Calabash

Calabash

Chapter 1

A Visit to the Real World

One minute past midnight. Sixty seconds into the new century. His friends are gathered around his hospital bed, joyously liberating cascades of champagne into plastic cups. He lies beneath their outstretched arms, their tumbling streamers, their cheers and toasts, and though he cannot move, he wishes them all the love in the world.

The century is only new to those who honour the concept of time. The man in the bed draws no pleasure or sorrow from its passing; hours, days, months, years, these arbitrary measurements mean nothing to him. They drift like the snow that passes across the window behind his head. He lies with his arms neatly folded over the counterpane, unmoving but not unmoved, connected to the outside world by a strong and slender thread. He can see and hear, and can sometimes shift his eye line just a little, which is how they know he is still alive. He is a prisoner of his body, but inside his head he is free.

‘Here’s to you!’ says Julia, raising her cup within his field of vision. ‘Happy New Year!’ And the others chorus her toast.

‘Are you sure he can understand us?’ asks one.

‘Of course he can,’ says the nurse, who talks to people as if they are children. ‘He can hear everything you say. It’s not a vegetative state, it’s a coma, they’re altogether different. His mind is quite undamaged.’ She has seen his test results. Sometimes his EEG line is like a force 8 on a seismograph. On a physical level, though, his neural impulses only allow him to respirate and eliminate. ‘He just can’t move. He doesn’t watch the television, he prefers to be read to; he likes the human contact. We turn him and clean him, and stretch his limbs to prevent muscle wastage, and we feed him from there.’ She sounds very matter-of-fact, almost cheerful, as she points to the bag of her patient’s drip-feed.

‘Poor thing,’ says a pretty girl who is new to the group. ‘How long has he had this disease?’ She mouths the last word softly as though it is obscene.

The nurse thinks for a moment. ‘Oh, it must be nearly . . . thirty years?’ She looks to her patient’s mother for corroboration. ‘About that. Of course, he could move about in the early days, but the condition has proved to be degenerative.’

The new girl is somebody’s date. Kay has not seen her here before. She is plainly horrified by the casual acceptance of the situation. ‘He can’t have any quality of life, just lying there. Wouldn’t it be better to—well, you know, let him—that is—turn him off?’

There is a moment of appalled silence. The girl is quick to realise her mistake and apologises. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—it’s just—he looks so sad lying there.’

‘I don’t think he’s sad,’ says the patient’s mother defensively. ‘He doesn’t like being pitied.’

‘Oh God, I’ve upset you now.’ The girl is a little drunk, and very embarrassed.

‘No, love, I think the only person who’s upset is you. You mustn’t be.’ The older woman takes the girl’s hand in her own and draws her closer to her son’s field of vision. ‘It’s very difficult for some people. I think of him as being asleep. You know when you’re sleeping and somebody talks to you, and you understand what they’re saying? It’s like that.’

Julia comes forward and touches the girl’s shoulder, speaking softly. ‘Just look into his eyes, and then wish him a Happy New Year.’

He is so glad that he has come back for this, to hear his mother and see his friends. He will not stay long; the others are waiting for him. He concentrates on the girl for a moment. She is younger than he had first thought. Reluctantly, she bends down and looks into his eyes. Her gaze is tentative at first, then, realising that the others are all watching her, she searches for a sign of life. He tries to send her a message; that everything is all right. A moment later her hand flies to her mouth—‘Oh!’—and she is crying or laughing, maybe both, turning to the others in wonder. Kay has seen this moment of revelation many times before.

‘You see?’ they tell her delightedly. ‘You see now?’

‘Oh my God!’ she keeps saying, and hugs his mother, and then they are all laughing and crying. His mother turns from the others and her kind face fills his vision. ‘Happy New Year, darling,’ she says. ‘Come back to us again soon.’ He sends her love with his eyes. It is time for him to go, to leave the prison of his dormant flesh and be free once more.

As he soars away from the merry little room in the hospital block, gaining height above the town, he leaves behind the sounds of celebration. He looks down at the glowing necklace of the promenade, the fireworks blossoming over the snow-swept bones of the pier, and crosses the coastline into phosphorescent darkness, racing low across the midnight sea, as he returns to Calabash.