The Ward

by S. L. Grey

  He leaves the sentence hanging. I look up at him but he avoids my gaze as if he’s pissed off with me.

  Come on, Lisa. What have you got to lose?

  Everything.

  Just do it.

  I make my decision.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll take it off.’

  He smiles at me, wraps an arm around my shoulder and squeezes. ‘Good girl.’

  ‘But I want to do it properly.’

  I walk over to the mirror above the sinks. It’s similar to the one in the crappy bathroom in my old ward – Gertie’s ward. It’s made of polished steel and distorts my reflection slightly; my face looks narrower than I know it is. The surface is blurry, but it will do. I stare into it for several seconds, preparing myself.

  In psychiatric wards, the mirrors aren’t made of glass, in case patients smash them and use the shards on themselves. The blurred reflection is deliberate. The last thing you want to see just before you die is what you loathe most of all: yourself.

  You’d know all about that, Lisa.

  I take a deep breath and hook my nails under the edge beneath my chin.

  I feel the sticky tug of the delicate material as it peels away. I lean close to the mirror and examine the section of bare skin before I go any further. Thank God. It looks… normal. Smooth. No redness or rawness. But something’s different… The small crescent-shaped scar on my chin isn’t there any more. Slowly, carefully, I pull more of it away, revealing my cheeks – also smooth and unblemished. This gives me the courage to rip the mask off in one quick yank, like a wax strip. I gasp at the shock of cold sensation on my now naked skin.

  Look at it.

  Not yet. I close my eyes and trace my fingers all over my face. The numbness is gone and, although my skin is sticky, I can’t feel any wounds or incisions. I trace my fingertips delicately over the beautifully soft skin. It’s like being touched for the first time.

  I breathe steadily through my nose. Cool, pure. It doesn’t hurt at all.

  ‘Well?’ Farrell says.

  ‘Wait.’

  Come on, you can do this. You have to see it sometime.

  I drag a deep breath into my lungs, open my eyes and look straight into the mirror.

  Oh my God.

  ‘Lisa?’

  Jesus.

  I’m dimly aware that Farrell’s saying something else.

  Who is that? This is not me. I recognise my eyes, but everything else…

  No amount of surgery could do that.

  I touch my cheekbones. They are prominent, sculpted. I run my fingertips over my new, voluptuous lips, and stroke the tiny upturned shape of my new nose.

  I’m…

  Say it.

  I’m beautiful.

  It’s perfect. It really is!

  ‘Lisa!’

  ‘Wait!’ I snap. I don’t want to stop looking at myself. I never want to stop.

  ‘Lisa! For fuck’s sake! Let me see.’

  Put him out of his misery.

  Slowly, I turn around, my stomach dancing with anticipation.

  Farrell stares at me, his jaw slack in shock.

  I burst out laughing, I can’t help it. ‘I know! Isn’t it amazing?’

  Farrell doesn’t respond. He clears his throat as if he’s about to speak. Nothing comes out of his mouth except for a hiss of air. That isn’t shock on his face. That’s…

  Horror. Disgust.

  And fear.

  Oh God. What if I’m fooling myself? What if they’ve made me into a monster and I’m so deluded that I…

  ‘I know it’s different, Farrell… but it’s not that bad, is it?’

  I move towards him.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ He backs away.

  ‘Farrell! What is it?’

  ‘Katya,’ he says, choking on the word. ‘Katya.’

  Chapter 17

  FARRELL

  The first time I shot Katya was the second time we met. It was the morning after the Fashion Week wrap party and I was lying on someone’s floor, battling a monster hangover. I’d noticed her the night before of course, shared a couple of glances, assumed she’d left with a posse of coke-fuelled agency girls. But when I woke up, there she was, picking her way over the other party casualties in her stiletto boots and her short skirt, the crochet flounce tilted just right over her shoulder; perfectly polished, ready for the catwalk, ready for me.

  I hoisted myself up, leaned on my elbow, retrieved my camera from under the couch and pointed it at her. She looked down at me and smiled with that Jane Birkin freshness, not a hint of coy, none of that ‘Oh, I’m not ready’ bullshit that so many models or wannabe actors pass off. I was hooked. Katya was always ready, and she knew exactly what her strengths were.

  At that time she was getting by on catalogue shoots, the odd advert. She knew she didn’t have the current look – she wasn’t gamine, tattooed, half-starved – and she didn’t care. She knew she’d make it eventually, because she had what the other girls lacked: pure confidence. And not just the confidence that comes from drugs or alcohol or cash. Even before she fell in with Noli and those other coke-snuffling bitches, she had it. She knew she was beautiful, knew she was capable of projecting every man’s fantasies, and all the while making him feel – even though he was looking at her in a magazine – that she was smiling only at him.

  Katya was a photographer’s dream, and she let me in, let me get close to the real thing, the real smile, the real touch, the real mornings after… She was my dream.

  The blunt push of a baton in my back snaps me back into the present. My knuckles are aching from punching that bathroom wall. My muscles are cramping all over and my entire body is a knot of fire.

  ‘Farrell, come on, you’ve got to…’ She puts her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Don’t you fucking touch me, you freak!’ I bellow at her.

  She cowers like a dog expecting to be kicked, and hangs back, shuffling along behind me. The security man – the patrol – herds us along the corridor back to the lifts. I can’t turn to look at her. My mind is seared with that hideous image, and I’ll never be able to delete it.

  If she’s wearing Katya’s face, what the fuck have they done to Katya?

  It was the right decision to go back to the waiting room and let that girl call the patrol. At that moment it was either that, or I’d have fucking killed Lisa. She took off that mask, and… I can’t say it. I can’t make the words happen in my head. Those lips I’d kissed a thousand times, the flawless cheeks I’d run my fingers over, that trademark nose. Thank fuck Lisa still had her own eyes. I would have… I don’t know what I would have done, just to make it go away.

  Katya’s here. Now at least I know. Katya’s here.

  She must be here. Maybe it’s a sick joke, a threat. Maybe these people are enemies of Glenn’s, using me and Katya to get to him. Maybe they made a cast or something and put it on Lisa’s face. Some sort of grotesque underworld message. Maybe Katya’s all right.

  I need to hang on to this because the alternative… Katya without a face, blood and bone where her perfect lips, her flawless skin, that textbook nose used to be.

  If she’s here, I need to find her. Bring her home.

  But I can’t take her home… damaged. Glenn will kill me. He’ll take one look at the ravaged girl he spent so much time and money on raising to be perfect… He’s going to look at her, and he’s going to blame me, and he’s going to kill me. He’ll make me suffer and he’ll make me disappear. He’ll have nothing more to lose. Holy Christ.

  My body is wracked by a multiple spasm and I crumple to the ground. The patrolman hoists me up and the rank odour of his sweat and cheap cologne envelops me.

  ‘Farrell! Are you all right?’ says Lisa next to me. She doesn’t try to touch me.

  ‘Get away from me,’ I manage to groan as I start shuffling again.

  ‘You have to let me help you.’

  I say nothing. I know it’s not really her fault. Whatever’s
happening to us is in someone else’s control. But the way she looked at me after she’d seen her new face. The way she smiled with Katya’s lips.

  The spasm passes and I start to shiver. She’s right. We can’t stay here forever.

  ‘If you want to help me, put on the mask.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Put it back on.’

  ‘But, Farrell, it’s—’

  ‘I said put it on! I can’t look at you.’

  ‘Okay. Okay.’ She shuffles with something.

  ‘Is it on?’

  ‘Yes,’ she sniffles.

  I turn to look. She’s pressed the mask back into place, but it’s stretched and drooping now. It looks like her skin is melting off, but it’s better than what’s beneath it. I can’t help flinching at the sight of it.

  ‘Listen, Farrell. I’m sorry about your girlfriend, but do you think I wanted this?’ she says. ‘You think I asked for this?’

  I just shake my head, but I’m surprised at her confidence. This isn’t the timid woman who was cowering like a dog just minutes ago.

  ‘Get moving, browns,’ the patrolman grunts. ‘Enough karking intercourse.

  Get back to your wards before I get you unassigned.’ The guard’s dressed like a sailor in a bad First World War movie, but he’s huge, and I’m in no condition to fight him. Besides, he’s got waxy, sallow skin that’s scattered with inflamed pustules; I seriously don’t want to touch him. He’ll get us back up to the other wards and hopefully, this time, we’ll be closer to the exit. That’s as far as my plan extends at this stage.

  He shoves us into the lift and presses the topmost button on the row of five. That’s good: it’s the furthest floor away from the basement we’ve been in. The lift moves swiftly and silently and pings open.

  Another tide of cramp swirls through me and I brace against the lift door. Lisa tries to help me, and the pain’s so intense I have no choice but to let her. She puts an arm around my waist and steadies me as I stumble out. We’re in the lobby of another ward. This one’s far less plush than the others we’ve seen. Pocked green lino on the floor, cheap, damp-spotted ceiling boards and a scuffed counter that looks like it could be another nurses’ station. There’s a vague smell of rot and soup. For a second I assume we’re back in New Hope, but on the wall ahead of us there’s a sign with that stupid clown on it again. This time it’s floating in the sky holding a bunch of balloons. ‘Welcome to Recovery Ward,’ he says, in a jagged, day-glo orange speech bubble.

  Don’t go to Recovery. That’s what that grey cleaning man in the Green Section – Isaac – said to me in his one lucid moment. Don’t go to Recovery.

  Christ. How could it be any worse than where we’ve just been? I don’t want to find out. ‘Sorry,’ I say to the guard. ‘I’m supposed to be in the Preparation Ward.’

  ‘Kark,’ he mutters. ‘The officer at Voluntary Termination said… Just wait here. I’ll ask a drone for your files.’

  He walks off, ducks under the counter and disappears into an alcove behind it.

  Lisa’s whispering something. ‘Do you think maybe we should—’

  But I stop listening. There’s a whiteboard stuck onto the wall behind the nurses’ station listing Recovery Ward room numbers and patient names.

  The third one down reads: ‘K. A. Forrest / Unassigned Donor / Post-Proc. Recovery / Room 7’.

  The guard emerges from the alcove. He touches his cap and nods deferentially at Lisa. ‘I didn’t realise you were a Client, Client. I apologise. Let me call an orderly to help you find your way back.’

  He stares at me. ‘And you, you are—’

  But I’m running.

  ‘Farrell!’ Lisa calls behind me.

  I follow the signs to Room 7, barge through the open door. Grubby plastic curtains are drawn around the only bed in the room. It’s small, sparsely furnished, a door in the corner leading to a tiny bathroom. It’s quiet but for the mismatched hush of ventilators and air con and the seethe of oxygen. There’s the thump of feet behind me.

  ‘Farrell.’ It’s Lisa. But that patrolman can’t be far behind.

  ‘Lock the fucking door,’ I hiss at her.

  She nods and does as she’s told. I grab a metal foldaway chair and lodge it under the door handle.

  Lisa stares at me with wide eyes.

  Shit. What was I thinking? I should have made Lisa stay outside.

  If Katya sees what’s behind that mask… Christ.

  ‘Stay by the door,’ I say to her.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Please just do what I say.’

  She nods. I slip behind the curtain. It’s dim in here, but I can make out a body shrouded in a sheet lying absolutely still on a bare mattress. I step forward. I’m hit with a waft of sweat and another perfumed odour I can’t place.

  Is it her?

  I don’t know if I want it to be Katya or not. Knotted dark hair that could be hers, pallid skin – and then I see it: the birthmark shaped like a small hourglass on her left bicep.

  Her face is completely bandaged, not masked with the hi-tech appliance Lisa was fitted with. Even her eyes are covered and there’s only a rough hole where her nose should be. The dressing is fairly clean, but a dark seepage of old blood shows through the upper layers in patches. There’s hardly a bump under the bandage but I can hear shallow breath sucking through the hole. She’s sleeping or drugged, a greenish mixture flowing from the drip bag into her arm. But it’s her. It’s unmistakably her. I draw the sheet off her body. She’s wearing a short hospital gown. Apart from the face, she’s unblemished. Her tight stomach, the hip bones. Her long legs, despite the stubble, are definitely hers. There’s the nightingale tattoo on her ankle. Her toenails are still painted alternating green and yellow. If I don’t look at her bandaged face, it’s almost as if we’re back home again, and I’m watching her, taking pictures of her while she sleeps.

  ‘That’s Katya, isn’t it?’ Lisa has come up behind me. ‘Is she… is she okay?’

  ‘Jesus! Get away! She’ll fucking freak if she sees you.’

  ‘But I’m wearing the… She won’t…’

  ‘Fuck it, Lisa. Please? Can’t you wait in the bathroom?’ I’m trying my hardest to keep it together, but Jesus fucking Christ. After another long glance at Katya’s body, Lisa moves back around the curtain.

  ‘Wake up. Wake up, Kay,’ I say, shaking her, gently at first but with increasing vigour when she doesn’t stir.

  ‘Kay. Kay. Wake up.’

  There’s a quiet knock on the door. ‘Client? Donor?’ A woman’s voice. ‘We realise you’ve misplaced yourselves and an orderly will be on his way shortly to relocate you. There is no need to panic.’

  I’m running out of time. As gently as I can, I remove the drip tube from Katya’s arm. I need her awake and I’m betting that she’s being pumped full of some kind of sedative, like the kind they gave me.

  Fresh air might help. I open the blinds on the wall, but instead of windows there are stylised posters of tropical beaches hastily tacked up in the recesses.

  ‘Uhng.’ Katya stirs in the bed.

  I rush back to her side.

  ‘Kay, it’s me. I’ve come to take you home.’

  ‘Mm, gnn, hmn.’

  Ignoring my terror at what I’ll find underneath, I feel around her bandages for her mouth, press against a space bounded by hard nubs of teeth. I finger the layers of dressing apart, and pull out a blood-stained plug of cotton wool. Her breath rattles through her mouth in a mucussy wheeze.

  At first I think she’s having some sort of respiratory attack, but then I realise she’s trying to talk. It looks like she can’t swallow or move her tongue properly.

  ‘Lisa! Bring me some water!’

  I prop Katya up against the head of the bed.

  Lisa pushes through the curtain and hands me a plastic cup. I nod my thanks and wave her away.

  I hold the cup to the hole in the bandages; Katya rinses and drools bloody spit into the b
andages and down her gown. It seems to help.

  ‘Jjjgh,’ she says. ‘Jgsh.’ She’s trying to say my name, and now she starts to scrabble at her face, trying to remove the bandages.

  I stop her hands in mine. ‘No, Kay, wait. You don’t know… You should let it heal.’ But it’s really because I’m not ready to see what’s under there. Katya’s hands are weak and they don’t put up a fight. There’s a small dressing on her left hand. That’s where she cut herself with the glass. I look at my scarred hand. For the first time in however long I’ve been here, something feels real.

  ‘Ah wht… ah wht thee you.’ She twines her fingers between mine. Her throat makes a phlegmy wheeze.

  ‘Sweetie, I’m not sure if… if that’s a good idea. We’ll ask a doctor, okay?’ I lie.

  She struggles to sit up and I prop her pillows behind her, then give her another sip of water.

  ‘I sh sho cared, Josh.’ She clears her throat and I can hear a hard wad of mucus detaching. ‘I was so scared.’ She grips my hand harder. She’s talking! Maybe this was all just a misunderstanding, maybe I was wrong. Maybe Lisa doesn’t have her face after all.

  But still that image is burned in my mind. The right face, on the wrong head. I trace the bandages with my fingertips, trying to feel the bone structure, trying to draw a picture in my mind of what is really under there. All I feel is gauze, soft to the touch, and the hard patches of dried blood beneath.

  Something thumps against the door. I ignore it.

  ‘Kay. That morning. The morning you left. Do you remember what happened?’

  ‘I’m always… I’m always… so…’

  I have to concentrate to make out the words, and I can hear from the sounds in her throat that she’s crying. Do you need your eyes to cry? But then I remember: Lisa doesn’t have her eyes. I consider opening up the bandages over them, but I don’t.

  ‘Don’t, Kay. So you’ll come home. That’s all I want to know.’

  ‘Yes.’ She squeezes my fingers again, then gasps and chokes. I feed her another sip of water.

  Another thump at the door, louder this time.