Counterpoint (standard:Psychological fiction, 4488 words)
Author: Gavin J. Carr	Added: Jun 04 2006	Views/Reads: 3664/2359	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
After we're gone we all become a character in someone else's story.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


The man and woman stood for a moment and looked around the ward. 

It was visiting time and the room was very busy.  Most of the beds had
three or four visitors.  Some of them were sitting on the heavy 
overstuffed chairs, but most were on the edge of the beds, next to the 
patients. 

‘Are you sure this is the right ward?' said the man.  ‘I don't see her.'


‘There she is by the window.'  The woman pointed to the bed at the far
end of the ward.  There were no visitors and the patient faced away 
from them, her head turned so she could look out the window, over the 
car park in front of the hospital. 

The man thought she looked very small in the bed.  There was something
about hospitals that made everyone look small, he thought.  Small and 
old as though their muscles had withered and atrophied. 

They went to the bed and stood for a moment in silence.  The man felt
shocked; she looked badly ill.  Her face was pale and lined, her cheeks 
sunken and hollow beneath the artificial lights.  Her left hand rested 
on the bed sheet and he could see the veins standing out ropey and blue 
through her papery skin.  There was a small plastic tap in the vein 
just above her thumb.  It was held in place by a blood spotted plaster. 


The man looked away from her hand just in time to see her turn her head
and look at them.  She gave a grunt of recognition and her lips moved 
silently, mouthing their names. 

‘How are you?' said the man.  ‘You're looking well.' 

She said nothing.  She turned her head away from them and went back to
looking out the window. 

‘We brought you some grapes,' said the woman.  She removed a brown paper
sack from her bag and put them on the bedside table next to the water 
jug and a pile of newspapers. 

‘I'm sorry we couldn't come sooner, but we didn't know that you were
here until last night and by that time visiting hours were over.' 

The woman sat beside her on the bed and took her hand.  ‘Dad and mum say
hi.  They phoned this morning and said they'd be over to visit 
tomorrow.  They couldn't remember the last time they'd seen you.  
They're sorry about that.  But they'll be around for sure tomorrow.  
It'll be nice to see them again, won't it?' 

The silence continued.  Her head was resting on the pillow and there was
no movement except the regular swell of her chest beneath the cover.  
She was still looking out the window. 

‘Has the doctor been around?' said the woman.  ‘Has he said when you'll
get home?  God, I hate hospitals, if it was me in here I'd probably 
break out.  Couldn't wait to get home.'	She smiled and looked at the 
man.  The smile was rigid and strained.  She motioned with her eyes 
towards the patient. 

The man cleared his throat.  ‘I bumped into Tommy earlier today.  He's
missing you.  He seems to be coping alright, though.  Practically 
living on pizzas and take-aways, but you know Tommy, he'd eat that junk 
all day if you weren't there to keep him right.'  He looked at his feet 
and then glanced down the ward to the other beds. 

‘Busy in here tonight.  We were lucky to get a parking space.'  He
pursed his lips and blew out a gust of air.  The woman still had the 
same strained smile on her face. 

‘I'll see if I can find the nurse, shall I?  Maybe she knows when you're
getting out.' 

He left them and went out the ward and into the hallway.  God, that was
awkward, he thought.  When he'd spoken to Tommy earlier he'd mentioned 
that she wasn't talking to anyone.  The doctors weren't sure what the 
matter was, but it was as though she didn't know where she was, as if 
her mind were as atrophied as her muscles.  Yet she'd recognised them 
when they first came in.  He was sure of it.  He'd seen her lips sound 
their names. 

Poor Tommy, he thought, he'd looked so worried.  It had shaken the man
to see him that way.  For as long as he could remember Tommy had been a 
jolly person.  Actually, jolly probably wasn't the word for it, he 
thought.  Jolly, was for comical people, people you didn't respect.  He 
respected Tommy and it had scared him to see the dark marks under his 
friend's eyes and the lines of fatigue around his mouth that he hadn't 
noticed before.  No, Tommy had always been happy.  That was a better 
word, he thought, plain but true.  For as long as he could remember 
Tommy had been happy and it had scared the man to see him otherwise. 

She's got to get better, he thought.  She's got to get better so that
Tommy can be better too. 

He found the nurse sitting behind a desk in the middle of the hallway. 
He asked if she knew when the patient would be released.  But she 
wouldn't tell him because he wasn't a member of the family.  There were 
rules you know.  She could get fired for telling him something like 
that. 

The man thought the rules very stupid but said nothing.  He thanked the
nurse and headed back to the ward. 

It was getting late and he thought Tommy would have been here by now. 
If Tommy had been around then things would have been at least bearable, 
he thought. 

He looked back to the bed where the woman was sitting.  She was leaning
over, close to the patient's face, whispering.  Her lips were narrow 
and white and he knew that she was annoyed. 

The man and woman made small talk for another fifteen minutes before
tiring.  It wasn't easy and the man had never been one for small talk 
in the first place.  The patient wouldn't say a thing.  She'd moved 
once during the time they'd been there, turning her head away from the 
window to stare at the wall across from her. 

They made their excuses and said they'd be back to visit again.  Neither
of them thought they would.  The man could see that the woman was still 
annoyed.  There were two bright spots of colour high up on her cheeks.  
She wouldn't look him in the eye.  She bent over the bed and kissed the 
patient quickly on the forehead. 

They left and went back into the hallway and down the long corridor that
smelled of disinfectant.  Their shoes squeaked on the polished linoleum 
as they walked. 

‘What the hell was that about?' said the man. 

The woman walked fast, her handbag tight under one arm.  ‘I don't know. 
She's taken a funny turn alright.  It's not like her at all to be 
so...ignorant.' 

‘Well, it's not her fault if she's sick.  Maybe she doesn't feel like
talking or just can't manage it.' 

‘I don't know.  It's just not like her.  She's not usually so ignorant.'


The man took the woman's hand.  ‘You can't call it ignorance if she
can't help it.  It's not as though she's deliberately snubbing you or 
something.' 

His words seemed to cheer the woman up.  She moved closer and put her
arm through his.  ‘I don't know.  I hope she gets better soon, but I 
won't be coming again.  That was awkward, visiting someone who won't 
speak to you.  How did Tommy seem?' 

‘Not good.  It was him that found her.  He came home and she was in the
bath.  She'd been lying there for hours and couldn't get out.  Tommy 
couldn't shift her either and needed to call an ambulance.' 

‘Poor Tommy.  Didn't she speak at all, even when they were lifting her
out?' 

‘Not a word, not even to Tommy.  He's worried sick.  See, honey, if she
won't speak to her own husband then it must be serious.  She's not 
ignorant, she's just ill.' 

The woman squeezed his arm and he stooped down to kiss her on the cheek.
 They were outside the hospital now and there was a cold breeze blowing 
on their faces.  The man could feel rain spotting his forehead and chin 
as he zipped up his jacket. 

‘I'll phone Tommy tomorrow,' he said. ‘That'll be four days she's been
in.  The doctors should know what's wrong with her.' 

They walked through the white puddles of sodium light and into the car
park.  The woman reached into her handbag and found the keys. 

‘You think she really can't talk?' she said. 

‘Sure.  Don't you?' 

‘I suppose.' 

‘Don't worry, she'll get better.  She can't help it.  Probably doesn't
know where she is.' 

The woman nodded and opened the car door. 

The man smiled, but in his head he could see lips silently mouthing
their names. 

*** 

They hadn't shut the curtains properly and she lay awake with the light
on her face. 

She could have got up and shut them herself, but couldn't or didn't want
to, which amounted to the same thing. 

Far down the ward someone moaned.  There was an old woman down there,
seriously ill, probably dying, she thought.  It was terrible, a 
terrible thing to be in a hospital ward at night, alone and dying.  But 
she couldn't feel any sympathy for the woman.  She wished she would 
hurry up and go. 

She puffed up the pillows beneath her head and looked up at the ceiling.
 The hospital was old and the ceilings very high and she could see 
nothing except the uniform darkness until a car drove into the car park 
outside and swept the windows with its headlights. 

She'd been in the hospital three days now and was feeling no better. 
Earlier that day a doctor had arrived at the head of half a dozen 
trainees, looking young and frightened in their too large white coats.  
They looked over her charts and passed a clip board around.  They asked 
her questions which she did not answer before they got bored and went 
on to the next patient. 

Just before they'd left she had heard the doctor whispering to one of
the trainees.  She couldn't hear exactly what he said, but could make 
out the words ‘Psychiatric ward'.  They thought she was crazy, she 
realised. 

Even though it was warm in the ward she shivered and pulled the covers
under her chin.  The frightening thing was that she could do nothing, 
she thought.  She wasn't mad; she did not even believe she was ill.  
She was in the grip of something she was confident no one would 
understand.  It was so profound a feeling that it had numbed her; she 
couldn't bring herself to do anything. 

It had started on the Monday afternoon.  She had been cleaning the house
and was tidying out the cupboard that sat in their living room.  It 
hadn't been touched for a number of years and it was full of the junk 
that one accumulates over time. 

It annoyed her.  Every time someone opened the cupboard door a stack of
old bills or a photo album or some other piece of detritus would spill 
out onto the carpet, only to be gathered up and thrown back in, 
shuffling the junk until it was as random as a used deck of cards. 

She was on her knees in front of the cupboard, rooting deep inside and
sorting some old bills into piles – one pile for bills more than a year 
old, another for more recent bills – when her hand came to rest on 
something hard and pointed amongst the papers. 

She took the object out and saw that it was a child's toy, a small red,
plastic dinosaur.  She remembered that it had came from a set they'd 
bought the kids one Christmas, something called ‘Dinosaur Island' which 
the kids had been interested in it for a couple of weeks before moving 
on to the next thing. 

She turned  it around in her hands.  The dinosaur had a very fierce but
bewildered expression on its face like a child's idea of anger. 

She smiled to herself as she looked at it.  She decided she would put it
aside to show the kids next time they came to visit.  It would be good 
to see their faces when they saw what she'd found; a fragment of their 
childhood long forgotten and now unearthed. 

Her fingers traced the hard contours of the figure's spine, the tiny
plastic bumps that represented scales.  She noticed a small indentation 
on the tail and held it closer to the light to look at it.  There was a 
tiny tooth mark there.  She could clearly see it in the light from the 
window.  Two small grooves that could only have come from a child 
biting on it. 

Kids were always ruining their toys, she thought.  She couldn't put a
book near them when they were younger without it being chewed and 
turned into pulp.  But all kids were like that.  They don't know the 
value of things, how you had to work hard to get what you had and then 
hold on to it.  Things came easy to children and it was only when you 
were older that your realised how difficult it really was.  How life 
eventually ground you down. 

She was suddenly aware of how quiet the house was.  Knelling there with
the plastic dinosaur in her hands she realised for the first time how 
alone she was.  The kids were gone.  She hadn't been able to hold on to 
them.  She hadn't known the value of them when they were here and now 
that they were away – making a life of their own – she had nothing 
really to hold on to. 

Sure, there was Tommy, she thought, but Tommy didn't need her, not
really.  He was the most content person she'd ever met.  He'd been like 
that even before they'd met and was one of the things that had 
attracted her.  But he didn't rely on her, not the way the children 
had. 

She ran her finger over the tiny tooth marks and then rose shakily to
her feet.  Her legs were stiff and sore from kneeling. 

She went upstairs and ran a bath.  She undressed and lowered herself
cautiously into the hot water.  As she lay there, looking upwards at 
the steam curling into the air, she realised she was still holding the 
plastic dinosaur.  She hadn't been aware of it.  Just as she hadn't 
been aware until now of how silent the house had grown.  She was so 
tired.  Perhaps if she lay a while then she could relax.  Just lay a 
while in the silence and not think of a thing. 

The silence had been tangible then.  It was all around her and in her
and it felt as though there would never be anything but silence again.  
The water grew tepid, then cold, and still she lay there, unwilling, 
unable to move.  It was the strangest thing and she could never explain 
it but she'd become part of the silence of the house, something more 
than herself.   Tommy came home and found her.  He'd shaken her and 
shouted at her and begged her to get up, to speak to him.  But she 
couldn't.  Didn't want to.  How could she explain to him that the 
silence had penetrated her?  That there was no point doing anything.  
That you couldn't hold on to any of it. 

Lying now in the hospital bed she had the feeling that once again the
silence was closing in. 

She did not like the ward with its whitewashed walls and monstrous, cast
iron radiators flecked with rust.  But she could not move.  She lay 
there, prone and passive, and believed that she would never move again. 
 Never speak again.  Never love again.  There was only herself now and 
the silence and a great bitterness that was twisting something inside 
of her, turning her bad. 

She could hear the gentle creak of someone's shoes as they walked down
the ward.  She did not look around.  Sleep was very far away, but the 
darkness of the ceiling was comforting. 

There was the rustle of the plastic curtain being pulled around her bed
and someone reached forward and switched on the lamp.  It was the 
doctor.  She could make out the glow of his white coat in the 
half-light. 

He looked very tired and pale.  She saw that there was a small ink-stain
on the pocket of his coat where a pen had leaked. ‘How are you 
feeling?' he said.  His voice was low and intimate, but there was 
hesitancy, a slight cracking around the edges as he spoke.  When she 
did not answer he sighed and shook his head.  He seemed to think better 
of continuing, but after a moment did anyway. 

‘I'm afraid there's no easy way to say this...so I should just probably
say it.  We received a call from your son.  He's on the way.  I-I'm 
afraid your husband suffered a heart attack.  He died instantly.' 

She heard the words and lost the doctor for a second.  For a brief
flicker he was simply gone, blinking out into darkness.  Then he was 
back again and she was aware that her heart was racing and she was 
feeling something for the first time in three days. 

‘Tommy,' she said. 

At the far end of the ward the woman had started moaning again. 

*** 

‘...And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' 

The priest finished and closed the bible with a thump. 

It was really a very good spot, thought the man.  It was the new part of
the cemetery, higher than the old section and overlooking the valley 
where the river ribboned through the town, glowing dully like hammered 
tin. 

Tommy would have loved it. 

The coffin was in the earth and the mourners moved away from the open
grave with its frightful implications. 

The man was one of the few that remained.  He didn't feel ready to move
yet. 

‘Poor Tommy,' said the woman.  She reached out and grasped his hand and
after a while he squeezed back, grateful for the comfort. 

‘I'm going to miss him,' he said.  ‘He was a great guy.' 

‘We're all going to miss him.  It'll be tough but we'll get by.  We'll
get each other through.' 

Yes, there was that, he thought, and perhaps only that.  Maybe that's
all life was in the end.  Two people together, helping each other 
through. 

He looked to his right where a knot of mourners were congregating around
Tommy's wife.  Her son was by her side, holding her arm and steadying 
her on the uneven surface of the grass.  They were paying their 
condolences to her, shaking their heads and her hand. 

She looks good, thought the man.  You wouldn't know her husband had died
if it wasn't for the black suit and dark blouse which she wore.  Her 
cheeks were flushed and the wind tousled her hair into a nimbus which 
floated ethereally around her head.  She looked like a young bride 
after her wedding night, rather than a widow burying her husband. 

They went to her and the man shook her hand and the woman hugged her. 

‘I'm so sorry,' said the man.  ‘If there's anything we can do...you know
you only have to ask.' 

‘It's me that should be sorry.  They told me you came to visit in
hospital, just before, just before Tommy went.'  She produced a 
handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.  ‘I wasn't my self then, I don't 
remember any of it.  It was the strangest thing, but I can't remember 
anything until they told me he'd died.  They say I came out of it just 
like that.' 

The man smiled sadly and told her he understood and not to worry about
it.  Tommy wouldn't have wanted her to worry.  But as he said the words 
he once again remembered the hospital bed, her lips moving, silently 
mouthing their names. 

She had recognised them, he was sure of it.   And if she'd recognised
them then she must have recognised Tommy, he thought. 

It angered him, because if it was true then she had helped kill Tommy. 
Tommy, who wasn't a big man, or a strong man, or a brave man, but a 
good man.  One of those people who were free from cynicism and would 
speak to anyone on equal terms.  A good man who had only wanted his 
wife to speak to him. 

His death wasn't anything dramatic.  His wife wasn't guilty of anything,
but she hadn't made it easy on Tommy. 

She was there now, dabbing her eyes and talking with the priest.  She
told him her story as he did so.  It never altered.  It was well 
rehearsed.  Tommy's death had brought her back, she said. 

Tommy's wife felt guilty.  She was lying to everyone, but they would
never understand the truth, she thought.  How to tell them that she had 
known where she was, had known what was happening, but had simply been 
unable to do anything about it?  The silence had possessed her and she 
had been unable to think of anyone but herself. 

No, better not to tell anyone, she thought.  They wouldn't understand. 
They'd think it selfish.  It was selfish – almost the definition of 
selfish – but it had not been a conscious act.  She hadn't had a choice 
in it. 

She tried not to think of Tommy, she wasn't ready for that yet.  But
still, somehow his going had given her something.  A new purpose.  A 
new role to play.  She had played many roles over the years – everyone 
did.  She had been the young lover at the beginning of a relationship; 
she had been the young wife looking after her man and trying to build a 
life; she had been the caring mother bringing up her children; and then 
she had been the older, concerned mother, fretting after her children 
as thye left home and made their own lives.  After that there had been 
nothing but the silence, she thought.  That had been the trouble, why 
what had happened happened. 

But Tommy's going had given her another role, one she could play for a
long time, perhaps even to the end of her years.  She would be the 
grieving widow, she thought.  Strong, but meloncoly, she would soldier 
on and make the most out of her own life.  To do otherwise would 
somehow be a waste, she thought.  A waste of what Tommy had given her.  
What he'd left behind after he'd gone.  This new role.  This new 
opportunity. 

She smiled a sad smile to herself as the priest patted her on the back. 
Already she was playing the part, she thought. 

The man, seeing the smile, bit his lip.  He walked away from the grave
and though of that mouth silently moving and the look of recognition. 

Tommy had become a character in someone else's story. 

The End. 


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