Chapter 5
NEIL
I stall for time in the smoking shelter opposite, sizing up Moorfields Eye Hospital as if it might bite.
Despite receiving annual appointments through the post, I haven’t been here in years, not since the day they put a name to this thing eating away at the back of my eyes.
Irreversible, they said. Progressive, they said.
The words clanged like metal then and they still do now.
Yesterday, so tired of it all, in ways that don’t show up in a mirror, I nearly divulged the diagnosis I’ve kept hidden for so long.
To him. That Luke guy. I’d tied myself up in knots worrying about the fucking accountancy thing before hitting on a solution.
Plucking up the nerve to casually ask Isaac for Luke’s address and then buying him a fucking plant was the easy part.
Much harder was loitering outside his gaff, then begging this guy I hardly knew for help while all the time trying not to seem desperate.
Laughing, shrugging, making it sound like a favour, not a lifeline.
No biggie if you can’t. I’m fine either way.
When he said yes, my knees threatened to collapse from under me.
God knows what he thinks. He seems nice enough—kindly—but no wonder he eyed me warily.
What must he see? An arrogant twat with a smashed-up head and face one day, and a pathetic pleading mess the next.
Luke doesn’t know there are two Neils. No one does; the loud, cocky one does a hell of a job keeping the other one at bay.
I stub out my cigarette underfoot. I used to kid myself that if I didn’t walk through these sliding hospital doors, then maybe all this would go away. Maybe I’d be the freaky genetic exception proving the experts wrong. Maybe I could outstare my fate.
The hospital foyer is noisy and busy, like I remembered.
A mere second of hesitation at the entrance, a quick squint at my phone screen, then another up at the signage, and a cheery volunteer in a bright yellow jacket pounces.
Enunciating clearly, he guides me to the lifts.
He even presses the massive button for the correct floor on my behalf, as if my fucking ears and arms don’t work, as well as my eyes.
I’m the youngest person in the big waiting room by around twenty years and the only one not flexing beer-bottle glasses.
No matter how funky the design, no matter how brightly coloured, they still make people’s eyes look ten times too small, as if they’re disappearing inside themselves.
As I take a hard plastic seat, none of the other patients make eye contact, probably because none of the fuckers can see anything.
The clever-clever eye tests were fun the first time I came, aged fourteen, with my mum for company. I’d suffered headaches at school; they went down the eye test route before realising I had dyslexia. Two diagnoses for the price of one.
Mum would have accompanied me today if she knew I was here.
As far as she’s aware, my eye disease is as stable now as it was then.
Just rest your chin on this ledge. Try not to blink.
Stare at the green dot. Tell me which circle is brighter.
The machines had names like spacecraft. I remember thinking the whole expedition was a giant computer game.
I wanted to be the best: achieve the highest score on the visual field tests, read the smallest letters, avoid flinching at the puff of air.
Times change.
Throughout the afternoon, I work through each of the game levels, collecting results cards and making small talk with the optometrists, until reaching the final one.
Then, in a pool of my own sweat and my eyes swimming with stinging drops, I’m invited into a windowless, dark room to sit in a big leather chair.
By now, I’m thirsty and vaguely nauseated, thanks to a throbbing headache.
Courtesy of the eye drops, everything is blurry, my pupils blown wide like full moons.
Or like I’ve snorted coke all afternoon, except without the thrilling headrush.
The senior eye doctor bustles in, her outline soft around the edges.
Apologising for the wait in an automatic fashion, she offers a tissue for the wetness drying on my cheeks.
We go through some basic health stuff. Then, despite all the clever tests, she does the old-fashioned scoot over on her wheelie stool to where I’m sat.
“Let’s just take a final look inside, shall we? The drops have had a few minutes to work.”
She leans in closer, closer than anyone ever gets unless they love you, fuck you, or want to hurt you.
“Look straight ahead,” she says, as if my face isn’t already a tense, rigid mask.
She lasers a piercing sunbeam onto my weary pupil, and I smell Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers; my aunt used to douse herself in it.
Her breath is minty; she drank coffee after lunch.
As we share the same air, I wonder if she can hear my heart beating, scent my sweat, sense my fear.
As she asks me to look up, look down, look left, look right, that ray of brightness scalds my retina.
I don’t blink. I barely breathe. I can’t cope.
Finally, she pulls back. “Okay, Neil, all done.”
“Thank you.”
I’m free to suck in a lungful of air, sharp, clean, and alive, and for the briefest of seconds, my world narrows to that single breath. One inhale is all I need to take a step forward.
And I bolt out the door.