Nicola Griffith - Always

“I’m fine.” Snuffle my truffle. That’s my vehicle. Tongue palace.

She took a penlight out of her pocket, turned it on. “Look at the light, please. Sorry,” she said when I flinched. “Touch your nose with your index finger.” I had to move slowly. “Good. Other hand.” I was panting again. Someone had done this to me. “You can rest now. I’ll get you some water.”

I’d been in a hospital, and now I was in a hotel suite. Someone had moved me and I didn’t remember a thing. She came back with a pitcher and a glass on a tray. She poured for me, only half-full.

“Can you manage?”

I took it from her grimly, managed to drink most of it before the glass began to slip. She eased it from my hand. “Lean forward, please.” She cradled my forehead on her shoulder and efficiently rearranged my pillow. “There. Lean back. Comfy? Good. I have to make a call. I’ll be right back.”

My muscles felt hot and hollow and soft, like just-blown glass. A red light on the phone winked as Suzanne talked on another extension. I heard snatches of her side of the conversation. “…sit up… pressure low but not dangerous… talk to her?”

The chair holding my clothes stood about six feet from the end of the bed. I could do it if I had to.

“Aud.”

I didn’t realize I’d shut my eyes until I had to drag them open. My mother stood several feet away. Not in the wine, then. She wore black yoga pants and a charcoal fleece zip-up. Her face was clear and clean and her hair caught in a clip at the base of her neck.

"How are you?”

In the kamikazes at the hotel bar? Just as I remembered Dornan slugging back the rest of my cocktail, it struck me that I had gone to all that trouble to wear the right clothes last night and here I was at half past five in the morning, half-naked in a strange bed, and my mother perfectly poised and coiffed, as usual.

“Aud?”

I forgot what I’d been trying to remember. “Tired.”

“That’s only to be expected.” She came a little closer. “I am very glad you are all right.”

“Reta— rela tive term,” I said. I still couldn’t get my breath.

“Indeed.” She cleared her throat and gestured at the edge of the bed. “May I?”

I nodded. She sat gently, careful to not rock the bed.

“Is Suzanne treating you well?”

“Pink hair.”

“Yes. But her references are excellent.” In the silence my breath sounded light and gasping, like a frightened girl’s. “They wanted you to stay in hospital but I believed you’d prefer a less… structured environment. The nurse was Eric’s idea. She says you’re doing well. Your blood pressure is a little low, but your pulse is strong and steady.” Her eyes moved in a search pattern: my eyes, my mouth, my chin, my chest, and back again. “She says you have good hand-eye coordination, your pupil dilation is improving rapidly, and your eyes should be back to normal in a few hours.” Her eyes never kept still. “The breathlessness might take a little longer. A day or two.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

“Yes, and very lucky. After what you took—”

“Given.”

“Of course. Were given, yes.” Her gaze settled on a spot between my eyebrows. “I’m told that so far they have identified MDMA, barbiturates, amphetamines, opiates, psilocybin, and PCP, and some other substances that haven’t yet been classified. Quite a cocktail.”

Ecstasy, magic mushrooms, oxycodone or something similar, angel dust, speed.

“The medical team wanted to give you a stomach pump, but as Eric pointed out, it would have been a needless procedure given the fact that you’d ingested the drugs in liquid form. In the coffee, they think. Most of the damage would already have been done. Plus it was clear that you had been vomiting.”

I frowned.

“Your clothes,” she said gently. “Apparently you can thank the wine you drank for that. Those who hadn’t had any alcohol weren’t so lucky.”

Lucky. Dancing around in Pioneer Square with vomit on my clothes.

I lifted my right hand, needle hole towards her. “This?”

“Saline IV. Dehydration apparently is one of the main side effects of MDMA, or ecstasy. Suzanne will be insisting that you drink plenty of water.”

“And this?” I nodded at my left elbow.

“Blood draw.”

I remembered none of it. Someone had done this to me.

“Your clothes are being cleaned, but I thought you’d want to have something to hand immediately.”

“Yes.” Thank you, I wanted to add, but didn’t have the breath.

“Aud.” She started to reach for my hand.

“You said. Others.”

“I’m sorry, yes. A score of people from a film set were admitted to Harborview Medical Center before you arrived. I thought I had told you.” She smoothed her eyebrows with her fingertips—for my mother, a shocking expression of fatigue, which reminded me of my surprise when she had repeated herself yesterday, and why.

“Dornan?”

“Your friend is unaffected.”

“Information?” I was too tired to say more, but she understood.

"Perhaps when next I speak to the police liaison he will be able to tell us something.”

The coffee urn. Had to be. Kuiper? No, she had been surprised when I’d said, when I said those things. Somebody had made me say and do things that… Somebody had rendered me helpless, somebody… "Uh,” I said as my heart skipped a beat and then slammed against my rib cage in the wrong place.

“Aud?” She was leaning over me. “Aud?” I didn’t have the breath to speak.

Suzanne ran in from the other room, brushed my mother aside, thrust her stethoscope through a gap in the pajama top.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“ Shssh, ” she said, and frowned—the skin between her eyes rolled in a plump sausage—and moved the stethoscope slightly.

Whatever it was seemed to be over. My heart pulsed neatly, in the right place.

Suzanne straightened and slung the stethoscope around her neck. “Mild arrhythmia,” she said. “Not too worrying, but a doctor might be a good idea.”

“I’ll see to it,” my mother said.

Suzanne hesitated, then nodded, and went back into the sitting room. No one had asked my opinion. I struggled to sit up.

“Please, Aud, try to rest. I don’t think you realize just how serious this could have been.” She smoothed her eyebrows again. “I consulted with your friend about your accommodations and we agreed to install you in a two-roomed suite so that Suzanne can remain here as long as you feel she can be helpful. Your friend also has been very helpful.” Oh, yes, very. “The police have promised an extensive inquiry, and I’ll keep you updated with any developments. All your belongings have been brought over from your hotel. If there is anything else you need, ask Suzanne or call me. Now I will speak to your friend, and to Eric. He should be here within the hour.”

Her back was very straight as she walked away, despite the fact that, on top of jet lag, she must have been up all night taking charge of my life.

It took a long time and a lot of effort but I eventually dragged the room service menu from the bedside table to the bed, and dialed the right numbers. I knew exactly what I wanted, but found I kept ordering random words from the menu (“delicious,” or “sales tax”). After a few tries I found that if I kept my sentences to two words or less—scrambled eggs, two please, tea, English breakfast—I could manage. I concentrated on the fact that I could manage, not the fact that I had to.

Breakfast arrived ten minutes before Dornan. The food tasted like something forced from a crack in the earth.

“Well,” he said, looking at the tray on the bed, “it doesn’t look as though that was a success.”