by Dani Atkins
‘I’d really like you to read it.’
I was flattered and a little confused. ‘Unless it’s about dogs, I’m not going to be much help to you. That’s all I really know about.’
‘You might surprise yourself,’ Will replied enigmatically, and he steadfastly refused to reveal anything more about his project. ‘You’re just going to have to wait,’ he said.
‘I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.’
*
From my hospital bed, I watched the leaves turn brown and curl on the trees. I saw them flutter from their branches in slow, lazily falling flurries as the sky turned from summertime blue to the autumn grey of a dove’s wing. I had been in hospital for over five months by then, and had undergone four fairly major surgeries with varying degrees of success, and endless hours of therapy, both physical and psychological. Somewhere along the line I’d reached a curious tipping point where my life within the hospital began to seem more real to me than the one I’d lived before. The new reality had superimposed itself over the old one.
*
I should have been ecstatic at the prospect of leaving hospital in a few days’ time, but frankly the thought of doing so terrified me. An agreement had been reached with the surgical team that I should wait six months before deciding whether to have any further operations. ‘Let’s see how you cope outside of the hospital and how good a handle we have on your pain management before we make any further decisions,’ my surgeon had advised. At the time I’d been thrilled at the prospect of finally leaving the hospital ward far behind me, but now the idea just sounded terrifying.
Dad, of course, had gone straight into practical mode. Finally, after months of feeling impotent and helpless, he at last had a chance to be useful. For the last three weeks he’d cancelled all his other jobs and spent his time modifying both my flat and Doggy Divas so that I could get around. Putting his carpentry skills to good use, surfaces had been lowered, doorways widened, and ramps installed wherever a step dared to rear its ugly head. ‘You do realise there are probably all sorts of local authority departments that would have done this kind of stuff for us,’ I said gently as he explained in detail about the handrail he’d installed by the loo so that I could manoeuvre myself on and off without help. Physical therapy had strengthened my core and upper body to a level it had never achieved before. I had biceps to rival Madonna’s, and the larger dogs that previously only Wayne had been able to handle wouldn’t stand a chance against my Superwoman-sized muscles. But it wasn’t an across-the-board success story. I could stand – with support – for only a moment or two, and taking even a minute baby step was still beyond me. ‘Plenty of time for all that,’ assured Heidi, the chief physiotherapist, after yet another attempt to do so had resulted in me collapsing back in a sweat-drenched heap on to my wheelchair. ‘Everyone progresses at different speeds. If I can get someone walking after a six-year coma, I’m certainly not giving up on you yet.’ I admired her feisty optimism, although I wasn’t sure I was ever destined to end up as one of her success stories.
‘All I hope is that one day you can get me walking as well as Will does these days. He’s got no trace of a limp any more.’
‘Who?’ asked Heidi distractedly, as she keyed information into her computer.
‘Will. Will Carmichael. He’s still one of your patients. He shattered his ankle in the same accident that I was injured in.’
The blonde cropped-haired physiotherapist shook her head slowly, before gearing up for yet another act of torture to put me through. ‘Sorry. I don’t recognise the name. Are you sure he’s one of my patients?’
*
‘I have something important to tell you.’
I looked at Sasha, who was fiddling with the long mohair scarf she’d just unwound from around her neck. She was plucking distractedly at the fibrous threads as though she was de-feathering a chicken.
‘You’re pregnant!’ I guessed delightedly. ‘I’m going to be a godmother.’
Sasha looked up from the mutilation of her scarf with horrified eyes. ‘No! Give us a chance, Bells, we’ve only been married for thirty seconds.’
‘Five months, three weeks and two days, actually,’ I corrected. Long-term hospital incarceration makes you an excellent marker of time.
Sasha shook her head, still looking perturbed.
‘So what’s this news then?’
She looked down at her knees, as though the fabric of her denim jeans needed her full attention. ‘I’m not sure I want to tell you.’
‘Then why did you mention it?’
Sasha looked up with tortured eyes. ‘Because I have to, even though I’m not sure I should.’
I repositioned my wheelchair, parking it even closer to the visitor’s seat she was occupying. I was getting pretty nifty with it these days. ‘You’d better spit it out before I throttle it out of you with just one arm.’ I pulled back the sleeve of my T-shirt and flexed a pretty impressive bicep. ‘I could do it now, you know.’
Even that barely elicited a smile. For the first time, I started to feel worried. ‘Sasha, what is it? You’re beginning to scare me.’
The fact that she took my hand in hers before speaking didn’t do much to calm me down. ‘I saw Aaron the other day.’
My heart took a moment or two longer to deal with this news than my brain did. It skipped a beat and then overcompensated wildly as if I’d broken into a run, remembered from back in the day when running had been something I’d carelessly taken for granted.
‘Oh.’ One little word that hid a thousand confused emotions. ‘Where?’
She named a popular bar that we used to frequent regularly. I steeled myself to hear about the girl he’d been there with. There had to be a girl. Aaron’s life would have moved on, just as I’d known it surely would.
‘To be honest, he didn’t look great.’
That brought my head up sharply. ‘How? In what way?’
‘Just kind of… different, somehow. Diminished. He wasn’t his usual over-the-top self at all. He looks like he’s lost weight too – and not in a good way.’ She paused as though reluctant to say more, yet knowing that she had to. ‘He asked about you.’
That set the heart rate off again. In my head Aaron was in the past, but sometimes the rest of my body had an annoying habit of forgetting that. Sasha had no way of knowing how many times over the last five months I’d been just one number away from calling him. How my finger had hovered over the keypad on my phone, wondering what Pandora’s box I’d be unlocking by making that call. Good sense had always stopped me.
‘I told him you were getting out of here next week. I’m not sure whether I should have done that.’ My old friend was biting her lip nervously.
I gave what I hoped was an unconcerned shrug. ‘He’d probably have found out sooner or later anyway. It’s not like it’s a national secret or anything.’
Sasha nodded, still looking troubled. ‘I think… I think he may still have feelings for you.’
I waited for my heart to pound, but it was under control now. ‘I see.’
‘Anyway, I just thought you should know.’
‘Thanks for telling me, and also for not bludgeoning him to a pulp for not staying with me.’
‘He came this close,’ Sasha admitted, indicating a minute distance between her thumb and forefinger. ‘But I guess you can’t kick a man when he’s down.’
Sasha was obviously looking for a subject to take us away from anything relating to Aaron, and she found it easily when she spotted the large manila envelope sitting on my bedside cabinet.
‘What’s that?’
I immediately had an irresistible urge to draw the envelope towards me in case she wanted to peek at its contents, which was something I’d not even done yet.
‘It’s Will’s manuscript.’
Her eyebrows rose so high they practically disappeared beneath the wispy strands of her fringe. ‘He gave it to you to read first?’
My cheeks were warming with a flush,
which I hoped was counteracted by my casual shrug. ‘I guess so.’
‘Surely he has an agent or someone who reads things first?’
‘I don’t know. He just asked me to read it, and I said I would.’
There were so many questions I could see Sasha was dying to ask, and she was exerting an almost superhuman effort not to let any of them sneak past her guard.
‘Is it any good?’
A pulse was beating revealingly at the base of my throat, which jarred with my casual reply. ‘Dunno. Not got around to reading it yet. I haven’t had time.’
Only a true friend would choose not to call a person out on such a blatant lie. I was awake practically eighteen hours a day, most of them spent alone in my hospital room. Of course I’d had time to read Will’s manuscript in the five days since he’d given it to me.
‘I’ll get round to it in a day or two, I imagine.’
*
There had been time to read Will’s novel four times over before I eventually grew a backbone and tore open the seal on the envelope. I had no idea why I was so hesitant about reading it. It was a real honour that he’d chosen me as his first reader, one I was in danger of throwing back in his face with my obvious reluctance.
‘What if I don’t like it?’ I’d asked hesitantly as he pressed the weighty envelope into my hands.
‘Then tell me.’
‘What if I think it’s the most brilliant piece of writing in the entire world?’
‘Then definitely tell me,’ he’d said, his eyes dancing with laughter.
I cleared my throat nervously and looked down at the brown package, the fruit of his labour for the last three months. ‘What if I can’t tell the difference?’
He’d laughed at that. ‘Just read it, Bella. Tell me what you think. It’s not a test, and even if you hate it, it won’t change anything between us.’
‘It won’t ruin our friendship?’ My tongue had tripped slightly over the last word. It had almost betrayed me by trying to substitute ‘relationship’ instead. But that would have been just as wrong as the word friendship had been. Will and I were more than one and less than the other. We walked a curious tightrope between the two existences, neither knowing exactly what would happen if either of us had ever demanded a definition.
*
I waited until the ward was quiet. The evening meal – which was always more of a late afternoon affair – had long been cleared away. The nurse pushing the medication trolley had distributed her pharmaceuticals, raising an eyebrow when I’d politely declined anything to help me sleep. I’d waited long enough to read this book, and I was determined now to do it in a single session, even if I had to stay up all night to do so. Somehow I’d instinctively known that once I turned the first page and entered the world where Will had lived for the last three months, I wouldn’t want to leave it until I was done.
When the ward was finally silent, when the lights had been dimmed and voices were now speaking in hushed whispers, I switched on the bed’s overhead light and slid the manuscript from the envelope.
The first draft of Will’s novel was over three hundred pages in length, and I was lost after the first half dozen. I heard the distant bells of the nearby church chime every single hour, but aside from that reminder that the night was slipping silently into morning, I was transported from the world of the hospital to a place no book had ever taken me before. I smiled, I laughed out loud, and even cried a couple of times as the pile of read pages overtook those I had yet to turn.
The birds had already finished every chorus of their morning concert when I read the words THE END. I was completely lost in the story, still more connected with the characters Will had created than with reality. I was gathering up the pages, stacking them neatly so I could slide them back into the envelope, when I noticed that one appeared to be in the wrong place. Was it accident or design that the dedication sheet had been placed at the back of the manuscript instead of at the front?
My fingertips ran over the two words, understanding what they meant, and yet at the same time not understanding anything at all. To Bella.
*
We need to talk.
It was a terse text message, almost brutally curt after his one hundred thousand words of elegant prose. His reply was almost instantaneous, as though the phone had been in his hand, waiting for this very moment.
You’ve read it.
No question mark. It was a statement.
Yes
I’ll be there soon.
*
I was nervous, which wasn’t unexpected. The fact that he was too was somewhat of a surprise. With his usual disregard for visiting hours, Will must have driven straight to the hospital. The tips of his dark hair still looked damp from the shower he must have hastily taken.
He stood at the threshold of my room, for once looking unsure of his reception. And perhaps with good reason. I should have been exhausted from lack of sleep, and yet every nerve ending in my body was tingling as adrenaline pumped through me like high-octane fuel.
We stared at each other for what felt like forever. Will’s eyes were speaking to mine, while our throats struggled to remember how to work. There were so many things I wanted to say and to ask, but as Will approached the bed, I could feel the speech I’d mentally prepared ripping to shreds.
‘She’s in a wheelchair.’
We were way past the point of him asking Who? or What? And yet I still clarified, as though he might have failed to notice this startlingly important detail. ‘Emilia. The main character in your book. She’s involved in a car accident, which leaves her in a wheelchair.’ Will’s eyes were still locked on mine, as though magnetically linked. He nodded slowly.
‘She won’t ever walk again?’
My words seemed to jab at him like a sword blade, for he flinched before sadly shaking his head. ‘No, she won’t.’
There were questions I had about the plot, but they were insignificant in the face of a much larger one. ‘Am I Emilia? Is that what all this has been about?’ Will’s head shot up and I saw the shock register on his face. ‘All these months of coming to visit me, was it all just research for your book?’
My voice sounded hurt; there was nothing I could do about that, because I was hurt. Something innocent and treasured had been sullied, and I was really afraid it was ruined now forever.
Will crossed to the edge of my bed, his steps jerky and clumsy, as though the many physiotherapy sessions had all been a total waste of time. ‘Of course not. How can you even ask me that?’
I took a moment, making sure my voice was under control before replying. ‘Because right now it’s the only thing that makes any sense. All along, everyone has been wondering why you kept coming back. I guess now we know the answer.’
Will’s head was shaking slowly from side to side. ‘You’ve got this all completely back to front. My visits haven’t been so I could use what happened to you for research for my book; visiting you was the inspiration for the story in the first place.’
‘I guess it doesn’t much matter which came first, though, does it? But you could have saved yourself a hell of a lot of time and effort. If all you wanted was to know what it’s like to have your life destroyed in a senseless accident, to be told you’ll probably never be able to walk again, you only had to ask. There was no need to spend all these months pretending you wanted to be my friend.’
‘I don’t want to be your friend,’ Will replied, and then looked almost horrified at the confession, which sounded as though it had been ripped out of him. ‘I mean, I do. Of course I do. But that’s not what’s happening here. What happened – at least for me – began months and months ago.’
‘I… I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
Will’s eyes looked sad, even though his tone was gentle. ‘I think perhaps you do.’
Every hint or suggestion Sasha had ever made was suddenly hammering insistently on the door I’d resolutely shut them behind. There was no denying the irony in W
ill’s voice, or the heightened colour on his cheeks, although bravely his eyes never strayed from mine. ‘My ankle broke cleanly. It mended quickly. I had a couple of sessions of physio and then they signed me off. Months and months ago. I had no reason to keep coming back to the hospital time and time again.’ His smile was rueful and crooked. ‘Well, no medical reason, that is.’
My gaze involuntarily dropped to his manuscript, lying on the bed between us.
‘And it wasn’t for the damn book,’ Will muttered, suddenly seizing up the bundle of pages and starting to tear them in half.
I gasped, my eyes wide and horrified as I watched the symbolic destruction of his work. At least, I hoped it was symbolic. This wasn’t his only copy, was it?
Will was breathing heavily and looked set to destroy the remaining pages when I laid a restraining hand on his arm. His skin felt hot beneath my palm.
‘Please tell me you’ve got this saved on a computer somewhere. Because it’s actually pretty amazing.’
For a moment I thought my words didn’t have the power to pull him back, but then his mouth relaxed and some of the tension began to slowly bleed out of him.
‘Did you know that fifty-two per cent of authors fail to adequately back up their work?’
I felt a small responding smile start to tug at my lips. ‘You made that up, didn’t you?’
Will shrugged and then nudged the remainder of the manuscript aside, seemingly unconcerned when most of it slithered off the bed and scattered across the floor.
‘I wrote this book for you, and because of you, but not about you. Does that make any sense?’ He sounded curiously helpless for a man who’d demonstrated an enviable talent with words. ‘But if you say you don’t want it to be published, then it won’t be. This book is my gift to you.’
My heart was pounding and for a moment I was scared of where we’d suddenly ended up. How had this happened? As always, in moments of uncertainty, I turned to humour.
‘Oh no. I didn’t get you anything.’
We needed that laughter and the release it instantly brought.
