Chapter 10. Who Am I?

Going back over these old chapters, all written in 2010, I can see that some of the unedited work has a bit of a cross over.  A great big cross over of confusion.  There are some characters who haven't had a chance to fully develop.  There are some characters who I have given children to and further down the line, I have made them alone.  

There is one story line about the shooting in the rainforest that I am not sure of yet.   But as it is one storyline really taken from my family's life, I am afraid to use it.  Would it be too upsetting if the book very really got published?  Should I just ask?  I am afraid to.  

So, I have softened it for the time being until I ask those who it may effect, if they are comfortable with me recreating a real and devastating scene which to the reader will merely be as dramatic as any other fictional storyline within the novel.  But to those who lived it for real, it could mean so much more.  I don't believe in opening up cans of worms.  I prefer to leave the can opener in the cutlery drawer.  As bizarre and interesting as my history is, it has not been without more than our fair share of tragedy.  Some tales will lay buried but some tales might become exhumed.  Because, although I not like to open cans of worms, I never said anything about caskets.

As usual, the work below is largely unedited and will contain typos and non-sensical sentences.

10. Who Am I?

A hospital, sterile scent of disinfectant filled the air, fluorescent lights flickered perilously above as a strip bulb was losing it’s battle to stay lit. The unmistakable electronic beep of life support equipment played out intermittently into the cold corridors. While in a private room the Darth Vader hiss and suck of oxygen played into the mouth of the patient on his life support machine. 

Motionless, kept alive by the machine so that it’s artificial intelligence leant breath and a heart beat to it’s anthropomorphic host which in turn was the only thing that kept the machine on. On with it’s electricity, a current flowing, unbroken pulse of a mechanical heartbeat. Wooshing and swooshing in, woosh swoosh out, mimicking the blood flowing and ebbing away through the veins and arteries of the man. A man who had laid imprisoned in his own skin and bones with no semengok to speak of. The only movement that wasn’t provided by the life support machine was when the nurses came in to turn him onto his side and wash his cold lifeless body, which, despite the movement, was growing sore and ulcerated where he lay. Muscles shrinking as the atrophy of idleness set in, shrinking the meat away from his bones like a chicken slowly being cooked, the plastic sheets and metal bars of his bed acting like a giant rotisserie.

Peep. Peep. Peep. Peep. Peep went the machine. The room was cold. The bedside table hosted a wilting bunch of carnations in a pint glass and a fresh jug of water remained untouched despite being refilled by the nurses daily for the passed eight weeks. Eight weeks had gone by. The patient had remained asleep, lost in an unconscious land occasionally caught by a lucid dream when was able to hear, see and move around the hospital room, but he lay trapped in his body unable to communicate with the nurses. His legs were wrapped in casts to fuse his broken fibulas and tibulas, his shoulder pinned together with screws and a metal plate.

A nurse entered the room to tick off the observations on her checklist. Her hair scraped back into a bun and enclosed with a net.

“Where are we?” He asks. But the nurse ignores him. "Where are...?" He starts again, but the realisation hits him once more, he is not awake, she cannot hear him and he is trapped in his own body. He screams and screams with all his might, terrified, not paralysed by fear, but frightened by paralysis. He is exhausted by the effort from trying to make a sound. He tries making a high pitched sound. He tries to just whisper. He can feel adrenaline flowing though his body, but his body won’t move. He attempts to wriggle his toes. He is sure he is wriggling his toes... 

Arnold wasn’t wriggling his toes. He began to relax and realised that relaxing was less frightening than struggling against wakelessness.

A doctor entered the room. “Any change today Nurse Fletcher?”

“No. Ernst is exactly the same Doctor. Hello Ernst. How are you today?” She said more loudly and clearly.

Ernst? Who is Ernst? Wondered Arnold. He did not like not being able to move. But he realised that he was in a hospital. A hospital in England judging by their voices.

He concentrated on relaxing and willed his finger tip to move. Maybe he could open his eyes if he tried. Ouch. His head hurt. His legs really hurt. Maybe he had been in some kind of accident. He couldn’t wait to tell Betty. Boy would she laugh.

Betty. Betty? “Betty,” he managed to minutely splutter. The word trickled out of his mouth even though the back of his throat was sticky and filled with congealed phlegm and the oxygen mask was covering his whole face.

“He is muttering to himself again.” Said the nurse.

“Betty.” He managed to speak a little more clearly. He hoped that she wasn’t far away.

“That’s funny. I wonder who Betty is. It says here that his wife’s name was Barbara.” Said the nurse, she adjusted her paper cap and lifted his eyelid up, shining a torch onto his pupil. “It’s still dilated.” She confirmed.

“Hey, hey I can see you. You’re pretty....” Spoke Arnold. But the intense light drowned out his vision and thoughts. Barbara? Who is Barbara?!

Arnold gave up. They must have been talking about someone else. But wait. They heard him say Betty. He felt even more confused. He knew there was some sense to be made. But he couldn’t get his mind in order. He drifted back into the torment of his more surreal dreams, dragons and giant paint brushes began to chase him naked across a frosty ice cream mountain top once more in echo of the intense coldness his body was encountering.

“How is the old fool?” Came a woman’s voice.

Old fool, fruit fool, raspberry fool, mmm. The mountain top turned pink and Arnold found himself trudging through thick gelatinous raspberry fool. Wait, wait. He was not on a mountain naked. He was a in a room. On a, a bed. He knew he was in hospital. Hospital, that’s right. A doctor and a nurse. Who was the old fool? Maybe he was sharing a room with someone else. Oh, of course. There was probably a ward full of other men. Oh crikey. What if he was in a mental hospital. Oh hell. He certainly felt mad as could be, what with all the lucid dreaming and the hallucinations and the parylisation. But but. What if he’d been sterilised? Frick! A victim of his own campaign?

“He has been talking out loud at times, but I’m afraid the pupils are unresponsive still.” Came the sound of the doctors voice.

“He deserves to rot anyway.” said the woman.

Shit. Maybe they are talking about me, someone knows that I am working with the Nazis. “Betty!” Arnold moaned out louder.

“There he goes again.” Said the nurse.

“Betty?” Asked Arnold.

“He says that a lot.” Said the nurse.

“Hmm, oh well.” The other woman leaned in. Arnold felt her breath on his face, he could smell her perfume. Something floral. “If you wake up - I will put you back in a coma.” She whispered in his ear, leaving a hot wetness that tickled in his sensitive ear drums. It must have been loud enough for all to hear, because the doctor and the nurse both laughed nervously at the inappropriate joke.

Who is it? Arnold wondered.

The three left Arnold in peace once more with only his own conjurings for company.

Who was that?

The fear set in again. He could hear the beating of blood though his ear drums like a timpani in an orchestra bringing in the final waves of a symphony through a cacophony of sound, boom, boom, boom and even though he wasn’t moving, the in and out of breath was causing the hairs on his head to rustle in an intensely magnified manner against the starch crisp pillows that he lay on, so that each breath sounded like a truck being dragged along a road.

A road. A truck. A car. A motorway. Something came to Arnold and then as quickly as the glimmer of memory came to him. It disappeared back to the depths of his unconsciousness once more.

He had to get moving, he had to. This wasn’t the place for a great scientist such as he. Okay. Think Arnold think. 

He had been able to see the nurse when she opened his eye, but she said that he was unresponsive. Okay. So, maybe he could move his eyes if he tried hard enough. Blink. Try and blink. Blink, blink. What can I actually see? Arnold concentrated on what he could see, a swirling orange redness. The inside of his eyelids. Come on. Open u again p. Open your eyes. Eyes open. Open. Blink. Come on. Aaaagh. 

Light flooded into Arnold’s eyes. Forcing them shut again. Were they open? He tried. Aaaaaagh. Yes, yes, yes. They are open. I’ve done it. 

Arnold tried to focus around the room. Good Lord how long have I been asleep for? The room looked strange. The window frames looked futuristic. Sci-fi even. He focussed on the outside world.  The sky looked the same. He wondered if they were still at war. Where is Betty? Betty? 

The vision of his beautiful Miss Betty Heap appeared before him, long show girl legs, naughtily lifting up her skirt showing off the tops of her stockings as she so loved to...  Smooth skin, dark hair in a razor sharp bob, eyes smiling... But then somehow, as he lay motionless enjoying the image of the most beautiful, talented, intelligent young woman he had ever met, the love of his life, she began to change before him.  Her eyes grew tired, wrinkles etched their way across her face like water flowing it's way back into cracks as the tide turned, her upright dancer's figure began to stoop, the smooth skin above her stockings gave way to varicose veins down one thigh while her lithe legs grew thicker.  The gleaming black bob turned grey before his eyes and curled upwards into a set and blow dry.  She was still smiling but Arnold inwardly shuddered for there was nothing else that he could do. He had experienced some bizarre visions over the last eight weeks, but this metamorphosis was too much. What cruel imaginings were his mind flinging at him? Why had she turned old before him?

Why, why, why.  Betty.... Then the notion of reality came oozing back, like sap seeping from a wounded tree. Oh, oh..... OH!.... Of course. We are not Betty and Arnold anymore... We are, we are, we are now known as... Who am I?

Arnold racked his brains. We flew back to England and we became Betty and…. Betty and…. What did that nurse say? B, B, B, Barbara. Gosh. Barbara. That’s right.

Arnold tried to sit up. There was still no connections between his brain and his body. Okay. I can move my eyes perhaps I could move my mouth. After all I have been talking. They heard me say Betty. Oh hell, what if I’ve been found out. Why can’t I remember anything?

Arnold concentrated hard and tried talking again, only he didn't have the mask over his mouth. And oh to have some saliva on his tongue and running through his throat. His mouth was so parched and dry, it felt like he had been eating a thousand bitter gourds washed down with raw sheep’s wool. There was no moisture to his tongue in the slightest. “Nurse!” Good grief. How feeble does that sound? It did the trick though. The words came out loud and clear. Arnold heard footsteps coming back down the corridor as the nurse returned once more.

She greeted him with a smile on her face as Arnold was focussing on her and looking directly. Arnold licked his lips, but there wasn’t any lickiness. He may as well as rubbed a dry finger over his mouth.

“Hello, Ernst. Would you like some water?”

“Yes please.” Arnold managed. Well, Ernst. Ernst. That’s right. Ernst. Ernst looked at the nurse, her uniform looked strange. Alarmingly short. He knew how a nurses uniform looked in Britain, he had been to enough hospitals to instruct doctors there. Maybe this was some kind of private hospice. Come on Ernst. Think.

“You were in a car crash, Ernst.” Said the nurse, holding the glass to his lips. “Your mouth will be very dry. I have been swabbing it with a sponge. “You have been in a coma for eight weeks.”

“A car crash? I don’t drive.”

“Oh, yes you do. We used your driving licence to identify you when you arrived.”

Oh, yes. I got that licence when I became Ernst. No wonder I bloody crashed I’ve never even had a lesson…

“Where is Bet…” Ernst started.

“Barbara?” Interjected the nurse. She paused for a long few seconds. “Oh, um. Let me just get the doctor.”

“Is she okay?”

The nurse left the room without giving Ernst an answer.

*

Meanwhile over six and a half thousand miles away, another patient lay in another hospital bed. As Harold had let go of the fern, Paul had fired his gun blindly into the distance. He didn’t shoot a wild boar or even a small monkey. His prey had come firing back. His prey was Bevis his own brother who had shot back in shock as he was aiming for a creature making tracks in the distance. But that creature turned out to be Harold. Harold had been shot in the side. 

Bevis came running back, shortly followed by Endal who deftly packed Harold’s wound with leaves. The three men carried Harold all the way back though the jungle to the village and bundled him into the back of Paul’s cousin’s car where they were greeted by a sobbing Andeline. Harold had not been in a good way. He lost a lot of blood and the journey had not been a swift one. 

They drove to the general hospital where Harold was admitted and then operated on quickly enough. That’s where he came to be laying. On a bed on a ward with other men moaning and groaning around him. The hospital was small though, and only housed around five hundred patients. They were well staffed and the nurses were caring individuals who couldn’t do enough for their patients. They were full of empathy and sympathy unlike the British nurses who had become jobs worthy and almost uncaring due to the nature of National Health's bureaucracy.

*

Martha let herself in to the familiar old flagstone cottage on Ambleside with the spare keys she owned. She sighed. The welcoming spirit had left the once cosy cottage along with it's occupant, leaving behind an eerie emptiness. She stroked her mother’s faux fur coat where it hung in the entrance hall and she allowed her fingers to trail the keys on the open piano in the sitting room. She sat at the stool, looking at the music open on a page. “Debussey’s Arabesque.” She studied the music for a moment - checked her hand position and began to play. For the first time she felt grateful that her mother had taught her to play the piano and she had a chance to connect with her once more. She could hear her mother’s voice, telling her. “Right hand relaxed, sit up tall.” Treating the whole playing part as though it were a dance. Her fingers moved nimbly over the keys. She was a good player for someone who hadn’t bothered to play since she was a child. To Martha, getting back on the piano stool was like getting back on a bicycle. Somehow the genes of piano playing were flowing though her DNA. The DNA that she shared with Barbara and Ernst. Betty and Arnold.

Martha thought of her mother and how wonderful she was. How she used to play the piano and how she would make Martha play over and over again until she got it right.

Tinkle, tinkle., went her fingers over the piano keys. Tinkle, tinkle, SLAM!

Martha lost her temper and slammed the piano lid shut in fury at the thought of a wonderful life that had been cut so short. She hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. Barbara Harpington-Smythe killed in a car crash. Barbara Harpington-Smythe no longer with us. “Aaaargh!” Martha screamed out in anger. 

She hated her father so much right now. He was driving - he should have died. He always drove like a complete lunatic and now this had happened. She was left to pick up the pieces and her mother couldn’t even have her funeral yet because her bloody father was laying in a coma. She meant what she had whispered to him. She would kill him if he woke up from the coma.

Martha was not a patient woman. Neither was she particularly pleasant. She was sharp, intelligent and very capable just like Harold, but she had an element of the “touched” about her. Her mannerisms were peculiar. Her thoughts were über obsessive and people whispered about her behind her back.

“That Martha -she looks normal - rather beautiful and together - but she’s mad. Mad as a box of frogs.”

“I hear she’s a witch.”

“A witch, no I heard she has three small children but they’re all locked in the attic.”

“Nonsense, I see her at church every Sunday and she’s perfectly pleasant.”

“No no she is not. She refused to put any money in the collection bowl the other day. Then I heard her demanding the vicar donate some money to her as she had supplied the flowers on more occasions than everyone else.”

“That’s shocking."

“There’s more, I met her for tea last year and we had a good time talking about art and fashion, then the very next day I bumped into her at the corner shop and she acted as if she had never seen me in her life.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, “Hello Martha, how are you today? Would like to meet for tea gain next week?” And she said, "Who are you? I’ve never seen you before in my life and I don’t know what you are talking about!”

“Golly gosh! That is mad.”

“Then a week later I saw her and crossed the road so I didn’t have to embarrass myself again and she came chasing after me - “Susan, she said, let’s meet for tea again - I had a wonderful time.”

“What?”

“Yes, she’s stark raving bonkers! Crazy in the coconut.”

“Does she have a twin? Or a doppelganger?”

“I don’t think so, exactly the same rain coat and handbag every time I met her.”

So that was Martha. Touched by madness. Dancing to her own tune, one day affable, the next day acrimonious. But really she was schizophrenic, undiagnosed, so unexcused. 

Unfortunate behaviour is always forgiven if there’s a condition attached to it. 

Swearing like a foul mouthed beast? Not acceptable. Tourrete’s Syndrome? Forgiven. 

Children throwing unwarranted spoilt brat tantrums? Not acceptable. Autistic Spectrum Disorder? Forgiven. 

Stink like an unwashed rotting rancid fish market? Not acceptable. Trimethylaminuria? What’s that? Oh, it’s a metabolic disorder that makes you stink like an unwashed rancid rotting fish market. Nasty. But forgiven. 

Slightly unhinged, rather rude, self seeking centre of attention? A troubled childhood? Forgiven.

And that is the very point. Nobody knows straight away that people inflicted with undesirable traits behave in this odd way and everyone is so quick to judge. So Martha is beautifully swathed by the cover of a tall attractive intelligent scientist, but inside she is shrouded by multi-personalities.

　

The locals saw Martha as a smart intelligent middle class woman. She was a scientist like her father had been. Ernst had given her lots of pokes in the right direction, but without ever disclosing his formal self to her. Poor Martha and Harold never knew their parents true identity. In much the same way - that their parent’s never really knew their true identity as their heritage had been hidden in some lost paperwork at an orphanage bombed in the second world war. 

She did not look like a typical clichéd unkempt mad person, with wild hair flailing arms and gnashing teeth. She didn’t witter to herself or do obviously crazy things but there was no doubt she was a funny one. It was almost as if Martha’s personality could be turned off and on like a light switch. But she had no control over it. She didn’t know who or what was flicking the switch. Flick. Once moment nice as pie, flick, the next moment rude and ignorant. Flick, bright and shiny, flick, mean and dark. One thing was for certain though, her parents hadn’t noticed her madness as a child. Where had she been? Off at boarding school like Harold, Getting a first class education leaving her bereft of the warm loving that she so craved from her mother and father.

Martha stood up from the piano stool and entered the kitchen. Baking things still left out on the side unwashed. That wasn’t like her mother. Where had they been going in such a hurry? Without thinking, Martha filled the butler sink up with hot water to soak the pans that the scones had been baked on. She put the pans in to soak, took a knife from the wooden block and then wandered up the stairs to the study. 

She was greeted by Ernst’s paintings. Go on Martha, do it - stop them from looking at us. One by one she began to cut the eyes out from the portraits so they couldn’t look at her. She couldn’t bare the thought of these paintings being allowed to live on and see the world still when her mother couldn’t. As she carved at and mutated the canvases that were dotted around the room. She found the destructive act dulcified her anger. 

As she reached her father's desk she noticed a piece of paper on the table. She looked at it. It was a telegram. The telegram Harold had sent his parents. Written just over eight weeks ago. She read the words, then recoiled in horror. 

Harold was getting married? Married to a native? No wonder they had left in such a hurry. She understood now. She completely understood why such pandemonium was laid before her. She knew how her father felt about mixed marriages and most foreigners in general. But... Oh, no. Harold might not have been informed about what had happened to their mother. She hadn’t even thought about him. Well, maybe she had fleetingly wondered why he hadn’t called. She had been too caught up in her own feelings to realise that Harold was in the dark with this whole sorry mess. How could she get hold of him when he was at the other side of the world? Then she realised. Simple. The same way. A telegram.