Trance (17 page)

Paramedics burst through the door, two of them holding a stretcher and a third with a bag, which I assumed was filled with medical supplies. He was going to be all right. He’d pull through.

“It wasn’t my fault?”

“Of course it wasn’t. Why would you think that?”

“Because I hurt everyone that I get close to. Everyone. Even my mother.”

Jason held my hand tight. I’m glad he did, because I wasn’t sure whether I would have been able to ride in the ambulance on my own. He didn’t say anything more to me, just sat next to me in the front seat of the ambulance with my grandfather in the back, my grandmother by his side.

The sirens wailed as we dodged and weaved our way through the streets to the hospital. I kept repeating to myself over and over that it wasn’t my fault. It was just his leg and he was going to be okay. The fact that I was in the front of an ambulance meant that wasn’t the truth. He was hurt more than they were letting on.

I looked across at Jason whose face was pale. It was the most serious I’d ever seen him. He was watching me intently as if he expected me to break down again. I wouldn’t though. I may have lost myself for a moment, but I’d gained my composure. It wasn’t my fault. It just wasn’t.

He squeezed my hand and gave me a half smile before looking away. The ambulance siren silenced and I looked ahead to see we’d arrived at the hospital. The doors of the back flung open before the driver had turned off the engine. Jason let go of my hand and opened the door. He got out and then helped me down as they wheeled my grandfather through the glass double doors.

I took my grandmother’s hand and we followed inside, past reception and round to an elevator large enough to fit at least three beds. Unlike the passenger
lift, this one was plain with a dull sheen. I knew because I examined every corner, looked everywhere except at my grandfather. While I was feeling better, I wasn’t ready to look at him or his leg, just yet.

“He’ll be fine,” said my grandmother.

I nodded. “I know.”

“You need to believe that. He’s going to be fine.”

“I know,” I repeated.

“I am, you know,” said my grandfather.

The fact that he spoke jolted me. Startled, I looked over at him. He was awake and smiling. He didn’t look like someone who had just had their leg caught in a room sized fan with blades of steel. The paramedics must have given him morphine or something. Good. He didn’t deserve to be in pain. “But your leg?”

“Legs can be fixed.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Probably.”

The doors to the lift opened and my grandfather was wheeled out and through another set of double doors. “Please stay here,” said one of the people wheeling him away.

My grandmother put her arm around me as we watched him disappear, and then led me to a group of chairs that were set out in the room like an old west circle of wagons. I wondered why they were set out this way, facing each other inward. People didn’t want to make eye contact at times like this. They wanted to look at the wall instead, waiting to hear news of their loved one. I pulled two chairs away from the circle and dragged them closer to the wall, sitting on one of them.

I leaned into my grandmother, like I did when I was a little girl, with my head on her shoulder and her arm around me. I was glad there was no clock in this room, that way I wouldn’t have to see how long we would have to wait.

Jason arrived on the floor a few minutes later. He looked at us tentatively, unsure whether he should come over. But I wanted him here too. Just seeing him made me feel calmer. I could think better. I patted the seat next to me and he came over to sit next to us and took my hand again.

“I’m going to get some tea,” said my grandmother. “A nice hot drink will help. Do you want one?” I shook my head.

She stood up and walked away, leaving Jason and I alone.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“Better.” I sighed. “I’m sorry I lost it before.”

“I would have done the same.”

I scoffed. “No, you took control. Thanks for that. I mean it, I was a mess.”

“I hope you still don’t blame yourself.”

I frowned. “It’s hard not to.”

“I get that. But know that no one else is thinking that.”

I frowned even more. “My mother died after we had an argument.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I can’t even remember what we were fighting about now. That’s crazy isn’t it. It seemed so important then.”

I shivered, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I was cold or something else.

“She left in the car.” I paused. “She didn’t come home.”

“Wasn’t your fault then. Isn’t your fault now.” Jason looked at me. “You were eleven. You couldn’t have predicted what would happen.”

“I believed that for a long time. I was a kid, it wasn’t my fault. But then…”

“You don’t have to tell me this.”

“I need to get the words out.
They are nibbling at my insides. Sometimes I forget they are there, and then they start biting, and then…moments like this they sink their teeth in and try and swallow me whole.”

“Okay.”

“A few years ago, I met someone who I liked. He liked me too, or so I thought. Everything was great.” I looked down at my feet. “I didn’t know it at the time, but he was the one that killed my mother, he was in the other car, the one that hit her. I was with my mother’s killer, I thought I loved him.” I stared at the wall. “He was obsessed with me. With all of us after that. I think the accident must have changed him as well. Or perhaps he was like that before, I don’t know. He kept a lot of newspaper articles about the accident. About us. That’s how I found out.”

Jason nodded.

“He held me down - he pinned my arms to the bed and straddled me. He was strong - I couldn’t move.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Not physically.” I looked away. “He said that if I ever told anyone that he’d do the same to me and everyone else in the family. He’d run them down, just like he did with my mother. That one was an accident, these wouldn’t be. That was his threat. He said it was to make sure that no-one else would ruin his life.”

I laughed. “Ruin
his
life.”

I chewed on my lip.

“So I couldn’t leave him. I had to pretend we were still in love. Still happily together for everyone to see. I hated him.”

“That wasn’t your fault either. He was forcing you.”

“I didn’t sleep with him again, if that’s what you are wondering.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“I made sure I was never alone with him. I moved out of my own place and back in with my grandparents. I’ve been there ever since.”

“Where is he now?”

“Don’t know. He ran when the media found out. The media went crazy. It was everywhere. A lot of people said a lot of stuff about my mom, about us, about me. Blamed me for so much that wasn’t true. People are mean online when they think there are no consequences. They say things just to hurt you. Especially when you’re dating the man who killed your mother. Once rumors start you can’t stop them by denying it either. People believed I wanted my mother dead. Why would I want her dead? I was eleven! It broke me.”

“I didn’t know any of this.”

I sighed. “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“Just thanks.”

My grandmother came back with a tray of three white foam cups. A curl of steam rose from them as she placed them on a small table to our side.

“I can’t stay,” said Jason. “I need to get back for Helena. But once I get her safely home, I’ll be return, okay?”

I nodded. I reached over to the table and tore open two sugar sachets, tipping them into my drink and watched as the white granules dissolved in the hot liquid. When I looked back up, the lift doors opened and Jason stepped inside. I watched the silver doors close and the light at the top of the doors turn out before I picked up my tea and cradled it in both hands. The warmth was nice. Even if I didn’t feel like drinking, just holding the tea, inhaling the strong bitterness was calming.

“That’s nice of him,” said my grandmother. “He’s a gentleman. He’ll make a good catch for someone someday.”

He might be a good catch, but he’s made it clear that we were just friends now. I didn’t want to tell her that, not right now. It didn’t seem important, besides a friend was about all I could handle anyway. Now that I’d told him how messed up I was, he wouldn’t want to be anything more. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted anything more. Thinking about love was the furthest thing from my mind when my grandfather was lying on an operating table at the end of the corridor.

How long did it take to fix a leg anyway? It felt like we’d been here for hours, although I knew that couldn’t be true. More likely it was less than half what I thought.

A woman in a doctor’s uniform opened the door that led to the corridor they took my grandfather down earlier. I stood up abruptly and some cold tea splashed onto my costume. I was still holding it. I didn’t care.

“
Tinks family?” We nodded. “We’ve just finished working on Thomas.”

“How is he?” I asked.

“There’s a lot of internal bruising, and a deep gash below the shin. We can’t tell yet how that will affect walking, it depends on how it heals.”

“He hasn’t lost his foot?”

She smiled. “No, he’ll still have all his limbs. But he won’t be doing anything strenuous for the next few months. Doctor’s orders.”

“Oh, that is good news,” said my grandmother. “He would have hated to have lost his foot. Can we see him soon?”

“He’s still under. I’ll send a nurse back in the next hour when he’s woken, and you can see him then. He’ll be pretty groggy though, and may not remember any conversations.”

“Just being with him, that’s enough.”

The doctor put her hand on my grandmother’s arm before returning the way she came.

“See, he’s going to be fine,” I said to myself more than to my grandmother.

“Of course he is.”

A nurse bought us downstairs to Thomas’s room. He was awake but groggy. His leg was bandaged but not plastered as I expected, and it was propped on a pillow at the end of the bed. We’d been instructed not to sit beside him on the bed, but to stand or use the chairs provided. There was only one chair, so I pushed it next to the bed to let my grandmother sit in it and hold my grandfather’s hand.

“My girls,” said my grandfather, slurring his words.

“Hush now, Thom. You just rest. Go on then, lie back and close your eyes. I’ll not hear another word from your mouth until tomorrow. Goodness you were lucky.”

I watched the heart rate monitor beside him as it pulsed with each beat, and held his other hand.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said a nurse. “But there is a Brooklyn Matthews out here needs to speak with you urgently.”

I knew that name, but couldn’t place it. “I think being with my grandfather is more important, right now.”

“She says something about a show you are to do tomorrow?”

The television executive. I really should try and remember her name.

“You go dear. Sort it out and then come back.”

I kissed my grandfather on the forehead and walked outside. There was no one around so I walked further up the corridor. I found her on a balcony ledge outside a large room with a cigarette in her mouth. When she saw me
coming, she stomped it out and tried to wave away the smoke.

“Disgusting habit I know,” she said. “I only do it when I’m under stress.”

I looked at her blankly.

“Anyway.” She reached down and pulled up a
clipboard, which had a form attached to it. “You’ll need to sign this, waiving all rights to the show tomorrow, and acknowledging that there’ll be no payment now.”

I picked up the clipboard and stared at the words that jumbled all together on the page.

“Sign here, and here,” she said as she pointed with a pen before handing that to me as well.

I picked up the pen and touched the sheet of paper with the tip. “Jason will be back here soon. He can sign his then.”

“Jason doesn’t need to sign one. He wasn’t getting any payment.”

“He wasn’t.” I frowned. “Why not?”

“Sign, then I can get out of here. Hospital’s give me the creeps.”

“Why wasn’t he getting paid?”

“That was the deal.”

I crinkled my nose, trying to figure out why he wasn’t getting paid. He had the same amount of
airtime that we did. The theatre was booked out. As one of the artists, he deserved to be paid.

“It doesn’t matter now anyway,” she said. “No one is getting any money. The show is off. It’s what they wanted anyway.”

“It’s what who wanted?” I still had the pen hovered over the paper just above the dotted line.

“Surely you knew?”

I shook my head.

“Will you sign after I tell you? Fine. The station didn’t want to air your grandfather’s show.
Magicians are not exactly a hot commodity right now, are they? Well, Jason is. He’s up and coming, and they wanted him to be the headline act. We talked to him about it, but he refused. Said it was your gig and he didn’t want to interfere. Up top wanted to cancel the show altogether. They would have too, but we persuaded him, that if he came onboard it’ll still go to air. Not that we have to worry about that now.” She grinned like she’d made a huge joke. I wanted to slap her.