by Dani Atkins
Will reached for my free hand, and squeezed it encouragingly.
‘Once we’ve cut the safety bar off, we’ll begin slicing through the carriage. We’re going to start on Will’s side first, so you’ll be getting the lucky first ticket out of here.’
‘No.’ There couldn’t have been a single head that didn’t turn towards Will in astonishment. ‘Get Bella out first. Once she’s free then you can work on me.’
The fire officer shook his head slowly, with an ‘I’ve-heard-it-all-before’ kind of expression on his face.
‘That’s very noble of you, son, but that’s not how things work around here. We get to decide the order of things, so we can keep everyone safe – my crew as well as you two.’
‘I don’t want to leave Bella alone,’ Will said, shaking his head slowly as though politely refusing the dessert trolley.
‘Hey. What are we? Chopped liver?’ said Vince, resting his hand on Will’s forearm. ‘We’re going to be right here with her all the time, mate. She won’t be alone. You can trust us to take good care of her until you see her again.’
Will still looked as though he was about to refuse, but I saw the way Vince’s fingers had tightened around the suntanned skin of Will’s arm. The two men locked eyes, and a silent conversation took place. This was more than just reverse chivalry, or even expediency. There was a reason Will needed to be out of the way before they set me free. One of us was in a far more serious condition than we realised, and I saw in Will’s eyes that he’d already worked out who it was.
‘I promised I’d stay with you.’
‘That’s okay,’ I whispered, feeling naked and vulnerable in front of the team of professionals listening in on our conversation. ‘I’m going to be fine.’
As the firemen began getting their equipment into position, Cathy and Vince were busy doing the same with their own.
‘It’s impossible to know how the situation will change once you’re both free,’ Cathy explained, checking that the neck brace she’d slipped around me earlier was still secure. Will was also wearing one, and as they slid a long board beside the track in preparation for lifting him away, I felt panicked by our imminent separation. He said he didn’t want to leave me, and more than anything I selfishly didn’t want him to go.
The sun was much lower in the sky when they were ready to begin slicing through the carriage with hydraulic cutters and spreaders. A heavy canvas sheet had been draped in front of us, which I imagined was as much to prevent us from seeing our injuries as it was to protect us from loosely flying pieces of debris.
The first sparks of pain began to pierce the numbness almost as soon as the safety bar had been removed. I took a draught of the gas and air Cathy was holding in readiness, grateful for the woozy half-drunk feeling it gave me.
Even with their sophisticated extraction equipment, it still took time for the firemen to cut open the twisted metal, but eventually the front of the carriage was peeled back as effortlessly as a sardine can.
For all his earlier bravery, Will was clearly in a lot of pain as experienced hands slipped beneath him to slide him on to the waiting board. Even so, he still held on to my hand until the very last moment, when Vince gently disengaged our fingers. The rescuers worked with efficient urgency as they strapped the man who’d shared every moment of this terrible experience with me on to the board.
With his head securely fastened Will could no longer turn to look at me, so his parting words were addressed to the sky as they carried him on to the cherry picker’s platform. ‘Stay strong, Bella. I’ll do everything I can to get a message to your dad when I’m down. I’ll see you very soon.’
I wanted to thank him, not just for remembering how desperately worried I was about my father, but also for everything else he’d done for me over the last five hours. But I didn’t have the words, and even if I’d miraculously found them, the pain that had started as an angry growl when they’d begun to free us had now become a ferocious roar. I sucked hungrily on the mouthpiece, gulping down enormous lungfuls of pain relief, as everything slowly swam out of focus.
13
Faces stared down at me; some I knew, some belonged to strangers. They floated on disembodied heads in and out of my field of vision. I struggled to move, but was powerless to do so, for I was still trapped. Only now it wasn’t just my legs, it was my whole body. I strained against immovable straps. Someone had tied me down, but I had no idea why. The next time my eyes fluttered open, they didn’t immediately close again. The faces were gone and I was alone.
Slowly, in sharp-edged fragments, the day began to return to me. The pink limousine… my first ride of the day, and the ambulance with the wailing sirens… my last one.
My eyes flitted from side to side, seeing the same blue fabric curtains to my left and right. From beyond them came a low drone of background noise and voices, which were occasionally punctuated by the squeak of rubber wheels on linoleum. I was in a cubicle, and logic told me it must be in a hospital, although I had no memory of being brought here.
A small oblong window set high in the wall revealed that what little light the day had left was fading fast, although I was sure the sun hadn’t yet set when they’d begun to cut me from the crushed carriage. It had taken them longer than they were expecting to extricate me. Mercifully, most of what had happened existed on a different plane of consciousness to the one I’d been on. Although only loosely tethered to the present, there had been moments when fear or pain had tugged me right back down into the thick of things. I could remember hearing Vince urgently insisting that it was time to call for a surgeon, which had made no sense at all to me. It was the fire chief, whose name I’d never been told, who’d urged him to wait. ‘Just give us ten more minutes. If we haven’t got her out by then… you can make the call.’
It was only now that I understood why a surgeon would have been summoned to the accident site. Had those ten minutes been enough? My terrified gaze flashed to the foot of the bed. There was a huge frame holding the blankets away from my lower limbs. I had no idea what was beneath it… was it the outline of my lower legs, or a dreadful void where they should have been?
The cry that escaped my throat didn’t sound entirely human, but there were people standing beyond the cubicle who recognised its timbre and inflection. They came running. The curtain rings screeched on the metal pole like angry barn owls as first my father and then my best friend surged into the tiny cubicle. As they approached, my first thought was that they both looked sick enough to warrant hospital beds of their own. I looked beyond the pair, searching for another face, but there was no one behind them.
My father has a ruddy complexion. Even in the depths of winter he still looks like he’s spent his day under a blistering sun or on the bow of a ship. The only time I’d ever seen his face bleached of colour, as it was now, was on the day of Mum’s funeral. It was a horrible thought to have lodged in my head as he reached for my hand, which was lying like a broken wing beside me. His thick fingers, bearing the cuts and scars of his work tools, were gentle as they expertly wove beneath the trailing wires and tubes, without once disturbing the canula embedded in the back of my hand. Even the skills you don’t choose to remember are sometimes hard to forget.
‘Daddy.’ When had I last called him that? Not for a decade or more, I’m sure.
‘I’m here, baby, I’m right here,’ he replied. But he lied, for this hollowed-out shell of a man wasn’t my bold, fearless father. This wasn’t the man who’d vowed to slay the monsters living beneath my bed, or any boy who dared to break my heart. This man was fragile and afraid, and barely in control of the limbs that were trembling almost as much as his voice.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.’ The words sounded thick and woolly in my mouth.
‘I got here as fast as I could.’
Once again my eyes strayed to the curtains behind him.
‘Your dad heard the news and came straight to the park.’ I turned to Sasha on the other side of my
hospital bed. Her hair was dishevelled and her make-up was streaked like dirt stains down her cheeks. It was the closest nature would allow her to look less than beautiful, with swollen eyelids and freckles that stood out like paint splatters across her nose. ‘God knows how he got past the security cordon to find us in the crowd. But he did.’
‘How bad is it, Dad? What’s happened to my legs?’ My eyes went fearfully to the frame that hid the truth beneath a canopy of blankets.
‘You’ve got some pretty serious injuries to both of them.’ His eyes skittered away from mine as though afraid of what I would read in them. ‘They need to operate on them straight away.’
‘Tonight?’
He nodded and glanced briefly at his wrist watch. ‘Right now. They told us we could only see you for a moment before they take you up.’
‘But they can fix me, right?’
Dad had the kind of eyes that were born to tell nothing but the truth, however hard it was to hear. What they told me now was that the damage was so much worse than a jumble of broken bones.
‘They say the trauma surgeon here is one of the best in the country. He served in Afghanistan with the army. We’re lucky to have him.’
I felt a great many things right then, but lucky wasn’t one of them. And it wasn’t a glowing résumé that I wanted, it was an assurance that everything was going to be all right. It was the one thing my father couldn’t give me.
‘Are there… are there any other people here?’
‘We sent the girls home in the limo a couple of hours ago, if that’s what you mean,’ explained my father. ‘Sasha here refused to go with them.’
Sasha’s hand linked with mine, the way it had done a thousand times before. Her slim fingers squeezed lightly; she understood it wasn’t the missing bridesmaids I’d been asking about.
‘I’ve left messages everywhere for Aaron, but so far he hasn’t answered any of them. I’ll keep trying to get hold of him while you’re in surgery,’ she promised. Her eyes were swimming with tears, and with a single blink one fell from her cheek on to mine. ‘I’m so sorry, Bella. I never should have left you. I’m the worst friend in the entire world.’
There was no feigning my surprise at her remorse. It was completely genuine. ‘What are you talking about? You did nothing wrong. If you hadn’t got off when you did, then we’d both have been hurt, instead of just me.’ Except of course it wasn’t just me, was it? It never had been. Whatever I was going to say next was cut short as the cubicle curtains flew apart, like the opening of a stage show. A nurse and two orderlies stood in the entrance.
‘It’s time for you to go up,’ the nurse informed us kindly. ‘You need to say your goodbyes now.’
‘Just one more moment,’ I pleaded, my eyes darting from the nurse back to my friend. ‘Have you heard anything about Will? How is he doing?’
‘Who’s Will?’
‘He was the guy in the carriage with me. You got out… he got in.’
I could practically see the weight of even more guilt buckling Sasha’s slender shoulders. ‘I don’t know how anyone else from the ride is doing. I’ll try and find out for you.’ She bent low and kissed my cheek and then practically ran from the cubicle. A muted sob, the kind that squeezes past the knuckles you’re biting down on, followed behind her.
‘Whatever happens, Bella, we’re going to get through this,’ vowed my father, gathering both of my hands within his bear-paw-sized ones. ‘We’re strong, you and me. We’ve been through worse than this.’
‘We really do have to take her now,’ reminded the nurse, with just a hint of an edge to her voice. Dad nodded, but held fast to my hand as they uncoupled the bed from the bay. He walked beside me the entire length of the corridor until we reached a bank of lifts.
‘Can I go up with her?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Anderson, but it’s not allowed,’ replied the nurse, laying a hand on his shoulder, as though that would ever have stopped him. For the second time that day, I was about to be separated from someone I needed at my side. First it had been Will, and now it was Dad.
‘Take care of my little girl,’ he solemnly instructed as they wheeled me into the lift.
My eyes went to his face and stayed locked there until the very last moment, when the closing doors hid him from sight. My father came from a family who suppressed their tears. It took a lot to make him cry, and I’d only ever seen him do so twice in my entire life: on the night we lost Mum, and now again tonight.
*
An operation that lasts over seven hours is hard on a great many people: the surgeon; the anaesthetist and theatre staff; and of course on the friends and relatives who can do nothing except sit and wait for news. Ironically, the only person who doesn’t suffer during that kind of marathon surgery is the patient themself. Their turn comes later.
I could hear snoring; deep stertorous snorts, that seemed to be reverberating around the room. Was that Aaron? The only time he ever snored like that was when he’d been drinking heavily, but I couldn’t remember us going out the night before… or whose bed I was currently sleeping in, come to that, because it certainly didn’t feel like mine. Panic brought me fully awake. Normally once you open your eyes the night terrors disappear, but for me that was when they started.
The light slicing through the window had a pink luminescent glow, and it took me several confusing moments to realise that what I was looking at was the dawn of a new day, rather than the fading stains of the old one. Like a scrolling slide show, yesterday’s memories inserted themselves into the present, bringing with them a fear so immense I immediately began to shake.
My heart was thundering out of control as I lifted my head from the pillows and forced my eyes to focus on the foot of the bed. I have a strong stomach – it’s pretty much essential when you work with animals – but seeing my legs encased in metal frames, with bolts and rods disappearing into the flesh, was almost too much to cope with. It looked like someone had gone to work with a Meccano set in an abattoir. My stomach, which fortunately was entirely empty, gave a token revolt and continued to roll mutinously until I dragged my eyes from the horror show of my lower limbs.
I flopped back against the starchy hospital pillows as hot salty tears escaped from my eyes and trickled lazily into my ears. He’d done it. The surgeon, who’d been just a kindly pair of dark brown eyes above a theatre mask, had kept his word. The last thing I remember hearing as I began counting back from a hundred was his promise that he’d do everything in his power to save my legs. At that moment I didn’t care how grotesque they looked; at least they were still here.
‘You’re awake,’ cried a familiar voice as the snoring came to an abrupt stop.
I smiled at my dad, who was slowly unfurling himself from the pretzel-like position he’d been sleeping in. He was way too tall to have slept in that uncomfortable bedside chair, although I doubt anyone would have been able to persuade him out of it. Something about seeing his legs cramped up like that tugged on a memory, but every time I tried to reach out and grab it, it slipped through my grasp like smoke. My gaze travelled around the room I’d been brought to, searching for someone.
‘Where’s Sasha?’
‘I put her in a taxi a couple of hours ago and sent her home. She refused to leave until you were safely out of theatre, but she was absolutely exhausted.’
The smile I was aiming for twisted into a wince of pain as I turned too quickly towards him. Dad’s face instantly darkened with concern. ‘Steady, Bella. You need to lie completely still. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.’
I wasn’t sure which one he was referring to: the crash, or the operation afterwards to fix me. As far as horrible experiences went, they felt pretty much on a par to me.
*
I’d never been a hospital patient before; I’d not broken a single bone in my childhood. Somehow I’d learnt to climb trees, ride a bicycle and bounce on trampolines without suffering any kind of mishap. But I was certainly making up for it now. The team
of doctors surrounding my bed were looking down at me with the kind of interest zoo residents are probably familiar with. There were a great many young faces among the white-coated doctors, who I imagined were probably students. The fact that my injuries were of such interest and fascination to them could only be a bad thing, I concluded.
They answered the consultant’s quick-fire questions, speaking in medicalese that no amount of Grey’s Anatomy viewing could help me understand. Finally, the band of trainees were dismissed, leaving only the surgeon and his registrars at my bedside.
The first thing my father did was to thrust out a hand to shake those of the three men flanking my bed. ‘I know I thanked you last night, but well, I was in a bit of a state then, what with everything…’ His voice trailed off, and it was probably as obvious to the doctors as it was to me that he was still very traumatised by recent events.
‘So, young lady. You set us quite a challenge last night.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, my voice a curious mixture of apology and concern.
‘As we explained to your father last night, we’re very pleased with how this first operation went.’
In my head it felt as though a heavy metal door was being slammed shut. Locked behind it was the life I had known before. Someone had to say it. In the end, my dad did.
‘First operation?’
For the next twenty minutes we were tumbling in freefall, lurching from one piece of bad news to the next, as we learnt what my immediate future was going to look like. The very worst moment was probably when the surgeon reached for a chart and began listing the injuries I’d sustained – this time in layman’s terms. He turned over two sheets of A4 paper in the file before he was through. There didn’t seem to be a single bone that I hadn’t crushed or broken in multiple places, or a muscle left un-torn, or ligament undamaged. I’d woken that morning feeling that keeping my legs had been the hurdle we’d had to overcome, so it was doubly devastating to learn that this was just phase one of the long process of putting me back together again.
