The Bellwether Revivals

by Benjamin Wood

  Theo went right over to kiss Iris on the cheek, clocking the surgeon’s name scribbled on the whiteboard behind her. ‘Oh, good Jesus, not Barnfield. Not that old hack. The man needs five Glenlivets inside him before he can even scrub in. Anyone but Barnfield.’ He stared down at Oscar, folding his arms. ‘I told you to call me with the name of the surgeon. I could’ve organised somebody much better.’

  Iris was still drowsy from the operation. Her face was damp and her hair was wild and matted. ‘Dad, relax—you were on the plane,’ she said. ‘And anyway, I feel fine. It went fine.’

  ‘You should’ve waited until we touched down,’ Mrs Bellwether said. ‘Your father specifically asked Oscar to ring when—’

  ‘I told him not to,’ Iris said.

  Mr Barnfield had seemed more than capable to Oscar. He was about the same age as Theo and had a broad, owlish face with a suntan that faded at the cheekbones. Crouching down at Iris’s bedside, he’d spoken with a composure that made everything seem better, casually uncapping a biro and handing it over for Iris to scrawl her name on the consent form. After three hours of surgery, Barnfield had come out to tell Oscar it had gone smoothly. He’d removed the original nail in her leg because it was ‘structurally unsound’ and replaced it with a new one. There was another fracture, too, just below the hip, and he’d had to place a pin inside the hollow of the bone to fix it. He’d used a lot of words that Oscar didn’t understand: ‘Unfortunately, the interposition materials that her first surgeon packed around the bone to tease out some physeal growth ended up migrating, and I’m afraid they left the femur rather prone to pathological fracture. I’ve never been a fan of these new intramedullary techniques for intra-articular breaks; they can damage as many as they help, in my opinion. I’m afraid the days of wait-and-see and the good old plaster cast are long gone.’ It was all about rest and recuperation from this point, Barnfield had said, and keeping the brace on until he told her to remove it.

  ‘Well, it’s all damage limitation now.’ Theo leaned against the bedside table, exasperated, then reached out a hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind his daughter’s ear. ‘I want you out of this place right away. The post-op here is diabolical. I don’t know what I was thinking keeping you in here the first time.’

  ‘I tried to tell you that,’ Eden said. His voice was lazy, smug.

  Theo ignored him. ‘Where’s that bloody Akingbade anyway? The whole job was a cut-and-shut from the start. I should’ve stopped it, but oh no, he wanted to do it his way, practically bullied me into it. Well—I’m going to see what my solicitor thinks about that.’

  ‘Dad, calm down, I’m fine. Really,’ Iris said. ‘There’s no need to start talking about lawyers. And anyway, I like Mr Barnfield.’

  But Theo wouldn’t be placated. ‘He should never have let you come home so early. I told him at the time—didn’t I, Ruth? Didn’t I say to him it was much too early?’

  Mrs Bellwether gave a slow nod. She seemed satisfied to affirm that Theo had been right about everything all along, as if it made her righteous, too, by reflection.

  Eden stayed silent. He fidgeted with the clasp of his earring, trying not to catch his sister’s eye.

  ‘Don’t you worry, honey,’ Theo said, going back for the same strand of Iris’s hair. ‘We’re moving you tonight. I’ve already called Madigan Hall and they’ve got a bed waiting.’

  ‘No, Dad, you don’t need to do that. I’m fine. It’s fine here.’

  ‘And I’ll be putting in a call into Subramanyam at UCH tomorrow. He’s the best orthopaedics man in the country and I’m sure he’d be glad to do me a favour. Lift up now, come on.’ He waited for Iris to raise her head, then pulled out her pillow and fluffed it, placing it back underneath her and giving it two firm pats. ‘From now on, they’re not offering you so much as a paracetamol in this place without my say-so. Just wish I could’ve made it back sooner. We tried to change our flight, but—’

  ‘Dad,’ Iris finally snapped. ‘Will you just for God’s sake sit down, you’re giving me a headache.’

  There was a sudden quiet in the ward, as if all the other patients had muted their television sets.

  ‘We’ve already wasted too much time,’ Theo said. He turned, searching the rail of her bed. ‘Where’s your chart? Who’s taken it?’

  There was resignation—capitulation—in the downbeat way that Iris responded: ‘The nurse has got it.’ She looked down at Oscar and pulled her lips into a tired smile.

  ‘Which nurse? The blondey one or the redhead?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The blonde,’ Oscar said. ‘Her name’s Yvonne.’

  Theo rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t care if her name’s John Addenbrooke—she’s got no right removing the chart from my daughter’s bed.’ With that, he tugged back the curtain to let himself out.

  ‘Wait,’ Eden said, ‘I’m going with you.’ He practically reached out to grab onto his father’s coat-tails. A wen of sweat slid from his hairline, past his temple to his cheekbone. The colour had drawn completely from his face. ‘Please. I promise I’ll let you do the talking.’

  Theo stopped. ‘Come on then. But I don’t want you chipping in. Let me handle it.’ The two of them headed off along the ward.

  Mrs Bellwether stayed. There was a moment’s quiet. She eyed the curtain, letting it settle. Then she stepped forwards, pulled a tissue from the box on the cabinet, and wiped down the chair beside Oscar. ‘Your father’s a bit wound up,’ she said. ‘It was a long conference, and a bumpy flight and—and well, now this. It’s a lot to take.’ She leaned in close to Iris, but didn’t try to take her hand. ‘Tell me again how this happened. You just fell off the bed?’

  When the rain struck the windows of Iris’s room at Madigan Hall, it hardly made a sound. There was an eerie numbness to the building and its grounds—about an acre of landscaped gardens that included a private man-made lake called Madigan Pond. For all the postcard views of the Cambridgeshire countryside that it boasted, for all the Axminster carpets, organic meals, and satellite television, Oscar felt it lacked the strangely comforting bustle of Addenbrooke’s, and Iris agreed.

  Not once did Eden visit his sister at Madigan Hall. He didn’t telephone through to her room or write a simple card to wish her well. Sometimes, Jane would show up in the evening, bearing his apologies: ‘It’s his week at the chapel—they’re preparing for the Easter festival. He sends his love. Said he might be in tomorrow.’ She would give Iris a peck on each cheek, Paris style, and nothing more would be said of it. Next day, she’d bring a textbook that Iris had asked her brother to check out of the library, saying, ‘Sorry, he’s just so busy at the moment. I’m sure he’ll be in tomorrow. Would you like me to bring you anything else?’ For the most part, Jane would drone on about how pretty the hospital was, saying how pleased they all were that Iris had decided not to let ‘this little setback’ stop her from taking her exams. ‘It’s so wonderful that you’re keeping on top of things. You must be in terrible pain. Eden’s been so upset about it all, he really has. I’m sure he’ll be here soon to tell you that himself.’ But it was very clear that Eden would not be coming to Madigan Hall, and Oscar knew perfectly well why.

  He tried to avoid talking about it during his visits. The longer Eden stayed away, the less Iris enquired about him. She seemed happy to go along without mentioning his name or bringing up the fact that only a few weeks ago she’d been telling Oscar how remarkable her brother was, how absolutely certain she was that he had healed her. They didn’t talk about the conclusions that could be drawn from her being in hospital again, with her leg broken in the same place and with the doctors telling her the bone wasn’t suitably repaired the first time. She was looking at a long hard road to recovery with plenty of bed-rest, and possibly traction, and most definitely a sustained course of physical therapy. Oscar knew that she had no choice but to acknowledge the truth now. Her leg was not healed. Eden could no more heal her bones than he could heal Crest of his brain tum
our. Of course he couldn’t. Of course not. The whole idea was preposterous. But did she really need to say any of this aloud? Wasn’t the shame already written on her face? Oscar didn’t want to force the conversation out of her, so the subject became a snuffling great elephant in the room that they ignored every time they were together.

  She had been in Madigan Hall for over a week by the time this silent truce finally broke down. Oscar went to see her after work, arriving in the heart of visiting hours, when the corridors were backed up with bored children playing hide and seek, and infused with the scents of Get Well presents. She was fast asleep in her room—a deep, snoring slumber. He sat by the window and waited, reading through an issue of the Spectator that Theo must have brought in earlier that day. He was halfway through a feature on sustainable fishing by the time she woke up. ‘Hey, you,’ she said, sleepily. ‘What are you doing over there?’

  ‘Learning about rainbow trout. It’s sort of interesting.’ He put the magazine down. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Alright. A little better, I suppose.’ She yawned. ‘Would you do something for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘There’s a pack of cloves in the drawer there, hidden away at the back. You see them?’

  He found the pack, tucked underneath her socks and bras. ‘Got them.’

  ‘I want you to go outside and smoke one.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can’t move out of this bloody bed, that’s why, and I’m just dying for the taste of one. Every time I wake up I’ve got this awful craving.’ She smiled. ‘So I want you to go out and smoke, then come back in here reeking of cigarette fumes. And then I want you to kiss me. You’re the only one I can ask.’

  He went and sat on a bench at Madigan Pond and smoked one and a half cloves, which was as much as his lungs could bear. He blew the smoke into his clothes, tried to waft it into the pores of his skin. The moon was a sliver in the sky and it reflected back in the rippling surface of the water, bent out of shape. He felt nervous. They hadn’t kissed since she’d been hoisted into the ambulance and now he was reluctant to touch her again. He felt partly responsible for what had happened, and wasn’t sure if she blamed him for it. If he hadn’t coaxed her away from her textbooks, she wouldn’t have broken her leg, and—oh, there was no point in worrying about that now. He put another clove in his mouth but didn’t light it, put off by the taste.

  When he went back inside, the smell of the cigarettes had faded a little on his clothes. Iris didn’t seem to notice. ‘How many did you smoke?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Two!’ she said. ‘You’re so lucky. Quickly, come on—kiss me before it wears off.’ Once their lips met and her tongue found his, all of his nervous feelings eked away. She clutched his neck, his shoulder, breathing in his scent. ‘Oh, thank you, darling,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I needed that.’ She lay back in silence, peering up at the magnolia ceiling, and stayed like that for quite a while, until he thought she was falling back to sleep. But then she began to cry. Tears strolled along her face and made little ink-blots on her pillowcase. She looked at him with wet, heavy eyes. ‘I should have listened to you,’ she said, reaching out to take his jaw in her soft hands, kissing his mouth. The brackish taste of tears was on her lips. ‘I just—I wanted to believe in him so much. He’s my brother. I wanted to believe in him. Was that so wrong?’

  He didn’t know what to tell her.

  ‘I was so sure he’d healed me. I mean, I—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to say it.’

  ‘I thought I could trust him.’

  ‘I know you did, Iris. I know you did.’ He held her sobbing face upon his shoulder, smoothing her hair, until she moved away, drying her cheeks on her hospital sheets.

  ‘Being bedridden is good for something, though,’ she said. ‘It gives you a lot of time to think. Staring up at the same ceiling for hours, it puts you into a state of meditation, makes you remember things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  She gave a sad exhalation through her nose. ‘I was thinking about what Herbert asked me the first time we met, about trying to remember how this whole mess might’ve started. A trigger moment—I think that’s what he called it.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘Well, I’ve thought of something.’

  For a second, she kept her eyes away from him, pondering the memory again. Then she slowly rolled her head towards him, making a straight line out of her mouth. There was uncertainty in her voice as she told him what she remembered—her words came out on tiptoe. But there was also a kind of confidence in her tone, as if she was sure that, amid all the misrepresentations and the sketchy details, there was a kernel of truth that justified the telling.

  ‘I’m not sure exactly when it was, but I think I must’ve been about seven or eight, because I didn’t have my glasses yet, and my eyes only started to get bad when I was nine. It must have been the summer, because all my memories are of the summer, but it was kind of a cloudy day—I mean, not rainy but gloomy.’ She stopped, realising the picture she was painting was a little abstract. ‘Sorry, the weather probably isn’t that important.’ She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. ‘Let me start again.’

  It had happened in the summer holidays, a regular, grey afternoon. She’d been in her father’s office, playing around with one of his old stethoscopes. ‘I was listening to things with it. Not just my own heartbeat and stuff. I mean the walls, the wardrobe, everything. When you’re little, the world seems so fascinating.’ And soon, she’d begun to hear a sound almost like wedding bells. It was Eden, practising his piano in the drawing room. ‘I tried to ignore it, but after a while it really started to annoy me, because I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. So I went in to tell him to shut up for a minute. There was a smell in the air, I remember, like a cake was baking, and my mother was pottering in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher or something. And I had the stethoscope around my neck like my dad used to wear it.’

  When she’d got to the drawing room, she’d found Eden at the piano. ‘He was playing something slow, something gentle, and his eyes were shut. He didn’t see me come in. I seem to remember the French doors being wide open, and this cold draught against my feet. The curtains were all flapping against the windows. The whole room just felt weird.’ She’d got halfway towards Eden and stopped. ‘There was something on the piano lid. I didn’t know what at first, just a mound of something, black, kind of greasy, and it was only when I got right up to it that I knew what it was. It was this bird, a blackbird, just lying there on the piano lid, not moving. And I felt like I should scream, but I didn’t. The noise wouldn’t quite come out.’

  Then she’d remembered the stethoscope around her neck. It had seemed like a chance to use it properly, on something real. She’d placed the chestpiece against the breast of the bird and listened. ‘Ugh, the smell of it, the feel of it—all oily and cool. I had to hold my head away from it, trying to hear its little heartbeat. But I couldn’t hear anything. Maybe the piano was too loud, or maybe I just wasn’t using the stethoscope right, I don’t know, but the thing seemed dead enough to me.’

  Eden had stopped playing then, eyeing his sister across the piano lid. He’d told her not to touch the bird. ‘I asked him how the thing had got inside and he said he’d just found it on the front doorstep. It had flown into the glass. He goes, Tell on me if you want to. I don’t care. He was very calm about it all, considering. Didn’t seem bothered that my mother was only in the next room. And he walked over and scooped the thing up in his hands. Its little head flopped down over his fingers. I said, Okay, I won’t tell, and he looked almost disappointed about it. He carried the bird over to the French doors—they were still open, and the cherry trees were all shaking about outside. I said he probably shouldn’t be holding it like that. It could have all kinds of diseases. But he didn’t seem to hear me. He stood there for a while, with that creepy-looking blackbird in his hands, jus
t staring at the garden. Then my mother began to call us.’

  At this point, Iris paused. She shook her head, remembering. ‘We were all supposed to be going off somewhere—a church event or something. She was shouting out to us, Kids! Come on! I want you ready in ten minutes! And she came through into the room, drying her hands on a tea-towel. Oh my God, the look on her face when she saw what Eden was doing. She was going, Put that filthy creature down right this second! And she started running over to him, but she must’ve caught her knee on a table or something, I don’t know, and the next minute she was all bent up, rubbing her kneecap. And the next thing—’ She trailed off, widening her eyes at Oscar. ‘Why are you’re looking at me like that? I swear to God, I’m not making this up. Honest, I’m not. You’ve got to believe me—’

  ‘I believe you,’ he told her. ‘Just tell me what happened.’

  ‘You’re going to think I’m imagining it.’

  ‘What happened, Iris?’

  She took a breath. ‘The bird started moving again. It was making this little sound like flupp-flupp, flupp-flupp. Started twitching, squirming around in his hands, screeching—this horrible screeching—and he was struggling just to keep hold of it. His arms were juddering around, and then—woosh!—he just let the thing go, gave it a little throw upwards. And it flew. It went right out through the French doors, easy as that. I watched it go straight into the trees like nothing had even happened to it.’

  ‘What did your mum do?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s just it.’ Iris tried to shift herself closer to him, but the pain of moving caused her to wince. ‘I think she was just glad the bird was out of the house. She wasn’t even that angry with him. She told him to wash his hands with Fairy Liquid right away and not touch any of the furniture.’

  ‘She didn’t punish him or anything?’

  ‘Nope. She told me to get changed, and we all went off to the church thing with her, and nothing more was said about it. I bet if you asked her about it now, she wouldn’t even remember.’