A Line of Blood

by McPherson, Ben

  On Friday, Dee’s agent rang to express concern. Dee was a little surprised to be feeling so neglected after what had seemed like such a successful evening at the Sacred Cock. But there had been no feedback.

  ‘So, I feed back to you about the evening I had with Dee? Is that really how this is done?’

  ‘It’s often said sneeringly, Alex, but it really is true: actors are delicate flowers. They need to be nurtured in order to bloom.’

  ‘She’s a comedian.’

  ‘Just as delicate. Believe me.’

  ‘So how do I bring forth blossom in Dee?’

  ‘Orchids. Delicate flowers love delicate flowers, Alex. Send her orchids but don’t spend more than a hundred pounds.’

  ‘A hundred pounds?’

  ‘Dee’s terribly down-to-earth. But I think you already know that. She says you’re very good at reading her.’

  ‘Reading her?’

  ‘Between you and me, she’s got a bit of a creative crush on you.’

  ‘A creative crush?’

  ‘A creative crush.’

  ‘Not to be confused with a crush of any other sort?’

  ‘No, Alex, no. But creatively she says you make her all moist.’

  A pause. As I wondered what to say, Millicent came into the kitchen and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Alex, it might be useful if I could feed back something similar to Dee.’

  ‘She’s very bright, and very pretty, and very funny, and I’m really looking forward to working with her. Her charisma will really shine through the screen.’ I smiled weakly at Millicent.

  ‘Alex, don’t misunderstand me and think me rude, but those things are a given. Of course you are looking forward to working with Dee. I’d like to have something a bit more to feed back to her, if you don’t mind. She’s terribly nervous about this trip, and it’s not as if you’ve worked together before. She’s taking a chance on you, and I think she needs to know that you are a chance worth taking …’

  ‘I’m just as turned on at the prospect of working with Dee as she is at the prospect of working with me.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Millicent. ‘Interesting choice.’

  ‘And that’s great, Alex, but really you need to give a little more of yourself.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Well, with respect, you are really just repeating back to me what Dee has said about you. A bit like saying “me too” when somebody says they love you. You know?’

  ‘You can tell Dee that I am tumescent with creativity. It’s just waiting to spout forth from me.’ Millicent raised an eyebrow at me.

  ‘Really?’ she mouthed.

  ‘Yes,’ I mouthed back. ‘Really.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dee’s agent. ‘Tumescent is a good word there. Dee will appreciate your going the extra mile. Thank you.’

  ‘You’ll tell her, then, about my creative tumescence?’

  ‘Put it on the card you send with the orchids. Handwritten. Best if it reaches her by 4p.m. OK?’

  I hung up. Millicent smiled a mocking smile. ‘Let me guess. That was a business call.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think they had you on speaker?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘You have a weird life, Alex.’

  ‘Stop trying to make me like you.’

  ‘Not working, huh?’

  My phone rang. Rose. She had given me her number that first day, and I had stored it. I rejected the call. I didn’t want to talk to Rose in front of Millicent.

  Millicent offered me a cigarette. I took it, and lit it from the lighter in my pocket. We sat and smoked at the kitchen table. I could feel Millicent’s eyes on me, and avoided meeting her gaze.

  On the table my phone vibrated. A text message. Millicent’s eyes widened. I took a drag on my cigarette, studiously avoided looking at the phone.

  ‘Could be important,’ she said, turning the phone round. ‘Who’s Rose?’

  ‘The neighbour’s sister. I told you that.’

  ‘Oh yes. Sure. I’m guessing she’s cute?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And I’m sure she’s pretty, and she’s spiffy, and she’s oh-so-delicate. Just your type.’

  ‘You can’t talk to me like that.’

  She looked back at me, defiant. ‘Alex, we have to stop walking on eggshells. I’m trying to normalise things a little.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘given that you slept with her brother I’m really not sure what the norms are.’

  I rolled my cigarette around the lip of a dirty cup. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m trying, Millicent, really I am.’

  ‘Alex,’ she said, ‘are you surprised these women feel a sense of ownership over you? Like, you have a creative hard-on for Dee. And why is … Rose … even texting you?’

  I picked up my phone, opened the message.

  Coroner has agreed to early release of body. Funeral Saturday 2pm. St Thomas Church. Thank you for your support. Sorry for short notice. R xx

  I held the phone up to Millicent.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry for what I said.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You’re going to go?’

  I nodded. She sniffed heavily, looked pained.

  ‘I guess they released the body. I didn’t know they could do that.’

  ‘Will you come too, Millicent?’

  ‘Won’t that be a little weird?’

  ‘Everything’s weird.’ I didn’t mean to spit the words at her. I was trying hard not to act on the rage that was welling inside me. But there was acid in my mouth, and it was growing harder to swallow it back.

  ‘Alex, ’she said, ‘you have a right to be angry about what I did, but I need you to listen to me.’

  The fury was mounting in me. ‘Bryce listened,’ I said, ‘Bryce understood.’

  ‘He lost a child, Alex. Like I did.’

  ‘Why does his loss trump mine? I feel the same pain you do, Millicent.’

  ‘And you are so cloaked in anger since Sarah died. Alex, we grew apart. Yeah, Bryce listened. He let me talk.’

  ‘That’s slightly ironic.’ I kept my voice as level as I could. ‘Because I was trying, Millicent, I really was. But you disappeared into this weird little world of your own making, Millicent. And when you came out, you moved on.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I held things together when you fell apart, Millicent.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, Alex, you did. And I will always love you for what you did.’

  ‘You don’t want help from me, though, do you? Why wouldn’t you talk to me?’

  Millicent flinched. I realised I was holding her wrist in my right hand. I let go of her, and got up, leaned against the work surface.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘That was, you know …’

  ‘Inappropriate.’

  ‘Yes. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  We were both fighting the tears. I hardened my resolve and looked away. I wasn’t going to cry.

  ‘Millicent,’ I said, ‘I’m done trying to forgive you. I’ve tried. I can’t. And I’m sure you’re right, and I’m sure some of it’s my fault, but I can’t accept what you’ve done.

  ‘Seven years of this, Millicent. Seven years of Frisbee in the park and wordless hatred in the home. Seven years before Max leaves home. Just imagine how much we can mess each other up in that time.’

  She made as if to say something, but I cut across her again.

  ‘Your cute and adorable son,’ I said, ‘thinks you’re a bitch, by the way. It was hard to know what to say.’

  ‘A bitch?’

  ‘A fucking bitch. Max’s words.’

  Millicent stood up, looked at me, and with great economy of movement picked up a bottle that was lying on the counter. She looked at me again, and swung the bottle at me.

  ‘Millicent, what?’

  As the bottle met my temple it shattered.

  ‘Full,’ I thought. ‘Wine,’ I thought. ‘Red,’ I said. Dark.
>
  Millicent stood, unmoving, gulping air, the neck of the bottle still in her hand.

  ‘Cut you, Millicent,’ I said, or thought. ‘You cut you.’

  I nodded at her hand. There was a gash joining her lifeline to the line of her wrist. Millicent did not look down.

  ‘Doctor you,’ I tried to say. ‘Mend you.’

  Millicent was looking very directly at me. She dropped the bottleneck and reached towards me. I reached out for her hand, and tried to steady myself. Then Millicent went dark and the day outside went very bright.

  I heard Millicent make a telephone call, and felt her hand on mine in the ambulance. I heard her whispering, ‘I’m so sorry, Alex. I’m so very, very sorry.’

  When she explained to the registrar she didn’t try to cover her guilt. She didn’t claim self-defence. She had reached the end of her tether, she said. She had run out of things to say.

  Then she told the same story to the consultant, and again to the police.

  ‘We will want to speak to your husband. He may wish to press charges. Assuming …’

  ‘Assuming he’s OK? Sure. I understand.’

  She cried after the police had left. Then she called Tarek’s mother, and asked if Max could stay over. Then she called Max, and told him that I was in hospital.

  ‘Your dad fell over and hit his head. I’ll explain when I see you.’

  She instructed him on what she wanted him to pack, and when to expect Tarek’s mum.

  Someone tapped my arm. I felt the needle, felt nothing, then felt everything: light-shards traced from that point of singularity to the outer reaches of my body. Opiates, I thought. Good, I thought. In the absence of love, let there be opiates. Let me sleep the sleep of kings.

  ‘No, Max, no, his eyes are open. Yes. Yes, I hope so. I think so … I love you too, Max. I love you too.’

  My mind departed. It knew the misery of life alone in a hospital bed, and the consolation of open spaces. At some time in the middle of a dream I thought I saw Mr Ashani, sitting on the end of my bed. ‘What happened?’ I wanted to say. ‘Are you alive?’

  Mr Ashani spoke for a while. Mr Ashani told me something important. Mr Ashani was gone.

  My mind returned. The light-shards dissolved from my body and I woke.

  I sat up. The lamp above the next bed was on, although there was no one in it. There was a chair, on which Millicent must have sat, and a sink. The curtains were open, and there was light in the sky. I could smell old cigarettes, and guessed that Millicent had smoked out of the window.

  I found something that felt like a handle and pulled it.

  A person in a white uniform came in and said, ‘OK, good.’ She left before I could speak.

  Someone had slept on top of the other bed. Or lain on it at least. The pillow was heavily indented, and the bedclothes carried the imprint of a small body. I looked at the imprint, wondered for a moment whether this would be the last I would see of Millicent.

  I cupped my chin with my left hand. Wrong. Very wrong.

  It took me a moment to realise what was out of balance. The thumb found stubble. The forefinger and middle finger returned the wrong data. Nerve damage. I changed hands. This time the forefinger and middle finger found stubble. The thumb found newly shaved skin.

  I checked again with both hands. The right-hand side of my face was shaved, the left was not. The shaving had been very precise. There was a clear straight line from below my nose, past my chin, and across my Adam’s apple. I could feel no pain from the right side of my face, but my fingers found what must be dressings near my cheekbone. I found another shaved patch by my temple, found another dressing, and thought I could make out the shape of sutures under the dressing.

  There was a mirror over the sink. But I wasn’t yet ready for that.

  Millicent came in. She didn’t seem surprised to see me sitting up.

  ‘Hey,’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘So, that wasn’t good.’

  No, I thought, that wasn’t good.

  ‘You OK?’

  I considered this. On balance, yes, I was OK. I nodded.

  ‘Hurts, right?’

  I brought my hand up to my cheek, and then to my temple.

  ‘So, there’s a doctor coming to see you. You want me to go?’

  I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t shake my head, but she seemed to understand.

  ‘Blink twice for no, right?’

  I nodded.

  Looking Millicent in the eye, I touched the left side of my face, then the right.

  ‘I guess they were saving money,’ said Millicent. ‘You know, like how cancer surgeons make ugly scars because neat scars take time, and if they save half an hour every operation, they can fit in another one, right?’

  I touched my face again, nodded.

  ‘So, I guess by that logic maybe it makes sense to shave half your face, Alex. Maybe an orderly can shave a lot more half-faces than faces. If their job involves a lot of shaving.’

  The doctor came in. Fifty-five, I thought, with close-cropped silvered hair. She and Millicent had a murmured conversation by the other bed. Then she shone a light in my eyes, and asked me to answer questions by raising my right or left hand.

  Was I comfortable?

  I raised my right hand from the sheet.

  Did I remember what had happened?

  I thought for a moment, then raised my right hand.

  Was I in pain?

  I raised my left hand.

  Did I recognise Millicent?

  I paused for a long time. Then I raised my left hand. The doctor looked a little concerned.

  ‘I think he may be joking,’ said Millicent. I raised my right hand.

  ‘You see,’ said Millicent. ‘He’s joking.’

  The doctor didn’t look convinced. She asked me whether, in my opinion, my body was working as it should. I raised my right hand.

  The doctor began to explain something to me, but I was tiring of her. I raised my finger and put it to my lips. Millicent and the doctor looked at each other.

  I touched my left cheek, then my right, then my left.

  Millicent nodded. ‘So, before you came in, Alex and I were discussing why you had shaved half his face.’

  The doctor ignored Millicent and began to explain to me that I had suffered a blunt-injury trauma, but that there hadn’t been any bleeding into my skull cavity. They would be keeping me in for observation, which might take some time.

  ‘Fffffffff,’ I said.

  There was a very long pause.

  ‘Fffffffff,’ I said again.

  ‘Mr Mercer, we need to keep you in.’

  ‘Ffffffuck.’

  ‘Mr Mercer?’

  ‘Offffff.’

  Millicent looked as if she was about to laugh. Then she looked very serious.

  I lay back on the bed.

  Millicent and the doctor went to the other end of the room. I couldn’t hear what they said, but Millicent was nodding.

  The doctor returned.

  ‘Mr Mercer?’

  ‘Get … to fuck.’

  They exchanged a meaningful look.

  ‘Mr Mercer, we need to keep you in.’

  ‘Away to fuck, Doctor.’

  Millicent put her hand on my arm. ‘Alex, the doctor is concerned. I’m concerned.’

  ‘Why do I sound so Scottish?’

  Another significant look passed between Millicent and the doctor.

  ‘Mr Mercer, I’m pleased you are able to speak, but more than a little concerned at the content of your utterances.’

  ‘Tell the doctor to let me go home, Millicent.’

  ‘Mr Mercer, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’

  ‘Oh, come on, sweetchops.’

  ‘Alex,’ said Millicent, stroking my face.

  ‘I’m fine. Tell the doctor I’m fine.’

  ‘He says he’s fine, Doctor.’

  ‘Mr Mercer, you are not fine.’

  ‘Millicent, a
sk the doctor if my face is OK to go home.’

  The doctor confirmed to Millicent that there was nothing much wrong with my face.

  ‘OK, Millicent, then I’m coming home with you.’ I threw off the bedclothes and stood up.

  ‘Mr Mercer, you are to stay here,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Away with you, hen. Millicent, where are my clothes?’

  ‘Alex,’ said Millicent, ‘I need to know that you really are OK.’

  ‘And how do I prove that to you?’

  ‘You sure you don’t want to get yourself slightly more thoroughly checked out?’

  ‘That would be my advice, Mr Mercer,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Away to fuck, hen,’ I said.

  Millicent and the doctor went to the far end of the room and spoke in low voices. I heard the words rescan him. The doctor left the room.

  ‘She sending for reinforcements?’ I asked Millicent.

  ‘No, Alex, they want to scan you again.’

  ‘Fuck her.’

  ‘Your behaviour is consistent with brain injury. Which she was trying to tell you.’

  ‘Consistent with. But not.’

  ‘Then what is this, Alex?’

  ‘Displacement.’

  ‘Displacement?’

  ‘Displacement. This is displacement.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Easier to hate her than you. Doesn’t hurt anyone if I hate her. Too much hurt if I hate you.’

  ‘Isn’t that transference, honey?’ said Millicent. ‘Anyway, I think she’s a little upset, Alex. She’s just doing her job.’

  ‘Not real hurt, that. Not like what we’ve got. Is it?’

  ‘I guess not. But you could be a little politer.’

  ‘Politer?’

  ‘Politer.’

  ‘That’s not a word.’

  ‘It is, Alex.’

  ‘Do I seem in any way impaired to you, Millicent?’

  Millicent studied my face for a moment.

  ‘No, not impaired, exactly. But you’re being a little weird.’

  ‘Weird how?’

  ‘All that misdirected anger. She’s only trying to help you.’

  ‘Want me to direct it at the appropriate target again?’

  A frown flashed across her brow. ‘If I’m honest, Alex, I like this a little better.’