The Rules of Seeing

by Joe Heap

spelled out in the toppings on a slice, which is also winking lasciviously at Kate. Nova is holding a white stick – the significance of which Kate does not grasp – and has a pair of dark glasses pushed back on her head like a hairband.

  Nova pauses, trying to see.

  Kate wants to hide. She doesn’t want Nova to see her like this. She remembers her old idea, that the reason for Nova’s goodness was that she was so pure. All the bad stuff never had a chance to get into her system, to pollute her, to make her like everyone else.

  To make her like Kate.

  And now Kate feels bad, because it seems like she’s the one who’s going to spoil her. Perfect Nova, spoiled by her ugliness. Nova’s blue eyes roam over her face, trying to understand, trying to translate the signs written all over Kate’s body, the calligraphy of cuts, the punctuation of bruises. Kate doesn’t know that Nova is blind again, that all she can see is a pinkish blur, flashbulbs of blonde. But Nova is good at guessing.

  ‘You’re … hurt?’

  ‘Yes, I’m hurt. But I’m okay.’

  Nova is shaking her head. ‘No, no, you’re not all right … I can tell you’re not all right.’ She steps forward, uncertainly, hands in front of her, not knowing whether she can hold her or not. Kate doesn’t move. She’s frozen. She doesn’t know what she expected from today, only that it couldn’t be worse than what has already happened. It hadn’t included the possibility of being held by Nova.

  Nova puts her arms around her, very gently. She’s so small, her face only comes up to Kate’s collarbone. Kate winces in pain.

  ‘Sorry! I’m sorry. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, it’s fine, I just have some, uh, broken ribs, and wrist.’

  Nova looks up suddenly, into her eyes, and Kate can see the tears forming. Her jaw is clenched in anger.

  ‘Fuck.’ Nova whispers, looking down. ‘Come on, let’s sit on the sofa.’

  Kate closes the door behind them, and they walk together, slowly, to the sofa, Nova cautious in her blindness, Kate hobbling from the pain, each throwing the other off whatever balance they might have had alone. They sit on the sofa, in the same places, the same positions, where Kate had kissed her.

  Nova takes her hand and places it on her own. She lets Kate’s hand rest on hers, perched like a bird. She senses that Kate can’t be held in any way, mustn’t be in a position where she cannot run away. She knows that, but knows also that Kate needs to touch someone.

  ‘You don’t have to, but if it would help, you can tell me what happened.’

  Kate nods. ‘It’s not a very nice story.’

  ‘I work with the police. I’ve heard worse, I’m sure.’ Then she shakes her head, regretting the words. ‘That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean to make you feel like what happened wasn’t …’

  ‘It’s okay, I know.’

  Kate starts talking. She tells the interpreter everything, though not in the right order. She tells her that Tony hit her. She tells her about the white squares. She tells her that she doubted herself, even with the evidence in front of her. She tells her about what her husband said, what he had done. She tells her about the first square of white paper and how she hit her head, the first time. She tells the truth, for the first time.

  When she is done, they are quiet for a long time. Nova doesn’t seem to know what to say. Kate thinks maybe she is waiting to see if there is anything else. But no – Nova doesn’t know what to say. Usually she listens to people talking about crimes. She never had to say much herself.

  ‘Kate, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kate. I’m so sorry.’ Nova is crying, quite gently. She tells Kate about the interview where Tony threatened her, trying to explain her own guilt – that she had sensed something was wrong and did nothing about it. Tony had never reported her, as he had threatened. But if she had just reported him …

  ‘It’s not your fault, Nova.’

  The interpreter says nothing, seems unable to utter anything more than she has said. Kate has done it, she knows. She has ruined Nova. She has shown her ugliness. But she’s still glad she’s here.

  ‘Nova, out of all the people of the world, all those people whose job it is to help me … you’re the only person I want to see.’

  Nova doesn’t say anything in response. Her eyes are wet with tears, her lips pressed together as though holding something in. They sit like that for a long time. Sometimes Nova can hear a car horn outside, or a police siren, faintly, very faintly, but otherwise it’s very peaceful, and all she can hear is her breathing. Tension bleeds out of her. She rests her head gently on Kate’s shoulder. It doesn’t feel awkward. It feels right.

  Kate closes her eyes, sleepy. She’s on so much pain medication it doesn’t take much to doze off. She feels like she’s falling asleep in a warm, warm bath. Something smells good, something floral – the bubble bath? What a nice smell.

  ‘So warm,’ she mumbles.

  ‘Sorry, I’m like a human radiator. Should have warned you.’ Nova’s voice wakes Kate enough to know that she’s not in the bath.

  ‘S’okay.’

  ‘Are you falling asleep?’

  ‘Sorry, I’m being rude.’ She chuckles softly.

  ‘You have a good excuse.’ Nova smiles. ‘Do you want to go to bed?’

  ‘Mm. Maybe I should. Sorry …’

  ‘Don’t apologize. Come on, let me help you up.’ Nova stands, holds out her hands, and pulls Kate to her feet, holding the hand that doesn’t have the wrist fracture.

  ‘Which way is the bedroom?’

  ‘This way.’ Kate limps along with her, as Nova holds an arm out to hold onto. There is almost nothing in the bedroom. A bag of her clothes is sitting in the corner of the room, untouched. A duvet, some sheets and other bedding are piled in a corner.

  ‘Sorry – I haven’t made the bed.’

  ‘Let me make it for you,’ Nova says.

  ‘You can see well enough to make a bed now?’ Kate asks innocently. ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Eh, not so much.’ Nova shrugs, not wanting to tell Kate yet about her decision. ‘But I’ve always made the bed by touch, you know?’

  ‘Oh, right, of course. But still, I can’t make you do my chores.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. You go to the bathroom and get ready, I’ll make the bed.’

  ‘Okay.’ With difficulty, Kate bends down to get some pyjamas out of the bag and carries them through to the bathroom, where she already has a few things. She brushes her teeth and splashes water on her face, though it stings her black eye. All the time she can hear worrying noises coming from the other room. When she returns, Nova has got the sheet onto the mattress and has fitted the four pillowcases, but is wrapped, like a confused ghost, in the duvet cover.

  ‘Nova, are you in there?’

  ‘I think so!’ She slumps onto the bed, giggling. ‘I guess your sheets are different from mine.’ Kate starts laughing, hobbling over to help.

  ‘Come on. If you hold still for a second, I think I can get you untangled.’ With some rearranging, Kate pulls the sheet off Nova. She emerges, laughing, curly hair askew.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not the world’s best chambermaid.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We can finish it together.’

  Nova holds the corners while Kate shakes the duvet out, feeling the bright ache in her ribs.

  ‘There we go – a bit lumpy, but it’ll do.’

  ‘Do you want anything else?’ Nova asks. ‘Need any balls of yarn untangling?’

  ‘No, I think you’ve done enough damage. But … if you’d like to stay?’

  Nova pauses. Kate doesn’t actually hold her breath, but rather it feels as though her whole body pauses for a moment. Marrow stops making blood, follicles stop growing hair, and biological time stands still, until Nova says, ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘No, you’d be doing me a favour.’ Kate says, leaving unsaid – I don’t want to be alone. ‘I have a spare too
thbrush, and you’re welcome to borrow a nightie, though I think it’ll probably come down to your ankles.’

  ‘That would be nice. I can sleep on the sofa.’

  Kate pauses, unsure of herself. ‘You can sleep in here, if you want. It’s a big bed.’

  Nova answers more quickly this time. ‘No, you should have the bed.’ She runs a hand through her hair. ‘If I kicked you in my sleep, I’d never forgive myself.’

  Kate smiles and nods, heart thundering secretly. They go about their preparations for bed. Kate finds the spare toothbrush and a nightie. As predicted, it comes down way past Nova’s knees, and she makes a show of waddling around like a penguin. Kate makes up a bed on the sofa and fetches a glass of water. When Nova comes to join her in the front room, Kate notices that she’s following her voice, using slightly outstretched arms to warn of any obstacle. She wants to ask about it, but doesn’t.

  ‘It’s so quiet in here, I think I’ll sleep well.’

  ‘I hope so. Night.’

  Kate walks back to her room, feeling foolish. Why had she asked Nova to sleep in the same bed? It’s so obvious that Nova isn’t interested in a relationship. Is she interested in a relationship? The question is too complicated. Until recently, she hadn’t been looking for a relationship with anybody. She doesn’t know what to want, or what to feel. She doesn’t know what she’s allowed to want. They took her wedding ring off at the hospital, but she’s still married.

  She gets into bed carefully, swinging one leg up, then the other, trying to find a position that’s comfortable, realizing there isn’t one. She takes a final codeine pill to help her sleep, turns off the light and closes her eyes.

  It’s not much later when Kate wakes up screaming. The room is dark and quiet. There is no air. She doesn’t know where she is, and she thrashes, trying to find something that will identify her surroundings. She feels like she can’t breathe and there is a pain in her chest. That’s it – she’s having a heart attack. She’s going to die in bed. She becomes aware of someone else in the room.

  ‘Kate? Are you okay?’

  Slowly, Kate remembers where she is, and why she’s there, and why Nova is there. But none of this stops the panic that she’s feeling, the rising fear. The air is being crushed out of her lungs. She’s going to die.

  She feels Nova getting closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. She fumbles around in the dark and finds the bedside light and turns it on. Kate is blinded but feels arms around her. Nova holds her while she shakes and her breaths heave in and out.

  ‘It’s okay, you had a bad dream. It was just a bad dream.’

  ‘No … don’t understand … can’t breathe … think … heart attack …’ Kate gasps between tiny sips of breath. It’s like her lungs have set in stone.

  ‘No, listen, you’re having a panic attack. You’re going to be okay. It’s not going to kill you.’

  ‘Are you … sure?’

  ‘Yes. Now listen to me. I need you to breathe. You’re going to breathe in and out as we count backwards from one hundred, okay? And you’re just going to listen to my voice.’

  Kate no longer has any breath to answer her with, so she just nods. Nova seems to understand.

  ‘Okay. One hundred … ninety-nine … ninety-eight …’

  Kate breathes in and out, though the difference is almost too small to notice. But Nova’s voice is something to hold onto, as she drowns on dry land. Every ten breaths, Nova tells Kate to notice something around her – notice her voice, notice the soft bed under her, notice the smell of the new sheets. ‘They smell like mountains, don’t they? Like mountain forests, full of wildflowers … or something.’

  By the time they reach sixty, Kate’s breathing starts to open up, though she’s still gasping. By the time they reach fifty, she’s almost calm, though she’s covered in sweat and shivering. By the time they count down to one, she just feels tired and ashamed. Nova takes her arms away.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes … thank you. If it wasn’t for you, I think I would have died.’

  ‘You would’ve been fine. But I know it doesn’t feel that way.’

  ‘It really doesn’t.’

  Nova puts a hand on her arm, and Kate resists the urge to pull her back into a hug.

  ‘You had a bad dream?’

  ‘Yeah … I don’t really remember what it was.’ Kate shakes her head. ‘But he was there.’

  Nova stays still for a long moment. She’s struggling with her own anger. She feels as though she could have stopped this all from happening, though she doesn’t know how, exactly. She is angry with Tony and angry with herself. She follows the advice she gave Kate, noticing her breathing and her hand on Kate’s arm.

  ‘Do you want to go back to sleep?’

  ‘Not really. This is lame, but I don’t really want to turn the light off.’

  Nova blows a raspberry. ‘Not lame! Sleep is for boring adults anyway. We should have a midnight feast!’

  Kate smiles back, marvelling at Nova’s ability to be cheerful in the crummiest situations.

  ‘I don’t know if there’s much to feast on. I have a few things in the freezer, but the fridge is almost empty.’

  ‘What about the shops?’

  ‘It’s …’ Kate glances at her clock. ‘It’s one thirty in the morning! Although, now you mention it, there’s a 24-hour garage five minutes down the road.’

  ‘Let’s go!’ Nova scrambles off the bed. ‘If you feel up to it?’

  ‘Well, I really don’t want to be in this bedroom any more.’

  ‘Yessss! Come on.’

  It takes them a little while, but they put their coats on over their nightwear, pull socks and shoes on, shuffling out of the flat like rebellious teenagers. Nova loops her arm through Kate’s and lets herself be guided. It takes Kate a long while to walk down the stairs, but somehow, with Nova there, she doesn’t mind. They disturb the downstairs cat, curled up on one of the steps, the ginger-and-white tom rubs up against Kate’s ankles.

  At the front door, Kate hesitates.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Sure. I just haven’t left the house in … a while.’

  Nova nods but says nothing. She just waits until Kate is ready to step forward, through the door.

  The air outside on the street is cold and scrapes her face, but it’s nice to feel something fresh. She fills her lungs with air. They walk down the deserted street in the direction of the 24-hour garage, puffing silver clouds of breath-steam. Every minute or so a car goes past, but there are no people to be seen. Everything is quiet. The promised five-minute walk is more like ten owing to Kate’s lack of speed, but when they get there the forecourt is bright with fluorescent lights, the petrol machines humming gently in the night.

  They go up to the window. There’s a boy behind it, barely a teenager, who is somehow trusted to guard this outpost of civilisation through the night. Through an intercom, he asks what they want.

  ‘Can he hear me?’ Nova asks Kate.

  ‘Yes, I can hear you; it’s an intercom,’ the boy replies tetchily. Kate wonders how long he’s been awake.

  ‘Well, we want some snacks!’ Nova says, laughing. The boy frowns, looking at Kate’s beaten-up face, and Nova, grinning and giggling behind dark glasses, clearly high on something.

  ‘What kind of snacks?’ He sighs into the microphone. ‘We’ve got crisps, muffins, tubs of ice cream …’

  ‘That all sounds good!’ Nova reaches into her coat pocket, pulling out her purse and extracting a couple of notes. She passes these through the letterbox to the boy.

  ‘Just fill up a bag with all those things, whatever we can get for that much.’

  The boy’s eyes widen at the amount of money he’s being asked to spend on their behalf. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. Now chop-chop! We’re very hungry.’

  Nova can’t see what’s happening inside the glowing box of the petrol station, but Kate watches as the boy goes around, filling a basket wit
h things from every shelf, crisps and sweets and buns and fizzy drinks. Finally, when he’s passed everything back through the window to them, they make their way back down the road, laden with bags of food, laughing and listening to their laughter echo back from the houses around them.

  Kate stops them both.

  ‘What’s up, kid?’ Nova asks.

  ‘I’m just looking at the moon.’

  A yellow moon hangs at the end of the street, like a fat peach a couple of days off being ripe. Nova opens her eyes behind her glasses, but doesn’t see. There is a fuzz of light but nothing clear.

  ‘Can you see it?’ Kate asks. She remembers how much Nova loved astronomy, her worn-out NASA T-shirt, and her excitement that one day her sight would be good enough for her to see stars.

  Nova frowns, shrugging. ‘I kinda gave it up.’

  ‘Gave what up?’

  ‘Um, seeing stuff.’ For the first time her shoulders slump, and Nova looks small and childlike.

  ‘You gave it up? Like cigarettes? Or refined sugar?’ Kate tries to make a joke, but a note of hurt creeps in.

  ‘Yeah,’ Nova deadpans, ‘just like giving up cigarettes – seeing was bad for my health. So I quit.’

  Nova had thought that choosing to be blind again would feel natural. Not just natural, but easy – it would feel like slipping back into an old habit. Though it has been months, and she is truly blind again, she cannot say that any of this feels natural. The change that came upon her in the hospital is not so easily ignored. Now she fits in neither world, just as when she was learning to see. Her life is lived in limbo.

  Kate is silent for a long moment, still looking at the moon.

  ‘Okay. But if you ever change your mind …’

  ‘If I change my mind, what …?’

  ‘I’ll help.’

  Nova’s face screws up for a split second, then resolves into a smile. ‘You’ll be my rehab nurse? Physio and cold showers?’

  Kate elbows her a little.

  ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  ‘Do people really use that word? Incorrigible.’

  ‘It would just be nice … to look at the moon together sometime.’

  Nova moves her head from side to side as though looking for something, and for a moment Kate thinks (though it’s stupid) that she’s about to run away. Like, just pelt it down the street in the middle of the night. But the moment passes.