The Tied Man

by Tabitha McGowan

  The door clicked shut and those hand-crafted shoes echoed down the corridor. Finn pushed his oxygen mask to one side. ‘Cunt.’

  I didn’t need to ask. ‘He’s a client.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Saves his pocket money. Fucks me f’ two days straight. ‘Christmas treat’. Filthy bastard.’ He frowned, as if hearing his words for the first time. ‘Jesus, Lili, this isn’t a fuckin’ life, is it?’ He squeezed his eyes shut against the world and turned his face to the wall.

  I pulled the orange nylon blanket over his shoulders and ran my hand over his forehead as if by doing so I could wipe away the traces of Maxwell’s corrupted touch.

  ‘Can I sleep now?’ he asked, already tumbling back into a drugged slumber.

  ‘You do that,’ I whispered. ‘Sweet dreams.’

  I didn’t move until I was certain Finn was sound asleep then, afraid that if I too began to doze I would never wake up in time, I stood and stretched and caught sight of myself in the mirror above the sink. The sleek, ebony bob of the previous day now hung in lank strands around my face, and the hard glare of the strip light gave me a ghost’s pallor and illuminated the sooty shadows under my eyes. ‘God, Clarissa, you look like Chi-Chi the fucking panda.’

  I said the name without thinking, and in doing so summoned up a demon. The walls closed in and the hospital’s miasma clawed at my neck and I bolted from the room, blindly hurtling along the maze of corridors until I crashed through a fire door into an overgrown quadrangle with a stagnant, slime-filled pond. I threw up the meagre contents of my stomach into a straggling, diseased rosebush.

  Before I knew it, my retching transformed into desperate sobs that became great, racking howls that hurt my chest and burned my neck and made fat tears that carried the final traces of last night’s mascara in stygian streams down my face.

  ‘Oh duck, why don’t you come in before you drown?’

  I spun around, wiping snot, tears and make-up across my face with the back of my hand. A smiling woman with a neat perm and a matter-of-fact face stood in the doorway, proffering a mug of coffee and a clean handkerchief. The name badge on her bottle green tabard told me she was Agnes, a Friend of Castlerigg Hospital, Happy to Help.

  ‘Standing there in the pouring rain in just your vest. You’ll catch your death.’

  ‘ I’m not that lucky,’ I sniffed. I hadn’t even realised it was raining, but the storm had finally broken. Huge raindrops pounded the earth and sent up tiny explosions of dust and the distant rumble of thunder promised relief from my slow suffocation. I was already soaked through.

  ‘Come on, love. Get inside and drink this.’ Agnes enticed me back inside as though I were a feral cat.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got any change on me,’ I began, but Agnes shushed me.

  ‘Apparently you told the Wicked Witch of the West what she could do with her bloomin’ stapler,’ the woman said with a wicked little grin. ‘And flattened that little security beggar in his Hitler suit. You’ve earned a coffee. In fact, I might even stretch to a chocolate digestive.’

  I took the mug from her and the tears threatened to return. ‘Please don’t be too nice to me,’ I implored. ‘I don’t think I could cope with that right now.’

  ‘You see a lot of that, working in this place.’ Agnes handed me a tissue. ‘People holding it together, I mean. Especially the women. I take it that’s your young man in one of those rooms back there?’

  I was going to say that it was far more complicated than that – in another time I might have told her to mind her own bloody business – but for now, I was damn certain I wasn’t going to let anyone else have him. ‘Yes, he’s mine.’ The words were nowhere near as difficult as I thought they might be.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll look after him beautifully,’ Agnes assured me, then checked her watch. ‘Oh heck, my Dave’ll be cursing me. He’ll have been sitting in that car park for the best part of half-an-hour, waiting to pick me up.’ She unclipped her tabard and pulled it off over her head. ‘Well love, I hate to leave you like this, but I’m afraid that’s me done for the day. Just pop the mug down there when you’ve finished.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I began to rally a little as I dried my eyes and gulped down scalding, sweet coffee. ‘Nice jumper, by the way.’

  Agnes looked down at the design of two yellow Labradors against a burgundy background. ‘This old thing? Knitted it years ago.’

  ‘It’s very cool. I could never make anything like that.’

  My companion smiled with delight. ‘Well that’s praise, coming from you.’

  No disguise was ever perfect. ‘Ah. You know.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Agnes nodded. ‘Art History ‘A’ level at night class – keeps the old grey matter from turning to jelly. A bit tricky mind, with you looking like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, and with those lenses in. Wasn’t I meant to recognise you?’

  ‘It would make things an awful lot easier if you didn’t.’

  ‘Well in that case duck, this has all been a figment of my imagination, not to be shared with anyone, even my Dave. Is that better?’

  I nodded. ‘Thank you. Again.’

  Agnes was halfway down the corridor when she turned on her heels and came bustling back towards me. ‘Here, why don’t you take this? I reckon it’s warm enough for me to go home in just my blouse, and you’ll be nithered before too long.’ She took her sweater off and handed it to me. ‘I know it’s not exactly the height of fashion, but -’

  ‘Oh no, I can’t take that...’ I tried refusing.

  ‘Nonsense. I can have a new one knitted in a week, and it’s not going to help your young man if you catch pneumonia now, is it?’ She was taking no further argument from me, because she pulled the Labrador sweater over my head. ‘There now. That’s better. And here’s a couple of pounds – make sure get yourself a bar of chocolate from the machine, or something.’ She pressed the coins into my palm and gave me one last concerned appraisal. ‘Now, will you be okay?’

  I found myself embraced in warmth and floral perfume and I had to gulp more coffee to stop the tears returning. I nodded, and she smiled.

  ‘Good girl. You take care now, won’t you?’

  I watched Agnes disappear down the hallway, off to meet her Dave, and let the last inch of coffee and thick sugar syrup slide down my throat. Junkie’s coffee. I set the mug down before returning to Finn’s side.

  Finn

  In a benevolent universe, I would have stayed in hospital. I would have been given time to heal properly, and vast amounts of drugs, and whilst I was compiling my wish list, Lilith as my only visitor, bearing grapes, a large bottle of vodka and the latest edition of Gardener’s World Magazine. Instead, we were being escorted to the delivery entrance of Castlerigg Hospital by a cantankerous old porter who, in the absence of the truth, had made up his own reasons for my rapid departure. He was more than eager to share them with Lilith.

  ‘If it was up to me, I’d leave this lot where they bloody well fell,’ he grunted as pushed my wheelchair.

  ‘Meaning?’ Lilith asked.

  ‘Bloody junkies. Druggies. Whatever you want to call ‘em. You can always spot ‘em. Come in here, doped up to the bloody eyeballs thinkin’ we’re NHS, bleeding from God knows where and no idea how it happened, then bugger off before the police can get to ‘em. I’d just let ‘em rot in the gutter – it’d just need a couple to go like that for the rest to get the message.’

  Lilith’s fingers clenched into my shoulder. ‘You should think about running for prime minister.’ I could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

  ‘Aye, mebbe I will. I’d stop them bloody darkies bringing all them drugs into our country in the first place.’

  ‘Excellent plan,’ Lilith agreed as we reached the Land Rover. ‘I’ll take him from here, shall I?’

  ‘Whatever you want, just as long as you get him out of our bloody car park,’ the man grumbled, already heading back inside.

  ‘Fucking darkies?’ Lilith said incredulous
ly. ‘Well, that just about makes a perfect day.’

  ‘Well done. You didn’t hit him.’

  Lilith began to load pillows and blankets into the front passenger seat, padding it out for an uncomfortable ride back to Albermarle. ‘Didn’t have the energy. I’ll wait until I’m free, then I’ll come back and flatten the twat.’

  *****

  The return journey was hell. Even the smallest of movements pulled at the stitches in my stomach and I was haunted by the irrational fear that they would split at any moment and spill my guts out onto my lap. But if there was one lesson my life had taught me, it was that as bad as all this was, there was always room for things to get just that little bit worse.

  The first herald was the tension that began in my neck and began to hum like telegraph wire along every muscle in my body, quickly followed by a fluttering, baseless feeling of panic that made me bite my lip to avoid crying out like a child. As lightning started to flicker around us and the windscreen wipers struggled to clear the deluge, I told myself that I was safe in this car with Lilith, that we would soon be home so I could fix things. Nothing worked. Soon the pounding rain on the cab roof became artillery-loud and the only thing I could do to stop it splitting my skull in two was to slam my head into the metal doorframe. At first Lilith must have thought it was an accident, that I had jolted myself as I tried to get comfortable. Then I did it again. And again.

  She hauled the steering wheel round and pulled us into a verge. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, her eyes wide with alarm.

  With difficulty I turned to look at her. ‘I’m starting my fuckin’ rattle, aren’t I? The bastards in there thought I’d OD’d and flushed all the shit out of my system – didn’t bother putting any back.’ Even as I spoke I could hear my breath begin to decay into the panting little sighs that preceded full-on hysteria. ‘How soon, Lili? How fast can we get back?’

  ‘Three quarters of an hour? Maybe more…’

  ‘Too long.’ I arched my back as the first of the muscle spasms hit. ‘Jesus,’ I howled, ‘I hurt!’

  ‘It’s okay, I can sort this –’ Lilith began.

  ‘What, you a fuckin’ pharmacy?’ I snapped.

  ‘I said I can sort it, Finn,’ Lilith said, sounding a hundred times calmer than I deserved. She reached behind her to grab a bag from the back seat, and brought out a fresh strip of temazepam. ‘Anal personality – we come prepared.’

  ‘Oh, you fucking angel.’ I rubbed at the crawling flesh on my face.

  She pushed the first tablet out of its blister. ‘How many?’

  ‘Just give me the strip. I’ll do it. Promise I won’t top myself. Just give me it.’

  She reluctantly handed it over and I pushed a clawed hand through lank hair. ‘Don’t watch me Lili, please don’t watch me do this. I’m not proud of it, y’know?’

  She did her best not to look as I pushed half-a-dozen white tablets into my shaking palm and threw them into my mouth. I bit down on them to grind them up and reduce the time it would take for my desperate system to absorb the drug, then winced at the bitterness and choked as the powder stuck in my anaesthetic-dry throat.

  Lilith scrabbled around at her feet and emerged holding a bottle of mineral water. ‘Here. This should help.’

  I took a swig of the lukewarm liquid. ‘Thanks,’ I finally managed. I pulled one of the pillows from the footwell and covered my face with it. ‘I’ll be out in ten minutes. Just need everything to go away. Too big right now. But I’ll be better. Soon.’

  I stayed hidden like that, smothered in pillows, until the wool filled my head to the point where the world outside the Land Rover no longer threatened to scare me to death. When I finally emerged, Lilith had her back to me as she examined the raindrops making a haphazard run down the driver’s window.

  ‘There. See? Human again. Ish. Human-ish,’ I announced, to signal my re-entry. ‘Y’know, even I wouldn’t have thought of bringing that shit along. How the hell did you find the space in your head to think of stuff like that?’

  ‘Hope. Stupid, forlorn, naive hope.’

  ‘I don’t get you.’

  ‘That we might just be able to keep driving... If there was the slightest gap.’

  ‘Ah.’ I got her then.

  ‘Like I said. Stupid. There was never going to be a fucking gap, was there? Not with her.’

  ‘No. Not with her. Fair play to you for givin’ it a go, mind.’ I remembered something from the hell I had inhabited just hours before. ‘You nearly said something, didn’t you? To that other doctor. The woman.’

  ‘Nearly.’ Lilith pressed her forehead against the misted glass. ‘God, Finn, what the hell was I thinking?’ There was an odd catch in her voice that I’d never heard before.

  ‘Lili? Are you crying?’

  ‘No.’ She scrubbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand and gave a discreet sniff. ‘Yes. Just remnants. Thought I’d got rid of it all earlier, to be honest.’ I watched her back stiffen as she fought to bring the tears back under control.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Just... everything – All of it. All of today, and all the bastards out there. The whole bloody world, populated by monsters. Garvey, Maxwell, bloody Serena.’ She took a breath. ‘Me.’

  ‘You?’ I asked incredulously. ‘What the fuck have you done to be on that list?’

  ‘I hit you. Last night.’

  I started to laugh, but had to stop when the stitches in my stomach began to feel like cheesewire in my skin. ‘Oh Jesus Christ Lili, is that what’s upsetting you? That you gave me a bit of a well-deserved whack for bein’ an evil-tongued shit? The only thing that surprised me was that it took you so bloody long!’

  ‘It was unforgivable.’ I got a glimpse of the tempered steel that was Lilith’s moral code. In that moment, I realised that even if she stayed at Albermarle for the next thousand years, Blaine would never have her. I also knew from hard experience that what my employer could not possess, she destroyed, and that sudden terror made me reach across the expanse and grasp Lilith’s arm.

  ‘Lili – no-one’s ever done anything like this for me. Ever. Are you hearing me? I sure as hell know I wouldn’t have taken the risks you did today just for a whore.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Lilith said, and I caught sight of her reddened eyes and tearstained cheeks.

  ‘It’s what I am.’

  ‘It’s what she makes you do. It’s not who you are,’ she retorted.

  I didn’t fancy my chances in a semantics debate with Lilith at the best of times. Right now, knackered and aching, and with half my blood supply consisting of a charitable donation, I knew when to let it drop. There was only one other thing I could do, and it had been so long since I had dared – wanted – to do anything like it that I could barely remember the moves. ‘Come here,’ I urged.

  I expected refusal, or at least hesitation. Instead, Lilith immediately buried her head into my chest and entwined her small, perfect hands around my back. The momentary discomfort was nothing at all compared to the realisation that she was finding refuge in my flawed embrace.

  Lilith

  I had no idea how long we remained like that. Longer than I had ever stayed in any other man’s arms, I knew that for sure. Every time I breathed in, sweat and antiseptic mingled with his individual scent and I could feel the soft pulse of Finn’s temazepam-slowed heart through his t-shirt. For a while I was content to let that steady rhythm begin to calm and ready me for the rest of the journey.

  What I did know was that as we sheltered from our own private tempests, something immutable happened to the bond between Finn Strachan and me, and our unnamed relationship shifted into something far stronger than either of us knew how to control. If I’d had the energy, I might have halted it there, kept my face turned away and driven on through the storm. But right then, I needed the haven that Finn offered more than oxygen.

  It was a grudging return to practicality and the twisted realm of curfews and arbitrary punishment that made
me break away from Finn’s hold. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered into the warmth of his chest.

  ‘I’m sure that’s meant to be the other way round.’ He stroked my head one last time. ‘Um, Lili?’ he added as I started the engine, and I prepared myself for an expression of regret at our contact, or a warning not to mention anything of this to Blaine. ‘I don’t suppose you remembered my fags as well, did you?’

  I gave him my very finest disparaging look. ‘Of course. What, did you think I was? Some damn amateur?’

  *****

  At nine thirty-six, the disappointment on Coyle’s face was palpable as we arrived at his gate-lodge. I parked the Land Rover by the quay and we sat and waited, like the obedient children that we were, for Henry to collect us. He had already set off across the lake in his little launch and he was carrying a female passenger that I didn’t recognise.

  ‘Y’know, you could just dump me out of the door, turn this thing around and fuck off,’ Finn suggested. ‘There’s still time.’

  ‘No I couldn’t. And if you advocate that again, I’ll personally unpick your stitches with my teeth.’

  Finn grimaced. ‘I reckon if you ever fancied it, you could give Blaine a run for her money on the ‘creative sadism’ front.’

  ‘Different league. I just have better things to do with my creativity, that’s all.’

  ‘Hell, I’ve just seen who my welcome party is,’ Finn said. ‘Doctor Parnell. Looks like all your hard work’s been in vain, Lili. If she’s in charge of my recovery I’ll be in a box by the end of the week.’

  ‘Not funny.’

  ‘S’true. It won’t even be anything to do with my injuries. She’ll give me botulism or anthrax or something.’ He gave me a woebegone look that made me smile despite myself.

  Henry tied the boat to the jetty and half-jogged to our car. ‘Oh it’s marvellous to see you!’ he cried as I jumped out and opened Finn’s door.