by Robyn Elliot
“I will be back in ten minutes,” Danny hissed imperiously, then retraced his steps to confront Peter. The smaller man looked up at Danny with a hint of trepidation. Danny Hastings was capable, he knew, of outbursts just like any of the other barristers he worked with. Only, Danny usually took a lot more time to have them, than those other wallflowers. “Now, desist from following me like some bad odor, you repugnant little man, all right?”
It was neither question nor request.
“You’re losing it; do you know that?” Peter spat back at him, seeing the high cheekbones flare scarlet. “Bloody losing it, Hastings!” he hissed.
“Well...just...just fuck off!” Danny, his teeth gritted, his eyes flickering over the now gathering audience, then back to Peter Hines, “just fuck off out of my face, you ghastly little man!”
And with a flourish of his gown flapping behind him, Danny left Peter Hines open mouthed and poised to lodge a formal complaint with the Bar Council quicker than you could say ‘Mr. Hastings, you’re so over’.
By the time Danny stepped into Justice Hargreaves’ Chambers, being glared at by Marguerite, his clerk, the pain in his chest was most definitely the beginnings of a heart attack. According to Dr Hastings. The beak made him wait, sweating, fidgeting, rubbing at his chest to check his aorta hadn’t ruptured, for another fifteen minutes before Marguerite ushered him through the hallowed portals. Into the inner sanctum Danny stepped, by now his wig hanging heavily in his hand, his briefcase in the other.
Philip Hargreaves was sitting at his desk, staring at Danny, prepared to deliver to the barrister his psychiatric report. He even steepled his fingers, as he invited Danny to sit down. Danny slumped in the seat, rubbing at his chest again.
“Daniel, I’ve telephoned your Chambers.”
At that, Danny looked up, an expression of horror on his face. “You’ve what?” his voice a whisper of incredulity. There was a crashing sound, making him jump slightly. My career, he thought, in a million pieces. Another sound, just as bad. Shit, I think I am having a heart attack! Racing, pulsing blood, thundered in Danny’s ears, making his left temple constrict in agony. So it was a brain tumor. Or a brain hemorrhage. All three, maybe. As the unholy triumvirate of afflictions stalked Danny, he heard Philip Hargreaves pass sentence of death.
“I’ve spoken to Hugo.”
“Oh – my – God,” Danny murmured slowly, his mouth dry and desperate for a sip of water.
“Ms de Luis will take over for the rest of the morning, Daniel.” The bombshells just kept coming.
Danny stared at him, shaking his head in denial, making the pain in both his chest and his left temple come together in malefic fusion.
“I’m perfectly well, Your Honor, I’ve just had a bad night.”
“Daniel, when you came into my court this morning, it seemed to me that you have had a month of bad nights.” How the hell did he know that? The beak quickly answered. “To be honest, Daniel, you look terrible; I think you need to see a doctor, and I assuredly believe you shouldn’t be working at the moment.”
Danny swallowed, unable to speak, his tongue now welded to the roof of his mouth. He’d expected a tirade, a bollocking to match Hugo’s specials; but not this, this…pity.
“Speaking to Hugo was the worst thing you could have done…Your Honor,” Danny ventured, leaning forward slightly, wincing, the pain in his chest changing to a pressing weight over his lungs. His throat tightened, making his voice even croakier than it had been all morning.
“I had a responsibility to do so, Daniel, considering your performance in court; it wasn’t good enough, Daniel. And it wasn’t that long ago that you were a most promising young lawyer, but you need to have a good think, young man.”
“I wish to disagree, Your Honor”
Danny pulled at his shirt collar, stretching his neck. One of his carotids was hammering against the taut skin, like it had in Guillaume's, under the scrutiny of a different kind of judge. Stephane’s face swam in front of Danny’s vision, the reason why Danny hadn’t ventured back to Guillaume's since the debacle several days ago. How much humiliation could one guy take, he was wondering.
Stephane had been looming large in Danny’s thoughts since Danny had fled into a rain swept Glanville Street, escaping the Frenchman’s ministrations. He’d loomed large enough to stop Danny going back there. He’d loomed large in Danny’s shower, too; on six separate occasions.
“Daniel? Daniel…Mr. Hastings!””
Danny nearly fell out of the chair. Philip Hargreaves stared at him with the certainty that in his chambers really was a very strange and very mad young man. Danny saw the look, but didn’t think it appropriate to tell the judge he’d actually been daydreaming – whilst everything fell apart around him – about how great those shower masturbatory sessions had actually been. In fact, all super-powered by the fantasy of sharing his shower with a rather arrogant Frenchman. Who was most likely straight. Cue a seventh session, if I live that long…
“Sorry, Your Honor”
“Daniel, go home…rest, see a doctor, do whatever is needed to have you returned to planet earth…Daniel, are you listening to me?”
Danny nodded. The pain was getting worse. No, the pain was becoming horrendous.
“Is it hot in here?” Danny heard himself, pulling at his tie, trying to loosen it. He ran his hands through his hair, leaving the waves sticking up at odd angles.
“No, but you’ve gone a curious color, Daniel, I must say.”
Danny stood up, swayed slightly, then plucked up his briefcase, stuffed the wig into his pocket, the pigtail poking out over the hem. He made his way blindly to the door.
“Daniel…” he could hear Philip Hargreaves getting up from his desk.
“I’m fine, really!” Danny insisted, his chest now so tight he could barely get a breath out without wanting to wince with the pain. Don’t have a heart attack in here, he was thinking frantically, have it in the lavatories, not the greatest place to croak but better than with Peter Hines standing over me, convulsing with laughter…
Danny lumbered out of the inner sanctum, vaguely aware of Marguerite's intake of breath – presumably painlessly, the lucky cow – as he staggered past her. He started to make his way to the large double doors at the end of the long corridor, and prayed his silent thanks to his god that only a couple of figures were standing there, talking. Danny placed his left hand over his chest, wheezing, struggling for his breath, everywhere spinning so rapidly he thought he might not make it to the sanctuary of the lavatories adjacent to the double doors.
Beyond the doors, he could hear the dulled sounds of traffic outside, the normal, day to day business of humanity unawares a young man was about to collapse and die of a heart attack, a tumor, a brain hemorrhage, and an aortic aneurysm, just to make sure.
Danny paused, leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. The cool marble gave him momentary relief, but the pain started up again. He squeezed his eyes shut as it lanced into him. Sweat ran down his back, pooling over his buttocks, slipping into the cleft and making him squirm.
“Danny?”
Despite the heat starting to consume him, together with its partner in crime, the pain, Danny shuddered, and slowly opened his eyes. You’ve got to be kidding me, a reasonably coherent thought intruded. So what now, hallucinations?
It was the waiter standing in front of him. Holding his overcoat. Danny laughed, a hysterical sound, a sound echoing from a place deep within him where true laughter had been forgotten; and the laugh transformed into a howling shriek as he slid down the wall, collapsing onto the floor. He felt hands on him, heard the French voice saying his name over and over, but a grenade in his trousers wasn’t going to bring him around now. Or even the light slap on his cheek, or the urging for him to open his eyes and keep breathing. There was just blackness. He knew was done for, by a host of malefic forces. The unseen terror rising, his hallucinating, and the complete belief he was mad. Quite, quite stark and raving mad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was another sound now, a kind of steady, slow bleep. With a rhythm to it, soothing and reassuring. Danny listened to it, his eyes closed, seeing the tracery of his veins like a butterfly pattern that was giving him ideas. He hadn’t painted, or sketched, for months now. The idea was growing, as he was lulled by the beeping rhythm, of patterns and color contrasts that he could put onto the bare canvasses that had stood gathering dust in the spare room. The spare room that he had intended to make his creative space, where he could sit, cross legged, bare footed, meditate, relax (hag!), and garner ideas for his life and his painting.
Danny stretched, yawned, thinking he was in bed. Slowly, he opened his eyes. Above him, the long fluorescent strip shimmering with opaque utility; beneath him a gurney with the rails firmly raised up, and at his side a machine steadily counting the beat of his heart. He knew he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Other than that, Danny couldn’t raise the energy to panic. He turned his head, adjusted his position on the gurney and watched the fluorescent green line that had been beep-beeping steadily, blip momentarily, then steady again. His eyes moved around the room, his suit jacket draped over a chair near the closed door, the short green curtain drawn across the square window. On the chair, his briefcase, along with his tie coiled like a snake on top of it. Someone had taken the bother to do that.
Danny looked down, his shirt opened, revealing his chest bejeweled by sticky pads securing the tiny electrodes. Gently, his forefinger touched one of the wires, as if the slightest pressure would set off every single alarm in the hospital and bring a crash team running. He presumed that’s where he was, his eyes moving around the clinical environment, and the bustling sounds behind the door. Not a psych hospital, then, he breathed, and closed his eyes again, the pillows comfortable under this neck and shoulders. The steady beep went on, and on. Reassuring Danny that he might live to paint, another day.
“That’s a good sign,” came the cheery voice, interrupting Danny’s dozing. He opened his eyes abruptly, to find a young woman looking at him, smiling with impossible positivity, causing lines to crease around her mouth. He noticed details on people, using anything that interested him for his creative ideas. Remember them, Danny, he was thinking, as he smiled back at her, weakly, but it was an attempt at a smile at least.
“You look better than when you came in, love; had a nice nap?” the nurse asked him, without awaiting his response. He opened his mouth to reply, but decided better of it, as she produced his chart from the clipboard at the bottom of the gurney. Danny watched her as her eyes moved over the chart, then she fixed him with friendly brown eyes.
“I’ll take your BP, then a doctor will see you again.”
She took a small, hand held machine from the bench that ran along the left side of the small room. Danny obediently stretched out his arm for the cuff.
A thought struck him.
“Again? I can’t remember a doctor seeing me.” But then, he realized, I can’t remember anything.
The nurse studied the rapid moving digital figures as she took his blood pressure, then glanced at him.
“You weren’t very well when you came in, so you were assessed as an emergency.”
The digital figures kept whirring over the little Perspex screen.
“Oh my God!” Danny muttered, then watched the nurse’s face as she studied the screen. “Did…did I have a heart attack?” he managed to ask her, his voice low with anticipation. She shook her head, giving a little laugh. Oh thanks, he thought.
“No love…but one of the worst anxiety attacks I’ve seen, that’s for certain.”
Danny sighed loudly, focusing his eyes instead, on his briefcase and the neatly coiled tie. He took comfort that she was very young, thus hadn’t had the time to garner sufficient experience to see a really, really bad anxiety attack in the scheme of things.
“There, all done. Still a wee bit jittery, but it’s definitely heading in the right direction.”
As she deflated the cuff, Danny interpreted that for ‘your blood pressure is going down and you’re not going to die just yet’.
He lay back against the pillows, wishing desperately for a cup of tea, but he didn’t want to bother her. He closed his eyes, listening to the steady beep again, reassuring, comforting.
“You can see your boyfriend now, love.”
Danny opened his eyes again, and she saw his puzzled expression.
“I know; you were out of it when he brought you in; came in the ambulance with you”.
Ambulance! “What the…”
Danny eased himself forward, and the electrodes registered their discontent. The rise and fall of the green line distracted him from the knowledge he must have put on a floor show at the court, being carried off comatose in an ambulance with, apparently, an imaginary boyfriend to hold his hand.
“Now don’t get worked up again, Daniel, there’s nothing to worry about; ambulances do tend to bring folk here, usually on a daily basis.”
He opened his mouth – again – but seeing her amused expression, he relented, then frowned. He leaned back, and the steady beep returned.
“I’ll go and get him…he was very worried about you.”
Before Danny could cross examine her, the nurse was opening the door, beckoning someone forward with a curl of her finger. Danny sat up ramrod straight, his fingers gripping the paper thin blanket covering his legs. Quickly, he raised it, sighing with belated relief. Trousers intacto.
“Oh, thank you!” came the voice, the voice that had been stirring Danny’s senses and making one part of his anatomy harden enough to make plaster of Paris look redundant, since the denouement at Guillaume's.
“No problem,” the nurse responded, her voice a tone lower, and suddenly, very breathy.
“Oh baby, how are you feeling?” Stephane breezed in.
Danny stared at him, and felt a blush start from his stomach, rise up over his chest and stain his cheeks so furiously, it set the rogue carotid off again.
The nurse hovered for a second, taking in the scene of the reunited lovers, before closing the door, off to confirm to her colleagues that yes, they really did look gorgeous together, didn’t they.
Stephane’s eyes moved to Danny’s chest, the electrodes giving Danny that mad scientist look again; Danny just went on staring in disbelief, until he registered Stephane’s eyes raking over his bare skin, taking in the softness of his nipples, the tautness of his abdomen.
Quickly, Danny pulled his shirt closed, and the monitor bleeped at him indignantly. The beeping sound shifted Stephane’s attention from Danny's chest and midriff – remarkably lovely, Stephane had been thinking – and back to the situation in hand. Blagging it as the boyfriend of the invalid.
“So, how are you feeling, Danny?”
Stephane stood there, unabashed, not registering Danny’s consternation a bit. He put Danny’s overcoat on top of the briefcase, but picked up the coiled tie first, placing it gently in one of Danny’s overcoat pockets.
“Better,” Danny murmured, his face burning. He held onto his unbuttoned shirt as prim as any maiden aunt under assault from the sight of a naked chair leg.
“That’s good,” Stephane said, “I was worried, coming here in the ambulance; they put you on a heart monitor, and sounded their siren to get you here quick. Just as well I found you, wasn’t it?”
At that, Danny swallowed hard and raised his eyes to the beautiful smoky ones. Oh my God, you are magnificent, he was thinking; I don’t think I’ve seen a guy so beautiful in all my life. And stop thinking like that, this blanket leaves no room to hide. I’m supposed to be ill as well. Look…I’ve got a gurney to prove it.
“Yes, thank you, Stephane.”
Stephane raised his brows slightly, a smile hovering around his mouth.
“You remembered my name, then,” he said softly.
They looked at each other for a few moments, and Danny thought his cheeks might melt from internal combustion. Danny sh
ifted his eyes away first, unable to hold Stephane’s gaze for long. Stephane drew up the chair at the side of the gurney.
As he did so, and sat down, the beeping sounds started to increase apace, which they had been doing since Stephane had made his grand entrance. The traitorous beep beeping seemed deafening in the sudden stillness. Danny focused his eyes on the little mountain of his belongings, not daring to look at Stephane. The beeping got more staccato-like, halted a nanosecond, then started up again with the beepity beep fast rhythm of a racing heart. When Stephane reached out and stroked his fingers over the back of Danny’s hand, the beeping went wild, beep-beep, beep-beep, beep, beep, beep-beep, like a Morse code of revelation.
“It’s okay, Danny.”
Stephane’s fingers stroked lightly over the prominent veins on Danny’s hand, just like he’d done when they had been outside, at Guillaume's. Slowly, Danny withdrew his hand.
“Don’t, Stephane,” he whispered, his mouth drying up again.
They were silent for a while, letting the heart monitor sing its beeping melody.
“Why did you say you were my boyfriend?” Danny ventured at last, and Stephane breathed in sharply, shaking his head.
“So they’d tell me if you were okay,” he explained, “not send me away as a helpful bystander.”
“Ah.”
Danny was aware he felt disappointed. What did you expect, he thought, a declaration of undying love? He liked the idea of that fantasy. The guy was just being kind. God, I hope he doesn’t feel sorry for me, Danny thought, hopelessly.
“Thank you Stephane, I appreciate your concern…and I didn’t even thank you for the other day,” Danny’s voice trailed away uncertainly, fearing he sounded like a total basket case.
“Did they say when you could leave?” Stephane asked, deftly shifting Danny away from his awkwardness.
“I have to see the doctor again, apparently.”
