by Roz Watkins
‘She wouldn’t back down.’ There was a break in Tom’s voice. ‘I said to her, Just tell them what they want to hear. But she wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t renounce Falun Gong. And it was my fault. Lily would never have been interested in Falun Gong if it hadn’t been for me and my condition. If my mother hadn’t insisted on dragging us to China to try and fix me.’
‘I lost my sister too. But of course you know that.’
He glanced at me. ‘You’re nothing like me. I read about you online. You bullied your sister and she killed herself. I hate you for that. You and that Abbie Thornton – you both had sisters and you killed them. I can’t forgive you. You should be punished.’
‘It’s not true. Please, Tom, you have to believe me. My sister had cancer and I didn’t bully her. They made that up. But I think about her all the time, just like you think about your sister.’
Tom gave me a wary look. He shook his head rapidly. ‘I see what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make me like you. I don’t trust you. You made your sister kill herself. And you kept interfering. Everyone else was happy Abbie had done it. You never thought she had. Even after her mother was attacked. I heard that colleague of yours say so – the woman. When my mother was talking about hypnotising the child. You still didn’t believe she’d done it.’
I released my back muscles and sunk onto the trolley. ‘It was you. You hung the dummy in my bedroom. And put the note on my cat.’
‘If you’d just had some time off then, it would have all been alright. Why would you go to work after that? Why would you leave your family when they needed you? Your colleagues were happy Abbie did it. But you wouldn’t stay away.’
I closed my eyes. Felt the silence of the room. I could die there.
How would Mum cope? What would happen to Gran?
Tom touched me lightly on the back. His hand was cool. ‘I’m not saying any more to you. I need to do the operation. But where shall we make the incision? Since you’re being nice, I’ll try it a little further down than I was thinking. Maybe I’ll let you keep bladder and bowel control. You won’t be able to use your legs of course.’
‘No. Please, Tom . . . ’ I was ready to beg, to plead, to give up any semblance of control or dignity and say I’d do anything, anything if only he didn’t take away the use of my legs.
‘There is another option.’ He ran his finger up my spine. ‘What I planned initially. I thought it was a perfect solution to my problem. An ethical solution under the circumstances, and surely it would have kept you away from work for a while, but you had to come along and offer yourself up instead. I’ll give you the choice.’
33.
He was gone. I was in darkness again, my face pressing into a pool of my own tears.
What a fool I’d been. Seeing only the poor disabled son, when in fact he’d been orchestrating and plotting and scheming whilst pretending to be depressed and vulnerable.
I pulled more carefully at the restraints, trying not to panic. Jai would come. He’d work out that I hadn’t left here. Or Fiona. She’d realise.
I wasn’t even convincing myself. They’d think I’d gone to Mum’s. They’d come eventually, but it could take them hours if they were distracted with Fen and Abbie.
I pulled my left leg towards me, feeling the strap strain around my ankle. My bad ankle. The ankle which was much thicker than it should be. Pain shot into my foot, reminding me of that day, the day when I’d found my sister hanging, when I’d climbed the ladder to try to save her, and fallen, breaking my ankle, which no one had noticed with so much other horror around, so it had set wrong. But the lump of callus meant my foot was smaller compared to my ankle than in normal people. And my ankle was swollen from falling in the snow the day before. Which meant a strap tightened around my ankle might just not be so tight around my foot after all. I wiggled my foot and repeatedly pulled my leg towards me, lifting my stomach upwards away from the trolley, gasping with the effort but feeling the strap straining. I did that again and again.
Light. The door was open. Something was being wheeled into the room. Another trolley. Someone lying on it. I peered into the brightness, my eyes not focusing.
I gasped and let out a sob.
‘No, Tom. No, you can’t . . . ’
‘Can’t what? Use her for my experimental surgery?’ He was back in the wheelchair. He glided forward a couple of feet and flicked on the light. The one that illuminated the surgical instruments. ‘Why not? When I found out about your plans, I thought it could have been designed for this.’
‘Please . . . ’
I was sniffing and gasping. I needed to blow my nose and wipe my eyes. I couldn’t bear this.
‘It’s much kinder than taking her all the way to Switzerland on an aeroplane,’ Tom said. ‘You do know she’ll be terribly sick, don’t you?’
My heard thudded in my chest. ‘You haven’t killed her?’
‘No, no. I need her alive if I’m to practise cutting the spine. I want to work with a live body. I’ll have to allow her to wake up a little, so I can check whether she’s paralysed, but it won’t be too traumatic for her. And of course if I use her I won’t have to use you.’ He leant forward, looked into my eyes and hit me with a full-on smile, sunny like a friend on a warm day holding out a drink.
A wave of blackness came over me.
‘I don’t know why you’re so concerned,’ Tom said. ‘It’s all about suffering. That’s what you think, isn’t it?’
‘How do you know what the fuck I think?’ I wanted to put my arms around his crazy, psychopathic throat and throttle him until he gasped for mercy.
‘There’s plenty about you online. Taking your grandmother to Dignitas. There’s nothing sacred about human life – it’s all about whether someone suffers, isn’t that what you said? You really think there’s nothing sacred about human life? That made me angry. But if that’s what you think, why are so concerned about my plans for your grandmother?’
There was something missing from him. Something had been taken in that Chinese prison. When his sister’s heart stopped beating, Tom’s heart had died too.
‘Only if they choose to die,’ I said quietly. ‘It doesn’t mean we can just kill them, Tom.’
‘Well, hurry up and make your decision. I have plane tickets booked tonight. I don’t have forever. I’m confident my mother will take the blame for a while, but eventually she’ll blab. If I use your grandmother, I’ll obviously have to leave you tied up, but once I’m out of the country, I’ll let them know where you are. This is a special area of the clinic – no one uses it but me, but don’t worry, I will let them know. And I’ll put your grandmother to sleep. I have the right drugs for that. Much better for her than going to Switzerland, I think. Wanting to bring her round now and keep her alive is a little selfish, wouldn’t you say? I’ll give you a moment to think it over.’
‘We haven’t said goodbye.’ I sniffed and then felt like I was choking. I’d thought I had time. Time to say all those things I’d never said to Gran. To tell her what she meant to me. And now he was taking that time away, and it was all my fault for insisting I carried on with the investigation and then letting Mum down today. If I’d just taken some time off to be with Gran like a normal person, this would never had happened.
‘But saying goodbye is for your benefit, isn’t it?’ Tom said. ‘Not your grandmother’s. Don’t people say it’s much kinder if they just slip away? But don’t let me persuade you. If you’d rather I did it on you, and let your grandmother wake up to discover you let yourself be paralysed so she could have another week of feeling sick and flying to Switzerland to be killed, I really don’t mind.’
He wheeled himself from the room, leaving Gran lying unconscious on her trolley a couple of feet from me.
I strained my neck and looked over at Gran’s face, impossibly old in the light that bounced off the gleaming knives, scissors and tweezers behind her. I so wanted to reach and touch her.
I yanked my ankle against the
strap. Then pushed it deep in and yanked it back again. To and fro. Agony. But I thought I felt it loosen. Just a tiny bit.
I tugged my leg towards my torso and felt a definite loosening. I inched it back more slowly. It was coming out. I felt a flush of excited adrenaline, even though this didn’t exactly put me in a strong position. I shoved it back into the strap again, knowing if I pulled hard, it would come free.
Maybe he was right about Gran? It probably would be kinder to let her die here. She wouldn’t know that this insane man had hacked into her and severed her spine for practice. Her last moments would be going to the shops with Mum – surely much better than having to fly to Switzerland and watch me and Mum fall apart around her. So, why couldn’t I let that happen? Was I really prepared to risk my own legs for this principle that I couldn’t even make sense of?
The door banged open and Tom walked in. ‘You’ll need to tell me what you’re feeling – where you feel pain or numbness. I’ll give you a mild anaesthetic.’ He touched my back again. A shudder went through my body. ‘Or of course I can use your grandmother instead.’
I wanted to scream. I imagined breaking free and mashing Tom’s head into the concrete floor, taking one of his surgical knives and stabbing it into his heart. I pulled against the restraints. ‘You sick bastard. Let me go!’
‘What’s it to be?’ he said. ‘Shall I use you or your grandmother?’
I fought to control my breathing. In through the nose and out through the mouth. This wasn’t a dream. It was real and I had to deal with it.
I thought of all the times I’d talked to Hannah about her spina bifida. When I’d been the sounding board her guilt- stricken parents couldn’t be. When she’d shown me diagrams of the spine; told me exactly where she felt pins and needles, where she felt shooting pains, which damaged nerves had messed up which bits of her lower body.
‘Use me,’ I said. ‘Don’t use my grandmother. Do it on me.’
34.
‘It would be easier with you on your side,’ Tom said. ‘But I don’t trust you. So you’ll have to put this under your stomach to allow me access between the vertebrae.’
He shoved a pillow underneath me, raising my stomach off the trolley. My mouth watered and I felt a wave of sickness. I swallowed repeatedly.
I gasped. A coldness, then a narrow needle pierced my skin, next to my spine. ‘A little anaesthetic,’ Tom said. ‘To take the edge off.’
I took a slow breath. I couldn’t afford to lose control. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tom lift a syringe, to which a needle was attached. The needle was about six inches long.
‘It’s similar to the needle you’d use for an epidural.’ His tone suggested he was doing something normal. A routine medical procedure, for my benefit. He lifted the needle above him and squinted at it. ‘The syringe is to help me manipulate it. That will be quite challenging when I’m doing it on myself. I’ll insert the needle and move it around, to achieve paralysis. I’ll need to go in at L2 to ensure that the quads are paralysed.’
My stomach gave a huge heave. I breathed in slowly and squeezed my eyes shut, feeling tears on my cheeks. I opened them again and saw Gran’s trolley, pushed sideways out of the way, towards the bank of instruments.
I pictured the spinal diagrams Hannah had shown me. I’d have to let him get to the outer membrane, near the nerves. Then if I could convince him he’d gone far enough to paralyse me, he’d stop. I prayed he’d stop.
‘Are you ready?’ he said. ‘Tell me what you feel. If you cooperate, I’ll try not to harm you any more than necessary.’
My breath was coming in fast bursts, despite my desperate attempts to control it.
I felt the needle. I gasped. A sharp stab. It was going in.
‘A little deeper,’ Tom said. ‘We’re going towards the spine now.’
My heart bashed my ribs. Stars and colours flashed in front of my eyes. I couldn’t afford to faint.
‘You’re a little plump,’ Tom said. ‘It would have been much easier to feel the membrane if I’d done this on your grandmother. She’s skin and bone. Are you feeling anything?’
‘Just pain . . . ’ I gasped. If I screamed too soon, he’d know I was trying to fool him. If I left it too long, I might never walk again. I waited. I could feel the needle, but not exactly where it was.
‘Yes! Pins and needles,’ I shouted. What had Hannah said? ‘Pins and needles down my left leg . . . Both legs now.’
‘A little more then,’ Tom said.
I waited a second. The longest second of my life.
What would my life be like if he did this? I thought of all the things I’d no longer be able to do. Things I took for granted, despite my friendship with Hannah, and watching Extraordinary People on the TV, and trying so hard to appreciate my body in all its imperfect plumpness. Until now I hadn’t properly grasped what I had.
I screamed. ‘Fuck, Tom, stop! That hurts!’ I yanked my arms against the straps, trying to keep my back still.
‘Stop moving!’
‘I can’t move my legs.’ I pulled my arms against the restraints but kept my legs still. Completely still. ‘Tom, I can’t move my legs!’
‘No, you can.’ Tom stepped back, leaving the needle in my back. ‘You’re not paralysed. I’ve only nicked the edge of the membrane. You can move your legs.’
I sobbed. ‘I fucking can’t. You bastard!’
I pictured Hannah when she was struggling with her legs, and I put on a performance like I never had in my life before, pulling my wrists against the straps, sobbing, keeping my legs still and lifeless.
Tom took another step back so he was next to Gran’s trolley. He was about a foot away from me. Shaking his head repeatedly. ‘Must have gone in deeper than I thought . . . ’
Gran’s eyes opened.
I yanked my bad foot out of the strap, twisted my hips and booted Tom sideways with all my strength. He knocked into Gran’s trolley, then crashed into the shelves of surgical instruments.
The needle was still in my back. I could feel it, millimetres away from my spinal nerves.
I caught Gran’s eye. ‘It’s okay,’ I whispered. Possibly the biggest lie of my life.
Gran heaved herself into a sitting position.
Tom scrabbled to his feet and grabbed a large scalpel from the shelves behind him. He took a step towards me. He looked dazed, holding the scalpel above him as if he was about to bring it down onto me. Onto my neck.
The moment seemed to elongate and then freeze. Tom with his arm raised, scalpel gleaming, Gran sitting on her trolley, blinking and swaying, looking like she was about to faint. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t get free. Couldn’t get my leg to the right angle to kick him. Tom was poised with the knife ready to stab me. I felt a scream building inside me.
Something shoved into Tom. He spun round, his face red with fury. It was Gran. She’d collapsed sideways into him, with just enough weight to shift him sideways and knock his arm off course. He was now within kicking distance. I booted him in the shoulder. He toppled to the ground, his head crashing into the concrete floor. He lay still.
‘Gran, it’s going to be okay,’ I said. ‘We’ll be okay. Can you get this needle out of my back?’
Gran looked stunned, confused, terrified. But she lowered herself down and stood unsteadily, leaning on my trolley and reaching over my back towards the needle. I lay still, trying not to picture her shaky hands spilling tea at Mum’s house.
A tiny stab of pain and the needle crashed to the floor.
I let out a huge breath. ‘Can you undo that strap? The one round my hand.’
Tom shifted.
Gran reached for the strap. It had a buckle, thankfully – she’d never have untied a knot. She gave it a tug but it wasn’t releasing. She had so little strength in her fingers now.
Tom groaned. He was coming round.
‘A bit harder, Gran,’ I begged. ‘Pull harder.’
Gran took a huge breath, and tugged at the strap aga
in.
It popped free.
I let out a sob, reached over my back and undid the strap around my other hand, then reached down and freed my leg.
I jumped from the trolley. My legs collapsed and I ended up on the floor. I grabbed the needle and syringe and dragged myself to my feet, legs quivering.
Tom rose to a sitting position. He swung round, arms reaching towards me.
I lunged for him and stabbed him in the neck with the needle. He screamed and fell back on to the floor.
There was no spurt. That wasn’t going to be enough.
I frantically scanned the room for a weapon. Tom was too close to the surgical instruments, but his wheelchair was in the corner.
I dashed over and yanked one of the footplates free, again thanking Hannah for my education. I turned to see Tom crawling across the floor towards me, the syringe still sticking from his neck.
I raised the footplate and smashed it down on his skull. And then again. Harder.
He dropped to the floor and lay still, blood seeping from his head.
‘Come on, Gran.’ I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her towards the door, but she collapsed. I dragged her to her feet, helped her onto the trolley again, and shoved the trolley towards the door, manoeuvring it around Tom’s still body. I pushed her through and slammed the door shut behind us, looking for something to wedge it with. There was nothing.
Even though he was lying unconscious on the floor, I was frantic with my need to run from Tom, to put distance between him and me. I pushed Gran’s trolley along the corridor towards a door which seemed to lead to outside.
The door was closed. And there was no handle. I pushed it with all my strength but it wouldn’t shift. If it was the one I’d come through, it opened inwards, but the hinge looked as if it would go both ways.
I tried to get my fingers around the edge to pull it towards me, but it seemed stuck fast.
‘Shit, shit.’ I was panting and on the edge of a panic attack. I shoved the door again. Nothing.
