They were almost all here now. When Susannah had woken that morning her eyesight was much clearer, and it had filled her with amazement. They hadn’t allowed her to get up – they still wanted her to keep her head as still as possible – but they had wheeled her out of the ICU and into the corridor, and the sheer scale of what eyes could see overwhelmed her. She felt as though the whole concept of seeing was like a hurricane around her head. Coming back to her room had felt like coming home. She recognised the sounds and the smells but now she saw it for the first time. Susannah had left this room, but Miranda had come back to it. She wanted to laugh and cry.
Then Faith Hodgkiss had come to see her. She liked Faith’s face. She thought she had grey hair. They hadn’t talked about much but she felt as though they liked each other. She’d told Faith that she wanted her eyebrows plucking and Faith had laughed. She’d said the whole area was still a bit tender and she would have to cope without vanity for a bit. Which was disappointing but OK. Between them they had brushed her hair and made her feel a bit more presentable.
Everyone was looking at her, which made it hard to really look at them, because it felt strange, and she had to keep reacting, reflecting smiles back to the people who gave them to her.
Amelia had helped the nurses bring in extra chairs and was perched near the door. Her mother had a note-pad and pen in her hands. She was fidgeting with the pen to take her mind off the desire for a cigarette. Susannah used to hear her fidgeting; now Miranda saw her. Her father sat very still, saying nothing, probably hating the fact that he’d had to give up a morning’s work to be there. She was trying hard not to stare, but it was difficult when you were discovering for the first time what your parents looked like.
The inevitable Matthew Long was there, which pleased Amelia far more than it pleased her. She was fed up with his questions, fed up with his hanging on. She wondered how long he was going to have to remain a part of her life, what her father had signed and condemned her to.
Which meant that, by her reckoning, they were now only waiting for the doctors and Niall. He had promised to come. He wouldn’t break that promise. And he was a journalist like Matthew, so presumably he would want to be there. She was going to see what he looked like. What a blind person looked like. But even if he was ugly it wasn’t going to change the way she felt about him. What did they say? ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. She would make up her own idea of what was beautiful and what wasn’t. She certainly saw nothing to get excited about in Matthew Long. Sight really complicates things, she thought.
A nurse came in and said that Mr. Daghash was very sorry, but he wasn’t going to be able to attend the meeting. He had been called to an emergency admission. That was a disappointment, as was the totally unexpected arrival two minutes later of a large man whose treacle pudding voice she instantly recognised as the man from the British Association for the Blind. He asked everybody but her whether they minded him attending and everybody but her said no.
It was ten past ten. Dr. Clarke walked in. He seemed slightly put out by the number of people present, but he collapsed his tall frame onto the one remaining chair and opened his briefcase.
“So,” he said. “Sorry I’m a little late. I think we’re all here?”
“Yes,” said Susannah’s father.
“No, actually,” Susannah said, amazed at her own confidence. “My friend Niall’s coming. Mr. Daghash spoke to him last night.”
“Your friend Niall?” her father asked incredulously. Her mother just looked puzzled.
“Susie!” Amelia said from across the room. “What haven’t you been telling me?”
And then she heard a chocolate ‘thanks – he shouldn’t be any trouble’ in the corridor and a blind man entered the room.
“Sorry we’re late,” Niall said. “Hugo has this thing about keeping people waiting. He thinks he’s some kind of celebrity. He’s a bit cheesed off they’re not letting him in.”
Susannah thought of the expression ‘You could cut the atmosphere with a knife’. It certainly applied here, and for the first time she could see how it looked.
“I’m over here, Niall. Hello,” she said.
“Hi. How’s things?” he replied.
“Take my seat, Niall,” Faith said, getting to her feet.
“Faith! Is that you?” Niall seemed genuinely pleased.
“Do you know each other?” Susannah asked.
“I’ve known Niall since he was eight years old,” Faith said with warmth and a smile in her voice that gave it the distinct flavour of Christmas Pudding with a lot of brandy butter.
“Susannah, who is this?” her father asked irritably.
“My friend,” Susannah said.
“Niall Burnet. Pleased to meet you,” Niall said, ignoring the hostility.
Rebecca Blackford sat in a seminar on Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties in Early Years Schoolchildren but her mind was processing the events of the previous night. She had wanted to take the day off, plead her brother’s death, but Penny had bounced into her room and convinced her the best thing was to get on as if nothing had happened.
“Keep your real life going and keep it separate,” she said. “That way you’ll keep your self-respect.”
So she had got up, showered, dressed, tried to make herself feel normal, and gone in to university. How she would’ve coped if she’d been in the middle of a teaching placement she had no idea, but that didn’t start until after half-term.
The night had been beyond all imagining. It had a dreamlike quality about it now that made her wish that it had been some nightmare. But it had been real. She had the money to prove it.
The girls had gone downstairs in their underwear. ‘Mary’ had offered her the box of names and she had picked one – Megan. She had been Megan from that moment on.
They walked into a lounge with a fake flame gas fire. Richly furnished, large enough for three two-seater sofas and a man on each of them. The men, Rebecca thought, had not – apart from Daniel – entered into the spirit of the evening. He at least was wearing a jacket and tie. The other two were surprisingly casual. Although why should she have been surprised? She had no idea what men wore to have sex with prostitutes. But she felt that this was meant to be a kind of up-market event. There should have been a dress code for the men.
The other two men were younger than Daniel – whose name for the evening was Gordon. She thought it was funny how Penny knew his real name. Everybody else was completely anonymous. There was a dark, quite handsome man, probably forty-something, with a sharply cut beard (‘Adrian’) who was clearly expecting Beth, and then ‘Richard’, who was her partner for the evening. Richard was tall, maybe middle to late thirties, and looked as uncomfortable as she was. He was wearing jeans and a polo shirt.
She was introduced and said ‘hi’, and then followed a surreal ‘meal’ in which the men talked about cars and sport and money as if the women weren’t in the room, while the three women collected plates of food for them, topped up their drinks, and sat beside them like trophies. If it hadn’t been revolting it could almost have been comic.
It was as if they were too insignificant to have an opinion worth hearing on any topic. Not, Rebecca thought, like Japanese geishas at all. As for the women at Roman orgies, she had no idea. But she was absolutely certain that a Roman orgy had felt nothing like this, that a group of Italian middle-aged men would have found this strange set-up pathetic and somehow incredibly English. Surely only English men could hold a name- and bank-balance-dropping conversation as if three practically naked and, though she said it herself, attractive young women weren’t really in the room. Daniel did occasionally look at Penny with undisguised lust, but it was only when she was getting him food from the two low tables in the centre of the room. He never met her eyes. Adrian barely seemed to notice Beth. He was one of those men who couldn’t take part in a conversation without having to trump whatever had just been said. She was quite glad she hadn’t ended up with him. Richard w
as no trouble: said less than the other two and didn’t eat much either. Although he did drink rather a lot of red wine.
“Bordeaux – the only real wine,” as Daniel fatuously said. Adrian checked the label and vintage and announced that another, more expensive claret that he had drunk recently was the wine to end all wines.
She had watched the food go down and prayed that all six of them were not expected to do it together in the same room when the meal was over. That particular prayer had been answered. Daniel had announced, “I don’t know about you, but my plans for dessert belong behind closed doors” and he had taken Penny off with him, presumably to a bedroom. The others had stood up at that point and ‘Mary’ had escorted them back upstairs. Beth and Adrian were left at one door, and then she and Richard were taken up again, to the second floor – a long way from escape, she had thought – and let into a medium-sized double bedroom with a large half-tester bed in it.
“If there’s anything you need, let me know,” Mary said incongruously, and left them. At that point Rebecca had realised that she was probably supposed to take the lead. She walked up to Richard, who was standing in the middle of the room, and started to undo the belt on his jeans.
“No, I’ll undress myself if that’s OK,” he said.
“Fine,” she said.
“You can just get into the bed, that’ll be fine,” he said. “I don’t want any fancy stuff.”
“Fine.” With her back to him she took off her underwear and got into the bed. She lay there, not watching him, and a minute later he climbed in beside her. She noticed he was still wearing his boxer shorts.
It dawned on her then that prostitution – as well as being disgusting – was also a skilled job. It probably required training. She didn’t know now whether she should make a move or wait for him to make one. And she didn’t know what that move should be. Should there be any foreplay? Should she touch him? She knew that prostitutes didn’t kiss and she was glad about that, but that was the beginning and end of her knowledge.
In the end, Richard answered the question for her. He made a grab for her breasts and then clambered straight on top of her. But she knew immediately that he had no erection and nothing was going to happen. He tried desperately for a while and then rolled off her with a groan.
“Don’t I turn you on?” Rebecca asked. It was the first full sentence she had actually spoken to him.
“You’re beautiful. You’re sexy, Megan. I’m sorry. It’s me,” Richard said.
“It’s OK,” she said.
“I’m happily married. I’ve got three kids at home. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”
“You were invited, I guess,” Rebecca said.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. But you seem like a really nice girl.”
“I need the money,” Rebecca said.
“Oh God,” Richard said. They lay in silence for a while.
“I don’t know what I thought,” Richard went on at last. “I don’t know what I expected. Something rather sordid. I just –. I should be at home with my family. But I’m under a lot of pressure at work. And Theresa’s at work as well. We don’t see each other. I just needed – something. I thought I might just get – relief. I’m so sorry.”
She had felt she needed to do something. She didn’t want there to be any quibbles about whether she had delivered value for money. She had taken hold of his penis. He had groaned and said she didn’t have to do it. And she had tossed him off as quickly as she could, thinking of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
There had been a further storm of apologies. He had got dressed. Mary had come to the door to say that it was time to go. She had given Rebecca her clothes, and ten minutes later the three girls had been on their way home. None of them said much. Rebecca promised herself with a secret, sacred vow that she would never do it or anything like it again.
Dr. Clarke was trying to make it sound simple, but it wasn’t. Acute rejection, chronic rejection, immunosuppressants, T-cells, cyclosporin, Rapamune, Imuran, Prednisolone. Her mother frantically writing it all down. Miranda’s head was starting to hurt and her vision was going blurry. She wished the meeting would end. If Niall somehow escaped without speaking to her she would send Faith Hodgkiss after him. She’d said she wanted to help.
“So,” Dr. Clarke said at last. “It’s all about sensible precautions. If you’re sensible, you’ll be able to lead a full and normal life.”
“Incredible,” the man from BAB said.
“In terms of time-frame,” Dr. Clarke went on, “we’d like to keep you here for another week, if you can bear it. It’ll take a week for the acute rejection to really kick in and we’ll know then what we’re dealing with. But we’ll get you up, we’ll get you moving, and your family can start getting things ready for you at home.”
“OK,” Susannah said.
“One thing,” Dr. Clarke added. “In a week most of your swelling and bruising will have gone down. You’ll be looking a lot better for those front page pictures.”
“What pictures?” Susannah asked.
“You’re a big news item, Susannah,” he replied. “There’ll be people waiting for you the day you walk out of here.”
“I thought Matthew – Mr. Long – was my journalist.”
“I’ve got exclusivity on your personal story,” Matthew explained. “But we can’t stop the rest of the media altogether. People are going to want to know about you. You’re on your way to becoming a celebrity.”
Which was exactly what the scornful Mr. Clark had said last night. And he thought that was what she wanted. Perhaps they all did.
“My sister the celeb,” Amelia said. “Hello Magazine here we come.”
“You may need someone to act as an agent for you,” the BAB man said. “I’m sure BAB would be able to help in that regard.”
“Got a lot of experience of representing celebrities, have they?” Niall asked dismissively.
“We are a large charitable organisation with a long reach,” the man answered, which made no sense to Susannah, but Niall didn’t follow it up.
“Right,” Dr. Clarke said, bringing things to a close. “I’m going to give each of you my card, with my phone number on it. Once Susannah’s back home, feel free to call me day or night, wherever you are, if you think there’s any problem. Don’t hesitate. If anything should happen to go wrong, we’ll need to move fast to make sure any damage isn’t permanent.”
He passed out his cards, putting one in Susannah’s hand. She had closed her eyes. They were too tired to work properly and it was comforting to revert to the sensory world she knew. She hoped when Dr. Clarke left the others would take their cue as well.
She sensed a presence close to the bed and opened her eyes again. It was Niall.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi. I’ve come to say goodbye actually. I’ve got to make a move. Promised I’d meet someone as soon as we were finished here.”
“Oh. I really wanted to talk to you. About stuff.”
“OK.” Niall was surprised. And pleased, in spite of himself. “I could come back tomorrow.”
“Yes. Come tomorrow evening.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Everyone else will have gone home then.”
“OK,” Niall said. “You take care. How’s the seeing going?”
“It’s weird. Different. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“Right. ’Bye Susannah.”
“Bye.”
She heard him chatting to Faith Hodgkiss who was presumably escorting him to the door. Then the man from BAB loomed over her.
“Susannah, we’ve never really had much of a chance to talk one to one,” he said. “Daniel Sullivan. Deputy Director General of the British Association for the Blind.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I want you to know that we shall always think of you as one of ours, even when you have perfect sight. We’ve been together with you in this from the beginning. If you’re lookin
g for a career in the future I’m sure you could make one with us. I would support any application that you made.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Delighted that the operation has been such a success,” he said.
“It’s early days.”
“It’s a triumph, my dear. You’re a triumph.” And he squeezed her hand. Held it for about five seconds before he let it go. Then he was gone.
Niall trailed slowly up the corridor hoping to find a nurse who could point him in the direction of Hugo. His insistent independent streak had forced him to parry all offers of help from Faith, for all that he was totally devoted to her and had been for years, and the consequence was that he was making unnecessarily slow progress and he was lost. He heard footsteps some way behind him, stopped and half-turned.
“Mr. Burnet.” It was Susannah’s father.
“Hello.” Niall stood still and waited for the other man to meet him.
“Roderick Leman,” he said. Niall offered his hand but it wasn’t taken. “I have one thing to say to you, Mr. Burnet, and one thing only. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know where you’ve come from, I’ve absolutely no idea how Susannah met you, but you’re to stay away from her. Do you understand? Stay away from my daughter.”
“Any particular reason?” Niall asked. “Since, as you say, you don’t know who I am. Or is it just because I’m blind?”
“How long have you known her?”
“Oh no,” Niall said. “You said you had one thing to say to me and you’ve said it. That wraps it up as far as conversation’s concerned.” And he turned to find the wall and continue walking away.
“You …” Roderick Leman began, and then stopped. “Just do as I say. I’m absolutely serious.”
“Lucky you,” Niall said.
“I beg your pardon?”
Niall started to walk away. He heard footsteps coming towards him.
“Nurse?” he said hopefully.
“Yes?”
“I’ve got a dog here somewhere, and then we’ll be looking for the way out.”
Eyes of the Blind Page 7
