Tainted Touch

by Lucy V. Morgan

  “She sounds like she needs someone patient. And he sounds like he’s been patient enough.”

  “Yeah.” I glance at Art, who’s still bedheaded and flushed with sleep, and find my temperature rising a few degrees. “That’s a pretty astute way of putting it, actually.”

  It’s weird when I realise how little he knows about my friends. I’ve only known him a couple of weeks, but we’re already so intimate that if feels strange to think he hasn’t met them. He has, of course, met Mills. Almost made it his job to do so.

  Mills. This crumpled heap of her beneath Aidan’s sheets, it spits itself into my vision. And I know it won’t be long before I break.

  With a slow exhalation, Art reaches for me again. Caresses my thigh. “Lovely. It’s all going to be okay, understand?”

  I give a feeble little nod. “Can we just put on some music or something?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  After digging his iPod from the glovebox, I find the album we listened to on the way home from London. Rain beats down on the roof of the car; Perfect Crime seeps through the speakers, evoking memories of deadpan giggles and cynical smiles. I put it on loop, but Art never complains.

  It takes another forty minutes to reach the hospital. I ring Mom while Art parks the car, and as we approach the Accident and Emergency entrance, she appears in the doorway to take us to Mills.

  At first, I don’t notice her. I’m still so tired, and there’s an ambulance in the way, its siren bleeding blue into the night. A moment later, it pulls away and Mom’s round figure stands outside the glass doors. She’s wearing her long green cardigan, the one gran knitted with flowers individually stitched around the hem, and though she’s never been a small woman, the brevity of the situation dwarfs her. Makes her hunch.

  The wind tears cold chunks from my neck; I yank my collar up to hide Art’s bruised moment of weakness from prying eyes. He gives my hand a squeeze, then releases it. And I rush to Mom, arms flying around the breadth of her middle and my face buried in her rain-soaked grey braid.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Caitlyn,” she says, her voice hoarse.

  I say nothing. Just hug her harder.

  “And who’s this?” Mom asks.

  It takes a moment to realise that Art has appeared beside us. He rests a tentative hand on the small of my back, and I ease back to return his touch. This must make him feel so awkward–yet we have no time for big introductions.

  I must’ve paused too long, because Art gets in first, offering Mom his hand.

  “We spoke on the phone,” he says. “I’m Art.”

  “Ah. Yes.” Mom’s eyes widen slightly, but she manages a half smile. It’s more than I’d hoped for, frankly. “Cait’s boyfriend.”

  “Recent development,” I add, trying not to look sheepish. Though there’s something very sweet about the idea of Art answering the phone to her and introducing himself as such. I kind of wish I’d heard him.

  “Well. Thank you for coming so quickly. Both of you.” She gives Art this measured little nod of approval, and that’s it. The moment lifts. “We’d best get back in.”

  The hospital corridors shift and shudder with footfall. The blare of fluorescent lights feels like being sprayed with mace. Mom walks with her usual determined stamina, and it’s not easy to keep up with her and talk at the same time.

  She leads us out of A&E, and down a corridor to the lifts. There, we squash in behind two orderlies with patients in wheelchairs.

  “So what’s happening?” I hiss to her. “Is she okay?”

  The lift beeps, and the orderlies roll out. Mom waits for the doors to close.

  “What did Art tell you?”

  “That she was at a party and drank too much.” I gulp. “And that they were running some…tests.”

  “They’ve run the tests.”

  That’s all she has to say? “I don’t understand this. How it happened. Mills doesn’t drink that much, Mom. And she’d never take anything, it wouldn’t be like her.”

  The lift announces our destination, and we follow Mom out on to floor four. Art keeps a steady grip on my hand.

  “So where is she?” I ask, staring down the red and green list of wards that consumes the wall in front of us. They have horrible names like Geriatric. Cardiac. High Dependency Unit.

  A pair of nurses with clipboards step around Mom. She barely notices them.

  “She’s in resus,” Mom says blankly.

  “What?” My pulse ramps up fifty miles an hour, and Art’s arm stiffens in my grip. “Like…resuscitation?”

  “She deteriorated on arrival. It was a close one.” Mom steps back against the wall, gestures for us to follow. Her voice begins to tremble. “Caitlyn…Millie took an overdose. Paracetamol, they’re saying now. All washed down with more vodka than I want to think about.”

  The tears spew in. This my lighthouse, and these are my waves. “But she was at a party!” I nearly shout. “Where the fuck were her friends?”

  “She hid in a garden shed. They called me around midnight…they’d only lost her for about twenty minutes. We’re not really sure what happened.” She puts a hand to her forehead, sighs helplessly. “We’re lucky it was only paracetamol. The drugs that girl has access to at work–it could have been so much worse.”

  “Her drink could’ve been spiked.”

  “It could have. But that isn’t what happened here.”

  Art has moved behind me now, his arm firm about my waist. He’s just strong and warm and there–though I can’t ignore how tense he is.

  “Is she going to be all right?” I whimper.

  Mom sighs again. “They don’t know. I don’t know. She’s stable now–they’re trying to find her a bed on the wards. They want a psychologist to see her for an evaluation, but we could easily be waiting until Monday for that. I suspect she’ll be here for a while.”

  “But what about school? She can’t miss–”

  “She might not be going back to school this term, Caitlyn,” Mom says sharply. “For the time being, all bets are off.”

  I bring up a trembling hand and blot carelessly at my tears. “Can I see her?”

  “Not until they move her. She’s not awake, sweet. She doesn’t know what’s going on.”

  “Hey.” Art clears his throat. “Why don’t we go get some coffee? Have a sit down.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Mom gives him a grateful look. “There’s a waiting area down the hall, and I’ll come and find you when I know more.”

  I start to protest, but Art gives me a silencing squeeze.

  “We’re better off out of the way for a bit.” He looks at Mom. “Can we get you anything, um…?”

  Ah, crap. We haven’t even told him her name. This is so not how I wanted all this to play out.

  “Ingrid,” she supplies, not without a flicker of amusement. “And I’m quite all right, thank you. I’ve already had about three cups.”

  Art puts his hand out to her, and she gives it a tentative pump. Have to wonder whose handshake is harder–the boxer’s, or my mother’s. Weep.

  The next fifteen minutes are spent shuffling along the endless corridors in search of vending machines and toilets. That fabled hospital smell–antibacterial cleaner, stale air, fresh plastic–it colludes with adrenaline to set my pulse points alight. In the end, I can’t face the thin, watery coffee on offer and opt for a Pepsi instead.

  When we traipse back to the waiting area, two of the seats are occupied by familiar faces: Grey and Loki, Millie’s best friends. Loki is a tall, skinny reach of a boy with dyed black hair swept across his forehead to form a sharp side parting. Grey leans on his shoulder, crushing her ombre pink pigtails in the process. Both wear crumpled band tshirts stained with beer, and black eyeliner bleeds half way down their cheeks. The night has not been kind to them.

  Loki gives me a silent nod of acknowledgement, and a sniff.

  Grey is more forthcoming. “We’re really sorry,” she whispers, casting a weary glance a
t Art. “We thought she’d just gone to the toilet, Cait. We didn’t know…”

  “That’s often the way of it,” Art tells her. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but the meaning of his words hits me and I stagger back into a cold plastic seat. If we’re going to talk blame…a fat mess of it oozes about my shoulders. What did she say, last weekend?

  “I need to go to sleep before I vomit.”

  “Jeez, Mills. That doesn’t sound safe.”

  “Oh, it’s fine. I do it all the time now…”

  Of course she’s been drinking more. She told me as much, that she’d been drinking herself to sleep. How could I be so obtuse as to ignore that?

  And The Waves. She poked and prodded me to read it, yet I still haven’t finished the damn thing. I was so self-centred to see myself in Grace, to think we were just bonding over some universal female character when Millie was trying to tell me about her lighthouse. Her beasts.

  The tears roll in like final curtains. My sister deserves more than a bitter, salty encore, but it’s all I have. Art wraps me in his arms and I press my face into the soft fabric of his hoodie, hide myself in the faintly spiced smell of everything that’s him.

  An hour passes, maybe more. The hospital grows quieter as the dregs of midnight accidents fade away. Grey and Loki mutter to each other, work through a heap of tissues, mess around constantly on their phones. Art dozes lightly, his cheek pressed to the top of my head–the more time I spend with him, the more I realise what a black and white world I lived in without the comfort of his touch. The white part, I always saw in myself, but the lack of colour evaded me and the dark hid in corners of denial. Would I have coped without him tonight? Of course–I’d have found a late night train or cab, or Rich and Drew would’ve brought me. But nobody makes it quite as easy for me to let go as Art does. With him, I feel like I can crumble. Be weak. And I need that tonight most of all.

  Eventually, Mom surfaces to tell us they’re moving Mills to the MAU. She looks so tired, and I wish there were someone for her to be weak with, too. Something about hospitals wakes your sense of loss. Leaves you wanting, hollow. Tuning it out again is like tearing off a fingernail.

  “So when can I see her?” I ask again.

  Mom pulls at her braid. “I’ll come and fetch you after the transfer. She’s coming around a little, now and again. You might get a hello if you’re lucky.” Then she stalks back down the hall.

  Art brushes a kiss to my forehead. “Not long to go.”

  “I need to find a loo.” Such is the consequence of necking two cans of Pepsi one after the other, but the cold fizz soothed my dry throat, and the sugar kept me wired. “Back in five, okay?”

  “Take care.”

  “Come find me if Mom comes back–I don’t want to miss her.”

  I drag limbs of rock and rubble past the lifts and vending machines and lonely potted plants, past the gift shop’s sealed tight shutters, past a forlorn, tired guy carrying an empty infant car seat and a group of Pakistani women huddled in sequinned saris. In the bathroom, I feed a coin into the machine for a disposable toothbrush, and chew on it hard to mask my stale morning breath. Everything feels lukewarm, half-dead; my circulation, my feet, my flesh.

  On the way back out, I have to force myself to blink just to stay awake. It’s funny how tiredness gets to me in situations like this; I don’t feel it the normal way, as if I want to curl up and sleep. My brain, on the contrary, is buzzed beyond belief. It’s my body that can’t keep up.

  “Cait?”

  “Hmm?” I turn, still blinking, and look for the familiar voice. Although I don’t remember being followed.

  “Shit. Thank God. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  I have to squint at the talking figure because his head is blurry, and I’m seeing him twice.

  “Cait?” he says again, evidently aggravated. “Over here…?”

  His silhouettes merge. Blurred features pixelate, one by one.

  Dominic. Two feet away. He stands braced beside the shop shutters, his auburn hair flattened by the rain.

  What the actual fuck?

  I put a hand up to my temple and rub. This isn’t happening. “Why…why are you here?”

  “Millie, obviously. It’s all over Facebook.” He steps closer; I step back. “Figured you could use some company.”

  “I have company.”

  Dominic leans forward and peers down either side of the corridor. “Doesn’t look like it to me.”

  Vicky’s harsh words seep toward my tongue. “This is really inappropriate,” I find myself saying. I’m not quite in my own body tonight. “You’ve got no business being here.”

  He gives me one of those looks I recognise so well–the slow dart of one eyebrow, the tug at the corners of his lips. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

  “I mean it,” I say, louder.

  “I was worried about you,” he says.

  “Do you even know what that feels like?”

  He folds his arms and leans back on the shutters, as if trying not to seem predatory. But the eerie light in his eyes doesn’t fade. “Ah, I remember now–you can’t see it, so I can’t be feeling it. Right. This, I haven’t missed at all.”

  “So why,” I say through my teeth, “are you here?” Just looking at him makes my skin itch. I want to scratch away all memory of him but in the process, I’d tear myself apart. I wish I didn’t remember the expanse of his naked back, always so pale in the lamp light, always turned away from me in bed. I wish the sight of his flexing fingers didn’t pin me to a cross, one arm nailed to a lover’s lament and the other, quivering in fear.

  “Cait. Look at you–you need to sit down. Come on.” He cocks his head back toward the seating area at the closed cafe. “We’ll go talk it out.”

  “If this had happened while we were together, you wouldn’t ask me to talk about anything. You’d have huffed and sworn for every mile you drove here, and you’d have sat with a face like a smacked arse until you could leave.”

  He steps closer again. Bites his lip. Doesn’t deny a word I’ve said. “But I’m not leaving now. Cait, I’m right here.” He spreads his hands, as if asking for mercy.

  For forgiveness.

  As Drew would say: fuck that for a barrel of ball juice.

  I take a deep breath, draw my words up cold and tight. “Either you leave, or I’ll call security.”

  He snorts. “I’m allowed to be in a hospital. It’s a public facility.”

  “This is harassment. I’ll call the police.”

  “Okay then.” He spreads his hands further, daring me. Or humouring me. I’m not entirely sure which. “Call them. Go on. Let’s see how you really feel about this.”

  I slip my hand down to my coat pocket, patting about for my phone. Except it’s not in my pocket. It’s in my handbag, which I left on Art’s lap. Arses. Dominic scrutinises every little twist of this realisation, and pulls a thin smile.

  “I guess you left it with your company.”

  “She did,” Art says.

  My heart thumps up into my throat as he stands behind me, hands very firmly on my shoulders. He scrapes my loose hair back, bunches it; a taste of the intimacy we share, right where Dominic can see it.

  My lovebite, right where Dominic can see it.

  I’ve never seen his eyes bulge so hard.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” Art says quietly. “And you are…?”

  Five seconds stretch, streaks of light tapering between them as Dominic soaks up the display. The bite, darkened in the last day, sits above my collarbone in a smudge of flushed plum; Art seemed so ashamed of his handiwork and yet here he is, using it to goad another man. If I had to make a list of things that would never go well, this would be smack bang at the top of it.

  But here we are.

  Holy fuck, men are stupid sometimes. Judging by the cold glares shooting between Art and Dominic, we’re about to haemorrhage IQ points from either side. My
heartbeat skitters and dips.

  Dominic flinches at my neck. “Jesus Christ, Cait. Are you sure you don’t want me to call the police for you?”

  For a beat, nothing happens. The first thing I feel is my hair drifting down to kiss my shoulders, very slowly. Art’s heat is no longer at my back; it’s in front of me, getting further and further away, and then Dominic seems to sink down against the shop shutters of his own accord. There’s shouting, someone speaking very fast.

  I leap forward to grab the sleeve of Art’s hoodie, but too late. He holds Dominic by the collar, shoving him down into a heap; his raises his fist slowly.

  “Don’t!” I shout, tearing at his hood. “It’s not worth the–”

  He staggers back, clutching at his sore neck, but doesn’t lose his grip on Dominic for a second and is soon standing over him again, seething. Crimson mists his cheekbones, and smoke swells the pupils of his amber eyes.

  Dominic stares up at him, breathing hard. “Go on then.”

  “Art,” I beg, “please don’t get yourself into trouble for this. It’s not worth it.”

  We wait for more stretched seconds. A nurse appears at the end of the corridor, her brow furrowed in dismay, and I shake my head, imploring her. God, don’t let Art get chucked out for this.

  Art brings his fist around to Dominic’s face and lets it sit there, just inches from his nose. Turns it. “Cait?”

  “Yeah…?”

  “This piece of shit ever raise his hand to you?”

  Dominic’s gaze flickers down. Guilt…hell. It really doesn’t become him.

  “Once,” I mutter.

  Art gives Dominic’s collar a yank. “You hit her?”

  “No!” he exclaims. “I–once, I was provoked, but I never–”

  “You know what abusive pricks like you do when they think they’re being clever?” Art brings his fist down roughly on Dominic’s breastbone. It lands with a hollow thump, making him grunt. “They hide it. You hit her here, again and again. Where you thought nobody could see.”

  “Art,” I hiss in warning. The nurse has hurried off in the direction of the front desk.