by Sam Archer
The nurse at the front desk looked up and nodded when she recognised Melissa. The staff on the ICU knew Melissa was a close colleague of Mr Finmore-Gage’s. To them it was perfectly natural that she’d come up to visit him, sit by his bed.
Fin was in one of the bays at the far end of the room, a nurse adjusting the flow through his intravenous line, the ICU registrar, Melissa’s counterpart, consulting a medication chart at the end of the bed. As she approached Melissa had a sudden moment of panic. Were they preparing to turn the life-support off? But the central line remained in place, snaking up to Fin’s neck where it had been inserted into the internal jugular vein and was held in place with tape, and the ventilator hissed and pumped, sending air into Fin’s lungs through the tube in his windpipe.
Melissa knew the registrar, who greeted her with a tired smile and brought her up to date with the management so far. Oxygen sats were satisfactory, as were other vital signs. Diuretic medications had been added to the steroids in order to promote the draining of excess fluid from Fin’s body and thereby from his brain. The usual precautions were in place to protect him from the risk of bedsores which tended to arise in immobile patients more quickly than most people realised: the ICU bed was a special model with a gently vibrating mattress.
Now all anyone could do, apart from watching the monitors, was wait. And hope.
The registrar and the nurse moved on to another patient and Melissa pulled up one of the low armchairs at the side of the bed. Seated, she was at eye level with Fin’s supine form. Melissa realised this was the first time she’d actually had a chance to study his face. Even after their frenzied encounter in his office, they hadn’t examined each other in the normal way two people would after making love.
Feeling almost guilty, like a voyeur, Melissa let her gaze take in his face from the side. Even under the circumstances, the ugly breathing apparatus that was keeping him alive protruding from his mouth, Fin was beautiful. The profile was classical, a sculptor’s ideal, with its straight nose, ever so slightly uptilted at the very end, its prominent cheekbones made more so in repose. His skin was paler than usual but as always virtually unlined apart from two faint parallel creases on his forehead, the stamp of a man who spent much of his life thinking, who was deadly serious about the values that were important to him. To Melissa’s astonishment, she noticed his eyelashes for the first time. Usually his striking eyes drew attention away from them. Now, thickly black, almost sooty, they were as still as death.
Melissa choked, and quickly turned it into a cough in case anybody in the ICU noticed. For a moment she’d forgotten to breathe. She had had a vision of the future. A bittersweet, richly detailed one, like a lengthy film that had been compressed into the space of a few seconds but every frame of which was engrained with absolute clarity on her memory.
In this vision, several years had passed. Fin had died, and Melissa was an eminent consultant in her field, an internationally acclaimed professor of trauma surgery. She was head of the department at St Matthew’s, travelled to New York and Beijing and Sydney to share her knowledge and her skills with the world, and had pioneered several revolutionary techniques which had had an immense impact on the relief of suffering across the world. She’d achieved everything she had set out to do since entering medical school, and more besides. She was fulfilled, after a fashion. Content, to a degree. She was also desperately, irredeemably sad. The sorrow had worked its way into her blood, her marrow, her DNA. It was a fundamental part of her, and extricating herself from it would be as impossible as turning back time.
In this vision, Fin was with her. Not as something mystical like a ghost, or an angel, but rather as a part of her just as much as the sadness she felt, something that had worked its way into the very cells in her body. Her eyes saw through his, his hands guided her when she was operating and even during such mundane tasks as driving and writing and gesturing during a lecture. His face, his handsome, reassuring, irreplaceable features, was the first thing she saw in her mind’s eye on waking each morning, and the last thing she saw every night.
In this vision, Melissa was alone. She had never married, never had children. Marriage and a family were impossible while Fin was with her. And he’d be with her always, until the day she died and beyond. She wouldn’t want it, couldn’t imagine it, any other way. There’d never be anybody else she could contemplate being with.
The vision was as crystalline, as revelatory, as the one Melissa had experienced at medical school, once she’d understood that trauma surgery was the particular career that had chosen her. She’d understood then that her life was to take a certain direction, and that to attempt to veer from that path would be as futile as trying to stop a juggernaut. Then, though, the understanding had been accompanied by a colossal flare of excitement, by an explosion of purpose within her that had set fire to her ambition and resulted in a blazing streak of success that had brought her to St Matthew’s. This time, on the other hand, the vision of her future was soaked in melancholy, in a resigned acceptance that her life was to be one of high achievement, but only in the intellectual and practical sphere. Emotionally, deep sadness and regret were to be her lot.
Fin, she thought, wanting to close her eyes yet unwilling to take them off his pallid, mesmerising face for even a second. Why haven’t we known each other? We’re destined to be together, so why did we keep apart, while it was possible for us to be together? Before it was too late?
Across the bed from Melissa, Fin’s cardiac monitor began to sound, the beeping gradually increasing in frequency and volume.
She rose from the chair, a knife of ice spearing her heart.
The rate on the monitor had shot up to one hundred and four beats per minute.
The doctor and two nurses hurried over and moved swiftly around Fin, pushing Melissa firmly back, taking charge. She watched the doctor peel back Fin’s upper lids and sweep a pen torch across his pupils, saw the nurses check the attachments of the monitoring equipment, examine the infusion set that led into the central venous line.
This is it, Melissa thought numbly. You’re going, Fin. Leaving me.
Unable to face any more, Melissa turned and stumbled a few steps away, when the sound registered in her consciousness.
The rhythm from the cardiac monitor had slowed.
Fin’s heartbeat had become steadier, less urgent.
Melissa turned back, barely daring to hope.
The registrar ran a hand through his hair, rolled his eyes at Melissa in relief. ‘False alarm.’
One of the nurses caught her eye, gave her a tiny smile.
She knows, thought Melissa.
This time she didn’t sit down after the staff had gone away, but instead stood beside the bed, gazing down at Fin. His face retained its serenity, as if the flurry of the last few minutes hadn’t happened.
And suddenly Melissa understood the vision she’d had for what it was. It had been profound in its truth - she’d never have any man but Fin in her life - but not necessarily accurate in its details. Melissa was destined to die without ever knowing any man again but Fin.
But Fin wasn’t destined to die yet.
He might die. There was in fact a strong chance that he would. But it wasn’t inevitable. And if Melissa could do anything to prevent his death - if there was anything within the realm of human endeavour that she could do to keep him alive - she would make sure she did it.
Her hand reached out, found his under the covers of the bed. She gripped it, astonished by its coolness, wanting to warm and comfort it like a baby. Distressingly, Fin’s hand didn’t respond, didn’t squeeze hers back.
Heedless of anyone who might be watching, Melissa leaned in close, bringing her face close to his. Even in his comatose state, Fin’s aura met hers, interacted with it, drawing her ever closer.
Her lips, parted and gently moving, pressed against his, which were dry and cool. They lingered for long seconds.
She raised her head, staring at his closed eyes. A t
ear ran down his cheek, tracing a thin seam. It took her a moment to understand that the tear was her own.
‘Fin. I love you,’ she breathed. ‘You’re not going to die.’
I love you...
***
‘Take this.’
Melissa swam up through layers of fog. She hadn’t been asleep, quite, but had been as close to it as made no difference. An aroma bit through the confusion: coffee.
She became acutely aware of a knot of pain in her neck, a twinge in her back. Blinking, peering about her, she grasped that she was seated in an armchair, and had been slumped forwards with her forehead resting on the edge of the bed in front of her.
Melissa looked up blearily, sweeping aside the unkempt strands of hair that hung vine-like in front of her face. A few inches above her face was a steaming polystyrene cup. Beyond, she saw Deborah, her arm extended.
Sitting upright, Melissa took the cup.
‘Thanks.’
She sipped gingerly, relishing the heat as well as the flavour and the caffeine kick. Despite the time that had passed, Melissa still felt the cold of the river in her bones.
She became aware of Deborah standing there still and glanced up at her. The nurse was gazing at her, not Fin. Her expression was difficult to read.
‘You need to get some sleep.’
Melissa shook her head. ‘Not until he wakes up.’
‘It might be a long time.’
‘Then I’ll just have to wait.’ What the nursing sister meant, Melissa knew, was: he might never wake up.
Silence followed, apart from the relentless sounds of the ventilator and the monitors. Melissa glanced at the digital clock above the bed. Its green display told her it was 05:20. How long had she been sitting there? Ten hours? Twelve?
Deborah murmured, ‘Mind if I sit down?’
Startled, Melissa nodded. ‘Pull up a chair. Um...’
The nurse didn’t waste time looking for another armchair; instead she pulled over a footstool and perched on it, half-turned towards Melissa.
‘You really love him.’
Melissa wasn’t in the mood for another fight, for yet another round of warnings and innuendoes and threats. On the other hand, she wasn’t in the mood to fight her corner either. She lifted her head and looked at Fin’s motionless profile and said, simply: ‘Yes.’
‘That’s good.’
Melissa continued her study of Fin’s face for several moments before she became aware of what she’d just heard. She turned her head, wincing at the twinge in her neck.
‘What did you say?’
Deborah was watching her levelly. Her expression was one Melissa had never seen her wear before. There was a softness there, which she’d shown traces of before; but more than that, there was compassion.
‘I said it’s good.’
For a second the two women gazed at one another. Then Deborah folded her hands under her chin and said, ‘It was never about you at all, Melissa. Never about you.’
Melissa felt in her exhausted, befuddled state that this was a riddle too far. She was about to protest when Deborah went on.
‘I know what you thought. You believed I had it in for you. That I disliked you personally. You thought I was jealous of you and Fin, of what you felt for one another and of what was clearly developing between the two of you. That I had designs on Fin myself.’ Deborah watched Melissa for a moment and must have seen it in her face, the evidence that she was right, because she nodded a fraction. ‘None of that’s true. Please believe me.’
After a pause Melissa said, ‘Then… why?’
‘I wanted to protect the department, as I said. An office romance between two people so crucial to the running of our service, so essential to the survival of our patients, is always going to have an impact on the quality of the work those two people are able to deliver. It’s happening already, as we’ve discussed before. Attention wanders. Mistakes get made.’
Fin’s monitor skipped a beat or two and both women glanced over at his still form, the only movement the rise and fall of his chest beneath the cover as the ventilator breathed for him. The monitor returned to its steady beeping.
‘But more than the department,’ Deborah continued, ‘I wanted to protect Fin.’
‘Fin? Why would he need protecting?’
‘Because he’s my friend. He’s been deeply hurt, and I didn’t want to see it happen again.’
Melissa had started to warm towards the other woman, but now she felt the old anger coming back. Deborah’s words sounded like a lyric from a cheesy love song. ‘Oh, come on. Fin’s a grown man. So he’s been unlucky in love before. Who hasn’t? It doesn’t make him some fragile flower that needs to be kept sheltered from the world. He can make his own choices about his emotional life. You’ve no right to decide what he ought to do, what’s best for him.’
Even more gently than before, Deborah said, ‘It’s a lot more complicated than you realise.’
And Melissa listened as Deborah told her everything: how Fin’s wife hadn’t divorced him but had been killed by a hit-and-run driver, how Fin had tried and failed to save her, how ever since he’d carried around the burden of his guilt like a cross on his back.
‘Ever since then, he’s believed he isn’t good enough,’ said Deborah. ‘He drives himself to crazy heights, out of a sense of failure. He believes that if he’d been a good enough doctor he would have saved Catherine. The fact that he let her die, as he believes he did, means he’s lacking in some fundamental way. And his life since then has been a continuous struggle to undo the past, which of course is impossible.’
Melissa listened in silence, a painful blend of feelings growing within her: increasing respect for this woman’s wisdom and above all her compassion, and an almost unbearable yearning to take Fin in her arms, kiss him awake, tell him that she understood, that he was good enough, the finest person she’d ever met, and that she loved him.
‘I suppose in a way I was trying to protect you, too, Melissa,’ said Deborah. ‘Fin had already let you get closer to him than any other woman since Catherine. He never talks about such things, but I know. Sooner or later he’d have had to make the decision whether or not to allow you into his life. And I believe at that point he’d decide he couldn’t do it, that it would be a betrayal of his late wife and of his vow to atone for her death by living for his work, and he’d have broken things off with you. It would have been agony for both of you. Neither of you might have recovered. So I felt it was better that it was nipped in the bud, in order to limit the damage.’
Melissa couldn’t speak for a few seconds. Then she said, her voice barely more than a whisper: ‘Why are you telling me this now?’
Deborah took her hand. ‘Because you have a right to know. You love him – it isn’t mere infatuation, I can see that – and he may not…’ She swallowed, and continued in an even quieter voice. ‘He may not wake up again.’
Tears sprang into Melissa’s eyes. She didn’t try to suppress them, didn’t turn away; she just let them burst forth and course down her cheeks. She began to sob, great shuddering breaths wracking her body. Deborah’s arm slid around her shoulders and Melissa leaned against the other woman.
Don’t do this, Fin. Don’t leave.
When her shaking had run its course, when the tears stopped coming and she was wiping her face with tissue paper Deborah had handed her and blowing her nose, she shook her head, avoiding eye contact.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ said the nurse, giving her shoulders another squeeze.
The two women sat in silence for a few minutes, watching Fin, the quiet clinical noises around them somehow reassuring. After a while Melissa said, ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘Something a bit personal.’
‘Fire away.’
‘Did you and Fin – I mean were you ever…?’ Melissa let the question tail off, too embarrassed to complete it and wishing immediat
ely that she hadn’t asked it. She glanced nervously at Deborah, but saw the nurse was smiling.
‘No. Not before Catherine, and not after. And, God forbid, certainly not while they were together. I’m a happily married woman, after all. Fin and I are just friends, and close colleagues.’
‘Didn’t you ever wonder?’
‘What it could be like… otherwise?’ Deborah shook her head firmly. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Not even a little bit?’
‘No!’ Her indignation was only partially fake.
They sat and continued their vigil.
After a few moments Deborah said, ‘Well, maybe just a bit.’
Melissa glanced at her, felt her lips twitch in a grin. Deborah returned the smile, and within seconds the two women were laughing, the mirth spilling out of them until the setting and the circumstances and the sight of an ICU nurse hurrying over towards them forced them to compose themselves.
Wiping her eyes once more, a different kind of tear this time, Melissa said, ‘Thank you.’
Deborah flipped a hand. ‘Don’t mention it. It’s not like me to get soppy and sentimental. It won’t happen again.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll leave you alone now. But you really do need to get some rest, Melissa.’
Melissa turned to wave goodbye, and as she did so the noise from Fin’s monitor changed again. The rhythmic beeping disappeared and was replaced by the steady drone of a single note.
Melissa whirled, stared at the bed.
Fin’s entire body was jerking uncontrollably.
***
Fin tumbled down, down through the black depths, drawn to the bottom of the river as if hauled along on a rope. There was no sound around him apart from the rumbling of distant motors through the pressing weight of the water.
