The Trouble With Dying Read online

  What about glass? I home in on my window. I’d love to pop outside for a while. The hospital grounds are an autumnal kaleidoscope of reds, golds and ruddy browns. My favourite time of year.

  As quick as it came, the splinter of memory is gone.

  My pulse slows. Another memory: a safe one. I try to dredge the rest of it from my black hole of a mind, but it’s a bit like fishing without bait.

  Maybe if I smelled the smells, felt winter’s promise in the air, gave my brain more hints . . .

  I reach for the window with a tentative hand, then stop. Will I be able to float outside the same way I float in here—or will I plunge to my death? Is that even possible, in my current state?

  I glance down. My breath stalls. Do I have it in me to find out?

  “Gran?” She could tell me, then I wouldn’t have to risk quasi-life and limb.

  I wait, but she remains absent. My heart booms. I touch my hand to the glass, mouth a quick prayer, hold my breath and push, thrust . . .

  I release my breath in an unsteady laugh. Unbelievable. I stare through the window at my wriggling fingers.

  It looks so weird. Me in here, my hand out there. I inspect the glass around my wrist, almost expecting to find a break in the seal. But—no, it’s a perfect fit. No gaps. No distortions. No puckering. Just me, enclosed in glass.

  My mind can’t even begin to comprehend what my eyes are telling me, so I stop thinking about it and, before I can chicken out, lunge my head and shoulders through the glass.

  I feel nothing—but I see it all. Careful lest I slice myself, I twist to look behind me. It doesn’t hurt, or cut. It doesn’t even feel tight. I’ve just heaved my body chest deep in a pane of glass and it feels no different than it did before.

  Which gets me thinking. What did I feel before?

  “Your emotions,” says Gran, leaning out of the bricks beside me. “Honey, if you could feel all this, believe me, you’d be in deep doggie doo-doo.”

  I study Gran’s upper half, then look her in the eye. “Where were you? I could’ve saved myself the bother and just asked you how this worked.”

  “But think of all the fun you’d have missed.”

  Fun? I look at my torso, still whole despite the sheet of glass slashing clean through me. It reminds me of that chainsaw-through-the-assistant magician’s trick—except this is real.

  As is that drop. I glance down and, throat dry, quickly haul myself back inside. Give me a floor at my feet any day.

  Gran pulls back into the room, concern on her face. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” Then, “Not really. Am I scared of heights?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I’d rather take the stairs.” I eye the door and, almost before I’ve thought it, I’m in the corridor. Just like that!

  I grin, excited beyond measure to be out of that room. Freedom. Now I can make like Sherlock and find the evidence I need to prove this whole balcony fiasco wasn’t a suicide attempt.

  “Faith.”

  “Not now, Gran.”

  I shoot off down the corridor. See? Gran was wrong. I can move away from Faith-in-the-bed.

  To my right, Nate emerges from the nurses’ station, takeaway cup in hand, grin on face. Two nurses are fanning themselves, another is ooh-lah-lah-ing, and Bridget is giggling like a teen.

  My own heart leaps at the sight of him but I’m not about to join his harem so, with the mantra just-a-friend-just-a-friend-just-a-friend repeating in my head, I continue down the corridor. He heads in the opposite direction, back to my room.

  “Faith,” says Gran. “You can’t—”

  A whipping jolt brings me to a sudden halt.

  Rats.

  “Darling, I—”

  I swing to face Gran. “Do not tell me you told me so.”

  “Oh.” Mildly. “Very well, then.”

  I grind my teeth. If I could feel the blasted wall I’d kick it.

  Gran studies her nails.

  “Oh, all right,” I say. “You told me so. Satisfied?”

  “Being right isn’t particularly satisfying when you have the clarity of Death.”

  I don’t have the space to feel sorry for her; I’m too busy feeling sorry for me. My manacles may be long, but I’m still a prisoner.

  Gran tuts.

  “Typical,” she grumbles. “Just when it was about to get interesting. Faith, I have to go. Sorry, darling. The Death Council are calling me in.”

  “Okay. ’Bye, then.” I turn and drag my sorry ass back towards my cell.

  Moments later I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see a fifty-something woman approaching. Good grief. She looks like she’s just been teleported from a gypsy fair. Full-length black skirt, purple blouse, heavily kohled eyes, even an amethyst rock—too big to call a pendant—around her neck, to which her fingers repeatedly stray.

  She slows to read the nameplate for room three and tucks her long, black-dyed hair behind an ear, revealing an unusual three-feathered earring. I can’t take my eyes off those feathers. What type of bird are they from? The answer feels tantalisingly close, so close I should be able to reach out and grab it . . .

  She continues on to room four and glances in on the occupants.

  “The holiday will be exactly what you need,” she murmurs, smiling. “Yes. A new beginning. Lovely.”

  I figure she knows them but, strangely, she keeps walking. Every step brings her closer to me.

  At room five the woman slows, then shivers, wrapping the shawl close about her shoulders.

  “Oh dear,” she says to herself. “So much feuding. So little point.”

  Which has me expecting angry outbursts—fisticuffs, even—in the room, but over her shoulder I see only pale-faced silence. What’s she talking about? I’m still trying to make sense of it when she continues on—straight through me.

  I gasp. My body jangles. It’s as if my body’s full of beads, she’s just barged through them all, and they’re coming to rest in slightly different places.

  Her footsteps falter. She looks back, startled.

  I gape at her. She felt it too?

  Apparently so. Her eyes flicker left and right, over my body and back again. Does she see me? I’m too scared to breathe for fear of breaking our cobweb of a connection.

  “What the—?” Nate’s voice erupts behind us.

  The connection snaps.

  The woman about-turns and gives Nate a gentle smile. “Hello, Nathan.” With quiet grace she walks towards him.

  Standing in my doorway, Nate regards her with barely controlled rage. A muscle works in his jaw. “Ma, I told you not to come.”

  This is Nate’s mother? Interesting.

  Her chin lifts. “You tell me many things, Nathan.”

  She stops in front of him, her utter calm facing down his pressure cooker fury. “But just as you frequently choose not to listen to me, today I have chosen not to listen to you. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  She looks up at him expectantly, but he folds his arms. “No. Sorry. I meant what I said. Go home.”

  “Nathan, this is absurd.” She looks past him at the bed. “A few minutes, that’s all.”

  Okay, this is family politics. I get that. And Nate and his mum have all sorts of history I know nothing about, so he’s probably just trying to protect me. But what harm could a short visit from his mother do? She doesn’t have scary eyes, she doesn’t look like a serial killer, and she sounds perfectly sane to me.

  Then again, I’m the one having the out-of-body experience, so maybe I’m not a good judge of sanity.

  Even so, I’d love her to sit with me. I’m sure she sensed me. She might be the very miracle I need to help me out of this mess.

  “Ma,” says Nate, “take your hocus pocus and leave. Now.”

  Her mouth sets. “My ‘hocus pocus’, as you call it, is a gift, not a threat.”

  “Now.” Somehow his bulk becomes bulkier. He all but fills the doorway.

  “You
don’t have a monopoly on Faith, Nathan. I care for her too.”

  He grits his teeth and says nothing. Stares her down until, eventually, she sighs.

  “You’re making a mammoth mistake, son,” she says. “I truly hope you don’t live to regret it.”

  Then, with a shame-on-you shake of her head, she gathers the folds of her voluminous skirt about her and leaves.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the wake of his mother’s appearance, Nate’s mood is dark. For what seems an eternity he stands to attention at the window, grim-faced, eyes narrowed against the morning light, rat-a-tatting his fingers on the sill, over and over and over again until the sound is drilling a hole in my skull.

  What is he thinking, wishing, planning? I wish I could still those drumming fingers. But, more than that, I wish I knew what made this man tick. Why he’s spending so many hours here, for example.

  As if he’s heard me, his fingers still. My shoulders relax at last in the silence that follows; silence broken only by the ventilator’s p-shhh.

  Nate turns to face the room. He takes his jacket—the same black leather jacket he’s worn every day—from the back of the chair and feels in the pockets, pulling out an ipod and dock and arranging them on the bedside cabinet.

  He pulls a chair up to the bed and the opening bars play, slow and sensual, cutting straight through to my core, lifting the hairs on my neck. Nate seems to feel it, too: he takes a deep, deep breath and hunches forward, elbows on knees, staring at the floor, gradually disappearing inside himself.

  A guy begins singing in a voice so deep it echoes in my bones, so moving it sends tingles across my shoulders. I’m suddenly tearful, with no idea why. And then I’m back there.

  With shaking fingers I open the envelope. Inside is a flash drive; black, innocuous, no hint of what it might hold.

  I switch on the computer, insert the drive, wait for the directory to open. It holds only one item: an audio file. My lips curve at the title. ‘Play me’.

  This is so like him.

  The opening bars play and already he’s got me crying, damn him. It’s my all-time favourite song. My heart aches with a pain that’s tangible. I press a hand to my chest, as if the action might somehow douse the grief. It doesn’t. I sink to my knees in front of the stereo, bow my head and sob. The song fades and dies and still my tears fall.

  Then, piercing the silence—Nate.

  I gasp, look wildly around, then realise he’s recorded himself.

  “I loved you then,” he says, “and I love you now. Happy birthday, Pixie.”

  In the background something scarily like a gunshot cuts him off, and now I’m holding my breath, hand to mouth, desperate for confirmation he’s okay.

  One beat, two, three.

  “Gotta go,” he whispers, and I release my breath. Thank God.

  “Hey,” he whispers. “Love you. Always.” A pause. “Wait for me, Pix.”

  I’m brought back to the room by the sudden silence. My song, achingly beautiful, has played itself out in the present as well as the past.

  Nate makes no move to play anything else and I’m grateful. After the emotional journey I’ve just been taken on, any other song would be trite. I feel wrung-out and yet, somehow, enriched; closer to the real me.

  Nate sits motionless, his face unfathomable.

  “What a lovely song.”

  Both of us start and look sharply towards the door. Mum smiles at him and steps into the room. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Nate straightens in his chair. “Kathy.” He smiles, rubs at his neck. “Sorry, I was miles away. It’s Hallelujah. Faith’s favourite.”

  “That’s so thoughtful, Nathan.” She comes in and hovers at the end of the bed. “How are you, dear?”

  His lips twist. “Getting there.”

  He wipes a weary hand down his face and I notice the dark stubble accentuating his jawline, the smudges under his eyes. Fatigue has lent him a Heathcliff edge. It suits him.

  Tess bounds in.

  “Hi, Uncle Nate,” she says, lunging at him.

  He pushes his weariness aside and gives her an affectionate smile. “Hey, lovely girl.”

  He pulls her in for a hug. She giggles and shrieks, avoiding his stubbly kiss. Chuckling, he releases her then ruffles her hair.

  “Hi, Mummy,” she says, hand on the bed, eyes on me.

  “Hi, darling.”

  “Is this yours, Uncle Nate?” asks Tess, approaching the ipod with gleaming eyes.

  He chuckles. “It is. Want to listen to it?”

  She nods enthusiastically so he takes out some earphones, helps her put them on, then selects a tune and hands her the ipod.

  Tess listens for a couple of seconds then grins. Pulls herself up onto the bed and sits, legs swinging back and forth, presumably in time to her song.

  “No change?” Mum asks Nate in an undertone.

  “No.”

  Mum sighs.

  Then, after a pause, “Nathan . . .”

  “Mmm?”

  Mum hesitates, worrying at her lip.

  Nate sends her a questioning look.

  Her hesitation threatens to swallow us whole.

  “Never mind,” she says.

  He waits. She shakes her head.

  With a shrug he turns to Tess. Pulls one of her earphones out. “So you stayed with Nan last night, did you?”

  She nods.

  “Did she feed you up on her magic chocolate cookies?”

  Her eyes sparkle. “Yep. We even had a—” this in a whisper “—midnight feast.”

  “Wow. You’re magicked to the max, then. What you gonna do with your magical powers?”

  She shrugs.

  “Think I might wake up Mummy,” she says, popping the earphone back in her ear.

  If only it were that easy.

  Nate leans down and kisses her head. “That’s great use of your magic, Tessabelle.”

  Once again I catch myself marvelling at his wonderful way with Tess.

  “I always liked the idea of magic,” says Gran at my shoulder, and I jump. Then cast a dubious eye over her latest outfit. The witch’s hat I can cope with. I’m even okay with the broom, as long as she doesn’t race it down the corridor. But seriously, a wart on the end of her nose?

  “Gran, that’s hideous.”

  “Love sees past surface blemishes.”

  She looks down at Nate, a soft look in her eyes.

  “Of course,” she adds, her tone dry, “love appreciates surface beauty, too.”

  “How well do I know this guy, exactly?”

  “I’ve often asked myself the same thing,” she says cryptically. Then, “Ssh. I’m listening.”

  Nate, his attention on Mum, is talking quietly. “. . . take Tess while he runs around playing bachelor?”

  “Something like that.”

  He casts a quick glance at Tess, who is singing tunelessly to her ipod music, and bends his head close to Mum’s.

  “You’re okay with that?” he asks in an incredulous tone.

  Mum’s smile is resigned. “The truth, Nathan, is I want what’s best for Tess.”

  Tess taps the ipod, whips off the earphones, jumps off the bed and skips out into the corridor.

  “Tess?” calls Mum.

  “I’m going to the TV lounge for kids’ TV time.”

  Mum checks her watch. “Are you sure it’s on now?”

  “Yep. I just saw Sis—” She stops, regroups, and I wonder what she was about to say.

  “I saw a friend going that way,” she says, correcting herself.

  “Okay, dear.” Mum waves her off. “I’ll come down and sit with you shortly.”

  Mum watches Tess’s progress down the corridor, then turns back to Nate with a sigh. “She’s a good girl. This is really hard for her.”

  “For you, too,” he points out.

  “For all of us,” she says, and I feel a wave of guilt because it’s my fault these people are hurting. I must find a way out of
this stupid coma.

  “But it’s especially hard for Tess,” Mum continues. “She’s only a child. She needs someone to be there for her, to put her first.” She shrugs. “Geoff has a lot on his mind, so I’m happy to pick up the slack.”

  “That’s my girl,” says Gran.

  Nate nods. “Tess is very lucky to have a nan like you. Let me know if you need a break,” he adds.

  For a moment neither of them speaks.

  “They’re saying it’s attempted suicide,” Mum blurts.

  “What?” He lances her with his stare.

  She looks at him with bewildered eyes. Her mouth turns down at the corners, tight, tense. The air vibrates with her emotion. She’s close to tears.

  “No way,” he says. Then adds, with a disgusted expression, “Bunch of incompetents.”

  “According to Geoff,” she says, “Faith’s been working up to this for months.”

  Nate’s mouth hardens. “Kathy, I saw her only two days before the accident, and if she was suicidal then I’m Boy George.”

  A glimmer of a smile crosses Mum’s face. “Geoff didn’t seem surprised.”

  “Well, I sure as hell am.” Nate stands and paces, his jaw working with tension. I suddenly notice how tight my own jaw is and force myself to take a couple of deep, slow breaths.

  Mum sighs. “Maybe it’s true.”

  He shakes his head.

  “She’s been a bit down. Maybe she didn’t want to tell us how low she was, didn’t want to be a burden. Maybe she thought she was protecting us or . . .”

  “From what? No. That’s crazy.”

  “People don’t always see things rationally when they’re troubled.”

  “She wasn’t troubled.” He scowls. Returns to the window. Stares out at my autumn view, arms folded, legs straight; him versus the world.

  Then, like a changing season, his angry expression blends into anxious.

  Oh no.

  “Don’t, Nate. Don’t.” But he is. It’s in his eyes.

  “Hey,” I say, “don’t you start believing this.”

  I feel betrayed, as if he’s gone and switched allegiances on me.

  “Christ.” He studies a building in the middle distance. “Do you think she did try to kill herself?”

  “No,” I say vehemently. “I wouldn’t do that. It’s not true. You know it’s not.”