“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I just wanted to talk,” he stammered. Eva gazed at him as he stumbled to the door. She knew he didn’t mean anything. He was just a sad geek who didn’t know how to get along with people. Just like her, really. Her attitude softened.
“That’s okay,” she said. “Look, let me get changed and then we can talk. Why don’t you go to the common room and wait for me?”
Nicolas smiled delightedly.
“Okay. I’ll meet you there.”
The common room was a profoundly depressing place. Like everything else in the Center, it was just too big for its sparse contents: a few boxes containing board games, scratched video consoles, several chipped mugs half full of cold coffee standing between the legs of the comfy chairs that faced the viewing screen. The shabby items were lost in the cheerless orange expanse of the room.
Two patients sat facing each other across a low table, playing cards with a Braille deck, calling out the values of their hands as they laid them down. They both twitched and stuttered as they played; one kept pausing as if to listen to sounds in the room. He turned nervously in Eva’s direction.
“It’s okay,” she reassured him, “I’m a patient too.”
He seemed to relax a little. Eva felt sick. Everyone knew that stealth weapons were a terrible thing, but it had turned into a sort of game. Those in power denied their existence; people like Eva waved the evidence in their faces and watched them squirm. She remembered her arguments with DeForest and felt embarrassed. Laser weapons mounted on planes which could blind pedestrians. Targeted psychopathic drugs. Both were horrible concepts. Here was the reality: Eva was looking at the human cost of such weapons.
Nicolas was sitting on a chair looking out through the broad window at the wide lawn leading across to the sparse woodland that surrounded the Center. She could see the tops of the limes bobbing in the breeze.
“Hello, Nicolas,” Eva said.
“Eva.” Nicolas blushed. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean anything. I just wanted to talk. I didn’t think about you being, well…just getting out of the bath, and I…”
“That’s okay.”
“No. Thank you, I mean…You’re just being polite, but honestly, I didn’t mean anything. We’re not supposed to have relationships while we’re in here, you know, so I wouldn’t have wanted…well, not that you’re…”
“That’s okay, Nicolas. I understand. You just weren’t thinking.”
“I mean…I have enough trouble just getting out of bed some days. I need to get my life sorted out before I even think of…not that I’m saying you’re not pretty, but…”
Eva sat down in one of the comfy chairs.
“What’s happened to Alison?” she said, interrupting Nicolas’ monologue.
“Oh, she stormed out of the building. She said she was going back to the pub. She’ll be looking for, well…”
He looked embarrassed. Eva made no comment.
“It’s a pity Nurse Reed isn’t here. She could calm her down. Nurse Reed knows how to handle Alison.”
“Oh? Which one is Nurse Reed? I still haven’t learned all their names.”
“She’s the one with the short red hair. You know, the French-looking cut? It’s her week off.”
Nicolas looked around the room, searching for something else to say. Eva noted the frayed trouser cuffs that came too far up his leg, the greying dress shirt that he habitually wore with the collar buttoned down. She broke the silence first.
“What did Nurse Dyer mean when she said that you shouldn’t have taken Katie with you?”
“Katie gets nervous around people. She can’t handle being spoken to by strangers.” Nicolas gave a yelping laugh. “She’s not even very good at being spoken to by her friends.”
“Oh.”
Nicolas lapsed into silence. He seemed to be struggling with what to say next, desperate to fill the conversational gap.
Eva spoke for him. “She looks familiar, doesn’t she? Katie, I mean. I’m sure I’ve seen her somewhere before.”
Nicolas gulped once, twice.
“Well, erm, well.” He gulped again and changed the subject. “What about you, Eva? We all saw you the night that you were brought in. I’ve never seen anybody with so many drug feeds attached. What had you done?”
“Tried to commit suicide. I almost succeeded, too.” Eva heard the pride in her own voice.
“Suicide? That’s impressive. Social Care usually picks up the signs well in advance. Why did you do it?”
“I’d rather not talk about that.”
“Fair enough,” Nicolas said. “Still, suicide. How did you arrange it?”
“Loaded my teddy bear with Panacetamol over the course of several months and then took them all at once. I thought nobody would think it odd that I’d fallen asleep on a train. Obviously someone did.”
Nicolas frowned. “Panacetamol? I didn’t think they could reverse that. I thought that once you’d taken enough that was it. All they could do was sit back and watch you die.”
Eva shrugged. “It would appear not.”
Nicolas placed one hand on her shoulder in what was probably meant to be a supportive gesture.
“Never mind that now. Look, we all stick together in this place. If you ever feel bad, come and see us. We’ll try to help.”
Eva managed not to shudder at the feel of Nicolas’ hand on her shoulder.
In the corner, the blind card players came to the end of a game. One of them twitched and gazed sightlessly around the room as the other fumblingly shuffled the deck.
Eva had slept with her curtains open since she had come to the Center. It was nice to look out into darkness and not the orange glow that filled the night back in South Street. As she lay down, she heard the voice.
“Katie does look familiar, doesn’t she? I’m sure we’ve seen her before.”
“Who are you?” Eva whispered into the darkness. “Why do you keep talking to me?”
But there was no reply.
Someone was shaking her shoulder. Someone was screaming, and as she struggled to consciousness, Eva had a horrible feeling it might be herself. She rolled over in the bed to see Katie staring down at her, an anxious expression engraved on her thin face. Her tiny piggy eyes slid this way and that to avoid Eva’s gaze.
“Come and help. Alison’s in a bad way. Please come and speak to her.”
The words came out in a rush. The screaming was still going on, and Eva realized that it came from somewhere down the corridor. She struggled to a sitting position.
Katie had taken her hand from Eva’s shoulder and had gone to stand in the middle of the bedroom, wrapping her fingers around each other and staring at the floor. Eva brushed the hair from her face and yawned. The sky outside her rain-streaked window was a uniform dull grey; the cheerless orange walls of her room did nothing to lift her spirits. The screaming from down the corridor outside stopped for a moment, then a stream of barely coherent swearing began. Eva recognized Alison’s voice.
“What’s happened?” Eva pulled her trousers from the back of the chair. The belt caught the paperback lying facedown on her low bedside table, flipping it to the floor.
Katie gazed around the room, still looking everywhere rather than at Eva.
“Alison shouldn’t be let out when she’s on a high. She gets drunk and then lets all the men in the pub sleep with her. She hates herself the next day.”
“What?” Eva said, struggling into her trousers. “Then why did Nurse Dyer let her get away last night?”
“Nurse Dyer can’t stop her. Besides, Nurse Dyer doesn’t like Alison.”
“What? But that’s…unprofessional!” The words sounded childish even to her own ears.
Eva staggered across the room, finally getting her trousers up to her waist. She turned her back on Katie and pulled off her nightgown. Her breasts felt heavy and sore this morning, and she held one arm over them as she
