And he turns to go.
It takes a long time to unhook everything from the machine. There are sensors, needles, and the huge incontinence pad between my legs which makes me hot and cold with shame as I swing my legs to the floor, feeling its bulk. Did I wet myself in the night? There’s no sharp smell of urine but I can’t be sure.
The nurse gives me her arm as I stand, and although I want to push her away, I find I’m pathetically grateful for it, and I lean on her harder than I want to admit as I hobble painfully to the bathroom.
Inside the light flickers on automatically and the nurse runs a bath, then helps me with the tapes of my gown.
‘I can do the rest myself,’ I say, cringing at the thought of undressing in front of even a professional stranger, but she shakes her head.
‘I can’t let you get into the tub without a hand, I’m sorry. If you slip …’ She doesn’t finish, but I know what she’s saying: another bang on top of what’s already happened to my head.
I nod, step out of the hideous adult nappy (the nurse whisks it away before I can worry about whether it’s soiled or not) and then I let the gown fall to the floor, shivering in my nakedness even though the room is sweatingly hot.
I smell, I realise to my shame. I smell of fear and sweat and blood.
The nurse holds my hand as I step unsteadily into the bath, catching onto the grab rails as I lower myself into the scalding water.
‘Too hot?’ the nurse says quickly, as I let out a little gasp, but I shake my head. It’s not too hot. Nothing could be too hot. If I could sterilise myself with boiling water, I would.
At last I’m lying back in the water, shivering with the effort.
‘Can I … I’d like to be alone, p-please,’ I say, awkwardly. The nurse sucks in her breath and I can see her about to refuse, and suddenly I can’t bear it any more – I can’t bear their scrutiny, and their kindness, and their constant watch. ‘Please,’ I say, more roughly than I meant. ‘For God’s sake, I won’t drown in six inches of water.’
‘All right,’ she says, though there is reluctance in her tone. ‘But don’t even think about trying to get out – you’re to pull the cord and I’ll come in and help you.’
‘All right.’ I don’t want to admit defeat, but I know in my heart that I would not be safe getting out of that bath myself.
The nurse goes, leaving the door just a crack ajar, and I close my eyes and sink into the steaming water, shutting out her watchful presence outside the door, shutting out the hospital smells and sounds and the buzz of the fluorescent light.
As I lie in the bath I run my hands down all the cuts and scrapes and bruises, feeling the small clots and scabs soften and dissolve beneath my palms, and I try to remember what set me running through the woods, with blood on my hands. I try to remember. But I’m not sure if I can bear the truth.
After the nurse has helped me out, I towel myself gently dry, looking at my familiar body with its unfamiliar tracing of cuts and stitches. There are slashes on my shins. They are deep, ragged scratches across the front of the bone, as if I’d run through brambles or barbed wire. There are cuts on my feet and hands, from running barefoot over glass, from shielding my face from flying debris.
Finally I walk across to the mirror and swipe away the steam, and I see myself for the first time since the accident.
I’ve never been the kind to turn people’s heads – not like Clare, whose beauty is hard to ignore, or Nina, who’s spectacular in a lean, Amazonian kind of way – but I was never a freak. Now, as I peer at myself in the steam-bleeding mirror, I realise that if I saw myself on the street I would turn away, out of pity or horror.
The huge dressing at my hairline doesn’t help – it looks as if my brains are being barely held in place – and nor do the smaller cuts and scratches dappled across my cheekbones and forehead, but they’re not the worst. The worst is my eyes – two dark, bronze-coloured shiners that blossom out from the bridge of my nose, leaching in blackened circles beneath my lower lids, before they fade to yellow across my cheekbones. The right one is spectacular, the left one less so. I look like I’ve been punched in the face, repeatedly. But I am alive, and someone is not.
It is that thought that makes me pull on the hospital gown, lace up the ties, and shuffle out to face the world.
‘Admiring your shiners?’ The nurse gives a comfortable laugh. ‘Don’t worry, they’ve done all the scans, you’ve no basilar fracture. You just got a bang to the face. Or two.’
‘B-basilar?’
‘Type of skull fracture. It can be very nasty. But they’ve ruled it out, so don’t fret. Black eyes aren’t uncommon following a car crash but they’ll clear up in a few days.’
‘I’m ready,’ I say. ‘For the police.’
‘Are you sure you’re up to it, hen? You don’t have to.’