Two days pass, in which I make exponential progress. The doctors seem happy with my recovery. The goal of seeing Julia again has indeed helped me escape the bottomless well of decline.
*
Another short, isolated visit from Isabelle came with an excuse for not making her next. I again spent most of that visit striking dead matches of conversation, before she burst into tittle-tattle gossip concerning her so-called best friend, Becky. Isabelle took great pleasure in jabbering about Becky’s ex-fiancé; telling me about him having an affair and dumping Becky a month before their wedding. Isabelle’s gloating face seemed pleased that her friend’s relationship had broken down so tragically, as it fortified her belief in our marriage being a great success. After this vindictive tale of betrayal, she uttered to me three words that cemented our unsound marital foundations deeper into already sinking sand. Struggling to reciprocate, with no way of escape, as still attached to a drip, I was forced to reply. Childish superstition had me keeping my fingers crossed so it did not count. Though one positive came from her bedside visit, that being the failed promise of more grapes.
Unexpected, but wholly welcome, was Fiona’s visiting me in hospital; who thought my absence from Greymound Comprehensive was due to our squabble. Loaded with concern and guilt, Fiona went to my house with a peace offering, but was met by a multicoloured monster of envy. Reluctantly accepting her gift, Isabelle held back from divulging too much of my predicament.
On hearing about my attack and hypothermic diagnosis, Fiona was quick to offer support. We talked about why I stormed out, though I decided to blame it on stress at work.
*
Nothing could stop my charge towards restored health, and so here I am waiting to be discharged. Collecting my belongings, I sit at the end of my freshly-made hospital bed, which served as a reliable friend and comfortable enemy. Dressed in civilian clothes that Isabelle dropped off this morning, without stopping to see me, I triple check to make certain I have not forgotten anything. Whilst scanning the curtained cubicle, a bizarre sentiment fills the space in which Julia revealed her startling truth.
I wait for longer than anticipated, as Fiona’s inclination to babble sometimes becomes her undoing. It should be my wife wanting to collect me from hospital, but too consumed with work she could not spare the time. Her haste was such that she did not even tell me herself. Instead, she rang the hospital asking for the message to be passed on.
While left to hang around, I flick to the first page of the book that Julia gave to me. Still enthralled am I by its first paragraph. Setting scene and pace, a beautiful opening unleashes the following prose to continue wildly, until a purposeful cough interrupts me.
“I can leave you here, if you want?” Fiona says.
“… Hello,” I greet, belatedly. Standing up to give her a squeeze of excitable warmth, I make sure to hold my finger as a bookmark. Pulling away, I see that Fiona was not expecting such emotion, but seems gladly shocked. “Take me home,” I announce.
With a nod and a smile, she says, “Let’s go!”
Fiona takes the heaviest of my bags, as we make our way across the ward. The sun, hiding behind a cloud, creates a peculiar dimness that overshadows this area of illness and misery. Each cubicle we pass is open to the world, with the united sick offering me a collection of silent goodbyes.
“Depressin’ ennit?” Fiona says.
Chuckling at her plain speak, I begin to romanticise on how simple life was whilst bedridden – not having to cook, clean, or if I was incredibly lazy, even wash.
Reaching the end of the ward, I decide not to look back and instead imagine that each forward step I take is a symbolic step towards an unknown, exciting future.
Almost forgetting to say goodbye to Valerie, we track back. Finding the Nurses’ Station, I poke my head over and catch sight of the ill-mannered curtain-ragging nurse. “Can I ‘elp-yah?!” she growls.
“Is Valerie about?” I ask. Though within my enquiry, Valerie appears.
“You off then, Mr Bicker-tan?” she asks.
Smiling shyly, I answer, “Thanks. For everythin’.”
“Me just do me job – remember me tell you, Kath-leen?” she says, aiming her question towards her tomboy counterpart.
Kathy mumbles something in forced agreement. Valerie raises her eyebrows, poking fun at her miserable attitude. Fiona snorts under her breath, taking an instant liking to the adept nurse.
“Maybe see you again,” I proffer.
“Me hope not Mr Bicker-tan! Me hope not – go on, walk good,” she jokes. We both grin from ear to ear.
*
Opening out into the bright, wide world, all seems alien to me, having been cooped up for so long. Walking into the sunlight nearly brings on a blackout. Fiona, on guard to stop me falling, foresees my daunting breech into the wild outside. Across the road, I notice a huddle of people puffing plumes of smoke from chimney mouths. Inhaling huge gulps of crisp, fresh air, I set out to take on my future.
The clamminess felt in hospital is exacerbated by Nature’s fresh air and glorious light. Reflective beams from car windows catch the falling autumnal leaves, as trees wave in the wind. Bring does it a realness to the outside world that I watched so longingly from indoors. Aimless I plod, until able to see Fiona’s vintage raspberry Beetle jutting out of its parking space.
“Watch it!” Fiona screeches. Tugging me back, she spares me an intimate frisson with a black sports car. “You’ll be back in there if you’re not careful,” she adds.
More jaded than I had imagined, I am in no shape to correctly implement the Green Cross Code.
Quietly, I plonk myself into the passenger seat of Fiona’s untidy car. I fiddle with the radio, clueless to the buttons functions. Whilst I tamper, Fiona throws my bags into her temperamental boot, becoming impatient at its not closing. Thinking each faithful attempt will be her last, she proceeds until loud thuds are followed by expletives.
Getting bored of twiddling, I decide to wait in silence. Gazing out of the windscreen, I see a yellow Post-it note flapping in the wind – lodged underneath one of the wipers. Curious, I clamber out of the car to retrieve it. Holding it up close, I focus on the calligraphic scrawl.
It reads: Meet me. Hedgerows Cemetery. Tomorrow 2:00pm. J x
Scorching excitement reaches boiling point in my heart, and so I take refuge back inside the car to prevent collapse. I breathe hard, as realisation hits of the authentic disposition that our budding communion permits. With sweaty palms, I read over the most elegant handwriting, scrutinising whether or not I have misunderstood its meaning.
Eventually getting the boot to shut, Fiona squeezes in behind the steering wheel. Breathless, she sighs with relief. Beckoning composure after a frustrated exchange, she asks, instilling her default humour, “Home?”
“I guess so.”
Considering showing Fiona the note, as evidence of Julia’s existence, I resist, as it may only prove to her a pathetic attempt of my having wrote it.
Ignited by keys, the engine growls, but is deafened by the blasting volume of the radio. At ear piercing decibels, Indian bangra music shakes the car’s interior.
“Was that you?!” Fiona yells, twisting the volume knob to off.
Erupting into fits of laughter, having never witnessed her reactionary rage, I corpse with such vigour that if my stomach had been stitched it would burst – exposing intestinal stuffing.
“It’s not funny!” Fiona says, before cracking herself a delightful cackle. And at this moment it was like it always was. Drunk on ubiquitous joy, we rock the car from side to side with our animated, tear-seeped emphasis. Feeling alive, my usual pessimism is replaced by optimism, which is not an emotion I know too well. Our lark chugs to a stop, giving Isabelle a chance to catch up with my fleeting mind, spoiling what was a flash of unbridled ecstasy. A somersault of that intestinal fluff precedes contemplation of finishing my extinct relationship with Isabelle. With no way of escape, I will have to be courageous, or endure a life without love.
Our car ride back to Turnstone was filled with effortless chat, geared more towards Greymound than any personal happenings. Unsure as to the extent of Fiona’s scepticism about Julia, I swallow hard on compulsions to bring the subject up again.
Amongst rare seconds of silence, I gawp from the passenger window at landmarks, buildings and countryside; reacquainting myself with the familiar sights I left temporarily behind. Nature and its architecture appear more beautiful than ever, as if each individual atom sings to me, rejoicing in a world of splendour. People told me happiness could be found in the most unlikely places, but I could never have anticipated such prevalence – until now. Even the bird droppings on Fiona’s window have created a natural masterpiece of contemporary art. Lastly, I lose myself in watching a squirrel harvesting acorns, for what will surely be a long winter ahead. This too has my fascination buried deep behind the industrious little creature’s oak-closed doors, to which I would have deemed before insignificant.
Driving into Turnstone’s drab centre, away from the fields and freedom, we see the unimaginative town houses that befit our quaint suburban living. Not long passes before Fiona pulls up outside my house, “Home sweet home,” she says, knowing it to be light years from the truth.
I prolong getting out of the car. With a modicum of residual positivism, I compare my picturesque, semi-detached house to the others in the village and know fortune has been kind to me.
Carrying my bags, Fiona seems to sense a dense tension seeping from the cracks of my doorframe. Giving me a parting bear hug, Fiona reassuringly calls out, “See you at work, Bickerton,”
Waving Fiona off, I endeavour to find my keys. Without reason, my eyes swell up with tears, but continue I do to bid Fiona farewell, until she drives out of sight.
As if stepping into a stranger’s house, lack does my affinity drag on with discontent. Plonking down my bags, I pick up a handful of various brown and white envelopes piled on the bottom stair. Methodically discarding junk mail, I stumble across a few letters of vague importance.
Moving through the living room, it appears to have lain redundant since I was last here; as infused is the air with a lonesome, festering dust that has even the four walls craving company. Into our kitchen, I place unopened letters onto the dining table, which again looks untouched. Flicking on the kettle symbolises the switch back to everyday life.
Having customised my taste buds to the lank, mediocre hospital food, I decide to make myself a trusted cheese and beetroot sandwich.
I sit to eat, whilst simultaneously opening my mail: a boring bank statement, followed by a presumed confirmatory letter of sorts. Taking a huge bite out of my rustic lunch, I tear open another envelope. Finding it hard to keep the pink-stained, Red Leicester mush inside my swollen hamster cheeks, I scan the formally addressed paper, unable to prise my eyes away from the astonishingly excessive amount of digits that stretch across the page. Debts ran up by Isabelle, who settles for nothing less than everything, I have been clueless to her overspending. Crashing into a wall of financial turmoil, Isabelle now bankrupts herself from my guilt-driven tolerance.
Incapable of taking another bite of my sandwich, I stare at the five-figured sum, which brings about nausea and breathlessness, and so adds to my doctor’s recent list of ailments.
Undecided as to my next household pursuit, with no space that feels my own, I return to the lifeless living room. Sinking down into our leather sofa, I let the wide, wall-mounted television take over my debt-ridden mind, with programmes about endangered fish.
*
Isabelle arrives home with her hands full of designer shopping bags. Temper turns as I constrict my windpipe from howling, preventing myself from ending my decisive lies that have so far kept us just about ambling along.
“Hi,” she says, as if my being a lodger.
Utilising my fragile state, I inch vision around in recognition and offer a grunt, before refocusing on the giant net that pulls in obscene amounts of tuna.
“It’s a bit dark in here, isn’t it?” she moans, switching on the main light; illuminating and so bringing death to flickering changes of scene. Oblivious to the previous encroachment of darkness, dusk had settled in and brought with it a depression that suits my mood. Focus shattered, I become anxious of Isabelle’s unwanted presence, until she clonks upstairs with her bags.
Hearing the excitable kicking off of shoes, I guess Isabelle to be trying on her new acquisitions. Longing for her to stay upstairs all night, it is not long before disappointment calls from above, “What are we having for dinner, hun?”
Hushed lipped, I ignore the question. Riled, she stomps down a few stairs, until able to see me through the banister, “Jack!” Isabelle says, still waiting for an answer.
Enraged by her shameless dependence, I respond, “I’m not hungry – you have summat.”
Isabelle storms back into our bedroom, slams the door, and within seconds is on the phone to somebody. By her comfortable tone, I guess it to be one of her limited number of female friends who suffer for their kindness.
Channel hopping, I plump for watching a repeat of an old light-hearted sitcom. Though again Isabelle interrupts me, clip-clopping down the stairs in new open-toed, wedged heels. Standing in front of the mirror positioned above me, Isabelle unconcernedly obscures my view. With a butterfly clip lodged in her mouth, she grabs a bunch of her hair and twists quick – achieving effortless style – sealing it with blasts of toxic hairspray.
“I’m going to Becky’s,” Isabelle strops. In one motion she departs, leaving me in peace for what should be a considerable duration. Dozing, I move only to go to the toilet; plunging in and out of darkness, where unnatural flashes of the television dictate how bright the room becomes.
A blank commercial interjects a programme about prison.
Locked inside a cage, I peer out onto an abandoned street covered in drifts of snow. Clearer becomes my being driven along in some sort of wagon; its thick vertical bars crusted in rust. Rattling the frozen poles, I become increasingly disturbed by the vivid details of this lucid dream. Feeling bites of frost on my fingertips, and overcome by a candyfloss infused scent, I bellow, “Help!” My voice echoes and bends like waves of sound that interact with the open space in front. The cart creeps to a halt, enabling me to watch Julia emerge from a battering blizzard. Sashaying towards me, veiled in a dark cloak, she mysteriously whispers, “Freedom = me.”
Nodding my head in approval, she continues, “Follow…”
Catapulted from my dream by the sound of clinking keys, I maintain keeping my eyes wide shut. Knowing it to be Isabelle, I stay curled up like a hibernating hedgehog. She places a green tartan shawl over me. Even this act of kindness repulses me, as I feel her intentions are but to mimic actions learnt from tender film scenes. My thoughts towards Isabelle are almost certainly irrational, but my loathing her whole being is unpreventable.
Uncomfortable as sleeping on the sofa is, I prefer it. Again, late-night television occupies blurred moments of drowsiness, with each substandard, prize-winning gameshow melding into another. Experienced within a blink, the shift from darkness to light now escapes from a crack in the wooden blinds.
Eager for day to take hold, I step out into a biting frost and watch the sun make its predictable journey upwards. These first hours of ending dawn see huge droplets of dew hanging delicately off lopsided blades of grass. My excitement is rendered in this idyllic morning of wonder and expectation.