Even Stranger

by Marilyn Messik

  “Dearest girl, I was just regaling these delightful ladies,” said the Prof waving a gracious arm, “With what it is, you and I are busy working on, when we’re behind closed doors – ghosties, ghouls and ghastlies under the bed eh?” And he tacked on, a rather good, Christopher Lee laugh, to general hilarity.

  “Now then, Lowbell.” It was an idiosyncrasy of Dorothy’s that she never called her husband by his first name. “Stella’s here now, and you’ve work to do, before we head upwards and onwards.” And she tapped her watch, not an easy move, the three women were wedged pretty firmly on that sofa.

  “Dottie, my practical angel and always so right.” He smiled widely at her, stuffed the remains of a Danish, saw it down with a gulp of tea and rose to his feet, hitching up his trousers, which had a tendency to head south, when he’d been sitting a while, “Ladies, I must love you and leave you. Thank you for the delicious interlude, both company and refreshments.” He picked up his battered briefcase which, he often wryly commented had, like himself, seen better days and, ushering his wife ahead of him, moved into my inner office. I followed, but not before casting an admonitory backward glare at the rest of the room, which I could see, had about as much impact as I’d expected. A far firmer foot, I resolved, would have to be put down. The phone rang, just as I was shutting the door behind us and Brenda’s exclamation stopped me.

  “Oh God!” she said. “No.” She looked across the room at me, hand to mouth, her normally ruddy face, shocked and pale.

  “It’s Devlin McCrae’s brother.” She said. “Devlin was knocked down by a car this morning. They’ve asked if you’ll go to the hospital – Stella, it’s pretty bad.”

  The Lowbells insisted on driving me to the Royal Free Hospital, completely overriding my protests, that I was fine to go on my own. They were fully supported in this, by the assembled crowd, who all said I wasn’t experienced enough, to drive, having had a bad shock. By the time my mother and Aunt Edna had bundled me back into my coat, which I’d only just taken off, Dorothy had despatched her husband for the car, so we wouldn’t have to waste any time. She took a firm grip on my arm, as we headed down the stairs and by the time we got outside, he was at the kerb with the engine running.

  He was a surprisingly good driver, don’t know what I’d expected, maybe the same stop-start timing as with his speech. But, by dint of taking us smoothly up and down a number of side-roads, we got to the hospital in record time,

  “My part of the world you see,” he explained, “Been here all my life, know it like the back of my hand.” Dorothy wouldn’t take no for an answer, when it came to going in with me. And, I have to admit, she was formidably efficient, forging a path to the front desk, sorting out exactly where I needed to go and then shepherding me up to the relevant floor.

  To be honest, I’d absolutely no idea why I was there; I was a paid employee, hardly a friend of the family and, given the choice, I’d rather have been anywhere else at all. I was horrified and upset at what had happened to Devlin and, naturally, wished him nothing but well, but I didn’t do brilliantly in hospitals. The intensity of emotion, stress and distress seeped through even my vastly improved shielding, and it was red-raw and painful. As a determined Dorothy, still with proprietary grip on my arm, hurried me up and along to the Intensive Care Unit, spikes were needling, viciously sharp, through my defences. I knew that when my own stress levels rose, I was far less able to take care of and protect myself. I took some deep breaths, although they were so laden with that unmistakeable hospitally smell, they didn’t help much.

  Devlin was in a curtained area, near the nurses’ station, briskly indicated by a tall, long-faced sister, who first established, the family had indeed asked me to come. She was sharp and snappy, she hated it when it was a kid, and as she strode swiftly away, I could clearly see, experience told her, this one probably wasn’t going to make it. Dorothy Lowbell’s hand on my reluctant back, propelled me forward. I turned to thank her and she leaned forward quickly and surprisingly, and kissed me on the cheek,

  “Stiff upper, eh, Stella?” She patted my shoulder and stomped off, her rubber soled shoes squeaking protest on the lino floor tiles.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The family turned stricken, appalled faces towards me, as I moved reluctantly round the curtain. Susan McCrae was normally a vividly coloured woman – creamy skin, soft brown freckles and flame-bright hair. The freckles now stood out on her face, like numerous, livid little bruises. Russell and Sarah, Devlin’s brother and sister were eighteen and twenty respectively, but shock and fear had wiped years off, and they both looked little older than the boy in the bed.

  I’d met Philip, the father, only once before, and then only fleetingly. He was something to do with oil – petrol not cooking – flying off to trouble spots worldwide. My brief impression had been then, that he thought rather too much of himself, but like the rest of the family, fear had reduced him. He nodded at me, though I could see he was no wiser than I, as to why on earth I was there and had said so, at length, in a hissed conversation earlier, before Russell had been despatched to call me. Susan stretched out a shaky hand, from her chair at the bedside,

  “Stella, thank you so much for coming. As you can see, we’re in a bit of trouble here.” she swallowed hard, “But Dev’s so fond of you. You’ve been so good for him. You make him laugh. I know you’ve become close, knew you’d want to be here.”

  She’d got it completely wrong. Devlin and I got on well, only because he was aware, I was always one step ahead of him. This meant I knew immediately, when into his mind came a fresh ruse, designed to make someone’s life a misery, and was swift to ensure it wasn’t mine. It had become almost an on-going, unacknowledged game between the two of us. Susan still had her hand out to me, I had no choice, but to move forward and take it, she was ice cold and she pulled me in closer.

  “It happened so quickly,” she said. “We were crossing, you know, at the end of our road; he was fiddling with one of those wretched sticker packs he loves. I said, put it away, wait till we get home, but he wouldn’t listen. As we crossed, he dropped the wretched thing and he pulled away and ran back. I screamed at him, screamed, but… a car…” She swallowed again, her throat so dry, it clicked. “Not her fault, the driver, I mean. Not her fault, Dev leapt out, she couldn’t stop, don’t think she even saw him.”

  Devlin looked ridiculously small in the high bed, shrunken and somehow aged. A swathe of curls had been shaved on the right side of his head, and there were black, aggressively open-ended stitches, holding together a zig-zag gash, which crawled a lazy path from his ear, across his head and down to the opposite eyebrow. They stood, harsh and dark against his colourless skin.

  “How is he?” I asked, although I already knew.

  “Leg broken in two places, a lot of scrapes and a couple of bad cuts, but it’s the damage to his brain they’re worried about, they can’t say when he might wake up.” Phillip was pacing. The area was small. He could only take two paces one way, two paces the other.

  “Phil,” said Susan, “Not when, if.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I’m a doctor,” she said quietly, “I know.” Around the bed, the sustaining and monitoring machines hummed, puffed and beeped. Fluid leaked drop by drop into his arm, there was a tube taped in place over his mouth, snaking to the respirator, that was doing his breathing for him. To the side of the bed, an electronic line peaked and troughed across a screen. Over his left leg, some kind of protective frame tented the blankets.

  “Can you talk to him? Hold his hand and talk to him?” Susan pulled her chair back and someone, Sarah I think, pushed the rim of another one against my knees. I sat automatically. I felt sick. I’d been here before. Not with Devlin, but in another too similar situation, and the last thing I wanted to do was open myself up to it again. As I took the small, nail-gnawed hand, middle finger bracketed by a monitorin
g clip, in both of mine, I was rocked from all sides by the emotions of those around me, back-grounded by so many others, in this ward and beyond. But in Devlin’s head, there was only a deep, dark, bleakly ominous silence. It was nothing I’d come across before, there was no cacophony of sense, feeling or thought, not even an echo. I could feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, a drumbeat in an otherwise silent house, but of Devlin there was no sign. Susan touched my arm,

  “Talk to him.” She said. “He might be able to hear us.” I leaned forward, no idea what to say, but then there was a bustle behind me, as a nurse pulled back the curtain to let through the doctor, bald pate shining under the harsh lights. He had one pair of glasses perched on the dome and another pair, halfway down his nose. He shook hands with Susan, then Phillip, nodding at the rest of us.

  “Dr McCrae, so sorry we meet under such circumstances, I’m Mr Naylish, neurosurgeon.” He had an accent swiped straight from Dr Finlay’s Casebook, oddly but immediately reassuring.

  “What can you tell us?” Phillip asked. Sarah and Russell moved closer to each other.

  “Mr McCrae, I’m afraid Devlin’s showing little sign of any brain activity at the moment.” Susan flinched. He continued, “When it comes to the brain though, we’re obviously dealing with a vast number of factors, some of them known, others, unfortunately not known. At the minute, there’s substantial swelling, either as a result of the blow sustained when the car hit your son, or when he hit the ground. We need that swelling to subside, before we can carry out further tests.”

  “But you must know, have some idea as to how things might go?” Phillip pressed. Naylish shook his head,

  “I’m sorry, every case is unique, different from the one before. What goes on, in a brain with a consciousness disorder, depends completely on the level of that unconsciousness. You should understand, at the minute, all normal activity of Devlin’s brain, is dampened down completely.

  “Like, asleep?” Sarah said.

  “No, I’m afraid not, my dear. When we sleep, our brain’s actually quite active, think how quickly we wake when necessary. What we have here, in an injury-induced situation, is quite different. There’s almost no brain activity in our boy just now”.

  “For how long?” said Phillip. Mr Naylish looked at Susan, she nodded almost imperceptibly, she thought it best not coming from her, and he continued,

  “Most patients don’t remain in a true coma,” he paused, “If they don’t die of their original injuries, they may move into what we call a vegetative state – again, a different level of unconsciousness. Whilst there then may be minor reaction to stimuli, the individual in question, is entirely unable to interact in any significant way with their environment.”

  “That’s no answer.” Phillip said.

  “And it’s because there isn’t one.” Naylish touched the other man’s shoulder briefly. “We should know more after the next set of tests.”

  “And in the meantime?” Russell spoke for the first time since I’d got there. It was Susan who answered,

  “In the meantime, darling… we pray.” She nodded at the consultant. “Thank you.” He inclined his head back, he hated dealing with other professionals, illogically it made him even more conscious that he couldn’t work any kind of miracles, and he knew at this point, Susan knew that too. In her, hope was already dying.

  “Keep talking though,” He said, let him hear your voices, talk to him about everyday things. If he’s got any favourite music bring it in, play it.” He looked at Susan. “As you’ll know, there’s so much we don’t know when it comes to the brain, so anything, anything at all you think might call to him. Nurse, would you mind?” and he nodded to us all, as he left, while the nurse moved to check the monitors and drips. She added to the notes and replaced them tidily in the wooden pocket at the end of the bed, before she too swished through the curtain, letting it fall closed behind her. I was feeling more than acutely uncomfortable, like excess baggage in the room, dazed by the depth of emotion, horrified by what I’d seen, or rather hadn’t seen in Devlin’s head. It was cowardly, I knew, but I desperately needed to get out of there.

  “Look, I’ll come again tomorrow, shall I?” I said, and my already stinging conscience had a load of salt rubbed into it, as Susan rose to hug and thank me before I left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I hailed a taxi outside the hospital, to take me back to the office, where I’d left the car and, scrabbling in my bag for money and car keys, realised it was so bulky, because I had a folder full of CV’s in there. They were in response to an ad we’d placed, for a printing company client who was recruiting. I’d been through the responses, sorted them and arranged appointments for the following few days. I’d promised the client, we’d deliver all the paperwork directly to their offices, so they’d have it there, when they interviewed. I’d planned to ask Brenda to do it, but what with one thing and another, it had slid completely out of my head. I’d have to do it now. It was just coming up to 6.30, already full dark and bitterly cold, with sleet slanting silver against passing headlights, but their offices weren’t that far, and doing something practical and normal was preferable to going home to anxious enquiry.

  I wasn’t overly thrilled at the sliding-away of the wheels, as sleet thickened to snow, although in compensation, the roads were far emptier than usual. At the forefront of my mind, as I drove, was the total emptiness of Devlin’s. Between that and the uncertainty of my connection to the treacherous road surface, I was only peripherally aware of a car behind me, much nearer than it should have been, even in normal driving conditions.

  As I reached Stanmore and turned onto Brockley Hill, the car behind me turned too. It was so stupidly close, its headlights kept disappearing from my mirror. I deliberately slowed, I wasn’t about to be pushed into going any faster than road conditions and already stretched nerves allowed. Of course, there’s nothing a car up your boot hates more than you slowing down. He hit his horn, a long harsh blast, ripping through the dark, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  There were three of them in the car behind; middle-aged fax-machine salesmen, down to London for some sort of training conference, a boring day of yada, yada, yada, mitigated only slightly by several recent pints in the hotel bar. They were now on their way to a local curry restaurant, highly recommended by the barman – ‘Hot enough to blow the back of your sodding heads off.’ he’d assured them cheerfully. The driver was unfazed by the weather, and hugely irritated at anyone else who was. ‘If there was one thing,’ he was saying to his colleagues, ‘That really got on his tits, it was little-old-lady-driving, holding up every other bugger.’ I hissed in exasperation, stupid man. I slowed down even more, then pulled into the side of the road so they could pass me, go their merry way and leave me to go mine.

  But they didn’t. They stopped too. I waited a while, but they didn’t move off again until I did. And then we were right back to where we’d been before, with them in my boot, so my attention was torn between the road in front and the harassing behind. They were all highly amused, nothing like a bit of road-bullying to entertain. I really didn’t need this. I swung abruptly into the side of the road again, forcing him to stand on his brakes, which skidded his car almost full circle. I watched in the mirror, as he flung open the door and got out, his aggressive stride, hindered by snow already settled on the road. His friends were lighting up more cigarettes, sniggering and leaning out to hear all the better. Dean had a right temper on him, and they didn’t rate the chances of whoever it was who’d pissed him off. He banged hard on my window with his fist, and I smiled warmly at him – people in a temper don’t like being smiled at – and wound it down a little. I don’t recall whether ‘road rage’ was talked about back then, but this was definitely a prime example of someone losing his cool, so I thought, best be cautious.

  “Careful,” I said, “Awfully slippery, out there.” It was probably beca
use he was so busy, calling me some unpleasant names, that it took him a moment to notice his feet were sliding rapidly away beneath him. I landed him hard, on his back, in the slush. I hadn’t thought he could get much angrier than he was, but laughter and catcalls from the rest of the party back in his car, together with loss of dignity, not to mention a sore and soggy back, were doing him no good at all.

  I thought now might be a good time to take my leave, but really wasn’t prepared to put up with any more mucking around. I’m not mechanically minded, although I did recall from films, a rotor arm was often involved, in putting a car out of action. But as I hadn’t the remotest idea where one might be kept, nor what it looked like, thought it sensible to stick with something more basic. Cars need wheels, and where you’ve got wheels, tyres come in handy. I wasn’t nearly as good at this as Ed, but I’d seen the big man in action often enough to pick up a few things. I focused on two tyres on the same side of the car. They both burst, almost immediately. There was a chorus of concern from the passengers, as the car developed a pronounced tilt.

  “What the… ?” The driver, just upright again and clinging tightly to the roof of my vehicle for balance, was looking over his shoulder, jaw dropped. Not an attractive sight. I wound the window down a fraction more.

  “You’ll probably need to change those.” I pointed out helpfully. And if your back’s playing you up, after that fall, you’ll find Stanmore Orthopaedic Hospital, just up the road, on the left.” I don’t think I’d overreacted. But I can’t be doing with bullies, who think they’ve found a soft touch to target. Indeed, I reflected, had I been a little old lady, that horn blast might well have seen me pushing up the daisies sooner rather than later.

  I restarted my car, moving forward cautiously, it might add insult to injury if I now ran over him. As I drove away, I could see him in my rear-view mirror, he really was hopping mad, if he wasn’t careful, he’d slip over again. I could still feel the unpleasant after-effects of the adrenaline that had shot through me. My heart was pumping double time, blood was tingling as it returned to hands and feet, and my brain continued to fizz from the unpleasant encounter. And I suddenly had a thought.