Coma

by Emmy Ellis

  Dirty, stinking, motherfucking bastard.

  Him. “Tell her, dickhead. Go on, I dare you.”

  And I did. I clutched the knife, gripped the handle really tight, and spewed it all out. I told her the lot. Gave her one last chance to be a mother and save me.

  She said to me, “You lying, filthy-minded little bastard. Get out of this house.”

  Scott laughed so hard he had tears streaming down his face, and Mags was all red, her cheeks flaming like mine did, and I hated it that I shared that affliction with her.

  Scott lunged at me with the Sellotape, ready to close up my mouth.

  I did it. Did it so quickly I didn’t even think about it.

  His neck gaped open, and Mags got the full spray of the blood. Redness covered her, and she screamed. She grabbed her hair and screeched so loud my brain vibrated with it.

  I wiped off the knife handle, covered my hand with my jumper, and threw the weapon on the floor. Standing there, I watched as Scott went down in slow motion. He hit the floor and whacked his head, his neck an estuary, his blood the sea.

  Mags picked up the knife and looked at it like she’d never seen one before. She flung it across the kitchen, held her hands to her cheeks, and shouted, “‘Don’t just stand there. Ring an ambulance.”

  I went to the phone, asked for an ambulance, told the operator, “My mum, she just killed her boyfriend.”

  Although it seemed like forever before the medics arrived, it was only minutes. When they got there, Scott was dead, her on the floor, babbling incoherently.

  “My son, he…my son he…”

  They took her away, and I visited her, but just the one time. I sat opposite her in a visiting room, looked at her lined face, at her ruddy cheeks from too much booze throughout her life. We stared at one another for a long time. She only said one sentence to me. Just one.

  “When I get out…when I get out…I’ll kill yours. Then we’ll be quits.”

  Chapter Nine

  WAYNE? CAN YOU HEAR ME, WAYNE?

  Oh, I heard that voice in my head, all right. I didn’t mind that one. Really, I didn’t. I’d listen to her. She’d found her way back.

  WAYNE? YOU NEED TO SORT YOURSELF OUT. YOU WERE OKAY WHEN I WAS HERE TENDING YOU. WILL YOU SORT YOURSELF OUT AGAIN, WAYNE?

  I would, but I don’t think I’ll ever know someone like you again, Barb, you know? I loved you, and I reckon love only comes once in a lifetime. I’m not lucky enough to get it again.

  YOU CAN TRY TO LOVE ANOTHER WHO IS LIKE ME, WAYNE.

  The Ribena bottle stood alone on my little table, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink it now. It was the same with old Matey. I didn’t have blue baths anymore. I didn’t drink tea. What was the point when a hand didn’t bring the cup over my right shoulder?

  WAYNE? DO IT AGAIN, LET YOURSELF LIKE ANOTHER ME.

  There isn’t another you, Barb. You know that.

  THERE IS ANOTHER ME. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF ME OUT THERE. JUST THE SAME. JUST LIKE ME.

  No there isn’t. You were the best thing since sliced bread. I got away with it once, but I’ll get caught next time, I will. Those policemen will be looking out for me, watching me. They think I abducted you.

  NO, THEY DON’T. YOU’RE TOO CLEVER, WAYNE. THEY BELIEVED YOU.

  On the table, my alien world sat alone, hers having been taken as evidence. It was probably sitting in a box next to the note.

  QUITS.

  The plasticine had crumbled. Symbolic.

  WAYNE? WAYNE?

  Yes?

  POST-IT NOTES. THAT’LL DO IT.

  It will?

  IT WILL.

  I went into the kitchen, found a Post-it booklet in a drawer, and sat at the dining room table. I got back up and made some tea, sat back down, and held the cup as if Barb were passing it to me over my shoulder. I missed her handing me my tea like that.

  I thought about everything.

  It took a while. The pink sun had set. The room was in darkness now, but I’d done it, finally thought about my past and purged it.

  CLEAR NOW, WAYNE? DID YOU SWEEP IT ALL UNDER THE CARPET NOW THAT YOU’VE SORTED IT OUT IN YOUR HEAD?

  Yes.

  GOOD. WE’RE A TEAM, RIGHT? BONNIE AND CLYDE, YES?

  Yes. We are.

  THEN I’LL COME AND VISIT YOU, WAYNE, MAKE SURE YOU’RE OKAY WITH YOUR NEW ME.

  You’ll make sure she keeps me safe, though? You know, make it so it works?

  I WILL.

  I love you, Barb.

  I LOVE YOU, TOO, WAYNE.

  * * * *

  I stared through the window of the coffee shop, and she sat on a bench out front. I had this nasty coffee in front of me, and it tasted bitter even with sugar. The sky was darkening, surrounding the girl so her pale face stood out. She had a head of black hair, a heavy curtain that fell forward, obscuring her features.

  I didn’t do it—couldn’t do it again. I was lying. I knew that. I always told lies, kidding myself that things had occurred and I had control and knew what was going to happen. Turned out my fantasy didn’t end as I wanted it to. I mean, I wanted to set up home with Barb but I couldn’t even get that right. Couldn’t even control that dream.

  It was their fault. They’d tinkered with my longings, fiddled about with the way it was meant to be just to spite me. Yeah, I knew all about it.

  I missed Barb like crazy, missed the way she sat and talked to me, told me all about her life. My tears were always hotter than normal when I cried for her. My throat hurt when I saw her in my head, my chest tight with grief. I loved her so much.

  I reckoned only special people could see how I saw. Everything with Barb happened, except it must have been on a different time span to the one everyone else lived on.

  That was it, you know. Different levels. I lived alongside everyone else, and at the same time, I lived somewhere else. Except it wasn’t somewhere else, it was the same place where everyone else lived but on a different step, a different flight. I knew it.

  I. Knew. It.

  So, I thought about being a kid, and Scott popped in my head. When he came to visit me now, I always felt young again, like I was still that kid. Inside myself, I was small, eight, nine, ten years old, and I could see Scott’s face. Everything about that arsehole was sinister.

  When I was young, I thought that when I got older this entire scaredy-cat shit would just go away. Everything you ever feared as a kid was supposed to vanish with the arrival of adulthood. It was like washing powder cleaned those stubborn stains and they were gone, but I bet if you put the material under the microscope it was still there. Things appeared gone, but inside, underneath it all, it was still there, loitering on a mental park bench.

  So Scott, he looked at me and sneered. Malevolence came off him in waves. It was like he emitted some kind of black aura—not lilac or pink or light blue like that psychic medium on the TV said we have—no, Scott’s was inky and nasty and scary. His frightening aura surrounded him as if he were this big shadow that stalked people.

  Scott said, “You’re nuts, Wayne. Fucking nuts.”

  The snide way he said it stung me more than the words did.

  I stared back at him. Please, leave me alone, will you?

  Scott knew what I was thinking, too, and he said, “No can do, kid. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I was flustered at the thought of this creep following me all over the place, dogging my every step, breathing down my neck.

  “Remember the peas, Wayne?”

  Oh, yeah, I remembered the peas.

  “Remember what was on the peas, Wayne?”

  I nodded at him as a woman walked past me.

  She said, “Hello. Having a good day?”

  I smiled at her, realising she must have thought I was greeting her when I was nodding at Scott.

  I wanted to get away from him and go home where I felt safe. My breath caught in my throat. A lump bloomed and filled my neck. I knew if I wasn’t careful I’d cry, cry where the people mi
ght see me and think I had a screw loose.

  I made it inside the house, closing the door just as Scott reached the doorstep. He howled out there, a lonely dog, silhouetted against an orange sun in a black sky. The dog pointed his muzzle upwards, howling louder…

  The noise thundered in my brain. I sat on the bottom stair, head in my hands, and took in deep breaths.

  Scott had gone now.

  Antsy, I felt the need to get out of there. Outside, the air was crisp. My feet took me to the coffee shop. You know, where I’d watched Barb. She seemed a million and one miles away now, a distant dream I could only recall parts of. Sitting in the same seat, I remembered how I’d felt when I’d spotted her for the first time, how my mind overtook my rational thoughts and forced me to take her.

  And, I’d thought about the Cairns holiday in Australia there, too, hadn’t I?

  The waitress took my order for some Hungarian goulash shit that was on special for today. I ordered coffee, too.

  The coffee wasn’t bitter this time round, though.

  So, as I sipped, I thought about Cairns and smiled. The trip was one of the last times I’d been truly happy. Mags, Dad, and me were all together as a family before everything had fallen apart, turning to shit.

  I didn’t remember much of the flight to Cairns except that it was long and we stopped off someplace where everyone looked Chinese. I did remember pulling up outside my aunt’s huge house.

  Mags said, “My God, will you look at how she’s landed on her feet.”

  Dad’s only reply was a grunt.

  We got out of the taxi, hauled our bags and cases onto the pavement, and stood staring at this house with its manicured lawn encircling the place.

  My auntie came running down the steps and flung herself at Mags. They cried and hugged, and I remember smiling so much it hurt. Dad stood there with his hands in his pockets until Mags and my auntie had finished. My auntie then flung herself at my dad and me. She grabbed me and pinched my cheeks, but it didn’t hurt at all.

  We walked into the house. It was so posh inside I was afraid to go near anything in case it got broken. Mags had already whispered for me not to touch anything or she’d give me a clip round the ear. I kept my arms straight down by my sides.

  Hustled from the large hall, which was the same size as my bedroom at home, we went into the modern and expensive kitchen, and I thought Auntie was so rich she must be able to afford to buy as many lollipops as she liked. Her kids had to be the luckiest alive.

  Worry curdled in my tummy again as I thought of the kids—my cousins—and I fretted on whether they would like me or if they’d think I was some scab-bag like the kids at school always called me. I knew I wasn’t a scab-bag because that day I had my new clothes on. I had a crisp pair of jeans and a red jumper with a dark-blue stripe across the chest.

  My cousins came out of the lounge. Those kids, a girl and a boy, maybe a year or two older than me, walked into the kitchen and grasped my hands, stroked my hair, and kept saying, “Our very own cousin. We have a cousin.”

  They smiled a lot and tugged me along and took me up the widest staircase I’d ever seen. The boy’s name was Harry; he had really blond hair that stuck up in all directions because it was curly and wouldn’t lay flat any way he tried it. And the girl’s name was Verity; she had dark-blonde hair that was straighter than Barb’s had been before I’d cut it off and ruined it. Before they’d made me cut it off, before they’d changed the way my thoughts were going. Spoiling it all.

  * * * *

  I slept fine, but he started before I’d even opened my eyes.

  “Wake up, Wayne. Look around.”

  Scott, fuck off.

  Maybe he’d go away. Conversing with them in my head just wasn’t working, so if I said it out loud, he’d leave. He’d know I really wasn’t going to put up with it anymore…

  “Wayne, Wayne, Wayne, you’re not fooling anyone except yourself. Open your eyes. Tell me what you see.”

  No. Go away, Scott. I can’t be arsed with this shit anymore.

  “Well, I’m not going away. I’m not going to vanish. Thought you would have accepted that by now. I’ve been in your life for years and I’ve got quite attached to you, really. Come on, Wayne. Open up!”

  If I rolled over, buried my head beneath the covers and kept my eyes shut, it’d be all right. If I stayed still, tried to tune out…

  Tune. Means many things. Tune, as in a melody. Tune. Tune in your TV. Tune with an S on the end; a sore throat lozenge that comes in strawberry, blackcurrant, cherry, or original flavours.

  I was tired, so fucking tired of all this. My brain hurt.

  “Wayne.”

  Goawaygoawaygoaway.

  “Wayne.”

  If I wasn’t nuts before, I soon would be, because Scott was doing my head in. Except now it wasn’t Scott, it was Mags. Mags saying my name; it was Mags in my head.

  “Wayne?”

  There was this girl I used to know. Her name was Nicola, and she was so pretty. Last time I saw her she had long blonde hair and dark sunglasses. Her hair danced around her head in the breeze and jived to its own tune.

  Tune. A melody…

  And, Nicola, she smiled at me and said, “Hello, Wayne. Come and see my rescue dog, he’s had puppies. I’m getting a black puppy.”

  “Wayne.”

  I don’t want them talking to me.

  “Wayne. Open your eyes.”

  I don’t want to.

  “Wayne. Open your eyes!”

  No.

  “Wayne, please. Please, open your eyes.”

  If I opened them, they’d just scare me, and I wouldn’t be in my bed anymore. If I opened my eyes, I’d have to face the truth, but I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to… I liked being here in my head, in the house I grew up in, and I liked working for Gary, and I liked my lounge with its TV cabinet and the shelf of videos with Liar Liar on it. I knew about Liar Liar because Mags and Scott told me about it.

  I loved my alien world on top of the cabinet with the plasticine people. Me and Barb against the world, the pink bushes, the cave.

  Someone else was talking. Doctor George. If I listened properly, everything would be taken away. My house, my car, my job. None of it would exist anymore, and I couldn’t manage without them. There was the bottle of Ribena in the kitchen.

  “Ribena!”

  “You want some Ribena, Wayne?”

  That was Mags. Why was she being nice, asking me if I want a fucking drink? What was she doing here anyway? I was a grown man, for Pete’s sake. I didn’t need her hanging around. Besides, she was in prison, so it couldn’t be Mags. This was just a trick. It was Scott, pretending to be Mags.

  “Wayne! That’s enough! We know you can hear us, that you’re listening. Come out from under the covers.”

  Scott was shouting. He sounded angry. Angry enough for me to come on out and open my eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  Mags and Scott stared at me. Doctor George stood to the side of their chairs. They were older than I remembered them. Mags looked haggard and drawn, and Scott had grey hair, and his face had sagged, his jowls heavy. He could be a totally different person if it wasn’t for his eyes. I’d know them anywhere.

  Spittle dribbled down my chin. Mags leaned forward and wiped it away, tears in her eyes.

  “Wayne?” Doctor George said.

  I moved my eyes to meet his. I gazed back at Mags, who had a drink carton of Ribena in her shaking hands, the straw already inserted, ready for me to sip.

  I wasn’t in my room, not in the pebble-dash house, and I knew—I fucking knew—if I opened my eyes, I wouldn’t be there anymore. I’d said that, hadn’t I?

  I stared out of the window. The bed I was in was quite high, so I could see far away across the grounds. Tree branches swayed, leaves rippled. Blocks of apartments, probably twenty floors high, were stoic against the blue of the sky, and the clouds bobbed along, fluffy and white. As white as the waves in Cairns.

  They
were quiet. They thought I was far away, off in a land of my own again, but I wasn’t.

  I wasn’t.

  “Wayne?” Doctor George said again.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to answer. Couldn’t bloody answer.

  Doctor George left the room, his sigh weary and incredibly loud. I blinked at the sound but continued to watch the clouds.

  “Do you think we should try the therapist?” Mags asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know, love. It’s been years. Years since he…” Scott lowered his voice, but I still heard him.

  They thought I didn’t know what they were saying, but I did. Reckoned I was a fucking cabbage, but I wasn’t.

  “…tried to stab me.”

  “But the medication change has shown some brain activity on the monitors. Shown there is something happening, that he does hear us. That he thinks and feels and, oh…” Mags started crying.

  This was all a ploy. I was having a dream. When I woke up, I’d be back in my bed at home. I’d get up, take a shower, and go to work to laugh with Gary about the receptionist’s tits.

  It had to be a trick, because Mags was in prison, and Scott was dead.

  “Mags. Try the therapist if you think it’ll do any good. If you think he can really hear us now and it might help him get his mind back, then for God’s sake, we’ll try it,” Scott said sadly. “At least then if it fails, we know we’ve tried everything possible.” He sighed. “Mags, if it doesn’t work, promise me you won’t let this take over our lives anymore. Promise me we’ll stop trooping up here day in, day out. Please, just say we can just visit during the weekends. He’s fine here, you know that…”

  Mags nodded, I could see her in my peripheral vision, but the clouds were still pretty. They calmed me, and I thought of candyfloss and nice things.

  “I know.” Mags sighed, too, and it was as loud as Doctor George’s had been earlier.

  If this therapist thing didn’t work out, they were going to leave me and not visit as often. Fuck them. Fuck them all.

  “He can talk, Mags. If he can say Ribena, he can say other things. His brain’s shut it all out. I think maybe you’re right. A therapist might get him to talk. I’ve thought for a very long time that this dribbling shit is a put-on, that he’s just in a world of his own since his dad died, since I came along. I think…”