He grew more and more upset until Max pressed his finger against River’s lips and shook his head. He stared at River, then made a zipping motion across his mouth.Right.He didn’t want River to try and talk. He got that. He understood something at least. River didn’twantto talk until he made sense. He always did as Max said. After River’s parents had died, Max had looked after him, given him a home, helped launch his career.
Max tapped into his phone, then showed him the screen. He couldn’t read it.What the fuck? I can’t read either?Then Max drew something and showed him. A hill? A mountain? He added a stick figure climbing and pointed to River. River could guess where this was going. He’d fallen? He didn’t remember falling. He didn’t remember climbing. Why would he climb? He was terrified of heights. Even seeing a video of someone high up made him feel ill.
Max erased the figure on the rock and drew one at the bottom, pointing to River, then to his head. River slowly lifted his hand and felt the bandage. He had casts on both arms from below the elbow. He suspected his legs were in casts too. He had little choice but to accept what Max was trying to tell him. He’d been climbing, he’d fallen and hurt his head and presumably his arms and legs.Please not my spine.
He knew his name. Names. His real one and the one he used now. He knew he was an actor. He had a home in Kent. He’d bought it a few years ago. He had a past no one knew about apart from Max. He had a girlfriend except she wasn’t really his girlfriend. He didn’t want to see her. He didn’t want to see anyone. Right at that moment, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be alive.
Max gently squeezed his hand and made the OK sign with his fingers. River wasn’t reassured.
It was easy to slip into depression. It was like some comforting monster holding its arms open for him.
River let the medical staff do what they wanted, but he hated every moment of it, the indignity… He kept his eyes closed even if he was awake.
He didn’t want to eat, but they made him, spoon fed slop into his mouth because he couldn’t feed himself. This was his life. And it was wrecked. Misery clawed at his heart, ripped at him constantly every time he tried to speak and couldn’t make himself understood.
He stopped trying.
Wires were attached to his chest, blood taken time after time, his skin pricked at various points to see if it hurt.Yes, it fucking did.At least a yelp was universal. His eyes were examined. His reflexes tested and no one could tell him what was going on. Well, they tried and failed, then stopped trying when it agitated him.
When he was wheeled out of the room by a porter, he thought for a few joyous moments he was going home. He wasn’t. He ended up in a room with what River thought was a scanner; a large circular machine with a hole in the middle, like a giant metal donut. He sort of wished it was a portal to another world. There was more scrambled speech from a technician who mimed holding still by standing stiff, then pointed all the way round to the next number on a clock. River got that, though he couldn’t read the numbers. He had to keep still for an hour.Fucking hell. Really? An hour?
They inserted earplugs and he immediately felt calm. No one was talking in a language he couldn’t understand. He closed his eyes, and when he felt the bed beneath him move,he tried not to think about being enclosed in a claustrophobically small space, particularly when he had no means of calling for help. They’d put some sort of buzzer thing in his hand, but it had slipped from his fingers as he slid inside and now, he was afraid to move. The clanging of the machine jarred him into opening his eyes. Even the earplugs couldn’t hide that. When he saw the scant inches between him and the top of the machine, he slammed them shut again.
He didn’t need them to tell him they were scanning his head, inspecting his poor battered brain. He’d worked that out for himself. He’d fallen—still didn’t remember—and he’d been injured—badly, but at least he wasn’t completely paralysed. He could move bits of himself. Lying there gave him plenty of time to work himself back into a state of acute anxiety. What did they think was actually wrong? Could they give him drugs and make him better? Maybe an operation was possible. If something had gotten fucked up in his brain, because he knew it had to be something to do with his brain, they could unfuck it because he couldn’t stay like this.I’m an actor. My voice is my life.
Except…maybe he’d never be better than this. Never be able to walk or talk or wank or…Oh fuck.Whatever he’d done to his brain had stopped him speaking or understanding. He couldn’t read or write. He still had the words in his head, but on the way out of his mouth they got muddled. He wanted to ask when he’d get better and he couldn’t.What if I don’t get betterlingered like a stain.
Max kept coming back. One time, the police came with him. Croatian Police. He knew they weren’t British from their uniforms. When it was clear River couldn’t communicate, they left. Barney visited too. River wondered why when the guy didn’t like him. Maybe he felt guilty. Clearly, his stunt doublehadn’t climbed for some reason and this was the result. River closed his eyes when Barney talked to him. It wasn’t Barney’s fault he’d fallen, but even so… He was still walking and talking and River wasn’t.
Sometimes River closed his eyes when he saw Max opening the door of his room. But Max sat with him, held his hand, and for a while, River didn’t feel so scared and lonely. When his world had fallen apart, Max had been his saviour. Now it had fallen apart again. The only person he could trust was Max.
River couldn’t keep his eyes closed forever. The nursing staff wouldn’t let him. He didn’t know how they knew he was awake. The machines he was linked to? Or maybe they woke him checking his pulse and blood pressure. His entire body was inspected. At least he could see he was all there, including his important bits, except the skin he could see was one giant bruise. He had broken legs and broken arms. It felt as if his ribs were broken too and there were dressings on his body, bandages around his head.
River wanted all this to go away, to rewind to the moment before he was on that rockface. He didn’t climb. Why hadn’t Barney climbed? Why were some memories there and others not? River should have said no to climbing. How had he been talked into it? He wished he had his laptop so he could google what had happened until he remembered using it would be impossible. He couldn’t read. He couldn’t listen to the TV whether it was Croatian or English, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t understand. He couldn’t fucking do anything. Even music didn’t make sense. If this was his life going forward, did he want it?
But he was a fighter. He’d had to be. He’d fought off panic attacks and nightmares since that horrible night when hewas a teenager. Until he knew for certain his life was fucked, he’d try to beat this.
He found himself lying under the bright lights of an operating theatre. Were they going to shave his head? Maybe they already had. He liked his hair. What if it grew back curly?I have worse to fucking worry about than that.It seemed wrong that they were going to operate and him not know why. What if they had the wrong patient? What if they took off a bit of him that he was rather attached to? A needle went into his hand and unconsciousness beckoned with an irresistible finger.
He flowed back out to sea.
River woke back in the room he was used to, not hurting, but feeling exhausted. While no one was with him, he tried to speak because maybe they’d worked a miracle. He quietly said his name. “Pimg.”Fuck.So, no miracle. The disappointment was crushing. He couldn’t help keep trying to speak now, but when he blurted a load of rubbish, he wondered why he’d bothered. This wasn’t going to be a quick fix. He heard nurses moving around, chatting to each other, chuckling, and he was filled with rage.Why me? What the fuck have I done to deserve this?
He didn’t mean to be difficult but not being able to understand what anyone was saying was driving him crazy. He moved from docile compliance to sullen rage. But when he thrashed, when he didn’t cooperate, they gave him drugs to calm him down. So he turned in on himself, kept his mouth shut and his eyes closed. He felt like a little kid thinking that if he closed his eyes, no one could see him. It hadn’t worked then and it didn’t now.
River was medevacked back to the UK. Buildings werefamiliar. So were uniforms. The language wasn’t. He wished his mum was alive. He dragged memories of her out of the box he’d locked them in, remembering the things they’d done together, the times he’d made her laugh, the way she’d written down the funny things he’d said in a little book, the jewellery she used to wear, her outrageous earrings, her bohemian clothes, how she smelt, how much she loved him. No one would ever love him as much.
Sometimes he really thought she was with him, only for him to realise he’d been dreaming. He told himself to lock the memories up again. They did him no good. His past was a secret that had to stay hidden.
When a guy showed him photos of food, River assumed he was expected to pick out what he wanted to eat but he closed his eyes and rolled onto his side. He didn’t understand why he was being so fucking awkward, particularly when he ended up with chicken curry when he’d have preferred the baked potato.Serves me right.
How many days since I fell?He couldn’t even ask that. Tears filled his eyes and he furiously blinked them away.
Another doctor came. River assumed he was a doctor. He had no idea of the guy’s name, though he introduced himself. Or maybe he didn’t. He could have been saying he thought River was a crap actor. The man was maybe in his forties, had silver hair and grey eyes, and came armed with an iPad. River got that he was supposed to mimic what the picture showed. Lift his left arm, then his right leg. Put his hands together. Do the fucking hokey cokey… Even with broken fucking legs…
But the guy smiled, nodded and produced an apple from one pocket, an orange from the other. There was a picture of an apple on the iPad. River guessed he wanted him to pick upthe apple. That got him a smile. But when the pictures were changed to what he assumed were words for apple and orange, and the images were removed, he didn’t recognise them. Dr Grey, River had to think of him as something, didn’t seem perturbed and that pissed him off. He should be per-fucking-turbed. River was. There were a whole load of other tests and River knew he was failing.
Max turned up and Dr Grey talked to him. The serious expressions on their faces triggered another flood of raw fear. It was as if River had been tied to a train track and lay listening to the rumble of the approaching train, unable to do anything but wait for disaster. He chewed his lip until he tasted blood.This can be sorted, right?Cells in his brain had been damaged. Was it permanent? Temporary? How long would it take for him to get better? What if he never got better? He panicked at the thought of being trapped in his own private world, unable to communicate with anyone except himself. He was going to get very bored, very fast.Fuck, fuck, fuck.
