PRAISE FOR
Soft in the Head
‘A tale of quiet hope and discovery’
Financial Times
‘Celebrates humanity, love, empathy and generosity of spirit’
The Herald
‘Magical and heart-warming’
Mature Times
MARIE-SABINE ROGER
GET WELL SOON
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne
PUSHKIN PRESS
LONDON
Contents
Title Page
Get Well Soon
About the Author
About the Publisher
Copyright
GET WELL SOON
I DON’T LIKE to big myself up, but by the time I was, maybe, six or seven, I’d already had a crack at a bunch of things in terms of committing crimes and stuff that’s illegal by law. Aggravated robbery, sexual assault and battery, blackmail and extortion…
The sexual assault and battery involved snogging Marie-José Blanc. She kept her teeth clenched so I didn’t exactly get very far. But it’s the thought that counts.
I’d commit aggravated robbery every Saturday after rugby: I’d blag sweets and stuff from the littler kids. I’d smack them about a bit in the changing rooms. Sometimes I’d show mercy to one of them. I’ve got a bit of Robin Hood in me.
If you want to know about the extortion, just ask my brother. He used me as a bad example with his kids when they were young. Don’t grow up like your uncle, or you’ll have me to deal with. In my defence, I have to say that if he had nothing to be ashamed of, he wouldn’t have emptied his piggy bank and handed me the cash. To guilt-trip someone, they have to be guilty.
People called me “The Terror.” I thought that was pretty cool!
I felt like I was destined for greatness.
BACK THEN, there were five and a bit of us living at home: my parents, my kid brother and me, pépé Jean and my dead mémé Ginou.
My paternal grandparents had died in a dumb accident when my father was only eight, refusing to give way, it was my grandmother’s fault, she never saw the point of stop signs.
My father was brought up by his grandparents, his mother’s parents: pépé Jean, still very much alive and kicking at the time I’m talking about, and mémé Ginou in her cremation urn out in the garage.
I found it difficult to imagine how he must have felt, heading back to school the day of the accident, when he realized his folks were never coming home again. At the time, he could have thought he was finally free to live his life: no more bare-arse whipping for every little slip-up. Freedom.
Total freedom.
But listening to him talk about his childhood, I could tell that there are some kinds of freedom which fuck up your life more surely than a whole bunch of restrictions. Based on that, it didn’t seem all that tempting, getting to be an orphan. I was quite fond of my parents, despite the fact that they were parents, with all the shortcomings that implies authority-wise. I was particularly fond of my father. I thought he was cool, and not just because he had biceps thicker than most people’s thighs. He was a strong guy, in every sense. Feet firmly planted in his size elevens. He had no shortage of opinions, though he didn’t have much else. He was a bigmouth, a bruiser, but the kind of guy who had to get out the hankies at weddings and christenings and called my mother “my little love bundle” and didn’t give a toss if people laughed, and was never afraid to tell her “I love you”.
The man I most probably wanted to be.
Even as a little kid, I could tell the power he had over people from the way they would always say to me:
“Oh, your father! Your father… He’s really somebody!”
He was so good at being somebody that, next to him, I felt like nobody.
Personally, I would have preferred a father who was a bit more ordinary. It would have made it easier to leave the nest.
The worst thing about it was that I was the eldest, I was the standard-bearer. My brother brought himself up without bothering anyone, he was blessed. He was the youngest, the second child. The perpetual runner-up in the human race.
I was the one they were pinning their hopes on.
I still remember the way they looked at us, our neighbours, our cousins, and every man jack. The sliding glance from my-father-the-hero to his snot-nosed-shit-stirring-brat. The sad, incredulous faces that silently said:
“How is it even possible? How can a guy like this father a kid like that?”
I probably worked out pretty early that I could never fill my father’s boots and in order to survive I’d have to find some different footwear.
I made every effort to be as much of a pain in the arse as possible and the most creative arsehole. Unfortunately, I had no real vices: for all my pretence at being a hoodlum, underneath I was a sweet kid.
I wished I could be a Mafioso, a bad guy, a bastard. Actually, I was an arse-wipe. A two-bit moron with no ambition.
And to top it all, my father would always lay a hand on my shoulder and say:
“He’s a complete dunce, but he’s a good kid. I’m sure he’ll go far anyway…”
That was probably his way of showing he believed in me.
But to my ears anyway sounded a lot like a despairing in spite of everything.
A LOT OF WATER has flowed under the bridge since then. And if I didn’t drown, I’d have to say I came pretty close. A few days ago, I was fished out of the Seine just in the nick of time.
Two feet from the bank, to be precise, but that’s more than far enough to sink into the mud and float to the surface a couple of weeks later, limp and soggy as the hunks of bread people throw to the ducks.
They cleared out my bronchial tubes, put various bits of me in plaster. I had clearly ricocheted off the bridge. Botched suicide, drunken binge, mugging? Everyone had a theory.
I was in a coma, so I could hardly voice an opinion.
I woke up in intensive care with multiple trauma, which sounds pretty impressive, watched over by a concerned-looking cop. The sort of kid my father might have spared, even on a day of political unrest. He was a young guy, a decent sort, with huge, sad antelope eyes and a three-day beard he’d probably been growing for three months.
He seemed completely overawed. My charisma, obviously. Or maybe the chest drain, the oxygen mask and all the huge tangle of wires to keep me monitored had something to do with it too.
This junior cop was a young thirty-five, he had a black leather jacket and a black leather notebook with the face of Chewbacca printed on the spine. He could have been my son, if I’d ever procreated.
When I opened my eyes, I did it like a drowning man desperately trying to catch his breath. Then again, I had drowned, or as good as, so that probably explains it.
I wondered what I was doing here, feeling a vague uneasiness over the general anaesthesia and the unpleasant sensation of not knowing where I began and ended. Part of my mind was panicked, racing in every direction, trying to get the lie of the land, where the fuck am I? Am I still in one piece? Can I move?
The other part could not tear itself from the face of this strange guy leaning over me, too close, who was whispering so low that I could hardly hear a thing. The words seemed to come from far away, his voice sounded weird, much too slow.
Eventually, I managed to catch the phrase:
“… any idea what might have happened to you? Because, right now, we’ve made no progress in our investigation…”
Then, studying the oxygen mask, he added:
“Just a yes or no will do. Do you remember what happened?”
I dimly shook my head, just enough to set the ceiling spinning and the mattress lurching. Sorry. I had no idea how I’d got there.
He asked me
another question, one that took some time to percolate. Before I closed my eyes, I shook my head again. No: I had not tried to put an end to my life.
I’ve no wish to kill myself.
Time will take care of that bit of business.
ACCORDING TO the latest estimate, I’ve been here a week. I haven’t seen the time passing.
I’ve felt it, though.
I sleep too much during the day, I’m zonked out by various drugs, by inactivity, everything merges into the same grey monotony, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I don’t remember diving into the river, but there’s nothing to be done. Don’t remember being fished out, or being brought here either.
Apparently they sedated me because I was agitated and distressed. Not distressed in the sense of being upset, I’m never upset when I’m being a pain in the arse to other people.
No, distressed, meaning troubled or confused.
They put the kibosh on my ability to think, to move, to hinder the work of the nurses and doctors. On the plus side: I spent a couple of days off my face—the piss-up of the century—feeling like I was waking up every five minutes and sleeping for ten hours at a stretch in between, and I wasn’t in too much pain.
I feel a lot worse now. I ache all over.
And when I’m not in pain, I feel like I am an ache.
They sliced me open here and there to reset fractures and patch things up. I’ve got more pins and plates than a middle-class matron. My ID is the pile of X-rays that the doctors—especially the surgeon—pore over with an air of satisfaction: iliac spine, iliac crest, obturator foramen, femoral neck, femur, tibia and fibula.
Moving is out of the question, it’s strictly prohibited.
Normally I’m a spinning top, I toss and turn to try and get to sleep, now here I am forced to lie completely still, and, to make matters worse, I’m flat on my back.
It makes nights seem longer than a philosophy lecture.
I’m experiencing life in hospital. I’ve heard people talk about it, now I know first-hand.
As soon as you’re admitted, you want to get up and go home, the way dogs tug on their leads and try to turn back when they arrive at the vet’s. I feel like a mangy mutt, tail between my legs, coat dull.
I want my doggy bowl, my blanket, my bone, my basket.
I want to go home.
Besides, I can’t stand the smell of hospitals.
They don’t smell hygienic, they smell of disinfectant, of cleaning products with phony fragrances to hide the stink of pus and piss, of “little accidents” and other horrors.
They don’t smell like home cooking—a nice stew simmering—they smell of canteen grub. Even the coffee doesn’t smell right. The aroma slinks along the walls like a traitor in the shadows, seeps into the hallways and the rooms, sneaky, insidious, sinister. Pour it into a cup and its weakness is clear, it’s a watery-black, warmed-up cat’s piss, deeply disappointing.
As for tea, there’s only one choice: stomach-churning chamomile.
The days start early, 6.00 a.m., which leaves lots of time to feel depressed later. The morning duty-nurse swings the door open like a cowboy swaggering into a saloon, flicks on the fluorescent lights that burn my eyes and shouts Morrrrr-ning! in a voice too loud for my sleepy ears and, without bothering to find out if I’m awake (which I am, thanks for asking), takes my blood pressure and my temperature.
I’m entitled to two white tablets whose name and purpose are a mystery to me, then she fills out the form hanging at the end of the bed, turns off the incandescent fluorescent then leaves, not closing the door, saying have a nice day without a shred of irony.
Then one of the lady orderlies—always cheery—arrives with breakfast, two cellophane-wrapped biscottes, some neurasthenic fruit compote, a tiny jar of jam that’s never met a real fruit in its life and a plain yoghurt.
Unfailingly, even if she’s seen me a day ago or two days ago, she asks,
“And what would monsieur like this morning?…”
To get out of here, Dear God, to get out!
“… coffee, tea, milk?”
She opens the venetian blinds, fluffs my pillow, sets the tray down just out of reach, forcing me to perform various painful contortions forbidden by my surgeon.
*
Then the day begins, with ten times as many hours as a day spent on the outside.
Through the open door I can see people wandering past, which doesn’t bother me, and they can see me, which really bothers me.
I’ve given up watching telly. I think the programmes are devised by people in high places to free up hospital beds and deal with patients who overstay. Thrilling European cop shows, electrifying game shows and live coverage of the workings of the Assemblée nationale can do a lot to speed up the death of old codgers and encourage other patients to rip out their IVs.
The only thing I watch is the news, brilliant as always at focusing on good news—war, pollution, tsunamis, old people getting beaten up by young thugs, childhood depression and smoker’s cancer—in a commendable shot at positive thinking.
Or sometimes at night I’ll watch a movie, but not often.
The rest of the time, I’ve got all the time in the world. The direct and demonstrable consequence: I think.
Thinking is a morbid occupation that I prefer to avoid in most cases. Especially given that, since in here there’s no escape mechanism, I contemplate my navel, my thoughts frantically spinning like a crazed hamster in its wheel. Me, me, my life, my achievements.
Career paths and trajectories, inventory of fixtures.
Status report. Just the phrase makes me want to throw up.
“Status report” smacks of bankruptcy.
*
Lunch is at 11.30 a.m. and the evening meal is at 6.20 p.m.
My room is at the far end of the corridor, so my food is lukewarm or stone-cold and inedible depending on the swiftness of the orderly and the length of her legs. Since most of them are from Madagascar, I get a lot of sympathy and very few calories.
The other day, I asked one of the nurses why they didn’t reschedule the meals by a couple of hours. She explained that it was because the night staff are responsible for serving breakfast before they go off shift and “if you changed one thing you’d have to change everything”. Fine, I said, in that case the night staff could take over serving dinner from the day staff, who could take over serving breakfast, and, by my reckoning, it wouldn’t make any more work for anyone.
Her only response was to stick a thermometer in my ear, a procedure I had some trouble getting used to at first.
THE STAFF CALL ME the “guy fished out of the Seine”.
News must have been slack, because the local papers ran a few short articles about me.
This was more than enough to give me a vague air of mystery that I’m actively trying to cultivate—though it’s too early to tell how successful I’ve been. In fact, I think it’s pretty commendable of me to want to remain enigmatic when I’m reduced to having my arse wiped like a big baby and everyone in the hospital, regardless of title or rank, feels entitled to ask whether I’m having trouble making pee-pee—and everything else—before they even bother saying good morning.
I have to say it is kind of amazing, this kind of relationship. Not a day goes by without someone asking me—with an interest that seems completely sincere—whether I’ve passed wind this morning. That said, I’ve got a sense that they wouldn’t appreciate it if I responded:
“Yes, thank you, what about you?”
Hold up, now!
Don’t go getting above your station.
I’m the patient here.
And it takes a lot of bloody patience to put up with the enforced inactivity, the discomfort of being in plaster, the sweltering heat of the hospital room, the lack of privacy.
Long story short, I’m not feeling myself at the moment. I feel like, as far as everyone else is concerned, I’m just a bladder to be drained, a bowel obstruction, a few fractures and some drains.
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br /> Not to mention the strange way they address me:
“And how are we today?”
I have to bite my tongue to stop myself saying:
“We are fine, we thank you.”
“We” have a surname, a first name, and—in case anyone’s interested—a whole slew of births, marriages and deaths:
Jean-Pierre Fabre, widower, childless, retired, born in Perpignan, 4th October 1945—the day Social Security was enacted, which probably explains my constant budget deficit—son of Roger Fabre, railwayman, born 17th November 1922 in Marseille and Odette Augier, unemployed, born 25th June 1924 in Avignon.
It’s my pelvis that’s cracked.
My head is fine.
THE MORNING AFTER I was admitted, the hospital got in touch with my brother Hervé. Not to try and broker a family reconciliation, just for administrative purposes.
His name and address were in my wallet, and I have to say, I’m still surprised.
A week later, after they had time to get me “moved up to orthopaedic surgery”, they finally allowed me visitors—the way they give visitation rights to well-behaved convicts—and I saw him scuttle in, dripping sweat, breathless from the cigarettes, the stress, the stairs. Always been one of life’s worriers, my brother. Always fretting about himself, going to pieces for everyone else.
As soon as he saw me, he let out a forlorn “Oh my God!”
I said, “Everything’s fine.”
He gave me a lukewarm once-over, obviously not very optimistic.
It has to be said that hospital makes you see life from different angles. Angles that are not exactly exciting, like pain, suffering and death, which make most people uncomfortable. Except maybe for pathologists, who probably get so excited they get a hard-on when they furtively sneak into an intensive care unit.
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