by J M Donellan
Harland stops, removes a cigar from his pocket, smells it, and throws it at Bradley’s face, where it hits him square on the nose and lands in his lap. “Consider that a parting gift. You’re fired! If you breathe a word about any of this, we’ll deny everything and sue you for defamation. And take everything you own. Now, be a good lad and kindly fuck off, would you?”
As Bradley leaves the boardroom, walks down the corridor, enters the elevator, crosses the foyer and exits the building for the last time, he plans his confession to Karen. “Karen, darling, you were right. Halcyon is an immoral, greedy, and fundamentally malevolent corporation that commits crimes against humanity and the planet. I guess, ultimately, I couldn’t be with someone as wonderful and idealistic as you and work for Halcyon. It all came down to a choice between you and the company. And I chose you, my darling.”
Section III
Diagnosis
***
“A short time ago a man walked into a back-kitchen in Queen Square, and cut the throat of a poor consumptive creature, sitting by the fire. The murderer did not deny the act, but simply said ‘It’s all right.’ Of course he was mad.”
Florence Nightingale,
Notes on Nursing: What it Is and What it Is Not
10
Birthday
***
The room is dark. There is music playing somewhere, but she sees no colours. This should be cause for confusion, and yet she feels only an eerie, blissful calm. He is smiling when she approaches, and she sees his eyes at last. She can’t look away from them; they are twin blue moons floating in the galaxy of his face.
He is just as beautiful as she remembered, even in the darkness.
“Where are we?” she asks. Her voice echoes and reverberates around the walls.
“Somewhere you aren’t allowed,” he answers. His voice is different from what she imagined. Strong and confident, but also cracked and rough.
“I’m sorry I cut you.”
“It’s okay, it was an accident.” He is statuesque, a perfect frame, with hypnotic eyes. The room is dark.
“Do you miss being awake?”
“Do you?”
“What?”
The room is dark.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“That’s strange. I can hear your beepers, even here.”
“That’s not my machines. It’s your alarm.”
“My wha—”
Freya jolts upright and slams her hand on the alarm. She staggers out of bed and into the shower.
It’s Elijah’s birthday.
***
Freya hums “Happy Birthday” as she prepares Elijah’s injection, thinking all the while that if this was a movie she could be required to pay thousands in licensing fees. This thought brings forth a rush of memories from her fourteenth birthday. She pushes them to the back of her mind and focuses on the task at hand.
“Well, birthday boy, I’m afraid all you’re getting from me is a syringe filled with essential nutrients, clean sheets, and a fresh nappy. In the nursing biz they call it a ‘purple faecal eater,’ although you probably know that, being a doctor and all. Pity, if you’d been awake we could’ve shared a nice little in-joke there. Now hold on, this might sting a little.”
She injects the nutrient supplements into his arm, then cleans the wound and tapes a bandaid over the top. “You know, you’d be a lot better off with a nasogastric feed. That mother of yours won’t allow it for some reason, which I think is a little strange.”
Freya lowers the railings of his bed and pushes him onto the stretcher. She always forgets how heavy dead weight is. She flinches as the word dead enters her mind. How strange it must be to permanently occupy the waiting room between this world and the next, to be simultaneously past and present tense. She strips his sheets and replaces them with fresh ones.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Freya tucks the crisp Egyptian cotton sheets under the custom-made memory foam mattress. “I had a dream about you. Rosaline was right, you’re quite charming.”
She pushes him back onto the bed and begins to fold away the stretcher.
“You talk to him, too?”
Freya whips around and in doing so slams the stretcher down on her toes.
“Fuck!” she yells, and falls to the floor grabbing at her wounded foot.
“Oh! Miss!” Maria exclaims and runs to the bar fridge to grab ice. Freya removes her shoe and sock, places the ice cubes inside the latter and lays it on her foot. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay, it was an accident.”
“Is broken?”
“No, definitely not. Hurts like hell though…aaaarghgghgh!” Freya bites her lip and scrunches her face as the wave of pain punches against her then slowly begins to subside.
“So sorry, Miss Freya.”
“Please, you don’t need to apologise. I guess I’m a bit jumpy. I didn’t know anyone was listening.”
Maria smiles and answers quietly, “Chicita guapita, in this house? There is always someone listening.”
Freya takes the ice off for a moment, inspects the damage. It’ll bruise, but it’s nothing too serious. “Maria, how long have you been working here?”
“Ever since I come from Colombia, about four months ago. Right after Mr Elijah have his accident.”
“Do you know how it happened?”
“I know we don’t supposed to talk about it,” she whispers. She runs over to the bedroom door, closes it, and creeps back to sit next to Freya. “I working here all this time, nobody say nothing. One time I ask to Mrs Rosaline, she very angry. Mrs Rosaline she never angry, so I confuse. Mrs Evelyn, later she come tell me I ask about it again, I will have regret.” Maria looks at Freya and smiles. “You’re pretty, you know that? In my country, men love women who look like you.”
“They do, huh? What’s a ticket to Colombia cost these days?”
Maria laughs and stands, begins dusting and polishing. “I tell you something else, I never seen nobody come in or out of that room you were trying to get into the other day.”
“You saw that?”
“Chicita, you no listen? I tell you someone is always watching in this house. I see you talk to Mr Jack, too.”
“Yes. He’s nice. Very sweet. A little strange though, don’t you think?”
“Everybody in this place a little strange, Miss Freya. You live here now, maybe you’re a little strange, too?”
Freya laughs as she wiggles her toes and watches the pale blue bruise slowly darken in colour. “Do you think he’ll ever wake up?”
“You are the nurse, Freya. You tell me. But I can tell you one thing, I don’t believe half of what they say about him.” She leans her lips close to Freya’s ear and whispers, “Mentiras.”
Freya has to search her memory for the word she has not heard in several years. Its meaning arrives slowly, like a train pulling into a station. Lies.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Maria continues cleaning as though nothing has happened, shifting one of the bookcases to allow her arm entry to the window behind it. As she begins wiping the glass Freya notices a small slip of paper fluttering down from the top of the bookcase to the floor below. On impulse, she snatches it and shoves it in her pocket. The pain in her foot is slow and steady now.
“You know, back in Bogotá, I used to run a bar?” Maria says. “Corazon del Sol. It was very famous in my city. You should have seen me back then, I had boys lining up around the corner!” She winks at Freya. “I miss those days. Even though Bogotá was a dangerous city back then. But still, I had some good times when I was a young girl! I bet I could have drunk you under the table back in my day. Maybe I still can!”
Freya grins and says, “
I’ll take that challenge.”
“Ha! Okay, we see about that. Alright. I all finish in here. I see you later for the party, okay? You got a nice boy to come with you?”
“Yes. But just a friend.”
“Well, I look forward to meeting him.”
Freya basks in Maria’s resplendent smile. It’s nice to know that at least one inhabitant of this house isn’t completely deranged. Maria collects her cleaning paraphernalia onto her trolley and begins walking towards the door. She stops in the doorway, turns back to Freya and says with a smile, “Senorita, you wanna find out what happened to him, about who he was, you gonna have to be patient. But no worry, there are plenty of other secrets in this house to keep you busy while you waiting.” Maria winks at her and exits into the hallway.
Freya stands, collects her shoe and sock, and hobbles along the hall and down the stairs. The slow, throbbing pain in her foot wrestles with her curiosity. It’s over quickly; after all, her curiosity always fights dirty. She swipes her keycard over a door and enters the room filled with the tiny woollen mysteries that had so perplexed her the day before, flicks the light switch and closes the door quickly behind her. She sits with her back against the wall. Outside she can hear the faint echoes of a string ensemble practising; she smiles as the cloud of greens and blues shimmers across her vision. She runs her fingers over the boxes.
“What the hell are these things? Jumpers for dolls? Why no sleeves, only holes?” Freya listens to the sounds of the music, hurried footsteps and barked commands filling the house and surrounding estate. This is a strange haven, but she is glad of the momentary quiet.
She slips her hand into her pocket and produces the stolen (“not stolen,” she tells herself, “borrowed”) note Maria had knocked to the floor.
Dearest Elijah,
One day, when your beautiful blue eyes open at last you will read this letter. Until then I am writing this mostly for myself, I guess. Which is fine, Dr Messingham said I need to do more for myself and stop focusing all my thoughts on you and the baby.
In any case, I need to tell you something. I haven’t said this out loud yet, not to anyone. But then, who would I tell? Not Evelyn, that’s for certain. You know I love her almost as much as my own mum, but I’m sure you wouldn’t think me unfair to say she can be somewhat temperamental. Not Harland, wonderful man though he is. Lately he’s hardly home and when he is he spends most of his time arguing with Evelyn. I don’t mean to gossip darling, but I think…I think he may be sampling fruit from other trees, so to speak. Pardon me for being so crude!
And I don’t see so much of my friends these days. Lily is busy with her two darling little boys, Amelia moved to Hong Kong because Scott got a job over there, Tracey’s pregnant again and can’t move around too much. I guess I’m the only one without children! But I know I mustn’t be so fixated on that, even if my prime birthing period IS coming to a close and there are higher rates of autism in children born to mothers thirty and above, which is only three years away, not that I wouldn’t love a baby with autism as much as any normal child…of course I don’t mean to say that children with autism aren’t normal! Oh, dear, I’ve gone and gotten all muddled and confused again. Back to the point.
The point, my darling, is that I finally found the courage to forgive you. I do. Really, truly and absolutely. It’s been a long time, and you put me through hell, there’s no denying that. You were awful, in ways that I didn’t know you could be. You did something that I didn’t know a beautiful, perfect creature such as yourself was even capable of. Just thinking about it makes me feel flushed and nauseous and my mouth starts to taste hot and bitter…but it doesn’t matter now. At last, I forgive you. When you wake up, we can be a family at last. I have the rooms all prepared for a little boy or a little girl, you’d love them! I have books and toys and all sorts of adorable little knick-knacks.
Hope you’re having sweet dreams my dear.
Love always,
Rosaline
Freya folds the letter and places it in her pocket, making a mental note to put it back on the bookcase later. She gently rises to her feet, carefully checks no one is outside and steps into the hall. She limps back through the house and into her bedroom, where she changes into a pair of comfy old sneakers that will be kinder to her foot.
Freya lies on the bed, her legs and arms splayed. The sounds of music and preparation fill the house like a shaken jar of bees. She barely hears the knock at the door over all the activity. “Yeah?” she grunts. The door opens, revealing Jack, dressed in faded black jeans and an old black T-shirt, standing uneasily staring at the floor. He is unshaven, which pleases Freya. His stubble is like a preview of the beard that he really should have.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Do you…would you mind if we talked?”
“Of course not. What’s up?”
“I have somewhere I want to show you. I’m guessing you haven’t had a chance to explore the whole house yet?”
“I’d need a twelve-man team and a couple of months to pull that off, I think. This place is huge.”
“Exactly, which is why you should let me show you the best spot around, save you the trouble.”
“I like finding things on my own. Even though that usually means I end up taking a detour through the woods to get to the corner store. But sure, just this once.”
“Great! Follow me.” He grins and sets off down the hall with the stride of a child heading for Santa’s lap. He leads her through the labyrinthine corridors until they find what appears to be the door to a broom closet. Jack opens it to expose a rusty ladder, incongruent with its lavish surroundings, then climbs up the first few steps and pushes open a trapdoor to reveal the bright blue sky.
“You aren’t going to lure me up there and push me off, are you?”
“Please, if I wanted you dead I’d have paid someone to kill you already.”
“That’s far from comforting.”
Freya climbs up the ladder, her injured foot slowing her progress. Jack offers his hand to help her up but she refuses, more on principle than anything else. “I’m fine, I have my own arms. So, you realise this is technically the best spot on the house, not in it, right?” she comments.
“If you want to be pedantic.”
“I usually do.”
Freya perches on the warm red tiles and looks out over the river. The view, she has to admit, is spectacular. A ferry chugs past on the water below, countless shades of green stare at her from the riverbank. Laughter echoes across the water, the air feels crisp and fresh. It’s as close to perfect as a day is ever likely to get.
“Okay, I admit. This is nice.”
“Sometimes I feel like I can see the whole world from up here.”
“Well, being realistic there’s probably only a fraction of a percent within visibility range.”
“Again with the pedantic. I’m a writer, I have a tendency to hyperbolise. And to be honest, this is my whole world, more or less.”
Freya eyes him with a faux-seductive glance and purrs, “So, do you come here often?”
Jack blushes and snorts a laugh. “Oh, Lord, it’s been a while since I’ve heard a pickup line, or even a mocking facsimile of one. But yes, I come up here when I need to escape. So, more or less daily.”
“I can think of worse places to be.”
The sound of the ferry fades into the distance. The breeze blows out over the water. He looks at her with his curiously blue-tinted eyes. “He’s twenty-seven today, you know.”
“Yes. Harland told me.”
“Should be quite a party.”
“I’m guessing it’ll be one of the top five best black-tie catered feasts with an Italian string ensemble I’ve been to all month.” Jack smiles in response. She notes his body and demeanour have relaxed. Here on the roof overloo
king this tiny portion of the world, he appears to be a man in his element. The jittery awkwardness has disappeared and he now resembles a contemplative king surveying his tiny kingdom.
“The little sleeping prince. Snoozing in wait to take the reins of the empire.”
“Aren’t you next in line? I thought you were the eldest?”
“Yes. I am. And I’ll certainly get my portion. But the lion’s share will go to Elijah, because of my, ah, situation. It’s a long story.”
“The good ones usually are, but I’ll take that as my cue to bite my tongue. Harland tells me that your family started their business here over a hundred and fifty years ago?”
“Yes, ‘founded by a poor Italian immigrant who arrived off the boat with nothing but the clothes on his back and the blisters on his feet who sold balms, lotions, and vegetables to the needy.’ I assume that’s the line you’ve been fed? It’s a nice enough story, I suppose, but more than a little whitewashed. Elijah Vincetti the First opened up a general store with the funds he acquired from a young baker whom he robbed and subsequently murdered. He grew his kingdom by secretly dealing opiates and bootleg liquor along with milk and bread, until he had enough money to start bankrolling white-collar crime and financing political campaigns so he’d have all the key players in his back pocket.”
“You don’t seem particularly enamoured of your ancestry.”
“Just because we share a gene pool doesn’t mean we share a world view. My family is rather partial to ‘remixing’ the truth, so to speak. Especially when it comes to our darling Elijah.” Jack pauses, cocks his head, bird-like and says, “I’m going to ask you something. It’s a question you’ve probably been asked a lot before, and that people have wanted to ask but haven’t plenty more times besides that.”
“My wrist?” He nods. Freya sighs and says, “You know, the stupid ones always buy the Audrey Hepburn line.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. But I have an insatiable curiosity.”
