to see her. Can you just press …’
‘Is she going to be okay? She looked at me. She tried to speak. I thought—’
‘Anna. Anna, can you open your eyes? My name’s Becca Porter. I’m your nurse. You’re in hospital. Are you in any pain?’
‘Sorry, excuse me. Would you mind waiting outside the curtains for a minute. I’m Dr Nowak. Thanks, great. So, who do we have here?’
‘Anna Willis. Road traffic accident. Spleen laceration. She came round after post-op, her vitals were fine. She’s been asleep for the last hour or so. I heard screaming a few minutes ago and—’
‘Okay. Anna, I’m just going to have a look at your tummy, all right? Does it hurt when I press here?’
No. It doesn’t hurt there. It hurts here, in here, inside my head.
I know the nurses are about somewhere – I can hear the soft squeak of shoes on lino, a low cough and a murmur of voices – but I can’t see anyone. I’ve been staring around the ward for what feels like forever. Most of the other patients are asleep, reading silently or watching films on iPads. Everyone apart from the young woman opposite, who’s also awake and restless. She’s younger than me, late twenties tops, with a long, narrow face and dark hair tied up in a messy bun on the top of her head. The first time our eyes met we both smiled and gave a polite nod before letting our gaze drift away again, but we keep meeting each other’s eyes and it’s getting embarrassing. My throat’s still too sore to speak much above a whisper and I’d have to raise my voice to hold a conversation with her. I feel like I should apologise though. She was probably here last night when I screamed the place down. She must have been terrified. I imagine they all were. I didn’t even realise what had happened until the nurse, Becca, woke me up to check my blood pressure and asked how I was feeling. They’d rushed me away for a scan after they’d sedated me, worried that something had gone wrong with the operation and I was bleeding again. I can’t remember much about it, just a white ceiling, dotted with lights, speeding past as they pushed me down a corridor and then the low hum of the MRI machine. Apparently Alex stayed at the hospital until after the scan, then, reassured that I wasn’t in any danger, he did as the nurse suggested and went home for a sleep.
I thanked Becca for looking after me and I apologised for the screams I could only vaguely remember making. She kept a pleasant smile fixed to her face the whole time but when I asked where my colleagues were, her smile faltered.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I know the lorry driver was taken to another hospital but I don’t know about your friends. I can find out for you though.’
I didn’t see her again. The next time my blood pressure was checked it was a different nurse. Becca’s shift had ended, she said. She wouldn’t be in until tomorrow. I asked her the same question, if she knew what had happened to the others in the car. She genuinely didn’t seem to know but said she’d find out. When I saw her the next morning she said she was sorry, she hadn’t had time but the doctor would be along soon and she was sure he could answer my questions. I started to panic then. Where were Freddy, Peter and Mo? Had they been taken to a different ward? Unless they hadn’t been as badly injured as me. They might have walked away unscathed, a quick visit to hospital to be checked over and then sent straight home. But … my tender stomach tightened as I remembered what Alex had said about my recovery being a ‘miracle’.
The sound of wheels squeaking on lino makes me turn my head. A nurse has appeared in the doorway, pushing a trolley.
‘Excuse me. Nurse.’ I raise my hand and wave but she doesn’t so much as glance my way, my voice is so quiet. I watch despairingly as she turns left and walks further down the ward.
‘EXCUSE ME! NURSE!’ The woman in the bed opposite shouts so loudly that all heads turn in her direction, including the nurse’s. She waggles her hand in my direction as the nurse approaches, still pushing the trolley. ‘The woman over there was trying to get your attention.’
I smile gratefully and attempt to sit up as the nurse comes over, but I feel as though my stomach muscles have been slashed and the most I can manage is a vague craning of my neck.
‘Everything okay?’ Up close I can see that it’s Becca, the nurse who was so kind to me yesterday.
‘Please,’ I beg. ‘I’m going mad here. I need to know what’s happened to my team … the … the people who were in the car with me. I need to know they’re all right.’
Her eyes cloud as she gazes at me. A shutter’s come down; she doesn’t want me to see what she’s feeling. She glances down at the watch hanging on her uniform.
‘Your partner will be here in about half an hour. Maybe it would be best if he were—’
‘Please,’ I beg. ‘Please just tell me. It’s bad news, isn’t it? You can tell me. I can take it.’
She looks at me as though she’s not entirely sure that I can, then she sighs and takes a shallow breath.
‘One of your colleagues is in a pretty bad way,’ she says softly. ‘He’s broken his back in several places.’
I press a hand to my mouth but it doesn’t mask my gasp.
‘But he’s stable,’ Becca adds. ‘He should pull through.’
‘Who is it?’
She grimaces, like she’s already regretting talking to me. Or perhaps it’s confidential information.
‘Please. Please tell me who it is.’
‘It’s Mohammed Khan.’
‘And the others? Peter Cross? Freddy Laing?’
As she lowers her gaze, my eyes fill with tears. No. No. Please. Please don’t let them … please …
She takes my hand and squeezes it tightly. ‘I’m so sorry, Anna. We did everything we could.’
Mohammed’s brain feels dull and woolly, as though it’s not pain-relieving meds that are flowing through his veins and capillaries but a thick, dark fog. He likes the fog because, as well as anaesthetising the ache in his limbs, it has stupefied his brain. Whenever he tries to latch on to an emotion – anger, regret, fear – it twirls away on a cloud of smoke. As a teenager, wrestling with his hormones and the pressure of exams, Mohammed had looked longingly at his dog, Sonic, curled up on the floor by his desk, and wished he could swap places. What would it be like, he wondered, to be a dog; to find joy in base behaviours – food, play, affection – and not overload your brain thinking about the future, death, the nature of an infinite universe, global warming, war and disease. It didn’t take much to make a dog happy – running around outside, catching a ball, a scratch behind the ears. What made him happy? Hanging out with his mates, staying up late, watching films, his PlayStation. Dogs lived in the moment but he didn’t. He was studying for exams, the outcome of which would shape his future.
He feels a bit like Sonic
