by A. A. Bell
‘Oh, don’t you chime in on that song too! He’s been using that coincidence to recruit more followers, stir up fear about his next predictions and protest every little thing that translates to him as inequity and suppression of the masses. Ten minutes after Mira’s pizzas arrived, he was picketing my office until I agreed that every Friday should be pizza day for everybody from now on!’
‘Sorry, that never occurred to me.’
‘Forget it. I had it on my to-do list anyway.’ She flicked his security badge. ‘You’d better get going if you want to swap places with Steff or Neville in fetching Mira up here.’
‘Thanks, Madonna — for everything.’
Neville Kenny met Ben at Mira’s door with a baseballer’s cup strapped over his trousers to protect his groin. ‘I thought you was sacked?’ he said, pointing at Ben’s casual staff badge.
‘Must have run out of visitors badges. I’m not getting paid.’
‘Pity.’ Neville tapped the observation window on Mira’s door. ‘You’re the only one she’s ever responded to without fists, teeth or fingernails. Just so you know, we all think it’s wrong that you were fired. So if you need help for anything, just yell.’
‘Thanks, Neville.’ He caught the older man’s hand before he could push the door open. ‘I think we should knock first.’
‘Why? She’s decent. See for yourself.’
‘That’s not the point. You know women, Neville —they appreciate that kind of courtesy, even if it’s only a token effort.’ He winked, but wondered if the wrinkly old bachelor had ever dated a woman in his life.
‘Go ahead then — work your magic.’ Neville stepped aside to make room for Ben to knock. ‘I just want to walk away from her with my family jewels intact.’
Rapping loudly, Ben didn’t hear any response at first. ‘It’s me, Mira. Bennet Chiron.’
‘Ben!’ she called gleefully. ‘What are you waiting for? Come in!’
‘Told you,’ snickered Neville.
‘It’s just what she’s used to. Trust me, she appreciated it.’
He entered to find her sitting in the only chair at her dining table reading a Braille book, both eyes sealed shut by a pair of circular bandages. On the wall beside the bed was a battery charger not plugged in but with a rectangle drawn to mark the space for a future power point, and a walkabout phone. On the dresser sat a plastic bucket holding a large bunch of brown boronias and other flowers.
‘All this is because of you, Ben!’ She closed her book and reached out to him. ‘Thank you!’
‘No, all this is because of you, Mira.’ He crossed the floor and dropped to one knee beside her. ‘What are you reading?’
She handed him the book and he read the title with his fingers. It wasn’t an anthology of poetry as he’d expected; it was the classic adventure romance The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy.
‘I didn’t know you liked reading that kind of thing?’
‘Oh yes, and Sherlock Holmes. I love stories with characters who see things differently to everyone else.’
‘That explains Sherlock Holmes,’ he said, ‘but what’s that got to do with the Scarlet Pimpernel?
Wasn’t he an English revolutionary who saved French aristocrats from the guillotine?’
‘Yes, but he used his insights into human behaviour to trick the guards into thinking he was someone harmless.’
‘Please tell me you’re not using him as research for another escape attempt?’
She smiled and touched his shoulder. ‘Maybe. Do you think a disguise as a French peasant would work here?’
‘How about a Roman citizen during the play?’
Mira’s smile broadened. ‘As desperate as I am to get away from here, I can’t go until I’ve defeated my demons, or they’ll follow me.’
Ben chuckled. ‘Well said! Look, we’ve only got a few moments before I take you for a ride to another surprise.’
‘Another one?’
‘A bigger one. Make that two big ones. Or four, if you count their assistants.’
‘You’ve found the doctors?’ Her face beamed. ‘Oh, Ben, you’re the best invisible man I’ve ever met!’
‘Invisible man?’ Neville said from the doorway. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Mira turned her face to the door and sniffed. ‘Get him away from me!’ she said to Ben. She turned back towards Neville. ‘Don’t you dare touch me!’
‘He won’t, Mira. Don’t be silly.’
‘He crept up on me. I only heard your shoes! Tell him to stay away from me, Ben!’
‘Calm down,’ Ben replied. ‘You know the new rules. We need two people each time you go out, to keep you safe.’
‘That’s not to keep me safe. It’s to keep them safe. They’re scared of me.’
‘Be fair. You scare yourself.’
‘You’re not scared of me, are you?''Of course not.’
‘Then why do you need him?’
‘We all have rules to live by. That’s just the way it is. Now cheer up and tell Neville you’re going to behave so he can bring in your wheelchair.’
Mira frowned. ‘I’m not crippled!’
‘It’s just a rule,’ Ben reminded her.
‘Okay, but make him promise to ask me before he touches me again.’
‘I will,’ Neville said.
‘You didn’t,’ she argued. ‘You didn’t ask. You never ask. Even last night and this morning!’
‘I will from now on,’ he promised. ‘It’s a new rule in the protocols on your door. Can I bring the wheelchair in now?’
‘May I,’ she corrected. ‘Not can I. That’s the proper way to say it, isn’t it, Ben? I’m not as stupid as he thinks. Tell him.’
‘There’s no need to be like that, Mira. Everyone makes mistakes.’
‘But he’s in charge of me — he shouldn’t make mistakes.’
‘Actually, he’s responsible for your care and safety. There’s a difference; a big difference. We can all learn things from each other, no matter how smart we are. And you have to cooperate with him to make it easier for him to look after you.’
‘I don’t want him to look after me. I want to look after myself.’
‘We’ve already discussed that. It’s going to take time. We have to work the system, don’t we? And right now your head isn’t quite clear enough to make decisions so you need to trust me.’
‘You can tell they gave me something?’
Ben nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him. ‘You’re grumpy and snappy for no reason.’
‘For no reason! But he —’
‘See?’ Ben interrupted cheerfully.
‘All right,’ she grumbled. ‘He can bring in the wheelchair.’
‘Bring in the wheelchair, please,’ Ben persisted gently.
‘Bring in the wheelchair, please,’ she repeated glumly.
‘Cheer up. You don’t have to like him. You only need to talk to him the way you’d like him to talk to you, and he’ll do the same. Won’t you, Neville?’
‘Whatever it takes,’ Neville agreed.
Mira huffed and wrinkled her nose, but her resolve softened. ‘Bring in the wheelchair, please, Neville.’
‘Well, I’ll be a monkey’s great-uncle!’ Neville wheeled the chair closer.
‘Before we go,’ Ben said, digging into his bag, ‘I brought some things for you. This is potpourri.’
‘It’s pronounced poe-poo-ray,’ Neville corrected. ‘My wife — God rest her — told me. She was French.’
‘You were married?’ Ben asked.
‘A lifetime ago. Cancer got her in her twenties, when we both worked here.’ ‘Oh!’
The gasp was Mira’s.
‘Sorry to hear that,’ Ben replied. He put the small set of herbal bags onto the table in front of Mira.
‘Oh, Ben! They smell like home!’ She lifted them to her face and closed her eyes. ‘Mmmm. in autumn, when the dry winds whisper through the fields around my poet trees.’
‘Ther
e’s also this,’ Ben said. ‘Please open your hand.’
She did, and he gently placed the personal fan into her palm.
‘It’s your portable breeze.’ He manoeuvred her finger to switch it on. ‘It won’t make up for a window, but it’s the best I can do for now. It’s made of plastic and rubber so you can’t hurt yourself.’
She giggled and played with it, jamming her finger in the wrong place to stop the blades and make it buzz louder. Then her smile fell away and she pushed the fan back to him, along with the potpourri. ‘Thank you, but I’d rather give them back voluntarily than have him take them away as soon as you leave.’
‘I don’t do nothin’ unless it’s for your own good,’ Neville argued.
‘And letting you keep these as a reward for ongoing good behaviour is definitely for your own good,’ Ben said. ‘Last one, quickly,’ he added, inviting her to hold out her hand again. ‘See if you can guess what these are?’
She fondled their sleek shape and found two slim arms that folded out. ‘Sunglasses?’
‘Mirrored sunglasses.’ Ben lifted her hands and the glasses back to her face. ‘They hide your eyes by wrapping around the sides of your face, and they’re very dark, so there’s no need to feel embarrassed anymore when you go out. They should also reduce your headaches if it’s your eyelids’ supersensitivity to strong light that’s causing them.’
‘Oh, Ben!’ Mira peeled the sticky bandages from her eyes and kept her eyelids closed while she positioned the new glasses.
‘Are your eyes open now?’ Ben leaned in very close to her face. ‘How do they feel?’
‘I can see my room!’ She squealed and clapped. ‘Everything is brown, purplish brown.’
‘Impossible,’ Neville replied flatly. ‘You’re hallucinating; overdue for your meds again. The walls are gold, green and purple.’
‘No!’ Mira leapt to her feet. ‘It’s real, like at home, but everything’s brown here now, instead of blue!’
‘Steady on, Mira,’ Ben warned as she twirled around.
Neville pulled the wheelchair back, out of her way. ‘You have people waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Calm down so we can take you up there.’
‘But I can see! I can really see!’ She stumbled over the leg of her own chair, still obviously blind to it. ‘That doesn’t count! The invisible one doesn’t line up with its ghost. Look! The door to my ensuite is painted with three big daisies on a vine!’
‘She’s going off again,’ Neville warned. ‘Soon she’ll be seeing dead people.’
‘But look,’ Ben said, ‘her door is painted with three big daisies and a vine.’
Mira twirled to face the metal bed bolted to the wall, which had been stripped of all its bedding that morning to make a bench. In one leap, she was on top of it, jumping up and down.
‘Mira!’ Ben scolded. ‘Get down before you hurt yourself!’
‘But I can see everything! I can even see the camera that keeps watch on me!’ She pointed at it, then stretched up on tiptoes to peer at the lens. ‘The brand name on the front is Ispy.’
‘I-Spy,’ Neville corrected. ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’
‘Told you!’ Mira sang.
‘What’s going on?’ Neville demanded. ‘Are those prescription glasses?’
‘No,’ Ben said. ‘I picked them up from a hotel lobby this morning. Mira, can you see me? Can you see Neville?’
She turned towards their voices and scanned the room, telling him the answer before she said it. Her shoulders slumped, confirming it.
‘You’re still invisible. If the wheelchair is in here, it’s invisible too. I can only see the table, the chair, my bedand the set of six big drawers for my clothes. Oh, and the door to my ensuite. But everything’s brown and ghostly, like I told you.’
‘There’s no chest of drawers,’ Neville said. ‘We took it out on Wednesday after you twisted off the drawer knobs and used the screws to pick at the door lock.’
‘But I can see it!’ she insisted.
‘Hallucinations,’ Neville said. ‘You’re going off again.’
‘I doubt it,’ Ben argued. ‘She’s happiest when she can see where she is.’
‘And most dangerous when she goes off with the fairies.’
‘They’re not fairies!’
‘Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t,’ Ben said diplomatically. ‘But we know who can tell for sure and they’re only a five-minute wheelchair ride away. Are you ready, Mira? Or would you prefer to stay here all day?’
‘Let’s go!’ She jumped off the bed and accepted help from Ben as he guided her carefully into the invisible wheelchair.
‘This is very strange,’ she said as he wheeled her swiftly along the hall, with Neville jogging to keep up with them. ‘Some of the walls out here have moved since they were blue.’
‘Renovations over the last week,’ Neville replied. ‘You must have heard the carpenters while you were sedated. The walls were never blue, though, or brown. They’re cream out here. Always have been.’
‘Never mind the colour,’ Ben said. ‘Which walls have changed, Mira?’
‘That one ahead by the elevator. And back there, the nurses’ station was much shorter and didn’t have an archway in the wall beside it.’
‘Told you,’ Neville said. ‘She must have heard the tradesmen.’
‘I can see it!’
‘What about yourself?’ Ben asked. ‘Can you see yourself yet?’
‘No, but...’ Mira drew her hands up to her face and stopped them about half a ruler’s length away from her sunglasses. ‘I can see everywhere they’re not, much clearer than I did with your hand at the treehouse.’
Ben leaned over as he pushed her along and held two fingers up close to her nose. ‘How about now?’
‘Two, but. Stop!’ She cringed as he pushed her towards the glass doors at the end of the hall. ‘They’re shut!’
‘They’re automatic.’ Ben pushed her closer until the doors responded with an audible shisss. ‘Hear that? They just opened.’
‘I heard it, but they didn’t move. Wait!... Please? Somebody’s coming through.’
‘Nobody’s coming through,’ Neville argued.
Ben paused anyway.
‘Now!’ Mira cried. ‘They’re open! Go now!’
Ben shoved the wheelchair forward, then accelerated down a ramp into the garden. At the verge of an internal road, he paused to let a delivery truck pass by with a load of marquees and fete tables.
‘Wait,’ Mira said, as he started crossing. ‘There’s a ghost truck coming.’
‘Weren’t you in a hurry?’ asked Neville.
‘To arrive safely, sure,’ Ben agreed. ‘But I’ve never been hit by a ghost truck and I’d like to keep it that way.’
‘This one’s a refrigerated truck,’ Mira said, ‘with a picture of cows, sheep and chickens on the side.’
‘That sounds like the meat truck,’ Ben replied. ‘If it looks real, Neville, it might as well be real as far as the scare factor’s concerned.’
‘Meat truck only comes Wednesdays,’ Neville said stubbornly.
‘Safe now,’ Mira said with a wave to Ben.
He obliged, bumping her chair over the kerb and across the bitumen to a smooth concrete path, where he started to jog, pushing her faster past the workers who were preparing sites for the stalls and tents for the weekend festival.
‘There are my flowers!’ Mira clapped and pointed to the start of the hedge of brown boronias. ‘And that must be the administration building! Is it, Ben? I can’t hear any typing at the moment, but I can see the sign to reception and a line of happy faces on the ground.’
‘That’s right. No detours this time, though. We’re going straight past it to B-block.’
‘What about the working bee?’ Neville said. ‘They’re right there... Can’t you hear them?’
‘I can hear buzzing — sounds like someone working with a power drill. Ah!’ she squealed. ‘I see the main gate! I can see it, Ben. I rea
lly can! The line of happy faces goes all the way down to it. They can’t keep me locked up in here anymore if I can see all that now, can they?’
‘There’s nothing. we want more. than to get. you out of here...’ Neville puffed.
Ben slowed his pace, allowing the older man to catch up and recover his breath.
‘Phew! I’m out of shape. Our whole aim, lass. is to help you.’
‘Help stun and sedate me,’ Mira replied. ‘Sorry, Ben, I’m biting my tongue now.’
They entered B-block by a small door at the end of the building and headed for the elevators.
‘Stairs!’ Mira cried as if she’d just spotted a long-lost friend. ‘Oh, stairs!’ She leapt out of the wheelchair and hugged the banister. ‘Oh, it’s so long since I’ve seen any. All those times I was stuck in the sky, and not a single stair anywhere to get me down. Can we use them, Ben? Can we? I hate elevators, they’re so scary!’
‘Why?’ asked Neville. ‘They’re safer than stairs.’
‘Try closing your eyes and imagining yourself in the sky,’ she snapped. ‘Then falling out of it. Or shooting up into nothingness.’
‘Careful,’ Neville warned. ‘She’s starting to go off.’
‘I am not!’
‘She’s fine,’ Ben said. ‘Are you really up to it, though, Mira? We need to go up three flights.’
In answer, she danced up three steps, down three, up two, down two, up three and down one. ‘How’s that?’
He chuckled and parked the wheelchair against the wall. ‘Knock yourself out. I’ll be right behind to catch you if you slip.’
Neville groaned and grabbed the wheelchair. ‘I’ll brave the elevator.’
Mira could smell Neville waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Leather. Always leather. His belt, his shoes; even his hands smelled of it.
The wheelchair creaked and she guessed he’d moved it towards her.
‘I want to walk,’ she said. She heard Ben reach the top step behind her. ‘Please,’ she added for his benefit.
‘In your bare feet?’ Neville protested.
‘In my bare feet that can feel the bare timber of the floor I can now see!’
‘Suit yourself,’ Neville muttered. ‘After you.’
‘No, after you,’ she insisted. ‘Where Ben can see you. You can see each other, can’t you?’
