‘A bitch?’
‘A fucking bitch. Max’s words.’
Millicent stood up, looked at me, and with great economy of movement picked up a bottle that was lying on the counter. She looked at me again, and swung the bottle at me.
‘Millicent, what?’
As the bottle met my temple it shattered.
‘Full,’ I thought. ‘Wine,’ I thought. ‘Red,’ I said.
Dark.
Millicent stood, unmoving, gulping air, the neck of the bottle still in her hand.
‘Cut you, Millicent,’ I said, or thought. ‘You cut you.’
I nodded at her hand. There was a gash joining her lifeline to the line of her wrist. Millicent did not look down.
‘Doctor you,’ I tried to say. ‘Mend you.’
Millicent was looking very directly at me. She dropped the bottleneck and reached towards me. I reached out for her hand, and tried to steady myself. Then Millicent went dark and the day outside went very bright.
I heard Millicent make a telephone call, and felt her hand on mine in the ambulance. I heard her whispering, ‘I’m so sorry, Alex. I’m so very, very sorry.’
When she explained to the registrar she didn’t try to cover her guilt. She didn’t claim self-defence. She had reached the end of her tether, she said. She had run out of things to say.
Then she told the same story to the consultant, and again to the police.
‘We will want to speak to your husband. He may wish to press charges. Assuming …’
‘Assuming he’s OK? Sure. I understand.’
She cried after the police had left. Then she called Tarek’s mother, and asked if Max could stay over. Then she called Max, and told him that I was in hospital.
‘Your dad fell over and hit his head. I’ll explain when I see you.’
She instructed him on what she wanted him to pack, and when to expect Tarek’s mum.
Someone tapped my arm. I felt the needle, felt nothing, then felt everything: light-shards traced from that point of singularity to the outer reaches of my body. Opiates, I thought. Good, I thought. In the absence of love, let there be opiates. Let me sleep the sleep of kings.
‘No, Max, no, his eyes are open. Yes. Yes, I hope so. I think so … I love you too, Max. I love you too.’
My mind departed. It knew the misery of life alone in a hospital bed, and the consolation of open spaces. At some time in the middle of a dream I thought I saw Mr Ashani, sitting on the end of my bed. ‘What happened?’ I wanted to say. ‘Are you alive?’
Mr Ashani spoke for a while. Mr Ashani told me something important. Mr Ashani was gone.
My mind returned. The light-shards dissolved from my body and I woke.
I sat up. The lamp above the next bed was on, although there was no one in it. There was a chair, on which Millicent must have sat, and a sink. The curtains were open, and there was light in the sky. I could smell old cigarettes, and guessed that Millicent had smoked out of the window.
I found something that felt like a handle and pulled it.
A person in a white uniform came in and said, ‘OK, good.’ She left before I could speak.
Someone had slept on top of the other bed. Or lain on it at least. The pillow was heavily indented, and the bedclothes carried the imprint of a small body. I looked at the imprint, wondered for a moment whether this would be the last I would see of Millicent.
I cupped my chin with my left hand. Wrong. Very wrong.
It took me a moment to realise what was out of balance. The thumb found stubble. The forefinger and middle finger returned the wrong data.
Nerve damage.
I changed hands. This time the forefinger and middle finger found stubble. The thumb found newly shaved skin.
I checked again with both hands. The right-hand side of my face was shaved, the left was not. The shaving had been very precise. There was a clear straight line from below my nose, past my chin, and across my Adam’s apple. I could feel no pain from the right side of my face, but my fingers found what must be dressings near my cheekbone. I found another shaved patch by my temple, found another dressing, and thought I could make out the shape of sutures under the dressing.
There was a mirror over the sink. But I wasn’t yet ready for that.
Millicent came in. She didn’t seem surprised to see me sitting up.
‘Hey,’ she said.
I nodded.
‘So, that wasn’t good.’
No, I thought, that wasn’t good.
‘You OK?’
I considered this. On balance, yes, I was OK. I nodded.
‘Hurts, right?’
I brought my hand up to my cheek, and then to my temple.
‘So, there’s a doctor coming to see you. You want me to go?’
I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t shake my head, but she seemed to understand.
‘Blink twice for no, right?’
I nodded.
Looking Millicent in the eye, I touched the left side of my face, then the right.
‘I guess they were saving money,’ said Millicent. ‘You know, like how cancer surgeons make ugly scars because neat scars take time, and if they save half an hour every operation, they can fit in another one, right?’
I touched my face again, nodded.
‘So, I guess by that logic maybe it makes sense to shave half your face, Alex. Maybe an orderly can shave a lot more half-faces than faces. If their job involves a lot of shaving.’
The doctor came in. Fifty-five, I thought, with close-cropped silvered hair. She and Millicent had a murmured conversation by the other bed. Then she shone a light in my eyes, and asked me to answer questions by raising my right or left hand.
Was I comfortable?
I raised my right hand from the sheet.
Did I remember what had happened?
I thought for a moment, then raised my right hand.
Was I in pain?
I raised my left hand.
Did I recognise Millicent?
I paused for a long time. Then I raised my left hand. The doctor looked a little concerned.
‘I think he may be joking,’ said Millicent. I raised my right hand.
‘You see,’ said Millicent. ‘He’s joking.’
The doctor didn’t look convinced. She asked me whether, in my opinion, my body was working as it should. I raised my right hand.
The doctor began to explain something to me, but I was tiring of her. I raised my finger and put it to my lips. Millicent and the doctor looked at each other.
I touched my left cheek, then my right, then my left.
Millicent nodded. ‘So, before you came in, Alex and I were discussing why you had shaved half his face.’
The doctor ignored Millicent and began to explain to me that I had suffered a blunt-injury trauma, but that there hadn’t been any bleeding into my skull cavity. They would be keeping me in for observation, which might take some time.
‘Fffffffff,’ I said.
There was a very long pause.
‘Fffffffff,’ I said again.
‘Mr Mercer, we need to keep you in.’
‘Ffffffuck.’
‘Mr Mercer?’
‘Offffff.’
Millicent looked as if she was about to laugh. Then she looked very serious.
I lay back on the bed.
Millicent and the doctor went to the other end of the room. I couldn’t hear what they said, but Millicent was nodding.
The doctor returned.
‘Mr Mercer?’
‘Get … to fuck.’
They exchanged a meaningful look.
‘Mr Mercer, we need to keep you in.’
‘Away to fuck, Doctor.’
Millicent put her hand on my arm. ‘Alex, the doctor is concerned. I’m concerned.’
‘Why do I sound so Scottish?’
Another significant look passed between Millicent and the doctor.
‘Mr Mercer, I’m pleased you are able to speak, but more than a little concerned at the content of your utterances.’
‘Tell the doctor to let me go home, Millicent.’
‘Mr Mercer, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
‘Oh, come on, sweetchops.’
‘Alex,’ said Millicent, stroking my face.
‘I’m fine. Tell the doctor I’m fine.’
‘He says he’s fine, Doctor.’
‘Mr Mercer, you are not fine.’
‘Millicent, ask the doctor if my face is OK to go home.’
The doctor confirmed to Millicent that there was nothing much wrong with my face.
‘OK, Millicent, then I’m coming home with you.’ I threw off the bedclothes and stood up.
‘Mr Mercer, you are to stay here,’ said the doctor.
‘Away with you, hen. Millicent, where are my clothes?’
‘Alex,’ said Millicent, ‘I need to know that you really are OK.’
‘And how do I prove that to you?’
‘You sure you don’t want to get yourself slightly more thoroughly checked out?’
‘That would be my advice, Mr Mercer,’ said the doctor.
‘Away to fuck, hen,’ I said.
Millicent and the doctor went to the far end of the room and spoke in low voices. I heard the words
rescan him
. The doctor left the room.
‘She sending for reinforcements?’ I asked Millicent.
‘No, Alex, they want to scan you again.’
‘Fuck her.’
‘Your behaviour is consistent with brain injury. Which she was trying to tell you.’
‘Consistent with. But not.’
‘Then what is this, Alex?’
‘Displacement.’
‘Displacement?’
‘Displacement. This is displacement.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Easier to hate her than you. Doesn’t hurt anyone if I hate her. Too much hurt if I hate you.’
‘Isn’t that transference, honey?’ said Millicent. ‘Anyway, I think she’s a little upset, Alex. She’s just doing her job.’
‘Not real hurt, that. Not like what we’ve got. Is it?’
‘I guess not. But you could be a little politer.’
‘Politer?’
‘Politer.’
‘That’s not a word.’
‘It is, Alex.’
‘Do I seem in any way impaired to you, Millicent?’
Millicent studied my face for a moment.
‘No, not impaired, exactly. But you’re being a little weird.’
‘Weird how?’
‘All that misdirected anger. She’s only trying to help you.’
‘Want me to direct it at the
appropriate
target again?’
A frown flashed across her brow. ‘If I’m honest, Alex, I like this a little better.’
‘You hit me with a wine bottle. I have grounds for my anger. I’m just … transferring it … to her.’
Millicent nodded.
I stood and thought. I thought of the moment just before I fell. I thought of Millicent’s hand reaching out for mine. I thought of how small she had looked then, and how small she looked now.
‘You reached out to me.’
‘I’m not following you, Alex.’
‘You reached out to me.’
‘I thought you didn’t do shrink talk.’ She smiled up at me: an uncertain, guarded smile.
‘I don’t. Why did you take my hand?’
‘Because in that moment I wanted to help you.’
‘You wanted to help me through … the consequences of your hitting me in the face with a wine bottle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I guess you did that. Thank you.’
Millicent looked apprehensive.
I took her right hand in mine. The wrist was bandaged, but there was a rust-red stain where the glass had cut into her.
‘Serve you right,’ I said. ‘Poor you.’
‘Which, Alex?’
‘Both.’
A member of the hospital’s Social Work team came to speak to me. She insisted that Millicent leave the room.
I told the social worker that I wanted to go home. She told me that the police had arrested Millicent, taken a statement, and released her. I told her Millicent had reached out to me and that I wanted to go home.
The hospital scanned my brain again; the machine was white and smooth-edged, and they strapped me to a gurney to keep my head from moving. Millicent could not be in the room with me and my head was filled with thoughts of executions as it hummed and glided around me.
I was achingly polite to the consultant both before and after the scan. She refused to tell me the result and insisted I stay in overnight. I may have said fuck under my breath. I’m certain she didn’t hear it though.
The social worker returned after breakfast with a member of a Domestic Violence team. They brought coffee and muffins, and made Millicent leave the room. Then they asked me a series of questions about my marriage. I put it to them that the worst thing for Max would be a separation; they put it to me that witnessing violence between parents was harmful to children. I told them that Max had not witnessed the bottle striking my face; they refined their definition to include the effects of violence. I asked if they had any power to keep me in the hospital, and they told me they did not. I ended the meeting.
The consultant released me into Millicent’s care with a prescription of morphine. Millicent took it to the hospital pharmacy to have it made up. We drank coffee in silence in the tiled canteen, eating the Domestic Violence muffins. Then we collected my prescription and went home by taxi.
I woke in the late afternoon. Max was lying beside me on the bed, playing a game on my phone.
‘Hi, Max.’
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Where did you find my phone?’
‘In your pocket. You left your trousers on the floor.’
‘Did Mum tell you what happened?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What did she say?’
‘You fell over in the kitchen.’
‘I fell over in the kitchen?’
‘I didn’t believe her. So I made her tell me what really happened.’
‘And what did she say really happened?’
‘You got hit in the head by a bottle.’
‘Did she tell you who hit me in the head with a bottle?’
‘She didn’t want to. But I already knew.’
Max went back to his game. I watched him for a while, but could not read his expression.
‘Did she do it so you wouldn’t go to the funeral?’
‘Max, I’d like you to save the game and give me back my phone.’
Max looked up at me, then continued playing.
‘Now, Max.’
He handed me back the phone.
‘How did you know Mum hit me?’
‘No one else would have.’ His voice was very small.
He took a folded card from his jeans pocket. He handed it to me, watching my reaction. The card was from the police. It said that they had called to speak to Millicent and to me at 15.30, but that there had been no reply. They would like me to call them back at my earliest opportunity. I wondered if not using envelopes was a deliberate policy.