The Ward (6 page)

For a second, all I want to do is call Dad, beg him to come and fetch me. But then what?

Gertie’s snoring gently, and the woman in the bed next to her whimpers and smacks her gums. Otherwise the ward is unnaturally silent; even the hissing oxygen machines
sound quieter. I can’t sleep, and I have no idea of the time. It must be well past midnight though. My mouth feels dry and gummy, and the wound beneath the dressing is aching dully. I’m
tempted to reach across and take a sip of Gertie’s vile orange juice, but I can’t. Not if they’re operating this evening.

The air is still and hot. Has the air con broken down or something? The back of my neck is damp and itchy, my hair feels limp and greasy. When did I last have a shower? I loathe using the
bathroom, brushing my teeth and showering with other people around. But now would be the perfect opportunity. I’ll more than likely have the place to myself. I climb out of bed as quietly as
I can, ditching the hospital gown for the single pair of silk pyjamas the nurses have let me keep in my locker, and grab my shampoo, towel and body spray. I creep out into the corridor. It’s
deserted, the only sound the slap of my footsteps.

Thank God. The toilet stalls and shower cubicles are empty, their doors all slightly ajar. It doesn’t look as if they’ve been cleaned today, and I bet it stinks of urine and worse in
here. I avoid the mirrors – they’re not real mirrors anyway, just polished squares of stainless steel, as if the hospital staff are worried people will smash the glass and slash their
wrists. There’s a pile of dirty tissues in the sink and even the floor of the cleanest shower is grimy and slimy, a hank of black hair squirled in the drain. I decide to keep my flip-flops on
as I shower, holding my head back so that the water doesn’t splash the dressing on my nose. It feels wonderful, and I try not to think about Farrell as I soap my body. As if he’d be
interested in me, however clean I am, however made-up, however painstakingly groomed.

Through the hiss of the water I hear the bathroom door creaking open, and the shuffle of footsteps. They sound as if they’re heading my way. There’s a pause, and then the handle of
my shower cubicle moves.

‘There’s someone in here!’ I call. How could they not hear the water running? Then I hear something else – a scratching sound. I quickly rinse the rest of the shampoo out
of my hair and grab the towel.

‘Hello?’ I haven’t heard the footsteps again, and with the water turned off I can make out another sound – a raggedly huffing sound, as if whoever’s outside is
struggling to breathe. My heart starts to thud as I remember what Farrell said about someone weird coming into his room.

Oh God.

‘Who’s there?’ My voice wavers.

No answer. I press my ear to the door. The breathing sound has stopped, and then I hear the scuff of footsteps receding. The bathroom door bangs shut.

Body still damp, I pull on my pyjamas. I count to three, hesitate and, before I lose my nerve, unlock the door and peer out.

The bathroom is empty, but I can’t miss the man-sized muddy footprints tracked across the floor, leading right to my shower cubicle.

I run out into the corridor. It appears to be as deserted as before, but then I catch a glimpse of movement. A bulky, malformed shape is shuffling towards the far end. There’s
something… wrong about the way it’s moving, as if the proportions of its body are skewed. It’s too far away for me to figure out if it’s because its legs are too short, its
arms too long or the head too big. It pauses, turns around as if it can feel me staring at it – and then it’s gone.

I have to tell someone.

The nurses’ station is deserted, but a few doors down from my ward I hear the murmur of voices. I race towards it. An exhausted-looking nurse, one I haven’t seen before, bustles out
of the room.

She strides past me, fiddling with a beeper on her belt. ‘Excuse me!’ I whisper, touching her sleeve to get her attention.

‘Get back in bed,’ she snaps.

‘There’s someone in the ward! He was in the bathrooms. While I was showering!’

She sighs and rolls her eyes. ‘Just the cleaners.’

‘What cleaners?’ I gesture to the empty corridor. ‘Really, there was someone. I saw him!’

She mutters something in Zulu. ‘I will come just now. There are other emergencies tonight. You must wait.’

What else can I do but head back to bed? Should I go to Farrell, tell him what I’ve seen? He’ll hardly thank me for waking him up at this time of night. I can always find him in the
morning. If he’s still talking to me.

Then I realise I’ve forgotten my shampoo and towel in the shower cubicle. I’m tempted to leave it until the morning, but it’s all I’ve got and I can’t risk it being
stolen.

I enter the bathroom cautiously. One of the stall doors is shut. A toilet flushes, making me jump, and behind the closed door someone mumbles to themselves. Just another patient.

I head towards the shower cubicle.

Oh God.

This wasn’t here before. I’d remember.

Someone’s scratched a word into the door’s paintwork, the letters six inches high and angrily scored right through to the wood:

Now that my mind’s working at full pace, and it’s just my eyes I’m waiting for, the images are starting to creep back in. Why was Katya crying like that? Why
was there blood on her face?

I lie in the storeroom’s darkness, willing myself to remember. Monday morning is a blank. I’m not sure whether I can’t remember or if I’m choosing not to remember. I can
smell my vomitty clothes next to this cot. I can hear that thrum again somewhere below, and I’m sure I can make out screams, or music, or something woven into the whine of the machine, just
at the edge of my hearing. I know I’m making it up, finding a pattern in the white noise of the air-con fan, but, once I’ve heard the sound, there’s nothing I can do to loosen its
grip.

I swear there’s something scratching in the glass-fronted cabinets at my side.

Concentrate. You’re just avoiding it again. Think.

Okay, this is what I remember.

Normal Monday morning. We were up about seven. Sunday night, I’d made Katya her favourite linguine and we watched a movie. Christ, what was it? We watched it… Why can’t I
remember? Did we drink a lot? We had… let’s see… we had a bottle of red. Nothing special. That was all; Katya knew how I felt about her getting high at home.

I woke up tired. I took a shower, I think. The usual routine. Then next thing I know she’s crying. This is what I see in my mind. She’s crying like a toddler, snot dripping out of
her nose, eyes red and ringed with black smudges. There’s blood on her face. I can’t understand the look in her eyes. I’ve never seen her cry like this before.
Why, Kay?
She backs away from me, as if scared.
Let me go, Josh!
That doesn’t sound right. This sounds like someone else’s story.

Then I remember I’m sitting on the couch, my head in my hands, elbows on my knees.
Take a good, long look
, she says, although I’m looking at her.
It’s the last time
you’ll see it.
She doesn’t bother to wipe the blood off her cheeks.
Take a good look at the face you love so much
, she says again. She picks up a tog bag and leaves.

That picture of her face in my mind is—

‘Mr Farrell?’

‘Hhhr… Wha…’

‘Mr Farrell, I’ve got something for you.’

‘Oh, Nomsa. What time is it?’

‘Five thirty. I’m just about to start my shift, but I’ve got a present for you.’ The clatter of a little cardboard box, the crackle of a plastic seal breaking. ‘Lie
back. Open your eyes.’

I do as she says.

The cleansing flush of cold drops on my eyeballs. Left eye. Right eye. Nomsa puts the little bottle in my palm and closes my fingers around it.

‘It’s the Maxitrol drops you need. Two drops morning and night for two weeks. Please don’t tell anyone; I’d get into trouble.’

‘But how will you—?’

‘Just don’t let them see it. Absurd that they have the medicine you need but won’t supply it.’

The thank you is forming on my lips but she’s gone already. I imagine the mould in my eyes burning away like mist in the sun, but I worry about what I’ll see when it has.
Katya’s bloodied face. I squeeze my sore hand. It couldn’t have been me, could it? And if for some fucked-up reason I hurt her, I’m dead. Glenn will cut me up into little pieces
if I’ve laid a finger on his daughter.

There’s no way I would have hurt Katya. Surely? But does Glenn know that?

‘Jesus. Did you hear?’

‘Yes. I’m going down now.’

‘We need all available staff from this floor in casualty. Skeleton staff to remain only.’

‘How many do they think?’

‘I don’t know. More than a hundred. Maybe two.’

‘Fuck.’

‘At least seventeen dead.’

‘We’d better get down there.’

As they hurry past my closet, my fingers itch to check my phone for the news, see what happened. A bomb? A crash? Where?

I get out of bed, pulling myself up by the drip stand. I unplug the tube from my arm. There has to be a TV somewhere on this floor, or a radio, or someone with a web connection. Maybe someone
else’s visitors will be able to tell me what’s happened.

I shamble along the corridor. If it was five thirty a.m. when Nomsa came in, it’s about seven now. It should be busy this time of the morning but the section is dead quiet. One of the old
women starts groaning again. It goes on and on; there’s nobody here to help her.

I stand against the wall across from the nurses’ station trying to get my bearings, waiting for someone to come past; waiting to hear something that will explain what’s going on. But
all I see is quiet, still smudges. Then another two dark-blue nurse shapes run past me towards the Green Section’s exit before I can stop them, their soft shoes squeaking on the lino. A
patient coughs up a gout of mucus in the ward nearest to me, then subsides into silence again. What the hell is going on?

‘Farrell!’ Lisa appears in my blur and grips my wrist. She’s breathing in heavy gasps as if she’s been running. ‘Thank God! This place is not…
Something’s not right and last night I didn’t get any sleep and I was thinking about what you said about having another operation in here and then and then—’

‘Whoa, slow down.’

She takes another hitching breath. Christ, this is just what I need now. I try to wrangle my arm out of her grasp but she’s not letting go.

‘I need to get out of here,’ she says, and I can hear the tears in her voice. ‘There was a man in the bathroom while I was showering and I think… I think he was
following me, watching me. I wondered if he… He was creepy, like you said.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Big, limpy. Like his legs were different lengths. He had a white coat, like a doctor. But he wasn’t.’

Jesus. ‘Did he have, like, grey skin? A weird big head, sweaty?’

‘Yes, that’s him! He was following me. He followed me into the bathroom.’

‘Did he hurt you?’

‘No… he was… God. I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t stay here anymore.’

‘But how? We’re locked in.’

‘There’s nobody here. Even the security guard’s gone.’

‘I heard there was an accident. Do you know what happened?’

‘Yes, the Gautrain, you know, the one they built for the World Cup—’

‘I know what the fucking Gautrain is, Lisa!’ She whimpers. ‘Sorry,’ I say quickly. ‘What about it?’

‘It crashed. More than four hundred people on board. Lumpy Legs – the nurse, you know, the sister, the one that’s so mean – well, I overheard her talking to one of the
other nurses about it this morning.’

Holy fuck. The fucking Gautrain…

‘Anyway, the security guard’s not at the gate. We can buzz ourselves out,’ she continues. ‘He’ll be back soon. Now’s our only chance to leave. I mean…
I can help you if you also want to leave now. I think… I think something bad’s going to happen.’

This woman has serious issues, obviously.
Something bad’s going to happen
. But fuck. If she’s also seen that freak, maybe she’s right. I consid er my options: wait here
till I can see and am officially discharged, or take the gap and get back into the real world. Find Katya, find out what happened. Find out if Glenn is hunting me. Then, when I’ve done that,
go and see a proper fucking doctor.

‘
Please
, Farrell. The security guard’s coming… We have to go now.’

I’d have to leave my iPhone and my wallet behind at the nurses’ station. I can always claim the insurance though, provided that isn’t as fucked as my medical aid.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Let’s do it.’

She sighs with relief and starts hustling. She pulls me along, the cool air whistling through my bare-arse gown as we go. I turn back to see the dark shape of the guard strolling behind us.
He’s in no hurry.

‘Stop, Lisa. Stop! If he sees us running, he’ll chase us. We’re just going for a walk, okay? Let’s go slowly. We’re still between him and the door.’

Lisa slows down but I can sense how panicked she is by the increasing pressure of her grip on my arm. That’s my fucked-up arm from the drip. I try not to cry out, and instead shift her
fingers up to my bicep.