Take the Next Road on your Left (11)

I felt like a directionless mouse being drawn by the scent of a huge wad of cheese in one of those scientific experiments and being driven insane because it can’t get where its nose wants to lead it. Blank wall after blank wall ripped past my eyes as I was marched rapidly around this National Health maze by Messrs. Tudor and Windsor.
This was no cheese at the end of my journey though. I’ve never been so anxious in confronting another human being before. It wasn’t just the merry dance my two police friends were giving me – swapping lifts, floors and stairwells – that had my guts twirling like a traumatised Whirling Dervish. How was she going to react to me? Would she fly at me like a vengeful Banshee or perhaps turn her face away from me in disgust? In my mind I kept rehearsing the same phrase “It wasn’t my fault; it wasn’t my fault” to combat a spat of vehemence I felt sure would hit me as soon as we were introduced. Mind you at the rate these two defenders of the law were going I’d have better luck meeting her using that useless Sat Nav that got me here in the first place.
“Got to look after her Ladyship Tom” said Colin in his best sanctimonious tongue.
“You never know who’s watching, do you Colin?” answered Tom, only slightly less self-righteous.
What a fucking way to torture someone I thought; interrogation, a forced march and then beaten to death by clichés at the end. Then suddenly I was loosed. The corridor was as unremarkable as all those I had been dragged only for the last ten minutes, the only difference being the uniformed officer sitting on a chair at the bottom.
“At the end” said Colin
“On the left, you’re safe here – we’ve sealed off the wing” Tom boasted
“Go on then” said them both and pushed me by both shoulder blades.
I stuttered to start with. Why were they so keen? At first I just thought they’d wanted to see the victim rip into me about how I’d ruined her life but now, as they stood back and let me continue alone, I feared something far worse.
Oh my god perhaps she’s brain-dead; and then a stupid thought entered my head that if she had been at least she could join the police force. I couldn’t believe I could be so callous, but hadn’t that been part of what drove me on; the ability to sell without feeling?
What if I’ve crippled her? I could see her now through the window of the door to the single ward; her useless legs lying on the bed above the bed-sheets like two wasted arms beckoning at me to come and repair the damage I’d inflicted on them. Her upper body was trussed to a support like a lunatic with a bad back and her neck encased in a collar that may as well have been concrete for all the future movement she’d have with that part of her body. But her eyes; her eyes; they caught my shadow traversing the curtain to her right and she swung her gaze instinctively across the ward, stretching her irises so she could penetrate the glass and my insincere apology that I mouthed.
“Let him go in Turner” ordered Colin as the policeman rose to challenge me and that ten second nightmare evaporated as quickly as it had come. PC Turner pushed open the door and I crept in almost on tip-toe.
Adeona was asleep. She had a bandage around her head but her neck wasn’t encircled with a brace and there appeared to be no signs of any physical damage to her limbs, yet I couldn’t really be sure if she was suffering from nothing more than a slight concussion.
“Can she walk?” I asked Turner.
“Not unless she can sleepwalk” he grinned. He had a weak grey moustache which he wiped in celebration of his ready wit. There was nothing to gain from further conversation with another member of the police comedy circuit so I went in.

As I approached the bed her head was resting on the pillow with her face toward the window and away from me. I imagined that at any moment the mass of bandage twisted around her head would burst red through an internal injury that had been sitting there unseen by the doctors and just waiting to rupture upon my arrival; but she was still, so restful that I again feared paralysis.
The usual chart was suspended over the end of her bed and I peered at it as if knowledgeable enough to translate the sheet into a diagnosis. In truth I wanted to see if there were any giveaway words and phrases scrawled on it such as ‘terminal’ or ‘do not resuscitate’. Then her legs moved. A sea of relief crashed over my shore of guilt. If she would move her arms too, I thought, I can get out of here, head for the nearest pub and get pissed.
There was a chair between her bed and the window and one of those cheap Ikea looking set of drawers which offered a combined storage of little more than a bible and a nightdress. On the top was a tumbler of water, a glass and a small, thin vase containing three sad carnations, a withered rose and a tired looking lily that drooped over the other ‘blooms’ It was like a snapshot of a mid-west family left destitute after the dustbowl.
I was never good at these things. Considering my line of work necessitated a gift of the gab, out of the sales arena I was a gladiator without a sword. I prayed she wouldn’t wake up and stared at the door beyond. Turner sauntered down the hallway. He was probably going for a fag – now that I was here.
Some 25 years ago I’d sat by my Grandfather as he lay dying in some hospital not dissimilar to this monstrosity. He was coughing badly and his breathing was harsh, the air whistling in his half-eaten chest. His eyes were watery but I knew these were not tears. It was the film of death closing over them. I can remember having warm feelings about him but not then; I blamed him for being ill and dragging me to this antiseptic ante-chamber. I smiled in a facile response when he appeared to recognize me and buttoned up the top part of his pyjama as if that would discontinue that awful rattle. He returned the smile and closed his eyes. Five minutes later he was dead.
I forced myself to sit. Her head was slightly buried in her chin but I could see her forehead and the strong line of her nose. Then suddenly she twisted her head so that it lay back on the pillow with her face pointing upwards, but, in a quite macabre fashion, she was wearing a huge grin, despite her eyes remaining shut. Well, I thought, if she’s at death’s door St Peter must be cracking jokes at her.
Adeona wasn’t beautiful but she was certainly handsome enough. Her head looked a little large for her body but I assumed the bandaging proffered that illusion. In profile the line of her nose wasn’t as straight as I’d first assumed. It had a little kink at the end, not as pixie-like ala Nicole Kidman but cute enough. She had high cheek bones which drew one toward her small ears but her features were more rounded than sharp. Her jaw was well defined but beneath there was every prospect she’d develop several chins as the virus of time passing infested itself on her.
That strange smirk she wore collapsed and inverted itself into a grimace. She appeared to be in pain but no accompanying exhortation of pain emanated from her delicate mouth. She was the reverse of Shelley’s literary creation. Whereas Frankenstein had taken beautiful features and produced a monster, Adeona’s face was full of contradictory facets that were content with each other and produced a winsome image that I found curiously engaging.
Whatever had disturbed Adeona’s peaceful sleep seemed to be intensifying as anxiety proliferated across her face. Automatically I took her right hand in my left and felt her brow with my other. The hand was chilled as if she’d stuck it in snow but her forehead was hot, as if she’d been baking bread in an open oven. I wanted to either say something soothing but what frightened me was Adeona’s quietness. The obvious pain would surely warrant a concomitant vocal response but then again I thought, aren’t females better at suffering pain?
I was panicking. Call a nurse you twat I screamed at myself and looked up for the emergency button. A flash of white streaked across the small window of the ward door. I ran out of the room dropping her slim cool hand onto the bed. I wrenched open the door and shouted ‘Nurse’ as the white figure turned the corridor where my old CID mates had been ten minutes ago. I waited for the expected volte-face but to no avail and so ran up to the corner and stared down the long and now dimly-lit connecting corridor which took visitors to the lift or the staff to the other wing. There was no sign of the nurse. It occurred to me that they were probably responding to an emergency.
No sign of the cops either. I’ll bet they’re in the boozer. Everybody’s getting pissed tonight except me. I tracked back to Adeona’s ward and motioned to push the call button on the wall behind her head. As I reached across I looked down at her. She was waking up. Whatever was causing her pain receded. Her eyelids twitched twice and slowly began to retract to reveal two of the most incandescently green eyes I had ever seen. Sleep’s misty sheen lay on top of them like an elfish fog caressing a small forest of the darkest and greenest Firs.
She saw me above her but rather than panic broke into a smile which irradiated all those conflicting features into a lovely whole and drew me toward her. I had never felt a more immediate urge to kiss anybody in my life; even that MD when he bought the pension scheme which commissions, to this day, still provided me with a nice basic salary.
“Oh hello” I said rather loudly “I’m Charlie” She motioned as if to reply but then a look of concern overcame her as if she’d remembered something troubling.
“Are you in pain?” I asked, lowering my voice to a Doctor’s whisper.
“Haven’t you worked it out yet?” said Tom walking into the ward behind me.
“Is she…is she crippled?” I swallowed a cannonball.
“No you idiot” piped up Colin from beyond Tom’s shoulder “She’s lost her voice”