by Emily Koch
‘Rosie …’
‘And the other strange thing is she doesn’t want to tell her parents about any of it.’
‘So?’
‘But she normally tells them everything, they talk all the time, like – every day or every other day. She doesn’t want to bother them with this, though. I feel like there’s more to it.’
‘She could just be telling you the truth.’
Tom coughed, and his mouth slurped at a drinks bottle. The noise shot me through with longing. It sounds crazy but I fantasised daily about those stainless steel bottles we used to take out climbing, to the point that I thought I could taste the faint metallic sharpness that the liquid always took on. I wanted a drink so badly.
‘I don’t know. Something doesn’t add up,’ Rosie said.
Bea was safe – for now. But for how long? My inability to do anything was unbearable. If the police wouldn’t help, she hadn’t told her parents, and her best friend was doubting her, who was going to protect her?
Someone had to take action, I kept telling myself.
Someone has to do something.
I have to do something.
26
EVERYTHING SHIFTED.
I had wanted to know who put me in this hospital bed since I found out it wasn’t an accident, but now I wanted more. More than the five Ws, as we called them in the newsroom. What, when, who, why, where.
My feelings of frustration at my inertness became something else. I didn’t just want to gain some kind of peace before I died. I wanted to look this person in the eyes. I wanted the chance to help Bea, to save her from the fate I could feel her careering towards. She hadn’t been hurt, yet. How long before her stalker went to the next level? I might be the only person who could help the police work out who had tried to kill me, and who was putting so much effort into intimidating her. Lying here, thinking about it all while I waited for death, was no longer an option. My mounting fear for Bea was the catalyst that made me see how stupid I had been to accept my demise without a fight.
Adrenalin coursed through me, excitement making my limbs and heart feel strong as I let myself believe for the first time in months that I might actually be able to beat this peculiar sickness. I let myself think things that I had been blocking, turning away from, ever since I found out that my accident was no such thing. I had spent all those months before that moment thinking that fate had put me here. If it was fate, it meant I deserved it, and that nobody could have done anything to stop it. It was always going to happen. I got it into my head that I was destined to slip, to have hit my head. It was karma. And so, resigned to this fact and overwhelmed by the situation I found myself in, I had decided I wanted to die. And when I found out that wasn’t true, that someone had deliberately tried to end me, I had been too stubborn to see what that meant for my death wish.
But now. Now! I finally gave myself permission to acknowledge that this new information flipped my perspective upside down and inside out. I’d been cheated of my life and my chance to make up for things I’d done. I’d been cheated of so much. And I wanted to get it all back.
Everything shifted.
I was not ready to die.
Whatever route you climb, wherever you are, whatever the difficulty, there is always a crux – the hardest section, the point of the climb where the most danger exists. On many climbs, the moves before and after it are easy in comparison. The crux is where you prove yourself. I had thought for some time that my fall, my descent into this mysterious illness, waking up trapped inside my body – this whole thing was the crux move of my life. Without a doubt, it was the hardest thing I had ever had to go through.
Now I saw that even the string of months I had been hospital were just part of that build-up. Now I had reached my biggest challenge. Usually, you would stand at the bottom of a route and identify the hardest sections, prepare for them, make sure you saved enough energy to complete them. But I hadn’t been able to plan for this. All I could do was stay calm, work out my strategy, and commit to it. You couldn’t beat a crux unless you believed you could – it was a mental challenge as much as a physical one. Out on the rock, you had to know you could do the moves and trust that on the other side the climb would be more straightforward again and you would have energy to get to the top. Right now, I had to trust that the hard work I was about to put in would pay off, and I would get my life back. I was going to find a way to show someone – anyone – that I was awake.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
For a start, I was running out of time. For many, many months I had silently willed Dad to let me die, and it had finally started to look like he would.
The day after Rosie and Tom had their curry, Dad and Philippa visited. They had barely been here five minutes when the door opened again.
‘Oh, great,’ Philippa said. ‘Look who’s decided to show her face.’
‘Philippa,’ Dad warned.
‘Your new boyfriend busy, is he? Got a spare few minutes to visit your old one?’
Bea?
‘I can go. Come back later,’ Bea said. ‘I didn’t know—’
‘What? That he would have a visit from people who actually care about him?’
‘Enough!’ Dad shouted. ‘You don’t need to go anywhere, Bea. Stay.’
Bea mumbled a thank-you and the three of them remained in an awkward silence for a few minutes.
Bea, I’m going to get out of here. I’m going to sort this out.
I felt invigorated after my change of heart. I was really going to do this. I would find a way to communicate, then one day I’d get out of this hospital.
I’m finding a way back to you.
‘Have you heard anything else from the police?’ Bea asked. ‘I called them, but they say they can’t tell—’
‘I’m not sure we should discuss it,’ Philippa cut in.
Bea didn’t rise to my sister’s rudeness. She was clearly feeling sheepish about Cameron, otherwise she would have been giving as good as she got.
‘Sorry, but there might be reasons they’ve told us one thing and you another,’ Philippa said, coldly.
Bea tried again. ‘But they must know we will talk to each other?’
‘I’m surprised to see you here, if I’m honest,’ Philippa said.
Don’t talk to her like that.
‘Don’t take it out on Bea.’ Dad spoke calmly but firmly. ‘Life is complicated, Phil. It isn’t always as black and white as you’d like to think. How many times do I have to tell you that?’
There was silence again. Dad’s limping footsteps moved towards the chair on my right, and he pressed a hand on my bed to steady himself as he sat down. He reached out his fingers to stroke my face.
Bea was the next to speak. ‘I think I’m going to leave you to it.’
‘Stay,’ Dad repeated. ‘While we’re all here, we should talk about what happens next with Alex.’
You need to keep me alive. Give me more time.
‘Bea might have come round to our way of thinking, now that she’s replaced him,’ Philippa muttered.
Bea ignored her. ‘You really want to do this?’ she asked Dad.
‘Yes.’
‘You as well, Philippa?’
Exactly what I would have asked. Since when had Philippa sided with Dad on this?
‘It’s the best thing to do.’ Philippa didn’t sound convinced to me. ‘Dad’s right.’
‘You never met Diane,’ Dad said. ‘But when she wanted to die, Alex supported her in that decision. I’ve been trying to think of anything he said during his life that would give me an indication of what he’d want me to do now.’
No. Don’t do this.
‘Philippa, back me up here,’ he continued. ‘Alex didn’t want his mother to have all that extra treatment. He wanted her to have a dignified death, didn’t he? That’s what he would want for himself.’
I couldn’t blame him for what he was doing, but I was horrified at how my words were being turned back on me. I�
�d said those things about Mum – not me. That wasn’t what I wanted for myself.
‘But are you sure we’ve tried absolutely everything?’ Bea’s voice sped up. ‘And I was thinking, with the criminal investigation. Shouldn’t we at least wait until we find out what happened to him?’
Yes, this is good. Keep going.
‘Nothing’s changed as far as his condition goes,’ Dad said.
Things have changed. THINGS HAVE CHANGED.
Pain stabbed at my temples.
‘But I think Alex would want us to be totally sure. He wouldn’t want us to give up on him yet.’
‘But when?’ Philippa jumped in. ‘When would we finally be able to do that? What do you propose we do in the meantime? They can’t keep him in hospital for ever. What do you want us to do? Bring him home? We can’t afford to modify the house, buy all the equipment they say we’d need. Dad’s arthritis is getting worse.’
Dad made a noise of protest.
‘What? It is. You forget things, too. And look at those glasses! They’re filthy. You can barely look after yourself, let alone him. You’d have to give up your job, and I can’t be there, and we can’t afford to pay anyone, and there’s no space in the only nursing home in Bristol that could take him, so he’d be miles away and—’
She stopped abruptly and within seconds the door slammed. Had someone walked out? Come in?
‘Sorry,’ Dad said. ‘You wouldn’t always know it from the way she talks but she is really upset that we can’t care for him at home. She doesn’t want to give up her job, and I wouldn’t let her anyway. She’s struggling with it all, to be honest. She’s only recently accepted the idea of – of this.’
‘I could take care of him,’ Bea said.
‘You know you couldn’t,’ Dad said gently. ‘It’s difficult. We’re planning to go ahead with this.’
Dad, please. Don’t do this.
‘Please think about it some more,’ he said. ‘We want your backing, too.’ From the direction of where he was sitting, I heard the soft thud of a glasses case opening, shutting, opening, shutting.
Neither of them spoke.
Opening, shutting. Thud. Thud.
‘I’m going to head home.’ Bea sounded exhausted. ‘You staying?’
‘For a bit. Philippa will calm down and come back soon, I imagine.’
‘Okay. Look, I’ll think about it,’ Bea said. ‘But I think he’d want to keep fighting, I really do. I think he’d want us to take more time. Be sure about what we are doing. Get them to do more tests, at least.’ The door clicked open and shut.
I heard Dad shift in the chair, but he didn’t speak for a while.
Don’t do this to me.
If I thought it enough, would the message get through?
Don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it.
He leaned on my bed again as he eased himself out of the chair, then walked behind me, towards the wall where the devil suctioning machine was kept, where I had listened to the nurses washing their hands in a sink and pulling paper towels out of a dispenser to dry them. For something I had never seen, I had quite a clear picture of what it all looked like.
And then, out of the silence there came a terrifyingly loud and sudden noise. A guttural roar from Dad, followed quickly by a clattering, smashing sound. As I tried to understand what had happened, the room went totally silent once more. What had just happened? Had he hit something on the wall? Kicked a chair? Or had he fallen?
Are you okay? Dad?
I heard him move back towards me, and as he got closer I could make out the heaviness of his breathing. It was the way people breathed after physical exertion, but there was something else in it too – the stuttering, irregular rhythm that gave away tears.
As he passed my bed on his way to the door, he briefly stopped to touch my shoulder. I could feel him shaking.
27
BEA WAS BACK the next day, reeking of cigarettes.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hip against mine, her leg jiggling up and down, her foot tapping on the floor. I felt the movement through the whole mattress.
‘They’re still watching me.’ Her body shivered against mine. ‘I called the police last night, and I mentioned your letter – again. At least they’ve got it now.’ Her leg kept bouncing. Tap, tap, tap. ‘And I asked again if they’d found out any more about who vandalised my car, but they said it was unlikely they would ever pin it on anyone.’
Why aren’t they helping you more?
‘What I don’t get is why the woman who sent that letter to you, who did this to you, why she would be doing this to me, now? What have I done to her? Nothing. It has to be linked, but I don’t see why she is doing it.’
I think you’re on the wrong track. Don’t assume it’s some jilted woman.
‘Am I losing it? I know that’s what Rosie thinks.’
I hope you are. It would be better that than have the person I think it is following you.
‘I feel totally powerless. The guy in the car, watching the flat the other day. I went out there, ready to confront him, ask who the hell he was. But he saw me coming and drove off. What can I do? I just have to sit it out and wait for the police to charge someone?’
She was talked out, and sat quietly. I saw an opportunity to put my crux plan into action. If I wanted to show any of them that I was awake, I needed to get their attention. Of course, I had tried to do this for all those months before I gave up on my fight for life. But maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough? Now, I had renewed focus. I was going to make it happen, I was determined. I tried to make a noise. Maybe I could grunt, or cough. I concentrated hard but nothing happened.
Come on, Alex. COME ON. Get her attention.
Still, nothing. How did you do it? I couldn’t remember. I tried to find a muscle in my chest, mouth, neck, that would react when I tried to tense it or move it. I tried to scream. Tried to blow out air from my mouth.
Still, nothing. Bea wasn’t noticing my efforts. I kept trying to grunt.
Arghfh. Harghb.
She starting talking again. ‘I’ve been thinking about …’
I ignored her. I needed to try something else.
I made myself think about all the regrets I had about my mother’s death. I thought about not telling her I loved her enough when I was a kid. I thought about telling her I hated her too often when I was a teenager. I thought about never taking her to the theatre, like she’d wanted me to. I thought about finding excuses not to visit her when she was in hospital. I thought about my decision to back her up when she said that she wanted to be allowed to die.
It worked. The tears started coming, dribbling down my face.
Look at me. Can’t you see that I’m awake? These are real tears.
‘I can’t just sit around waiting for this to go away. I’ve got to do something. I’m going to head down to the Gorge this afternoon, see if I can find the spot Tom showed me,’ she was saying. ‘Take another look at where it happened.’
Bea. Look at me.
How was I going to do this? I screamed another silent scream.
AAARGH. Listen. I’m here.
The next morning, I put the second part of my plan into action. I had to get them to run more tests on me. When Dr Sharma did his ward round I tried my grunting routine again.
Arghfh. Harghb.
‘Let’s have a quick check of your heart,’ he said, and a cold piece of metal slid under my pyjama top onto the skin of my chest.
Arghfh. Harghb.
‘All sounding good …’ I stopped listening to him, instead focusing all my energy on my mission.
Pffffsk. Help. Me.
There was no noise.
Run the tests. Run the tests again. Let me show you this time. Run the tests. Run the tests. The tennis test. The house test. Let me show you.
I said those words over and over and over in my mind.
Run the tests. Run the tests. Run the tests.
I was vaguely aware of him talking, b
ut I tuned it out and kept on with my mantra.
Run the tests. Run the tests. I want to find a way to communicate with you. I want to talk to my family. Run the tests. Give me another chance. I’ll try this time. Run the tests.
The door clicked shut. He’d left the room.
I was due a miracle, and it came through. The next day, two days after I found the will to live again, Dr Sharma came back in with Pauline. Nothing unusual in that.
I resumed my chant.
Run the tests. Run the tests.
I tried to speak.
Gahhhf. Froooomn. Cahgbod.
And to my surprise, he said, ‘His dad has given us the go-ahead for another round of our tennis scans. I’ve got some time later today – can you get him ready for about two o’clock?’
‘No problem, Dr Sharma,’ Pauline said.
‘We’ve refined the tests a little. It’ll be interesting to compare his previous results to today’s. Although I’m not expecting to see much of a change, if I’m honest.’
Wait until you get me in there.
Later that day, Pauline came to wheel me out, down the corridors, back to the room with the MRI scanner.
Dr Sharma gave me the same instructions, and the nurse assisting him put headphones into my ears. My heart was pumping fast, my mouth dry. They slid me into the machine. Could this be the moment they finally realised?
The music started and so did the whirring, mechanical drone patterns of the scanner, alternating with electrical clicking sounds. Dr Sharma’s voice came in through the headphones and he asked me to imagine playing tennis. I did it. I served, I returned shots, I jumped up and down and ran around, all in my mind. I threw myself into it. I envisaged them watching all this impressive mental activity on their screens. But when they spoke to me over the sound system, they didn’t betray any emotion. Dr Sharma said, ‘Now, imagine walking through the rooms of your house. Go into one room, look around. Think about what you would see. Then move into another room.’
I found myself on the doorstep of my parents’ home, not the flat I had shared with Bea. I stood outside the front door, which was painted red with glass panels. I twisted the handle and stepped through the door into a magnolia-walled hallway with wooden floors. It smelled like home. Like Mum – hairspray and red roses perfume. Like dinner on the table. Like football kit that needed washing. There was a bowl of potpourri on the small table on the left.