“I have no idea,” he replied. “Then again, I am light years away from any cogent thought right now. Maybe the whiskey washed away my memory or something, because what I recall looks like a live action Dali painting. Just all,” he burped and made a dripping gesture with his hands, “smudged and jumbled in too many colors.”
“Sound like most of your birthdays,” she mentioned, trying not to smile. “Don’t fret, pet. You can sleep it all off soon. Tomorrow you will better remember that shite. Better yet, there is a good chance Rowan could tell you a bit more about your molester, since he served him all evening.”
Sam’s drunken head spun to leer at her and lolled to one side in disbelief. “My molester? Jesus, I am sure he was gentle, because I do not remember him molesting me. Also… who the hell is Rowan?”
Nina rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, Sam, you are a journalist. One would imagine you would know that the term has been used for ages to imply someone who accosts or annoys. It is not a solid noun like rapist or violator. And Rowan is the barman at Balmoral.”
“Oh,” Sam sang as his eyelids drooped. “Yes, then, yes, that mumbling fuckwit molested the shit out of me. I have not felt that molested in a long time, I tell ya.”
“Alright, okay, lay off the sarcasm. Stop being daft and stay awake. We are nearly at your place,” she instructed as they passed along the Turnhouse Golf Course.
“Are you staying over?” he asked.
“Aye, but you are going straight to bed, birthday boy,” she directed sternly.
“I know we are. And if you come with us, we will give you a peek of what lives in the Republic of Tartan,” he announced, grinning at her in the passing yellow lights that lined the road.
Nina sighed and rolled her eyes. “Talk about seeing ghosts of old acquaintances,” she murmured as they turned into the street where Sam resided. He said nothing. Sam’s bumbled mind was on autopilot as he swayed in silence with the cornering of the vehicle, while far away thoughts kept thrusting back the blurred face of the stranger in the men’s room.
Sam was not much in the way of a burden when Nina laid his head on the fluffed pillow in his bedroom. It was a welcome change to his wordy protests, but she knew that the night’s sour event along with the alcohol consumption of a bitter Irishman had to have taken its toll on her friend’s demeanor. He was exhausted, and as fatigued as his body was, his mind was fighting against rest. She could see it in the movement of his eyes behind the cover of their lids.
“Sleep well, lad,” she whispered. Planting a kiss on Sam’s cheek, she pulled up the covers and tucked the ear of his fleece blanket under his shoulder. Faint flashes of lighting illuminated the half-drawn curtains as Nina switched off Sam’s bedside lamp.
Leaving him in satisfied unrest, she headed for the living room where his pet cat lazed on the mantel.
“Hey Bruich,” she whispered, feeling quite drained herself. “Want to keep me warm tonight?” The feline did little else than peek through the slits of his eyelids to examine her intent before snoozing on peacefully in the rumble of thunder over Edinburgh. “Nope,” she shrugged. “Could have taken up your master’s offer if I knew you were going to snub me. You bloody males are all the same.”
Nina plopped down on the couch and switched on the television, not so much for entertainment as for company. Slivers of the night’s incidents passed through her memory, but she was too tired to review too much of it. All she knew was that she was unsettled by the sound that escaped the virgin when he beat his fists against her car window before Sam took off. It was like a retarded yawn, played in slow motion; an awful, haunting sound she could not forget.
Something caught her eye on the screen. It was one of the parks from her hometown, Oban, in the northwest of Scotland. Outside, the rain came down to wash away Sam Cleave’s birthday and announce the new day.
Two past midnight.
“Oh, we made the news again,” she said, and turned up the volume over the rain. “Not too gripping, though.” The news report was nothing serious, other than the new elected mayor of Oban on his way to a national assemblage of high priority and great confidence. “Confidence, my ass” Nina scoffed, lighting a Marlboro. “Just a nice name for clandestine cover up emergency protocol, hey, you bastards?” Along with her cynicism, Nina tried to figure how a mere mayor would be deemed important enough to be invited to such a high profile meeting. It was odd, but Nina’s sandy eyes could bear the blue TV light no more and she fell asleep to the sound of the rain and the incoherent, fading chatter of the reporter on Channel 8.
5
The Other Nurse
In the morning light that filtered through the window of Purdue’s window, his wounds looked a lot less grotesque than they did the previous afternoon when Nurse Madison cleaned them. He hid his initial shock at the pasty blue slits, but he could hardly argue that the work of the doctors at the Salisbury Clinic was top notch. Considering the devastating damage done to his lower body, down in the bowels of the Lost City, the corrective surgery was a beaming success.
“Looks better than I thought,” he mentioned to the nurse as she removed the dressing. “Then again, maybe I just heal well?”
The nurse, a young lady whose bedside manner was a tad less personal, gave him an uncertain smile. Purdue realized that she did not share Nurse Madison’s sense of humor, but she was friendly, at least. She seemed quite uncomfortable around him, but he could not fathom why. Being who he was, the extrovert billionaire simply asked.
“Are you allergic?” he jested.
“No, Mr. Purdue?” she answered carefully. “To what?”
“To me,” he smiled.
For a brief moment, she had the old ‘trapped deer’ look on her face, but his grin soon relieved her of the confusion. At once, she smiled at him. “Um, no, I am not. They tested me and found that I am immune to you, actually.”
“Ha!” he cheered, trying to ignore that familiar burn of the stitches’ strain on his skin. “You seem reluctant to speak much, so I gathered there had to be some medical reason.”
The nurse took a deep, drawn out breath before she answered him. “It is a personal thing, Mr. Purdue. Please, try not to take my rigid professionalism to heart. It is just my way. Patients are all dear to me, but I try not to get personally attached to them.”
“Bad experience?” he asked.
“Hospice,” she replied. “Seeing patients come to their end after getting close to them was just too much for me.”
“Holy shit, I hope you are not implying that I am about to expire,” he mumbled with wide eyes.
“No, of course that is not what I meant,” she quickly negated her statement. “It came out wrong, I’m sure. Some of us are just not very sociable people. I became a nurse to help people, not to join the family, if that is not too snide of me to say.”
Purdue understood. “I get it. People think because I am wealthy, a scientific celebrity and such, that I enjoy joining organizations and have meetings with important people.” He shook his head. “All the while I just want to work on my inventions and find the silent harbingers from history that helps clarify some recurring phenomena in our eras, you see? Just because we are out there, achieving great victories in the things of the world that actually matter, people automatically think we are doing it for the glory and the fame.”
She nodded, wincing as she peeled off the last bandage that forced Purdue to catch his breath. “Too true, sir.”
“Please call me David,” he groaned as the cold liquid licked at the stitched incision on his right quadriceps. His hand instinctively grabbed at hers, but he stopped its motion in mid-air. “Christ, that feels horrible. Frigid water on dead flesh, you know?”