Finn
In a benevolent universe, I would have stayed in hospital. I would have been given time to heal properly, and vast amounts of drugs, and whilst I was compiling my wish list, Lilith as my only visitor, bearing grapes, a large bottle of vodka and the latest edition of Gardener’s World Magazine. Instead, we were being escorted to the delivery entrance of Castlerigg Hospital by a cantankerous old porter who, in the absence of the truth, had made up his own reasons for my rapid departure. He was more than eager to share them with Lilith.
‘If it was up to me, I’d leave this lot where they bloody well fell,’ he grunted as pushed my wheelchair.
‘Meaning?’ Lilith asked.
‘Bloody junkies. Druggies. Whatever you want to call ‘em. You can always spot ‘em. Come in here, doped up to the bloody eyeballs thinkin’ we’re NHS, bleeding from God knows where and no idea how it happened, then bugger off before the police can get to ‘em. I’d just let ‘em rot in the gutter – it’d just need a couple to go like that for the rest to get the message.’
Lilith’s fingers clenched into my shoulder. ‘You should think about running for prime minister.’ I could hear the exhaustion in her voice.
‘Aye, mebbe I will. I’d stop them bloody darkies bringing all them drugs into our country in the first place.’
‘Excellent plan,’ Lilith agreed as we reached the Land Rover. ‘I’ll take him from here, shall I?’
‘Whatever you want, just as long as you get him out of our bloody car park,’ the man grumbled, already heading back inside.
‘Fucking darkies?’ Lilith said incredulously. ‘Well, that just about makes a perfect day.’
‘Well done. You didn’t hit him.’
Lilith began to load pillows and blankets into the front passenger seat, padding it out for an uncomfortable ride back to Albermarle. ‘Didn’t have the energy. I’ll wait until I’m free, then I’ll come back and flatten the twat.’
*****
The return journey was hell. Even the smallest of movements pulled at the stitches in my stomach and I was haunted by the irrational fear that they would split at any moment and spill my guts out onto my lap. But if there was one lesson my life had taught me, it was that as bad as all this was, there was always room for things to get just that little bit worse.
The first herald was the tension that began in my neck and began to hum like telegraph wire along every muscle in my body, quickly followed by a fluttering, baseless feeling of panic that made me bite my lip to avoid crying out like a child. As lightning started to flicker around us and the windscreen wipers struggled to clear the deluge, I told myself that I was safe in this car with Lilith, that we would soon be home so I could fix things. Nothing worked. Soon the pounding rain on the cab roof became artillery-loud and the only thing I could do to stop it splitting my skull in two was to slam my head into the metal doorframe. At first Lilith must have thought it was an accident, that I had jolted myself as I tried to get comfortable. Then I did it again. And again.
She hauled the steering wheel round and pulled us into a verge. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, her eyes wide with alarm.
With difficulty I turned to look at her. ‘I’m starting my fuckin’ rattle, aren’t I? The bastards in there thought I’d OD’d and flushed all the shit out of my system – didn’t bother putting any back.’ Even as I spoke I could hear my breath begin to decay into the panting little sighs that preceded full-on hysteria. ‘How soon, Lili? How fast can we get back?’
‘Three quarters of an hour? Maybe more…’
‘Too long.’ I arched my back as the first of the muscle spasms hit. ‘Jesus,’ I howled, ‘I hurt!’
‘It’s okay, I can sort this –’ Lilith began.
‘What, you a fuckin’ pharmacy?’ I snapped.
‘I said I can sort it, Finn,’ Lilith said, sounding a hundred times calmer than I deserved. She reached behind her to grab a bag from the back seat, and brought out a fresh strip of temazepam. ‘Anal personality – we come prepared.’
‘Oh, you fucking angel.’ I rubbed at the crawling flesh on my face.
She pushed the first tablet out of its blister. ‘How many?’
‘Just give me the strip. I’ll do it. Promise I won’t top myself. Just give me it.’
She reluctantly handed it over and I pushed a clawed hand through lank hair. ‘Don’t watch me Lili, please don’t watch me do this. I’m not proud of it, y’know?’
She did her best not to look as I pushed half-a-dozen white tablets into my shaking palm and threw them into my mouth. I bit down on them to grind them up and reduce the time it would take for my desperate system to absorb the drug, then winced at the bitterness and choked as the powder stuck in my anaesthetic-dry throat.
Lilith scrabbled around at her feet and emerged holding a bottle of mineral water. ‘Here. This should help.’
I took a swig of the lukewarm liquid. ‘Thanks,’ I finally managed. I pulled one of the pillows from the footwell and covered my face with it. ‘I’ll be out in ten minutes. Just need everything to go away. Too big right now. But I’ll be better. Soon.’
I stayed hidden like that, smothered in pillows, until the wool filled my head to the point where the world outside the Land Rover no longer threatened to scare me to death. When I finally emerged, Lilith had her back to me as she examined the raindrops making a haphazard run down the driver’s window.
‘There. See? Human again. Ish. Human-ish,’ I announced, to signal my re-entry. ‘Y’know, even I wouldn’t have thought of bringing that shit along. How the hell did you find the space in your head to think of stuff like that?’
‘Hope. Stupid, forlorn, naive hope.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘That we might just be able to keep driving... If there was the slightest gap.’
‘Ah.’ I got her then.
‘Like I said. Stupid. There was never going to be a fucking gap, was there? Not with her.’
‘No. Not with her. Fair play to you for givin’ it a go, mind.’ I remembered something from the hell I had inhabited just hours before. ‘You nearly said something, didn’t you? To that other doctor. The woman.’
‘Nearly.’ Lilith pressed her forehead against the misted glass. ‘God, Finn, what the hell was I thinking?’ There was an odd catch in her voice that I’d never heard before.
‘Lili? Are you crying?’
‘No.’ She scrubbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand and gave a discreet sniff. ‘Yes. Just remnants. Thought I’d got rid of it all earlier, to be honest.’ I watched her back stiffen as she fought to bring the tears back under control.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Just... everything – All of it. All of today, and all the bastards out there. The whole bloody world, populated by monsters. Garvey, Maxwell, bloody Serena.’ She took a breath. ‘Me.’
‘You?’ I asked incredulously. ‘What the fuck have you done to be on that list?’
‘I hit you. Last night.’
I started to laugh, but had to stop when the stitches in my stomach began to feel like cheesewire in my skin. ‘Oh Jesus Christ Lili, is that what’s upsetting you? That you gave me a bit of a well-deserved whack for bein’ an evil-tongued shit? The only thing that surprised me was that it took you so bloody long!’
‘It was unforgivable.’ I got a glimpse of the tempered steel that was Lilith’s moral code. In that moment, I realised that even if she stayed at Albermarle for the next thousand years, Blaine would never have her. I also knew from hard experience that what my employer could not possess, she destroyed, and that sudden terror made me reach across the expanse and grasp Lilith’s arm.
‘Lili – no-one’s ever done anything like this for me. Ever. Are you hearing me? I sure as hell know I wouldn’t have taken the risks you did today just for a whore.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Lilith said, and I caught sight of her reddened eyes and tearstained cheeks.
‘It’s what I am.’
‘It’s what she makes you do. It’s not who you are,’ she retorted.
I didn’t fancy my chances in a semantics debate with Lilith at the best of times. Right now, knackered and aching, and with half my blood supply consisting of a charitable donation, I knew when to let it drop. There was only one other thing I could do, and it had been so long since I had dared – wanted – to do anything like it that I could barely remember the moves. ‘Come here,’ I urged.
I expected refusal, or at least hesitation. Instead, Lilith immediately buried her head into my chest and entwined her small, perfect hands around my back. The momentary discomfort was nothing at all compared to the realisation that she was finding refuge in my flawed embrace.