Sophie's Encore (20 page)

Mr. Smith nodded. “Our tests bear that out. His liver does not show the damage associated with habitual drug abuse. Nonetheless, he took amphetamines last night. The evidence is irrefutable. We also found evidence he took some sort of caffeine booster pills and paracetamol, and there was plenty of alcohol in his blood, too. A pretty dangerous combination.”

He looked at me again, as if waiting for some kind of response. When none came, he prompted me. “Is there anything you can tell me about his physical condition over the past few weeks?”

I took a deep breath and explained about the cold and the doctor’s prescription and Dan’s crazy schedule and heavy workload. Dr. Smith listened carefully and took notes.

“It adds up,” he concluded. “He ignored his symptoms, used painkillers and energy boosters to keep going, and essentially ran himself into the ground. It’s no surprise the pneumococcus took hold. Still, I daresay he didn’t know what he was doing to his body.”

I latched onto another detail irrelevant to Dan’s immediate health, but potentially explosive for his career. I cleared my throat, but I knew I would go mad if I didn’t get an answer to this question. “Will you…do you have to report this?”

Dr. Smith held my gaze for a few seconds, and his silence prompted me to speak on. “I…I don’t mean to sound callous or anything. I’m desperately worried for Dan, but…I need to know. Will this go to the police?”

The doctor’s silence continued for a little while. “I can’t condone drug abuse,” he eventually spoke. “However, I am not obliged to report it. In Mr. Hunter’s case, there is no indication that he is a regular user. Moreover, we don’t even know yet if he took the drug knowingly, or if it was something that was simply given to him without explanation. That’s a conversation you will have to have with him, and I shall trust you to initiate appropriate action if necessary.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Of course. Thank you.”

“Thank you for your time and candor.” Dr. Smith rose. “I see you understand why it was necessary to have this conversation. Now let’s focus on making Mr. Hunter better.”

“May I go see him now?” Urgency and fear made my voice raspy, and Dr. Smith patted my arm again.

“Of course. But remember, he is on a ventilator. If he’s awake, he won’t be able to speak, and you’ll have to do the talking for him. Be cheerful and positive, and tell him everything that’s happening in the world. If he gets tired, let him rest.”

“What happens next?” I was eager to hear that everything would be better soon.

“We’ll have to see. The next twelve to twenty-four hours are crucial. I can tell you more then.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Dan was asleep when I entered his room, donning the obligatory mask. The rhythmic swooshing of the ventilator and beeping of his heart monitor were the only sounds that greeted me. I stood by the door for a minute to gather my composure before taking a seat at Dan’s bedside.

He looked very pale, and the purple smudges under his eyes had not eased. His hair was matted against his forehead, soaked from the fever ravaging his body. He still had an IV drip attached to his right hand, and there was also a sturdy white plastic clip attached to his ring finger. I had seen those on medical dramas on TV and assumed the device was measuring his oxygen levels. It was a little scary, but it was the sight of the ventilator that shocked me most, even though I had been warned about it. Dan looked fragile and vulnerable. And very, very ill.

I took his free hand and stroked it. It was warm to the touch, but he didn’t respond to my caress. Not even the tiniest hint of a squeeze. I reminded myself that the kids didn’t squeeze my hand either when I kissed them in the middle of the night, simply because they were so deeply asleep. I hoped that Dan, too, was simply deeply asleep.

“Hey, you,” I started after a moment. “Afternoon! Well, it is afternoon although you probably don’t know that. You gave me quite a fright, you know.”

I paused. The ventilator continued swooshing and the heart monitor beeped.

“You’ve got pneumonia, the doctor says. That’s why you’ve been feeling so poorly and why you had that fever. I hope you got through the gig at that party all right, somehow.”

My God, the pre-launch party—I had no idea how that had gone. I hadn’t been on the Internet or listened to the news. I hadn’t even seen the papers. I had no idea what had happened. A finger of dread lodged in my tummy. Was his poor state all over the news? Would there be a massive media circus about this? And Jack—did he even know? So many questions… There was only one way to find out.

I rose to my feet and walked over to the window, keeping up my chatter with Dan while I fumbled for my mobile phone in my handbag. I knew I was probably not supposed to use it in here, but that hadn’t stopped me in the past, and the doctors seemed to be carrying mobiles, too. If I put some distance between me and Dan’s monitors and did the quickest of Internet searches…

My fingers flew over the buttons while I prattled on. “So, that party…was it good? You never told me. Ah, here, look, I found something on the Internet about it.”

Trusty Google, shortcut to all desired information. I scanned the search results.

“It was a success, it seems. You all got rave reviews. Look, there’s a photo of Tuscq performing. Don’t you look dashing…”

I petered out as my heart caught in my throat. From the looks of it, no one could ever have known how poorly the front man and lead singer of Tuscq had been that night.

“Oh, there’s a YouTube video here, too.” I carried on my one-sided conversation. “Shall we have a teensy look? And I’ll switch the phone off before I get into trouble. Yeah?”

There was no response, of course, but I clicked play anyway. On the tiny screen, Dan sprang into song. He was excellent, his voice as strong and powerful as ever. The beads of sweat on his forehead could easily have been due to the exertion of performing, although I suspected otherwise. But there was no indication for the world to see that Dan Hunter had been on the brink of collapse. Or, indeed, that Dan had taken drugs. Small mercies, right?

I interrupted the clip and switched off my phone. It had only been the quickest of searches, but bad news and gossip traveled faster and more extensively than positive publicity, so I was fairly certain Dan was in the clear. Pulling the chair closer to his bed, I sat down again.

“That was awesome. I wish I could have been there. I love the new songs.” Of course, I had been mixing quite a few of them, so I was intimately familiar with every key change, every riff, every drum roll.

And on I prattled. “Do you know, I wonder how different it is to mix sound for a live concert. I mean, I know the effort that went into making the songs sound as they do in the studio… How does Richard replicate that on stage? How does he figure out room modes in such a big venue with such poor sound conductivity? The sound must be bouncing and breaking every which way from the ceilings and the windows and the tables… I really must ask Richard about that some time.”

There was a twitch in Dan’s fingers. It was a tiny movement. It could have been a reflex, and I very nearly missed it, but nonetheless, there was a twitch. I held his hand tighter still and kept talking.

“Oh ho, I felt that, my friend. Are you trying to tell me something? It was nice—”

My words dried up when I saw Dan’s eyes flutter open. Thank goodness, he was conscious. I rose and bent over him slightly so my face would be in his field of vision, pulling down the mask to reveal my face properly, never mind the risk.

“Hi,” I whispered.

Dan’s eyes roamed and tried to focus on me. I wasn’t sure he could see clearly, so I gave him a little reminder.

“It’s me, Sophie.” That got another twitchy reaction from his hand, and my heart soared. I was confident he was responding to my voice.

His eyes rolled some more, and he was having trouble focusing. Was I supposed to do anything here? Raise his head up, perhaps, or call a nurse? But oh—there, Dan held my eyes with his. I smiled.

“Hi, you,” I said again. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Dan rolled his head from side to side, and his right hand came up to his face. He feebly clawed at the tube in his mouth with a look of panic in his eyes, the blood-oxygen clip-thing clunking hard against the tube and frightening him further. I grabbed hold of his hand, drip, clip, and all, and stroked it gently.

“Shh,” I soothed. “It’s all right. That’s a tube in your mouth. It’s a ventilator to help you breathe.”

Dan shook his head to the extent he could. It looked as though he was trying to evade an angry insect. Confusion and fear were written all over his face.

“You’re in hospital,” I explained, in case the past twelve hours were a black hole in his memory. “You have pneumonia, but you’ll be fine, just fine.”

Damn that bloody tube. I knew it served a purpose, but right now, it was making Dan extremely anxious. The beep rate of the heart monitor was speeding up steadily, indicating Dan’s stress. “Do you know, I think I’ll call for a nurse. Maybe she can tell us if we can get rid of this thing now. What do you think?”

Amazingly, Dan’s grip on my hand tightened, and his eyes opened wide with concern. I understood his meaning, or at least, I thought I understood his meaning.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going,” I reassured him, and his face relaxed immediately. “I need to press that red button there. Hold on a sec.”

I let go of his hand and reached for the call button. Immediately, a bell went off outside Dan’s room, and I could see a red light flashing above the door. I hoped I had done the right thing.

“I bet there’ll be a nurse here any second now,” I issued as though we were sharing a secret. On impulse, I smoothed the matted hair away from his forehead and stroked his face. He tried to grunt, and it sounded painful.

“Don’t speak,” I interrupted. “You can’t speak around this thing. Let’s see if they think they can take it out now. Hold on, and be brave.” I spoke as I would to my children, but it worked. He relaxed and stopped trying to speak.

Brisk footsteps announced somebody was coming, and within a few seconds, Dr. Smith himself appeared in the doorway. He took in the scene quickly.

“Mr. Hunter,” he greeted Dan. “Good to see you’re awake. I’m Dr. Smith, your doctor.”

Dan made a weird sound again, and Dr. Smith cut him off. “No, don’t try to speak. Let me see if we can take you off this ventilator now.”

He walked across to the bank of monitors at the head of Dan’s bed and tapped a few buttons. “Well, your blood oxygen levels are up,” he informed Dan. “I’m willing to have the tube taken out. I’m going to ask one of the PACU nurses to do that for you now.”

Dan opened his eyes wide to indicate his agreement. My heart bled for him. This had to be torture for someone who relied on his voice for a living. He waved his free hand about until he caught hold of mine, and he held on tight. Dr. Smith saw the gesture and smiled.

“It’s a little unusual, but Mrs. Jones may stay if it puts you at ease. If she wants to, that is. It may be a little disconcerting to watch,” he addressed me.

“Of course I’ll stay,” I informed both men, and Dan squeezed my hand again.

“Okay. The nurse will be with you shortly, and I’ll check on you again later.” He left, and a few minutes later, a cheerful nurse entered the room.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hunter,” she greeted Dan. “I’m Nurse Margaret. I’m a PACU nurse. That means I work in the post anesthesia care unit. I’m here to extubate you and make sure you’re okay without your ventilator.” She paused for a moment to allow Dan and me to absorb this information before she continued with her friendly chatter.

“Isn’t it nice to see you awake. But let me get you off this thing, first of all.” She indicated for me to take a seat on the other side of Dan’s bed, and I moved the chair there and sat down. Even though it wasn’t me who was affected, my heart was hammering hard in my chest, and I could only imagine how Dan would be feeling.

The nurse busied herself with the tube in Dan’s mouth. “I’m suctioning the tube before I remove the tape holding it,” she explained, following through swiftly. Dan squirmed uncomfortably and looked at me with frightened eyes.

“Right, there we are,” the nurse continued. “I’m going to disconnect you from the machine, then give you a few big breaths, okay?” She worked as she spoke, and once the tube was no longer connected to the ventilator, she attached what looked like a bellows to it. “Here we go…and one…and two… Good.” She squeezed on every count, supporting Dan’s his first few breaths. “Here, let’s deflate the cuff…and…”

She stood behind Dan’s head, looking at his face while she addressed him. “I need you to breathe out as hard as you can, all right? Ready…go.” Dan’s chest rose and fell as he exhaled, and the tube slid out in one fluid motion. I breathed out, too. I hadn’t been aware I was even holding my breath.

Dan gurgled and rasped, and the nurse stroked his forehead soothingly. “Concentrate on breathing for now. You can speak in a moment. Let me listen to your lungs a minute.” She placed a stethoscope on Dan’s chest, first the left side, then the right. Next, she listened to his throat and checked the blood oxygen readings on the monitor. “You’re doing really well.” She smiled.

Dan breathed and swallowed and prepared to speak.

“Sophie,” he eventually rasped. He sounded hoarse and in pain.

“Hi,” I said for the third time in half an hour. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”

The nurse checked various monitors and turned to speak to Dan. “I agree, it’s lovely to hear your voice and it’s good to see you awake and breathing unaided.”

Dan gave a wan smile. He still looked every bit as pale and poorly, but without the tube in his mouth, he looked more like himself. The nurse filled him in on his condition, explaining his course of treatment, outlining that he would likely need to stay in hospital for another few days, and reassuring him that his voice would be perfectly fine in a couple of days.

“But take it easy on the talking for now, and definitely no singing,” she joked. “I know all about you!”

Dan smiled again. “I’ll be good,” he croaked. “May I have a drink?”