As soon as he wakes up she gives him the powder, worrying about the amount, stirred into orange juice to mask the taste. It turns the juice cloudy and grainy, and he pulls a face as he drinks.
No, he says. Oh, no.
It’s only orange juice, Beth says. To reassure him.
Beth, that’s not orange juice. That’s like chalk. Yuck.
Beth sits and stares at him. Suddenly nearly himself. Everything: the way that his face moves, that his tongue spits the words, that his hands ball when he doesn’t like something. His shoulders. And that leads her to his face, which is looking cleaner and healthier, and his arms, which are definitely trimmer. More toned. She wonders if he could press what he could when he was still at war, because this – Captain Vic McAdams – is the man she’s getting back. Not the shell that came back from war, or the shell that she helped make with the Machine’s treatments.
And then he tries to stand. He moves to the edge of the bed and swings his legs down, and it’s like he never stopped being himself. Feet go onto the floor, and he pushes himself to standing, and then rocks backwards.
Woah, he says. Unsteady. I’m a bit dizzy.
How’s your head? Beth asks.
Swimmy. I need …
Lie down, Beth says. How many pills were in the orange juice, she wonders. Five? Ten? All six packets made a pile of dust that filled half a mug, and this was a few teaspoons siphoned off and stirred in. But he’s weak anyway, she knows that. It’s been a long time.
Where are we? he asks.
In my flat.
What about our house?
I can explain it, but—
He doubles over and clutches his temples.
Jesus, this headache, he says. Jesus.
Come and lie down, Beth says. She has to support him, but it’s still easier than it was. On the bed in the Machine’s room he lies down, and in the darkness she soothes his head. She rubs her fingernail over the skin where his hairline sits, and he falls asleep. She takes the Crown and slips it onto his head. She tightens the bracing straps. I’m sorry, she says.
She presses the Machine’s screen. The vibrations and the noise, seemingly more intense again. She feels sick, and she has to hold onto the Machine as it makes her rock. She queues up the file and presses play, and on the bed Vic screams and bucks.
Oh God, he says, through the cries. Oh please. Please. Beth turns and holds him. She presses him to the bed, to try and stop him moving. Oh fuck, he says. This hurts oh my God it hurts so much.
I’m sorry, Beth says.
Oh my God. He passes out suddenly, and there’s no movement, not even a twitch. It’s sudden enough to make Beth feel for his pulse.
Do you know what makes it feel worse? the Vic on the recordings asks, his voice suddenly filling the room.
No, the Beth on the recordings says. What makes it worse?
That I can’t remember how we first met, he says. I don’t know why. It’s just a mist.
We met at a dance, the recorded Beth says.
That’s right. Okay. I think I remember now.
Beth now moves her hand to her mouth, because she doesn’t want to make any other noise. This was the part she didn’t want to hear, that she tried to pretend didn’t happen. This was her taking over the treatments, and changing the schedule to fit her timetable, not Vic’s, because she wanted a husband who was at home and normal and didn’t have gaps and patches that needed filling. This was a Beth who did three treatments a day when she should have spaced them out: three a week, they told her; a Beth who watched the bruise-burns appear on his temples each day with more speed, and then stay there; a Beth who was convinced that this was the solution.
Who sat in the clinic with Vic, in a room where they couldn’t see the Machine, and plugged him in and let it run and run.
They trusted the patients to do this at their own pace – there’s no right or wrong, the doctors told them, and that was their failing right there, that’s when they sealed their fate and condemned all these people: in not locking it down – and Beth was well aware that she was abusing it. How many of these recordings are there? Of her gently leading Vic down corridors to find patches, and then letting the Machine make of those patches what it did? Trusting in it – behind a wall, not even just a curtain, but something that they couldn’t see but could definitely hear, the continual churning behind and above them – and letting it do what she should have done herself?
She wants to turn the volume down, but here they are: herself and the man that she first created, as they go through the process. As she hears herself pushing him.
I don’t know, the Vic on the recording says, by way of an answer to a question.
Yes you do, the Beth says. Try and remember. You do know.
Okay, he says. Jesus, my head hurts.
Don’t stop now, the Beth says.
On the bed, Vic starts his bucking again, awake, his mouth suddenly frothing. Beth pins him down as much as she can.
I’m sorry, Beth says.