by S. L. Grey
The temptation to check out my reflection in the mirror above the sink is so intense it almost hurts, but I make myself wait. I’ll pee first. The toilet paper – pink, 3-ply – is folded at the edge, just like in a high-end hotel. And there’s a sign tacked up next to the towel rail: ‘Be A Good Client. Use Towels More Than Once ’.
A good client? Don’t they mean ‘patient’?
But I’ve got more important considerations right now. I flush, stand up and shuffle over to the sink. I wash my hands first, and then, holding on to the edge of the sink, I allow myself to look in the mirror.
Breathe, Lisa.
My limp blonde hair frames nothing but a pale-pink blankness. The mask is flawless – it’s almost as if they’ve applied a perfectly smooth cosmetic face mask that covers every inch of skin apart from my lips, my nostrils and around my eyes. I tug gently at the edge that curves under my chin. It moves slightly, but it’s probably a bad idea to mess with it until a nurse or doctor says I can. I don’t think it’s been actually glued onto my skin, but it tingles; it feels like part of me. But why not just protect my nose? Why my whole face?
Hang on. My lips look a shade darker, as if I’ve applied magenta lipstick, and are they… are they plumper? I run my tongue over them. Like the rest of my face, they’re still fairly numb, but that has to be from the last traces of the anaesthetic. I turn my head to the side and check out my profile. Is my chin less prominent? It is! I’m almost sure of it! And my nose. There’s no question that it’s smaller, maybe even slightly upturned. A cute nose.
I practise smiling, watching as the mask seamlessly moves with my facial muscles, almost like a second skin. Are my teeth whiter? They can’t be. It must be the light in here.
Amazing.
I lean right over the sink, so close to the mirror that condensation from my breath clouds my reflection. Whatever it is they’ve done, it’s definitely something radical. That Indian doctor said they might have to do some drastic reconstruction… Is this what he meant?
The sound of the door slamming makes me jump. There’s someone in my room. I can hear the clatter of a trolley.
‘Good morning!’ a woman’s high-pitched voice calls. ‘Where are you, luvvie?’
I wheel the drip out of the bathroom. A middle-aged woman wearing a short pink smock and long white socks is standing next to the television. She smiles and waves at me. Her short brown hair is tied into jaunty schoolgirlish bunches.
‘Hello, my dear. Breakfast time! Yummy yum!’ Where do hospitals find these relentlessly cheerful women? I find myself smiling back at her.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Look, this is going to sound weird, but… where exactly am I?’
She chuckles. ‘What a question! You’re in the Wards, of course, dear.’
‘Which ward, though?’
She rolls her eyes as if we’re sharing an in-joke. ‘I know what you must be thinking. There was a mix-up at first, but it’s all tip-topped now.’
‘What do you mean, a mix-up?’
She peers at the door as if she’s concerned about being overheard, and whispers, ‘About your status, of course.’
‘Status?’
‘Yes!’ She claps her hands. ‘Exactly.’
‘Which ward am I in, though? You mean, this is another section of New Hope?’
She looks slightly confused. ‘I’m sorry, dear?’
‘I mean, why was I moved? Why aren’t I back in my old ward?’
The woman tuts. ‘Because you belong here, dear, you know that.’
I’m getting nowhere. ‘But I’m still in New Hope, right?’
She acts as if she hasn’t heard me. ‘Now, pop yourself back into bed, and I’ll serve you your breakfast. Come on, choppity, chop, chop!’
I catch a whiff of something delicious – toast and eggs? My stomach growls. Breakfast time already; I must have been out for longer than I thought. God, I’m starving. I manoeuvre the drip stand past the trolley, and slip back into bed.
‘Good girl!’ She approaches the bed and plumps the pillows behind my head. I try not to flinch away from her. She reeks of a strange scent, like rotting strawberries. As she pulls the tray table over my legs, I realise that three of her fingers – middle, ring and pinky – are missing on her right hand, and the stumps are painted with nail polish.
My stomach lurches and I shudder before I can stop myself. It’s the same reaction I always get when I see any type of injury or deformity. Dr Meka says that it’s not actually revulsion I’m feeling, but guilt, because I know in my subconscious that, compared to people who are deformed or badly injured, I look just fine. But that’s crap. I know it’s crap from the time that Dad dragged me to the Port Shepstone Public Hospital burns unit to shock me out of my ‘delusions’ as he called them. He made me go into a ward full of kids whose faces and bodies had been horribly scarred in paraffin fires and car and taxi accidents. ‘Do you think these kids have a choice, Lisa?’ he said, haranguing me right there in the ward, while the kids’ parents stared and nurses shook their heads in disapproval. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, my girl. You’re beautiful, perfect. Just like your mother was. These people have real problems.’
The woman is staring at me. ‘Everything okay, luvvie?’
‘Yes. Yes, everything’s fine.’
‘Goody good.’
She scratches idly at the back of her neck, and, as she traipses back to the trolley, I catch sight of a large scab just below the parting where her hair is tied into bunches. God, what could have caused that sort of injury? She picks up a tray containing a covered plate, a pot of what smells deliciously like filter coffee and a glass of orange juice. She slides it onto my table and whips the metal cover off. ‘Ta da! Smoked salmon and scrambled free-range eggs. Your favourite.’
‘How… how did you know that?’
‘It’s in your file, dear.’
‘What file?’
She chuckles again. ‘Your details. We have all your details. The Administration insists on it.’
The food looks delicious, but I don’t attempt to pick up the fork. ‘When can I take… this mask off my face?’
‘When it’s ready, dear.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘That’s entirely up to the Administration, dear.’
‘You mean the doctors, don’t you?’
She laughs as if I’ve said something funny. Up close her teeth look like plastic Chicklets glued together. Her tongue is tiny and stained black in patches as if she’s been drinking too much red wine.
‘No, no, dear. The Administration makes all the decisions in the Wards. Now, eat your breakfast! Yummy yum!’
I still make no move to pick up the cutlery. My stomach might be empty, but I need answers first. ‘When will I get to see a doctor?’
A look of desperation flicks into her eyes and she glances at the door again. She picks up the fork and spears a sliver of smoked salmon onto the tines. ‘Come on, dear. It’s very important that you feed your face.’
‘Feed my face?’
‘Oh yes, dear,’ she says, with another one of those wide plastic grins. ‘After all this time it must be hungry.’
Chapter 11
FARRELL
Lisa was right after all. Something bad’s happening here.
These Polaroids aren’t some idea of a nurse’s prank. This isn’t a fucking joke. Someone left them here for me to find.
As the panic rises, my legs stiffen. I can hardly pull on my puke-caked jeans. Stained T-shirt. Shoes. That’s all I have in the world. And that old cow Gertie’s dying cellphone. Make that a dead cellphone. And useless without a charger. I hurl it onto the floor, enjoying the sound of cheap plastic shattering in the silent ward.
I gather up the photos of me laid out like a slab of meat. Those nightmares I had on my first night here weren’t just dreams after all. Someone must have stripped me naked every time they took a picture. Without me knowing it. Marked me carefully with that pen every time I fell asl
eep. The markings in each picture are subtly different. As if someone’s been adjusting the segments, fine-tuning the measurements.
I flip through the photos again. Who the fuck would choose to use a crappy Polaroid camera, of all the weird, outdated tech? In one of the pictures the bruising on my right arm is clear from the night someone messed with the drip. A flash of the terrifying grey face floods my mind for a moment. A sudden roll of nausea hits me. I retch and just avoid vomiting on the floor; a swill of bile washes my mouth.
I have to get out. If the police don’t come for me soon, Glenn and his goons will. If the fucking psychopaths who have been stripping and photo graphing me every night don’t get me first. Frankly, that’s my first worry. Glenn and the police are outside. They – whoever the hell they are – are in here.
I shove the photos into my back pocket and run out the closet door. Straight into a solid body. I lose my balance and crumple to my knees at the man’s feet and he leers down at me with his sweaty grey moon-face, its unnaturally narrow forehead, his thick glasses, and I remember him hanging over me in the middle of the night. Another wave of bile fills my mouth.
I force myself to stand.
‘You!’ I say. ‘What were you doing in my room?’
His breath stenches so badly it slicks at my face like a wet towel.
‘I clean,’ he says in a thick slur.
‘What do you mean? You were fucking with my drip the other night. Have you been coming into my room and taking photographs of me?’
I know even as I ask it that it can’t be him. This man is retarded or deranged.
He shakes his head, backs away. ‘Don’t call Administration. I clean. You see. I clean.’
‘What do you mean?’ I press, but the man starts blubbering, his massive frame quivering.
‘Is everything all right, Mr Farrell?’ Nomsa sneaks up out of nowhere again.
‘This man… he was…’
‘Isaac? Have you been troubling the patients again? I thought we discussed this.’
‘I clean, Nurse. I don’t trouble.’
‘You remember, Isaac. You don’t want me to call Administration. I don’t want to call Administration.’
‘No, Nurse.’ The big man heads straight back to his bucket, twitches his head down and starts mopping the floor.
‘We let him stay here, Mr Farrell. And he helps clean when we need extra hands. Poor Isaac has nowhere else to go. I found him sleeping in the mouth of the furnace chute. That wouldn’t do. The poor man could have died.’
‘Oh.’
‘If he’s bothering you we can—’
‘No, really. It’s fine.’ I’m sure it was he who was messing with my drip that night, but I don’t want to ask Nomsa. She’ll just make me feel ridiculous again. Behind Nomsa, an old woman emerges from the dying women’s ward, using a plastic chair to prop herself up as she goes. The front of her grey gown is patched with blood. She coughs, and a clot of blood spatters onto the floor. Her face is a study in determination.
Nomsa doesn’t look round. ‘Why are you dressed, Mr Farrell? Has Doctor discharged you?’
‘No. My girlfriend called,’ I lie. ‘She’s in trouble… she needs me. I’m feeling fine… and I have my eye drops.’ I smile. ‘I really would like to go. I’m fine now.’
‘Well, you look a whole lot better to me, Mr Farrell. I’m sure you can go.’ Oh, thank God. ‘But we’ll need a doctor to sign your discharge papers before security will let you out.’ She nods towards the guard lazing on his garden chair at the gate and shrugs, as if to say, ‘Those are the rules. Nothing to do with me.’
‘Is the ward doctor available?’
‘The train accident, Mr Farrell. Everyone’s on call. It’s worse than anyone imagined. I doubt there will be rounds until tomorrow, at the earliest.’
‘But isn’t there anything you can do? Isn’t someone else authorised to sign if there’s no doctor? My girlfriend. She’s in trouble.’ I consider telling the whole story to Nomsa, showing her the photos, even telling her that the police might be looking for me, but then I realise that’s just stupid. Patient shows nudie photos of self to nurse then tells her he’s wanted by police.
‘I’m sorry, no. That’s why we’re not allowing visitors. There’s not enough staff to handle the floor.’
‘Can I at least get my phone and wallet?’
‘When you’re discharged, Mr Farrell. For your own protection, of course.’ She looks at me with a brick-wall smile.
I’m clearly not going to get any further with her. ‘Okay, thanks,’ I say. ‘But as soon as a doctor’s available you’ll ask them to discharge me?’
‘Of course, Mr Farrell. You really seem ready to go as far as I can tell.’ She smiles. ‘But then again, I’m just a nurse.’
‘A very good one,’ I say. She’s still my only ally here; I need to keep her on my side. And to be honest, talking to her has calmed me down. She has a way of making my fears seem irrational.
‘Oh, Mr Farrell. I’m just doing my job.’ She walks briskly down the corridor.
Once Nomsa’s out of sight, I hear the grey-faced man muttering something under his breath as he mops. I start to walk away, ignoring him, but a word in his mumble catches my attention.
‘Drngnwrds… drngnwrds… drngnwrds.’ He rocks on his heels while he mops, back and forth, back and forth over the same spot. ‘Drngnwrdsss… drngnwrdssssss.’ Maybe it’s just a song he’s singing. I head back to my closet-room.
‘WARDS!’
I wheel around, my heart cracking my ribs. ‘What the fuck, man? You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
Now he looks at me, completely in focus, while everything else around him blurs into nothing, his face a circle of clarity like I remember from that night. It was him, it was him fucking with my drip that night.
‘Don’t go to the Wards,’ he says, clear as a news anchor. Then he puts his head down and resumes his mopping and mumbling.
‘The Wards.’ That’s where Nomsa said Lisa is. Some new wing, she said. I’m surprised they haven’t called it the Manto Tshabalala-Msimang Memorial Wing or something. Just ‘the Wards’. Anyway, whatever: If I can’t get out, it’s got to be safer than here. The police or Glenn’s goons could be here any minute. I’ve got to move. I look at the grey man again. An access card hangs on a lanyard around his neck. Does that card let him in and out of Green Section?
‘Listen. Listen.’ I try to rouse him. ‘Do you mind if I borrow your card for a minute?’
He looks back at me, his eyes now as opaque as they were clear a moment ago. He mops and mutters, ‘I clean, I clean. See. I clean.’ He’s gone back into that cage of his.
There’s a rattle on Green Section’s main security gate. A pregnant woman, her face creased with pain, stands with a small wheeled suitcase on the other side. The security guard slowly stands up from his slouch, gradually removes the earphones from his ears and tries to make out what she’s asking. He makes ‘No, no. Wrong place. Not us’ gestures at her, plugs back in and sits down, staring at his boots in front of him. The woman bucks and sways through a contraction then wanders back down the corridor. The guard looks on officiously. There’s no way past him; I have to get that card. And I’ll have to be fast. That grey man may be slow, but he’s big. Who knows how he’ll fight back? Probably like a dumb animal. And even if I manage to get it, I’d better hope that card opens doors. Christ. Do I really want to do this?
I start to get distracted by images of Katya’s face, of Glenn’s… and I shut them out. It’s all converging on me, here. I need to get the hell out.
The time is now.
I dart to the grey man, girding myself for his counter-attack. Ignoring his moistness and his odour, I grab him from behind and try to immobilise him with my left arm, but I can’t even get it all the way around his massive torso. He slowly turns to look over his left shoulder, like some kiddie trickster has tapped him. I take the chance to grab the card with my left hand and unclip the lanyard with my r
ight. Got it!
I run, expecting him to chase me, but he stands there like a confused bear, looking down at his chest where the card was. By the time he looks up, I’m around the corner, heading for the nurses’ kitchen.
Which is the opposite fucking side of the section from the main gate. Not that I would’ve just been able to saunter out there anyway. The guard knows I’m a patient. I didn’t think it through.
There has to be more than one exit from this section. I swerve into the kitchen. There! There’s a door with an access panel. Must be where catering staff come in and out. I swipe the card. Shit. The light’s still red.
‘Been looking for you, Frankie.’
It’s Gertie. She’s standing at the door, arms crossed. I pretend not to see or hear her. Try the card again. Still nothing. Am I swiping it the right way?
‘Hey! I’m talking to you. Where’s my fokken phone? And my hundred bucks?’
Shit. ‘I’ll get it back to you just now.’
‘Ja, right. What are you doing, anyway?’
‘Um, something’s come up. I need to go.’
She snorts. ‘And you’re going out the kitchen door?’ She’s shuffles up close to me and I get a nostrilful of old lady stink. ‘Let me tell you something, my boy, you’re not going anywhere till I get what’s mine.’
I really really don’t need this right now.
‘Look, Gertie—’
‘It’s Missus February to you.’
‘Look. I’m worried about Lisa, okay? That’s why I’m trying to get out of here.’
