The Question

by Jane Asher

  What immediately hit her was the apparent ordinariness of the scene in front of her. A television was on in the corner, and seven or eight wheelchairs faced towards it, their backs turned to Eleanor and Sophie, and the tops of the heads of their occupants clearly visible above the backs of the chairs. Before the two women could advance far enough into the room to be able to see the patients’ faces, a nurse hurried over to meet them and ushered them quickly into a small side room.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Eleanor to the nurse, who smiled at them as she closed the door. ‘I thought this ward was all going to be—I mean, I thought they’d all be like my husband: vegetabl—I mean, not responding. Not aware of anything. Those people are all sitting up watching television.’

  ‘One of the first things we do is to get our clients sitting as upright as possible. Dr Livens will talk you through all of this, of course. But as you’ll see, the physical condition and position are our first priorities. Patients frequently come to us surprisingly undernourished, perhaps with pressure sores, bad muscle tone and so on. Naturally, before we can begin to assess any kind of opinion of the extent of the brain damage involved, we need to sort out all the physical problems. And the clients you saw in the ward outside are in varying stages of awareness, of course. I’m sure you’ll get to meet most of them over the next few days. Watching television is perhaps not a fair description of the way they are reacting to it – some of them are totally unaware of it – but for their carers, and indeed for purposes of stimulation, the television is very useful.

  ‘Your husband is here, Mrs Hamilton. He is comfortably settled into a side ward, and I’ll take you to see him in a moment. One of the first things we shall do is to arrange for him to have his own wheelchair. Before any serious attempt is made to communicate with him we would like him to be seated: the brain is far more active and responsive in an upright body. And do please forget what you may have heard or read about constant stimulation. The old idea of talking, playing music, offering smells and so on twenty-four hours a day is no longer the way we work. Just as when a child is learning language, the periods of rest are as important as the times of learning. The brain can only take so much at a time. On the ward as a whole we have regular periods of rest; quiet periods as we call them.

  ‘Your husband will be receiving the most up-to-date approaches to this kind of brain damage in the world, but obviously there is no instant, magic cure or treatment. Many people feel that once they have a relative in the hospital progress is going to be quick and dramatic. It’s only fair to warn you that of course it never is like that. We have no way of knowing at this stage if there is any awareness inside your husband at all. There is absolutely no objective way of assessing that, unfortunately – no test at all can tell us. If only it could, it would make everything considerably simpler, of course. Is there anything else you or your daughter would like to know at this stage?’

  Eleanor was about to correct her as to her relationship with Sophie, but the girl was already speaking.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Except – do you think he’s in any pain? Any discomfort? I can’t bear to think that he might be hurting, and unable to tell us.’

  ‘Please don’t worry – Sophie, is it? We are extremely experienced here in judging the physical condition of our clients, and in keeping them as comfortable as possible. There is no question that your father has suffered very extensive brain damage, and is unlikely to be experiencing much physical sensation of any kind at present.’

  ‘There will be other visitors – do you have any kind of visiting hours?’

  ‘Please feel free to come here whenever, and for as long as, you wish. The more we can all work together, the better it is for John. And we are happy to welcome anyone who you think would like to come and see him.’

  ‘My mother will be wanting to come. This is …’ She hesitated, and glanced across at Eleanor, who kept looking straight in front of her, ‘… well, sort of my other mother. Um – stepmother. It’s a bit complicated.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ smiled the nurse, looking utterly unembarrassed. ‘Well, you’re all more than welcome.’

  Eleanor turned towards Sophie and reached her hand across to give the girl’s knee a little pat of acknowledgement. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.

  After a few days of tests and assessments John was assigned a wheelchair. Eleanor found it quite unnerving to see him sitting up: on some occasions when the chair happened to be facing directly towards her as she entered the ward and his head was supported in an upright position she was quite startled by the effect of his appearing to look directly at her. She followed the nurses’ example in speaking to him as if he could understand every word, and although at most times she felt rather foolish, as if she were addressing a dummy, there were moments when his gaze seemed so aware that she suddenly had the odd feeling that perhaps he was, indeed, taking in everything he heard.

  The doctors would still give no indication of what John’s future might hold, but Eleanor felt her optimism fading as every day passed with no hint of response. She and Barbara were managing quite efficiently to dovetail their visits so that they achieved the minimum possible overlap whilst still ensuring that one of them was with John at all the times when his eyes were open and he was in what they learnt to call a ‘waking state’. Generally their timing was arranged so that they avoided having to see each other at all, and when Eleanor sat alone beside John’s chair she was almost able, for the first time in months, to convince herself that she was the only woman in his life. She was surprised to find herself feeling more peaceful than she had for some time, and couldn’t understand, when she gazed at the seemingly uninhabited face of her husband just why she wasn’t more devastated. She felt moments of sheer panic at the thought that she might never again be able to talk to him, to tell him of what she knew, to watch as she surprised him with the extent of her knowledge and the patience with which she had borne it, but in the times in between she was experiencing a curious tranquillity.

  One night, after another day of watching John’s body undergo the assaults it needed to keep it alive, she suddenly knew exactly why it was that she was so calm. She was lying in bed, going over in her mind the events of the day. She had watched as the young physiotherapist had lifted John onto a padded table in a side room and encased his legs from knees to ankles in plaster to persuade them to straighten out of their painful-looking spasms. She had helped to pass his liquid feed slowly through the tube that took it directly into his body; she had combed his hair; wiped the dribble from his mouth; talked inconsequentially about everything and nothing. She had read him stories from the newspaper; pushed his chair in front of the television; helped to tuck him up in bed. And now she knew. It wasn’t just that she was so much in control – that alone would have been oddly satisfying after the months of feeling at the mercy of everyone’s desires but her own – it was more than that.

  He couldn’t be – ever, not at any time, day or night – in bed with her. He couldn’t be … Eleanor wanted to say the f’ing word, just as everyone seemed to nowadays, but she couldn’t. Making love was an impossibly wrong description of what he and the whore used to do together. F’ing was crude, unpleasant, animal – far better suited to what the two of them must have done together. But her mind refused to say it, even to herself. But she felt it. She felt the word, the thing that he and Barbara couldn’t be doing. They couldn’t be f’ing. They couldn’t be kissing; fondling; petting; touching nipples and thighs and—Eleanor could see now how terrible had been the strain of never knowing, for so long, what John was doing when he wasn’t with her, and of having always assumed, even subconsciously, that he was with Barbara. Doing things.

  Now she knew exactly where he was and where he would be, day and night, for what might just be a very long time indeed. She smiled to herself, turned over onto her side and pulled the covers tightly around her shoulders.

  ‘Dad. Dad – I love you. Do you remember this scarf? You gave it to m
e last year. For my birthday. And then you shouted at me because I left it on the floor in the sitting room. You said you wished you hadn’t wasted your money on me when I was so careless with things. And then I said it was a stupid scarf and I didn’t want it anyway. Don’t you remember? Come on, Dad, you must remember? Listen to me. And Mum picked it up and sent me to my room for being rude to you. Look, I’m wearing it now. You see – I do take care of things. I like it really. It’s lovely, I—No it isn’t. It’s a stupid scarf. It’s an ugly colour and it’s old-fashioned and I hate it. Now – come on, have a shout at me again. Don’t you want to shout at me now, Dad? Oh Dad – please have a shout at me. Oh Dad, no – please don’t do that. Can’t you just—’

  But Sophie had to turn her head away and stop speaking as the sight of her father’s drooling, slack mouth made her want to retch and cry at the same time. A nurse came over and put a hand on her shoulder, quickly wiping John’s mouth with the other at the same time.

  ‘Come on now, Sophie – you’ve been so strong. Don’t give in now, honey. Don’t let your father see you crying, now. He wouldn’t want that, would he?’

  ‘What difference does it make? He can’t see anyway. He doesn’t know if I’m crying or laughing. He doesn’t even know I’m here. Why do you all go on pretending he can hear you? Why don’t you just admit he’s gone? That he can’t hear us or see us or understand anything or—Oh God, I can’t bear it.’

  She stood up quickly and walked away from the wheelchair and across the room to the door. ‘I’ll just go out for a bit, Ellie. I’m sorry – I just can’t …’

  ‘That’s OK, Sophie. You know you don’t have to apologise. It’s very, very tough on you, all this. Go out and have a bit of fresh air. Or get a drink from the machine. But just let me say one thing.’

  Sophie turned to look at her from the doorway. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re wrong when you say we all know your father can’t hear us. Nobody knows that, Sophie. Just remember that. He might be able to hear every word we say.’

  Sophie was glad to find the ground-floor waiting area empty. She chose a sandwich and a can of Coke from the self-service dispenser, pushed open the top of the can and took a quick sip, carried them over towards a chair and low table in the corner, hearing as she did so the sound of someone coming into the room behind her. As she went to put the food and drink down, the strap of her bag slipped off her shoulder and the weight of it fell onto her hand, jogging the can out of her grip and onto the floor, where it rolled across the carpet, spilling Coke as it went. She swore to herself and stooped to pick it up, half aware as she bent over of the tightness of her skirt across her hips. As she dabbed at the carpet with a paper napkin she heard a quiet wolf whistle behind her and an equally quiet but clearly audible throaty whisper in a male voice – ‘Nice one!’

  She straightened and turned round quickly in furious embarrassment, ready to counter the crude verbal assault with an equally crude put-down, but was stopped with her mouth open and the sound already half made in her throat by what she saw.

  He was in a wheelchair.

  She stuttered a little, her embarrassment now making up in awkwardness for what it had lost in anger, and then glanced around the room in an unsuccessful attempt to look as if that was why she had turned in the first place.

  ‘What?’ said the man in the chair. ‘You were going to say something. What were you going to say?’

  ‘I – I was—nothing.’ She turned away and put the empty, sticky can down on the table.

  ‘Can I buy you another drink?’ the man went on.

  ‘No thanks, I’m fine. Thanks anyway.’

  She ate her sandwich in miserable discomfort, aware of the rustling of the cellophane in the quiet room as she took each piece from its wrapping. She felt horribly thirsty, and considered buying another Coke, but was unable to face whatever taunts might emerge from the wheelchair as she passed by it to and from the machine. She thought hard as to where she had seen a water fountain, and was about to get up and walk out, when the man spoke to her again, his North London accent clearly distinguishable now that he spoke out loud.

  ‘Why did you stop what you were going to say? You were going to shout at me for whistling at you, weren’t you? Why didn’t you?’

  Sophie could feel herself beginning to blush, and she rested her face in one hand and leant her elbow onto her knee so as to cover the redness in the side of her cheek as she turned to look at him. He was younger than she had realised on that first furious glance. He had dark hair that was long enough on the top to flop over his forehead, but shorter enough round the sides to show his large, reddish ears. His eyebrows were thick and as dark as his hair, and the blue T-shirt he was wearing under his leather jacket was loose around his neck, showing a hint of more dark growth at its base. Rather apelike, Sophie thought to herself. She glanced quickly at his hands to see if they looked as hairy as the rest of him, but the mild sense of disdain she had been feeling was replaced by a little jab of pity as she saw the twisted, bent spasm of one of his wrists that reminded her uncomfortably of her father’s legs.

  In the same split second that she looked at it, the young man moved his bent hand underneath the other, straight one, and Sophie felt even more awkward when she realised that he had been aware of her pitying glance.

  ‘No I wasn’t. I was just annoyed that I had dropped the drink. I wasn’t going to—’

  ‘Yes you were. And you know bloody well why you didn’t. Because I’m not normal. Because you saw I was in a wheelchair.’

  There was a pause while Sophie tried desperately to think what to say.

  ‘You see, this is what we’re going on about when we ask to be treated the same as you would treat a normal person. You all like to think you treat disabled people the same as if—’

  ‘Now look – just a minute.’ Sophie felt a sudden burst of anger, and could hear that she was talking too loud, but didn’t care. ‘Why the hell are you suddenly giving me a lecture? I was only trying to be polite. Yes, all right, of course I was going to say something. You didn’t only whistle, you sort of leered at me under your breath. I didn’t because – well, actually, because I didn’t like to. You could be in pain, or a bit crazy or – anything. Couldn’t you? It was perfectly reasonable of me not to treat you like a normal person, as you put it, because you’re not. You’re in a fucking wheelchair, for heaven’s sake.’

  There was a moment’s silence, and Sophie began to regret her outburst as images of the young man keeling over in his chair or shuddering into a fit flashed into her head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was very rude of me. I shouldn’t have said that. But you do make it incredibly difficult, you know. With all this equality thing, I mean.’

  ‘Why do you say you’re sorry? You don’t really think I mind, do you? I know I’m in a fucking wheelchair – as you put it. And you make it incredibly difficult – actually – with your whistling thing, anyway.’

  Sophie chose to ignore the mimicry of her relatively posh accent and the vocabulary that Eleanor had so carefully instilled and went on, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know – with us not being allowed to whistle at you in the street any more and all that.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous. It’s just common courtesy not to treat someone the way you were treating me. That’s all. I’m not saying I never want to be whistled at.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he answered, and raised his eyebrows the smallest bit.

  ‘Well, that’s just as bad,’ Sophie said, smiling as her eyebrows raised themselves in return.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That look you’re giving me.’

  ‘Oh, come on – grow up. Look, darling, if I’m giving you a look you can simply fuck off, right?’

  Sophie laughed. ‘Now who’s being touchy? Yes, I know I can fuck off. But I’m having a sandwich in peace and I don’t feel like moving. So please stop whistling, leering and looking. OK?’

  ‘But yo
u’ve finished your—Oh, what the hell. Sure,’ he said, and turned away towards his table. He picked up a plastic cup with his straight hand and sipped at it, keeping his back towards Sophie. She watched him for a while, then startled herself by feeling a little twinge of sexual excitement as she looked at the way the small dark curls of his hair moved over the nape of his neck. She was amazed to find herself longing to reach out a hand and feel them with one finger, twisting and spiralling them around her flesh until they pulled tight and she could use them to jerk his head back until it forced his mouth open as it stretched against the tautness of his neck. She saw herself standing over him, controlling him, his eyes as wide open as his mouth as she held the hair tightly and bent over and covered his lips with her own and plunged her tongue inside the wet cavity of his open mouth.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she heard herself saying.

  ‘Bugger me – women’s liberation. She’s only asking my name.’ He cocked his head on one side and smiled a little, but the mimicry of her accent returned as he went on. ‘Simon. And you must be Amanda.’

  ‘Why the hell are you being so rude?’ asked Sophie. ‘I asked you a perfectly civil question.’

  ‘It’s just the fucking poncy way you say it. So kind of you to want to know.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’

  ‘Oh, do shut up Simon!’ he mimicked.

  There was another silence for a moment, then Sophie suddenly burst out laughing.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be poncy. But I’m afraid my name’s Sophie.’