The Ward (10 page)

There’s no point in panicking anymore. This is it. I can’t stop it, it’s too late.

Seven, six…

Music. I can hear music. My eyes are closed and white spots dance behind my lids. I open them slightly, but the light above me is still too bright. The music is familiar.
Something from the sixties. Dad used to play this in the car on the way to school. Made me cringe in front of my friends when it was our turn to do the car pool. But what’s it called?
It’s on the tip of my tongue.

Then I have it: ‘Hang on Sloopy’, that’s it.

Someone – a man – is trying to sing along with the song, but he’s getting the words wrong, just like Dad used to do. ‘He-ey Snoopy, Snoopy hold on, mmmhmmm,
mmmhmmm.’

Something presses against my face. No pain. Just pressure. Is it warm or cold in here? I can’t tell. I have no awareness of my body at all. My mind could just as well be stuck in a jar
somewhere.

‘Doing anything nice at the weekend, Doctor?’ a woman says. She sounds giggly, young.

‘Oh, you know… the usual. Golf, golf, golf!’ I don’t recognise the voice. It’s not the Indian doctor I’ve seen and heard before. This voice is similar to the
anaesthetist’s – male, posh, clipped, but with an African edge. Nigerian maybe? ‘Swab for me please, Nurse.’

‘Yes, Doctor.’

‘And you, Alisha?’

A giggle. ‘Oh, you know, Doctor, just the usual. Party, party, party.’

‘You young people. All go.’

The music stops abruptly.

Footsteps approach.

‘Doctor, we have a problem.’ A different voice – a woman’s. It’s low and unaccented, familiar.

‘What problem?’ the doctor says.

‘There’s a mix-up with patient Cassavetes’s medical records.’

‘What sort of mix-up?’

‘With the payment options, Doctor. It’s a matter of the greatest urgency.’

‘Well, it will have to wait,’ the doctor says. ‘Can’t you see I’m—’

‘Doctor!’ the theatre nurse says, the giggles gone from her voice. She sounds nervous, unsure. ‘Doctor, quickly!’

The machine next to my head blips and then beeps and then screams.

There’s a sudden smothering pressure on my face.

‘What a
freak
.’

‘It’s just another brown.’ This from a different voice. ‘More karking browns at primo sales these days than normal people.’

Laughter. Cruel, cold laughter.

I open my eyes, wincing as they’re hit with that too-bright artificial light again. My vision is blurry, but I make out plate glass windows and a shadowy figure scurrying past me. I blink
fast several times, trying to shift the fog from my eyes. Hang on. I’m standing up. I can move! But there’s something wrong with this picture. The scene is still out of focus,
but… am I,
am
I… in a shopping mall?

Because that’s what it looks like.

But how did I get here?

Impossible.

I’m dreaming.

I must be dreaming. It doesn’t feel like it though. I touch my face. The dressing is gone, and I can’t feel any stitches. I pinch the skin on my forearm as hard as I can. Feels sore.
Must be an especially vivid dream.

The woolly veil over my sight gradually lifts. It’s a mall all right, but I don’t recognise it. The shop opposite me is selling what looks like bondage gear. The mannequins in the
window are headless, their bodies twisted into impossible shapes – a wrist bent back the wrong way, a knee joint bending inwards. And the place is immense, even larger than the Gateway in
Durban. The aisle I’m in seems to extend for miles in both directions, a double bank of brightly lit shops stretching on forever. Distant figures weave back and forth, spectral shoppers
criss-crossing the central passage. They’re too far away for me to see them clearly, but their bodies don’t look right, they look warped somehow.

A man slides out of the bondage shop’s door, pauses and heads my way. I shrink back instinctively. One of his eyes is smothered beneath a knot of scar tissue. He leers at me, sticks out a
pointed tongue and waggles it. ‘Freak,’ he hisses. ‘Why don’t you modify?’ before slithering away into the shop next door.

It’s just a dream; that’s all it is. A stupid nightmare.

But my hollow stomach and clammy palms feel way too real. Dream or no dream, I have to get out of here.

A loudspeaker crackles. ‘Attention, shoppers!’ a voice croaks out. ‘Lockdown will commence in eight, seven, six, five…’

I need to run. I
want
to run, but I can’t move. My legs aren’t listening.

‘… four, three, two, one.’ With an ear-splitting screech, some sort of machinery clanks into life; it sounds as if it’s coming from below my feet. And something’s
happening at the far end of the passage. A reedy scream echoes, mournful and distant.

Then I realise that the shop lights are turning off one by one, starting in the far distance and heading my way. The approaching blackness swirls and creeps, alive and ravenous, and I know with
a chilling certainty that if it reaches me I’m finished.

The lights of the bondage shop opposite click off. Then the blackness comes. Laps over my feet, runs up my legs, and oh it hurts it burns it hurts it feels like fire…

Freezing. I’m freezing cold. Lying down again, this time on a hard, rough surface. I try to sit up, but something’s stopping me. Someone’s holding me down by
my wrists. I struggle, try to pull them free. But the grip is too strong.

I crane my neck to see who it is but no one’s there. It’s not a person holding me down. Thick leather straps, like you see in asylums, pin my wrists to the gurney I’m lying on.
I attempt to kick my legs up but my ankles are also strapped down, my legs spread wide.

Another nightmare?

Must be.

Has
to be. But it’s also too vivid.

I let my head flop back down to ease the pain in my neck. I count to three and lift it as high as I can again so that I check out my surroundings. I’m in a long, dark room. The walls are
made of polished white stone peppered with spots of mildew. Rivulets of water snake down the walls. The only light source is a single bulb swinging from the ceiling. There are several other
hospital beds in here, all arranged in a long line, but I can’t tell if they contain other bodies or if the lumpy shapes on top of them are just empty sheets and pillows.

Deep down I know this is not a nightmare: it’s too real. The pain in my wrists, the ache in my neck, the freezing cold are all way too visceral to delude myself.

Is the operation over? Am I in a strange recovery room?

‘Hello?’ I call out. ‘Hello? Anyone?’ My voice seems to bounce off the walls; it sounds echoey and amplified.

A door slams.

‘Hello?’ I try again.

I hear the sound of scuffling footsteps, the sound of a dragging limp.

I lift my head again.

A bulbous figure is making its way past the beds, heading in my direction.

I can’t make out any facial features; there’s just a dark nothingness where the face should be, topped with a thatch of dirty orange hair. Simply a trick of the light. Right?
It’s gloomy in here, but gloom or no gloom I can clearly see that the faceless figure is holding something in its hand. Something that glints in the bulblight.

Oh Christ, oh Jesus.

It’s a huge and viciously serrated pair of shears. The shape pauses at one of the beds. I hear the murmur of conversation, and then a schwick as the shears snap shut.

Please don’t come near me, please don’t! Please don’t, please
…

The footsteps shuffle nearer. More muffled conversation. Another metallic clip, louder this time.

My bladder lets go, a flow of wet warmth on my thighs.

Please please don’t let it get me. Dad, I need you, come and get
—

An icy, greasy hand, like the underbelly of a toad, presses down over my eyes.

‘Which payment plan would you prefer?’ a scratchy, obscene voice hisses. ‘Pieces of eight, or just pieces? Shall we take your eyes, or your tongue? A finger? A toe?
What’s that? Oh yes. Good idea! A part payment. A
lay-by
. Yes. A toe. Perfect. Now hold still, missy miss. This little piggy went to maaaaaarket…’

The slippery hiss of spit being sucked back through teeth. The cold touch of the shears on my skin. The scything sound of them snapping shut.

This isn’t happening, isn’t happening, isn’t happening, please God, I’ll never do anything bad ever again just make this stop and I’ll
—

Blip. Blip-blip. Blip. Bliiiiiiiiiip.

Bluish, comforting light. A smooth white ceiling, warm air, the soft hum of air conditioning.

The memory of that horrible
thing
snaps into my mind and immediately I check that I’m not shackled. Thank God! I can move freely again.

I force myself to calm down and breathe slowly. It was just a stupid dream. Just a nightmare brought on by the anaesthetic.

My legs are still a bit numb, but I can lift them a couple of inches off the mattress.

Now I just have to figure out where the hell I am.

I’m still feeling wobbly and groggy, but I make myself sit up.

This can’t be right. Have they moved me to a private room?

The place has the feel of a luxurious hotel suite. There’s a watercolour of a whitewashed farmhouse on the wall opposite, a flat-screen television on a stand in the corner and a plump
armchair next to my bed. But it’s definitely a hospital. There’s a machine next to my bed that’s blipping continually, and there’s a drip stuck into my arm. The solution in
the bag hanging from the stand is tinged with brown, as if a tea bag has been dropped into it. It’s probably some kind of antibiotic.

So, if I’ve had the op, then… I run my fingers over my face. My cheeks feel numb, but not unpleasantly so. There’s a slight tingle, probably the after-effects of the
anaesthetic. My skin feels slippery and… rubbery. I gingerly touch my nose, trying to trace the shape. The slight bump on the bridge doesn’t seem to be there anymore, and, while it
also feels oddly smooth, the bandage has gone.

It’s too quiet here, too comfortable. Did Dad find out where I was and transfer me to another hospital while I was out of it?

I can’t think of another rational explanation.

Then I see it.

The imprint of a buckle on my wrist.

Doesn’t mean anything.

It doesn’t mean anything!

So why am I so reluctant to pull the covers off my legs to check that my toes are all still attached?

I wake up from a dream, images of the garden separating like mist. Poor Lisa. She’s a real space case. But I’m still amazed how easily I fell for her paranoid
stories. It just goes to show that, if someone really believes in something, they can convince other people, even if it’s just a lie, even if it’s just a grotesque fantasy.

I wonder how her surgery went.

I open my eyes and see the supply cupboard, my little isolation ward. After that run through the morgue and the casualty ward, I feel almost as if I’m home again. I feel safe. The lights
are dimmed, but I can make out the rows of drawers and shelves and cupboards. They’re all pretty neat, just a couple of discarded rubber gloves on the floor, some packaging overflowing the
red bin under one of the counters, a dark stain on the mottled lino. The door’s open to the main passage. The lights are bright but it’s quiet, nobody rushing past. I lie still,
watching the doorway, until eventually an old woman with a walker shuffles by. Sick, man. She didn’t make it to the toilet in time: the back of her pink gown is wet through.

Hang on. I’m seeing all this. I can fucking see!

I swing myself out of bed and stand up. No dizziness. I’m feeling stronger. And I can see! It’s time to go home.

Home. Katya screaming at me. Then blood. Something glinting. Blood on my hands. Blood on her face.

What the fuck? My knees give way and I slump down onto the tacky floor.

Katya’s crying.
Josh, let me go!
There’s blood on her lips. What did you do?

I don’t know. Jesus! What happened?

Take a look, Josh. Look at your hands.

I don’t want to look, but on cue the itching pain starts up immediately. The dressing on my right hand hasn’t been changed since I got here and is now caked with dirt and the end
flaps loosely. The itch is deep inside my hand and I have to get at it. I wind the dressing off and after a number of layers get to a brown-crusted pad of cotton wool. I toss the roll of crepe
aside, and, without thinking of the pain, I rip the padding off. The deep gashes glare wetly back at me: slices on my first two fingers, and the biggest one on my palm. There’s still a sheen
of the russet disinfectant, but the large gash on my palm stings. What could have cut me?

That glint in the light. Remember, Farrell.

I remember. Flashes. It was glass. I was holding a broken shard of glass in my hand.
You only love me for my face
, Katya is screaming.
Well take a good, long look, you bastard.
It’s the last time you’ll see it
. There’s glass in my hand and blood on her face.

Holy fuck. What have I done?

I feel like there are insects crawling underneath my skin, biting at me, pissing their acid piss into my wounds.

This is bullshit! I didn’t do anything to Katya. I love her.

So where do these cuts come from? What are these memories?

It could be anything. Hallucinations, dreams. I’ve been out of it for so long. But I can’t shake the image of Katya’s perfect skin smeared with blood. Her dark eyes smudged
black and swollen with tears.

Christ. I have to find out what happened.

I struggle up and move out of the closet. The security guard is nodding off in his plastic chair by the security gate and there’s nobody at the nurses’ station, just a burly orderly
mopping something down at the far end of the corridor.

Double-checking to make sure there are no nurses around, I reach behind the counter and pick up the phone. Shit. There’s just a long beep in my ear. I try pressing 0 for an outside line,
but the beep doesn’t change. I press each of the other numbers in order. Nothing. Who knows if these phones are even connected? Come to think about it, I haven’t heard them ringing for
ages.