Free The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes Page B

neurologist.
    Although I was paralysed and therefore
extremely
immobile, I ordered myself to lie even more still. Maybe if I made myself totally invisible, Narky Man would leave, looking baffled and telling the nurse there was no patient in bed seven. There was a good chance he wouldn’t recognize me – it was nearly six months since I’d driven into his car and I was guessing I looked very different – I hadn’t seen a mirror in all my time in hospital but I’d no make-up on, my hair was a disaster and I’d lost a lot of weight.
    ‘Today we’ll do some gentle work on your circulation,’ he said. ‘Is that okay?’
    No, it wasn’t okay.
    My sullenness must have leaked into the room because he looked a little surprised, then focused on me in a new way. His face changed. ‘Have we met?’
    I blinked my left eyelid many times, trying to convey,
Go away. Go away and never come back.
    ‘Yes? No?’ His brow was furrowed. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ It was like an episode of
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
.
    Go away. Go away and never come back.
    ‘The car accident.’ His face cleared as he remembered. ‘The crash.’
    Go away. Go away and never come back.
    He watched me closely and he gave a little laugh. ‘You want me to go away.’
    Yes, I want you to go away and never come back.
    Narky Man – what did he say his name was? Mannix – shrugged. ‘I’ve got a job to do.’
    Go away and never come back.
    He laughed, quite meanly. ‘Christ! When you don’t like someone, you
really
don’t like them. So!’ He took the clipboard from the end of the bed and pulled a chair up to my bedside. ‘How are you today? I know you can’t answer. The nurses’ report says you had “a good night’s sleep”. Is that true?’
    He watched me carefully. I blinked my left eye. Let him figure out what that meant.
    ‘No? Blinking your left eye means “no”. So you
didn’t
have a good night’s sleep?’ He sighed. ‘They say everyone has a good night’s sleep. The only time they don’t is when a person has been running up and down the ward in the nip yelling that the CIA are spying on them. Then they call it “a restless night’s sleep”.’
    He quirked an eyebrow at me, looking for a reaction. ‘Not even a smile?’ He sounded sardonic.
    I can’t smile and even if I could, I wouldn’t. Not for you.
    ‘I know you can’t smile,’ he said. ‘It was my admittedly crass attempt at humour. Okay. Ten minutes, and I’ll be gone. Today I’m going to massage your fingers.’
    He took my hand in his and, after being deprived of any kind of proper touch for more than three weeks, it was a shock. He began massaging the pad of his thumb around my fingernails, tiny movements that triggered pleasure chemicals in my head. Suddenly I felt giddy, almost high. He took my knuckles and moved them in a circular motion, then hegently pulled my fingers and that triggered a cascade of bliss that sent little thrills of electricity through my whole body. Ryan and the kids kept their distance out of fear of damaging me, but clearly that sort of deprivation wasn’t good, if someone just rubbing my hands rocketed me into euphoria.
    ‘How’s that?’ Mannix Taylor asked.
    It felt so intimate that I had to shut my eyes.
    ‘Is it okay?’ he asked.
    I opened my eyes and blinked the right one.
    ‘Is that yes?’ he said. ‘Blinking the right eye means “yes”? I’ve never before worked with someone who couldn’t speak. How do you not go mad?’
    I’m trying to. I do my best every day to lose my mind.
    ‘Okay, let’s do your other hand.’
    I closed my eyes and surrendered to the sensations and went into a kind of ecstatic trance. I was thinking dreamily of those stories about babies in orphanages, who are never held, and how it impedes their development. Now I could totally understand why.
Totally
. Human touch was important,
very
important, as important as water and food and air and laughter and new shoes