David Jackson - Pariah

His first thought is that things can’t be all that bad. Nurse Lynley, the woman he spoke to on the phone, is too filled with joy. She has had a good day. Nobody assaulting or abusing her. No costly mistakes. Nobody in her care dying.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘My name’s Doyle. I spoke with you on the phone.’

And then it is as if a rain cloud has moved across her head, darkening her features. The sudden sobriety shocks Doyle into the realization that, like him, she is a professional who is used to dealing with death and injury on a daily basis, and that, like him, she has to make sure it doesn’t warp her view of life. It’s why cops tell jokes at murder scenes. It’s why nurses tell jokes about the anatomical applications of confectionary. It says nothing about your satisfaction with the day you’re having.

It’s a mirror that Doyle finds unsettling to face.

When the nurse comes around the desk and takes him by the arm and leads him off to a small side room, he is only vaguely aware of Nadine trailing behind. In the room itself he sees a small table and plastic chairs, a coffee machine, a sink with two unwashed mugs. Nurse Lynley is talking to him, but he feels like he’s bobbing up and down in a choppy sea, catching brief snatches of conversation each time he comes up. The isolated fragments make little sense to him. He stares into the sink. The faucet is dripping into one of the mugs: plop. . plop. .

The cry from Nadine breaks the spell. His brain wakens again, and he sees the nurse searching his face. Jesus, she is so like that girl back in Ireland. A real tease she was. Proud of her body and keen to impart its mysteries to all of us grubby boys. What was her name again? Helen something. .

‘Mr Doyle? Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’ He blinks, tries to clear his fogged head. ‘Yes. No.’

So she tells him again, and this time his brain drops its shield and allows the painful arrow of truth to penetrate.

Rachel, his beautiful Rachel, has died of her injuries.

No.

This can’t be right.

He must be getting confused. Thinking about the time Amy was being born. Rachel lying on a hospital bed, pressing a mask to her face between the screams. The midwife issuing her instructions — when to push, when not to. The blood, so much blood. And then the sudden change in the atmosphere in that room. The wrongness . Everybody galvanized into a course of action that clearly signaled a problem. He remembers being ushered out of the room, still looking into Rachel’s eyes, calling her name. And her words back to him: ‘You wait for me. You wait for us . Me and this baby, we’re not going anywhere.’

And so he waited. Through all the talk of placental abruptions and blood loss and transfusions, he waited.

When she came back to him, her tiny gift of life cradled in her arms, he cried. And she said to him, ‘You don’t get rid of me that easily.’

It became kind of a joke after that. Whenever they argued, and they sulked about it for a while, and they got back together again, she would repeat her mantra.

You don’t get rid of me that easily.

So, yes. That must be what he’s thinking about. It’s the hospital environment and the stress. They’re taking his memories and twisting them into horribly warped hallucination.

He looks at Nurse Lynley.

‘I want to see her.’

She stares back at him as though in appraisal. As if she is assessing his strength for this.

‘Mr Doyle, I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Your wife. . She won’t look the same to you. Especially after the work the doctors have done on her. It can be a shock to some people.’

‘I want to see her. Where is she?’

The nurse tilts her head as she considers the request. ‘Come with me.’

He follows, passing Nadine who has tears in her eyes and a sheen of wetness on her cheeks. They head down a brightly lit corridor. A scrawny man on a gurney shows them a toothless smile. A black porter whistles ‘If I Were a Rich Man’. Nurse Lynley pauses at a pair of swing doors. Gives Doyle a look that asks, Are you sure you’re ready for this?

They enter. The room is empty. Except, of course, for the body on the steel table.

Doyle swallows, and wills himself forward. He has to see, has to be sure.

He sees her hair first of all, shoulder length and dark. Normally glossy, but now matted into thick tendrils. He wonders why he can’t see her face properly. What have the doctors put over her face?

And then he realizes that what he’s looking at is her face.

It is all the colors of sorrow. Purples and blues and browns. And it is so misshapen. Her nose is spread sideways across one cheek. Her lips and eyelids are like lightly inflated balloons. One side of her head is concave, and the ear seems to have dropped several inches.

Doyle has seen worse before, but never on someone he loves. And that’s what makes all the difference. That’s what closes the gap.

He takes a few more steps forward, feeling a growing tightness in his chest. Like he is going into cardiac arrest. Like he is going to be grateful to be in the vicinity of medical experts any second now.

And then it overwhelms him. He lets out one huge sob that fills the room, and he pitches forward as his legs finally give way. He reaches his arms out to stop his fall, and feels his hands slam into the cold metal table. He stays like that, bent over, head buried between his outstretched arms.

A hand alights on his back, rubs gently. He knows it’s Nadine, and he can sense that she is crying.

He hears Nurse Lynley’s steps as she comes forward.

‘Mr Doyle? Is there anything I can get you? Some water?’

Doyle sniffs and raises his head. His eyes move from the nurse to Nadine — one patiently concerned, the other on the verge of being inconsolable — and he doesn’t know which emotion to release first. His anger. .

. . or his sheer relief and gratitude.

He says the only thing that seems appropriate in the circumstances:

‘It’s not her.’

Nurse Lynley’s response comes in a flash, like it’s automatic.

‘Come outside,’ she says. ‘Let’s find you someplace we can talk.’

Doyle knows what she’s thinking. That he’s in denial. She’s seen it so many times before.

‘It’s not her. This is not my wife.’

Her lips tighten slightly. ‘Mr Doyle-’

Nadine cuts her off. ‘Cal. Come on. Let’s go.’

In response, Doyle grabs the sheet that has been draped across the body on the table, then yanks it back, exposing the naked upper torso. The action elicits a gasp from Nadine and a glare of annoyance from the nurse.

‘Look at her, Nadine! Look at her ribs! She’s like a damn glockenspiel! And here. .’ He takes hold of the cadaver’s arm and lifts it. ‘You see those? Track marks. She’s a junkie. You see a wedding ring at all? You see any marks where there used to be a wedding ring?’ He turns toward the nurse. ‘You got her clothes? Her possessions?’

Nurse Lynley glances at a red plastic tray on the counter by the sink. Doyle goes over to it. He lifts the scraps of material he finds there — a thin red blouse, a translucent black brassiere with red trimming — and shows them to Nadine.

‘You think Rachel would wear any of this stuff?’

The tray also holds a small open purse. Doyle tips out its contents. He sees Rachel’s driver’s license, and also what looks like her cellphone, but the other items are unfamiliar to him.

‘Take a look at this lipstick, Nadine. And this perfume. You think this is Rachel’s style?’

Nadine shakes her head. She looks like a child, upset and confused. Nurse Lynley appears even more dumbfounded, perhaps mortified at the thought that she has made a dreadful error.