My driver displayed his displeasure at my request to turn the car round just two hundred yards short of the hotel. No doubt he’d been expecting this to be the end of his day. Now he was on his way to Auckland Hospital. When I broke the news he planted his foot on the floor and braked late and hard at the first red light we encountered. He drummed the steering wheel to some imaginary tune as we waited for the lights to change. Another long wait and a drive in the rush-hour traffic was all he had to look forward to for the next few hours. I ignored the flash of rage he gave me in the rear-view mirror.
I fear hospitals. Whenever I have the misfortune to visit one I walk the corridors with head bowed to avoid all the medical descriptions displayed at every junction. I don’t know what half of the words mean, but I know they mean human misery and pain, despair and death. I feel a need for protection against the emotions haunting the corridors. I need a shield against the echoes of relations’ and friends’ cries and wash of their tears. Of course, I fear hospitals so much because I know one day I’ll be in one with my liver cooked, or because of an overdose, or maybe cancer—shuffling along in slippers and a gown, open at the back, my old arse falling out, but feeling too sick to care. I don’t want to die like that, which is why I think I will. In so many ways I’ve lived a blessed life; I don’t think I’ve enough luck to have a blessed death. One day it will go spectacularly wrong.
Finally I located the ward sign and found my uncertain way to Jo’s room. She lay perfectly still. The sight of her attached to flashing machines was no great surprise, but it was shocking to actually hear the sound of the ventilator with its slight mechanical pause at the beginning and end of each forced breath. Her eyes were closed, her skin pink and she looked far healthier than the last time I’d seen her. Far more dignified as well, with her body covered and neatly tucked into bed. There were two chairs in the room, one on either side of the bed. The place smelled of cleaner mixed with sterilised equipment. I sat in the low chair closest to the door. Straight in front of me was Jo’s hand, lying flat at her side, an intravenous drip in the wrist. The skin looked dry and old. Her nails were chewed and her forefinger was marked with an angry red hangnail. I reached out and touched her hand; it was warm, which surprised me, as though I’d expected stone instead of flesh. Lightly I held her fingers, my thumb stroking the hangnail, its rough edge rubbing the soft underskin of my thumb.
Before entering I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t try to recall the two nights we’d spent together, fearing that such thoughts when she was ill were a kind of sacrilege, as bad as spitting on the image of Christ in a church. But seeing Jo made me think, sifting through the fragments looking for a clue that would explain what had happened. I fast-forwarded the sex, the flesh (shit, there was so much flesh) passing without feeling, just as a second porn film in one evening loses any allure. It was the drug taking that I searched my memory for. Each time I glimpsed Jo taking a line of coke I tried to remember the minutes before. Was she taking the stuff because she wanted to, or had I forced her to take more as the three of us attempted walls better left unclimbed? I squeezed Jo’s hand as if that simple act alone might propel my own memory into action and all would suddenly become clear.
The door behind me opened and I ended my fruitless task. Perhaps given more time I might recall better. Although it made perfect sense, I hadn’t even considered the visitor might be a nurse. She was of medium height and slim, her face brown from what appeared to be a recent holiday and scarred with little white marks from teenage acne. Before replacing the clipboard at the end of the bed she looked first at Jo’s inanimate body and then at me. It took a moment for her to recognise me, but I knew when it came and she flashed a broad smile.
‘Family?’
I shook my head.
‘Friend then?’ She had a soft Scottish accent.
‘Yes.’ Was that such a lie?
The nurse started a routine check of the machines that pumped and pulsed to keep Jo alive. She looked at me a couple of times, wondering whether she should say something. This was a conscious moment of embarrassment for her, one I knew well and would usually break by talking. This time I just couldn’t be bothered, other than broaching the mundane.
‘How is she?’
‘The same.’
‘Same as what exactly?’ She looked puzzled. ‘This is my first visit. I’ve been busy with the show but I came as soon as I heard. We went to school together, you know, but I’ve lost touch with her family, so I have no one to ask. I’ve no idea how she is.’
‘Jo’s in a coma.’ There was a pause, but she was going to tell me, despite what the rules might say. ‘I’m afraid there’s been no improvement since she first came in.’ To keep busy, she smoothed out the already smooth sheet.
‘When will she come out of the coma?’
She stopped, straightened and looked at me. She was used to giving bad news, to seeing faces crumble as she gave it straight. ‘The doctors aren’t sure she ever will.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘Her parents have been here all day, in fact they left just before you came.’ She was about to gossip. This has happened to me many times before: it’s as though my life on planet fame makes me special enough to hear other people’s secrets. I’m like a cosmic agony aunt. Perhaps people think I have some redemptive quality and that telling me is like taking a cure. ‘The doctors have talked to them about her chances of improvement and they’ve gone to make their decision.’ She rolled her eyes in sympathy.
‘I see.’ Nothing more needed to be said. I’d met Jo’s parents once briefly at school after a play in which Jo had done an admirable job at playing an eighteenth-century wench complete with heaving bosom. Her father had lost a leg in a motorbike accident ten years before and walked with an awful exaggerated limp as though the artificial limb were too long. When he spoke, his voice was so loud I thought he was still competing to be heard above the throaty engine and coughing exhaust of a Triumph. Jo’s mother was tiny, with a badly bent back. I never felt any sympathy for Jo when we were young, but remembering her parents filled me with a sudden understanding of how embarrassed she must have been as a teenager and why her parents were so rarely seen. Now this poor couple had to make the decision that would kill their daughter.
The nurse came round to my side of the bed. She didn’t need to—the sheets were as smooth as on the other side—but she wanted to be seen, wanted to be noticed. It was the first time I’d seen her legs. Her calves, even in the thick tights, were well sculptured and quite alluring.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Evelyn.’
‘How long have you been in New Zealand?’
‘Eight years.’
‘The Scottish always seem to take the longest to lose their accents.’
She hummed her agreement.
‘Who do you prefer, John Lennon or Paul McCartney?’ Surely I couldn’t be thinking of this now.
She stopped her chores and turned back to look at me, ironing the front of her uniform flat with the palms of her hand. ‘I’m not sure I like either better. I like them both.’
‘Everyone likes one better than the other. Think about one of their songs you like the best and just say who you think wrote it, even if you have no idea.’