If I Die Before I Wake

by Emily Koch

  Who? Tell me who it is.

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it? Hmm?’ Pauline asked, gently. ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘I wish I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh, you poor love. It’s what they say though, isn’t it – that you’re more at risk from someone you know than a stranger. How are you holding up?’

  ‘It’s a relief, I suppose, to start to bring this to a conclusion. But I feel so betrayed, angry on his behalf, you know?’

  Who is it?

  ‘It just goes to show, you don’t know anyone,’ Philippa continued.

  ‘You didn’t say who …’

  ‘It’s his girlfriend. Calculating little—’

  ‘Surely not?’ Pauline gasped.

  No.

  ‘But she always seems so lovely. She was here only yesterday.’

  No. This is crazy. Bea would never—

  ‘Lots of people say that. I never got what he saw in her.’

  They’ve got it wrong.

  I felt dizzy, like my bed had been tipped backwards and I was sliding, head-first towards the floor.

  ‘And they’ve arrested her?’

  ‘How could she do this to him?’ Philippa was ranting now, ignoring Pauline. ‘I can’t get my head around it. I never liked her, but I didn’t think she was capable of this. That little bitch. How could she?’

  ‘It’s hard to take in.’

  ‘He’s my only brother, you know?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, my love.’

  Philippa sounded like she was treading the fine line between fury and tears.

  This can’t be true.

  ‘No, I’m sorry – maybe I shouldn’t have come here. I’m not thinking clearly. You don’t need this, you’ve got enough to be getting on with.’

  ‘The police are sure it’s her?’

  ‘They told Dad they aren’t looking for anyone else.’

  No. Bea would never do this to me. It must have been one of those girls I screwed over. Clare.

  ‘How is Graham taking it?’ Pauline asked.

  ‘Graham?’ Philippa said, confused – as if she didn’t know our own father’s name. ‘Dad? He’s fine. I mean, he isn’t, but …’

  ‘Oh, my love. I’m going to get you a cuppa. You’re upset.’

  ‘I’m beyond upset,’ Philippa snapped. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean anything against you. But I can feel my heart racing – I could punch a hole through this window. I just can’t comprehend what would make someone want to do – do this –’

  She placed a hand on my leg.

  ‘– to another human being.’

  As she pulled away I heard her take a deep breath, trying to compose herself again. ‘These need replacing.’ Rustle. Thud. The crackle of cellophane as she put new flowers in place. Clip, clip, clip as she walked around the room.

  They’ve made a mistake. Don’t trust the police.

  Pauline tried again. ‘Let me get you a cuppa.’

  ‘I just feel so stupid for not realising it earlier. That two-face bitch.’

  How can you believe this?

  My head was spinning. It was impossible. What evidence could they possibly have?

  ‘They think she’ll confess once they tell her what they have. If she even tries to deny it, I swear, I’ll …’

  They’ve got the wrong person.

  As the initial shock started to wear off, I was left feeling completely disoriented. I could barely keep track of where they were in the room. How could this be happening?

  ‘But did they say why?’ Pauline asked. ‘There must be a motive.’

  ‘They’ve got a letter, which Bea says she found a couple of weeks ago. But the police think she actually found it much earlier, and she was so upset by it that she did this.’

  No. She only just found it. She would have said something if she’d seen it before.

  ‘But what did it say?’

  ‘It’s cryptic, but it suggests he had an affair. The thing is—’ Philippa broke off, muttering angrily to herself. ‘I remember that little liar telling us about it, a few weeks ago. She put on this whole act of being upset and confused. It was all a performance, everything she has said and done since he was put into that ambulance. She’s been trying to cover her tracks for months.’

  You know full well that Bea didn’t do this to me! You’ve got to help her.

  She continued, ‘He didn’t have an affair, of course. He wasn’t that kind of guy. But she didn’t even give him a chance to tell her that, did she? Police reckon she flipped out and when he was climbing that day she pushed him off the top. Or she threw something at him. Made him lose his footing somehow.’

  No. This is impossible. She wasn’t even in Bristol. Where is she now? Is she okay?

  They say the most likely explanation is that she threw a rock, or – I don’t know what they think she threw. And that’s why he fell. Crime of passion, police are calling it.’

  Impossible.

  Philippa laughed, bitterly. ‘And the other thing – the other thing. We’ve just found out the full story about the witness who came forward. The birdwatcher who saw her on the cliff. They recognised her photo in the paper back when it happened, but didn’t want to get involved. Didn’t want to get involved! Their conscience only got the better of them recently, they told the police. How could you keep quiet about something like that? All this time we’ve been welcoming her into our family. We could have been saved all of these months.’

  More dizziness hit me, and then something else. I suddenly got a strong urge to relieve myself. It was nothing unusual – I had no control over when it happened. I could always feel the warm stream of piss go through me, out of my body via the catheter and into a bag which the nurses changed regularly. But this time as I felt the flow of liquid there was also something else. Dampness. Warm dampness against my thighs.

  You’ve got to be kidding me. Now? This has to happen now?

  I made futile attempts to will Pauline to notice.

  My catheter. Check my catheter.

  I knew what she would find. I tried to feel for it. Normally I could just about feel the plastic inside me; not painful, but there, nonetheless. But at that moment I couldn’t feel anything – it had come out.

  Pauline. My catheter.

  She was oblivious. ‘Bea always seems so lovely,’ she said again, sadly.

  I wanted to think more about what Philippa had said. What was going to happen to Bea now? Where was she? But my piss was still flowing freely and gave me a more immediate emergency to deal with.

  Couldn’t they hear it? See it? The mattress cover felt wet and hot under my skin.

  ‘I hope she rots in hell,’ Philippa spat. Her voice wavered as she repeated the words, then there was the unmistakable sound of her sobbing.

  Pauline. My catheter – please?

  It was no coincidence that this had only happened a couple of times before, and every time it was just a few hours after Connie had fitted me with a new catheter in her eminently professional manner.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t get you some tea?’ Pauline tried again.

  Philippa didn’t reply. There was more sniffing; uneven breathing.

  ‘Come on, my love. Come with me.’

  Wait – can’t you see –

  I heard the door close.

  The damp sheets started to cool and my skin itched. The ammonia smell got stronger as the minutes passed, and with it came a familiar feeling of embarrassment.

  When I was a boy, I used to wet the bed. I didn’t remember having bad dreams: I just woke up, drenched and ashamed. I would call out for Mum and she’d arrive in my bedroom bleary-eyed and warm from her bed. Without saying anything or putting the light on, she’d peel my pyjamas off, then change my sheets. She never told me off, never got cross.

  Mum.

  My throat tightened.

  What would she think about this? What would she make of Bea’s arrest?

  Mum.

  It didn’t take me long to work out e
xactly what she would say. ‘You’ve got to trust the people you love.’ I could hear her voice saying the words. ‘Trust is everything in a relationship.’

  I miss you.

  On her deathbed she wrote three letters: one each for me, Philippa and Dad. I never read theirs but I’d read mine every day for a year or so. In it, she talked about the day I was born. ‘My life changed more than I ever imagined it could.’ She told me she was proud of me. ‘You’ve become a fine young man, you remind me of your father when I met him.’ And she gave me her advice for living a happy life. ‘Don’t worry too much about anything. Work at your friendships. Always try to see things from other people’s perspectives. Let yourself fall in love, but remember: you’ve got to trust the people you love. Trust is everything in a relationship.’

  I had to trust Bea. There was no way she had done this to me. It was one thing for Philippa to believe it – she had never liked her. But I wasn’t going to let anyone poison my mind against her. That was the only thing I could do for her: stand strong with her: I couldn’t help her in any other way. Where was she? In custody? She must have been afraid. Who would be looking after her? Her parents. Tom and Rosie, I hoped. They wouldn’t abandon her.

  Shivers passed through me, goosebumps travelling up my torso and arms from my rapidly cooling groin and thighs. The sound of Bea’s disappointed voice kept playing, over and over, in my head. ‘I thought I could have gone back to the police with something,’ she’d said yesterday. ‘Something to make them listen to me.’

  ‘Make them listen to me,’ I heard her say, on repeat. My brain was playing tricks. Why wouldn’t it move on from this phrase?

  Make them listen to me. Listen to me.

  And then I understood why my mind was so stuck on that moment: that was the last time she had been here. Would it be the last time she ever visited me? Would it be the last time I ever got the chance to hear her voice? Was that our goodbye? What if she went to prison? Even if I got better, would I ever be better enough to visit her? In these last few weeks, since the letter, she had been one of the constant things in my life. I relied on her. I needed her.

  I was desperate to remember everything about our last moments together, just as I had been after Mum died.

  Did you touch me? I can’t remember. When was the last time you touched me?

  I scanned my body, trying to force the memories: her hand on my leg, her lips on my forehead, how she held herself against my back.

  If I’d known, I would have paid closer attention. What was the last thing she said? Did she kiss me?

  As I tried to replay that day, the images jostled for attention with what I could remember from my mother’s final hours.

  The shape of Bea’s body, pacing back and forth in front of my face as I lay on my side with my eyes part-open.

  Mum’s breathing, getting shallower. Me, propping up the pillows behind her head and adjusting her duvet, just to have something to do.

  Bea’s excitement when she thought she had made a breakthrough with the baby photo. Why hadn’t I made more effort to listen to her?

  Mum’s eyes, closed, as she said, ‘Look after your father. Look after Philippa for me. She’s not as tough as she seems.’

  Bea, asking Pauline to help her get onto the maternity ward.

  Mum, laughing feebly as I reminded her of funny stories from when we were kids. The pet snails Philippa used to keep, each one called Penny, which always managed to escape. My home-made spacesuit constructed out of three rolls of tinfoil and a glass bowl over my face.

  The sound of Bea’s hand smacking against the wall, or the windowsill. The image of her, bending down to go through her bag. Her saying, ‘Back then, when I found the photo, I didn’t have such a good phone …’

  Wait.

  Back then?

  What had Philippa said the police’s theory was about the letter?

  ‘… the police think she actually found it much earlier …’

  When was ‘back then’, Bea? A few weeks ago, or nearly two years ago?

  My mind went back to the day when Bea told me she had found the letter. She was angry. My face tingled with the memory of her slap. There was no way that was staged. There was no way she would have been able to resist having it out with me if she’d found the letter before.

  She wasn’t calculating like that.

  She was impulsive.

  You’ve got to trust the people you love.

  30

  HOW COULD THEY arrest her? What were they thinking?

  The anger gave me extra motivation.

  Move. Move. MOVE.

  I had spent the last few days focusing all of my emotions onto the little finger of my right hand.

  Someone tried to kill you, and now the police want to take your girlfriend away.

  Nothing.

  You need to get out.

  Nothing.

  You have to find a way to help her.

  As I tried to move, Connie was shuffling around the room doing some of her usual checks.

  ‘How are you today, you old donkey brain?’ She laughed, and started rolling me onto my side. Grunting with the effort, she lifted up my left shoulder and pushed at my back.

  I used my anger against her as fuel.

  Move. Move.

  ‘Con, you’ll want to come out here,’ a voice said from outside my door. It was one of my other, younger nurses.

  Connie stopped what she was doing, leaving my upper body twisted sideways but my legs lying flat, side by side. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘You’ll want to see who’s here,’ the younger nurse said, with emphasis. She giggled.

  And she was gone, the door clicked shut behind her.

  I continued my attempts to move my little finger as I listened to the faint noise coming from the corridor, of women laughing.

  Move. You need to help Bea.

  Nothing.

  More laughter from the corridor. Who was this guy they were so excited about?

  A few minutes later, the door opened again, and almost immediately that familiar aniseed aftershave hit me.

  You.

  Quiet Doc must be a real looker to have the nurses this excited. I hadn’t heard them getting so flustered about any of the other men they worked with.

  He began his routine. I heard him pick up my charts and flick through the paperwork. He seemed more upbeat than usual, whistling a tune as he worked. What was that? I recognised the song, but I couldn’t afford to be distracted. I wanted to keep my focus on moving my finger, I needed to give it all my effort if I was going to succeed.

  Just a small movement. Anything.

  He touched my forehead, then pushed my head to one side and the other. I smelled the faint remnants of eucalyptus shower gel on him, and used it to make myself even angrier.

  Move. You can do this.

  Pinning my right elbow joint to the bed, he lifted my wrist.

  Move. MOVE.

  He stopped whistling and dropped my arm quickly, pushing it away from him – as if I’d given him an electric shock. ‘No,’ he said, softly. He brought his hand down onto mine – the same arm he had been lifting a moment ago. He pressed down on my skin, flattening my fingers against the bed. ‘This can’t be happening,’ he said.

  Had I moved? Had I done it?

  Maybe he was realising he was wrong, that it had in fact been worth keeping a vegetable like me alive. But I could hardly shout out, ‘I told you so!’

  I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I panicked. Could I do it again? My head filled with questions and anticipation.

  Move. MOVE.

  His hand was still resting on mine, still pressing it down into the mattress.

  Move. Do it again.

  I hadn’t felt anything. Had I really managed to move?

  Move. This is your chance.

  Quiet Doc sighed, and lifted his hand away.

  ‘Maybe I was imagining it,’ he said.

  No. I moved, you saw me!

  He pressed a
finger to each of my eyelids and lifted them. I was blinded by the sudden flood of light and couldn’t make out any features on his face. I desperately tried to move my eyes around, to show him a sign of life that would convince him.

  He slid my eyelids shut again.

  ‘Are you trying to come round, Mr Jackson?’

  He slapped me hard across the face. The force of it shunted my head slightly across the pillow.

  What are you doing?

  ‘Are you trying to wake up?’

  He slapped me again. My cheek was throbbing. He was trying to stimulate some kind of reaction.

  ‘Can you hear me, Mr Jackson?’

  And then he was gone.

  I thought I heard him laugh as he walked out, and I wished I could smile with him. It must have felt like a huge breakthrough for him – to have witnessed such a development in a patient no one expected to wake up. But no one could be more excited than me. Tears began to well in my eyes and tipped over onto my cheeks.

  Finally.

  When the door opened again I thought it must be him, back with Mr Lomax or Dr Sharma. I strained to listen, my heart still pounding.

  The usual whine as the door swung on its hinge didn’t happen straight away. When it came, it was slow – someone pushing it open unhurriedly, as if trying not to wake me. Footsteps, soft and dawdling. It didn’t sound like a doctor. Whoever it was approached my right-hand side, and the door clicked shut again behind them.

  A strong floral smell hit me, as if a bowl of my mum’s potpourri had been carried into the room. A woman, then.

  Hello?

  There was a sniff, and my visitor blew her nose. Took a deep breath.

  ‘Bea said.’

  Another deep breath.

  ‘Bea said.’ She spoke nervously, quietly. It was a croaky voice, an older woman. ‘Bea said.’

  Bea’s mum.

  I started trying to move my finger again. If I had done it once, what was stopping me doing it again?

  Watch my hand, Megan.

  Maybe the doctors had told her what was going on. The nurses were probably out on the ward right now, chattering about it. I was surprised none of them had been in to see me yet.

  I imagined the look on Connie’s face when Quiet Doc told her he thought I was awake. I wished I could have been there to see the moment when she realised her cruelty would be exposed.