Eyes of the Blind

by Alex Tresillian

  “Niall? Mr. Burnet?”

  He felt a gentle hand on his arm. The voice he recognised as Karin Leman’s.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Can I get you a coffee? Or a tea or anything?” she asked.

  “No, thanks. But thanks,” he said. And then, recognising that she was offering some kind of olive branch and not wanting to seem churlish, he explained, “I only drink raspberry tea and I don’t think Moorfields is that enlightened yet.”

  “Can I sit here?” she asked.

  “Course.”

  “I need to apologize to you,” Karin said once she had settled beside him. “I hope you will allow me.”

  “No need,” Niall said.

  “Yes there is. We knew nothing about you. My husband jumped to conclusions and we’ve both been rude to you. But I am Sus– Miranda’s mother. No mother can hear her daughter talk about a guardian angel without being moved. Please let me finish – ” Niall had stirred himself for a disclaiming response. “I want to thank you for coming into my daughter’s life when you did, Niall. Mr. Burnet – ”

  “Niall,” Niall said.

  “I believe that things are meant to be and you were clearly meant to be for Miranda. I can never thank you enough. I can probably never apologize enough for the way we spoke to you and thought about you before.”

  “Thank you,” Niall said graciously.

  “How exactly did you meet?” Karin asked.

  “It was by accident really,” Niall lied.

  “S-Miranda said you told her you were writing an article about her. Do you work with Matthew Long?”

  “No. I happened to be at Moorfields,” Niall said. “I saw that Miranda’s was going to be a big story. I knew there’d be some deal in place but I thought I could get in from another angle. So I chanced my arm on a meeting with her. We just hit it off, I guess.”

  “I wish I had known you ten years ago,” Karin Leman said at length.

  “You don’t,” Niall countered, laughing.

  “I had no idea how blind people could live,” Karin went on. “Even when she was a little girl I was too scared to let her do anything much. But when it got to adolescence – you know, I really needed help.”

  “You could have got it,” Niall said. “It’s out there. Someone like Faith works as much with parents as she does with kids.”

  “Roderick would have seen that as an admission of defeat.”

  “He’s never liked having a blind daughter, I guess.”

  “No. But who could? Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Niall reassured her. “You don’t have to walk on eggshells round me. Whatever you say is OK. I’ve most likely heard it before. And you’re right. Nobody could or should be thrilled at having a blind kid. But a blind life can still be a life.”

  Karin didn’t reply. Niall decided this was the moment to turn this fortuitous conversation to his advantage.

  “So I guess it was your husband who was keen for Miranda to have the operation,” he said.

  “Yes,” Karin replied. “Such a possibility had never occurred to me. I just assumed Susan– Miranda would always be blind, would always live with us, would never have a career. Roderick came home one night. He plays squash and somebody he plays with had told him that this operation was on the cards, and if he wanted Susie to be considered as a candidate for it he should let him know and he’d see what he could do.”

  “What did you think when he told you?” Niall asked.

  “I told him it was too good to be true, that he shouldn’t trust man-talk on the squash court or in the changing room. Men will say anything to try and impress other men with their power and influence. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

  “I don’t disagree with you,” Niall said. He heard the smile in Karin Leman’s voice as she replied,

  “I can see why my daughter likes you, Niall. Anyway,” she went on, seemingly happy to talk, and share her side of a story she had quite possibly never been allowed to share before, “I pretty much dismissed it out of hand and told Roderick he should do the same and not get his hopes up. Because I knew what the prospect would mean for him, to have his imperfect daughter rendered perfect. Then a couple of weeks later he said Susie was on a shortlist and needed to go for a medical. I was truly amazed. And that’s when I started to hope, and to pray that maybe it could happen.”

  She stopped, but before Niall could think of a response she continued.

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t – don’t – love her for what she was, as she was. I just thought how wonderful it would be.”

  “You thought right,” Niall said. “So what’s going on in there?” he asked, changing tack.

  “I don’t understand the science,” Karin said. “They are doing something to try to re-establish communication between the eyes and the brain, trying to find out what went wrong and whether they can put it right. I would be so much happier if her surgeon was here. Jamal. Mr. Daghash. But he’s in America. Although in fact we were lucky because one of their top men was still here, this late on a Thursday night. Duncan Clark. But Susie told us he was really spiteful to her after the transplant, claiming the whole thing was a stunt. I can’t help being afraid that he’ll do something now to prove that the operation could never have worked.”

  Niall fished up a memory he scarcely knew he possessed of Simon telling him about emails. Emails sent to a d.clark at Moorfields about meetings at Number 17. And here was a D. Clark at Moorfields and right now he literally held Miranda’s eyesight in the palm of his hand.

  “I have two questions,” Amelia said to Matthew. “One is, where did Mr. Frigging Sunshine-Arse Burnet spring from if he’s a bloody journalist? You’re the journalist who’s got exclusive – I repeat, exclusive – rights to Susie’s story. All of a sudden, blindness opens doors apparently. You need to see him off.”

  Matt Long made a noise that could have been interpreted as agreement or disagreement.

  “The second question is, how long does a loving sister have to hang around a hospital before it’s politically correct for us to leave and go home for sex?”

  Matt was depressed. He’d taken a call from his editor following This Is Now – while he had been on his way to Moorfields with the Lemans – calling for a two-page spread for tomorrow’s edition to capitalize on the interest generated by the TV interview.

  “Finally we’re on pole, Matt,” he had said. “I want chapter and verse on life since the op, the blind guy, pick up where the interview left off. You’re on, my son.”

  Matt knew that far from being on pole he was actually at the back of the grid, if not starting from the pit-lane. He was so far off the real story it was a total embarrassment. And all because, instead of going where the girl was going, he had hung with the family. Total, unforgivable fuck-up. Not far off a resignation issue. The only story he could write was “My Sister – Media Superstar: the embittered reflections of a highly sexed accountant” and he knew better than to suggest it to his boss.

  As it was he had had to explain that since the interview Susannah – or Miranda, as he had to accept that the whole world was now calling her – had suffered a medical emergency and was being rushed to hospital.

  “Yes, but you’ve been with her for weeks, Matt,” his boss had said. “None of this is news to you.”

  If only that had been true. He needed to talk to Niall Burnet – at length and as soon as possible – and hope that ‘us journalists must stick together – dig me out of the shit and I’ll owe you one’ would do the trick. But right now Karin Leman had got Burnet’s sole attention and Amelia had got him – Matt – on a tight leash that he was going to have to break, and he knew that that was a conversation that could only go badly.

  “So, what are the answers?” Amelia urged.

  “The answer to the first question,” Matt said, “is ‘I need to talk to the guy to find out, and I need to do it tonight’.”

  “Just challenge him to a duel and we can leave,” Amelia said. “
Pistols at 11 am. Dawn’s far too early. If you can’t beat a blind man in a gunfight there’s something wrong.”

  “The answer to the second question is,” Matt went on, ignoring her response, “‘Just tell your Mum you need to go home because you’ve got to get up early for work and she’ll be fine with it’. But, I can’t come with you tonight, because I’ve got a deadline to meet.”

  “Crap,” Amelia said.

  “Have I ever tried to get in the way of your work?” Matt asked her.

  “No. Why not, you bastard?”

  “Because I respect you and I respect your job. Tonight you need to respect mine.”

  “What would you do if I started shouting and making a scene?” Amelia asked.

  “I’m hoping neither of us will have to find out,” Matt said.

  “There are conditions,” Amelia said.

  “Which are?”

  “Tomorrow night you’re going to arrive at my place with enough champagne and vodka for us to have a bath in it. Then we’re going to lick each other dry and you are basically going to pleasure me with one part of your anatomy or another all night and most of Saturday morning until I say you can stop.”

  “Deal,” Matt said, figuring that tonight was what mattered now, and tomorrow night would take care of itself. “Now go and distract your mother with your apologies for leaving and let me get my teeth into Sunshine-Arse.”

  Of course, everybody on the planet had seen the broadcast. Before he reached home Daniel Sullivan had taken calls from a whole raft of BAB officers, including the Director General. What should have been a triumphant lap of honour accepting plaudits from every quarter for the masterly way in which his performance would lead to a massive spike in donations had been turned into a village pillory by that idiot of a director and her two vacuous presenters in which he was taking rotten eggs and fruit by the bucketful.

  All thrown most politely, of course.

  “Shame you weren’t given more of an opportunity to explain BAB’s role in the process,” Tony Strong, the Director General, had said, implying that none of it was his fault but meaning the opposite. Everything had gone perfectly in the rehearsal. He had skilfully drawn the focus of the conversation to himself and to BAB, actually to the great relief of the presenters, who were struggling to get anything out of Susannah. He had also managed to handle Susannah’s bottom and her right breast, both of which had felt rich with promise. When the show finished and Susannah had her relapse he had been too angry to consider accompanying the cavalcade to Moorfields. He needed to get home and regroup, take out some of his frustration on the fourth Mrs. Sullivan and a couple of bottles of half-decent claret. It had been as he was going to pick up his car that the phone calls had started, each one making him a little angrier than the one before. Laughing-stock was not a role he was suited for, and was certainly not a role he intended to play for long. Even more annoyingly, when he tried Penny’s number it went straight to voicemail.

  He slammed the door of his car and crashed his way noisily into the house.

  The fourth Mrs. Sullivan was in the living room watching some ridiculous reality show.

  “The programme was interesting,” she said uninvited. “They didn’t ask you anything, though, did they? I thought that was a bit strange. And a bit unkind, after you’d been there all day. Wallingford looks like a nice place.”

  When he reasoned that he could put it off no longer, Duncan Clark came out to meet the family. He saw what must surely be the mother sitting with Faith Hodgkiss, a woman who had won his grudging respect for her professionalism after they had experimented with a brief romantic entanglement when he had first come to Moorfields, too long ago to count the years. It had lasted about three months and both had been equally relieved when it was over.

  The father was standing in a world of his own. And two young men, one of whom was blind, were deep in a conversation which the sighted one cut short the moment Clark entered the room. The separateness of the three groups was significant but, he reflected, not uncommon. Nothing like a visually impaired child to drive a wedge into a family.

  His arrival prompted an attempt to draw together, but only because all three pockets wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “Well?” This was the father. Duncan Clark bided his time. He was not a man to be bullied or intimidated. He noticed the young blind man looking at him with the alert concentration that sometimes only a blind face can achieve, uncomplicated by any issues of eye-contact. He knew absolutely nothing about the private circumstances, but he assumed the reaction meant ‘boyfriend’.

  “Well,” he said, and paused.

  “Duncan,” Faith said, acknowledging him.

  “Simply put,” he said, “the meds were either screwed up or they’re not doing the job. We’ve got her seeing again, but the rejection is something of a puzzle. We need to keep her here for the foreseeable future in my opinion, find out exactly what’s going on. Jamal will be back from America on the 26th of February and I’m sure he’ll want his protégé kept safe and secure until then, so that he can conduct his own examination. It seems to me, looking at the file, that Miss Leman goes on fine when she’s in hospital, but goes downhill the moment she gets out. We need to try and work out why that is. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that such peccadilloes as appearing on early evening television programmes and pursuing a life in the spotlight could themselves be contributory factors, given the attendant stress involved.”

  “So in a nutshell,” the father said, “Susannah can have a life in hospital with eyesight, or a life out of hospital without it.”

  “That is an unnecessarily aggressive and over-simplified assessment of what I just said,” Duncan Clark replied. “I have had to eat several portions of my colleague Jamal’s humble pie, in that I did not believe the operation he was attempting to be scientifically possible. I still wonder whether there has not been some trickery involved. Now I grant you may feel a desire to get aggressive with me, but as your daughter is currently in my care I urge you to fight it. What I can assure you is that I can find nothing within the confines of my own expertise to suggest irreversible chronic rejection of the eyes. There is something curious going on which requires investigation and discussion with other colleagues with more knowledge of organ transplantation. But I am a long way from offering you the black and white choices that you seem to be rushing into.”

  Duncan Clark expected a reaction, but – maybe because it was late at night and everyone’s energy was at rock bottom – none was forthcoming.

  “The girl is safe here and comfortable, and as well as can be expected,” he went on. “Nurses will check on her throughout the rest of the night. I’m going home and I recommend that you do the same.”

  With that, he left them. Niall had questions he wanted to throw after him, but decided the timing was wrong. Yes, he wanted an in-depth conversation with Duncan Clark, but he needed to plan it carefully, so that the consultant had no suspicion as to his motives. He also needed time to process his conversation with Matthew Long, which had certainly been entertaining. Niall had had to fabricate a more involved career than a few years as a sports reporter for a local rural radio station, but it had been worth it, as they had been able to exchange stories of impossible editors and the stress of meeting deadlines and how that kept the adrenalin buzzing.

  “So are you shagging her, then?” Matt had asked when they were properly warmed up.

  “Like I want to see that in tomorrow’s paper,” had been Niall’s non-committal reply.

  “This is off the record,” Matt insisted. “You’re doing me a Hell of a favour.”

  “Nothing’s ever off the record,” Niall said, and they both laughed.

  “I don’t mind telling you I’m shagging her sister,” Matt said.

  “You bugger!” Niall said.

  “That’s about the only thing we haven’t done,” Matt quipped in response. “So?” he pressed.

  “So no comment,” Niall said. “Wh
at do you know about this transplant then?”

  “Less than you.”

  For all that he was a fully paid-up professional journalist, Matthew Long really did seem to know less about the operation than Niall had managed to find out. In his defence, as he himself was quick to point out, his brief had never really been the operation, it had been Miranda herself.

  “But you must have been curious,” Niall insisted. “When you met her. Why this particular girl? Why a young girl at all?”

  “No point in giving new eyes to some old bat with cataracts,” had been Matthew’s retort.

  “Certainly not such good publicity,” Niall agreed. But once he had realised that Matthew Long had nothing to share with him that would help with his story, he changed the subject. No point giving away his own knowledge and let Matthew steal it for his own purposes. He had been happy to make contact with the guy, happy to do him a favour and take his mobile number so he could call it in at any time, but that was enough. Let him go and meet his deadline, with his article which Niall had largely written for him – much of it fantasy – and get back into bed with Miranda’s sister. Niall had, to use one of his favourite phrases, other fish to fry.

  THIRTEEN

  Rebecca Blackford stood in the kitchen of her parents’ home. Her mother was unloading the dishwasher. In common with most returning twenty-somethings, Rebecca, although quite capable of turning a hand in the kitchen, fell immediately into the routine of ‘let mum do everything’. This morning, in any case, she was not disposed to help her.