I lie there, not knowing whether to punch the pillow or punch myself. I wish somebody would pop into my head and tell me how I feel.
***
I last three weeks without Jake, and then I make an appointment to have the implant on my ocular nerve refitted.
My group are aghast.
“You’ll kill yourself!” says Deb. Eliza and Tom clutch hands; they’ve progressed to above-the-table displays of affection.
“Maybe I’ve grown out of it. Like asthma.”
Deb sits back and crosses her arms over her chest. “If you really believe that, take off your hat.”
“These stupid hats are just placebos anyway,” I tell her, and reach for mine. I put it in the centre of the table, where it sits between our coffee cups like a new-age salt shaker. A speck of pain, a pinprick, pops into life above my left eye, but I ignore it.
“Please, please,” says Len, shaking his head, “You’ll make yourself ill.” I love Len dearly, but this time his compassion only galvanises my resolve. I put my share of the bill on the table.
“Goodbye,” I say. “I don’t belong with you any more.”
I leave my tinfoil hat on the table, and I walk away.
By the time I reach the tube station I can’t see straight. There are glowing white lines in my head, undulating in time to the pulsing pains running through my body. I’m at the top of the
stairs, leading down into the dark, being pushed onwards by the people surrounding me, crowding close; I waver, give myself over to them, let them carry me along, down the stairs, through the white-tiled halls that lead to the edge of the track.
One small shove in my back is all it takes. I fall. I fall and see nothing but black. I hear a hundred voices calling to me, shouting, get up, get up. And then I’m gone.
***
“Terrible,” says a woman, softly.
I open my eyes. Ouch. Day nine in hospital and waking up is still unbelievably painful.
I’m hoping that will improve at some point.
The woman standing at the end of my bed is definitely not a nurse. She looks rich. Her well-cut skirt and waistcoat in grey herringbone look great on her, and under her arm she carries a red ring binder. I haven’t seen one of those in years.
I’m guessing she works in media.
“No comment,” I croak.
She blinks.
Jake Qwerty’s ex-girlfriend, laid up in hospital. Tried to kill herself after the breakup. Look at her poor, broken body.
“I’m not here to get a scoop. My name is Marianne Klaus. I work with Klaus, Klaus and Hedder.
We’re a firm of solicitors.”
“Daddy’s business?”
“Mine,” she says. “And my sister’s. We started it together. Hedder came along later and married my sister, but he’s a nice guy. Believe it or not, there are a few of those left.”
I feel ashamed of my ridiculous preconceptions. Perhaps I should apologise. Instead I press the button by the side of my bed and elevate myself to a sitting position with as much dignity as I can muster with two legs encased in plaster.
Marianne Klaus watches me. She doesn’t blink that much, which is reassuring. Maybe she’s on the level.
She points to the foil curtain that surrounds my bed. “I had that put up for you,” she says.
“Thanks.”
“You’ve been through enough. I’m glad to be here today to give you some good news.” She opens the ring binder and places it on my lap. The top page is a printout of an online article. The headline says:
QWERTY EX SHOCKER
The picture is of a body lying face down in a gutter. No. It’s a woman. On a Tube track.
Me.
For a moment I can’t speak. Eventually I manage to find my voice. “This is good news?”
She turns the pages. The headlines pass through the days.
THE DISCONNECTED WORLD
LIVES OF PAIN
BLIND, DEAF AND ABANDONED
“There are videos too. The Daily Whip came up with a hashtag: #makeitbetter. It went global.
Klaus, Klaus and Hedder were called in to manage the donation fund.”
“Donation fund?”
She turns the pages once more, to the final story.
YOU DID IT!
“As of this morning there is a sum of over seven million pounds waiting to be transferred to your bank account. I’m getting a set of paper cheques made for you to enable your spending. That amount of money could be difficult to carry in cash.”
“I … I don’t know what to …”
She blinks. “You don’t need to say a thing. I’ve just taken a snap of this moment to circulate out on the web. Everyone will want to see it, if that’s okay?”
“Right,” I say. “Right.”
“So have a think about what you want to do with all your money and I’ll enable it. You’ve got at least another week before you can be released from hospital-I’ll come back in a few days once you’ve had a chance to come to terms with it all.”
“Okay.”
“You’re very brave,” she says, abruptly. Then she turns, and leaves. I lower the bed back to a prone position and try to make sense of the world I can’t see.
I shouldn’t make any rash decisions. I could start a charity. Buy a mansion, cover it in tinfoil, take in other sufferers of IEHS. I could become a spokeswoman for my cause. Speak at the United Nations. Rail passionately against the unfairness of the modern age. I have been given an amazing opportunity. It should not be wasted, this chance to do good. I wonder if Marianne has opened a Facebook account for me. I wonder how many friends I have now.
I don’t know what I want.
But I know what I need.
***
I float in the sea.
It’s not a sea of knowledge. It’s not milky-white, and it’s not making a new sense of understanding within me. It’s just a sea, even if it is the Dead one.
It’s so easy to float here, easy to let myself go. There are no voices, no whispers, no expectations or assumptions. There is only me.
For the first time, I’ve made the choice to be alone.
I sort of like it