by Trevor Hoyle
Mara BeCalla wiped her eyes. ‘You’re very kind.’
Staff Nurse Kelsall smiled her special kind smile. ‘Chin up, my dear.’
‘Can I see him alone?’
‘Yes, of course you can.’
Mara BeCalla managed a brave watery smile.
At the desk the young nurse answered the discreetly buzzing phone and came to the door. Reception was on the line. ‘Excuse me one moment.’ The senior staff nurse squeezed Mrs Cawdor’s arm reassuringly and returned to take the call.
Below, on the sixth floor, the receptionist cradled the receiver on her shoulder. She listened, nodding, and raised her pink-lidded eyes.
‘Are you related to the patient?’
‘No. I’m a friend,’ Annie Lorentz said.
The receptionist relayed the information and said, ‘Yes, I have that. Thank you, staff nurse.’ She hung up. ‘The recovery unit is on nine. You can go up but you’ll have to wait. The patient already has a visitor.’
‘He has?’ Annie Lorentz frowned. ‘Who is it, do you know?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ the receptionist said automatically, already busy with paperwork.
Annie Lorentz pressed the elevator button. She waited, examining her fingernails. Was it Gil? Or someone from the office – Jeff’s partner maybe? Definitely not Jeff’s secretary, she reckoned with grim humour.
The bell pinged and the doors slid open.
Mara BeCalla paused – the vivid red of her fingernails spread on the half-open door of D-16 – to look behind her. The corridor was deserted. Staff Nurse Kelsall hadn’t emerged from the nurses’ station.
She went inside. The room held a muted symphony of sounds. The gentle tick-ticka-tick-ticka of monitoring equipment, the whispering sigh of tiny bellows pumping oxygen through the nose tube, the soft bubbling of purifying fluid in the cyclosis system.
On the outer windows overlooking Central Park the fluted vertical blinds had been angled to mask the daylight, admitting a faint golden haze in which the white humped shape seemed to hover, weightless and insubstantial as a cloud.
A complex arrangement of cables and tubes linked Cawdor to the monitoring equipment and life-support apparatus. With her fingertips she followed the transparent oxygen tube in its taped harness to the pumping bellows, and decided to leave it be. The alarm would sound at once in the nurses’ station. Two plastic packs were suspended above him on brackets, drip-feeding plasma and glucose. Another tube was connected intravenously into his forearm, maintaining a flow of purifying fluid to keep the arteries and veins from clogging. Reduce or divert the supply of plasma, glucose and the anti-coagulant and he would expire by slow degrees. His heart and respiratory system would continue to function with only minor impairment and few telltale signs. But eventually they would fail. And they would fail for good, beyond hope of retrieval.
As she worked, Mara BeCalla kept one eye on the monitoring screen. She pierced all three tubes at the lowest point of their loops over the bed, making slitlike incisions with nail scissors for the fluids to drip through and soak into the pillow and bedding. On the screen, the blue peaks and troughs showed no change or variation, exactly as she’d surmised. It was working fine.
She turned her head suddenly, listening hard. She could hear agitated voices in the corridor, and then the sound of rapid footsteps thumping on the rubbery floor.
Mara BeCalla was stunned. How could the staff have been alerted when the screen showed no change – the blue blip tracing the peaks and troughs as before?
At the observation window she peered anxiously through the Venetian blind. Two nurses raced by, followed by a white-coated male orderly pushing a trolley loaded with resuscitation equipment. They vanished out of sight along the corridor. Mara BeCalla smiled. The emergency was for another patient.
A stroke of good fortune for her; an instant death sentence for Cawdor. Nobody would be expecting two emergencies at the same time: for several crucial minutes Cawdor’s monitor would bleep its distress signal to an empty nurses’ station.
Whipping back the sheet from its supporting cage, Mara BeCalla reached inside, tore off every wire taped to his chest, plucked out every tube. She flung the tangle away and seized the pillow from under Cawdor’s head and pressed it over his face, using the weight of both elbows to bear down. The body lay limp and motionless, offering no resistance whatsoever.
* * *
Annie Lorentz backed hastily against the wall as the orderly went by with the trolley. Nurses appeared magically from out of nowhere. What had been until a few moments ago a silent and empty corridor was suddenly transformed as all hell broke loose.
Inside the nurses’ station, a red cross was flashing on one of the screens, the blue blip tracing a flat line. And now two red crosses were flashing, Annie saw. Two emergencies together. She looked at her watch. Bad timing to have turned up on such a busy morning.
She was undecided what to do – whether to carry on waiting or go away and come back some other time. She decided to do neither. Further along the corridor she found Cawdor’s name in the door slot.
She tapped lightly and went in.
Annie regretted it at once, and nearly backed out, thinking she had intruded on a private moment when she saw the dark-haired woman leaning intimately over the bed. So intimate, in fact, that she was right on top of him. He was being smothered not with affection, Annie realised, but with a pillow.
And the woman carried on, elbows sunk deep in the pillow, even while she stared over her shoulder, a feverish glitter in her green eyes.
Annie swung herself round the bed-rail. The momentum helped her gather speed and force for the punch that knocked the woman against the wall. But she recovered faster than Annie expected. So fast that Annie was still reaching out to remove the pillow when the woman came back at her. Locked together, the two of them spun across the room, Annie grabbing fistfuls of lustrous black hair, the woman clawing at Annie’s face with her sharp red fingernails. They cannoned into the far wall and bounced off, then whirled round and round in a flurry of arms and legs. The gasping struggle threw them off balance and they toppled to the floor, still in a fierce embrace. Annie’s cheeks and one side of her neck were on fire where she had been raked by the nails. Twisting her lithe body, she tried to get leverage to pound the dark head against the floor. But the woman was strong – maybe stronger than she was. Spitting and scratching, they rolled back towards the bed. Annie came out on top, which gave her an advantage. Her fingers got a vicelike hold round the woman’s throat. The woman heaved up with her strong torso, like a bucking bronco, the sudden movement throwing Annie sideways. Her head connected with the tubular metal leg of the bed. Annie’s vision went black, then exploded into bright glittering fireworks. Her grip slackened as she slumped over, and she was left feebly clutching thin air.
Everything went quiet then except for the roaring crowd that was beating a gigantic drum inside her head. Through a pain-filled haze, Annie glimpsed the mane of tousled black hair through the slats of the blind as the woman sped past the window.
Annie used the bed-rail to haul herself up. Her limbs felt weak as water, and her heart was palpitating madly. She knew that the shock of the struggle would soon hit her like a ton of bricks.
Cawdor’s face, when she pulled the pillow off him, was so pale it looked translucent. His skin was cold and clammy to the touch. Annie didn’t wait to check for breathing. She searched round frantically for the panic button, couldn’t find it, and made a staggering run for the door.
In the corridor a young nurse in a white uniform gaped at her.
‘My God, what happened to you – your face?’
Blood from the claw marks was dripping down and soaking into Annie’s shirt and corduroy jacket.
‘If you want to save a life, now’s your chance.’ Annie grabbed the nurse’s arm and pointed. ‘The man in there will be dead in minutes. That’s how long you got
.’
Annie sat in the office on the sixth floor, her face packaged in gauze wadding. The swelling lump on the right side of her head was clearly discernible through her sleek, razortrimmed hair.
‘He can’t possibly be moved from here, don’t you see that?’ Doctor Straus said. ‘How can you even ask that after what’s just happened?’
‘That’s precisely why I am asking. If his injuries don’t kill him, someone else will try to, I’m sure of it. He has to be moved to a place of safety. Mr Cawdor knows that, insists on it.’
Doctor Straus was baffled. ‘He’s in a coma, Ms Lorentz, and has been since the moment he arrived. In his condition he can’t have communicated anything at all. And who was that woman anyway?’ Doctor Straus went on, filling his pipe. ‘Why does she wish to harm him? You haven’t explained that, Ms Lorentz.’
Annie sighed. ‘Because I don’t know.’
Doctor Straus wafted away a cloud of blue smoke with a gesture that also dismissed her argument as ridiculous. ‘You really expect me to risk a patient’s life on the basis of paranoia?’
‘You think I’m paranoid?’ Annie Lorentz said, bridling.
‘I think your reasoning most definitely is.’
‘Have you put a guard on Mr Cawdor’s room?’
‘I’ve alerted our security people, yes.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not enough.’ Annie Lorentz got to her feet. ‘I’d like to make a call. In private, from your outer office, if I may.’
Within the space of fifteen minutes Annie had spoken to Doctor Khuman and Doctor Khuman had spoken to Doctor Straus. Annie didn’t overhear the conversation – she had no idea what had been said – but, whatever it was, Doctor Straus immediately made arrangements for Cawdor to be transferred to the Troth Foundation.
An hour later he was on his way.
4
‘Jeff – great to see you! Doc Khuman says it’s OK for a quick chat.’ Gil Gribble dragged a chair forward on the sunlit terrace and sat down, hands clasped between his knees, beaming.
‘How ya feelin’?’
‘Not too bad, I guess. They’ve patched me up. I’m all kinds of bits and pieces now. Not sure where I stop and the bits and pieces start.’
When he smiled the hollows in his cheeks filled out. It was as if his skin had been shrunk-fit over his skull. Gil Gribble tried not to stare. Remarkably, the only actual disfigurement he could see was the smooth black sheath of moulded thermoplastic that encased Cawdor’s left arm from elbow to fingertips. Propped stiffly on the arm of the wheelchair, Gribble assumed it was a cast of some kind, holding and compacting his damaged hand while the bones knitted.
Gribble squirmed in the chair, rubbing his palms together. Birds twittered in the bushes. Already he seemed to have run out of conversation. Trouble was, he didn’t know what to say and what not to say. It was like treading over a minefield in the pitch dark. Doctor Khuman had warned him to be careful about speaking to Jeff of his past life.
‘The memories of his wife and daughter, and what happened to them, are too painful,’ Doctor Khuman had told him. ‘The sudden shock could prove disastrous in his present mental condition. For the moment he is reasonably happy and content.’
And it was true, Gribble thought, as they sat there on the terrace. Cawdor didn’t seem too much interested in his past life. He was more concerned with his injured hand, banging the hard sheath against the side of the chair, cursing under his breath.
‘Is it painful, Jeff?’
‘Not too bad, just itches like hell.’
Despite the pleasantly cool breeze, Gribble found that he was perspiring. Avoiding the minefield sure was a strain. He muttered encouragingly, ‘Supposed to be a good sign, so they say. When it itches.’
Gribble got up, awkwardly shuffling his feet, tugging at his wispy beard.
‘Doc said just a few minutes is all.’
Cawdor didn’t seem to mind if he stayed or went. Gratefully, Gribble went.
Gribble finished the brandy and put the glass on the corner of the desk. At least his hands were a mite steadier. He hadn’t known what to expect; maybe if Cawdor had been wrapped from head to toe in bandages, it might have been preferable. In fact, Gribble had been prepared for something worse – permanent disability even. Anything but the empty shell of the man he once knew.
‘Another one?’ Doctor Khuman offered, indicating the Remy Martin.
‘No, I’m OK now.’ Gribble sucked his teeth. ‘Poor Jeff. I guess it’s the medication he’s on, huh? Still groggy. You’re still giving him painkillers, right?’
‘Yes, but their effect is marginal. It seems likely –’
‘Marginal? You mean he’s gonna stay that way – like a blank slate?’ Gribble glanced in alarm at Annie Lorentz, who was sitting in the armchair opposite, one leg drawn up, clasping her knee. ‘You been here a few days, Annie. You seen any change in him?’
She shook her head. ‘He kind of drifts off into another world someplace, as if he’s here and yet not here.’ Annie Lorentz’s cheeks had healed over, though they still bore faint marks from the deep scratches. ‘I don’t think he’s really aware of his surroundings.’
‘He say anything?’
‘He tries to, but it’s as if he’s talking to himself. It doesn’t make any sense.’
Gribble turned a worried face back to Doctor Khuman.
‘So how long is this gonna last? Weeks – months – what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Doctor Khuman admitted. ‘As well as the physical damage, your friend Cawdor is suffering severe psychic shock. For that reason we must proceed with extreme caution. Bringing him safely through it will not be easy. And for him it could be highly dangerous. Terminally so.’
‘As in dead, you mean?’ Hunched in his chair, Gribble gazed at the empty glass on the desk. ‘Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick here or somethin’, but I thought the idea was to bring up all this stuff buried in his unconscious, and then Jeff would be done with it – finito. Am I wrong or what?’
‘Unfortunately, Gil, you couldn’t be more wrong.’
Gribble was taken aback. ‘How so?’
‘The buried memories, strictly speaking, belong to someone else,’ Doctor Khuman explained. ‘Someone in the past who was one of Cawdor’s previous selves.’
Gribble sighed heavily. ‘Sorry, doc, I can’t buy that stuff about previous selves or lives or whatever. I just can’t.’
‘Do you have another theory to explain what’s happened to him?’
‘If I’ve lived before I sure don’t remember it.’
‘Of course not.’ Doctor Khuman made a weary gesture. He did look tired, the skin dark and puckered under his eyes. Probably just as worried as he was, Gribble realised. And he didn’t have all the answers either: theories but no real answers. ‘Physical memory requires a physical brain,’ Doctor Khuman continued. ‘The brain you have now is not the brain you had before. That other brain died when your body died.’
Gribble was floundering. He wondered what the hell any of this had to do with the state Jeff was in – and, more importantly, getting him well again. Time was passing and all they were doing was sitting here drinking brandy and discussing abstract philosophical concepts. He wanted to be doing something, not blowing hot air.
He said shortly, ‘You either swallow that guff or you don’t. Question of belief, nothing else. You telling me Jeff is locked into something and can’t break free?’
‘His past and his future.’
Gribble threw up his hands. ‘We’re back to that. He’s going round in circles, is that it? Tell me, doc, does Jeff himself know this? He know what’s happening to him on this merry-go-round?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘How come?’
‘Why do I believe he knows?’ Light winked on his silver frames as Doctor Khuman tilted his head. ‘Remember how insistent Jeff was that I’d visited him in his office, yet I had no memory of it? Let’s suppose that meeting did take place. How to explain it
? Because Jeff remembers it from a different, a separate, existence. Something must have happened to him after that meeting – a disruption of some kind – which diverted him along another path. This path of the here and now. So what he’s looking for is a way back to that other existence, but he doesn’t know how. That’s the crux of the problem. How to devise a way that will access him into timespace.’
‘You mean spacetime.’
‘I mean timespace.’
‘There’s a difference?’
‘All the difference in the universe. Timespace is concerned with movement, with continual change. We’re all of us moving through timespace. What we observe in our day-to-day lives is but one slice through an infinite number of possibilities. We choose to call it reality. But the numberless other possibilities are just as real. They’re here, ever present, all around us.’
Annie Lorentz had heard most of this before, but that didn’t make her any less lost. ‘I’ve got an infinite number of choices, Satish, is that what you’re saying? OK, I’m here, this minute, sitting in this chair, in your office, in the Troth Foundation. Did I choose it or didn’t I?’
‘Let’s say the you talking to me now made the choice. That’s apparent, isn’t it, because you’re sitting there right now? But, just as you made a choice, your other selves made their choices too. And maybe,’ he added, ‘some of them are asking the very same question that you’re asking me.’
‘Where – in another office of another Troth Foundation facing another Doctor Khuman?’ Annie Lorentz said with an impish grin.
‘You’re getting the idea.’ Doctor Khuman nodded, which made her grin fade away. ‘Some of those other selves will have grasped it quicker, because those other Doctor Khumans explained it much better. It’s in the nature of timespace that all possibilities are equally viable.’
A glimmer of understanding was alight in Gribble’s eyes. He hunched forward, hands clasped together. ‘What you’re saying, doc, is the same, or similar, I guess, to what I based my interactive VR program on. Probability theory, am I right? The participant has an infinite number of choices.’
