Chapter 16
NATALIE
Natalie’s eyes flicker open. Where is she?
The light is dim and there is a pounding at the back of her head that runs all the way down her neck, through her arms and to her fingers.
Her whole body feels sore and heavy, as if she’s been hit by a bus.
Is that what happened? Was she knocked over?
Is she in hospital? She tries to prop herself up on her elbows but even this small movement takes every ounce of energy she has.
She’s on a narrow bed, tucked up tightly beneath a crisp white sheet overlaid with a knitted navy-blue blanket.
It must be a private room. It’s whitewashed and clinical, like a hospital, and there is a slight citrus scent undercut with bleach.
She surveys the bare walls, the stripped floorboards, the patterned rug that lies next to the window, which is covered with white venetian blinds.
In the corner is a rocking chair and, perched on a gingham cushion, a grey rabbit with a matching gingham bow tie.
She blinks again. That’s odd. It looks too nice to be a hospital room.
Maybe she’s in some facility, like rehab.
But why would she be? She doesn’t have a drug problem. She doesn’t drink too much.
She flops back against the pillow, drained.
Is it still Sunday? Images shift and resettle in her mind.
Why does her brain feel so foggy and her memories scrambled?
She tries to put them in some semblance of order.
She can’t remember much. And then a snippet of memory.
Walking through a park. She was running from something.
Did she fall and crack her head? That would explain the shooting pain at the base of her skull.
She jolts when the door opens and a woman walks in wearing blue scrubs and a disposable face mask. She must be a nurse, she thinks, with relief. So, she is in a hospital. A very nice one too, from her surroundings.
The nurse is pushing a trolley into the room. On it is a tray of food, which looks like fish fingers and mashed potato. The smell makes her feel nauseous. Why does she feel like she’s got a hangover?
‘Where am I?’ she asks the nurse, as she approaches the bed. ‘Which hospital?’
The nurse doesn’t reply. She doesn’t flinch or make any sign that she’s even heard her.
‘Excuse me?’ Natalie wonders if any sound is actually coming out of her mouth.
She feels like she’s in a dream. Maybe she is dreaming.
Maybe she’s dying. Maybe she suffered a brain injury in the park and is lying there, right now, on the hot tarmac, bleeding out from a head wound, surrounded by concerned onlookers, and this is all some out-of-body, weird near-death experience.
She tries to prop herself up again but finds she can’t.
‘Please,’ she rasps. Her voice sounds weak but she’s surely making some sound, yet the nurse continues to ignore her.
She wheels the trolley over to Natalie’s bed, but she doesn’t look her in the eye.
Instead she busies herself with pouring Natalie a glass of water from a jug.
Then she slowly unwraps a knife and fork from a white paper napkin and begins cutting up the fish fingers as though Natalie is a child.
Natalie can feel her mouth gaping open as she watches the nurse arrange her knife and fork for her and place the glass next to her plate, just so.
And then she looks at Natalie squarely in the eye for the first time.
‘Eat up, there’s a good girl,’ she says, as though Natalie is five, her voice muffled behind the mask.
She reaches over and Natalie flinches as the woman props pillows behind her and helps her sit up.
She positions the trolley so that it’s next to the bed.
She picks up the glass of water and brings it to Natalie’s lips.
‘You need to drink,’ she says. ‘Drink it all. You are severely dehydrated.’
‘Where am I?’
‘Drink.’
‘But what’s happened to me?’
‘I said drink,’ she says, tipping it into Natalie’s open mouth and making her splutter. The nurse tuts and tries again, and Natalie does as she’s told.
‘That’s better,’ says the nurse when Natalie swallows the water.
Natalie can’t tell if the nurse is smiling behind her mask.
All she can see is her eyes, and they look empty.
The nurse replaces the glass. ‘Try to eat,’ she says, handing Natalie the plastic fork.
Not metal. Not something she could do any damage with.
‘Can you please tell me what’s ha—’
‘Eat,’ the nurse snaps. ‘I’ll be back in a bit.’ She turns and leaves the room.
Natalie lets the food grow cold. She reaches up and touches her head, but finds no dressing or bandage, no stitches or anything that suggests she’s been wounded.
What happened in the park?
She pulls back the sheet and blanket. She’s wearing a hospital gown although she’s still got her underwear on. She inspects her skin. Has she been drugged? She feels as if she has been. She reaches around to touch the soft skin on her upper arm. It’s tender.
Natalie’s gaze flickers towards the door.
It doesn’t look like the kind of door you’d see on a hospital ward, or even a private room like this one obviously is.
The door is pine with a keyhole and there is no glass.
And everything is quiet. Too quiet. There is no background cacophony of a busy hospital.
No bleeps of machinery, ringing of telephones or hurried footsteps from the corridors outside.
She glances at the cut-up food and the mashed potato congealing on the plate and her stomach turns.
Something is wrong. She feels the kick of it deep in her gut and she trusts her instincts.
She’s been attuned to keeping herself safe for the last eight years, after all.
Why can’t she remember what happened? And where is her bag?
She would have had it on her at the park: she never goes anywhere without it.
She glances towards the rocking chair. The rabbit with the bow tie stares back at her with its beady eyes and something tugs in her memory.
A rabbit with a tartan bow tie, its large head flopping over the side of an overnight bag.
But just as quickly the memory vanishes.