How Far We Fall

by Jane Shemilt

  ‘Have the fish. It’s simple and good, like everything Iona does. People come back, the walkers and birdwatchers, year after year.’ He looks around the room at the modest furniture, the jars of spring flowers and the sepia photos on the wall of the island a hundred years ago. ‘Jamie overreached himself with his grand schemes. The jet set didn’t like the island, they didn’t understand it. It’s true the magic doesn’t reveal itself easily; it creeps under your skin gradually, if you let it.’

  After lunch, Albie settles the bill and chats to Iona while she wanders down the village street on her own. The rain has stopped, a hard light glints off the sea facing the bungalows. It would be easy to feel trapped here; the view from those windows would be full of ocean day after day after day. The dancing light and endless waves could drive you mad. She understands those rich guests of Jamie’s who never came back; the magic is hidden from her too. The sea seems to glimmer with menace. In the distance, a boat struggles against the wind, the sail blown full, listing to one side. Just then Albie comes out of the hotel, waves cheerfully to her and walks to the shop. She hurries after him. Inside the door, postcards in a rack show the hotel, the ferry and deer on a beach. She picks the deer card for Gus while the hard-eyed blonde in tight overalls watches her closely from the till.

  ‘Why is she looking at me?’ she whispers to Albie, half amused, half irritated. ‘Does she think I’m going to steal her cards?’

  Albie reaches for coffee on a shelf. ‘She probably thinks you’re a film star.’ He kisses her. ‘I’m surprised you’re not used to it.’ He puts the jar in the basket and, humming, bends to examine wine in a rack on the floor. She is used to it. Glances, smiles and whistles have been a backdrop to life since she was thirteen, but this woman seems hostile, as though Beth is an imposter who doesn’t belong here. She drops the card into the basket and takes Albie’s arm.

  On the return drive, Albie points out a wide scoop of sandy beach where the island’s young men embarked for America a century before. Some were boys, little boys. Times were hard, their mothers knew they’d never come back. On dark nights, he tells her, the islanders hear the sound of sobbing, dead mothers crying for the children they’d lost. He is intent on the story and doesn’t notice she’s stopped talking. He brakes and suggests a walk on the beach but his phone rings so she clambers alone across the rocky foreshore, removing her shoes on the sand. He stays in the car; when she looks back he waves, phone to his ear.

  The sun is lower in the sky now; the feathered clouds are underlit with crimson like the ragged edge of a bruise. The wet sand is cold under her feet. It’s safe to let tears come. It would have been better if she could have cried at the moment of loss, like the island mothers. It might have made it more real. The bleeding was real and the pain, but not the small body on the sheets, the translucent fingers moving as though in a slight wind. A tiny daughter, born too early; alive then not alive, slipping invisibly between worlds. She’d wrapped her in white for the funeral. Two years ago; the wicker coffin would have rotted now, along with the transparent skin and delicate bones. The only place her baby exists is in a space in her mind. Beth wipes her cheeks; she must pull herself together, the suffering is done. She must push the past down, nail boards on top, walk away. Up ahead Albie has finished his phone call and is coming to meet her; even from here she can see he is smiling. She begins to run across the sand towards him and as they collide he wraps his arms round her. She presses her cold face into his neck. She will be happy; they will be happy. They’ll make another child, her heart will heal. They walk back to the car entwined.

  Albie starts the engine and, taking her hand, begins to whistle. He drives fast and seems excited, glancing at her and smiling as he drives. She lifts his hand to her lips. It’s too late to share her secrets now, far too dangerous. Outside tussocks of grass and darker clumps of heather line the road, beyond them stretch the hills and valleys; the flat surfaces of ponds and lochs are revealed then left behind as the car passes. The colours are clear after the rain. The past slips underwater again.

  The road ends and they bump forward on the stony track to the north, lurching from side to side until Dunbar comes into view, glowing white through the dusk. Harris, let out, disappears around the back, barking loudly. A moment later a couple of deer bound from behind the house, float over the fence and run across the track and the field beyond to the trees. They are followed a second later by a large stag. He moves more slowly, jumps with ease, then stops on the track to look back at her. The deep gaze is neither hostile nor interested; he seems simply to be absorbing her image. His antlers tilt against the sky, he turns and trots after his does.

  ‘I was beginning to think there were no deer here,’ she whispers, elated.

  ‘They outnumber us by thousands but they’re clever at hiding.’ Albie stares at the woods where the deer have vanished. ‘My father came here with his stalkers, hunting them down.’

  The wind has freshened and the pines behind the house are bending and swaying in the dusk; the sea crashes against the cliffs beyond the garden. Her bare arms are covered in goosebumps. Albie puts his jacket round her and leads her inside.

  He kneels to light the kindling in the grate in the little sitting room off the kitchen, the dry tinder crackling as it catches. As she draws the curtains against the gathering shadows, the room springs into warm focus. There are two deep armchairs in front of the fire and a sofa in faded blue linen. An old axe with a worn handle leans against a pile of logs in a basket next to the fireplace. Wooden deer decorate the mantelpiece. The light from the leaping flames gilds the spines of the books packed into alcoves either side of the grate: a tattered set of children’s encyclopaedias, manuals on fishing, a hardback of Legends of the Western Isles, a dog-eared Raymond Chandler. She draws out Treasure Island in its torn orange jacket, blows the dust from the top and settles in the armchair to read by the fire, quickly immersed in the familiar story.

  ‘What do you think about us coming here whenever we feel like it?’

  ‘Jamie comes here too, doesn’t he?’ she murmurs, reading.

  ‘We could buy him out.’

  ‘Maybe. One day, if we can afford it.’ She glances up reluctantly, her finger keeping her place on the page.

  He gets to his feet, brushing splinters from his trousers. He is smiling. ‘It was Ted on the phone earlier.’

  ‘He couldn’t leave us alone on our honeymoon?’ She swallows anger. Ted has Albie on a piece of string which he can twitch whenever he wants.

  ‘He was keen we should know the good news.’ His voice trembles with excitement. ‘The contract has been signed off between Viromex and the university today.’

  ‘What does that actually mean, Albie?’

  ‘Viromex are now committed to buying the patent for my virus.’ The smiles broadens. ‘Our money could arrive soon, seventy-five thousand pounds!’

  ‘I think he’s teasing you.’ Cruel of Ted to dangle money in front of Albie, a promise made to be broken. Albie doesn’t know that Ted breaks his promises.

  ‘Ted doesn’t tease. He believes in me; he extended my locum by another five months today. You don’t know him like I do, sweetheart.’

  The logs spit, the flames leap high in the grate. She sees Ted in her flat, in her bed, talking to Jenny on the phone, lying again and again. The day he left for the last time, he promised to return even as he hurried away. Perhaps Albie is right and she doesn’t know him, never really knew him; perhaps such knowledge between people is a fantasy. No one gives every secret away – she glances at Albie’s radiant face – not even to the people you love, especially not them.

  ‘Look. He sent the contract through, it’s on my phone.’ Albie bends to show her the document from the CEO of Viromex on his iPhone. The offer is headed and couched in official language, signed and stamped.

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘Bruce has to complete some dosing studies, then Viromex take it over and give us that first payment.’ He paces a
bout the room, his eyes shining. ‘When the treatment becomes available, my share of the royalty could be seven hundred and fifty thousand, every year.’

  ‘It seems unreal.’ She is wary rather than glad, still suspicious. ‘It’s so much to take in all at once.’

  ‘Isn’t it great? When Ted confirmed it today, I knew I had to tell you here, in this house, with champagne. That’s why I drove back like a maniac.’

  He goes into the kitchen whistling; she hears the clink of glasses, the sucking pop of a cork being pulled. ‘I’ll arrange for the repairs to be done here first,’ he calls out joyfully, ‘then book the builders in to turn the Hampstead house back into a proper home.’

  The stone floor, the bookshelves, the splintery pile of logs next to the armchair are as they were a few minutes ago but something else has entered the room with them, like a sail blown tight, bulging in her face. The world lists. What have Ted’s words set in motion? Everything could be at risk. Albie comes back and hands her a foaming glass.

  ‘Can we afford the conversions in London, Albie, as well as repairs here? The money might not cover everything.’

  ‘We’ll only be converting the London house back to what it was, it won’t be that expensive. I’ll take out a mortgage until the first payment comes through.’ He sips his champagne. ‘Ted’s flat is amazing; I’d love you to see it. He won’t mind if we copy his ideas.’

  She would, though. Ted’s flat is like a stage set filled with costly furniture; no one sits on the large sofas or plays the grand piano, there is expensive art on the walls but no photos. The kitchen is like an operating theatre.

  ‘… the rest of the house can be bedrooms. Enough for a whole family of children.’

  She stands to take one of the carved deer from the mantelpiece, touching the wooden head for luck. ‘What if the lump sum doesn’t come through, Albie?’

  ‘You saw the contract. Of course it’ll come through. The mortgage will tide us over until then. Ted will retire eventually; once I land his job, my salary will increase.’

  ‘You seem very certain of his job.’

  ‘This locum makes me the obvious candidate, especially now it’s been extended.’

  She replaces the stag. ‘You work hard, Albie, you’re a good surgeon; that’s why you got the locum and why he wants you to stay on. The consultant job is different. It’s not his to bequeath even if he wanted to.’

  ‘I was discussed as his replacement at that consultants’ meeting, remember?’ He takes her hand. ‘And then I’m lucky.’ He kisses her palm. ‘The luckiest guy in the world.’

  ‘You aren’t listening.’ She pulls her hand away. ‘You have to be careful, we need to be safe.’

  ‘The value of the house will increase when we upgrade, there’s no risk. You mustn’t worry, darling. I know how to be careful, unlike Jamie.’

  That wasn’t the kind of careful she meant; she didn’t just mean money. Life takes things away from you, the most important things. It took her child. Albie has no idea how careful he needs to be.

  After supper he banks the stove and they go to bed. The memory of the sea and the struggle to find her feet threads through her dreams; she sleeps badly. Gradually the room lightens and the shadows disappear; when the birds start singing she gets up, relieved the night is over. The stove is still hot. She puts in more wood and sets a pot of water to heat on top. Outside the air is fresh; she walks down the garden searching for deer spoor, her own footprints leaving a dark trail in the wet grass behind her. The wind has calmed and the waves breathe peacefully as though the sea is still asleep. She feels stronger in the daylight, more certain of her ground. Albie can believe what he wants, she’ll keep watch for them both. She learnt vigilance as a child; survival is second nature. At the bottom of the garden, the delicate tips of a little stand of trees by the fence are shining green-gold in the rising sun. Their pale trunks, coiffed in coils of papery white, stand in circles of freshly dug earth.

  ‘Those are for you.’ Albie’s whisper jolts her. ‘I asked Iona to organise it with the hotel gardeners before we came. Your wedding present.’

  Trees of her own; she puts her arms around him. ‘I can’t think of a lovelier gift.’

  ‘Silver birches symbolise happiness and safety, I looked it up.’

  The young trees already lean to one side in the direction of the wind. She puts her hand on a slim trunk. The trees remind her of herself as a young girl, one in a line of white-faced teenagers in school assemblies, depleted by periods and dieting. Happiness and safety. ‘That’s quite a lot for a little tree to symbolise.’

  ‘They ward off evil too.’ He takes her hand.

  Above their heads the leaves turn and spin in the light breeze, catching the sun, fluttering and fragile, like so much tissue paper.

  8

  London. Summer 2016

  The child is unconscious. His heart rate and breathing remain steady thanks to Owen’s skill; Albie pushes the heavy steel pins through the dark eyebrows, penetrating the soft skin down to bone. Two more pins are inserted through the scalp at the back, careful wounds inflicted with precision; the scars won’t show in these places. No one will notice – not the parents, not Karim when he grows up; God willing he does grow up.

  Albie met the family a week ago, in Great Ormond Street Hospital outpatient clinic, round the corner from the National Hospital, conveniently placed, time being pressing, time always being pressing. He is busier than ever, juggling commitments, hurrying from ward to ward. Bridget, running the lab in Ted’s absence, is often on the phone with problems since he left: rat numbers are down and Bruce, occupied with his PhD, has hardly started the viral dosing studies Ted requested. ‘Oh and Albie, the waste-paper bin in Bruce’s room caught fire yesterday. We spotted it in time so no harm done, but he should stop smoking. Could you have a word? He doesn’t listen to me.’

  The worries mount. Dunbar’s repairs were more expensive than he’d thought; the conversion in Hampstead has been phased to run over two years now. Money will be short until the payout and now Bruce is holding things up. Albie is ashamed of his anxiety, as nothing compares to the worry Karim’s parents must endure. At first they were silent when he met them in clinic, like refugees beached in an unknown country, uncertain of their safety. The father held a folder of notes with X-rays and scans that spilled out repeatedly, while his wife pushed at her hair with thin hands. There was another child, a girl, dressed as for a party in tutu and pumps. She had flattened herself into her mother’s skirt, her stare travelling around the walls. Remembering her, as he positions the head frame on her brother’s head, he is pierced with longing for a daughter, a girl like her, dark like Beth. He sees so many families now, he allows himself to imagine his own. A girl first, maybe. He’ll take her to Jura, give her sandcastles and swimming lessons, bedtime stories under the stars. He has shared these thoughts with no one, not even Beth.

  Albie had put the scans on the light box and traced the tumour out for Karim’s parents, an egg-shaped area of different intensity seeming to take up all the space in the brainstem. The parents had fallen silent. It was a death sentence and they knew it; there was no treatment of any kind in Iraq, the father explained. Hospitals had been destroyed. Albie told them that there was an experimental treatment he could offer which had shrunk the tumour in animal models. It would involve an operation, threading thin tubes into the child’s brain to infuse chemotherapy directly into the tumour. It might not be a cure but it would buy them time. He didn’t tell them about the viral therapy; it was too soon, the trials in Boston still a long way off. He had looked down at his hands as he waited for their decision; the father glanced at them too as if assessing their capability, though it was doubtful he saw them drilling holes in his son’s head. When he looked up, the parents were staring at Karim with dread and hope. Later, by the bedside, he had gone through the risks with a translator.

  The porter and Owen wheel the unconscious boy to the MRI scanner; Albie selects targets within the
grainy images, planning the trajectory the catheter will take through the brain to avoid the white tracery of blood vessels. Karim is returned to theatre and Owen transfers him to the table with infinite care. Albie positions the small, dark head, locking the head frame on to the robot stand; the jointed arms of white steel look enormous near the body of the child. He fixes the laser on to an arm of the robot; pressing a button causes the arm to move, carrying the laser into the correct position, just above the skull. Karim’s father had explained before surgery that they wouldn’t be going home to their country; their house and city had been bombed. At this very moment across the globe in Karim’s country, trajectories are being double-checked, remote controlled buttons pressed, machines slid into place before missiles are fired. Death, not life. At the touch of another button, the robot directs the sharp laser beam on to the scalp and Albie marks the point with ink; the process repeats three times.

  While the alcoholic skin prep is evaporating, Albie drapes Karim’s head with blue paper towels. He incises the scalp, mills out a cylinder of bone beneath and drills to penetrate the skull. Using a sharp-tipped probe within a guide tube, he penetrates slowly through brain to the tumour, conscious, as he advances the guide, that he is traversing tissue that holds thought, emotion and memory. Everything that makes this little boy human. His back is wet with sweat; along with the fear of causing a haemorrhage, the very stuff of consciousness is at risk. This is the trade-off he warned the parents about, but parents with a dying child agree to anything and they had agreed to the operation. Albie had felt a queasy mix of relief and guilt; they’d had no alternative; if you are about to lose your child, choice becomes a luxury. He reaches the tumour, removes the probe and slides the catheter down the guide tube, leaving both in place. He has hardly taken a breath during the insertion; now he inhales the dull iron tang of blood and the cooked smell of vessels. He reassures himself that whatever damage he is causing, the tumour would cause the greater harm; it’s a question of balancing risk. He repeats the procedure three times at different points on the skull. Behind him the staff are murmuring but the world has faded; as Ted taught him, his focus is absolute. Nothing exists except the small brain under his hands, the careful placing of the catheters, the avoidance of blood vessels. After he has sewn up the scalp around the catheters, he gently washes the blood-stiffened hair. The child will look strange enough, a fugitive from a science-fiction film, with four fine tubes emerging from his head, each attached to a syringe driver; he can at least spare the parents the sight of blood in their son’s hair. Owen wheels Karim to the recovery room. The mother comes in silently and, taking her child’s limp hand, covers it with kisses. The father stands behind her; he stares fixedly at Karim’s sleeping face, as if his son’s life depends on him keeping watch. Albie tells them that the operation has gone smoothly, that the child may take a while to wake. He shows them the tubes, and explains that the infusion of chemotherapy starts the next day. Karim may be made worse for a few days because of local swelling. He will become clumsier, there will be slurring of speech and difficulty in swallowing until it subsides. By six weeks, though, he ought to feel better, the cancer should be shrinking. The mother folds her arms around her husband, she is smiling and smiling; he takes Albie’s hand, pumping it up and down, crushing the fingers, tears pouring down his face.