The Ward (27 page)

‘Sleepy. Need to sleep.’

‘Leave the girl alone, June,’ Glenn says. ‘The last thing she needs is you crying all over her.’

‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ I explain. ‘I know the dressing looks quite frightening, but really, they say that the scarring will be very limited.’

‘Will she be able to work again?’

‘Glenn,’ June snaps. She turns back to the figure on the bed. ‘You just rest, my love, and we’ll see you soon, all right?’

But she’s already snoring softly.

‘Like I said, the painkillers knock her out,’ I say. ‘She should be fine in a day or so.’

‘I just have to… to go and freshen up,’ says June, wiping her eyes and disappearing into the bathroom.

Glenn opens his mouth to start laying into me, but then his phone trills and he heads out into the hallway.

When June comes out, she turns to face me with a vacant stare, motionless on the surface but jittering inside like a hive of wasps, synapses spattering and failing all through her mind. I bet
she’s downed another handful of pills in there.

She turns to Glenn, and without a word to either of us she wanders like a ghost through the hall, unlatches the front door and drifts down the front stairs to the Jag without a backwards glance,
like she was never here.

Phone stuck to his ear, Glenn jabs me in the chest. ‘You take care of her, you hear? It’s Juney’s birthday on Wednesday. We’ll see you at the house then. Or if
she’s not up to it we’ll all come here.’

‘No, no,’ I say, trying to kill that idea before it lodges. ‘She’ll be fine by Wednesday.’

Then he follows his wife out of the apartment, letting the door slam behind him.

I race into the hallway and peer out of the window to watch them driving away. It’s only then that I allow myself to relax.

It’s over.

A hand on my shoulder. I turn around.

She pulls the dressing from her face, revealing the flawless skin beneath. ‘What do you think?’ she says. ‘Did it go okay?’

‘You did great, Lisa. I think we did it.’

Thank God that’s over.

The nervous sweat that’s been dribbling down my sides is drying, and my stomach is starting to unknot itself. I head back to the bedroom and sit down on the bed. Farrell follows me in.

‘So what do you think, Lisa? You think we pulled it off? It went okay, right?’

I try to smile reassuringly at him. But the truth is, I’m not sure we did pull it off. Even though half of my face was hidden by the dressing, as Farrell suggested, there was something in
Katya’s mother’s eyes – a flicker of confusion, a flash of horrified disbelief – that makes me think she knew. Still, I liked her; she seemed compassionate. But Farrell was
right about the father. He reeked of aftershave and had ‘bully’ written all over him. The kind of alpha male my father looks up to. The kind of man my father has always wanted to
be.

‘Fuck it,’ Farrell says. ‘I need another drink.’ He stalks out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

I stand up, take a deep breath and gaze into the bank of full-length mirrors that camouflage the huge, wall-length closet space. The Katya face, framed by the long black wig, stares back at me.
I place my hand on my hip, turn around and look at myself over my shoulder.

Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the most deluded of them all?

I block out the Dr Meka voice, and concentrate on my reflection, trying to avoid looking too closely at the rest of my body; it spoils the illusion.

But my eye keeps being drawn to my thick thighs, heavy shoulders and non-existent ankles.

The face is perfect. It’s the rest of me that’s hideous.

That all-too-familiar wave of despair threatens to swamp me. How could I ever have thought I could do this?

My point exactly. It’s insane.

But I’m not going to give up. I can’t – I
won’t
– let Farrell down.

I tiptoe to the door and place my ear against it to double-check that he’s not coming back in here. There’s the faint thump of bass; he must have put a CD on.

I pull open the doors that lead to Katya’s walk-in closet and let my fingers trail through the loaded racks of designer clothes. Katya clearly favoured delicate fabrics in jewel colours:
short summer dresses, skinny jeans and tiny Barbie-sized tops. I’ve sneaked in here several times, but I haven’t dared try anything on. I riffle through the hangers. The garments
– most with labels I’ve never heard of – still hold a trace of her perfume, Midnight Poison. There’s a huge bottle of it in the bathroom, and I sprayed a dab on my wrist
yesterday. But on me it smells cloying and slightly sour, as if it clashes with my skin.

I pull out a plain black short-sleeved dress. It’s loose and summery, not as skimpy and fitted as the other clothes. There’s no label inside it, but I can tell by the fabric’s
impossible lightness that it must have cost the earth.

I shrug off the T-shirt and sweatpants, and pull it on over my head, praying that it won’t rip; praying that it will fit. It does! It’s tight around the back and shoulders, but it
will do. I turn to the shoe racks, and pick out a pair of soft black wedge heels – the others are all high strappy things I’ll never be able to walk in. They’re slightly too big,
but only by half a size or so.

Now for the moment of truth. I close my eyes, and turn to face the mirror.

Oh God. It’s terrible. The dress exaggerates the size of my mottled thighs, and the wedge shoes make my ankles look even thicker.

What did you expect? Those are a dead woman’s clothes.
And then that old Dr Meka refrain:
You must learn to be happy in your own skin, Lisa.

Too late for that. And besides, I like this skin better. Especially the face. The beautiful face. I’ll concentrate on that. I turn around, smile at myself over my shoulder.

‘Hi,’ I whisper. ‘I’m Katya. Call me Kat. No, call me Kay.’

‘Katya hated that dress,’ Farrell says from behind me, making me jump. Red heat floods to my cheeks. I’ve been so absorbed I haven’t heard him come in. ‘She got it
for free after a shoot,’ he says. ‘Never wore it.’

‘God, Farrell, I’m so sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘I was snooping. I shouldn’t have gone through her stuff. Not without your permission.’

‘It’s fine. You look… You’re…’ He doesn’t finish the sentence. ‘I’ve made lunch. It’s getting cold.’ He dips his head and
leaves the room. Face still burning, I rip the dress off too roughly and it splits under the arms. I kick it away, yank the wig off my head and pull the sweatpants and T-shirt back on.

I tie my hair into a bun at the nape of my neck and hurry through to the living space.

He doesn’t look up as I sit down at the breakfast counter. He’s made some sort of spicy omelette. It’s not the sort of food I’m used to, but my stomach grumbles anyway. I
don’t dare eat more than two or three bites.

Farrell finally looks up at me. ‘Not hungry?’

‘I need to lose weight. Katya was way thinner than me.’ I remember the slender shape of her body lying in that hospital bed.

‘She wasn’t. It’s just that her bone structure is… was different. Finer.’ He glances at my arms. ‘You’ll have to keep your hands and arms covered, wear
long sleeves, that kind of thing.’

I look down before he can see my burning face, pretend to brush crumbs from my T-shirt.

‘But on the plus side, at least you’re the same height, give or take an inch. That would be a fucking disaster. We can’t fake that.’

‘You’re right,’ I say, struggling to smile.

‘We can’t get too complacent. I think we fooled Glenn, but next time you’ll have to watch your voice. You spoke to Katya, didn’t you? You know what she sounds
like.’

‘Yes. But at the time she was…’

What, Lisa? About to die?

For a second the silence is so heavy I’m scared to breathe.

Then he nods. ‘You can say it. She died. Those bastards killed her.’

It’s the first time he’s mentioned anything to do with the Wards since we left, but he must think about it all the time. I know I do. I still haven’t figured out why I
haven’t told him what Katya said to me just before she died. That she was sorry. Something must have happened between them. If he knew that she was sorry, he’d… he’d feel
differently about her. Miss her more.

And of course you don’t want that, do you, Lisa? You can’t compete

with a dead woman.

Would it have made a difference if we’d been in the room when that alarm first sounded? When she had her heart attack or whatever it was that killed her?

But what could we have done?

It must have happened quickly. She couldn’t have suffered for long. When Farrell and I finally raced in there, minutes after we first heard the alarm, Nomsa was already pulling a curtain
around the bed.

‘What’s happening?’ Farrell said. ‘What’s going on?’

At that stage he seemed calm, in control. And strangely, even though it must have hit me straight away that something awful had happened, I felt oddly distanced from the scene, as if I was
watching it on television.

‘She’s gone,’ Nomsa said.

‘Gone where?’ Farrell said.

Nomsa smiled. ‘To the great catwalk in the sky.’

‘But… but why? How?’

‘Something in her system didn’t agree with our medication.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Nomsa rolled her eyes. ‘She was taking methamphetamine. And cocaine.’

‘Not in here, she wasn’t!’

‘It was still in her system.’

‘She was on drugs?’ I said.

‘Sometimes. They all do it,’ Farrell said, something heavy and blank in his voice.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Nomsa said to him. She didn’t sound sorry; she sounded bored.

‘She’s gone,’ Farrell said. And then his face crumpled, his body sagged. For a second I was certain he was going to collapse. ‘Oh Katya. Oh God.’ He took a step
towards her bed, but then seemed to change his mind. He suddenly pushed past me and Nomsa and charged out of the room.

I raced after him.

He weaved down the corridor, punching the wall as he went. ‘Fuck it!’

He stumbled into the waiting room and slumped onto the couch, head in his hands.

Someone had switched the TV back on again, and that horrible image of a spider giving birth in the shower cubicle was showing on screen. It looked like part of an advert for some kind of birth
control, and I felt relieved that I hadn’t realised that the first time I saw it. I snatched up the remote and switched the TV off.

‘I’m fucked,’ Farrell said. ‘I’m fucking fucked.’

I grabbed his arm and squeezed it reassuringly. ‘No you’re not. It’s not your fault.’

He looked up at me, eyes blazing with anger or fear or both. ‘You don’t get it, Lisa. If I don’t bring Katya back home, Glenn will kill me. I mean,
literally
fucking
kill me.’

‘But why? You just have to explain to him that—’

‘
What?
What will I explain? Well, see, Glenn, we were trying to put her
fucking
face back onto her
fucking
head when she
fucking
died because she’s a
fucking
drug addict? You don’t
explain
things to Glenn, Lisa.’ Tears were now streaming down his face. ‘God, Katya. No. God.
Fuck!
I loved her, Lisa, I
fucking loved her!’

‘I’m so sorry, Farrell.’

‘I’m dead. What the hell am I going to do?’

‘There is another way,’ I said. The words popped out. I didn’t plan them; it was as if, just for a moment, someone else had actually spoken.

‘What?’

‘Look at me, Farrell.’ We stared at each other for several seconds. Maybe for as long as a minute. ‘I can help you.’

We shared another long silence.

‘You’d do that for me?’ he finally said.

‘Yes.’ Something shifted in my chest. I was hit with the overwhelming feeling that, if I committed to this, there would be no going back.

‘Sorry to intrude,’ Nomsa said from the doorway. ‘But you have both been discharged. Effective immediately.’

‘You mean we can go?’ I asked. ‘After all we’ve been through, it’s that easy?’

‘Of course.’ She chuckled. ‘This isn’t a prison, Client Cassavetes. I’ve called a taxi for you.’

She held out a plastic bag to Farrell. ‘These are yours, Mr Farrell. I said I’d keep them safe for you.’ I peeped inside the bag and quickly turned away again. It stank of
week-old vomit, but his shoes and belt, his iPhone and wallet were all there.

He ignored her, his arms hanging limply at his sides. I grabbed the bag from her instead. ‘What about my things?’

Nomsa laughed. ‘Oh I think we both know you won’t need them anymore, don’t we?’

Still numb with shock, we followed Nomsa silently to the lifts. She waved us inside and stepped back.

‘Goodbye. Oh, and don’t be a stranger, Mr Farrell.’

Farrell opened his mouth to retort, but then the lift’s doors slid shut. In a few seconds they opened straight out into New Hope’s casualty ward. We were right back where we started.
The plastic waiting-room chairs were full of bar-brawl casualties, homeless people clutching swollen eyes and bloody noses. For a fleeting second I thought I caught a glimpse of a shadowy grey
figure sitting among them, but I didn’t have time to be sure. Farrell snapped back to life, locked his arm through mine and propelled me towards the exit doors.

I don’t know why, but I expected it to be night when we finally got outside. Down there, in the Wards, I’d lost track of time. I stood for a moment, feeling the sun on my skin, and
listening to the normal sounds of everyday life: the distant roar of traffic, the mumbled conversation of people heading for casualty. No one tried to stop us. And, true to Nomsa’s word, a
taxi was waiting for us outside the exit. The driver acknowledged us with a grunt and didn’t show any surprise that I was barefoot and dressed only in a short hospital gown. Then we were free
and speeding away.

I don’t remember Farrell giving the driver directions, but he seemed to know exactly where we were going. We wove through posh residential streets, and pulled up outside one of those chic
converted warehouse blocks, freshly painted in dark grey, with bright-red doors and window frames.