Eyes of the Blind

by Alex Tresillian

“So it seems,” Faith said. “And we all have to hope that this time things go better.”

  Walking into the house Niall asked, “So how much did this pile set you back, Faith? Must have cost a fortune, a house this size in London. Didn’t realise counsellors were so well paid.”

  “Niall,” Faith replied, “although I know almost everything about you, there is still a great deal you don’t know about me.” She saw Niall’s mother coming out of the kitchen to meet them and winked at her. “For example, once upon a time I was married to a consultant surgeon who earned a great deal of money. We bought this house together, although in those days houses round here were a lot cheaper – relatively speaking – than they are now, because the area hadn’t ‘come up in the world’.”

  “And now it has?” Niall asked.

  “I like to think it was Graham and I moving in that started it all off,” Faith said, grinning.

  Niall processed this information as he and his mother fixed Hugo up with some water and Faith made tea.

  “So what happened?” he asked at last. “Where’s Graham?”

  “Niall,” his mother interposed, “don’t be so direct.”

  “I’m a journalist, mother,” he replied, “direct is what I do.”

  “Our Graham is Stateside now,” Faith said, “lured by the mighty dollar and an earnest young American woman. I don’t miss him. We’d grown out of each other. It was all very amicable. We still send each other birthday cards.”

  When they had settled in front of the fire in Faith’s capacious lounge she said,

  “And talking of being a journalist, Niall, I’ve got some information for you.”

  Niall’s head shot up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I asked Jamal some questions about the transplant. I thought as you were helping me out it was only fair if I could do something for you. Anyway, I was wrong about there being a number of possible recipients for the eyes. Susannah was the only one. Exactly how her name came to the top of the pile I don’t know, but Jamal said he negotiated it all through Daniel Sullivan at BAB, and in due course Susannah arrived for a preliminary medical exam. Apparently, she ticked all the boxes and then it was just a case of waiting for the right pair of eyes.”

  “Sounds sick when you put it like that,” Niall’s mother said.

  “That’s the truth of the transplant business, I’m afraid,” Faith said. “Forever waiting and hoping for somebody else’s tragedy.”

  “When you think of the thousands they must have had to choose from,” Niall said.

  “Don’t blame her, Niall,” Faith said. “She never asked.”

  “I reckon it was carefully planned,” Niall said. “They wanted a girl because girls are somehow more vulnerable. BAB stage-managed the whole thing to give them maximum positive exposure.”

  “I did ask Jamal what he knew about the funding,” Faith added, “and whether the Lemans had contributed. He said he really didn’t know, and I believe him. He’s just not interested in mundane things like that.”

  “But they must have,” Niall said. “Leman must have made some deal with Sullivan, unless they were at school together or are both in the masons or something. I think I may have to contrive a meeting with the guy.”

  “Leave it till after Christmas,” Faith pleaded. “Leave it until Miranda’s made her choice about where she’s going to spend the next few weeks of her life.”

  “I will, don’t worry,” Niall said. “By then he might be quite keen to see me,” he added mysteriously.

  “Why?” Faith asked.

  “He’s already warned me once to stay away from his daughter.”

  “I wish you’d told me that before,” Faith said.

  After the rare luxury of a night spent in his own bed, Matthew Long pounded the better-lit areas of Wandsworth Common in the early morning dark of Christmas Eve. Not that he felt unsafe – muggers weren’t early risers on the whole. A light drizzle was falling but it still felt good to be in the open air, back in the running groove. He wondered whether the fact that he had started sleeping with Amelia Leman was going to be a good or a bad thing, as far as his reporting of her sister’s story was concerned. On the one hand it would give him another perspective on the family and the situation that he could never have expected otherwise to obtain. On the other, the whole point of his assignment was that it was Susannah’s perspective, and as far as that was concerned Amelia’s insights, which were not entirely complimentary, were unhelpful. His editor had given him the job knowing that girls were attracted to him, in the hope that Susannah might become smitten and provide better copy as a result. What was it someone once wrote about the best laid plans? He’d never been that interested in literature.

  He had accepted Amelia’s invitation for a drink one evening as they were emerging from Moorfields not long after Susannah’s operation. She was an attractive girl and he was currently unattached, having finished with his previous girlfriend three weeks earlier, largely because they’d been together for almost a year and it was starting to feel like a commitment. Saved himself the expense of any anniversary gift in the process.

  He and Amelia had gone to a nearby wine bar and after they had both enjoyed a glass he suggested they share a bottle, which she readily agreed to. They talked about – he couldn’t really remember what - and then she invited him back to her place. They rode the tube to Archway, where Amelia had a small flat. Once inside she offered him vodka instead of coffee, and a few shots later he had kissed her – or she had kissed him. That had led to pretty serious groping on both sides and then she had suggested he stay the night. It was fair to say he hadn’t been slow to take up the suggestion. They had made love with drunken vigour and – on Amelia’s part – a great deal of noise, and in the aftermath she had astonished him by reaching for her handbag, pulling out a notebook, and drawing what appeared to be a large erect penis.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “What is that?”

  “It’s a normal curve,” she floored him by replying. Then, at the penis’s tip, she drew a vertical line and the date.

  “You’ve lost me,” he said.

  “I thought that was pretty amazing sex,” she said. “What did you think?”

  “Yeah – pretty amazing,” he agreed.

  “So that’s our benchmark,” she went on. “Every time we make love we can rate it against what we just did.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I’m an accountant. And a statistician. These things matter. And because it’s fun,” she said. “And it’s good to talk about it. Then, after a week or so, we can look at the distribution and see whether we need to try harder.”

  He really didn’t get it. Decided it was something she must have read in a magazine. Why did girls have to analyze everything?

  “We want sex to be that good every time, don’t we?” Amelia continued. He was ready to sleep.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “So that’s what we strive for,” she said. “Sometimes we’ll make it, sometimes we’ll exceed it, sometimes we won’t. But what we won’t do is clam up about it.”

  Clam up. She was the noisiest lover he’d ever had. Talking, moaning, swearing the whole time if his mouth wasn’t pressed on hers. But he had to admit that the sex was unforgettable, and laughing about ‘placing it on the prick’, as he christened it, did allow them to relive every moment and describe it. On two occasions Amelia’s descriptions of what she had felt had turned them both on so much they had had to drop the chat and do it all over again.

  Then one morning she had creased him up at work by emailing him a beautiful graphic she had worked up on her tablet.

  But all this was moving him further and further from a sympathetic interest in Susannah. Quite apart from anything else, Amelia had seriously fallen out with her sister since the operation, and he found himself taking his lover’s part where he should – professionally – have been taking Susannah’s. In fact, Susannah was not turning into good copy, full stop. She did
n’t want to share any thoughts and feelings, had had a kind of mental collapse in which she seemed to think she had had a personality transplant and become a different person with a different name, was resisting attempts to bring her into the public domain, and now, to cap it all, was back in hospital and it looked as though the whole operation might have been a failure. His editor had told him to ‘put her on the back burner without ever for one minute letting her out of your sight’, which was the kind of instruction he was used to receiving. It was possible to argue that sleeping with her sister was keeping her in sight, but he wasn’t entirely sure that his boss would agree.

  Since that first night back in November he had slept at Amelia’s far more than he had slept at his own place, which wasn’t exactly a problem, but he did miss some of his routines, and running in the morning was one of them. But now Amelia had gone down to Surrey until after New Year and he didn’t want her parents to realise that the journalist who was supposed to be covering one daughter’s life was busily employed covering the other. The writer in him enjoyed the pun as he thought of it. Amelia seemed to agree with him as far as her parents were concerned, and they had parted the day before with much kissing and touching of body parts. He had told her to expect to see him at the hospital on Christmas Eve for Susannah’s second homecoming, but she had told him that she wasn’t planning to be part of the welcoming committee this time round.

  So unless he went down to the house he wasn’t going to see her for more than a week. Which he wasn’t sure he could manage. But on the other hand, did he want to see her and not have sex with her, which would be the order of the day at the family home? No. Bugger.

  He stopped running and sat on a wet bench.

  He thought back to the media interest the day Susannah had come out of hospital the first time. It had been a dry but dull day, and the pavement outside Moorfields had been a mass of photographers, journalists and curious bystanders, most of whom must have thought some ready-made celebrity was expected instead of a girl whose celebrity status was all ahead of her. Susannah’s new eyes were hidden by dark glasses as they all posed for photographs – people seemed happy to include him in the group as if he was family, which was ironic if you thought about it – and then came the calls for her to take the glasses off and show the world what so far only his readers had seen. Jamal Daghash gave the all clear and she took them off, revealing two blinking, beautiful deep brown eyes.

  “Two minutes,” Daghash had said. “London air’s not good for eyes.” And the shutters had clicked. There had been statements from all the key players and all in all it had taken the best part of half an hour to get into their cavalcade of cars and away.

  Today he imagined the steps of Moorfields would be deserted, and Susannah would step without fanfare, almost anonymously, into the world once more. If she didn’t get onto This Is Now or breakfast television soon she would be completely forgotten, and the over-generous sum that had been paid by his employers to the family for exclusive rights to her story would go down in history as one of their biggest ever gaffes. He imagined even heads might roll, just hoped his wasn’t one of them.

  He got to his feet and started walking slowly back home. The Lemans had told him they were planning to pick Susannah up at eleven. There was no hurry.

  Miranda looked at her new, ‘sighted’ watch – an ‘early Christmas present’ from Daniel Sullivan. She still had to resist the urge to press it to have it tell her the time. It was just before ten o’clock. Faith had promised that she and Niall would get to Moorfields by ten, so that there was no chance that her parents, who were due at eleven, could spirit her away before they arrived. Miranda had made the decision very quickly that she did want to stay with Faith and Niall (he would have described it as a ‘no-brainer’), but she was dreading the scene that would follow when she told her parents, and hoped that she really did have the courage to stand up for herself and go through with it. She knew that Susannah would not have done. She hoped and prayed that Miranda did. Not least because Niall would think less of her if she backed down under pressure, and Niall thinking less of her was not to be borne.

  Then there was the complication of last night’s visit from Daniel Sullivan, following up his early Christmas present with an offer to take her to The Nutcracker at Covent Garden the day after Boxing Day. The idea of going to the ballet thrilled her; the idea of spending an evening with Daniel Sullivan did not; and she could already imagine what Niall would have to say about it. But how could you say ‘no’ when somebody made an offer like that? He had tickets for a box. Goodness knows what they must have cost. She wanted to believe he was motivated only by kindness, but she had watched enough television drama, even before she could see, to know that people’s motives were rarely innocent.

  Susannah’s life had been simple, anonymous and safe. Niall would say it was dull. Miranda’s was the opposite. She just hoped she was ready. And strong enough.

  She was dressed and packed when Faith and Niall arrived at ten fifteen. “Problems on the tube,” Faith explained. Miranda told them her decision, but said she was going to need their help with her family.

  “For sure,” Faith said.

  Faith had hoped that Jamal Daghash would be there to second the idea of convalescing with her, but he was abroad, so only Dr. Clarke would be on hand to put the medical argument. She hoped he would be sensible and support the patient’s wishes.

  “I wish we could leave now and just run away before they arrive,” Miranda said.

  “That wouldn’t be the right way,” Faith said. “Sometimes things have to be faced head-on.”

  “I know,” Miranda said sadly.

  “Do you think it would be better if I was out of sight?” Niall asked. “I just think knowing I’m involved could make things worse as far as your Dad’s concerned.”

  “No please stay,” Miranda said quickly.

  “I’d rather he knew,” Faith said. “I don’t want any accusations of half-truths or dishonesty.”

  It was just before eleven when Dr. Clarke, Roderick and Karin Leman, and Matthew Long arrived. Their welcoming smiles died on their faces as they saw Faith and Niall.

  “What’s this?” Roderick Leman demanded, looking at each of them in turn.

  “Good morning Mr. Leman,” Faith said calmly.

  “Good morning,” he responded grudgingly. “Have you come to see Susannah off?”

  “No,” Faith said. “Miranda?” She looked at her expectantly.

  “Please can we drop the Miranda nonsense,” Roderick snapped.

  “Faith’s invited me to go and convalesce at her house,” Miranda said in a trembling voice.

  “No,” Roderick said loudly. He turned on Faith. “Interfering woman. This is none of your business.”

  “On the contrary,” Faith said, not in the least intimidated. “It is entirely my business. I am a professional charged with Miranda’s wellbeing. In my professional opinion, after the fiasco last time, it would be medically advisable for her to stay somewhere secure and free of emotional trauma while she attempts to recover from her operation. Jamal Daghash would agree with me if he were here.”

  “I forbid it,” Roderick said, looking to Dr. Clarke. “This is my daughter we’re talking about.”

  “Your daughter,” Faith replied, “is twenty-two years old. She has an absolute right to make her own choice. Once made, you have no right or power to overturn that choice.”

  “Say something Clarke,” Roderick barked. “This is an outrage.”

  “I can’t disagree with Miss Hodgkiss,” Dr. Clarke said.

  “You bloody ass,” Roderick snarled.

  “Don’t Roderick,” Karin Leman interposed, touching his arm.

  “And what’s Blind Pew to do with this?” Roderick Leman went on, looking at Niall.

  “Niall is staying with me over Christmas,” Faith said quickly before Niall could rise to the bait. “It’ll be nice for Miranda to have someone her own age to talk to.”

 
“If you go through with this,” Roderick threatened, “you can expect to hear from my solicitor. This is tantamount to kidnap.”

  Faith smiled. Roderick Leman turned to his daughter.

  “And you, young lady,” he said, saliva showering from his mouth as he spat out the words, “if this is what you want, to deny your own family after everything we’ve done and sacrificed for you since the day you were born, well so be it. Don’t ever darken our doors again. I won’t want to see you. I won’t want to hear from you. As far as I’m concerned you won’t even exist.”

  Miranda started to cry.

  “That’s right,” he went on, “the woman’s ploy. If in doubt, turn on the waterworks. You’re an ungrateful little cow and I have no sympathy. You’ll break your mother’s heart; Amelia just won’t understand, as indeed I don’t. I don’t know what’s happened to you. As far as I’m concerned this operation has been a disaster. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you in your entire life.”

  “Shame when it cost so much money,” Niall couldn’t resist saying.

  “I beg your pardon?” Roderick Leman blustered. “I strongly suggest you keep your mouth shut if you want to go home with any teeth at all.”

  Niall was about to answer but Faith put a hand on his am.

  “Mrs. Leman,” Faith said, ignoring Roderick. “Karin, this is just temporary. Just to give her a chance for a calm, quiet convalescence.”

  “Our house is calm,” Karin Leman said.

  “You think we fucked up the medication,” Roderick said, turning on Dr. Clarke again. “This is your way of saying we’re incompetent. We can’t be trusted to look after our own daughter. For fuck’s sake!”

  “Please don’t start swearing Roderick,” Karin said.

  “Where’s Daniel Sullivan?” Roderick blurted out. “The British Association for the Blind should have a say in this.”

  “It’s actually nothing to do with them,” Faith said quietly. “But in any case, I do a lot of work for the Association, so you can work on the assumption that I represent their views in this matter.”