‘Are you firing me?’
‘No!’ he protests, but his face gives a different response while he considers what to say next. His hands come to meet each other in front of his chest, palms facing, just the fingertips touching, like a skin-coloured steeple or a halfhearted prayer. ‘Well, not yet. I’m giving you until the New Year to turn this around. I’m sorry that all this has come about just before Christmas, Amber.’ He uncrosses his long legs, as though it’s an effort, before his body retreats as far back from me as his chair will allow. His mouth reacts by twisting itself out of shape, as though he’s just tasted something deeply unpleasant while he waits for my response. I don’t know what to say to him. Sometimes I think it’s best to say nothing at all, silence cannot be misquoted. ‘You’re great, we love you, but you have to understand that Madeline is Coffee Morning, she’s been presenting it for twenty years. I’m sorry, but if I have to choose between the two of you, my hands are tied.’
Now
Boxing Day, December 2016
I try to picture my surroundings. I’m not on a ward, it’s too quiet for that. I’m not in a mortuary; I can feel myself breathing, a slight pain in my chest each time my lungs inflate with oxygen and effort. The only thing I can hear is the muffled sound of a machine beeping dispassionately close by. It’s oddly comforting; my only company in an invisible universe. I start to count the beeps, collecting them inside my head, fearful they might end and unsure what that might mean.
I conclude that I am in a private room. I picture myself confined within my clinical cell, time slowly dripping down the four walls, forming puddles of dirty sludge that will slowly rise up to drown me. Until then, I am existing in an infinite space where delusion is married to reality. That is all I am doing right now, existing and waiting, for what, I do not know. I’ve been returned to my factory settings as a human being, rather than a human doing. Beyond the invisible walls, life goes on, but I am still, silent and contained.
The physical pain is real and demanding to be felt. I wonder how badly I am injured. A vice-like grip tightens around my skull, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I begin to assess my body from top to bottom, searching in vain for an explanatory self-diagnosis. My mouth is being held open, I can feel a foreign object sandwiched between my lips, my teeth, pushing past my tongue and sliding down my throat. My body seems strangely unfamiliar, as though it might belong to someone else, but everything is accounted for, all the way down to my feet and toes. I can feel all ten of them and it brings such a sense of relief. I am all here in body and mind, I just need someone to switch me back on.
I wonder what I look like, whether someone has brushed my hair or cleaned my face. I’m not a vain person, I would rather be heard but not seen, preferably not noticed at all. I’m nothing special, I’m not like her. I’m more of a shadow really. A dirty little smudge.
Although I am frightened, some primal instinct tells me that I will get through this. I will be OK, because I have to be. And because I always am.
I hear a door open and the sound of footsteps coming towards the bed. I can see the shadows of movement shuffling behind my veiled vision. There are two of them. I smell their cheap perfume and hairspray. They are talking, but I can’t quite make out the words, not yet. For now, it is just noise, like a foreign film with no subtitles. One of them takes my left arm from beneath the sheet. It is a curious sensation, like when you pretend your limbs are floppy as a child. I flinch internally at the feel of her fingertips on my skin. I do not like to be touched by strangers. I do not like to be touched by anyone, not even him, not any more.
She wraps something around my upper left arm and I conclude it is a tourniquet as it tightens on my flesh. She gently puts my arm back down and walks around to the other side. The second nurse, I presume that’s who they are, stands at the end of my bed. I hear the sound of paper being manipulated by inquisitive fingers and I imagine that she is either reading a novel or my hospital file down there. The sounds sharpen themselves.
‘Last one to hand over, then you can skedaddle. What happened to this one?’ asks the woman closest to me.
‘Came in late last night. Some sort of accident,’ replies the other, she is moving as she speaks. ‘Let’s get some daylight in here, shall we, see if we can’t cheer things up a bit?’ I hear the scratchy sound of curtains being reluctantly drawn back and find myself enveloped in a brighter shade of gloom. Then, without warning, something sharp stabs my arm. It is an alien sensation and the pain pulls me inside of myself. I feel something cool swim beneath my skin, snaking into my body until it becomes a part of me. Their voices bring me back.
‘Have they called the next of kin?’ asks the older-sounding one.
‘There’s a husband. Tried several times, straight to voicemail,’ replies the other. ‘You’d think he’d have noticed his wife was missing on Christmas Day.’
Christmas Day.
I scan my library of memories, but too many of the shelves are empty. I don’t remember anything about Christmas. We normally spend it with my family.
Why is nobody with me?
I notice that my mouth feels terribly dry and I can taste stale blood. I’d give anything for some water and wonder how I can get their attention. I focus all of myself on my mouth, on forming a shape and making a dent, however tiny, in the deafening silence, but nothing comes. I am a ghost trapped inside myself.
‘Right, well, I’m off home, if you’re happy?’
‘See you later, say hi to Jeff.’
The door swings open and I can hear a radio in the distance. The sound of a familiar voice reaches my ears.
‘She works on Coffee Morning, by the way, they found her work pass in her bag when they brought her in,’ says the nurse who is leaving.
‘Does she now? Never heard of her.’
I can hear you!
The door swings shut, the silence returns and then I am gone, I am not there any more, I am silently screaming in the darkness that has swallowed me.
What has happened to me?
Despite my internal cries, on the outside I am voiceless and perfectly still. In real life I’m paid to talk on the radio but now I am silenced, now I am nothing. The darkness churns my thoughts until the sound of the door opening again makes everything stop. I presume that the second nurse is leaving me too and I want to shout out, to beg her to stay, to explain I’m just a little lost down the rabbit hole and need some help finding my way back. But she is not leaving. Someone else has entered the room. I can smell him, I can hear him crying and I sense his overwhelming terror at the sight of me.