

  “Spaced out and unhinged, but I want you to go on. So – what happened then?”

  “You attended a function with Gabriel Meredith, possibly a date. I haven’t found out what happened exactly, but you took him to the hospital, probably in his car and with a man called Cheetham, who appeared to have been knocked about a bit. Perhaps we could find out from him. The three of you were quite muddy, by all accounts, perhaps there’d been a fight, I don’t know, neither do I know why Vik and Gizmo were there. You’d been very insistent about the MRI, which was brought to my attention. Fortunately, the events that followed were so dramatic we avoided the trouble you’d embroiled me in by using me as a threat.”

  “Sorry. I don’t know why I’d have done that.”

  “It’s out of character, I’m sure you had a compelling reason. You know about the storm and how long you were in there etcetera. That’s pretty much it. Have you any inkling about why you took Gabriel Meredith to the MRI? Dating him or working with him? You know, the last time I saw you, I thought you possessed the enraptured glow of romantic love, but I didn’t want to pry.”

  She said it like I’d come down with the flu. Tabitha didn’t have much truck with love and had a strict
policy of flings with significantly younger men. Most people with a background in neuroscience considered falling in love to be hormonally-induced madness; the tidal wave of rapture merely designed to ensure successful copulation followed by a period of stability and protection for its fruits. Nevertheless, understanding the process didn’t protect the bearer from its effects; if love had a strap line it would be, ‘Resistance Is Futile’.

  “Anything else?” I said.

  “Were you still working on The Cairo Pulse?”

  The Cairo Pulse. It was her nickname for the experiments.

  “I think so. I’ll have to go to the lab to check. What are you getting at?”

  “It’s a puzzle, we have to make sense of it.”

  “Do you have a theory?”

  “No. The only other factors we can be sure of are that you’re all in remarkable physical condition considering, especially Joe, who’s getting on a bit. And you’re all so tanned, have you been collectively sunbathing?”

  “This is going to get heavy, isn’t it? That’s why you wanted to get us out of there.”

  “You need to sleep. I’ll do everything I can to make sure they don’t descend tomorrow, so we can work out what’s for the best.”

  I’m sorry, mum, I said to myself. Sorry to use you, sorry to lie to you, but needs must.

  *

  I’d woken several times in the night, not knowing where I was, the dim shapes in the room morphing, panic flushes coursing through me before grasping I was home in my beloved brass bed, underneath my feather quilt, a hint of perfume on my pillow, but still the mind raced until it could no longer fight the oily void. A tearful awakening that sent me stumbling downstairs, where I switched on the kettle and smoked a whole cigarette at the back door, mulling.

  Gizmo wandered into the kitchen just as I was stubbing the cigarette, a halo of morning sunlight around her spiky, barely woken hair. “Tabitha’s left a note, dawn emergency, apparently, she said she’d come back as soon as.”

  My mum could perform major surgery after two hours’ sleep, then do a day’s work and emerge looking like she’d had a lengthy session at the beauty salon while doing calculus just for fun. There were times I doubted she was actually human. I might have been crushed by trying to live up to her example if she’d been my mother from birth, but as I spent the first twelve years of my life with parents who had no concept of role model, she proved to be just the right amount of antidote.

  “Well, at least we can talk now. Are the others awake?”

  I followed Gizmo’s eyes as they flitted over the photographs on the fridge, widening as they rested on one held in place by a garish image of Alicante. It was a house competition – find the tackiest fridge magnet.

  The wide eyes strayed towards me and back to the photo, then she walked out of the kitchen in a trance. I heard a drawer open and close before she reappeared with a magnifying glass.

  “What is it?”

  “Look at your hair, it’s at least a couple of inches shorter on this photo.”

  I scanned the image of me sitting at the table reading a newspaper, winding my hair around my fingers. Vik was always taking photos of me and printing them off. I’d often get up in the morning and see an A4 shot of myself frowning over a research paper or wrestling with spaghetti.

  “So?”

  “You can see the date on the newspaper. It’s five days ago. Look at your fingernails – they’re immaculate.”

  I studied my hands, my real hands, that is, nails chipped and broken, no trace of polish. Gizmo looked teary.

  “Gizmo – what is it?”

  “I don’t want it to be real. It can’t be real. It’s too much.”

  “Look, we’re probably up to our necks in a swamp of Stress Disorder, Confusional State and maybe even a bit of old-fashioned Anomie. In plain English, it’s a mind-fuck. You might feel like you’re going crazy, but things will get better, clearer. Now, what do we British do at times such as these?”

  “Two sugars.”

  “Coming up.”

  I didn’t add that it was only thinking about the others that was keeping me from running around the house screaming like a banshee. I decided to put the TV on to check the news. Wandering to the sitting room, mug in hand, I drew back the curtains. A torrent of flashes blinded me. I could hear people shouting my name. I was in the storm, back in the storm and I was looking for Gabriel, but Gabriel was nowhere to be seen and my body was loaded with love and terror. The mug fell from my hand, splashing hot tea as I stood, paralysed before Gizmo whipped the curtains closed.

  “Holy shit.” She said.

  The inevitability of a media assault hadn’t crossed my mind, but it should have. We were the chosen ones, the only people on the planet to live through a hot off the press wild and freakish event. Manna from heaven for a twenty-four-hour news cycle. It would have crossed the minds of our disgruntled interrogators, though. Probably a psychological tactic to keep shtum so we’d come begging for their help and sink into compliance to their every wish. Either that or payback for being stroppy and well connected.

  “What are we going to do, Cairo?”

  “Put the TV on. News channel.”

  I was about to run upstairs and change out of my tea-stained clothes, but ended up perching on the arm of the sofa as footage of the storm compelled me to watch. Halos of colour, plasma lightning, rippling, hurling, manifesting, it seemed more life form than storm, more Hollywood CGI fantasy than actual event. It was hard to imagine we’d been in there. The scroll at the bottom of the screen listed our names as survivors, while an onsite reporter batted back and forth with the newsroom about our rescue, whilst running occasional footage of the house, which I could now see was swamped by an army of reporters, photographers and TV cameras.

  “Bloody hell.” I said. “Where did they get these photos of us from?”

  “They’ll have got them off the net, by hook or by crook.”

  Then it listed the missing, mainly hospital staff and a couple of military personnel.

  Returning to the newsreader, a photo of Gabriel appeared in the background. “At the exact time the Manchester storm ended, literally thousands of people in the area reported sightings of Gabriel Meredith.”

  My heart thumped. “That’s ridiculous. How would they know him, anyway?” I said.

  “His picture will have been all over the news for days, that’s how.”

  They crossed over to a correspondent hanging around the Piccadilly Gardens seating area in Manchester. She introduced a recorded piece while the usual suspects waved and pulled faces behind her.

  A plump, careworn middle-aged woman wearing a burgundy anorak that made her look like an aubergine.

  “Aye, I was just getting off the bus when I saw him getting on it. He winked at me and smiled. It took me a minute to realise, but it was him. I’ve felt so good ever since.”

  An elderly, well-groomed man dressed in a smart suit, holding an umbrella.

  “I dropped it.” He said waving the umbrella in front of him. “And he picked it up, handed it to me. He had this glow about him, I can’t describe it. I didn’t say anything to him, it was like I’d been hypnotised.”

  “And you’re sure it was him?” Said the reporter.

  “No doubt, no doubt at all.”

  A student, a pocket-sized girl, with long, jet black hair, sounded Eastern European.

  “I was in the queue at the coffee van. When the man in front of me turned around I knew immediately it was Gabriel Meredith. He handed his coffee to me. What is strange is that it was my coffee, I mean the coffee I usually get. It was like I was being handed a small miracle. I can’t explain it.”

  People in shops and cafés, people in the street and in offices, on buses and trams, tourists and tenants, all claiming to have seen Gabriel Meredith and being uplifted by the experience. The e
xpression on their faces seemed familiar.

  “What the hell’s that all about?” Gizmo said.

  “Meme or militant enthusiasm or attention seeking or Facebook…” I ran to the bathroom to be sick again.

  When I returned, Vikram and Joe had joined Gizmo. The TV set was turned down.

  Joe lifted a trembling hand to his face. “Oh, my boy.” He said. “Where’s my boy? They should have taken me, not him.”

  “I’ll make tea.” Vikram said.

  We rolled the months that had passed out like an intricate, vivid tapestry, but none of us could quite take it in. Were it not for the fact we’d all experienced the same thing, I think we’d have gone mad.

  Twenty-seven

  I accepted it, the same way I accepted that I once had a family and then I didn’t and I once didn’t suffer from epilepsy and then I did and then I didn’t. And that I once didn’t know Gabriel Meredith and then I did and I fell in love with him and then he was gone. And I wondered if we were chosen because one thing that bound us was altered states of being. Joe with his dementia and Vik with his borrowed identity syndrome and me with my childhood epilepsy and Gizmo with her ability to use technology as an extension of her own brain. It was like we were uniquely qualified to cope. And if we were chosen, there must be a purpose and if there were a purpose, there was still a possibility we weren’t at the end of it because I sure as hell didn’t know what the purpose was.