by Mark Morris
I became aware of movement to my left: a rustle of fabric, a shifting of light.
I tried to turn my head, but pain crackled in my neck and lanced up through the back of my skull. When the pale blandness of the ceiling above me was obscured by a creeping smear of shadow, I at first thought it was unconsciousness reaching for me again. If it wasn’t for my anxiety about Kate, I might have welcomed it. But not only did I remain fully aware, my mind actually grew sharper as the dark smear became a solid, clear-edged oval. As I continued to stare my vision adjusted, like the contrast and brightness dials on my mum’s old TV, and the oval resolved itself into a face arranged into an expression of relief and concern.
‘Back with us, are you?’ the face said, and offered a shaky laugh. ‘You gave us a right shock, you bastard. We thought we’d lost you.’
‘Kate,’ I repeated, but speaking was so difficult that my throat spasmed with pain again, preventing me from saying more.
The face widened, then narrowed its eyes. The alarm that appeared on it made me realise its owner must be thinking I’d woken up with brain damage or something.
‘I’m Clover. Not Kate,’ the face said carefully. ‘Do you remember what happened?’
I swallowed, clenched my fists and braced myself, determined this time to get the words out.
‘Yes,’ I croaked. ‘I know… you’re Clover. Where’s Kate?’
The coolness of Clover’s hand on my arm – as if she was trying to anchor me, stop my thoughts from drifting – made me realise how hot I was.
Still in that same careful voice, enunciating each word as though I was hard of hearing, she said, ‘We haven’t found her yet. But we will. What’s the last thing you remember, Alex?’
I couldn’t answer immediately. After forcing out over a dozen words my throat was burning.
‘Water,’ I rasped, then realised this might only baffle her. ‘Need drink.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yeah, course.’
She moved out of my range of vision and I got the impression she was twisting around, reaching for something. A moment later I felt something pressing gently against my bottom lip. When I tried to open my mouth my lips resisted for a moment, then peeled apart. As soon as the thing slipped between them, I tasted soft plastic and realised that it was a straw.
I sucked and cool water flooded my mouth. I grunted in near ecstasy. In that moment I swear it was the greatest physical sensation I’d ever experienced. Swallowing was even better. It was like a downpour of much-needed rain on a parched desert. I imagined it flooding through the desiccated channels of my body, soothing my internal wounds like a balm, restoring me to life.
‘Careful,’ Clover said. ‘Not too much.’ Pinching the straw between thumb and forefinger she tugged it from between my lips. I groaned in complaint, puckering my lips like a child offering a kiss.
‘I know you’re thirsty,’ she said. ‘The nurse said you would be. But she also said you’d be sick if you drank too much. So let that settle and you can have a bit more.’
Nurse. My eyes flickered to look beyond her, but all I could see was a white ceiling, a patch of white wall.
‘Am I in hospital?’
‘Private hospital,’ Clover confirmed. ‘Very posh.’
Private? I realised I had a lot to catch up on. The water had smoothed over the rough edges in my throat. It was still sore, but at least I could talk without feeling as though I was coughing up barbed wire.
‘What happened?’
‘We got back four days ago. That’s how long you’ve been out. You were spot on with the date, by the way, or the heart was. We arrived back only a day after we left, all those months ago. From where I was sitting it seemed like a really smooth transition. One moment we were in 1896 and the next we were back in our own time. You seemed fine for about thirty seconds, then suddenly – wham! You keeled over and started having some sort of fit. It was horrible, Alex. Your arms and legs were jerking, your face went blue; I thought you’d had it. I got my phone out to call an ambulance, but before I could, one had already arrived. I thought it was a trick at first – something the Dark Man had maybe set up – but then I realised it could have been you – a future you, I mean, or an alternate one, who knew this would happen. The thing is, we had nothing to lose, or you didn’t. If I hadn’t let the paramedics in, if they hadn’t treated you straight away, stabilised you, you’d have died. Me and Hope came with you in the ambulance, and they brought us straight here. As soon as we walked in they knew who you were, who Hope was. Everything was organised, and it’s all been paid for.’
‘By me?’ I said, trying to get my head round it all.
Clover shrugged. ‘Maybe. I’m guessing so.’ She glanced at her wrist. ‘But we’ll know soon enough. One of the doctors told me this morning that someone was coming to see us – me and you – at 1 p.m. I said you were still unconscious, but the doctor said that whoever had given him the message had said that everything would be fine.’ She pulled a face. ‘So I guess whoever’s coming knew you’d be awake by then.’
I stared at her. Could it be true? Could a future version of me really be coming to speak to us? In which case, what would he do? Give me instructions? A pep talk? Make sure I knew enough about what was ahead of me to fulfil my obligations?
Again the impossible circularity of time, its apparently infinite recursion of events, made my head reel. Had I really survived because a future version of me had provided immediate medical assistance, which had saved my life? A future version who had presumably himself once been in my situation and had been saved by the actions of his future self, who had in turn been saved by his, and so on?
‘What time is it?’ I asked, more to anchor myself in the here and now than anything else.
‘Twenty past eleven.’
A hundred minutes. Just enough time to get my head together, to be brought fully up to date on everything that had happened since my collapse. I remembered what Clover had said about the staff here knowing who Hope and I were when we arrived.
‘So what about Hope? How’s she? Is she okay?’
I clenched my fists, dreading the expression that might appear on Clover’s face, knowing that within a split-second I’d know Hope’s fate.
Relief flooded through me when Clover smiled.
‘She is! She’s fighting fit and bright as a button. They operated on her the day we got here. They took off that horrible metal arm, cleaned up the area around it and dosed her up with so many antibiotics they pretty much killed the infection stone dead. The wound itself was a bit of a state, but there was no gangrene, which is a massive relief. She spent most of the day after the op asleep, but now she’s bouncing all over the place, driving the nurses crazy – though I think they love her really. You should see her, Alex – in fact, you will see her soon. She’s been to visit you a few times, and each time she’s come in she’s given you a kiss on the forehead and told you to wake up. The surgeon who did her op, Dr Shah, has been talking to her about getting a prosthetic arm, which she’s really excited about. Oh, and she’s taken to the twenty-first century like a duck to water. One of the nurses has been showing her how to use a computer, and she’s gone mad for it! God knows what’ll happen when she discovers Facebook and Twitter.’
I’ve never considered myself a particularly sentimental bloke, but as Clover talked about how much Hope was thriving, I felt myself welling up – my sore throat thickening, my eyes growing hot and stuffy. At least, I thought, something good has come out of this. Despite the blood on my hands, at least I’d made one person’s life better.
The fact I’d nearly killed myself doing it made me even prouder in a way. On the other hand it worried the hell out of me too. If I’d only just escaped death this time, what would happen next time I used the heart? I couldn’t imagine being able to do it without it killing me for sure. So what about all the future mes who kept popping up? How would I do all the things I was still supposed to do, all the things I’d benefited from? Even if th
e other mes were from alternate futures – from the multiverse as Clover had called it – the question remained as to why the heart hadn’t had the same effect on them as it had had on me. Did it have different properties in each separate dimension? No, that didn’t make sense. Then again, did any of this make sense? Was it even a problem that could be approached logically?
I sniffed and blinked away the tears in my eyes and tried to speak, but I still felt too emotional to force any words out. Clover could see how affected I’d been by her news, but she didn’t make a thing of it. She just smiled and gave my arm a brief, vigorous rub.
‘You did good, Alex. Brilliant, in fact. I’ll tell the nurses you’re awake.’
She went out – more to give me a few moments alone than anything else, I guessed – and came back a minute or so later with a tall, broad-shouldered, smiling nurse, whose rust-coloured, corkscrew-curly hair had been pulled back in a loose ponytail.
‘Back in the land of the living, are you, Mr Locke?’ she said cheerfully. She took some readings – blood pressure, heart rate – and then, at my request, she and Clover took an arm each and helped me sit up, an ordeal of back-crackling, teeth-clenching agony, which I was determined to endure if it meant ending up with a more interesting view than a ceiling and a section of wall.
Once I was in position and pillows had been bunched up behind me, the pain in my spine receded to a dull throb. I had more water and a couple of painkillers, and properly took in my surroundings for the first time. The room I was in was spacious, nicely furnished and occupied by no one but me. To be honest, it didn’t look like a hospital room at all; it looked like a hotel room with a few added extras. Although the autumnal sky beyond the tall, rain-speckled windows was murky, the view was a restful one. From where I sat I could see a rising green bank covered by bushes and topped with a row of slim trees whose largely leafless branches grasped at the sky.
Not only did the place not look like a hospital, it didn’t sound like one either. There was no clanking of trolleys, no echo of footsteps or voices from the corridors. It was quiet – and not just quiet, but quiet in that plush, refined, dignified way you only seem to get in exclusive (by which I mean expensive) establishments.
Now that I was sitting upright and properly conscious, it was only just dawning on me how thoroughly I ached and how exhausted I was. I was hungry too, and told the nurse so.
‘I’ll bring you some soup,’ she said. ‘Throat’s still a bit sore for solids, I expect?’
It turned out the reason my throat was sore was because I’d had a plastic tube down it to keep my airways open. I’d also been catheterised, had cannulas inserted into both arms and another into the back of my right hand – for medication, and also to take constant readings – and I had suction pads on my chest, attached to leads which were hooked up to a heart monitor. The staff had been feeding me intravenously, and for the first couple of days they’d been giving me oxygen too because I’d been unable to breathe properly. When I asked the nurse what exactly had happened to me, she told me a doctor would be along soon to explain everything.
Sure enough, the doctor arrived as I was finishing my soup. He wore a dark grey suit and a blue bow tie, and with his large, wide, bespectacled eyes, pert mouth and white tufts of hair sprouting from the sides of his freckled, bald head, he looked like a tanned owl.
‘Ah ha! The sleeper awakes!’ he said, and approached my bed, holding out his hand. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Locke, I’m Dr Wheeler.’ He held my hand lightly as he shook it, so as to cause me the minimum discomfort from the cannula. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Tired,’ I said. ‘A bit rough. What happened to me?’
‘Don’t you remember?’
I glanced at Clover. ‘I remember collapsing. It came out of the blue.’
Wheeler’s big eyes appraised me and he nodded. ‘Of course.’
Maybe it was the way he said it, or the expression on his face, but all at once I understood. There wouldn’t be any awkward questions from him, or from any of the staff here. Not about me, and not about Hope, whose metal arm must have raised some eyebrows. Whoever our benefactor was, he, she or they had paid handsomely to ensure complete discretion.
‘So what’s the damage, Doctor? To my body, I mean.’
Wheeler puffed out his cheeks and raised his hands, moving them as if weighing up two objects of equal weight.
‘The exact cause of the episode is still a mystery,’ he said. ‘I can tell you what happened, but not why it did. Have you heard of anaphylaxis?’
I frowned. ‘I’ve heard of anaphylactic shock. It’s what happens when you suffer an extreme allergic reaction, isn’t it?’
He nodded, pursing his lips in a half smile as if pleased with me.
‘Precisely. What you suffered appears to be a form of anaphylaxis – or at least, your condition shared many common factors with it. But at the same time you appear to have been hit by a series of transient ischemic attacks – or mini-strokes, as they’re more commonly known. We’re still not entirely sure whether one of these conditions led to the other, though at this stage we have to say that’s a strong possibility. At any rate these two factors, in turn, appear to have caused a further series of chain reactions within your body –’ he swirled his hands around to indicate a maelstrom of symptoms ‘– to the extent that for a while there it looked as though your system was about to go into complete shutdown. Frankly, Mr Locke, we genuinely feared we might lose you.’
‘Shit,’ I said. ‘So what does that mean in the long term?’ I thought of how exhausted I felt, how immobile. ‘Am I an invalid? Will there be permanent damage?’
Wheeler cocked his head to one side, downturning the edges of his little mouth as if pulling a sad clown face. I couldn’t help thinking he was acting pretty nonchalant about what sounded to me like a drastic health scare.
‘It’s a happy no to your first question. Though as to the second, only time will tell. The prompt treatment given to you at the scene will certainly work in your favour, and it goes without saying that the care you’ve received since you’ve been with us has been second to none. Your system has received an almighty shake-up, Mr Locke, but you’ve responded well to treatment, and your heart, at least, appears to be sound. We’ll continue to monitor your progress, of course, and at some point in the next day or two, when you feel up to it, I’d like to send you for a full body scan. But for now it’s simply a case of plenty of rest, plenty of fluids and keep taking the medication.’
He beamed, as if it were really that simple. All I could think of was Kate, of the fact that while I was stuck here in bed she was still out there somewhere.
‘How long will I have to stay here?’
Wheeler pulled the sad clown face again. ‘How long is a piece of string? It entirely depends on how your body responds to the trauma it’s been subjected to, and how you respond to the treatment we’re administering for that trauma. Think of the attack like an earthquake. The whole frightening episode may be over in one fell swoop – and let us all sincerely hope that it is – but we mustn’t discount the possibility that there may be one or two aftershocks to contend with. Personally I would recommend a minimum of ten to fourteen days complete bed rest, after which we’ll reassess your situation.’ He brought his hands together in a soundless slow motion clap. ‘And now I understand that you are to receive a visitor very soon. In which case, I shall take my leave and allow you to titivate yourself.’
When he was gone Clover said, ‘I’m not sure he’s entirely human.’
I tensed, reawakening the gnarly aches in my shoulders, limbs and chest.
‘You think he’s one of them? One of the Wolves?’
She laughed. ‘No. Sorry. Joke. I just meant… he’s an oddball.’
‘Oh, right.’ I relaxed back into my pillows. ‘I must have had a sense of humour bypass along with everything else.’
Neither of us spoke for a moment, then Clover said, ‘You know you can’t risk using the heart agai
n?’
I frowned. She was only voicing what I’d been thinking, but I felt myself bridling all the same.
‘What’s the point of me having it if I can’t use it?’
She answered my frown with an even fiercer one.
‘Alex, you can’t! It’ll kill you!’
‘But if I don’t use it, what’ll happen to all this?’ I waved my hand around the well-appointed room. ‘If I don’t set up all the stuff I’m supposed to set up in the future, who’s to say it won’t collapse about our ears?’
She raised her hands. ‘I know, I know. It’s a conundrum.’
If I hadn’t felt so miserable and frustrated I might have smiled at her choice of language.
‘It’s more than a conundrum, it’s a fucking… disaster. There must be some way round it. Something we haven’t thought about.’
‘Maybe we have thought about it.’
‘The multiverse, you mean?’ I shook my head. ‘Fuck that. I’m not going to lie back and let those other mes do all the work – if the buggers even exist, that is. Why should I be the weak link in the chain? Why hasn’t the heart affected them like it’s affected me?’
‘Maybe you were just unlucky. Maybe…’
‘Maybe what?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe life’s a lottery.’
I snorted softly. ‘Look at us. We’re just as much in the dark as we ever were. We’re just prawns in the game.’
‘Pawns, you mean.’
‘No, prawns. Little, pink, wriggling things that could get eaten at any moment.’
She laughed, but the humour was hollow, a bit desperate. I looked out of the window at the gently waving trees, black against the dingy sky.
‘Where are you, Kate?’ I muttered. Then I looked at Clover, surprised I hadn’t thought of it before now. ‘And where’s the heart, for that matter?’
She held up a hand as if to stop me leaping out of bed.
