Handle With Care

by Josephine Myles

She smiled at the old nickname, then took up my phone, promising to check the messages every couple of hours.

  My eyes were following the pattern on the lino for the umpteenth time when the surgeon approached, a porter pushing a wheelchair in his wake. We were a good enough match to proceed, me and my brain-dead donor. It made me shudder to think that there would soon be a part of that nameless victim inside me. Two parts, in fact. It was more intimate than anything I’d yet done with Ollie, and the thought made my stomach clench.

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  Zoe squeezed my hand as I sat down in the wheelchair. Her eyes glimmered with tears, and she gave me a tremulous smile.

  “You’re in good hands, Benji. Everything’s going to be fine, all right?”

  She seemed to need the reassurance more than I did, so I smiled and nodded, squeezing her hand back before the porter spun the chair around and wheeled me off to theatre.

  Chapter Eight

  I could hear a voice somewhere. It echoed, but I wasn’t all that interested in following it. I was warm and cosy, wrapped up in a red-tinged darkness. I drifted.

  Sometimes, beeps washed over me, and prickles of pain made me aware of my body. I didn’t want to inhabit it again right now. Things were calm, like I was bundled up in a cloud of cotton wool and hidden away from the world.

  “Benji? Are you awake?”

  I sighed and took possession of my body once more. I cracked my gritty eyes open and blinked at the bright lights. Pain stabbed through me as I coughed. It felt like I’d had a boulder dropped onto my belly. I didn’t want to look down.

  “Benji!”

  I turned my head towards Zoë and was rewarded with not only a dizzying wave of nausea but the sound of her bursting into tears.

  “I’m okay,” I tried to say, but my mouth was so dry I could barely form the words. I managed to get my eyes to focus on the room and saw Zoe’s head buried on the mattress next to me. She looked up, her eyes bloodshot and snot bubbling out of her nose.

  “Hey.” I smiled at her.

  “Hey, yourself.” She smiled back, then giggled as she wiped away the mess on her face. “How are you feeling?”

  Would “like shit” be a helpful answer? It was all academic anyway, because the moment I tried speaking, my voice cracked. I couldn’t seem to summon up any saliva to ease my speech, and I gave Zoe what I thought was an imploring look. “Water?” I whispered, hoping she would understand.

  She sucked her lips in and shook her head. “Sorry, Benj. No can do. They said you’ll be allowed fluids tomorrow, but nothing until then.”

  Bastards! I wanted to glare at the nurse when she came over to check up on me, but my eyes slipped closed again as the warm darkness claimed me.

  As I drifted in and out of consciousness over the next few hours, I heard Zoe’s voice reading to me. It sounded like it was articles from one of her celebrity gossip magazines. My sleep was populated by hunky footballers and their stick insect wives, kitten-heel shoes and plastic surgery disasters. I had a brief moment of clarity when I recalled that I hadn’t managed to pack any of my own reading material because I’d been distracted by writing the note for Ollie. I wondered where he was. I’d have to ask Zoe to find him for me.

  I wanted him at my bedside.

  I woke again to sunlight streaming through the tall window into my private room. Zoe was by my side in an instant, the smile on her face lifting my spirits, despite my body feeling like I’d been beaten within an inch of my life.

  “Morning,” she said. “You’re looking better today.”

  I tried to greet her, but if anything, my mouth was even drier than yesterday.

  I licked my lips in vain, my dry tongue rasping over the cracked skin. There was a sharp sting, and I tasted the metallic tang of blood, but the pain couldn’t compete with the dull throbbing in my abdomen. I attempted to lift my head so I could get a look at what they’d done to me, but my neck muscles didn’t want to cooperate. I lifted a heavy hand to beckon Zoe over, then saw the cannula in there and dropped it back onto the mattress.

  “Here, I’m allowed to give you some of this today.”

  I couldn’t focus on whatever it was Zoe was showing me. It looked like a kid’s lollipop made out of something spongy. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it as I didn’t think I had enough saliva to manage a lick. But then Zoe put the thing in my mouth, and I sucked the cool water from the sponge. My mouth zinged with the sensation, and I could move my tongue comfortably again.

  “More,” I said in a hoarse croak. I wanted to feel water running down my throat, soothing the raw pain there.

  “Um, you’ll have to ask the nurse. He said I was only to give you one, no matter how much you complained. You want me to fetch him now?”

  I shook my head. “Where’s Ollie?”

  Zoe looked away. “I don’t know.”

  “What?” Why didn’t she know? He must have had my message by now.

  “He hasn’t phoned, Benj. I’m sorry.”

  Why wouldn’t he have phoned? I tried to tell myself he simply hadn’t had the message yet. Maybe Mrs. F. had missed him when he called round. Maybe he’d been delayed for some reason and never even made it.

  But another, sickening possibility rose up inside me on a swell of bitter foreboding. He’d said he’d have to drive like a maniac. What if he’d had a crash.

  What if…

  What if that was Ollie inside me?

  I don’t remember much after that. Someone said something about a sedative, but I wasn’t paying attention. It was probably the drugs screwing with my reasoning, but I’d gone from foreboding to certainty, and collided with more despair than I’d ever imagined existed. I let it pull me under, drowning me in darkness and blotting out everything else.

  Pulling me back to my darkest moment.

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  The lights strobed over the dance floor, whirling and leaving trails across my vision. I wondered if there’d been anything different in that last lot of coke I’d scored, and decided if there had been, I rather liked it.

  The lad leaning against the bar next to me had a great arse. I ran a hand down his back and rested it there, admiring the way it made a shelf for my hand.

  He turned to look at me, and I nearly laughed at the orange spray-on tan he’d used. It was a classic home-job, complete with uneven lines at the jaw and white patches behind the ears. Jesus, couldn’t he afford a trip to a proper tanning salon?

  But then what did his face matter?

  “You’ve got a great arse there,” I said, squeezing it for emphasis. “I’d like to get to know it better.”

  Tan-boy leered, and I didn’t even have to buy him a drink before he let me lead him to the toilets. It was still early enough that there were a couple of stalls free, so I pushed him in and down onto his knees on the hard floor.

  I leaned back against the wall, enjoying his hot breath on my stomach as he quickly unzipped me. He had good technique—knew when to suck hard and when to hold back—and although it made him gag a little, he could take me all the way to the back of his throat.

  My ears throbbed in time to the bassline that permeated the whole club. I looked up at the ceiling, and the light there was pulsing. My heartbeat kept the same rhythm, a frantic pounding like the one I was about to give Tan-boy.

  But I wasn’t, was I? My softening dick slipped out of his lips, and my head tilted sideways, like the muscles in my neck had given up. I haven’t come yet, I wanted to scream, but my throat wasn’t working. The walls expanded and contracted like my lungs refused to. Darkness fuzzed the edges of my vision, narrowing everything to an orange face, staring at me with panic in its eyes.

  They found me passed out on the floor after Tan-boy fled, taking with him my wallet and remaining bag of “coke”. I was rushed to hospital and spent two weeks in intensive care as my kidneys decided to give up the ghost, poisoned by whatever had been in that white powder.

  Then the police arrived at my hospital bedside to tell me my wallet had been fo
und in the pocket of a dead man, overdosed on a lethal cocktail of drugs in his shitty little bedsit. I wanted to die too. It had been the worst moment in my entire life. Blacker even than my parents dying, because this time, I knew it was my fault. I was responsible for that young man’s death, and I’d never even taken the time to learn his name. I knew it now, but it was too bloody late.

  The worst moment ever.

  Until now.

  64

  Chapter Nine

  I glanced at the twenty millilitre cup of water in front of me. I knew I should drink it, but I just couldn’t summon up the energy to lift my hand. What was the point?

  I was dimly aware of an argument taking place down the hall. I tuned out the raised voices. I’d insisted that Zoe go home and get some rest, but my reasons were purely selfish. I just wanted some time alone to wallow in my misery and not have to field questions about how I was feeling.

  I was feeling numb, all except for my guts, which throbbed with a dull ache.

  The door swung open, and a nurse peered in at me. At least, I assume she was a nurse. Her lavender-coloured outfit looked a little too much like pyjamas for me to tell for sure, although I had noticed that at this hospital they seemed to encourage the staff to wear outlandishly coloured scrubs. She cleared her throat, looking confused and a little pissed off.

  “Ben, isn’t it?”

  I nodded once. Not more tests. I didn’t think I could face them. On the other hand, maybe it was more drugs. I wouldn’t mind some more of that stuff they’d knocked me out with this morning. It would be good to get the bed lowered again too. This enforced sitting was tiring me out.

  “I’ve got a young man demanding to be let in to see you. Says his name is Brian Jones. He’s not on the list your sister left with us.”

  I tried to remember if I’d ever known a Brian well enough to have him visit but drew up a blank. I didn’t care enough to make any more of a response than a shrug. Then I wished I hadn’t, as the motion pulled the stitches in my belly and reminded me of what was in there. Pieces of Ollie, cut out of him and pasted into me like a macabre collage. I wanted to be sick again.

  Maybe if I drank the water, I could throw that up.

  “He says he’s your boyfriend,” the nurse said, frowning at me. “Bright red hair?”

  I definitely would remember having a redheaded boyfriend named Brian, wouldn’t I? God, unless I was suffering from some bizarre amnesia and I’d made up all that stuff about me getting it on with the delivery guy. Did I have a normal life waiting for me somewhere? I stared at the nurse, willing her to tell me that I didn’t need to feel this anguish, that it was all a bittersweet dream and I’d soon forget all about Ollie and the way he made me feel.

  But I didn’t want to forget him. Not when he’d made me feel something I’d never dared hope for. Maybe the pain was worth it, somehow.

  The nurse was heading out of the room. “I’ll tell him to leave, then.” She turned back when halfway out of the door and frowned again. “Wait, he said to tell you he’d come to deliver more comics. Said you’d know what he meant.”

  I gaped. Hope sparked inside me, so bright it was painful. I felt like I was teetering on the edge of a precipice, that thread of hope holding me up above the darkness.

  “Let him in.”

  Boyfriend…comics…Brian…red hair… It didn’t add up, so I told my brain to take a hike and stared at the door as it slowly swung shut behind the nurse.

  Then I heard a voice outside that made my heart leap. “I told you, he knows me as Ollie.”

  “If he really is your boyfriend, then I don’t see why he wouldn’t recognise your real name,” the nurse replied haughtily.

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  The door crashed open as a vision in red and black barrelled through it.

  “Ben! You would not believe the time I’ve had trying to find you!”

  I barely had time to focus on the rapidly moving body before he was on me and my lips were ambushed. His exuberance startled me, but I opened my mouth to the messy kiss. He bathed my parched mouth in saliva, and it tasted amazing—all coffee and chocolate like the previous day. Was it really only a day? I felt like I’d lived a lifetime since our tryst in the kitchen.

  His hands grasped the sides of my head, and he pulled back, flashing me a brilliant grin. I was too dazed to smile back but kept running my gaze over his face, trying to convince myself that this was real. That Ollie was here. That he was my…boyfriend?

  I felt the smile start deep inside me, blotting out the pain as it rose up towards my face.

  “Are you all right?” he asked me. “What happened? I was so worried, I couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “You were worried?” I wanted to say, but my voice cracked. Then Ollie was holding that tiny little plastic cup up to my lips, and I gulped down my water ration. It was sweet, but not as sweet as Ollie’s mouth.

  I started laughing. God, that hurt. Tears ran out of my eyes, but it was almost impossible to stop. Eventually I wheezed to a halt, and the tearing on my stitches eased. I clicked my morphine button in the hope of some more being sent down the drip feed.

  Ollie looked at me like I was certifiable. My gaze drifted up to his hair.

  “She said you were a redhead called Brian. I thought I must have had amnesia.” It was the most words I’d said in one go since the surgery. That water must have really helped. Or maybe it was just the joy of having Ollie here, alive and whole.

  “Oh yeah. Uh, about that…” Ollie flushed, his face almost matching the vibrant crimson of his new dye-job. “My mates all call me Ollie after the skateboarding trick. I was never that keen on my real name, so I use it all the time now. Only my mum ever calls me Brian.”

  “You must be good.” Ollie gave me a puzzled look. “At skating.”

  He dropped his eyes and shook his head. When he looked back up, there was a softness in his expression that made me want to kiss him all over again.

  Shame I was in too much pain to sit up that far.

  “Nah, I’ve got the energy but not the precision. Took me a whole summer holiday to get the hang of an ollie, and I still bollocks it up half the time. That’s why they called me it, you know? Just taking the piss, like mates do.”

  I was going to have to admit my ignorance. “What’s an ollie?”

  Ollie enthused. “It’s like, the foundation of most other tricks, but it’s bloody hard to learn. You basically start on the ground and make the board jump. That bit’s tricky enough, but then you’ve gotta land without falling off. I’ll show you sometime, when you’re out of here.”

  I had to mentally readjust my vision of Ollie as a skateboarding pro.

  Something about the idea of him getting back onto the board after all those falls really appealed to me, though. His persistence was endearing. I could definitely learn something from him.

  “I thought you were dead,” I told him.

  “Why on earth would you think that? I thought you’d been abducted by aliens or something, just taking off like that and not even leaving a note.”

  “I did! With Mrs. F. You know, the gnome lady.”

  “I didn’t see her.” Ollie frowned, and I wanted to wipe the furrow from his brow, but my hand was still too sodding weak to attempt it.

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  “So, go on, then. What’s the story? They wouldn’t tell me when I phoned up, but this is the transplant ward, right?”

  “Yeah. I had a new kidney and pancreas put in.” I frowned at him, remembering. “That bitch! I can’t believe she didn’t give you the note.”

  “She’d probably just had to pop out or something. I’m sure if she’d been in, she’d have heard me pounding on the door and seen me peering in through all your windows.”

  “She’d probably have phoned the police if she had. Bloody busybody.”

  Ollie frowned at me. “I’m sure she means well enough.”

  I decided I didn’t want to tell him about Mrs. Felpersham’s homophobia right now. Let him th
ink the best of everyone if it made him happy. He’d learn soon enough.

  “How did you find me in the end?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “I didn’t think you’d have stood me up, so I was pretty worried. Thought maybe you’d had another attack. Phoned round all the A&E departments I could think of. It wasn’t till this morning I had the idea of trying the kidney wards.”

  “Not just a pretty face, are you?”

  Ollie grinned. “Nah, the rest of me’s pretty too. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “I hope you’re not expecting any action right now. I’ll be out of order for a while.”

  “Bummer.” Ollie’s face fell, but then changed again as a new idea flitted through his brain. It was making me tired just watching him. I wondered what it must be like to experience life as a constant flicker of new emotions and ideas.

  He pulled a packet of Malteasers out of his pocket. “Sorry, d’you mind if I have something to eat? Couldn’t manage any breakfast, I was so worried.”

  I fought back the paternal urge to lecture him on how chocolates weren’t a proper breakfast and settled instead for watching him pop the Malteasers into his mouth one by one. If I was lucky, I’d get a few spoonfuls of mashed potato and apple sauce later. I wondered if I’d enjoy them the way Ollie was relishing his chocolate.

  “Nice room you’ve got here,” he said around a mouthful of chocolate.

  “It’s okay.” To be honest, I hadn’t noticed anything about it, being too wrapped up in my own head, but I looked around to try and work out whether Ollie was simply making polite conversation. It had all the usual hospital equipment attached to the walls, but at least they were a restful mauve, and the tall window let out onto a courtyard with a large bronze sculpture in the centre. I wondered how long it would be before I was turfed out of here and onto a ward.

  When Ollie had finished, he screwed up the wrapper, shoved it back in his pocket and gave me a long stare.

  “You said you thought I was dead.”