Then and Always

by Dani Atkins

  “You probably don’t need to be hanging around here. That doctor was ordering up a whole load more tests. I can call you when she’s more … with it.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I WAS WHEELED from department to department. I had an MRI, two further X-rays, and several other tests with electrodes affixed to my head. By then I was awake and alert enough to be asking questions. But no one was talking to me, except in soft placating tones designed not to evoke another one of my “episodes.” When I was finally taken back to my room, it was empty. The staff nurse who helped me back into bed advised me that my dad and all the rest of my guests had moved down to the canteen for a cup of tea. When I asked who the “all” referred to, she replied that she did not know.

  So I sat bolt upright in bed, staring at the door, waiting to see how many more deceased visitors I would be receiving.

  They entered in single file: my dad, then Jimmy, followed by Matt, Cathy, and Phil. I stared at them in turn as they arrived. I was still looking a little surprised to see the last three when Matt broke away from the others, rushed to my bedside, and kissed me tenderly on the lips. I flinched from the brush of his soft mouth upon mine, instantly looking over his shoulder to see how Cathy would react. Amazingly, her face gave away none of the rage she must surely have been feeling.

  “Matt.” My eyes flashed a warning toward his girlfriend. I could suddenly remember the vow he had made when dropping me back at the hotel: that he was not going to let me get away again. Did he really think this was the appropriate place to start that campaign?

  Besides, I couldn’t concentrate on anyone other than the person standing at the foot of my bed. At some point during the day, I guessed, he must have gone off duty, for he was now out of uniform, wearing jeans and a dark shirt. But the most amazing thing of all was that no one else in the room seemed in the least bit amazed that he was there. It was like that old saying about ignoring the elephant in the room. This was so enormous, so ludicrously and mind-blowingly surreal—why wasn’t everyone reacting like me?

  And then the answer came to me. How could it have taken so long for me to get it? Especially when I’d seen The Sixth Sense so many times I knew parts of it by heart.

  “Can anyone else see Jimmy in the room?”

  I can’t begin to describe the pity on their faces as they all exchanged extremely meaningful looks. My dad answered for them all.

  “Of course we can, love.”

  “No, Dad, don’t humor me. Just be honest. I can see Jimmy’s ghost right there at the foot of my bed. Now, can anyone else see him or not?”

  Dad’s pain was obvious as he tried to formulate an answer, but before he could reply, the incredibly solid-looking “ghost” of Jimmy came up to sit on the bed beside me, gently picking up my hand. I felt the mattress depress when he sat down, felt too the warmth of his fingers against my grazed skin; the ghost theory was losing ground fast.

  “Rachel, just listen to me for a moment without speaking, would you?” I opened my mouth to protest but he gently pressed his forefinger across my lips. “No interruptions, right?”

  God, if he was a ghost, he was a bloody bossy one. And that finger against my mouth had felt so strong … so real.

  “You’ve taken a nasty blow to your head.” He carried on as though I was going to contradict him. “You’d traveled back here for Sarah’s wedding.”

  At last, something I could agree with. “Yes, I know that.” There was a communal sigh of relief that I had grasped at least that one truth.

  “Now, something happened, we think you were probably mugged, after leaving the station. And we think that somehow, when you were attacked, you must have hurt your head. And all these … strange … thoughts and ideas you are having right now are because of your injury.”

  He might as well have saved his breath.

  “Then this must all be a dream,” I announced, seizing upon the only other solution that made sense. Someone, I don’t know who, gave a loud sigh of despair. I ignored them. “This is all just a very real and very vivid dream, but it’s all in my subconscious. Any minute now I’m going to wake up.”

  There was a long silence, which no one seemed to have the words to fill. It was as though my absolute determination to stick to my own beliefs had sucked all protests clean out of the room.

  Silently, Matt came up to the other side of the bed and rested his hand lightly against the back of my neck. Something flickered in Jimmy’s eyes as he immediately let go of my hand and got up from the bed. This dream was really peculiar; it was like going back to when we were teenagers all over again. The awkward moment was interrupted by a softly ringing bell from the nurses’ station.

  “I think that’s the end of visiting,” my father announced with relief. “Perhaps you should all go now, I think Rachel could do with her rest.”

  Actually, I was feeling much calmer now I’d finally worked out that none of this was really happening at all.

  “Look, why don’t you go home and rest too, Tony,” offered Matt, unexpectedly. “You look really exhausted. I’ll stay with Rachel.”

  Dad looked reluctant, but Dream Matt was insistent. “Go on, you go and get a few hours’ sleep.”

  But my dad still appeared unwilling to go.

  “I don’t know, I think I should stay. I’d feel wrong going home and leaving her.” Adding in final justification, “She’s my daughter; she needs me here.”

  Matt’s response was firm.

  “I understand that but you’re not much use to her if you’re dead on your feet. Go home. I’ll take good care of her, Tony. I know she’s your only daughter, but you’re not the only one who wants to look after her; after all, she is also my only fiancée.”

  I jolted with surprise and instinctively looked over at Cathy, who was picking up her coat and handbag and getting ready to go. Matt’s words didn’t seem to have affected her at all.

  “Although right now she’s a fiancée without a ring,” observed Jimmy in an unfathomable tone.

  I stupidly looked down at my left hand as if to seek confirmation. There was obviously no jewelry upon it, although as I looked more closely I could see the faint white mark where a ring had been. Also strangely, the knuckle appeared reddened and swollen, something I’d not noticed before among the others cuts and bruises. It looked as though whatever had been on my finger had been pulled off quite roughly.

  I looked up, my face registering a sort of dazed surprise, and interrupted a very dark exchange of looks between Matt and Jimmy as they stood facing each other on either side of my bed. The thin veil of friendship between them looked stretched to the point of rupturing.

  “Ring or no ring, she’s still my fiancée, mate.”

  Ooh … this dream was getting more interesting every minute.

  5

  Sometime over the next twenty-four hours, it all stopped being quite so funny.

  When does a dream become a nightmare? I’d always thought it was when the familiar suddenly becomes strange and threatening; or when you get lost somewhere you thought you knew well; or even when you feel overwhelmed by a feeling of impotence—when you know you’re speaking clearly but no one appears to be listening. And it’s true, a nightmare is all of those things. But my true nightmare began with the realization that I wasn’t waking up: that somehow, impossibly and unbelievably, this was all really happening.

  This realization didn’t come all at once but slowly pricked away at my conscious mind with a questioning voice that refused to be quiet. The first indicators to concern me were the continuing and detailed vividness of the dream. There were no strange shifts in time or place; this dream had continuity and even monotony. What dream could I ever recall having before that had incorporated the truly mundane details of day-to-day life? In this one I ate the unappetizing hospital meals, I slept (who does that in a dream?), I even visited the bathroom. None of this had any place in a “real” dream.

  Of course, when Matt and I had been left alon
e in my room, after my other visitors had left, I was still happily ensconced in blissful ignorance. I was content to sit back and let events around me unfold like a play. This was just a dream, after all; nothing I did or said had any real consequence.

  So I made no protest when Matt drew a chair up close to the bed and entwined his long tanned fingers around mine. I winced slightly as he caught the grazes on my palms, never stopping to think how odd it was to actually experience the sensation of pain in a dream. I let his lips cover mine as he bent to kiss me tenderly, whispering soft and low between kisses how frantically worried he had been about me. And when he eventually pulled back, I could feel my heart fluttering madly against my ribs like a frenzied canary. Well, that wasn’t really a surprise; it had been a long, long time since I’d been kissed like that—either in a dream or wide awake.

  What I hadn’t expected after such a display of tenderness was for him to draw back and for his tone to turn so quickly to one of censure.

  “Rachel, I have to ask, what the hell were you thinking of, setting off alone from the station and walking down that deserted road? Didn’t you realize the stupid risks you were taking?”

  I blinked up at him slowly, caught off guard by the sudden switch in his mood.

  “Why didn’t you phone me to pick you up, or get a cab, or just wait with the other passengers?”

  He was looking at me intently. Clearly expecting some coherent reply. I had none.

  “I’m sorry …,” I offered lamely. “I don’t remember anything except …” Except everything that really happened: the dinner, the ride back to my hotel, and then the disastrous visit to the cemetery.

  “Except?” he prompted hopefully.

  “Except waking up here.” Even in my dream I was smart enough not to keep on insisting that my reality appeared to be completely different from everyone else’s.

  “And it’s not just about losing the ring, don’t think that—though thank God we had it well insured.”

  The ring? Was that what was concerning him, losing the engagement ring? Jeez, Dream Matt was certainly all about the money.

  “You could have been seriously hurt, it could have been so much worse than just cuts and grazes and a bump on the head. When I think of what that guy could have done to you …”

  He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, so I nodded slowly as though considering the harm I had apparently narrowly escaped.

  “When we got that call, when you cried out for help … well, I’ve never felt so useless in my entire life. Thank God Jimmy was there—and it’s not often you’ll hear me saying that!”

  I gave a watery smile in response. Then curiosity to learn more took over.

  “Why, what did he do?”

  “Took charge. I guess it’s his policeman’s training to act like that in an emergency. We were all about to go charging off God-knows-where to find you, but he was the one who kept calm and cool and called his police station. He figured you were probably at the railway station or somewhere nearby and got several cars out looking for you before we had even got out of the car park. A squad car found you by the church only ten or fifteen minutes after your call, and you were off in the ambulance before we were even halfway there. I guess it pays to have a copper on hand in a crisis.”

  So Jimmy had saved me once again. I guess I could see why, in a dream, I had once more cast Jimmy in the role of hero. It was, after all, how he’d lost his life.

  “Not that his behavior afterwards was very professional, though.”

  My ears pricked up at that comment.

  “Why, what happened then?”

  “Well, he really lost it while we were at the hospital waiting for you to be assessed, when we didn’t know how seriously you’d been hurt. He started yelling at me about how could I be so irresponsible; how I never should have left you to travel alone at night. I particularly liked the bit about how I didn’t deserve to have you if I couldn’t look after you properly.” He rubbed his hand ruefully over his handsome chin. “And then he took a swing at me!”

  I sat up sharply. “He did?”

  Mistaking my total astonishment for loving concern, he patted my arm in reassurance.

  “Don’t worry, he didn’t do any damage; Phil had a hold of his arm before he even made contact. Damn unprofessional of him, though, even if he was off duty. I could make an official complaint …” He saw the look in my eyes and continued quickly, “I won’t, of course. I realize it was all just heat-of-the-moment stuff. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get old PC Plod in trouble. And I guess it is understandable, feeling as he did about you all those years ago.”

  There it was again. Even in my dream I couldn’t seem to get away from someone trying to convince me that Jimmy had been deeply in love with me.

  “I think he must have forgotten how strong-willed you can be. And independent. After all, you haven’t been in touch with him for quite a while now, have you?”

  I wanted to say, Well, no, not without the aid of a Ouija board. But settled instead for a less controversial, “No, not really … we kind of lost touch.”

  I was really quite glad when the nurse came in at that point, wheeling a laden trolley of pharmaceuticals. She tactfully reminded Matt that visiting hours were long over, and he took the hint, kissing me lightly on the forehead and leaving with the promise to return the next day.

  As I lay on the starchy hospital sheets, waiting for the pills I’d swallowed to take effect, I pondered on the curiously complex scenario my subconscious had created. All the facts and characters were present but the details and events were twisted into such a bizarre parallel reality. It was my life but not as I knew it, for here it was all so much better: Jimmy was still alive, my Dad wasn’t sick—and neither was I, apparently—and Matt and I were engaged to be married. It was almost a shame to wake up.

  And I didn’t. Well, that’s to say I slept and when I opened my eyes it was a new day, but still the dream continued. That’s when the voice first started up, telling me something was really wrong here, when this dream, or whatever it was, continued in my waking state. Throughout a morning spent undergoing countless medical tests, the pleasurable euphoria of living in a dream began to quickly dissipate when my real life failed to return. I even resorted to the old trick of pinching myself hard, a real old Chinese-burn-style pinch, while waiting outside the room for a second MRI scan. Nothing happened, except that I gave myself a very nasty red mark on my forearm. Even then, I only stopped squeezing my own flesh when I caught the pitying glance from the nurse who had wheeled me down for this latest test. Clearly news of the delusional new patient was widespread and all comments directed at me were in the softly spoken singsong tones usually reserved for those under five or the imbecilic.

  Between the blood tests, the scans, and the X-rays, I started to get really scared. I felt like a prisoner in Neverland; it might be a nice place to come for a visit, but I really, really wanted to go “home” now, however bad things might be there. One of the worst moments came when I caught sight of my reflection in the small square mirror positioned above the basin in my room. A nurse had come running at my cry, and I could tell she was at a loss to know what to do when she saw me running my fingers frantically over the smooth unblemished skin of my cheek. And who could blame her; what was the poor woman supposed to say when I rounded on her, crying, “My scar! Where’s it gone? What have you people done with my scar?”

  I just about held myself together until the afternoon, when I was due to meet again with the consultant. The nurse who came to collect me with a wheelchair looked disappointed to see my untouched lunch. Fear and confusion had robbed me of my appetite—well, that and the appalling culinary offerings of the hospital kitchens.

  When they wheeled me into the doctor’s consultation room, I was pleased to see my (newly-restored-to-good-health) father waiting for me.

  “Good afternoon, Rachel. Are you feeling a little better today?” The doctor’s voice was kind and solicitous. Clearly
he was expecting an answer in the affirmative.

  I shook my head slowly, unable to speak as hot tears began to course down my cheeks. My father reached across from his chair and took my hand. Tactfully choosing to ignore my distress, the doctor continued.

  “Well, I have good news, young lady. We have done just about every test imaginable, and I’m happy to report there is no serious or permanent damage resulting from your little escapade.” He turned in his chair to indicate an illuminated X-ray of a skull, presumably mine, on a lit panel behind him. “Everything looks completely normal. No injuries to the brain or cranium whatsoever.”

  “Thank God,” breathed my father in fervent relief.

  “But it’s all wrong!” I cried out, ashamed at how pathetic I sounded.

  “Oh no, Rachel, I can assure you the tests are all conclusive. We repeated several of them, just to be sure. They most definitely are not wrong.”

  “Not the tests,” I contradicted as calmly as I could—I didn’t want to be sedated before I could make them understand. “If you say the tests are right, then I suppose I have to believe you. Why would you lie to me about that? But everything else is wrong!”

  “Hush, hush, Rachel.”

  I could tell from his tone that I was scaring my dad again. Hell, I was scaring me again, but I had to get through to them this time.

  I drew a deep shuddering breath and tried to continue in a less hysterical tone.

  “I know this sounds crazy to you but please just hear me out. I don’t know what is happening here, but none of this is real—at least not to me. In my life—in my real life, my father is sick, very, very sick, and I think I am too.”

  The tone the doctor used was mild and placating.

  “So you believe you have cancer as well, is that it?”

  He was making me really angry now. I truly did not like this man.

  “No, not cancer. I have something wrong with my brain.” Strangely enough no one butted in to refute that one. “It’s all due to the accident …”

  “When you were mugged?” asked Dad.