by Emily Koch
‘A good or bad thing?’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Mostly. But sometimes people took advantage.’
‘Like Philippa?’ I nodded. Bea understood a lot about our family dynamic, considering she hadn’t been around when Mum was alive.
‘She loved roses. Always wanted a new one to plant in the garden, for every birthday. She never wanted anything else. She preferred pink ones, and she liked to keep a list of the names in her gardening diary. I got her one once called Gertrude Jekyll.’
Bea laughed. ‘That’s Didi’s middle names sorted.’
I could see Mum clearly now, crouching in the garden to plant one of her new roses, the hem of her patterned skirt sinking into the muddy earth. I felt a tightness begin to form in my chest, so I moved on. ‘And she liked blue cheese with caramelised onion chutney. On chive crackers. No butter.’
Bea put a hand on my shoulder and the tightness forming around my heart slunk away. ‘I wish I had met her,’ she said.
‘Because of the cheese?’
She laughed. ‘Yes. Because of the cheese.’
We had lots of conversations like that.
But now I wasn’t around to have those kids with. Bea had amazed me with her determination to stick at my side. I had worried that her visits might tail off over time. That the draw of real life and real conversations would start to pull her away from me. But still she came. Would I have done the same? Surely, by this point, part of her thought it would be better if I could die. Better for me, but also better for her. She would be able to move on.
Bea laid her head back down next to mine. ‘There are times when I miss you so badly. Like last night – I convinced myself there was someone watching me from the garden. I really freaked out. You’d have said something to make me feel better, you know?’ She paused, and sighed. ‘Maybe I’m spending too much time on my own.’
I felt her lips against my neck.
‘Wake up, wake up, wake up,’ she whispered. Then: ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.’ She couldn’t decide which she wanted. My Bea. Breaking with too-painful love.
After she left, I could still feel her there, tucked up behind me. We weren’t in a hospital bed, but back at home. I was just pretending to be asleep, as I had done so many times before with her, challenging her to stir me. She lay behind me, kissing my shoulder blades. She wrapped a smooth leg around me, rolled the weight of my body back onto her so I could feel her nakedness press into my back. ‘Come on, Alex. Wake up,’ she murmured, as she used her nails to lightly circle over my chest, down my stomach. She flicked the elastic of my boxers. ‘Wake. Up.’
As the fantasy continued, my body responded for real. It’s another quirk of this condition of mine – I can still get it up. Not necessarily when I want to. It doesn’t happen every time Bea is here, or every time a nurse touches me. I don’t get hard every time I think about Bea naked – not like I used to. The first time she noticed the sheets moving unexpectedly I heard her breath stutter and change. She touched my leg, moving her hand upwards – then she hesitated and pulled away. She stood silent for a moment before calling Dr Sharma in.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s unlikely to mean anything at all,’ Dr Sharma said. ‘Alex will still be able to get erections – parts of his body will still function in a similar way to how they used to.’
‘But it seems so strange that his body would do that. What if it’s the sound of my voice?’
‘I know it’s confusing for you. I’m sorry. But I’m not convinced that it is. I don’t think this is a result of him reacting to outside stimuli.’
I briefly imagined shoving him up against the wall and asking him what his game was. I was desperate for her to touch me. Why wouldn’t he let her try it? What harm could it do?
‘Look, Bea – can I call you Bea?’ Dr Sharma asked. ‘What I think we are seeing here is a bit like what happens with Alex’s eyes. You know how sometimes they are open a little bit, and sometimes they are closed?’
‘Yes. But this. What’s happening now. This is different, isn’t it?’
‘Less frequent, perhaps. But it’s that same kind of scenario. His body will do some things – open his eyes, or even cry – without him having control over it, and without him necessarily reacting to you being here. Some things he does are just reflexive.’
‘But how can you be so sure?’
‘We’ve done lots of tests. We’ve watched him. In the very rare cases when we find out that a patient like Alex is conscious, it’s because one of the scans shows up certain kinds of activity in their brain, or because we notice they are blinking or moving their eyes in response to things we say. Alex isn’t doing any of that.’
‘I thought this might mean something,’ she said quietly.
‘I know, I’m sorry. The same goes for some other things too – if you notice his heart rate changing or him getting goosebumps when you touch him. It makes it look like he is awake, but he’s not. If you see his eyes follow you, or you think he blinks at you, then that’s different. Tell me if that happens.’
‘You’re saying he has no idea I’m here.’
‘I’m saying that, for the moment, we don’t think he is conscious. But it’s still good to visit him. Just try not to get your hopes up.’
There was an awkward silence.
‘While you’re here,’ Bea said, finally, ‘there’s something else I’ve been wanting to ask.’
‘Of course, go ahead.’
‘If he comes round, how much will he be able to remember, from before?’
‘Bea,’ Dr Sharma said, a warning in his voice. ‘You know that we are not predicting that he will come round, don’t you? You understand the prognosis?’
‘Yes, but hypothetically speaking. If he did?’
‘You’re worried he might not remember you?’
‘No, I …’ She stopped, sighed. ‘More like his immediate memory. The weeks before, the day of his fall. That kind of thing. I’ve heard with head injuries, sometimes they can’t recall—’
‘You must be very keen to know exactly what happened to make him slip. He was an experienced climber, I heard?’
‘Very.’
‘He might remember, he might not. I’m not sure I should really—’
‘Hypothetical situation,’ Bea cut in. She sounded frustrated – one beat short of losing her temper with Dr Sharma and his evasiveness.
‘Someone with these injuries probably wouldn’t remember the day of the accident itself. Before that – it’s too hard to say. It would depend on a number of things.’
‘Fine, I understand,’ she said. ‘He might remember, he might not.’
At the time I assumed she was asking these questions because she hoped I would have full recall. It’s only now, looking back, that I wonder if she was hoping the opposite.
4
AS THE MONTHS passed after my hospital admission, I had become increasingly sure that Bea didn’t think I could hear her. What I deduced from the way she spoke to me was that she liked the idea that I might be listening, but that’s all it was – an idea. It wasn’t reality, not as she saw it.
Sometimes she would ask me something, and wait for a second as though I might answer. But mostly she spoke to me as if I was a diary to be filled with her daily activities and thoughts – and a few confessions thrown in here and there. Her monologues were journal entries, or letters to an old friend. But – no, they weren’t quite like that. There was something unnerving in the way she threw the words out into the room as if they’d never matter. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, my mind wouldn’t make the link. But Bea made it for me. It wasn’t long after her dream about me appearing in her bed, when she visited again.
She was pacing. Her voice swung from one side of the room to the other, following the noise of her footsteps.
‘So, what have I done today …?’ she began. I couldn’t concentrate on what she said. The nurses had moved me onto my back, le
aving my arm twisted. They were well trained in this inadvertent torture technique – leaving their victim in excruciating stress positions.
‘… then I went for a run …’
Not only could I not concentrate, but I didn’t have much interest in what she was talking about, either. All I wanted her to do was rearrange me, and get me comfortable.
My left arm, Bea. Can you straighten me out?
Pins and needles bit into my hand, spreading up past my wrist. She stopped still next to my bed, and stroked my tingling fingers.
‘… new trainers were good but I’m not sure they have as much support as I’m used to and I’m sure I’m still over-pronating …’
Still rubbing across my knuckles, she leaned in to kiss my forehead. The pain eased in my arm, and I willed her to talk about something more interesting. I wanted to listen to her – it was better than the mind-numbing silence I usually had on repeat – but sometimes the banality of what she chose to tell me did my head in.
‘If I’m honest,’ she said, and paused. ‘I was running for a reason. To straighten something out in my head.’
I felt the gentle tickle of her nails on the back of my thumb.
‘There’s this group.’
She walked away from the bed, her shoes padding softly on the floor.
‘A grief counselling group. I went to a grief counselling group.’ The words tumbled from her mouth in a rush.
‘It was Rosie’s idea. I thought it was stupid.’
I didn’t understand. Who had died?
‘She suggested going to the same one Tom went to when his dad died – he said it wasn’t just for people who have been bereaved. A life change is enough.’
So nobody was dead. Which meant – was she talking about me being in here? Was that her life change? She was right, it sounded stupid. There must have been other counselling available for someone in her position.
There was a crinkling sound, and when she next spoke she had something in her mouth. ‘God, Al,’ she garbled, and the smell of spearmint hit me. ‘It was a disaster.’
Her footsteps came closer again, and I heard her scratching at her head as she walked. She used to run her fingers up through her short, blonde hair when she got stressed, over and over. I could see it now. I had always loved the way it fell across her khaki green eyes and the freckled skin of her forehead.
‘It started when I called the guy to find out about it. He asked me why I wanted to go, and I don’t know why I did it, but I said –’
She paused and made a funny noise, as if she had remembered something embarrassing.
Then she rattled out, ‘I said my boyfriend died nearly two years ago in a climbing accident.’
I wanted to laugh out loud. The kind of laugh that makes you spit out your tea.
‘And then, from there, I couldn’t take it back. When I went to the session they were all so nice about it. I felt awful.’
I listened to her feet, still padding back and forth across the room.
‘And I cried. It was awful. The woman leading the session asked us all to remember something – “go back to a time when Alex tried to cheer you up when you felt sad” she said. “What would he say to you when you were sad?”’
What would I say? I would hold her, or try and make her laugh. I never felt like I said the right thing, but I could usually make her smile if I did something ridiculous enough.
‘“Tomorrow will be better.” That’s what you always used to say. So I told them that, and they smiled and patted me on the back and I cried and it was awful.’ She sighed. ‘They all thought I was talking about my dead boyfriend.’
Bea wouldn’t have told me all of this if she had really thought I could hear her. She didn’t like admitting her mistakes, and hated it when I found out about something that gave me cause to tease her.
If I could have laughed, I would have. When you’re in my position you take your kicks where you can get them. Then a latch abruptly clicked into place in my brain. I imagined Bea, sitting around, discussing my death with other grieving men and women, and suddenly I knew what her style of talking to me brought to mind: a bereaved relative, visiting the grave of a loved one.
5
A STRANGE COMBINATION of smells. Something like solvent, reminding me of gloss paint, mixing with another, more aromatic scent – aftershave of some kind. This particular doctor’s visits always started like this: the first sign was always the smell. Often that was the only hint I had as to my visitor’s identity, as he wasn’t much of a talker. He was a specialist of some kind, and he visited less frequently than the other doctors – every few months or so. Over the time he had been tending to me, I hadn’t managed to work out his name – no one had addressed him within my earshot. So I called him Quiet Doc.
Normally he checked me over and muttered a bit. It was always a shock when he had more to say – like he did a few days after Bea’s visit.
I spent several minutes listening to him rove around, picking up my charts, sliding my vase of flowers along the table. He sighed frequently as he did it, as if it was all a huge effort.
He continued his usual checks, putting a hand to my forehead, his scent getting stronger as he moved closer to me. He held it there, then slid it down to my left cheek, pushing it away from him – presumably checking the movement of my neck, or looking in my ear. Then he held my jaw and pulled my face back towards him.
I knew what came next: arms. He pinned my right elbow joint to the bed, and lifted my right wrist, checking my range of movement. He repeated the test on my left side. He did all of this slowly and silently, not in a rush as most of them usually were.
It should have been reassuring to have someone take their time. It should have felt like he was doing his job properly, taking care over everything. But despite his thoroughness, he didn’t seem very pleased to have to look after me, with all his huffing and muttering. And there was something unsettling about the way he touched me – his hands lingered and slid from one part of my body to the other, in contrast to the perfunctory movement I was used to from most of the other medical professionals.
I sized all of this up as he checked the movement in my leg joints and investigated the flexibility of my fingers, one by one.
All look okay?
He took my pulse by holding my wrist for a minute or so, before inspecting the tracheostomy tube sticking out of my neck, tugging it this way and that.
I knew the drill. He usually said a few things when he finished his check-up. He talked quietly, as though the words were more for his benefit than mine.
‘Good, Mr Jackson, you’re doing well.’ He paused. ‘No improvement.’
This was his style. He seemed encouraging, but at the same time he never noticed anything that suggested I was getting better.
This was his cue to scrutinise the charts a few more times and leave, without another word.
Not today.
‘You’re determined to survive, aren’t you?’ he said, almost under his breath. He sighed again.
‘You’ve had pneumonia how many times?’ He walked down to the end of my bed and I heard the clatter of my chart’s clipboard as he picked it up again. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘And yet, you’re still with us.’
It wasn’t the kind of thing I would have wanted to hear from a doctor in my old life – but feeling as I did, I agreed with him. How was I still alive?
‘You’re a symptom of the totally fucked healthcare system this country has,’ he said. His language shocked me – I hadn’t heard any of my doctors swear. Even though they had no idea that I was listening, they generally acted professionally.
‘There are so many more people surviving injuries like yours these days than there used to be, because medicine gets better and better.’ He put my charts back and walked over to the window on my left. ‘But what’s the point? Perhaps it would have been better if you had died.’
If you don’t want to be here, don’t let me keep you.
He must’ve tu
rned suddenly. Without warning, I felt a tug on the plastic tube which ran into my stomach, through which the nurses administered drugs and food.
This wasn’t part of his usual routine.
I listened as he fiddled with something at my side; it sounded like the plastic fitting at the end of the tube.
What are you doing?
What was he doing? Giving me medicine? Not food – that would be a job far below his pay grade. What if he was poisoning me? Ridding the world of this burden?
My face grew hot and my heart began to thud as the tube dropped back down by my side.
What have you given me? Morphine?
Was he my ticket out of here? Did he think I was enough of a drain on their resources to actually end my life?
His footsteps moved away from my bed, but his smell lingered as the door clicked open, shut, and he left me alone to wonder what he had just put into my system. If anything.
Could this man be my ally?
No, he wouldn’t do that. My imagination was running away with me. I couldn’t feel any change in my body, and the drugs usually worked quickly when they were pumped straight into my stomach. He was a doctor. He wasn’t going to euthanase me, no matter how much he resented my existence on his ward, even if he thought it was the best thing for me.
My doctors were there to look after me, not kill me. I never imagined I’d be thinking those words and feeling disappointed.
6
EL CAP, WHAREAPAPA, Meteora, Les Calanques: climbing meccas that I’ve never seen. Lying mummified in my bed, I can’t identify with the person that said: I’ll go next year. Next year. Next year. I’ll go one day. Why did I do that?
But at least I climbed in the Canadian Rockies – and in many ways it all began there, ten years ago. In the Rockies I became obsessed with the sport – more than I ever had when climbing in the Avon Gorge and at the indoor walls back home. And also in the Rockies, I met Bea – in that camp by the gates to Banff National Park. For those few months we lived among pine forests and startling turquoise glacier-fed lakes, overlooked by huge snow-capped mountains: Ha Ling Peak, Grotto, Mount Lawrence Grassi, the Three Sisters. Waking and looking up at them made me want to grab my ropes, chalk up, and climb. And I did – on my days off – but I spent the rest of my time hiking with groups of teenagers, assisting the climbing instructors when they introduced the kids to the easier spots, and running activities at the camp.