Harry
Dreadful. Just dreadful. One time Valerie was by the bed
and she’s holding on to this arm that’s lying on the sheet beside me and I say,
whose arm have you got there and she says, it’s your arm, Harry. Giving it a
little squeeze, and saying can you feel that, can you feel my hand and the arm
can feel it, but it’s not part of me.
The things they did to me in there. Pushing knives under
my skin, a poker down my throat. Cackling while they did it. But Valerie says
no that was dreams, no-one was laughing or torturing. They saved my life. My
brother Vincent says it’s amazing what medicine can do these days, just
amazing. We nearly lost you Harry, raising his glass high.
The dreams weren’t like any dreams I had before. They were
all the time and more real than real. I was always looking for something and
there was always someone coming after me. On and on and on. Underwater most the
time. I swam right up to the pit of blackness. I can’t explain it properly, but
it was like myself I was looking for.
It’s the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. Only most of it didn’t
happen.
I try to put it together. I start with getting flu, and I
remember the ambulance, then it goes into strangeness. Voices, snatches of
things. I can’t tell anyone about the worst things. Just can’t. Then her face,
bright and big as the moon coming down from the sky to hover over me. Cecilia.
Really, the loveliest face, pulling me up from dark water. Nurse Cecilia. I see
you, she said to me, that’s where you are. I … see … you. Holding me safe in
her eyes.
God must have plans for you, says Vincent, on to his second
whiskey. I can’t have a drink yet, now, maybe ever. He talks like this to say
he likes me, to say he’s relieved. My wife and daughter look shifty when he
talks about me nearly dying. He thinks it’s okay cos I didn’t, but they both
get this funny embarrassed look and I know then they thought I was going to.
I can’t get from one side of the room to the other without
hanging on the furniture. I don’t want to go out and get asked how I am. I find
myself looking through the blinds at the empty street and worrying about who’s
out there. Like whatever I was looking for in those dreams, well now it’s
looking for me.
Everyone thinks I’m a cranky old bugger, that I should be
kicking my heels up with joy. Valerie looks like five years have passed in three
months. She’s no kicking her heels neither. I’m sleeping downstairs anyway, a
bed behind the sofa cos the stairs are hard to manage. I keep the telly on
through the night.
Dawn comes down and sits on the bed, squashing into me,
but it’s nice. We’re watching The Matrix, I seen it before, but now when I see
that boy inside that huge space like the belly of a monster and him and those
others with tubes coming out of them. I start to shake. Y’okay? says Dawn. I
try a laugh, that’s me, I say, me in the hospital.
And she sits up real straight and says, Dad, it’s the very
opposite. Your machines were feeding you, not feeding off you. She’s so sure of
what is what, her voice pat pat pat, even though we’re talking crazy stuff.
You’re not in love with that nurse are you? She’s moved her
eyes back to the telly. I want to tell her how it was, but how can you? Ach, there
were loads of nurses, I say and anyway I don’t love anyone but you and your
mother. And Zippy she says, to lighten it up. Zippy’s the cat. And Zippy, I
say. And she puts her hand over mine, hiding the bruising and says, be quiet, there’s
a good bit comes next.
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