Not What You Think

by Melissa Hill

  Nicola shook her head, remembering those first few weeks in the chair. That was definitely the lowest point on her road to recovery – to normality. She had regained a lot of strength by then as a result of her rehab, but her arms tired easily while trying to manoeuvre from place to place, and her bedsores stung desperately – all the things doctors had warned her about, but still she hadn’t expected. Because she was trying so hard and progressing little, Nicola became easily frustrated and hated the fact that she couldn’t do anything for herself – her mother doing all the simple things, carrying her, bathing her, getting her in and out of bed.

  At that stage Nicola thought she would lose her mind. Yes, she was lucky to be alive, but what kind of a life was this?

  Still, Dan visited every day, but Nicola knew by then that they had already grown apart. They were uneasy around one another, Dan trying hard not to say the wrong thing; Nicola becoming easily annoyed by what he did say. She was sick of his self-pity, his lack of support, his glum appearance. Nicola needed positives, she needed her husband to reassure her that she would be okay, that he would be there for her, that of course everything would be fine. But there was never any talk of what might happen in the future, of where they would live, or what they would do when eventually Nicola regained her independence.

  Still, she knew that her attitude at the time was partly the problem. In the early wheelchair days (as she called them), she was often tired, short-tempered and at times – despite all her best intentions – self-pitying. Nothing Dan said or did was enough for her. She was pushing him away, but she couldn’t help herself.

  One particular day, Dan called to see her after work. He was tired and harassed-looking, and simply because he didn’t greet her with a kiss Nicola accused him of being selfish.

  Something in Dan snapped.

  “Did you ever,” he asked, pronouncing his words slowly and clearly, “ever once think about how all of this might be affecting me?”

  “You!” Nicola laughed resentfully. “You’re not the one sitting here day after day unable to do anything for yourself, relying on other people to do the simplest things for you. No, you’re off living the high life, gallivanting here there and everywhere – with God knows who else!” She didn’t know where the outburst had come from but she couldn’t help herself.

  “Living the high life?” Dan had croaked. “How could you even say something like that? I know how hard it is for you, love, I can only imagine – but it’s hard for me too. I don’t know what to say to you any more – I don’t know how to help. You seem to resent the fact that I’m not here with you, yet you know you couldn’t cope on your own in the apartment.”

  “If you really wanted to, you could take time off work to look after me.” Nicola knew she was being petulant but she couldn’t think of anything else to say to him. She didn’t really want that, she would have hated Dan having to do everything for her and she longed for the day she would be strong enough to look after herself. But, at the time, that day seemed very far away.

  “Take time off work? Nicola, do you have any idea how much money we owe the hospital?” Although their health insurance covered most of the hospital bills, it didn’t cover the cost of her rehabilitation. “We still don’t know the outcome of the insurance with that driver – it could take years to sort out, if ever. I might have to sell out my share of the company to drum up the cash!”

  “Money! Insurance! Do you think any of those things matter to me at this very moment, Dan? Do you think I give one stuff how much we owe the hospital?”

  Dan ran a hand through his hair. “Nicola, I don’t think I can go on like this,” he said eventually. “It’s been months, and I still don’t know what you want me to do, what you want me to say! Of course it’s hard for you, I know that, but it’s bloody hard for me too! I never expected things to turn out like this!”

  Nicola’s heart galloped with fear – a new fear. “What does that mean, Dan?”

  “It means . . .” he said, his voice almost a whisper, “it means that I don’t know what to do. Our life has been turned upside down by this. I don’t know how we’re supposed to get out of it. I can’t see an end to it. You’re coping as best you can, I know that, but there’s nothing in the information booklets telling me how to cope.” He looked at her, his eyes filled with desperation. “Can you tell me? Can somebody please tell me what I’m supposed to do to stop myself feeling like this?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know. I just think that – that maybe we should spend some time apart.”

  “What?” she whispered, stunned.

  “I don’t see any other way,” Dan said quietly. “Maybe you might be able to come to terms with this easier if I wasn’t around so much. Nicola, sometimes you look at me like you hate me. I don’t know how to respond to that. I’m not made of stone.”

  “Well, poor you,” she said, her voice hardening, “poor, poor Dan. What the hell did you expect? That as soon as I got the chair I’d be back to normal and buzzing cheerfully around the place, playing the part of the happy little wife that you want me to be?” She was crying now, warm tears racing down both cheeks. “Well, what about you? What happened to ‘for better or worse’, Dan – didn’t you say those words once, didn’t you promise to be there in both sickness and in health? You did and I did – so what happened?”

  “I didn’t know,” Dan said finally, tears glistening in his eyes. “I just didn’t know it would be so hard.”

  And that was the end.

  Nicola stayed on with her mother and Dan’s visits became less frequent until eventually he stopped coming altogether. When he did come there was very little to say, the resentment and hurt between them too strong to overcome.

  Their eventual separation was an epiphany for Nicola. One morning shortly afterwards, she woke up and felt a sense of unbelievable clarity, as if her mind had been purged of some huge, negative tumour. Although hurt deeply by Dan’s rejection of her, Nicola decided to regain control of her life and in order to do this, she knew she needed time away – from everything.

  She took up an early offer made by her mother’s sister Ellen to spend some time with her in the UK. Her aunt lived near Fulham and was insistent that coming to stay for a while would be the best thing for Nicola. “It’ll do you good to get away,” Ellen, a jolly fifty-five-year-old had said, “and I’m sure your mother will be delighted to get rid of you!”

  That was what Nicola loved about living with Ellen. There was no sitting around and feeling sorry for herself where her aunt was concerned. They talked a lot, slow easy conversations about life, love – and Dan.

  Nicola had (a little unfairly she realised now) left for London without telling him. For months she had heard nothing, until one morning Ellen handed her a letter with a Bray postmark. In the letter Dan tried to explain how he had been feeling, and about how sorry he was that they couldn’t make it work. The letter had a kind of cleansing effect on her, and Nicola sensed it was his way of saying that it was over – over for good. It had been odd at the time, but strangely liberating.

  Was it just them, she wondered, or was there a breaking point in every marriage – a point from which there was no going back, no matter how strong the relationship might be? She and Dan had overcome a lot together, but maybe there was only so much a marriage could take.

  A week later she contacted a solicitor.

  Of course, Nicola thought now, getting over Dan and coming to terms with life in a wheelchair was only the beginning and she’d been totally unprepared for the reaction she got from the outside world. It was as though she was no longer a person, but rather a disabled person. The qualifier was, of course, inevitable, but brought with it connotations that she had never expected. When she had become used to the wheelchair, and had begun going out and about on her own, she had been unprepared for people’s attitudes. People treated her sometimes like she had lost not just the use of her legs but also the use of her brain, like Miss Reporte
r Fidelma that time at work: ‘I have to ask – isn’t it unusual for someone like yourself to be involved in this type of industry?’ She had seen the slight discomfort in people’s eyes at Laura’s wedding, when as bridesmaid she wheeled up the aisle ahead of the bride. In fairness, she wouldn’t have dreamed of turning Laura down and the bridal designer had done a wonderful job with the dress but it still felt strange.

  At times, other people’s attitudes were soul-destroying, but at other times they could be quite comical. It wasn’t something she thought she would ever get used to, but eventually she had learned not to let people’s attitudes bother her.

  It wasn’t always easy getting around in the chair in public either, and in the early days she often misjudged her manoeuvres and bashed into chairs and tables, knocking over drinks and condiments. It was frustrating but still she knew she just had to take these things in her stride.

  It was difficult too to get to grips with the things that were so straightforward for able-bodied people but tricky for her, things like mounting and descending kerbs, opening doors – and as for steps, forget about it! Escalators were a total no-no, which is why she had to pick and choose where she shopped.

  Certainly things had improved over the last few years, with various Equality Acts making civil architects and county-council planners more aware of disability issues, but Nicola could count on both hands the number of times she had tried to enter a building via a wheelchair ramp, and then discovered that the entrance door opened outwards – a very difficult prospect! There were now many premises that included wheelchair-parking facilities, but it was pretty obvious that these were often included only as a gesture, and without any real thought – spaces the same dimensions as regular parking spaces. How could anyone have enough room to get in and out of the car with a wheelchair in one of those?

  Not to mention the morons who parked too close alongside genuine disabled facilities, ensuring that wheelchair users could barely open the driver’s door – let alone manoeuvre into the car. Of course, Nicola thought smiling, this is where the huge mother and child spaces worked a treat – being a harassed mother with a buggy obviously considered by carpark planners as being a lot more of a hardship than being disabled! And leave it all to those upstanding citizens who believed leaving their hazard lights on conferred some excuse as to why their cars were parked in a space reserved for the less able.

  Nevertheless, being able to drive at all was a huge bonus for her. It hadn’t been easy learning to use the hand-controls, and initially getting herself in and out of the car was a real challenge.

  Still, all in all, Nicola couldn’t really complain. Yes, it was a huge blow at the beginning and yes, it was a massive change in lifestyle but she had eventually come to see it as just that – a change in lifestyle. There was very little she couldn’t do. Sure, she had to put a lot more thought into getting from place to place and occasionally she missed being so active – missed her bike rides into the mountains and sometimes silly things like boogeying on the dance-floor when she went out clubbing.

  But once she had learned to use it properly, the chair simply became an extension of herself. She had a great job, great friends, her own fully wheelchair-customised house, and of course, she had Barney to keep an eye on her.

  Not to mention the wonderful Ken Harris. Nicola smiled. After Dan, falling in love again was the last thing she’d expected.

  * * *

  Her car had been on the blink again, and she’d been waiting for a taxi home from work. The same day, Nicola remembered, she had been in a right strop. Because the car was out of action, she was using the manual as opposed to her trusty power-wheelchair, and she hated the manual chair.

  “Waiting for anyone in particular?” Ken had enquired, briefcase in hand as he passed through reception.

  Nicola was sitting just inside the centre’s front porch. “My lift home,” she answered, keeping one eye on the Motiv8 entrance.

  “The car giving you problems again?” he asked. “You should have told me earlier. I could have organised a lift for you.”

  She waved it away. “It’s fine. Anyway, I think he’s here now.”

  Ken followed her gaze. “Ah, I don’t think so.”

  The approaching taxi was meant for Nicola, but the dispatcher had neglected to mention that the lift was for a disabled passenger. The taxi driver looked apologetically at his saloon Ford Mondeo into which there wasn’t a hope of fitting even a collapsed buggy, let alone a manual wheelchair.

  “Sorry, love,” he said out of the wound-down window. “I’ll ring dispatch and get them to send the right car out to you straightway.”

  “It’s fine,” Ken informed him. “I’ll give her a lift. It’s on my way.”

  “You sure, bud?” The taxi-man looked from one to the other.

  “It’s fine,” said Ken quickly just as Nicola opened her mouth to protest. “Thanks anyway.”

  When the man drove off, Nicola glared at Ken. “I can organise my own lift home, thank you very much.”

  “Oh, don’t be so bloody defensive,” he said easily, dosing the door behind them. “You need a lift home, and I told you that I’m going that way.”

  “To Stepaside?”

  “Yes, but I need to drop something off in Terenure beforehand.”

  She stopped moving. “I knew it! You’re putting yourself out just because I’m stuck and –”

  Ken rolled his eyes. “Will you stop your bloody gabbing for once and just say thank you?”

  Nicola hadn’t expected that. “OK then, thanks,” she said, feeling like a bold child.

  They reached his car. “Now, do you need any help, or would it be too dangerous for my health to offer?” he said, disengaging the central locking.

  Nicola hid a smile. Was she really that touchy?

  “I’ll be fine,” she answered, carefully manoeuvring herself out of her wheelchair and onto the passenger seat. Before she knew it, Ken had expertly collapsed the chair and was storing it in the boot of his roomy Citroen Picasso.

  Nicola stated at him, surprised at his ease.

  “What?” he asked, seeing her questioning look.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve done that before.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe you don’t know better.”

  Nicola stared straight ahead, not knowing how to answer that.

  Ken grinned. “Nothing to say, Nicola? That’s not like you.”

  “Well, what do you want me to say?” she said huffily. Whatever it was about Ken he always seemed to bring out her petulant side. Sometimes it drove her absolutely mad and now was one of those times.

  After a moment Ken spoke. “OK then, if you must know, my dad’s a C4 quad.”

  “Really?” Nicola couldn’t hide her surprise. She had come across many quadriplegics throughout her rehabilitation. C4 was the one of the most difficult, the worst kind of injury.

  “Yes, really. Car accident. He’s been in a wheelchair since I was twelve years old.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  Ken shrugged again. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

  That was certainly true. But thinking about it, Ken’s easy-going attitude to her now made a lot more sense. He always treated her the same way he had since before her accident. That was why she had accepted the job here in the first place. It was like Ken didn’t even see her disability. And why would he, Nicola thought, if he had been brought up not to?

  “So is he completely paralysed or –?”

  “Arms and legs. He can move his neck and shoulders and has feeling in just one of his fingers. But he’s OK.”

  Nicola suddenly felt ashamed. Here she was feeling sorry for herself and considering herself immobile because her car was out of action.

  “So does he live with you or -?” Nicola wondered why she was suddenly having trouble finishing her sentences. She wanted to know more, but didn’t want to appear nosey.

  “Nah, he’s at home with my mum.” He smile
d. “She’s great with him but, as you can imagine, it’s not always easy. He has a nurse coming in a few days a week to keep an eye on him, and I often take him out and about at weekends, just to get him away from the house.” Ken flashed her a sideways grin. “So in case you ever wondered why I drive a space wagon instead of a flashy Beamer, now you know.”

  They drove in easy silence towards Terenure and Nicola waited patiently while Ken dropped something off nearby. Afterwards, they headed towards Stepaside, getting behind a line of stationary traffic on the way.

  “This is completely out of your way, Ken. You really didn’t have to,” Nicola said, willing the traffic to move. Ken would be all hours getting home.

  “It’s not a problem.”

  “Yes, but I could have waited for the taxi and you could be home by now.”

  He looked at her. “Nicola, did it ever cross your silly little mind that I might actually want to drop you home?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ken tapped the steering wheel, while the car remained stationary. “We’ve known each other – what – nearly five, six years now?”

  “Hmm.”

  “And in all that time, we’ve never once done anything together outside of work. So I’m bringing you home because I consider myself an old friend – and I want to have a gawk at your house.”

  Nicola’s face broke into a wide smile. “You want to see my house?”

  “Well, Jason McAteer will be Ireland soccer manager by the time I get an invitation from you, so I thought I might as well invite myself.”

  Nicola pondered this. Ken was right. They had known one another for a long time, even longer than Nicola had known Dan. While they got on fantastically well in their working relationship, that was where it had always ended. There was usually little opportunity for socialising at Motiv8 because of the odd shifts and long hours. She hadn’t really thought about it before, but there was no reason why she and Ken shouldn’t be friendly outside work. They were pretty close inside so why not otherwise?