Things are starting to come back to me. I manage to sit up in my bed and have some food – a couple of bites of toast, a sip of some hot tea. It makes me feel a little better.
I even manage to start another conversation with the woman in the bed next to me. She’s had her curtains drawn for a long time, but when I see her sitting up in bed, I smile as best I can. She acknowledges me with a nod. There’s still something about her that’s strangely familiar, but even though I wrack my brains, I’m unable to place her face.
‘What are you in for, then?’ She sounds surprisingly brisk, and I can see she’s tucking into what looks like a chocolate yoghurt. Even from those brief words, I catch a flavour of a West Country accent. It reminds me of my childhood.
‘My head…’ I say, pointing to the bandage. I realise it’s not a very satisfactory response, but she doesn’t ask for more information. She nods. Then she starts whistling very faintly, and I recognise it as the same tune she was humming earlier. And then it hits me – I know the song. It’s a Christmas carol.
‘What…’ I say, and she stops as soon as I speak. ‘What tune was that?’ I ask, even though I know the answer. It’s ‘We Three Kings’.
‘Sorry, dear? What tune?’
‘I… You were… Nothing, sorry.’ I rub at my head, wondering if I imagined it. Deciding to steer the conversation around to a more normal subject, I ask the question she put to me. ‘What are you in here for?’
‘I was attacked.’ She says it so matter-of-factly that part of me wonders if I’ve misheard. Then she continues. ‘My sister, she owed some people some money. Bad people.’ She looks me in the eyes for a split second after these two words, as if they should mean something to me. Then she turns back to her dessert and says, ‘She joined this group. Not a very nice group. But she didn’t contribute to their way of life. Didn’t follow their rules. She was, and remained, an outsider.’
Again, on this last word, she stares at me. And I stare back. Desperate for something to say, and feeling very uneasy about the direction this conversation is taking, I ask: ‘And why did they attack you?’
‘Because I didn’t give them what they wanted. They asked me if I would take my sister’s place in the group. Asked if I would travel to America and continue the life she started there.’
My heart flutters a little. ‘America?’
‘Yes,’ she says, her eyes now fixed upon me, not moving. ‘And I was wrong to say no. So they came for me. And my family.’
‘Who did?’ I ask, my heart now pounding fast.
‘The group. The leaders of the group.’
The room begins to tilt and sway. ‘What… what group?’
‘They came to my house. They poured petrol on the beds of my sleeping darlings. And then they hurt me outside the burning house with a hammer. A hammer to the back of the skull.’
I realise now that she has a bandage on her head, just like mine. ‘A few taps. A few sharp taps. Then one big one. And then blackness.’
She’s getting out of bed now, placing the empty yoghurt pot gently down on the bedside table. As she stands in front of me, I recognise her. She’s older than I remember. Her hair is greyer, her skin more weathered. But it’s her.
‘Mum?’ I say, staring up at her. And the hammer in her hand.
‘This will hurt, my sweet one,’ she says. ‘But afterwards, all the pain will go away.’
Then she swings the hammer at my face.
My scream must have sounded out across the ward and beyond. I only realise how much I’m flailing when the hands start to hold me down and someone speaks in a loud, slow voice in my ear.
‘Stephanie? Wake up, dear. Stop shouting now. Tell us where the pain is.’
I open my eyes and see two nurses peering over me, the one on my left trying to hold me still, the other brushing the hair out my face and looking into my eyes.
‘Is she hallucinating?’ one of the nurses says, her accent soft and Irish.
‘No, no,’ says the older English one. ‘I think she’s had a nightmare.’
I’m breathing heavily and try to get out some words, but they come in short, staccato bursts. ‘I… was hit… on the head… with a hammer…’
But the nurse in front of me is shaking her head. ‘Not with a hammer, my dear. That’s not right at all. You fell when the debris was coming down from the explosion. You were very lucky you weren’t more hurt. Now come, try to sit up and we’ll get you some fresh tea. If you get yourself sorted, hopefully you’ll feel well enough to see your visitor when she returns.’
I stare between the two nurses in panic. ‘Visitor? Was somebody here?’
They exchange a glance and the younger one says, ‘Perhaps she’s not in a fit state for visitors?’
‘Well, we’ll see,’ the older one says. ‘She said she’ll be back to see if Stephanie’s awake for this evening’s visiting times.’
For a second, the dream lingers on and I imagine my mother turning up, all the way from North Carolina. But I know she can’t be here. Whatever threat exists for me in reality, it’s from someone far closer to home.
‘She said her name was Janet,’ the nurse said. ‘Janet Franklin.’