Novel Treatments / THE IMITATION - Chapter 2 - DRAFT

2. ANGELS, WE HAVE HEARD.

I’m all in a spin. It’s all happened so quickly and I can’t seem to believe it. That you’re not here anymore. If only I’d … if only … but it’s no use, you see, and it’s all happened so quickly. so strangely, I don’t know what to think, can’t even …

If I’d known. I’d have been better. Oh yes. But you knew that, didn’t you ? And here I am, on a pew, mumbling faces all around me, and what did you ever get from it ? What was it ever worth ? Me on a pew, and you out there. In a box, dear. Dead.

Am I just fooling myself ? Me on the pew, oh yes, and you there, dead, and all these mumbling voices, these whispers. Would I have been so much better ? I know what some of them are saying about me. About us. Oh yes. Let them think what they like ! But you, you see – what did you ever get from it all ? If only you could talk, just for one more minute, that’s all we’d need.

But you can’t, Judith, can you ? All that love, all that anger, all your funny little ways and those endless tiny niggles … and never again, never again. Just me in a spin now, dear. What good was it all to anyone, Judith ? All that time, just gone, oh yes. What was any of it all worth ?

Sleep, blackness, blankness – like some machine that they’ve shut down forever. How did it feel, how did you feel ? Was it a release ? Relief ? Release ? Subsiding, fading-out, no pain, not frightening at all ? Was it easier to die than to think about dying ? If only I knew, could hear or believe, my dear. Oh yes, if only. But it’s all been such a shock, you see.

They’ve all been saying that, oh yes. “If only”. Makes me sick it does. I mean – what do they know ? And me – I’m sick at my own self-pity. Oh, I’ve been though it all, Judith : hating myself, wishing I’d been better, missing you being there, telling myself …, telling myself how much … I did love you, you see, and you knew that, didn’t you ?

Is it really nothing, for nothing, to nothing ? What did you get from it all ? What, apart from these memories, is left ?

That first time we made love – you said it hurt, didn’t you ? But you wanted me to … and I wanted to, oh yes, I really did. You were so lovely then, so beautiful, and me … We were so young. But what happened to us ? If only … Look at you, you stupid bugger, you’re crying on your pew. Crying like a baby, like a silly old woman. Pull yourself together. You’ve got to be strong. They’re looking at you, you see. Oh yes.

I expect they blame me, some of them. You never should have learnt to drive, Judith, I always said that. And I was right, you see, wasn’t I ? You’d be here now, wouldn’t you ? You were always a proper stubborn one like that !

Now, that makes me smile.

What did I give you ? What did I take ? Could I have stopped  ... ? It’s no good, all this thinking. Round and round. Round and round. Like some blasted animal in a cage : round and round, round and bloody round.

Could you be watching me ? Could you show me, give me a sign : let me know ? Just one. It’s that terrible, frightening nothingness, it’s that which … they say it’s your own death you’re scared of, but then … No, of course it must be you.

But there’s so much that changes, you see, and we can’t turn back the clock … And we left such a lot of unfinished business behind, my love, and I wish … But there I go again, my dear, and they’re standing up now. They must be coming in

Coming in, with you in that box.

But you’re not there, anymore, are you ? I can hear the organ and see the priest there in white and black. Four strangers laying a box on an altar. It’s just the right size for you. You were always such a little woman, dear, that’s …

And he’s talking, talking away, and people reply. And I’m standing up, too, and saying my piece, dry-eyed. But you’re not here anymore, oh no. You’ve gone.

-—---—---—---—---—---—---—---—---—---—---—---—-----

The Casualty Department at Glendale Hospital was fairly quiet when they arrived : a small boy with his arm in plaster was sitting patiently on the edge of his seat while a large man with a beard – presumably his father – pored over a copy of Marie-Claire; a stubbly drunk with a cut on his forehead was lurching around near the doorway; and the woman at Reception was half-heartedly going through some papers at her desk.

“She looks more worn-out than the patients,” thought Jenni, grimly. Hospital staff were under so much pressure these days, it made her mad. Not that teachers weren’t, of course ! Oh yes, and she’d better phone the school if they were going to be here any length of time, to get some cover sorted.

Dominic looked un-nervingly cheerful. “Problem pages are the best bit, mate, ” he opined to the man with the Marie-Claire. The skinny child looked up at him, curious at this amiable stranger with two bloodstained rags on his wrists.

“I prefer the horoscopes, meself,” replied the man, jocosely, from beneath his thick brown beard. Dominic had always warmed to the sight of fellow-males looking after their kids (although these days the warmth seemed tinged with a bitterweet echo of Dad), so he sat down next to him. The child continued to gawp.

At odds with their matey mood, she left them to their good-humoured  banter and walked self-consciously over to the Receptionist. Her unquiet mind clashed with the hush around her : she could hear every footfall in the almost empty early morning room.

She tried to focus on what to do. She had so little experience of this sort of situation. Did you “book people in” at a hospital ? What about G.P. funds ? Did they need to have something about that, these days ? What should she say ? Not so much about the “booking”, but about Dominic ? About those … hands ? About how it happened ?

“Can I help you ?” enquired the Receptionist, with slightly frayed but mechanical brightness.

“Yes. Er, no, not me. It’s my husband. Partner. He’s cut his wrists.”

The Receptionist’s carefully-pencilled eyebrows lifted a fraction. A little unprofessionally, Jenni thought, then quashed the unkindness of it. She avoided the woman’s eyes.

“I see. Have you any idea what with ?” asked the Receptionist.

“No, I don’t  - I don’t actually know,” replied Jenni, flustered. She was glad that nobody else was around. She didn’t seem to be coping very well. She wasn’t thinking straight at all.

“And how does he seem to be ?” The Receptionist paused and looked at Jenni, who stared back blankly. “It’s okay, you can tell us, love.” Her searching look and maternal air irritated Jenni. That voice seemed stagey when she spoke, insincere : “We get a lot of this sort of thing, love. Knowing that little bit more will all help us do what we’re here for. You’re not going to shock us, love, we’re used to it.”

She seemed to be staring at Jenni’s all-too-visible pregnant lump. “Making up her own version already,” thought Jenni, incensed at the idea that their lives, this awful situation, might become hospital tittle-tattle, fodder for speculation, pity or jokes. She hated having her privacy invaded. It was the one thing she just couldn’t stand.

“He’s over there,” she added, by way of an explanation, casting a hurried glance at the three figures on the Waiting Room seats. What was this ? The Spanish Inquisition ? Questions, questions, questions – it was worse than seeing Mum on a bad day !

She looked away from the woman, not wanting to see her any more. The two men and the boy were laughing, over on the plastic seats. Look at them, chirpily chatting away like that ! What on earth did they think was going on ? Useless, the lot of them ! Did they not have any idea of the effect this was having on her ? Not that it was anybody’s fault but Dominic’s, when it came down to it. She really did seem to pick them, didn’t she ?

Menfolk had been the bane of her life : as if it hadn’t been bad enough to be cursed with a drunken sot of a father, a man who cared more for his bloody bottle than his wife or child, she now seemed to have acquired a husband who wasn’t much better. Why had it taken her so long to notice ?

Better ? Worse ! This was taking it to the extreme, wasn’t it ? Talk about self-destructiveness ! At least her Dad had had the common decency to hang around until she was more-or-less old enough to look after herself – but Dominic, bloody Dominic, for all that self-righteous right-on New-Man posturing of his, he hadn’t even had the guts to wait until their bloody baby was born ! Bloody coward ! Call himself a man, indeed ?

So maybe she really was like her mother, leastways that’s what Mum always made out : maybe there was something about her, too, which served as a magnet to a helpless, useless, hopeless man ? And who would she cling to, now that she was in this mess ? Mum ? Her child ? And so on, and so forth … ?

The textbooks all talked about families perpetuating problems, didn’t they ? From one generation to the next ? It was a classic educationalist’s dilemma, one she well knew. It wasn’t so long since she’d taken a day out for a seminar on this very theme : “Getting The Balance Right : Affording Maximum Opportunity at School and Home for the Socially Disadvantaged Child.”

So maybe this was outside of her control ? But then again, there really had been nothing – nothing ! – to suggest that this would ever happen with Dominic. Not in five years. Five good years, at that. So why now ?

She paused, looked at her nails. She must try to stop biting them.

She tried to size up the situation. Was she being unfair ? Was she letting her anxiety get the better of her ? Thinking herself into a corner, like she always ended up doing ? After all, she had no proof of anything. Only her feelings. And what good were they, if they could tell her one minute that this was a good man to spend your life with – funny, charming, dependable (oh yeah, all those things alright !) and then turn around and damn him the moment anything happened ?

No, there was no proof of anything. No suggestion from Dominic. Nothing so much as an intuition, even. It well might be only her fear that was talking, surfacing like something rotten in the shock of the moment. Taking a long view on the situation, it really was quite possible that she was being unfair.

She ought to try to make sense of this to the irritating Receptionist, even though it did make her feel awkward. She tried to frame a possible response.

“I’m sorry,” said Jenni, turning back around and trying to muster a fake smile. “It’s just … well, this situation … It’s not the easiest thing to explain, you see.”

The Receptionist clasped her long white fingers together, listening indulgently.

“Well, you see,” continued Jenni, “I’m not sure, but actually, it might not have been with anything.” She tried to gauge the Receptionist’s reaction, bracing herself for the inevitable irritation.

“Sorry ?” said the Receptionist, “I don’t quite follow you.”

“The injury – I’m not sure whether it was … well, I know this sounds silly, but I’m not actually sure anything caused it, you see.” Jenni knew how daft this sounded as soon as she started to speak. Everything had to have its cause.

“Sorry ?” The Receptionist sighed, with a worldly shrug. Jenni tried to keep her annoyance under wraps. She must be tired and put upon, after all, bored and in need of some little drama to brighten up that dreary life of hers. There again, she ought not to be so disbelieving.

“Yes, I’m sure it couldn’t have been, in fact. That’s what I think,” replied Jenni, with control.

“Oh well, I don’t need to know, love. But Nurse will want all the details.”

“Yes …” Jenni’s response was absent – minded. She was thinking about what she’d just said, trying to catch a hold on some of the implications of the various possibilities whirling around her brain. She wasn’t sure, of course, but to look at Dominic engrossed in his conversation, the most obvious explanation really had not made much sense. Self-harm ? Depression ? Wild mood swings ? It didn’t seem to fit the man she knew, not one bit. Not Mr Urbane, here. Mr Cheerful. Mr Reliable.

“If I can take down your name and a few details ? And then Nurse will be out in a minute.”

“Sure … yes.” But there again, nothing else made any sense either. A rogue bedspring ? An accident ? Sleepwalking ? A mysterious attacker ? A brainstorm ? None of it amounted to much by way of a real explanation.

“Jenni Davenport – that’s Jenni with an ‘i’” (it had been so since she’d switched from a ‘y’ at the age of 14, gone for something that bit less diminutive, slightly more independent and modern – and miles better , whatever, than her full name, which was Jennifer, and which she’d always detested – all those bloody “Jennifer Eccles” taunts on the school bus and in the playground, and anyway it was only ever her mother and one right tweedy old teacher who’d ever dared use it.)

She needed to find out more.

Dominic and the Magazine Man were busy doing a questionnaire on “How Adventurous Is Your Love Life ?” as she walked back over to them. The boy was piping up hopefully from time to time with his own answers, but as he didn’t understand most of the questions, his suggestions were making the men laugh. As she sat down, Dominic gave a a particularly hearty guffaw. What the hell was going on ? She ought to be in school soon ! This was wasting her time.

“Sorted, Jen ?” asked Dominic, wiping his eye.

“Sure – fine,” replied Jenni, untruthfully. Dominic caught her fretful tone.

“Don’t worry love, I’m okay.”

She was in the wrong mood to take such blithe self-centredness. “What about me ?” she thought, resentfully. “Whatever it is he’s done, he must see that I’m worried sick, and yet here he is – laughing away.”

“What is a vibrator, then ?” asked the boy, insistently. The man chortled, making Dominic snicker, like some naughty teenager. He tried to catch himself.

“He thought it was something for mixing food,” he explained, half apologetically.

“Oh, I see,” responded Jenni, a mirthless smile on her face.

“Sorry, love,” said Dominic, “Don’t you find it funny ?”

“Sorry ?” The situation was hopeless, bizarre, absurd. Here she was, five months pregnant, with an unfathomable husband who had just nearly bled to death, but who now only seemed able to think about some bawdy, childish joke or other.

It might not be on the same level of seriousness as the fears still circulating in her mind, but it seemed to just about sum up everything she found most irritating, and least able to understand, about boys’ talk. Boy’s talk ? Trench humour ? She’s had enough of it, whatever you chose to call it ! This was like something in an episode of “Men Behaving Badly”, and that was a programme she had always detested.

A wave of tiredness and self-pity flooded through her. “Doesn’t he care ?” she thought.

“Oh yeah, Jenni, this is Doug. And our young friend here is Jake, Doug’s nephew.”

“Alright ?” said Doug.

“Hi,” said Jenni, flatly, controlled.

“Sorry, I should have introduced you straight away,” grinned Dominic, cheerfully, “I forgot.”

“You always bloody forget,” snapped Jenni, surprising herself by being finally unable to keep a lid on her flaring emotions. “Forget my feelings, that is ! Like this … this …mess ! You only thought of yourself when you did that, too, I suppose ? Bloody wonderful bloody Dominic ! You stupid selfish git !”

And she really did burst into tears.

Doug looked hurriedly away, over at the far wall. Jake tried hard to stare at his feet, fiddling with the cast on his arm.

Dominic – somewhat awkwardly, because of the messy bandages, tried to put his arm around Jenni’s shoulder. She stiffened up.

He had been feeling cheerful, his mind distracted from why he was here, but now he was suddenly back in the real world, and with an embarassing jolt.

The strangeness of the situation hit him, like he was an outsider looking in on himself. Seen objectively, it looked quite weird, even scary.

He felt suddenly remote, isolated from the familiar world, as if none of the usual rules were in place, anchoring him to normality.

Here he was, he could be anybody, sitting on an anonymous bench in some clean new Accident and Emergency Department in Yorkshire … but then there were these disgusting and inexplicable wounds, which should probably be worrying him more than they had been.

And to cap it all, his wife had just embarassed the two people sitting next to him, instead of showing him the kind of support you might expect in this situation. She had done that, and yet it was now him trying to comfort and protect her. Jesus, what a tangle !

“I’m sorry love,” he mumbled, despite his sense of pique, trying to get her to look at him. “I didn’t think.”

“No,” grimaced Jenni, remorsefully, still sobbing slightly, “You didn’t.”

Even so, Dominic couldn’t help feeling that some injustice had been done, that he was not in the wrong, as Jenni seemed determined to believe.

Doug gave Jake a weak smile, his white teeth briefly showing beneath the bushy beard. He stood up, taking the boy’s free hand in his larger, hairier one. “Come on, Jake” he said.

“No more questions ?” asked Jake, disappointed.

“Not even another vibrator, mate,” Doug shook his head, tried to suppress a smile. Dominic cringed for a moment, thinking he might even wink.

“See you,” mumbled Dominic, without looking at them.

“Look, I’m sorry Jenni,” he said, more forcefully. He suddenly felt very tired by all this upheaval.

“I’m sorry, too,” sighed Jenni, looking up at last. “It’s just that you seemed so cheerful there and I was so worried. I forgot. After all, it’s you with those … hands.” She emphasised the last word strangely, as if reluctant to conjure up the image.

“You’re tired,” continued Dominic, sounding so reasonable that he felt proud of himself, “And pregnant. And you should have been at work by now. I should have appreciated you coming along with me more.”

“How do you mean ?”

Dominic could see his two companions slinking away out of the corner of his eye.

“Well, I know that you hate missing work. Particularly at the moment – what with all the changes going on at the school, and you about to be off and everything.”

“Oh Dom,” she said, drying her eyes surreptitiously on her sleeve, and looking him in the face. “Why did you do it ?”

“Do what ?”

“Come on. You know.”

“No, I don’t, Jenni. I really don’t understand your question.”

“Don’t lie to me, Dom. You’re too easy to see through. I need to know.”

“Know what ?” Dominic felt frustrated – she wasn’t making herself understood at all.

“You’re not pissing me about, are you ?”

“No. Really.” Both of their voices had begun to get slightly raised, and he was aware of the Receptionist looking over at them. As if he didn’t feel embarassed enough already ! He lowered his and spoke slowly, quietly. “So let’s begin at the beginning : what are you so het up about ?”

“Them.” She nodded at his hands, lying in his lap, their bloodsoaked rags like two battered moths. She swiftly averted her gaze.

“Them ?” The cause of her anguish became suddenly clear.”You think I … ?”

“Well didn’t you ?” Her hazel eyes glittered, brilliant, straight into his, searching. Her flushed face filled his vision like a round, ripe fruit.

“No,” he said, carefully, “No, I certainly did not.”

They scrutinised each other’s faces for an uncomfortably long time, unable to look away, but painfully, painstakingly, trying to divine what the other was feeling, thinking, looking for some sign of dishonesty, concern, love, sincerity, anything which might not be immediately evident.

Jenni eventually looked away, feeling as if she had been stared out, but certain in herself now that Dominic was hiding nothing. One of the rules of their relationship, one that he had always passionately insisted on, was that they should have no secrets.

If he was right, then their world was intact. And if he was wrong … Well, it just didn’t seem to stand up to the light at all.

“But I can see why …”

“Then how did it … ?”

They both started speaking at the same time, then Dominic suddenly cut her short with a gasp. “I don’t know, Jen, really I don’t. But I do know one thing.”

“What’s that, Dom ?”

“These things have really started to hurt !”

He gasped again. Jenni looked again at his face, and for a brief moment it seemed that a terrible gargoyle had stolen it away – his habitually cheerful expression vanished in a vision of pain.

To comfort him, and not wishing to hold his hand, she tenderly and unselfconsciously rested a gentle palm on his head.

The pain certainly was sharp, like tacks or broken glass beneath his skin. He rode it out as it gradually subsided from its first sudden peak.

Even so, they were still sitting in the same position ten minutes later when the Nurse arrived.

Reviews

There are no reviews of this item.