by Denis Hughes
Varden was picked up unconscious by the Galway trawler Rosy Sky. He was transferred shortly afterwards to a naval corvette and eventually rushed to a hospital in southern England—a big, white concrete building with firm, un-giving beds, rubber wheeled trolleys and rustling nurses. They put him in a private ward with a single bed, a red screen, a wooden chair and a table. On the chair they put a black haired Irish nurse with a turned up nose and a temperature chart belonging to the patient.
Varden knew nothing about it. He might have been dead for all the interest he showed, but he was vaguely aware of not having enough room in the bed. Once or twice he tried to open his eyes to tell the other man to get out and leave him alone. The Irish nurse might have helped him if she’d known about it, but they’d only given him a single bed.
He came round, came back to life, in the middle of the night. He was conscious of numbness, then pain.
The Irish nurse sent for Doctor Shoreham, the finest eye specialist in the country. He came and bent over Varden, his keen face anxious and critical.
Varden opened his eyes, blank and bleak and dead looking as the doctor studied them. They were like a pair of pebbles among the swathes of bandage round his burned jaw and cheek bones.
Shoreham looked at the nurse, nodding. Varden could hear someone moving close to him, could smell them and sense them, but he couldn’t see them. He thought he could see the other man who was taking up so much of the bed, but when he tried to speak and complain about it he could only gasp, and the gasp sent scalding pain through his throat where fire had eaten it. Before they could give him any dope he passed out again, sinking into darkness even blacker than the pit of his sightless eyes.
During the days that followed he came round several more times, living yet not alive, swimming in a misty world of pain through which he was dimly aware—when agony let up for brief lucid periods—that he was blind. The cold iron of bitter defeat entered his soul and he no longer wanted to live. What good was a man without sight? He asked the black haired nurse once, but she couldn’t tell him. He didn’t know her hair was black. He asked the man who shared his bed, who tossed and turned so restlessly and wouldn’t let him have any peace. But the man couldn’t answer his question either. He was blind, too. He called the Irish nurse Viki, but her name was Kathleen.
They told him at last, told him when the pain was less and the spasms of bitterness longer.
“There’s just a chance that we’ll be able to get your sight back,” they said. He listened and wondered what the faces of these men were like.
“You can try,” he told them. “But I’d appreciate it just as much if you gave me another bed, a bigger one. This other man wants all the room.”
They looked at each other helplessly. “He’s complained of that before,” said Kathleen. “It doesn’t make sense.”
The other man told Varden to complain more often, but there was a mocking note in his voice as if it wouldn’t make any difference. “You’ve got me for keeps,” he added vindictively.
“Shut up!” snarled Varden. He called the other man a name that made Kathleen blush and the doctors frown. Then they went away and left him alone with his companion.
“You see?” said the man with a chuckle. “It’s rather funny, isn’t it?”
“I can’t see!” snapped Varden. “Who the hell are you anyway?”
“Robert Varden,” came the answer.
Varden thought about it for a spell. “You can’t be,” he said. “I’m Varden.”
“That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”
“Go to the devil!” shouted Varden.
“We’ll both go, shall we?” answered Varden derisively. “Don’t you have any girl friends to visit you?”
“Not while you’re around!”
Varden sighed wearily. “Too bad,” he mused. “I couldn’t see them, but I might hold their hands. What about Viki, now? She was pretty good. Or that red-head we knew.”
Varden was very still and quiet. Varden pinched his leg playfully, making him shout. Kathleen was startled, but he told her to be quiet and not fuss.
“What’s she look like?” asked the other man in a whisper.
“I don’t know, damn you!” he grated. “I can’t see her any more plainly than you can!”
“She sounded pretty good to me.”
“What does it matter what she looks like?”
“Ah, you never know, my friend. Still, I suppose you are right in a way. We’re handicapped, aren’t we?”
“I wish I could kill you!” muttered Varden.
“You’d have one hell of a job, brother!” came the curt reply.
“I’d still like to kill you!”
Kathleen was relieved when her tour of duty came to an end. She complained to the Sister about Varden’s abusive language and threats. The Sister arranged a transfer for her.
For a while there was peace.
A week went by, and then Rhonna came to see him. She saw the specialist beforehand.
“We want to operate and give him a chance of sight,” he told her patiently. “But he must help himself, you understand? At the moment he doesn’t seem to care what happens, and he has some complex or other that worries us considerably. Perhaps if you talked to him for a while it might help.”
She walked rather stiffly when a nurse led her down the long white corridors to Varden’s room. There was darkness inside and another nurse sitting in the shadows beyond a reading lamp with a green shade. Rhonna could barely see Varden on the bed. She moved slowly and almost reluctantly towards him. His head was rocking monotonously from side to side as she looked down at him. She couldn’t dislike him now. Only sympathy and hurt rose in her heart, swamping put those earlier emotions.
“Hello,” she said softly. “It’s me, Bob, Rhonna. I— I thought you’d like to talk to someone.”
His head became still, frozen by the words. Then the meaning of them sank in on his mind.
“Rhonna,” he muttered. “What the devil do you want?” He gave a cracked laugh. “I suppose,” he added, “you’ve come to gloat over me now! Well, they stopped the war without your help or your father’s, didn’t they?” His voice was harsh and bitter, full of calculating desire to hurt and harm this girl who had been his friend. He was hurting her because if he didn’t she would hurt herself. He wasn’t any use to a woman now.
Rhonna’s mouth tightened. ‘I’m sorry,” she murmured. “No, Bob, I didn’t come to gloat. I just came to say I was sorry about what happened to you.”
The other man prodded Varden in the ribs. “You’re a fool to speak to her that way,” he said. “Make her stick around.”
“Shut up!” shouted Varden wildly. “For God’s sake get out of my bed, blast you!”
Rhonna swallowed, glancing hastily at the nurse in the corner. The nurse shook her head slightly, saying nothing. Rhonna cleared her throat.
“I’ll go now,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. He mustn’t know what she was feeling about him. There was a lump in her throat as she saw the ghastly grin that twisted his mouth when he gazed unseeingly at where she was standing.
“Don’t send her away” said the other man plaintively. “You spoil my fun, you do.”
“Listen,” said Varden in a dangerous tone. “If you utter one more word I’ll strangle you!”
Rhonna was crying softly, unable to stop herself, but he didn’t know and she made no sound. She didn’t dare to speak again for fear of letting him know the truth. When she stood outside the door in the cool, lofty passage and grabbed at what was left of her thin self-control she could still hear the gall of his words. She wondered almost savagely if he would have spoken like that to Viki.
*
The eyes of the surgeons met across Varden’s body. Heads were nodded silently, gestures made and answered. In the stillness of the operating theatre there was only the sound of breathing and the tiny click of surgical instruments. The white muslin masks bent and ducked as they worked, rubbe
r gloved hands busy.
At last it was over. The chief surgeon straightened up.
“All right,” he said quietly, his voice muffled slightly by the mask he wore. “Take him away now. Complete darkness, absolute silence, please. I’ll talk with the ward Sister myself.”
Varden came out of the anaesthetic to find himself back in the same single bed with the same man sharing it. The other man was snoring. Varden reached out a hand and felt him all over to make sure he was real. There was a lot he didn’t understand, but one thing he did comprehend was that in some weird way this other man could talk to him so that no one else could hear. His bed-fellow was, in fact, solid without being visible to outsiders. It came as something of a shock when he thought about it, but his head was aching too badly to think for long.
As soon as he tried to go back to the world of unconsciousness, however, the other man woke.
“Have they finished with us?” he inquired.
Varden said, “Yes. Later on they’ll take off the bandages and we might be able to see.”
“Thank the Lord for that!” was the fervent reply.
Varden said: “Is your name really Varden?”
“Of course it is!” The man sounded indignant. “Robert Varden,” he said.
Varden scowled, but it hurt his face so he stopped. “Listen, Varden,” he whispered, hoping there was no one to hear. “I’m going to make a pact with you. If you don’t speak while I’m talking to other people I promise not to complain about your behaviour in bed. Is it a deal?”
Varden laughed cynically. It was not a pleasant sound, “I get you all mixed up, don’t I?” he sneered. “It was me that sent the Blake girl off.” He paused, considering. “That was a pity in a way, I think I’d have liked her. I always did go for red-heads.”
Varden shuddered uncontrollably. He felt as if he was going mad. And the man actually had the nerve to call himself Varden. But how did he know Rhonna was a red-head, anyway? He turned over slowly, forcing a few more inches of room in the bed. Varden kicked him and groaned when the sudden exertion brought pain to his body.
“For heaven’s sake!” muttered Varden. “Keep still, can’t you?”
Varden was still for a time. Then he said, “You just wait till we’re out of here! Do you think I like this any more than you do?”
“I don’t care what you like!” he snapped.
“You will!”
Days passed interminably. It seemed an age before they took off his bandages and gradually let the light reach his eyes.
At first it was too incredible to believe, but he could see again! After the first momentary wonder had passed he looked carefully at the bed on which he was lying.
A bandaged face grinned back at him. The doctors watched him curiously, puzzled and worried when he choked back a sob in his throat and covered his eyes with his hands. Presently they went away and left him to get used to the idea of being able to see again.
“You ought to be glad,” said the man who shared his bed. “You ought to be very glad, Bob. Think of the fun we can have!”
Varden ground his teeth till pain wracked his face. The eyes were the same as his own, red-rimmed from the aftereffects of the operation. He stared at them hard, trying to build up an explanation. But the rest of the face was heavily covered in bandage, just as his own was. And the light in the room was far too dim to be certain.
“I must be crazy,” he muttered.
“If you are, then I am, pal!” The man sat up slowly at his side. “Pity we can’t see what we look like, isn’t it?”
“They took the mirror away,” said Varden.
“Of course they did; they always do when a man’s face is badly scarred. At first, I mean.”
“Is your face burnt as well?” A rasping laugh.
“What do you think? We couldn’t be anything else after pranging that kite in the drink, could we?”
Varden considered this. “You mean the Tempest?” he said. “She was a good crate till the lightning got her.”
“I know, I know! Wonder what happened to Peterson? He bought it, I suppose… Too bad!”
“Nice guy, Pete.” Varden frowned. “Here, what the hell are you talking about, anyway? Who are you?”
The other man worked his mouth in a grin, peering at Varden. “I’ve told you several times already,” he said. “I’m Bob Varden, an airline flyer on the trans-Atlantic run. Don’t you ever believe what you’re told?”
Varden covered his face. “Oh, God!” he groaned, “You’re me, and I’m you!”
“You’ve got it right at last, brother!”
CHAPTER 3
COMPLEX EXISTENCE
The two Vardens sat on the edge of the bed, side by side, grim in their mutual antagonism. One was wearing a suit, the other was naked. A little fat doctor in a white coat and wearing rimless glasses was peering at the suited Varden earnestly.
“Now I want to make if perfectly clear,” he was saying, “that success may be only partial. You must understand that, and we feel it only fair to tell you.” He prodded the bed with a short, stumpy finger,
Varden stared back at him hard. He had a queer feeling that this little man might be the devil himself in another guise.
“Ask him what he means, Bob? Gloomy swine. All these medicos are the same.”
“What exactly do you mean, Doc?” asked Varden.
The rimless glasses flashed in the light. “It may not last,” he told him flatly. “I’m only telling you because you must come back here at the first signs of failing vision. We can probably save it then, but only if we catch it in time.”
“Better not tell him we’re seeing double!” came the unbidden comment from Varden the Naked.
Varden squared his shoulders. “Thanks,” he said. His voice was edged with the ghost of bitterness, but he put out a hand to take the doctor’s in a brief, firm grip, “Thanks, Doc,” he repeated. “I imagine I’ll get along all right.”
“You bet we will!” He was enthusiastic now.
Varden said nothing, contenting himself with the pleasure of treading hard on the other man’s bare foot. He had no wish to be detained on psychiatric grounds.
He was alone now, alone in a small, white walled room with a tall red screen and a single electric light in the ceiling. His naked self had wandered off with the doctor. To have a look round, he’d told Varden. It was a high, clean, bright room, and the window looked out across green grass and the ribbon of a distant road. Varden moved to the window, peering out, getting used to the notion that he could see again.
He avoided looking in the mirror only recently brought back to the room. He and his unholy twin had looked in it once, seeing the tracing of livid scar tissue and burn marks that even now had a tight sensation about them.
“So I may go blind again, eh?” he mused aloud, watching the distant road. “With a face like mine it might be better that way!”
Something moved along the road in the distance, something moving very fast. A silvery car of some kind; he couldn’t recognise what it was. But it was going fast. He looked up at the brilliant blue of the sky, finding that light didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought it would. There was a plane of an odd design up there among the woolly clouds, he noticed. He thought about it very carefully for a minute, knowing that they’d never let him fly again. The well-remembered bitterness seeped round his soul. He set his jaw and turned away from the window to where his suitcase was already packed on the locker top.
He was snapping the locks when the other Varden returned, grinning hideously. “You ready to leave?” he inquired.
“You’re not coming, are you?” Varden loathed the idea.
The other rubbed his chin. “I’ll string along for a while,” he said. “Just till I’m used to being on my own.” He looked down at his body, rather thin from being in bed for so long. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I do believe I’m getting solid. One of the nurses got out of my way in the corridor.”
“If you go ar
ound without any clothes on they’ll lock you up!” snapped Varden impatiently. “Good thing, too!” he added.
Varden nodded gloomily. “Have to do something about it,” he said.
Varden was picking up his case when there was a knock on the door. “Yes?” His tone was curt.
The door opened to reveal a woman. She was smiling at him with the jaded smile of a wanton.
Varden whistled loudly and crudely. “Bob!” he exclaimed. “Look, something from our murky past! Gone off a bit, hasn’t she?”
Varden frowned. There was something familiar about the face of this woman; he ought to know her. She was just over forty, he decided, a skilfully enamelled face not quite hiding those few extra years that made her just too old. She stood there, leaning against the door jamb, smiling still. He went closer, staring into her eyes, trying to ignore the loose, pouchy skin beneath them, the hard-edged curve of her made-up lips, the tell-tale tinting of the whiskey coloured hair. It had once been honey blonde, he decided. He knew why she had been familiar now, knew who she was; but it didn’t make a lot of sense. And her body didn’t have that “poured-in” grace about it either. Even corsetry couldn’t hide those too-constricted bulges.
“Say something to her, you moron!”
He gulped. “’Lo, Viki,” he said, trying to smile. His voice sounded twisted, like his face. Nor did he fail to see the fleeting look of revulsion that flickered in her languorous eyes for an instant. She hated looking at him. He knew it instinctively, yet refused to let her see that he knew.
“Nice to see you, honey,” she murmured. Her voice was still the same husky cadence of bedroom promise. A shade less soft, perhaps, but playing the original tune. She swayed further into the room. Varden backed away, trying to orient his feelings. He had always imagined Viki would wear well. He supposed she had in a way, but he wouldn’t have expected this. A lot of the softness was gone, to be replaced by a hard, intangible veneer that spoke of inner viciousness.
“I’ve got a car down below,” she said invitingly. “I’ll run you into town, take you out, Bob. That’s what you need, and then later on…” She could still use her eyes.