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‘I’m here to visit Mac Bartley-Thomas,’ I say, and I hold
my breath.
There is a pause – quite a long one – then the door jamb
clicks, just like that, and I push the door open and step into
the ward.
My heart is pounding, my thoughts racing, as I cross the
ward as interloper, imposter, terrified visitor. I immediately
glance to the other side to make sure Dominic has gone and
he has. There’s now a friendly-looking man sporting a beard
that looks painted on in his bed, pouring himself a glass of
water.
It is definitely quieter on the ward tonight, too; have all
the visitors been and gone? It’s only six o’clock. I can just
hear the murmur of televisions and the clank of equipment
and the tinkle of teaspoons in mugs in the nurses’ station at
the end of the ward. And some soft coughing.
I head towards Mac’s bed, half-expecting a heavy hand to
land on my shoulder and a voice to ask what the hell I am
doing here: wasn’t I here last night, visiting someone else?
Am I some sort of weird Munchausen-type person who
likes breaking into hospital wards? But there is no hand and
no voice. I make it to Mac’s bedside unscathed, despite the
shockingly, un-Ratched loud noise of my heels on the polished
floor, and I sit down, terrified.
Mac – here in London, here at St Katherine’s – has his
eyes open, which is an initial surprise and makes me feel like
running away, and he is staring up at the television screen
hanging above him in a giant, royal blue plastic box. Alexander
Armstrong is chuckling at something Pointless. Will Mac
recognize me? What will we say to each other? I haven’t a
clue, except why is he here? Does he live in London? Does he
live near me? If he does, how have we missed each other until
now, and what would we have said to each other if we hadn’t?
I wait. I keep my coat on, over my blouse and pencil skirt,
my feet in black suede court shoes tucked under the chair. I
wait for him to notice I am here, and after what feels like a
very long forever, Mac looks down from the television. He
looks at my face and stares at me for a moment, then his
eyes crinkle into a soft smile of recognition – it is recognition,
isn’t it? God, I hope it is – and finally, slowly, his mouth
joins in. He knows who I am.
Still petrified, I smile back at him. He’s older but the
ghost of his beautiful, younger face is still there. His eyes
are still periwinkle pale blue, with fair eyelashes. His mouth
is still a delight, a promise. His hair is not back from his face
today, some of it has flopped forward and it makes my heart
contract a little, as though squeezed by an eager hand. I
loved Mac’s floppy hair. I would run my fingers through it
and let it fall, in soft layers, into his eyes, before he would
blow it up into the air again, his mouth a soft ‘O’. I hope I
don’t disappoint him; I’m in my late forties, I have my own
crinkles, an uncertain jawline, possibly an air of not long departed
despair . . .
But he doesn’t disappoint me.
He creeps his hand forward, at the side of the bed, so gradually I could be imagining it, but I place my own over it.
His hand is warm and I am taken by a faint echo of the electricity
I used to feel, a distant current, like the ripples from
a skimmed stone on a faraway lake.
‘Hello, Mac,’ I say, my voice quavering. ‘It’s really good to
see you.’ He smiles at me again, and I squeeze his hand gently
until it stops mine from shaking. ‘It’s been a long time.’
He nods very slowly.
‘How are you feeling?’ I know how I am. Nervous, shy,
scared stiff, nothing like how I was when I first spoke to
him, in the Arts common room, at university, thirty years
ago. He, the charming, maverick Film Studies lecturer; me,
the overconfident English Literature student. God knows
what happened to her . . .
Mac doesn’t answer. He just smiles at me, those blue eyes
creasing until the irises nearly disappear.
‘I was visiting a friend last night,’ I gabble on. ‘He’s gone
now, broken leg. I saw you were here. I came back to visit
you. It’s so weird seeing you again. After all this time.’
Mac nods again. He smiles. I can see his teeth, still a little
crooked, something he always said he would fix, one day.
He liked the idea of a Hollywood smile. He always joked
that in the right light he’d look like a young Nick Nolte.
Why is he not saying anything?
‘He can’t speak,’ says a nurse, pausing at the foot of the
bed. It’s the nurse I saw last night, the one with the spiky
hair dip-dyed blonde at the ends, although the blonde bits
look more orange tonight. Her badge says ‘Fran’. ‘He damaged
his left hemisphere in the car accident.’ I nod, needing
to give the impression I already know some of what she’s
saying. Like the fact he’s been in a car accident. Poor Mac.
How awful. ‘We don’t know if his speech will come back or
not,’ says Fran. ‘The doctors say we can’t be certain of anything
at this stage.’
I nod again. I look at Mac; he smiles as though he is sorry.
I am flooded with feeling and memory. I’m almost in tears
at the thought that he can’t speak to me. I have so much I
want to say and so much I want to hear.
‘Would you like some water?’ I say to him.
I look to his bedside table but Fran is already standing at
it and pouring water from a clear plastic jug with a blue lid,
into a beaker with a straw in it.
‘I’m Fran,’ she says, as she passes me the beaker, ‘and
you’re his first visitor. Friend or relative?’ She makes it
sound like Friend or Foe and I almost laugh.
‘Friend,’ I say. ‘Though it’s been years.’ I go to pass Mac
the beaker, but I don’t think he can lift up his arm so I place
it under his chin and, with what a hopeful person might
construe as a slight wink, he sips from the straw.
‘Good you’re here,’ says Fran and she moves silently off
to the next bed. I wonder why I am Mac’s first visitor. Where
is his family? His friends? I put the beaker back on the cabinet.
We look at each other. I long to hear his voice. Still, if
he can’t talk to me, I can talk to him. He looks at me – those
crinkly eyes – and I almost blush, remembering all that we
did and all that we had. ‘I have no idea what you’re doing in
London,’ I say. It’s hot – I take off my coat and slip it over
the shoulders of the plastic chair. ‘Do you live here?’
He nods, almost imperceptibly.
‘Do you work here?’
He nods, then tips his head to the side as if to say ‘kind
of’. I regret asking him – he looks so tired – but I thought
he’d still be working. I can’t see Mac ever giving up work
altogether; he lived for it.
I have no further questions. Well I do, Your Honour, I
have a million of them, but I don’t want to exhaust Mac further
and this has felt like dreadful small talk. Mac and I never
did that. Everything we did was big. I decide to be as silent as
him. Companionable silence, that’s what they call it. It was
something Christian and I never went for.
We could be silent but even that felt like a war, with him watching my every
move, my every expression, challenging me to do something
he wouldn’t approve of. But Mac and I sit for a while, in
silence, and I search his face for all the parts of it I loved.
Fran bustles back past. I stand up and go over to her, feeling
guilty for stopping her in her important tracks. ‘Excuse
me, Fran ? Sorry. What’s Mac’s prognosis? How long has he
been here?’
‘Just over a week. He came in five days before Christmas.
Two days in intensive care before coming to the ward.’ Poor
Mac – Christmas in this place. Mine hadn’t been the most
exciting, but at least I had spent it in my own house, with
Julian. ‘And the doctors don’t know at the moment. On
their last round they said fifty per cent chance of a full
recovery.’
‘And the other fifty per cent?’ I ask.
Fran smiles a smile I know she has given a million times
before. ‘Uncertain’ – she shrugs – ‘as I said before. But we
hope for the best.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thanks, Fran.’
‘You’re very welcome. He’s a nice man,’ she says. ‘We can
tell. And I get the feeling he may have had quite a twinkle,
once upon a time.’
There’s a sudden strange noise from behind us, like the
clearing of a throat. Fran and I both turn round and look at
Mac. There’s the glimmer of a twinkle going on right now;
his eyes are glinting and his lips slowly part.
‘Bunny,’ says Mac, or at least it sounds like it. His voice is
low and rumbly, like cracked pepper.
I look at Fran and we step towards him. ‘Mac? Did you
say something? What are you trying to say?’ I ask.
Mac’s lips move again. His eyes flash and he looks directly
at me. ‘B-bunny soup,’ he says.
‘What did he say?’ asks Fran. ‘Something soup ?’ but I am
staring at Mac and laughing out loud, delighted at hearing his voice again and knowing exactly what he said, although it
is unbelievable, after all these years.
Bunny soup.
I sit down and retake Mac’s hand. A full grin is lighting
up his face. He grins till his eyes crinkle to almost nothing.
We beam like idiots at each other, the background murmur
and clunk of the ward an applause.
‘It really sounded like “bunny soup”,’ says Fran, at the
end of the bed, ‘how odd,’ but she is obviously as delighted
as me, as she adds, ‘But he said something! Well, I never!
Well done, Mac,’ she says to him, as though speaking to a
child. She comes to the side of the bed and pats his other
hand. ‘Why is he talking about soup?’ she asks me.
I laugh again. I laugh far too loudly for a hospital ward and
receive several looks. Anyone would think I was once bubbly.
‘He’s talking about a film,’ I say. ‘Mac and I watched a lot of
films together, back in the day, when I was a student. He’s referencing
one of our favourites.’ Actually, it was the first film we
watched, Mac and I. And I would never forget a second of it.
‘Oh, right,’ says Fran, stroking Mac’s knuckles gently and
looking thoughtful. ‘How odd. You know, it might be possible
Mac has a form of aphasia. I used to work on the Stroke
Ward and some of the patients there have something called
non-fluent aphasia – they can’t manage normal speech, but
they can call up expressions or memorized phrases from the
long-term memory. It’s all in the right hemisphere, you see,’
she says, tapping the side of her head. ‘Quite amazing, really.
Some of them can’t utter a word but can sing whole verses
of “Love Me Tender”. Which film is it?’ she asks.
‘Fatal Attraction,’ I say. I’m gazing at Mac.
‘Ah, yes.’ She nods. ‘I get it . . . bunny soup, the whole
“bunny boiler” thing . . . Glenn Close in a white nightdress,
Madame Butterfly . . . Great movie.’
‘Yes, great movie,’ I say. I smile at Mac and he smiles back.
I remember, his eyes say; and I remember too.
