by S. L. Grey
‘You have nothing I want, Mr Farrell.’ She walks out.
Chapter 4
LISA
Lumpy Legs pulls at the Micropore tape holding the dressing in place, catching my skin with her fingernails. I try not to wince or let her know she’s hurting me, but I can’t help crying out when she yanks the cotton wool plugs from my nostrils. I breathe in through my nose for the first time in ages, but all I can smell is a faint tinge of disinfectant and the irony scent of dried blood. She drops the bandages and plugs into a stainless steel kidney bowl. They’re gross-looking, caked with black scabs and iodine. I lift my hand to touch the incision and trace the new shape, but she slaps it away.
‘Don’t touch.’
‘Sorry, I was just…’
Using a clump of cotton swabs she starts cleaning the bridge of my nose. It stings, but it’s not as painful as I was expecting – more a throbbing ache than anything else. She pushes my head back and wipes around my nostrils. ‘Eish,’ she says, scowling.
‘What does it look like? Is it bad?’
For a second her expression softens. For an instant I’m a real person, not some spoiled chick who’s had an unnecessary ‘procedure’.
‘It’s not too bad,’ she says.
She’s lying. I think about asking for a mirror, but there’s not really much point. I know from past experience that it will just make me even more anxious.
The Indian doctor rustles his way in through the curtains. He’s harassed and distracted and doesn’t even greet me or Lumpy Legs. He barely glances at my face.
‘The operation is to be done tomorrow night,’ he says. ‘So, Nurse, nil by mouth from midnight onwards.’
Lumpy Legs grunts in response.
I force myself to speak up. ‘So everything’s healing okay? It’s fine to operate again?’
He sighs. ‘That’s when we can fit you in. There are many emergencies.’
That’s not really what I wanted to hear. But before I can speak again he bustles out.
Lumpy Legs finishes replacing the dressing, her grumpy expression back on her face, and rips the curtains back.
‘Everything all right, doll?’ Gertie says innocently, although we both know she’s been eavesdropping.
‘I think so. They want to operate again tomorrow night.’
‘Shame. Sinuses blocked up again, ja? Like I said, my grandson Reuben – Larissa’s third – had trouble with his when he was a baby, and after his grommets we…’
I lie back and let her monologue wash over me.
If looks could kill, I’d be dead several times over by now.
Gertie’s daughter Kyra – a thirty-something woman with straightened brittle hair and a too-tight T-shirt – has been shooting me dirty looks ever since she arrived five minutes ago. I stare down at my hands and fiddle with the plastic hospital bracelet around my wrist. I’m way out of my depth here, not sure where to look.
I hate visiting time. Even the comatose women who are wheeled in here straight from theatre (‘the veggies’, Gertie calls them) attract crowds of family members every evening. I’m beginning to recognise some of the regulars. Most of the women look overtired and overworked, and they slump with relief onto the hard plastic chairs. They barely glance at the patients they’ve come to see, spending the time shouting at their children, who chase each other up and down the corridors, scattering bright-orange Nik Naks across the floor. The men all look bored and resigned. Still, the sight of all these families makes me feel homesick, painfully aware that I’m miles away from home, and that no one even knows I’m in here.
I’m itching to flee to the waiting room, but Gertie has asked me to stay for ‘moral support, doll’. And it looks like she’s going to need it.
Kyra curls a lock of limp hair around a finger. ‘Five hundred rand, Ma. It’s not much.’
‘Do I look like I’ve got five hundred rand?’ Gertie snaps. ‘When was the last time I was able to collect my pension?’
Kyra’s boyfriend hovers at the door. Well, I think it’s her boyfriend. He’s got a patchily shaven scalp, ferrety teeth and a lazy eye. His fingernails are dirty.
Kyra’s eyes narrow. ‘What you looking at, bitch?’ she says to me. ‘You looking at my man?’
Gertie snorts. ‘As if she’d look at that piece of kak! And don’t you talk to my friend like that. She’s worth two of you.’
‘Ma! Don’t call Jannie a piece of kak. He’s good to me.’
‘Good to me se moer. He’s a taker. A user. Just like you, my girl.’
‘I’m not a taker!’
‘What are you then? Coming to the hospital to beg from me! And what did you bring me? Fokkol!’
‘Ma!’ Kyra whines. ‘Don’t be like that.’
‘Get out. You’re making me sicker. You aren’t getting any blarry tik money from me.’
Kyra opens her mouth to say something else, changes her mind, shoots me another vicious glance and stalks out.
‘Sorry about that, doll,’ Gertie says.
‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not okay. Three kids. And all of them blarry useless. Just like their father.’
Gertie heaves her bulk into a sitting position and rummages in her bedside cabinet. ‘Think you can help me to that place you were talking about? Need a ciggie.’
She’s suddenly hit with a coughing fit, as if just the idea of a cigarette is more than her lungs can take.
‘You shouldn’t smoke, Gertie.’
‘I shouldn’t do a lot of things,’ she says, struggling to breathe. She sounds defeated. ‘And I’ll have to face all that kak when I get out of here.’
She attempts to slide off the bed. Her hospital gown rucks up, showing off large mottled thighs riddled with knotty veins. I fetch her robe for her and help her steady the drip stand.
Using my shoulder and the stand for support, she starts edging out of the room.
‘Not a nurse in sight, eh, Lisa?’ Gertie puffs as we make our slow way down the corridor. ‘They always vanish during visiting time.’
She stumbles and I grab onto her upper arm to steady her. She’s a large woman, but her skin feels loose and saggy as if all the flesh beneath it has turned to jelly.
Two undernourished children with cheap lollypops stuck in their mouths race past, bashing into my legs. A woman with bloodshot eyes and a torn polyester shirt sits on a plastic chair outside one of the rooms, breastfeeding a baby. Two toddlers sit at her feet playing with a crumpled Coke can. Gertie smiles at the children, but they look at her with wide, empty eyes.
It’s a relief to reach the waiting room. Even the dead plants look cheery in comparison to the dull and hopeless green corridors.
I help Gertie settle on the couch. She lights up, and the first drag sets off a barrage of wet-sounding coughs. The second drag seems to dry them up.
‘That’s better,’ she says, jetting twin streams of smoke from her nose.
There’s a clattering sound from outside the door, and someone yells, ‘Shit!’
‘Wait here,’ I say to Gertie.
‘Does it look like I’m going anywhere, doll?’
I knew it. It’s the guy – Farrell. I smooth my hair behind my ears, forgetting that he can’t actually see me. He’s somehow managed to get his drip stand wedged in the doorframe and is groping at it with his bandaged hand.
‘Let me help you.’
His face relaxes. ‘Lisa?’
He remembered my name! ‘Yes.’
Gertie squints through the smoke and looks him up and down as I lead him in. ‘So this is why you keep slipping out of bed,’ she says.
Blood rushes into my cheeks – thank God he can’t see me clearly – but how could she possibly think someone like Farrell would be interested in me?
‘So,’ Gertie says to him once I’ve introduced them. ‘What are you in here for?’
‘Measles.’
‘Hey? That’s a kiddies’ disease, isn’t it? My three all went through that, and the grandkids, to
o.’
‘I had… complications. Problem with my sight.’
‘Ah,’ Gertie says, nodding wisely. ‘Heard of that. Neighbour of mine – real bitch – went blind one night, just like that, in her sleep. Just woke up and said that everything was black. Didn’t stop her saying all those things about my Reuben, though.’ She leans over and pats Farrell’s hand. ‘But that won’t happen to you. Don’t you worry.’
Farrell frowns. But who can blame him? It was hardly a sensitive thing to say. Gertie launches into an account of her bowel problems and drags in another lungful of smoke, before letting it drift out of her mouth.
Farrell coughs and waves his good hand in front of him. ‘Christ,’ he says, interrupting her. ‘Do you mind?’
Gertie stiffens. ‘I do mind. My ciggies are the only pleasure I’ve got in life.’
‘You’re not supposed to smoke in here.’
‘Oh ja? Who are you, the blarry cigarette police?’
This isn’t going well. I try to smile to defuse the situation, but Gertie’s eyes are narrowing dangerously, and for an instant she looks just like her daughter.
‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she snaps at him. ‘You don’t look like the type who’d show up here. Why aren’t you in the Sandton Clinic or whatever it’s called?’
‘Long story,’ Farrell says.
‘I got time.’
‘There’s some screw-up with my medical aid. So I ended up here with all the…’
Gertie narrows her eyes. ‘All the what, hey? The dregs?’
‘That’s not what I meant!’
‘We can’t all be rich whites with back-up plans.’
‘Gertie,’ I say, ‘Farrell didn’t mean—’
‘Save it,’ Gertie says. ‘Thinks he’s too good for people like me.’ She struggles to her feet. ‘Got to get back.’
‘I’ll help you.’
‘No. You stay with Frankie here. More your type, isn’t he?’
‘It’s Farrell,’ he says.
‘What kind of name is that? Sounds like a poof’s name.’
‘You can’t manage on your own,’ I say to her.
‘Don’t you worry about me, Lisa.’
She leans heavily on the drip stand and, dropping her cigarette butt at Farrell’s feet, starts shuffling off. Farrell and I sit in silence while she huffs her way out, muttering under her breath. Mind you, she seems to be finding it easier to walk than before.
‘Jesus,’ Farrell says. ‘Thought she’d never stop talking. She a friend of yours?’
‘Um… not really. She’s in the bed next to mine.’
‘Christ. That must be a nightmare. You ever get any sleep?’
He smiles at me and I find myself smiling back, feeling slightly guilty at sharing a joke at Gertie’s expense. Still, he’s right, she does go on and she didn’t need to take offence like that.
‘So when do you get out of this shithole, Lisa?’
‘I’m not sure. I have to have another op. Tomorrow, they said.’
‘Jesus. You think it’s a good idea to go under the knife again in a place like this? What are you doing in here, anyway?’
I don’t know what to say to this. I fiddle with the bracelet, touch the bandages again. What if I come out of the next operation looking even worse than I do already? A big gaping hole where my nose once was?
‘I don’t have a choice,’ I say. But is that true? Would they let me out if I insisted?
‘Your medical aid also screwed up?’
‘No… um. Nowhere else could fit me in.’ It’s as close to the truth as I can manage.
‘Seriously? Not even the Park Lane?’
I shrug. ‘I’m not from here. From Joburg, I mean. They had a vacancy here and so I just…’ I let my voice trail away.
‘So where are you from?’
‘Port Shepstone. The South Coast.’
He sniffs. ‘Oh yeah? Haven’t been there since matric. I knew you didn’t belong here.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’ He smiles. ‘Well, it’s nice to meet someone normal in here.’
Normal! Heat rushes into my cheeks again and I’m suddenly hit with the perverse urge to tell him everything. Blurt it all out. About my disorder, the fact that I know I have a problem, that it doesn’t help knowing. That it doesn’t matter how often people tell me I look ‘fine’, that I look ‘normal’, that all the kind words in the world don’t make up for the truth I see in the mirror. But I don’t of course.
He flexes his shoulders and yawns. His teeth are very, very white. He’s actually better looking than Robert Pattinson, his jaw isn’t as heavy, and his nose is perfectly straight. ‘Shit,’ he says. ‘I miss my phone. My followers will be freaking out by now.’
‘Your followers?’
‘Yeah. MindRead.’
‘Oh.’
‘Aren’t you on it?’
I shake my head, wanting desperately to lie, but what if I do and he catches me out? ‘No,’ I say. Who’d want to follow my MindRead messages anyway?
‘You should be, Lisa. Trust me. It’s the best way to network. Got some of my biggest clients that way.’ He pauses as if he’s waiting for me to ask him a question.
‘Clients?’
‘Yeah. I’m a photographer.’
‘Really? That’s amazing. I’ve… I’ve never met a photographer before.’
He shrugs. ‘It’s not that great. Not really. But I’ve done some good gigs this year, apart from the commercial stuff. Like really creative. You know, a few shoots for Dazed & Confused, and you know Die Werk Kak? Seriously hot up-and-coming band?’
‘Of course,’ I lie, not wanting to appear stupid.
‘I did their publicity shoot. Real cutting-edge stuff, we shot it on location in Newclare, trying to get that raw gangland feel, you know?’
He carries on mentioning names and magazines I’ve only vaguely heard of and I find myself saying ‘wow’ and ‘that’s amazing’ and grinning like an idiot, barely able to believe that he’s telling me all this stuff. Me.
He pauses and leans forward, rubbing unconsciously at his bandaged hand. ‘Lisa. Look, this is going to sound batshit. But… have you seen something – someone – strange in the wards?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s just… last night I woke up and it was as if… there was someone there. Someone… I dunno, dangerous maybe.’ He runs his hand through his hair. ‘Christ. I sound like I’ve lost my mind.’
‘No. You don’t sound crazy. This place also creeps me out.’
He looks at me gratefully. ‘Yeah. Jesus. I cannot wait to be out of here and away from all these fucking freaks.’
I feel my face falling and stand up. If he knew what kind of a freak he was talking to, what would he say? ‘I’d better see that Gertie’s okay,’ I blurt. Why did I say that?
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Fine,’ he says. Is he disappointed? For a second all I want to do is sit down next to him again. But that would look stupid. ‘See you around,’ he says, his voice sounding distant.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I slump out of the room. The corridor is empty. There’s a dirty nappy dumped under the chair where the breastfeeding woman sat, and again I’m grateful that I can’t smell anything.
Gertie’s propped up in bed. She sniffs when I enter and carries on flicking through her People magazine. ‘Boyfriend dumped you, hey?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘He’s too stuck up for his own good, if you ask me. I know his type.’
‘He’s not stuck up, Gertie. He’s just… Look, I think he’s really worried he’s not going to get his sight back.’
‘Oh ja? We’ve all got our own problems. Call the fokken Care Bears.’
I lie down and think about what Farrell said about going under the knife in a place like this. What if it does make it worse? If there’s something wrong, shouldn’t I be seeing a specialist or something? A snapshot of the Christian man’s mother
jumps into my head – Gertie said she only came in here for a hip replacement. I’ve put a fake name and number in the ‘In case of emergencies, contact…’ section on the hospital form, and if anything goes wrong tomorrow night…
For a second, all I want to do is call Dad, beg him to come and fetch me. But then what?
Gertie’s snoring gently, and the woman in the bed next to her whimpers and smacks her gums. Otherwise the ward is unnaturally silent; even the hissing oxygen machines sound quieter. I can’t sleep, and I have no idea of the time. It must be well past midnight though. My mouth feels dry and gummy, and the wound beneath the dressing is aching dully. I’m tempted to reach across and take a sip of Gertie’s vile orange juice, but I can’t. Not if they’re operating this evening.
The air is still and hot. Has the air con broken down or something? The back of my neck is damp and itchy, my hair feels limp and greasy. When did I last have a shower? I loathe using the bathroom, brushing my teeth and showering with other people around. But now would be the perfect opportunity. I’ll more than likely have the place to myself. I climb out of bed as quietly as I can, ditching the hospital gown for the single pair of silk pyjamas the nurses have let me keep in my locker, and grab my shampoo, towel and body spray. I creep out into the corridor. It’s deserted, the only sound the slap of my footsteps.
Thank God. The toilet stalls and shower cubicles are empty, their doors all slightly ajar. It doesn’t look as if they’ve been cleaned today, and I bet it stinks of urine and worse in here. I avoid the mirrors – they’re not real mirrors anyway, just polished squares of stainless steel, as if the hospital staff are worried people will smash the glass and slash their wrists. There’s a pile of dirty tissues in the sink and even the floor of the cleanest shower is grimy and slimy, a hank of black hair squirled in the drain. I decide to keep my flip-flops on as I shower, holding my head back so that the water doesn’t splash the dressing on my nose. It feels wonderful, and I try not to think about Farrell as I soap my body. As if he’d be interested in me, however clean I am, however made-up, however painstakingly groomed.
Through the hiss of the water I hear the bathroom door creaking open, and the shuffle of footsteps. They sound as if they’re heading my way. There’s a pause, and then the handle of my shower cubicle moves.