The night duty nurse comes back, tells us off and shoos Noah back to his own bed.
The next morning Catherine arrives with Dr Ziegler. We go to the day room to talk. This time it doesn’t seem informal at all. She asks me hundreds of questions. Most of them don’t seem relevant to anything. A lot of them are about how things have been since I had meningitis and how my relationships are with my family. Then she gets me to talk about what happened when my sister visited. I tell her everything. I tell her about seeing Gareth when I saw my sister. I tell her I think that Gareth forced himself into my mouth and I don’t know if it’s my imagination or if it truly happened.
“I don’t want you to think about it or even try to analyse it, do you understand?” Dr Ziegler puts her pen down.
“I can’t help it. These thoughts keep coming back.”
“Are you thinking about it or reliving it?” Tanya taps her pen on her clipboard.
“When my sister was here it was like it was happening again.”
“Just one more question. Do you hear voices or see anything that you know can’t possibly be there?”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
She laughs. “Well I’m that good. Tell me about it.”
“I see a boy. He’s about eleven. I think I know him from somewhere. He doesn’t make a sound usually though he's spoken to me a couple of times. It’s not like what happened with my sister. It’s like I’m remembering something but seeing it at the same time.” It does feel very different.
“When do you see him? All the time, or when you’re stressed like when unhappy things are happening?”
I try to think back. “I first saw him after I was attacked. I see him at random too.”
“What else can you tell me about him. What does he look like?”
“He has black hair and blue eyes and he’s wearing a hospital gown. So am I crazy?”
“We don’t use words like crazy around here.” Tanya laughs and then Catherine laughs, which seems inappropriate, but then I laugh too and I’m not sure why.
“You know what you are? You’re suffering from everything that’s happened to you. Just like your physical injuries it’s going to take time and help. You might have something called post traumatic stress disorder. It’s not something we can fix with a pill or an operation. You’ll need to see a therapist regularly for a while. It will take time but it will get better. I’m going to give you some medication which will ease things off but you can only take it for a few weeks.”
“Will I relive it again?” I don’t want her to say yes but I can tell by her expression.
“More than likely,” says Dr Ziegler, “and that’s something you’re going to need a coping strategy for. I’ll be sending a therapist to see you and you can talk about that.”
“What about the seeing things?”
“It could be a few things. Does it frighten you when it happens? Do you feel anxious when you see this boy?”
“No. I feel happy and sad at the same time. That sounds...”
“Crazy?” Catherine laughs.
"Is it like what you see when you're reliving the attacks?"
"No. It's hazier, more distant, more dream like."
“Looking at your records Malachi, I think it’s a hangover from the damage done by the meningitis – your brain trying to recover what it’s lost. Do you think the boy you see could be your brother?”
“My brother? I don’t have a brother, only a sister.”
She looks confused. “Give me a moment.” She looks through my notes “I think we should end there for today.” She’s short and dismissive.
“No, wait. Tell me.” I stand up.
Her face has reddened. She’s embarrassed about something. “Perhaps I’ve said something I shouldn’t.”
“No, that’s not fair. I told you everything. I trusted you.” I don’t want to shout at her but it comes out loud.
Catherine stands up and takes my hand.
All that friendliness on Tanya’s face is gone. “I think what your seeing. I think the person you’re seeing is your twin brother.”
“What?”
“Maybe we should leave it there,” says Catherine, “for today.”
“No,” I shout, “tell me! I want to know.”
Catherine scowls at Tanya. “What is it? Just spit it out.”
“Malachi,” says Tanya, “you were admitted with your twin brother with meningitis four years ago. He didn’t survive.”
“I don’t have a twin brother!” I want to punch her.
Then the boy is there looking up and me and I know it’s true. I can feel how much I love him and care for him and miss him even though I can’t remember him at all. No memory is there but all the emotions are.
Then Gareth is at the door waiting for me.
“It’s happening again.” My heart pounds in my chest and I feel like I can’t get air. My legs give way and I fall to the floor – a breathless ball of sweat and piss. Gareth straddles me and forces his cock into my mouth. I scream and try to push him off. I can taste Gareth’s cock and the salty come as it shoots at pressure into my throat. I throw up and it doesn’t stop. I feel like the convulsions are tearing the muscles in my stomach apart.
I don’t know what is real and what is my imagination. I don’t know what is my imagination and what is my memory. There is a hospital bed next to me and my brother is lying on it. My parents are crying and hugging his lifeless body. Gareth is licking my cock and I am being held down by the other leaders. Something slams into my head and then slams into it again. The next thing I’m aware of is being in my wheelchair. Candice and Catherine get me onto the bed and I hear Noah and Jacob panicking and demanding to know what’s happened to me.
Catherine and Candice pull the curtains around me and Candice leaves while Catherine pulls off the robe now covered in piss and puke. Candice brings back a syringe and gives me an injection. She then gets the stuff to wash me down but leaves while Catherine does it.
As I awaken again I feel a hand on mine. I open my eyes an everything is slow and blurred. I see Sam beside me. He squeezes my hand. “It’s all right, Malachi. Don’t worry about anything. Just relax and take it easy.”
My arm is sore and the cannula is back in and connected to a drip bag right overhead.
In that haze it comes flooding back to me. I put it together. I put it all together. Why didn’t my parents tell me? Why didn’t my sister tell me?
The move and no friends from before. I didn’t even question it. Why would I? I knew no one. Me and my brother both died when we were eleven – its that I was reborn.
My head is sore and I touch a bruise which hurts. What have I done? What have I become? A lunatic who slams his head into things. I can see Sam’s face. His eyes are red and I think he’s been crying. He looks horrified and I find myself wanting to comfort him but I don’t have any energy.
A nurse comes over and makes me take pills. Soon there is a deeper hazy feeling that stays with me all day and I sleep on and off. When food comes Candice has to help me eat. I can’t even summon the energy to speak to anyone.
At some point I wake up and I’ve lost all sense of time. Catherine is standing over me and tells me I have to get up. She makes me sit in a wheelchair and pushes me into the day room. We sit down together and a few minutes later a lady comes in and talks to me. I’m to be on medication for a while. She asks about how the attacks feel. We talk about how I felt leading up to them to see if I can predict when they happen again and she shows me some breathing exercises and relaxation techniques which might help me stop them when they happen next but I don’t think I take much of it in.
When I get back I tell Noah and Jacob I have PTSD. They talk to me a lot and I sleep. Everything is calm and I don’t have an episode. I don’t even know how many days I’ve been here any more. I lie in bed and try to think but even that doesn’t seem possible. I can only rest. I can only be.
When I wake up the next day my left eye is open b
ut I notice something isn't right – there’s a blur and a blackness. I close my right eye and start to panic; a whole section at the centre of my vision is missing. I pick up a book Sam left me that’s sitting at the side of my bed and try to read with my left eye. There is a huge black spot in the centre of my vision and the letters around the edges of it are blurred.
“I’ve gone blind. They fucking blinded me!”
Noah and Jacob rush over and I tell them what’s happened. I shout what has happened. A nurse comes in and shoes the others away.
“Calm down. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I do, and she leans in close to look at it. “I can’t see anything obvious. I’ll let Catherine know.”
“Is it permanent?” It can’t be. Please tell me it isn’t.
“I don’t know. Just don’t panic. You’re in good hands here.” She leaves.
Noah and Jacob come back over again, sit on the side of my bed and hold my hands. They don’t say anything. They evidently know there’s nothing they can say. They stay with me like that until Catherine comes in.
She checks in with the nurse and then comes over to me after.
“How are you feeling?” She doesn’t send Noah or Jacob back to their beds.
“Scared. Is my sight gone in my eye? Can you find out?”
“I’m going to book you into the eye clinic for their first available appointment. There’s nothing abnormal we can see from the outside. If there was we’d have seen it in the examination we did when we brought you in. It may still be the swelling that’s causing this. We need to let it go down before we start to worry. Okay?”
But it's not okay. I wonder how much more damage there will be.
It is a sad morning two days later when Jacob leaves. Sam and Catherine talk with him in private before he goes. Then all three of them come back to the ward.
“I’ve got something for the two of you.” Sam pulls out two boxes, mobile phone boxes and gives one each to Noah and me.
“I got one too,” says Jacob. “So don’t think you’re special or anything.”
“All those phones have all your numbers programmed in. You have Thom’s number if you need it. Catherine’s and my mobile numbers are in there, as is our home phone. I’ve also put in some help lines in case you want to talk to someone in private.
“Now I give you a command. These phones are to be used for all of us to stay in touch. I know it may not be straightforward. That’s why I got you these small phones. If you need to hide them you’ll be able to do so.”
“One thing,” says Catherine, “you’re not allowed to use them while in the hospital. Oh, and I added an app. It tells you when to take your PEP medication.”
“They’re all contract phones," says Sam, "which means you don’t need to top them up or anything. The bill will come to me and I don’t care who you call as long as you use them.”
A nurse pops her head around the door. “Shall I bring it in now?”
“Yes.” says Catherine.
The nurse comes back in with a cake. We celebrate Jacob’s recovery with a slice of chocolate fudge cake each, made by Catherine. How she found the time, I don’t know. The nurses who’ve been looking after us suddenly make themselves available. From the way they talk, and from the number of people who turn up I’ve never seen before, it seems like Catherine’s cakes are legendary around the hospital. It seems like a party in a way but it's over too soon.
“Can I have a sec alone with them before I go?” Jacob asks.
Everyone leaves and it’s just Jacob and Noah and me. I want to believe that we’ll all be together again but I worry – there’s something that feels so final about this moment. To everyone else, Jacob must seem unaffected by this, that all of this has been a doddle for him. I think only Noah I can see the difference between how he was when we first met him and how he is now. It’s subtle. He still seems happy and confident but at moments there is a kind of distraction in him like he’s looking into a place he’d sooner forget. Only the three of us truly know where that place is and what is built on it.
Jacob hugs and kisses us both. “I wanted to tell you both that I love you. That even with everything that’s happened I’m glad for it because I got to meet the two of you.”
He’s choking on his words. Noah is crying and I feel like I’m about to start.
“We have to stay in touch. I know going back to your families must feel like an impending prison sentence but you have to ride it out. If only for two years. Because life is gonna be so much better then. For all of us. You’ll see.” He hugs us both again and leaves fast, before we can see him cry.
I am worried about Noah. He only talks to Jacob, Catherine and me. He says little or nothing to anyone else. He's gradually getting to know Sam but they're not there yet. I hug him till he’s calmed down and then I go back to my bed and sleep.
After dinner Sam and Catherine come to visit us again. I'm still feeling hazy but getting used to it now. Catherine says it’s the medication and it will be that way for a while.
“It’s not forever,” she says, “it’s just until you start therapy and it begins to have an effect.”
They ask Noah and me to come to the day room. They look earnest and I’m sure it’s going to be more bad news.
“I feel awful about this,” says Sam, “but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. You’re both going to have to go home soon. I’d hoped there was something I could do, more than ever after I saw how your dad treated you, Noah, but apart from the phones and the other little things I can think of...”
“Don’t worry,” says Noah, “I’m used to it. The only thing is I’ll be away from you.” He looks at me as fragile as the night I met him.
“It’s two years,” I say, “not even that. Jacob is going to come get us on our sixteenth birthdays. He promised and I know he won’t break that. Not with us.”
“About that,” says Sam. “I spoke to Jacob earlier and he mentioned his plan and I asked him if we could modify it a little.”
“What do you mean?”
“As you know,” says Catherine, “when you’re sixteen you’ll be able to leave home. I have no doubt that Jacob will look after you but Sam and I have been talking and we’d like to make you both an offer. But it’s personal and may sound a little forward so we need to explain it to you.”
“I don’t know if you know or not,” says Sam, “but we don’t have any children of our own. I wish I could say that we made that decision out of choice so we could focus on our careers but the truth is we never got around to it.
“Malachi, when I read the letter you sent me you know I wasn’t prepared for how young you were. I mean, you shared your exam results and said you were trying to decide upon a university.”
“What do you mean?” asks Noah.
“You mean you haven’t told him?” Catherine says.
Sam laughs. “Go on, tell him how many GCSEs you have.”
“Seventeen,” I say. “All at A star.”
“And A levels,” says Sam.
“Soon... Physics, English and Maths. I'm expecting the same grades. I’m doing Chemistry, Biology and Ancient Greek next.”
“I knew you were smart,” says Noah. “You fancied me at once.”
I laugh. I love Noah.
“He is,” said Sam. “Now I know you were planning on university at sixteen, and that’s still possible of course, but what we want to suggest ... No, what we’re offering... No, strike that, what we’d love to happen is for when you’re sixteen for you to move in with us and let us look after you – both of you.
“We’re both going to take time out of our careers to spend with you and we don’t mean we want to replace your parents or anything like that. In fact we will encourage you to stay in touch with them but we both promise you two things: that this isn’t something we’ve decided on lightly – we want you in our lives and want you to be happy – and that if you ever need somewhere to go for the rest of your lives and it can’t be with y
our biological family then it will be with us.”
“We both see it as our responsibility,” says Catherine. “even though it will be a happy one.”
Noah hugs her and she draws him onto her lap. I don’t know how he is going to cope without her. Sam and me stare at one another and smile.
An hour later there is a row outside our room. I hear raised voices and recognise them at once, my parents, though they don’t often shout. It’s hard to make out what’s going on but some phrases break through the walls unmuffled.
“How dare you tell me how to raise my son?”
“No I will not calm down.”
So Sam and my dad have met in debate yet again and this time the argument is over me. They come through to the ward. Catherine leads Noah out to the day room because I don’t think she wants him upset and I quite agree. Sam stands behind the door looking over me through the glass. The thing is, I don’t feel angry or sad or anything. It’s like my ability to feel any extremes of emotion has been filtered away.
“Malachi,” says my dad, “we were worried sick.”
“We flew back as soon as we heard.” My mum takes off her coat and folds it up on the foot of the bed.
“How are you?” My dad looks concerned.
I don’t know what to say to them. I am glad to see them and something in me wants to tell them how hurt I am. I know I will never tell them about what Gareth did to me because I can’t see myself going anywhere near that subject with my parents. Then there is a part of me that wants to spare them from what happened and tell them I’m fine and it’s a few bruises but then there’s another part of me that wants to hit out at them for what they did. Every thought seems to bounce off another. And now I do feel emotional, emotional as this complex equation of who I am is trying to be solved by mind and body at the same time. There are too many variables running through vast equations and right into a singularity. I feel an attack coming on. I shout for Catherine.
She comes running out of the corridor and stands between me and my parents. “Nice deep breaths,” she says, “like we talked about.”
The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Malachi the Queer Page 18