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  Locked

  In

  Locked In

  Bridie

  Huggler

  Copyright © Bridie Huggler 2019

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 1700272160

  ISBN-13: 9781700272164

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “BITCH!”

  He mouths the word repeatedly, his ice blue eyes staring unblinkingly on the inert body lying on the bed. The only indication that she’s alive is the rise and fall of her chest and even this is aided by a ventilator.

  His body shivers with the rage that is rising within him, causing spluttering sounds to emanate from the hole in his neck – a tracheotomy – as it gets clogged with phlegm, which his rapid breathing has shifted along his windpipe. Using a tissue, he wipes it clear and for a fleeting moment considers disconnecting her ventilator. But much as he wants to kill her, he wants more for her to suffer his terror. He wants her to know her torturer, he needs to see the fear in her eyes. He longs for the feeling of power this gives him. Even thinking about it is getting him excited.

  The door opens behind him and an authoritative voice says “Are you finished yet? Doctor will be here any minute to do his round.”

  It’s Sister Reynolds, a small, stockily built woman but very big in presence. He coils the flex of the floor polisher round the handle and makes to leave the room. He doesn’t notice that the tissue he used to wipe his neck has fallen on the floor, but Sister Reynolds does.

  “Pick that up. You’re supposed to be cleaning the place not littering it,” she barks at him.

  As he bends to pick it up, he makes sure he sees her name badge: another to add to his list. He scowls at her as he leaves the room. Once outside he discards the borrowed overalls he’s wearing and leaves the polisher he has removed from the cleaners’ bay on the main corridor.

  Sister Reynolds watches him go, her face clearly showing her disgust at the assault on her nostrils as she breathes in the stale but also peculiar smell he leaves hanging in the air. Muttering about the calibre of staff she has to deal with, she crosses to the windows and opens one.

  “There,” she says to herself rather than her patient, “that should freshen the air”.

  She lifts the limp arm off the bed and feels the pulse. With a pencil-like torch, which she takes from her uniform pocket, she tests the patient’s eyes for a response, then records her findings on the chart by the bedside. Before leaving the room she glances around, making sure everything is in order for the Consultant’s visit. Once more the silence in the room is broken only by the rhythmic clack of the ventilator as it helps to oxygenate the lungs of Annie, the inert patient.

  *

  “Good morning Annie.”

  The voice is small and cheerful but also soft; I recognise it.

  It’s Alice, my Alice-in-Wonderland, my Alice in blue gown – well maybe not gown but blue uniform. She is a student nurse experiencing her first stint on night duty. Like her voice she is small: I know this because she has told me. Alice tells me lots of things and because she treats me like a living human being she helps me keep my sanity.

  “She can’t hear you, most likely she’s not even aware of what we are doing.”

  There’s no softness in this voice and although I have heard it several times before, I have never been introduced to its owner. She is senior to Alice, but not pleasant like her: she looks severe, she doesn’t converse with me. I’ve named her Severe Features.

  “You don’t know that Annie can’t hear us, for all we know she may be looking at us right now.”

  You’re right, Alice, I am – at least at as much of you as I can see through my half-open eyelids and static eyeballs.

  “My mum was a nurse, I was telling her about Annie. She was appalled when she heard we address patients by their Christian names, told me it would never have been allowed in her day.”

  I agree with your mother. I resent being addressed by my Christian name by all and sundry and, if I could speak, boy, wouldn’t I let them know it.

  “You and your mother. Dry that side and help me roll her over or we’ll be here all morning.”

  Alice finishes drying the left side of my body then with gentle hands smooths powder over me.

  “Now Annie, we have to lay you on your left side for a while. This will help prevent you getting sore”.

  “Here, pass me that, I’ll do her hair.” Severe Features reaches for the brush.

  I cringe, not that you would notice on the outside of my body. I don’t want her to do my hair, she is heavy handed and it will feel like she is pulling it out by the roots. In my mind I am crying, but of course they can’t hear my mind, so I resign myself to the onslaught.

  “It’s okay, I’ll do it.” Alice holds on to the brush “I can finish here if you want to get your reports done.”

  Oh, thank you Alice.

  “My mum says I should talk to you when I’m working with you, tell you what’s happening in the world so when you wake up you won’t have too much catching up to do.”

  The more I hear about your mother the more I like her.

  “I told her we keep your radio switched on most of the time so hopefully that keeps you up to date with the news, such as it is. Mind you, I don’t go in much for keeping up with current affairs. I’m more into magazines: you know the gossip type, the kind of stuff my dad calls trash.”

  I visualise her at home huddled in the corner of the sofa. Shoes kicked off, feet tucked up under her, holding a drink in one hand while with the other she flicks the pages of her magazine which lies open on her lap. Her father sitting opposite, reading his paper or maybe doing the crossword, frowning, as the noise of the turning pages irritates him. Then, when he is irritated enough: “You should do something more useful with your time instead of reading that rubbish”.

  If I could speak, Alice, I would tell you my father used to say much the same thing to me when I was your age. I used to get so irritated with him; how I wish he was around now, with his great big hands to smooth back my hair and tell me he would make everything better. He was a big man.

  “That’s where you get your height from,” my mother would say when she stood looking up at me. I’m taller than most females at six feet, shoeless.

  “Tell you what, Annie – or maybe I should call you Mrs Anderson – when I come on duty tonight I’ll bring some of my magazines and, if we’re not too busy, I’ll read you the latest gossip, okay”.

  That’s very okay with me, Alice, and you have my permission to call me Annie. All the while she’s talking to me she’s brushing my hair, it’s so soothing. I had long hair when I came in here, now it’s been cut to make it more manageable. I don’t know the exact length, as I haven’t seen it and I can’t raise my hand to feel it, but judging by the touch of the brush on my neck I would guess I now sport a short bob. I have curly hair, so it was sensible to cut it.

  Alice steps back from the bed and looks at me. What has she noticed? Has some part of me changed: have I developed a twitch, some sort of movement? Please Alice, say you’ve noticed something.

  “There now, you look presentable enough to receive the Queen.” She smiles at me.

  Deflated again, I watch with my half vision, as she cleans the brush and places it in my locker, washes out my face-cloths and replaces them on the side of the basin. She is such a neat little worker.

  “See you tonight, Annie.”

  I watch until she’s out of my line of vision. I listen to her footfall as she leaves the room. But now she’s back.

  “I don’t know if anyone has told you, Annie, you’re having some more scans don
e today. Good luck!” She squeezes my hand and again walks to the door.

  This is pretty much how I spend all my time these days: lying in this room, listening, unable to take part in any conversation.

  I’m lying on my left side, as she said, pillows arranged to keep me in this position. I don’t like it on this side: all there is to look at is the wall. When I’m on my right side at least I can see the door. It’s mostly left open and I can watch the traffic of trolleys and people as they pass.

  Next on the agenda will be breakfast. That is such a palaver. I’m fed this liquid diet through a nasal tube which goes all the way into my stomach and, depending who is on tube feeds, it could be cold or even very cold, but it’s rarely at body temperature, which of course is how it should be. Since I’m to have some scans today maybe I’ll be spared the feast.

  Terry Wogan’s on the radio. It’s funny I really enjoy listening to him now, whereas before I didn’t even switch him on. I thought I didn’t like him. I was snobbish really, I considered his banter lightweight; now it’s that carefree lightweight banter which helps me through the day.

  I came into hospital almost a year ago to have – wait for it – my piles seen to. Haemorrhoids, to be medically correct. I was too embarrassed to have them done under local anaesthetic, so I went for the full works.

  The operation went very well, I believe from conversations I’ve heard at my bedside. The problem arose when I failed to wake up.

  It seems something catastrophic took place while I was under the anaesthetic. It has rendered me totally paralysed. I can hear and see, to a degree, everything that goes on around me, but I cannot communicate this to anyone. To everyone I appear as if I am still anaesthetised, so I lie here a great useless lump waiting either for the doctors to come up with an answer, or by some miracle to just recover. At present I’d say the odds are I’m looking for a miracle.

  At the beginning it was worse: I was also attached to a ventilator, a machine that kept my breathing going.

  I remember clearly coming round from the anaesthetic. A nurse kept calling my name: “Annie, it’s time to wake up.” She would repeat this over and over. I couldn’t understand why she kept shouting at me, I had told her more than once that I was awake. Of course what I didn’t know was that although my mind was working, nothing else was.

  When she still got no response from me she called the sister.

  “You’re probably being too gentle with her,” was her response. She proceeded to do something to my big toe which was excruciatingly painful. I called her all sorts of bitches plus a few other choice words and, if my legs and feet had been in working order, she would have felt them. When she failed to get a response there followed a procession of doctors, who all had a look and all admitted they were baffled.

  I stayed in intensive care for several weeks. To begin with, they would talk to me as they examined me, but as time passed, they seemed to have come to the conclusion that my brain, like my body, was in a state of paralysis.

  Now, when the white coats crowd round my bed for their weekly sessions, no one ever talks to me. I’m discussed, but never informed. They test me for sensation by jabbing pins in various parts of my anatomy, then they say to one another, “No response here, no feeling there”.

  Well, I have news for them. There may be no response but I feel every bloody jab and they hurt like hell. That’s the weird thing about all this, I can see and I can feel every touch, whether it’s gentle or painful, but I can’t respond to any stimuli. Even when they shine the light in my eyes, their report to one another is: “No response”.

  My ray of hope arrived very recently in the form of Alice. She actually talks to me: not only that but she looks at me when she speaks. She will be on the ward for no more than three months, so somehow in that time I have to make contact with her, then she can inform all those bastards who have poked and prodded me for the past year that I have heard every despairing word they’ve uttered.

  Sometimes I get so angry. I rant and rave and use every swear word I know, and then I either end up laughing or crying. But of course it’s all in my mind: no one can see or hear any of it.

  I had such hope when I started breathing spontaneously, but that was it: no further developments. I lie here day after day, eyelids partially open – you know how children sometimes look when they are asleep. The only vision I have is directly in front of me, thanks to the lack of muscular movement in my eyeballs. I live in a frozen body. Mind you, on the upside I have lost weight, something I had been trying to do for a long time.

  *

  My name as you know, is Annie Anderson. I’m mid-forties, not old – at least I don’t think so – unattached, although I have been married. No children, sadly – but as things have turned out, maybe that’s a blessing.

  I can hear someone moving about behind me. God, it’s frustrating when I can’t see what’s happening: that’s why I hate lying with my backside to the door. I can hear something being unwrapped. It can’t be breakfast, that comes ready to pour into my tube. At last they are coming around the bed. Ah, it’s someone from the lab looking for my blood. They are always doing it, taking blood, I wonder what they do with it.

  “Just a little prick then it will be over.”

  I could make a comment on that, but I won’t. At least he speaks to me.

  “There. I’ll put this little plaster on to stop the bleeding. Leave it for a couple of hours, okay?”

  Believe me, mister, if I thought I could even make an attempt to touch it I would, but on that score you have no worries. It will stay put until someone notices it and yanks it off. Nurses do that, you know. They say this will hurt a lot less if I do it quickly. Bullshit. It hurts like hell and the more hair you have in the plastered area, the worse it is. I know, I speak from experience.

  Where did I get to? Yes, my having been married once. He was a good-looking chap, my Mr Anderson, and so thought many other women too. He had an easy way with him, laughing eyes. Everyone liked him, especially the women. He always made you feel he needed looking after, and of course he loved the attention they gave him: what man wouldn’t? And so he strayed on several occasions. Then one day he buggered off and never came back. At first, I was very upset. My father was very good to me through that period of my life, even though he was pleased to see the back of Rob – that was his name, my ex-husband’s I mean. My father never liked him.

  I never bothered to apply for a divorce and, since he has never requested one, I still think of myself as Mrs Anderson. I often wonder where he ended up. It’s just as well he’s not around now, although I believe the hospital staff have tried to trace him. He could never cope with this.

  It’s difficult for family and friends to cope with something like this.

  My brother, for instance: he lives at the other end of the country and, to begin with, he was very good, though we were never that close – he’s fifteen years older than me. I’ve always had the feeling that he thought I wasted my life and, looking at me now, maybe he was right. If I were to die tomorrow there’s nothing but material things to show I ever existed, and they are of such insignificant worth they would disappear with me.

  From time to time my nieces and nephews visit but, let’s face it, it’s not easy to keep visiting some one who appears to be dead.

  Fortunately I have two very good friends from way back who still come most weeks.

  I also have some get well cards and flowers, so Alice informs me, but even my Alice doesn’t realise that if she were to hold them in front of me, I could see them and appreciate having them. Still, I must stop moaning about what’s not being done and appreciate all the things that are done for me.

  I wonder what scan it is today. Brain again, I suppose. I’ve had lots. I believe they’re looking for brain activity. If my Mr Anderson were here, he’d tell them it was a fruitless search, as he always maintained my head was empty. I hope thinking shows up as activity: if it does, I’m home and dry. I never stop thinking, especially
now that my mouth won’t work.

  I’m extremely glad my breathing started up spontaneously, otherwise they might have given me up for dead and switched me off. What a thought: no, I mustn't allow myself to think like that. One of these days I am going to wake up and then god help them all, especially old Severe Features.

  *

  There’s a lot of talking going on behind me. The bed is moving. I must be on my way to be scanned. Two porters and a nurse escort me. Bang, we hit the side of the door. I wonder how many frames we will hit on the way; thank goodness I don’t have any wounds.

  “How long has she been like this?” one of the porters asks. I often hear conversations like this.

  “About a year,” comes the reply

  “Do they think she’ll ever recover?”

  “Shh, she might be able to hear,” the nurse whispers. “They’re not very hopeful, it’s been so long.”

  “What happened to her? Was it a road accident?” asks the second porter.

  “Of course not,” says the first, “you must have heard of Annie Anderson, came in to have her piles done and never woke up after the op”.

  Great. The whole bleeding place knows I came in to have my piles done.

  It’s nice getting out of the room, even if it’s only to be pushed along the corridors to the scanning department. Strange, but it makes me feel I belong more to the living world.

  At the department my bed gets parked in the corridor. From it I get transferred to the tunnel – my vision of the scanner – on a stretcher. This is less difficult than you would think. During one of my turning sessions on the ward a canvas sheet is placed under me: running down each side of this sheet are open hems to allow the insertion of poles. This makes transferring someone like me, who is as floppy as a rag doll, with all my attachments of tubes and catheters, a much less stressful job all round. This I must give them credit for: they do it very well.

  I feel a little frightened every time I go into the machine. I think it wouldn’t be so bad if I could go in feet first instead of head. I have this stupid fear I will be left in there, and because I can’t call out they will forget about me. I know it’s stupid, but I get scared every time.