Page 53 of One Step Behind
‘Mrs Dunsby? Isn’t she a doctor?’ I ask.
He smiles. ‘Yes, but once a doctor qualifies to consultant level they become Mrs, Ms, Mr again.’
‘Oh. I didn’t know that.’ I sink into one of the chairs feeling stupid.
I wonder how much Matthew remembers.
‘There’s something we need to talk about,’he’d said to me that day we met on the street.
I think back to the last time I saw him. The darkness burning in his eyes. His almost self-righteous air. As though he believed that all his checking up on me, his keeping tabs on me, was actually a way of helping. He didn’t like Nick. He didn’t like the way I was living my life. I’m sure that’s what he wanted to talk about.
I should’ve done more to listen to him, but it didn’t feel like Matthew was trying to help. It felt like he was clinging on to the past, and he wanted me to cling on to it with him.
My mind draws to a sudden stop and I realize I’ve been thinking about Matthew in the past tense. For all I know, he remembers everything, and the moment I walk through the doors he’s going to start on again about Mum and me and everything I don’t want to think about.
I really hope that doesn’t happen. Matthew is my brother and I want him to be OK, but maybe it would be better if he didn’t remember anything. Ctrl Alt Delete on a shitty start to life and everything that followed.He can have the ultimate fresh start, I think with a pang of jealousy.
It’s ten minutes before a woman appears. ‘Sophie? I’m Lynsey Dunsby, we spoke on the phone. Thank you for waiting.’ The neurologist’s accent is less pronounced in person, but there’s a no-nonsense headmistress feel to her that makes me wish I wasn’t wearing my gym clothes.
‘Let’s go to my office.’
I follow Mrs Dunsby through the ward. It looks nothing like the rest of the hospital. There’s a door open into an empty room and I catch sight of a small kitchen area. ‘We strive to create a home environment wherever we can; it helps with the rehabilitation,’ she explains. ‘Many of our patients have to learn basic skills again, like how to hold a knife and fork. I won’t keep you long,’ she adds, leading me into a small office and sitting down behind a tidy desk. ‘Please sit down. I like to talk to family members before they visit because brain injury recovery is veryunpredictable and it can often be a case of one step forward, two back.
‘Please don’t be disheartened today when you see your brother. His head injury was very severe and he’s already made immense progress by coming out of the coma. It’s important you don’t upset him or ask questions that might confuse him. Recovery of memory after a brain injury is very fragile. It could be days or weeks before a patient with Matthew’s type of brain injury remembers anything. And there is of course the chance that many memories may be lost for ever. Do you have any questions before you see Matthew?’
Dozens, I think before shaking my head.
‘OK then. Come this way.’ She stands and leads me down another corridor.
Matthew’s room is like a bedroom from an Ikea catalogue, not that different from my own. The furniture is functional, but nice. There’s a lamp on a bedside table giving a dim buttery-yellow glow, an empty bookshelf and two leather armchairs. A small flat-screen TV is fixed to the wall.
The bed is the only giveaway to the real purpose of the room. It’s a hospital bed with bars on the sides and hydraulics underneath to move it up and down. That, and the red alarm cord hanging down beside it. A sudden urge to yank the cord, sound the alarm and escape pushes through me.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Mrs Dunsby says. ‘I think it would be best to keep the visit short today. Just five or ten minutes will be enough for Matthew.’ She closes the door behind her and then it’s just the two of us.
I turn to Matthew, taking in the change in him. There are no wires or machines now, but his arm andleg are still in plaster, his left eye is swollen, and there’s a dark scab running the length of his face.
For a moment I don’t know what to say or do.
‘Don’t be angry with him, Sophie. He loves you. He just doesn’t know how to show it.’
‘Hey,’ he says in a voice deeper than I remember.
‘Hi.’ I perch on the edge of the armchair by the bed and chew at the side of a jagged fingernail. I pull my hand away. It’s been years since I bit my nails. ‘How are you feeling?’
Matthew frowns then. He moves his lips as though testing the word before he speaks. ‘Tired.’
‘What happened?’ he asks after a pause.
‘You were hit by a bus.’ Mrs Dunsby’s warning plays in my mind and I leave out the part about being pushed.
‘I remember someone telling me that. The police were here. They kept asking questions about … about …’ The next words are mumbled, gibberish nonsense.
‘What do you remember?’
‘Random stuff. Dad’s dead, right?’
I nod. ‘He died eight years ago. Liver cirrhosis – the booze finally killed him just like Mum said it would.’
