The Ward (35 page)

‘No!’ she says. ‘He wouldn’t do that. Not without telling me. We were supposed to meet Marina for breakfast. And his wallet is still next to the bed.’ She scrubs
her hand over her face. The pills must be kicking in because she’s sounding increasingly groggy. ‘And it’s not just that. Last night—’

‘What about last night?’

‘Something happened.’

‘What?’

She shakes her head as if she’s trying to clear it. ‘I’m… It’s so strange. I don’t remember going to bed. And Glenn’s side of the bed… it was
untouched. And then I woke up and I couldn’t find him and his car was gone and…’

‘And that’s all you remember?’

She nods.

Farrell smiles reassuringly at her. ‘Like I said, he probably had to go to Cape Town on business and forgot to tell you.’

‘You really think that could be it?’ She’s beginning to look defeated, and I feel a perverse desire to stick up for her.

‘Why are you so worried about him anyway?’ I say. ‘He treats you like crap.’ Farrell stares at me. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean
to—’

‘I know how he treats me,’ she says. ‘It’s not right. I know that. But… something’s happened to him. I just know it.’

‘I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,’ Farrell says in that same comforting voice. ‘What does Marina say?’

‘She thinks I’m just being paranoid. I do get confused sometimes and…’

We’re not that dissimilar, she and I. I reach for her hand. She smiles at me gratefully and then something clicks in her eyes and she snatches it back.

‘I’m going to go now,’ she says, speaking stiltedly.

‘Will you be all right to drive?’ Farrell says.

‘Yes. You’ll let me know if you hear from him, won’t you?’

‘Of course, June.’

Farrell walks her out.

There’s the murmur of voices, followed by the sound of the security gate slamming shut. Farrell strides back into the kitchen and thumps his fist on the counter. ‘Fuck! Fuck.
Fuck!
’

‘Farrell, calm down! I don’t think she’s going to—’

‘It’s not that, Lisa. No one’s going to believe
her
anyway. It’s… It’s…
Fuck
. I am so screwed.
Fuck
.’

The security-gate buzzer trills making both of us jump. ‘Don’t answer that,’ Farrell says.

‘But what if it’s June again?’

‘It’s not June.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do.’

The buzzer blares again, and Farrell’s phone beeps at the same time. He reads the message, chucks the phone on the hall table and runs his hands through his hair.

‘You think it might be Glenn?’ I ask.

‘I fucking hope not.’ He presses the intercom button and shouts into it. ‘Fuck off and leave me alone! I did what you said.’

A smooth male voice I don’t recognise says, ‘There is an issue with your quota, Mr Farrell. Please allow me access so that we can discuss.’

‘Fuck off.’

A chuckle. ‘Upside disregard! That’s so karking funny!’

‘Just go away.’

‘That is not an option for either of us, Mr Farrell.’ The cold humour is gone from the voice. ‘Allow me access immediately.’

‘Fuck off or I’ll call the police!’

This time there’s no response.

Farrell turns to look at me.

‘Who is that?’ I whisper. ‘Is it the man you met last night?’

‘You don’t want to know, Lisa.’

‘Do you think he’s gone?’

Farrell opens his mouth to answer. The front door swings open with such force that the mirror in the hallway shatters shards of glass all over the floor.

‘Go into the bedroom,’ I snarl at Lisa. The bevelled and hand-ground Deknudt mirror Katya had shipped in from Milan is scattered in slivers across the parquet. I
look down, catching a montage of myself staring back up. I look like shit; I’m fucking pale. I can’t avoid thinking it: seven years’ bad luck.

Rosen’s crouching in the doorway, adjusting the cuffs of his trousers.

‘Jesus! Did you have to break the fucking door down?’

He looks up, his fedora and tie calmly in place, crisp white shirt, same middle-management suit. ‘There’s no time to kark around, Mr Farrell. You’re in breach, and, if I
don’t conclude your contract, I’m in danger of being cited for disregard.’

Lisa is still milling around in the hallway.

‘I said, go to the fucking bedroom!’

There’s a momentary flash of fear on her face, but almost immediately her expression hardens.

‘Please, Lisa?’ I say, far more gently.

Lisa stares at me a while longer, then does as she’s told, slamming the bedroom door behind her. She’s grown some guts; it suits her.

I usher Rosen into the lounge. He looks at the giant print of Katya’s face covering the wall. ‘Primo,’ he says. ‘That’s a fine Donor you had there. They did a good
job, didn’t they?’

‘What?’

‘The butchers. The transplant was catalogue.’

It’s true. They did. The surgery was impeccable. But I’m fucked if I’m going to give Rosen the satisfaction. I say nothing. Rosen nods appreciatively at the picture again then
sits on the couch and places his briefcase on his lap. That stupid hat, perched at the back of his head, makes him look like someone from an old boy band. Rosen and the Debt Collectors. Ha ha.

‘Tell me, Rosen. What the hell’s going on? You said I’d delivered enough. And what the fuck is June doing back?’ She’s probably right now weaving through the
traffic, high on tranks.

‘June?’

‘The woman we took last night to make up the… uh… shortfall.’

Rosen chuckles. ‘Oh that. Rejected. Too old, too toxified. The assessors couldn’t judge that from the mimeograph. There was no viable tissue. Well, something like three pounds. Not
worth the butchery. So we brought her back, dressed her, left her in her bed. She wouldn’t have remembered anything. But you’re still short by thirty-six pounds and your time is up.
You’re in breach.’

My mind replays a garbled version of the contractual gobbledygook he was spurting last night. ‘But you said if the assessment was cleared I’d have ample time to make up the
difference in the event of a shortfall.’ Christ, I’m beginning to sound like them.

‘You did. You had three shifts – approximately twelve upside hours. Now they’re up.’

‘But what about the shortfall insurance I signed up for with Mutual?’

Rosen shrugs. ‘Those are the terms.’

Thirty-six pounds. How the hell will I get thirty-six pounds of viable now? Eduardo? Can’t do it now; it’s the middle of the day, there are too many people around. Noli? She’s
definitely near the top of my shit-list, but I don’t have her number, and she’s probably sleeping off a coke binge in some Bulgarian gangster’s penthouse at this hour. I
can’t believe I’m thinking like this, but there’s no way I’m getting so close and not finishing this. Thirty-six fucking pounds.

‘So, what now? What do I have to do?’

He beams at me with a slick insurance-salesman smile. ‘We’re not unreasonable, Mr Farrell. We collect the shortfall now and I’ll put latepayment procedures in place.’ The
smile falls like a brick. ‘But it has to be now. Concluding this contract in your favour becomes less likely every moment we kark around intercoursing.’

The way he talks, in that bureaucratic singsong, gives me an idea. Clive. Marina’s idiot husband. Nobody will miss that smarmy little prick, always fucking perving at Katya. And that way
we can keep it in the family. Nice and neat. ‘Okay, you’re right. Let’s stop messing around. I know someone we can deliver.’

‘Primo. I’ll give you ten moments to get ready. I have some paperwork to complete.’ He clicks open the pale leather briefcase and removes a sheaf of forms and a fountain
pen.

On my way out of the room, I stop and turn back. ‘Rosen?’

He looks up, raises his eyebrows enquiringly.

‘Are you sure she won’t remember what happened last night? June, I mean.’ She didn’t appear to know what the fuck happened to her, but memories can come back, can’t
they?

‘Remember?’ he says, as if talking to a child. ‘Mr Farrell. Do you think we’d kark around with potential detection? Make ourselves vulnerable to the
memories
of
browns?’

He says it derisively, and something inside me knows that by ‘browns’ he means us. Normal people. Not people from there… where he comes from. Where that hospital is.
It’s the first time I admit it to myself: he’s not from here; he’s from somewhere else. That hospital… Lisa and I were somewhere else, and we managed to get home.

‘Are you sure? That’s all I’m asking.’ A lot depends on his answer. I sincerely hope he’s sure.

‘I’m sure, Mr Farrell. Browns are hardwired to forget.’

‘Okay.’ I walk to the bedroom.

Lisa’s sitting on the edge of the bed looking tragic. ‘What have you done, Farrell?’ she asks.

‘What?’

‘I know you’ve done something. And I know it’s got to do with the Wards, with the contract you signed there. I’m not stupid, you know. In that meeting, they were talking
about weight and tissue. They want their payment… They want it… in body parts. Is that right? This man. He’s from there, isn’t he?’

Lisa’s the only person in the world who knows what I’ve been through; she’s the only person in the world who can make sense of what’s happening. She’s the only
person I don’t have to lie to, and the compulsion to tell her the whole truth is overwhelming. She’ll understand.

I watch her face as I tell her about meeting Rosen at the office, about stunning Eduardo and drawing those lines on him. She keeps fidgeting with her left eye, rubbing at it as if it’s
irritating her. She looks so preoccupied I can’t even tell if she’s listening.

‘The lines we drew on him were the same as the ones in those Polaroids of me. So I had to make a decision. I thought if I gave them Glenn it would be enough, but it wasn’t. June made
up the weight. Rosen and I delivered them last night.’

‘Where?’

‘At the Highgate Mall.’ I can’t read Lisa’s expression. I couldn’t ever read Katya’s face. ‘Rosen took the car. He said nothing would come back to
me.’ Still she doesn’t respond. ‘Do you think I’m an animal? Do you think I’m… evil?’

‘Farrell. We know what they do in there. They were going to cut you up.’ She puts her hand on my thigh. ‘I’m glad they didn’t.’ An electric feeling jolts
through me. I’ve been expecting her to break down or something, but she’s so calm about it all. I should be relieved, but her blank acceptance scares me. ‘But how come June came
back?’ she asks.

‘That’s the problem. They didn’t want her. So Rosen and I are going to Clive’s office to take him. I wish last night had been the end, but I’ve gone this
far…’

‘What if you get caught?’

I consider that. Something about Rosen, the way he never has a doubt, gives me confidence. ‘We won’t.’

‘But poor Clive. He doesn’t deserve that.’

Poor Clive?
‘Fuck’s sake, Lisa. You just said yourself, they’re going to cut me up. It’s me or him. I wish I didn’t have to, but…’

‘What about Marina? What about the baby? You can’t.’

She stands up, walks to the vanity table and stares at herself in the mirror. Christ, not this again.

‘Lisa?’

She doesn’t answer, just runs her fingers over her face.

‘Lisa? Jesus. We haven’t got time for this.’

Now she’s scrubbing her palms over her cheeks, harder and harder. I’m about to shout at her, shake her out of it, when she says something.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Take me.’

‘What?’

‘Take me.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘They can take me instead of June or Clive or whoever. I can make up the difference.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Lisa. I’m not going to—’

Now she’s opening the bedroom door. ‘Hey, Mister,’ she’s calling down the hall. ‘You can take me.’

I chase after her. ‘No. No, no. Just ignore her, Rosen.’

Lisa stops, looks at me and at Rosen with his papers in neat rectangles on his briefcase. ‘No. Do
not
ignore me. I know what I’m doing, Farrell. I’m not going to last
here.’ She raises her hands to her face and runs her fingers down it, like a blind woman committing a face to memory. ‘This face is melting.’

‘What are you talking about? It’s perfect.
You’re
perfect. Jesus, Lisa, just stop.’

But she’s got this weird look in her eyes. I turn to Rosen for help. ‘Tell her, Rosen. Tell her what you said about the transplant. It was perfect, wasn’t it?’

‘Primo,’ he says.

Lisa sits down next to him. ‘I want you to take me to pay off Farrell’s debt. Okay?’

‘It’s irregular, but not unprecedented.’ He gathers the papers, clicks open the briefcase and rifles inside it. ‘You’ll just need a brown, uh, upsider’s
voluntary consent form and a transfer of indebtedness addendum… Ah, here we go.’ He closes the briefcase, lays the forms out on it and hovers the pen above them. ‘If you’re
confident?’

‘Lisa!’

Lisa takes the pen. ‘What do I need to…’

‘Oh, just name here, sign in the green boxes, initial at the bottom of each page. I’ll fill out the rest.’

I try to grab the pen from her hand but Rosen restrains me with his clawed fingers, crushing my hand. ‘Mr Farrell. The Client is a willing signatory of sound mind, and I cannot notarise
the contract if there has been coercion or interference in any form.’ He grinds my bones together until I let go.

I yank my hand back. ‘Jesus, Lisa. Don’t do it. I thought we had a future together. We were making plans.’

‘You’re sweet, Farrell,’ she says. ‘A really nice guy.’

She signs the forms.

‘Congratulations, Mr Farrell. I believe that will release you from your contract. In late-payment situations like these, we perform viability assessments on site. Would you like to
accompany me’ – he consults the form – ‘Ms Cassavetes?’

‘Why not?’ Lisa says. She glances around the flat as if she’s doublechecking for any personal items she might have left behind. As if it’s a hotel room and she’s
just been here on holiday. She faces me, and she looks happy, lighter, less worried than I’ve ever seen her. ‘I don’t belong here,’ she says to me as she walks out with
Rosen.