Angel

by Kate Mitchell

  But as for me at that sweet delusional time, taking money or assets from John would have been like robbing from a child. A large child perhaps but nevertheless a child who needed protecting from himself. But John or the child, I found out later had certainly insulated himself from the adult me.

  3

  Six trouble-free months had passed living on my own as a single woman. The newness of my non-marital state meant I could think about dating again. But isn’t it strange for now I was freshly divorced, I still felt that I was betraying John?

  I did not miss John, not in the least, but from time-to-time, I wondered what he was doing, how he was coping, and I even thought about going to visit him just for a friendly chat. Was I aggrieved that he had accepted our marriage had finished? The silence was deafening.

  This nagged at me in quiet moments that and the irksome curiosity. I thought he would try and contact me, if only for the one reason that you don’t spend twenty-one years with someone and then forget them just like that.

  It was Jill who told me. ‘Your old house,’ she said, ‘has been put up for sale.’

  ‘Sure,’ I retorted ironically. I had received the decree absolute papers only the week before.

  ‘I’m not joking. Ask Fiona, her sister went to view it with her husband.’

  ‘No, it can’t be the same place.’ I was thrown into turmoil, the air about me was beginning to stir and whiz around. I could feel all eyes on me, for lately I had been thinking about John and wondering if he were okay. They knew like I did, that this could be a critical time for me even though I assured them that I would never ever go back to him.

  ‘Fiona did ask me not to tell you, but I thought you ought to know. It was your home after all. Anyhow, her sister said she couldn't afford it. Though she liked it very much, I didn’t know you had a Jacuzzi, you never said.’

  I laughed; it was a relief. ‘Then it’s absolutely not our house. A Jacuzzi? Definitely not, not us, not John.’

  She raised her eyebrow. ‘Oh, if you say so. Perhaps Fiona got the address wrong.’

  ‘Absolutely!’ I said confidently, but when she left my office, a sick feeling entered my stomach. So, I decided that I would drive by the house in my new little sports car after work. It would do no harm and it would be interesting to view the house again, objectively and this time sanely of course.

  I had not been near the house since I walked out that Sunday night, for John had carefully forwarded all the things I asked for, which meant there was no need for me to return. It was done with the utmost politeness, but then even that was so typically John.

  A strange sensation driving along my old road and seeing the familiar landmarks. There was still enough daylight for me to identify the neighboring houses, the green-fronted lawns, boasting a little extra posterity, advertising that ‘they’ had more than enough to get by in life. And there was my old home, it had been painted, there were new windows, the front garden had been landscaped. I drove past with my mouth open in disbelief. There was no ‘for sale’ sign, but then this area never allowed any cheap marketing which could signal, a collapse of finances.

  I turned around and drove past a second time, then a third, I had got the right road I questioned looking at the road sign at the top of the road. Yes, it was true, this was the house - our old house, the house that I had lived in for twenty-one years of our marriage. Which never had anything done to it because, well because, John could not afford to pay for decorating or even for repairs.

  Two houses down, I stopped the car to think or rather trying to understand what had happened to the house and to my feelings. Was I baffled, was I confused? What on earth was going on? How had John afforded it? Why were there new improvements, had he taken out another mortgage?

  Questions, questions, questions, there were so many questions. What could I do? What should I do? Go to the house and ring the doorbell and ask John what had happened? What would he do? Invite me in? No. For both of us, the ‘we’ were in the past, I had signed my name to the papers because circumstances had changed our lives and yet...

  It was no use, I was not going to walk to my front door and ring the doorbell and ask my inquisitive, nosy-parker questions. What would he say to me? You left, you walked out on our marriage and our life. We are as we once used to be, strangers to each other. This is what I would have said to him if he had tried to interfere in my life again. So, I started up the engine and drove away from my previous home and life’s quiet road.

  I was not driving fast, I had too much to think about. I was worried about John. It occurred to me that perhaps John had collapsed under the shock of the divorce and creatively in my energetic mind, I had seen John in pictures of poverty. A broken man, who had to sell the house to put a crust of bread in his mouth, and then, living outside, sleeping on park benches. I didn't love him, yet there remained some kind of sentimental attachment which comes from spending time together.

  He was not a box of chocolates that when one finishes sampling all the soft centers, throws the rest away with the box. He was, at that moment in that strange time too soft for this world. And yes, I was convinced that I had done him an injustice. When I had escaped, I didn't have the courage or the strength to consider for one moment how this final separation would affect him. Inside, I knew he wouldn't be able to afford the upkeep of the house, and I realized in my weakness, how I abandoned him, defenseless. And he had been too proud to ask for help. Typical and stupid and so like John.

  4

  Awaking in confusion, I wondered where I was and why there were wires attached to my head, and drips attached to various parts of my anatomy. I hadn’t been kidnapped and turned into a robot, had I? A metal trolley rumbling across the floor held shouting in my ears, chattering china like a flock of gossipers. Too much noise going on for my ears that I wanted to stretch my arm out and switch it all off, but I could not move my limbs.

  ‘Nurse! Mrs. Boreman’s awake,’ called a disconnected voice from beyond the trolley, a pair of masticating teeth and eyes magnified by large lensed glasses.

  The word nurse gave me my first clue, and the smell of detergent, the artificial lights, scuffling in the background gave me another idea of where I was.

  ‘Mrs. Boreman? Good.’ A face poked up in front of my eyes, a red nose on a too cheerful face. ‘We have been expecting you to appear,’ said a grossly too merry a voice. ‘You’ve been involved in a car accident. You were seriously injured. The doctor will talk to you about it later. My name is Nurse Phillips. I’m your personal nurse. Press the button if you need me. In the meantime, you mustn't worry. Perhaps you might be able to manage a little supper later. I’m in the middle of administering medication at the moment, so I’ll be back with you as soon as I can.’

  She smiled and then she was gone, disappearing into the ether with the smell of bothersome soap.

  I’m not Mrs. Boreman anymore, I thought sulkily. After all this time John still retained some of my personal identity. I suppose they found the name from my driving license. A car accident? Did she say I’d been involved in a car accident? I don’t remember any of it. What I do remember, is seeing our old house and that it was different and John, yes, what about John? I pressed the hospital button, but nobody came.

  There was too much to grasp, and all at once. I had been critically ill in a coma for a week…. some head injuries and damage to the neck. They weren’t certain in the beginning if I would be paralyzed until I had come out of the coma. But then I had moved my fingers, and after doing some tests on my toes, the doctors were quite hopeful about a full recovery. Apparently, I didn’t recall any of this either. But I do recollect they told me I would soon learn to walk again. I suppose this was good news but since I had already known how to walk, to find I had to relearn rather added to my depressive and awkward mood. I’m not very nice when I’m moody.

  But it was not until two weeks later when I saw my face. The nurses had been washing my face after the dressings had been taken off, I noticed that
they were very gentle with me, which I appreciated and all the while they kept telling me that I was lucky to be alive. Evidently, the chap in the other car walked away from the crash without a scratch, but I was the one who had taken the full impact. It had been me who had been at fault which was convenient for him since I didn’t remember.

  The police interviewed me, but all I could tell them was that I didn't remember anything once I had driven past my old house. They frowned and looked sideways to each other as if to confirm what they had already thought. It didn't bother me what they thought, partly because I was sedated to help me cope with the pain. So, worrying was not an option that needed my endorsement.

  Repetition can be annoying, every chance they could the doctors and nurses were telling me that I was lucky to be alive, I suppose, apart from my car being a write-off. If I was so lucky, why wasn’t I the one walking away from the crash? Lucky didn’t come into it as far as I was concerned. It did not really register to me that being lucky to be alive was all it meant. After I had finished with the hospital, I presumed that I would get back to my life and buy myself a new car, which meant claiming off my insurance, damn nuisance. So luck and being alive had nothing to do with my accruing a confident state in life.

  It happened when a visitor walked past while I was in my bed, eyes hypnotized to my face. What was she staring at? Her brown eyes locking onto mine, she was startled and quickly looked away. It was then that I began to wonder. It then came to mind that when anyone spoke to me, as their eyes met mine, they quickly turned away. Why? Was there something wrong with the way I looked?

  Previously to this woman’s diabolical stare, I was going to ask a nurse for a mirror to see what condition my hair was in; I had not had it washed or styled for weeks. It felt disgusting, and I'm sure I smelt. Now, I wanted to see what I looked like. But somehow, I knew that the last person I should ask for a mirror was a nurse. There was something going on which I was not privy to. I could get around this, I would ask a stranger, someone’s visitor.

  ‘Hello,’ I said to the visitor of the woman in the next bed. ‘Could you pass me your mirror? I don’t appear to have one.’ The woman, who had her back to me, nearly fell off her chair hearing me speak. Her reactions were ridiculous and rather over the top. ‘Sorry, did I frighten you?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said without looking at me. ‘I didn't hear you speak. I’ll get you one. Mary, you have a spare mirror, don’t you?’ the visitor looked at her friend as she desperately searched her bag for the mirror. I felt that if they could, they both would have run away from me. Even then I was not suspicious of their strange reactions.

  When she held the mirror out to me, her eyes darting to my face like a fish which had surfaced for the briefest of seconds, before diving back down as she too looked away.

  ‘Thank you.’ A monster stared back at me.

  ‘Stop screaming Mrs. Boreman. You're upsetting the other patients,’ said a nurse telling me off, who was suddenly by my side snatching the mirror away.

  ‘My face!’ I screamed.

  ‘Your face? You’re lucky to be alive,’ she was angry.

  ‘Sod being lucky to be alive. What have you done to me? Would you want this face?’ I shouted back at her, my shock now turning to anger. Where was her compassion, she was a nurse? Couldn’t she see I was upset? In actual fact, I was hysterical.

  ‘A few scratches, that’s all, it’s nothing which time won’t put right.’

  ‘No wonder I have had no visitors!’ I yelled.

  ‘You had visitors.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘In the beginning.’

  ‘But they didn't come back, did they? And now I know why.’

  ‘For goodness sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re lucky to be alive. Do you know how many people in this hospital would give their…’?

  I switched off. Who cares about them? It didn’t help me. Their problems were not my problems, I had enough of my own to contend with, without having to feel guilty or happy that I was lucky to be what? As I am? For if I were to ask anyone in this hospital, doctors, nurses, visitors, to swap places with me, I knew they wouldn't. They would all be revolted and refuse.

  It did not take me long to acknowledge that I was not very well-liked in the hospital. I could see by the indignant expressions on the staffs’ faces that I had failed to meet their expectations. I was not a good, well-behaved patient. I was a complainer, a nuisance. I asked for this, I wanted that, and I wasn't going to do what they wanted me to do. I think I had every right to be. I could almost hear them sigh when they approached my bed.

  It was possibly because of the breakdown in relations they must have thought, to get me off their backs, they would offer me a hospital visitor. I told them where they could stuff the visitor and I took pleasure in their expressions when I told them. I didn't want any busybody nosing in my business and pretending to feel sorry for me. I could see they were of the opinion that I didn’t appreciate anything they had done for me, which was true if I’m honest.

  So, I was left on my own until a psychiatrist turned up. She began questioning me about my divorce and how I really felt about it, and why I had decided on committing suicide. Suicide? Me? If I could have done, I would have laughed in her face.

  ‘So, you refuse to be helped?’ she said looking unprofessionally shocked as a slight sharp line of brilliant anger reflected in her eyes.

  ‘Oh, God. Go, go and find someone else to play with under your hysterical microscope.’ In an interesting way, it made me feel cheerful especially when she tottered off on her high heels. One of the stilettos hit that dangerous crack in the flooring which I had been observing from my bedside for the last couple of days, as being a point of decisive danger. Her foot connected and locked and she was flung to the floor in her tight skirt. Two nurses came to her aid and helped her up. In her temper and frustration, she kicked the nearby table and wobbled off. Of course, I had not wished that upon her.

  5

  I was paid full wages for the first six months, which I considered decent of the company, although it was what I was legally entitled too. On the first day when I arrived home, a large bouquet of flowers was delivered to my flat. I read the enormous card with all their names on it wishing me better but strangely, not wishing me back, I frowned and put the card away.

  When the flowers first arrived, I hobbled to the door expecting to see a visitor, a friend with any luck, but the young boy on seeing me almost threw the flowers at me before dashing off at great speed. If he had waited, I would have given him a tip. But I suppose it was just as well because I did not have any available cash on me.

  After his hasty retreat, I went to view my face in the mirror; it was not as bad as when I saw it that first time. My head, I was told went through the window. This was why on arriving at the hospital after that near-fatal crash, the emergency staff had to shave off most of my hair leaving me almost bald. But an inch of hair had sprouted since then, and most of the scarring had disappeared. With make-up, the cosmetic nurse told me, I would be able to hide the scar still staining my forehead, chin and left cheek. Thank goodness, she did not tell me I was lucky to be alive. But she did tell me that cosmetic surgery in the future would help to virtually erase the scars. But it would cost a great deal of money; private healthcare always does. But that was something I could think about, the future, my future. I nodded my head sagely; I had a future this was something that I was sure of.

  During my absence from work, someone else had filled the position. Six months later, the temporary was still there. I, who had been told was ‘irreplaceable’, had been replaced.

  I knew why they did not want me back. The flash, frivolous culture of women’s magazine world could not, and would not admit to having someone who was definitely not glamorous anymore. Glamor is not meant to be transient. It is boundless and surpasses the agreed conditions of time.

  After the accident and probably because I was still on a heavy amount of drugs, I had believed
that the state of my face would return to its happy pubescent state and not become a permanent identity that I would have to put up with. But knowledge advised me that it was a face I had to learn to live with unless I did something about it.

  You see, I used to be very attractive. Not a beauty, let’s be honest, but with dark brown hair, for I was a brunette, I was what others called, vivacious, the in-look, impish, like Peter Pan. I was fashionable with that bright look of intelligence but now, looking into the mirror, not anymore, well, not until I got my face sorted out. I suppose it was then that I also realized that I was a survivor.

  During those first few days back in my flat, I used the telephone a great deal, calling my friends to fix my social connections which for some reason had become broken. But after leaving a lot of messages on their answering machines, no one returned any of my calls. All my so-called good friends, every one of them had suddenly developed a phobia to the telephone, well at least in returning my calls. And when I did manage to catch one of them to speak to, I was given such a variety of excuses that, it made me want to suggest to them about taking up writing stories for a living.

  Resentful, frustrated and wondering what friendship really meant, when it occurred to me that John hadn’t even bothered ringing me either to see how I was. He had not attempted to come to the hospital to see me when I was so ill. No, it should not have bothered me, but yes, it did. Hadn’t twenty-one or more years meant anything to him? Although in one way, I was glad he hadn't seen me in that first state just after the accident. Because I had always thought he had married me for my looks; certainly, his good looks at the time were what attracted me to him. But then later in our marriage, he developed a stomach while I kept my figure. I even managed to lose a few extra pounds. My ex-lover told me that I had the shape of a boy, which I thought was absolutely wonderful of him. I had not realized until later that this had been a criticism.