The Last Guests

by J. P. Pomare

  The observations suggest a stroke, the fact the left half of his body is frozen supports this. He’s conscious but can’t move. One half of his face is screwed up as if in agony and the other hangs, frozen and melted. But why did he reach for his heart?

  ‘Definite stroke,’ Scotty announces. ‘Let’s load him up.’ He’s not even finished checking his vitals.

  I turn back to the man. ‘He grabbed his chest?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Right before it happened.’

  ‘Scotty, what was the blood pressure?’

  ‘Eighty-five over ninety-seven. Not too bad.’

  ‘Check again,’ I say, the urgency in my voice springing tears from the daughter, who can’t be older than seven. The mother moves to the children, her hands gripping their shoulders. I turn back to Scotty.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he says as the reading comes up, his eyes slowly rise to mine. ‘Eighty over seventy.’

  ‘Heart rate?’

  ‘Ninety-two, I think.’ A tiny shake of the head.

  ‘Get the stretcher, I’ll take over.’

  ‘What?’ he says.

  Scotty’s still not right, I saw it at that woman’s house. A slowness about him, a silly smile he almost never wears. He’s missed the signs here. ‘I’m taking the lead. I’ve seen a case like this before.’

  I remember it from medical school before Grandpa died and I dropped out. The patient’s blood pressure is falling because he’s bleeding somewhere. If I’m right then this isn’t a stroke at all. I lower my ear to his mouth, he’s hardly breathing. Triple A. Abdominal aortic aneurysm. It comes to me like an elbow to the throat. His right subclavian artery is torn, it feeds blood to the left side of the brain which is why he’s frozen down that side as if from a stroke. We’ve got minutes at most to get him to surgery.

  I turn to the wife. ‘Get the kids out, now.’ The hospital is close. I radio, brief them for our arrival. Scotty is running the stretcher back. I’ve got to get the patient breathing again by releasing the blood that’s filling his chest, pressing down on his lungs, before the pressure impedes his heart.

  ‘Ventilate him, Scotty,’ I say. Then again to the mother. ‘Get them out now.’ Finally she pulls the children away. They don’t need to see this.

  Scotty gets the tube down his throat, starts the ventilator. I take a scalpel; this is the part these children would never forget if they were to see it. A lifetime of nightmares. I cut his shirt away, insert the scalpel just below the ribs to make an opening. Finger thoracostomy. I’ve not done one in years, but when I move the tip of my finger in through the gap in his skin and feel the hot rush of blood spray out, I know it’s worked. The pressure slowly eases as the blood continues to drain from between the chest wall and lungs. Scotty, eyes wide now, rallies a second man to help us get the patient onto the stretcher. My finger is still there, holding the gap open to allow the blood to escape as we get him into the ambulance. He won’t die of asphyxiation now, but he’s a very high chance of bleeding out. I climb in, close up the doors and Scotty shoots us out through the parting traffic, the siren screaming, the wheels humming over the wet road.

  The man’s blood pressure is still crashing. I peel his eyelid back, see the black ring, all pupil. That familiar sinking feeling inside me. The brain pressure has collapsed the iris. Brain death is now the best-case scenario. As we’re pulling into the hospital, I think about the children and feel the heat at the back of my eyes, unwanted tears forcing their way to the surface, but I won’t let them. A parent gone. I sniff, scrape my eyes across each shoulder before Scotty opens the back doors and pulls the stretcher out.

  I know he’s a goner before the surgeons even start. I know that if we were faster today, if we picked it earlier and got him here sooner, he would have a chance. Not much chance, but a chance.

  After we’ve finished at the hospital, we climb back into the ambulance. In the dark of the car park before I set out, I say Scotty’s name. He turns to me. I raise my flashlight and aim it at his eyes, he brings his hand up to block the bright light but it’s too late, I’ve seen what I expected. He was slow to blink, his pupils slow to contract and slow to dilate when he blocked the light. He’s medicated.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he says, irritated.

  ‘What have you taken?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re on something,’ I say. ‘You’ve been off the last couple of weeks but it’s worse today. We missed our shot with him.’

  He scoffs. ‘Come on, let’s go. Nothing would have saved that man and we don’t have time for this.’

  ‘I don’t care what you do at home, that’s your business, but you can’t have anything in your system when you turn up for work.’ I feel like my entire body is vibrating with anger. ‘Whatever you’re on, it needs to stop.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says, again that narcotic smile, only now it’s touched with menace.

  ‘Oh I know. You can lie, but your eyes, your irritability don’t. You’re on something.’

  ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. We all have our off days, Lina.’ He shows me his teeth again, his eyes widen, and those light eyebrows climb up his forehead. ‘And I happen to know for a fact you are not so squeaky clean yourself, are you?’

  My stomach drops, the radio crackles with a new call and I shift the ambulance into gear.

  ‘Just try to keep it together.’

  ELEVEN

  AFTER MY SHIFT, I run to clear the tension in my body – my calves, clenched fists, my hips aching to move. I think about tomorrow, my next shift: twelve hours in one vehicle with Scotty. I could always ask to switch – it’s not easy but possible. Sometimes if you change stations, you end up passed around different partners on different shifts until something permanent opens up.

  I start my run on the MyTrack app and set out down the stairs, under a pink twilight sky, with my headphones in and my phone strapped to my upper arm. I pick up the pace. Everywhere I run is well lit, but whenever I see someone, particularly men, nearby I pause my podcast and my senses peak.

  Grandma was a firm believer in motion for unlocking stress, clearing illness and bad moods. Cold? Run it out. Headache? Run it out. Butterflies? Run it out. She died when I was fifteen. Grandpa died when I was twenty-one. The two most significant moments of my pre-adult life. Mum gave me nothing, other than a penchant for dark spirits which haunted me through university and my early twenties. I never knew my dad and she gave me up to my grandparents, then left home or was kicked out. I never got the full story. Then, when I was around eight years old, a short custody battle ended in favour of my grandparents. The times Mum was around she was either drinking or mean. I’m nothing like her.

  My shoes strike the pavement as I recall those tough years. I take my usual trail down towards the harbour, lengthening my stride out beneath the streetlights. There are almost no other runners despite the fact it’s still early – my usual runners’ group has been and gone today. On the road nearby, cars pass. I don’t venture from the footpath, never veering too far into the shadows. I run at a level where I can still think clearly and breathe in through my nose. I think about Daniel.

  I deleted the dating app. I’d not given him my number or met him near my place. I concealed everything that could have identified the real me. I found someone who didn’t live in Auckland full-time, someone outside of my social circles, age group. Someone who seemed normal. Funny, he probably thought the same thing about me. But obviously I’m not normal.

  My purse was on me at all times. Well, sort of. It wasn’t on me when we had sex, and I suppose when I got up to go to the bathroom or when I slept. In his drunken state could he have gone through my things and seen my ID for the ambulance service? Could he have taken my necklace as a way to organise another meet-up?

  What if he turned up at the house? What if he met Cain?

  And there’s something else. I feel different. It feels how it did last time. But now
the knocking in my chest grows fierce. The emotions have been deeper, much more sudden. The loss of the father today had brought tears, something that hasn’t happened since my first few months in the ambulance. And my energy levels have felt a little low.

  I’m close to home. I feel like if I keep running I’ll faint, so I walk briskly towards the house. Dizziness swirling the streetlights. It’s unfamiliar, this feeling. A new drug. A sort of motion sickness but it’s not quite the same. It might have worked. It might have actually worked.

  Cain’s car is there. He’s home from Tarawera.

  I find him in the study at his desk. Despite how much I slow my breathing, my heart continues to pound. I just stand there and watch as he opens a window and a horse race pops up, the rapid voice of the announcer comes through the speaker. He leans forward on his forearms, while I observe him.

  ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Come on, get up!’ He leans closer and closer. ‘Oh shit.’ He clicks his tongue when the race ends. He gently knocks his fist against the table. ‘You lame bastard.’

  He must be gambling again. But I have my own secrets. And if this pregnancy lasts, if I am pregnant then none of this will matter. Our lives will be back on track.

  He closes the window and pulls up a spreadsheet. I’ve not seen it before and have no idea what it’s for but it’s clearly something to do with his work.

  ‘Knock, knock,’ I say.

  He turns back. ‘Lina,’ he says, trying to smile. ‘How long have you been home?’

  ‘I just got in,’ I say. ‘I’ve been out for a run. Is the house all ready for this weekend?’

  ‘Yep. Still can’t believe how spotless it was.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  He narrows his eyes. ‘What’s with the smile?’

  I can’t tell him yet. I can’t get ahead of myself; I need a test and it might not last. I’ll need to wait until I can get to the doctor. ‘I’m fine. Just went a little too hard.’ I try to laugh, he’s not buying it.

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘How fast?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘How fast did you run?’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, taking my phone from the case strapped to my arm. I open the MyTrack app. Six kilometres in 25.41. I notice then that I have six new notifications on my running app. I never get notifications. I try to swallow the stone growing at the base of my throat, but it only seems to make it heavier. It feels like I can barely draw air down into my lungs.

  ‘Well?’ he says.

  ‘Four minutes ten per kilometre,’ I say.

  ‘Pretty good,’ he adds, dropping down onto the leather couch and taking up the remote. We used to run together before Cain’s deployment. He once ran a marathon in a little under three hours.

  I click the tiny red number six in the app. Someone has liked all of my runs from the past month. Daniel Moore. It’s as though my body knew this was coming. And yet this can’t be happening. But it is happening. The runs start and end at the same point so he knows where I live. He knows my real name, my full name. Does he recognise a pattern? Every second or third day at around 5.30 pm. Or at midday when I’m working night shifts.

  Cain is close, I could just tell him. He would help me, after the storm of rage, the explanation, the regret. If he doesn’t leave me, if I can hold on to him, he will help. But that’s a big ugly if. The sort of if I’d never risk. He won’t understand why I did it. My desperation to save us, what we have.

  I change my runs to private, that way no one can see them but me. Breathe slowly, Lina. I’m still gaping at the phone while Cain strides past me out towards the kitchen, the lounge.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ I say, feeling the sweat running down my cheeks.

  ‘Sure, I’ll get dinner on soon.’

  The room shrinks. This is everything you wanted. Not like this. This could all blow up. Cain will never know, you can protect him. You will have a child. You can move to Tarawera and start a family. You can delete all your social media profiles, go offline. The doctors had always told us it would take a miracle and now, for the second time, we have the miracle. There is a long way home from here, I know, but if I can just escape Daniel, and keep this secret, we will be a family. Our problems will evaporate. I’ll give the baby everything I never had. Two loving parents. A quiet, happy life.

  But we lost the baby the last time I fell pregnant. It will all work out, I tell myself now, it will be worth it in the end. The planning, the choosing, the deception and guilt. Cain told me he could never raise someone else’s kid. I couldn’t do it knowing the real parents were out there in the world. One of his rules, I suppose. It hurt to hear, it seemed so out of character and shut down the conversation about sperm donors. But this way he will never know our baby might not technically be his.

  I close my eyes for a moment, just standing there. ‘Oh also I was thinking about getting a new number,’ I say. ‘For my phone.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ he says, without looking up from the couch where he’s sitting.

  ‘Telemarketing calls, happens all the time at work.’

  ‘I’ve not noticed,’ he remarks.

  ‘Yeah, it’s just gotten bad the last couple of weeks. No big deal but it’s the easiest way to make them stop.’

  ‘You’ll have to message everyone, let them know.’

  Stay the course, be vigilant. Cain and I will get through this, we will be a happy family just how we had planned all those years ago before it all went wrong.

  Peephole

  Live Cam Premium

  Stream: 031B

  Viewers: 017

  There are three of them in the room as seen from camera 9, angled down at the bed. He has brought the bottle of wine up with him, almost empty now. They’ve been drinking most of the afternoon. Flirting on the couch, passing a joint between them in the candlelight. Polishing off a couple of bottles of wine, they sway and hold each other, laughing as he falls against the wall halfway up the stairs – 19 viewers. Now in the bedroom he falls back, his arms come to rest beside his face, bending, cradling his head – 40 viewers. The woman with the long dark hair climbs on him first. She pulls her top over her head and tosses it towards the door. She scrapes her hair back away from her face as she bends, folds over the man to kiss him – 51 viewers. His hands move to her waist, pulling her hard against him. The second woman climbs onto the bed beside him now. She unbuttons his shirt, and quite suddenly he sits up, his hand knotting through the woman’s dark hair. His lips find her throat – 63 viewers.

  TWELVE

  THERE IS A silent peace treaty between us for the next two shifts. Scotty is lucid, much more switched on than before but also much less chatty. Probably for the best, I try to tell myself. I don’t need a friend in this job, just someone I can rely on. And that’s how it is now, all business again, as it was when we first partnered up years ago. I work with a little more caution, always thinking of the baby.

  After my last shift for the week, I head home. We’re off to Tarawera this weekend to tidy up after the last guests. Cain was going to do it alone, but I insisted on heading down this time and making a weekend of it. I’m going to tell him about the baby at Tarawera; I’m going to raise the issue of his gambling and begin to plan our future. I’m not angry but I am concerned about the fact he’s betting again. And that he’s kept it from me. How much has he lost?

  I can’t blame him. He’s always looking at ways of making a little more money. There are no SAS privileged payments for injuries incurred in conflict. His pension, when he was still receiving it, was for eighty percent of his wage for three years. That’s all they gave him. Now he’s only eligible for a general disability benefit of a couple of hundred dollars a week. That’s quite a fall from grace when you think about the money he used to earn. He’d told me, with a bitter laugh, he would never take the dole, and he shouldn’t have to. But he’s not making any more money working.

  When I check the mail I see something that freezes the blood in my veins. It�
�s in our letterbox. A few bills, junk mail. And something else. An image. I feel like I could throw up. It’s of me … and Daniel. The ground oscillates beneath me. He took a photo of us. Together. Then he printed it on this card, found out where I lived from my MyTrack account and delivered it. But the image is from inside the house, shot from the ceiling as if from a surveillance camera. I turn it over and see five words written on the back.

  Does Cain know about us?

  I search the street with my eyes, every window and door all the way to the end. Where is he? Did he put this here? I shove the photo in my bra. Marching straight to the bathroom, I lock the door, rip it up and flush it down the toilet. What if Cain had found this? It could end my marriage.

  ‘Lina,’ Cain calls from somewhere in the house. I go to the basin, splash water on my face and eye myself in the mirror. He doesn’t know, I tell myself. He didn’t see it, otherwise his voice wouldn’t be so light. But he could have seen it. And what then? Our marriage would be over. My life would be over. Another surge of guilt, it feels like grief. But there’s nothing to grieve. Nothing has happened. I could contact the police, does this qualify as harassment?

  ‘Lina,’ he calls again.

  ‘One moment, just on the loo.’

  A few deep breaths, I flush again then I open the door and head towards the kitchen where I find him sitting on a stool at the island.

  ‘Hey darling,’ he says, rising and kissing my forehead.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, relieved to find he’s normal, nothing amiss.

  ‘I want you to see something.’

  He has his laptop open and he shows me a Facebook page, it belongs to one of the last guests.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Read this.’ His finger lands on the screen, a review.

  Stayed at the best WeStay on the weekend on Lake Tarawera. Would recommend it to everyone.

  How can I feel pride, how can I feel anything other than this sickly anxiety? It’s the photo, the fact an image like that exists. Could I claim it was photoshopped if Cain ever did see it?