Stirrings

My first novel, Trinity of Souls, went through nine drafts before I finally sent it to the publishers. After a little tweaking, the tenth draft was published. But, way before then, back in the sixth draft, Stirrings was the opening chapter. So, you might call it an early prototype. You'll see most of it cropping up somewhere in the final published book, although there are a few hidden extras lurking in here!



The young doctor was new on the Intensive Therapy Unit and he’d already managed to irritate Jenny Fletcher beyond belief. That was even before he’d tried to make a pass at her. He was too young and too much like so many other junior doctors who came through the unit and thought they were God’s gift to women and to medicine.

It was bad enough being stuck in here at four o’clock on a Saturday morning, without having to put up with him and his immature jokes. She watched him walking up to the nurse’s station, swaggering in the white coat the head of neurology insisted all the doctors in his department wore. She just knew he was going to make another one of his stupid comments about ‘The Mummy’.

“So, has ‘The Mummy’ awakened yet?” cracked David Minster, coming towards her with his best attempt at a jaunty walk and jovial grin.

“No doctor,” she responded with as much contempt as she could muster for the man, without being disrespectful to his position, “there’s still no sign of activity.”

“Well, I’ll just take a look anyway,” Minster brushed as close past her as he thought he could get away with; “we wouldn’t want him to wake up and strangle you in the night, would we?”

He walked across to where Ben Carlton’s inert body lay swathed in bandages. There were so many tubes and wires attached to Ben he almost looked like part of the machinery that surrounded him. In truth, perhaps it was more like the machinery was part of him. After all, without it, he would have died four weeks ago, when they first brought his shattered body to the hospital.

The doctors at Princess Diana Memorial had battled long and hard to save the wreck that had once been Ben’s body. He’d hovered on the very brink but, in the end, they’d been able to stabilise him. Miraculously, despite the seriousness of his awful crash, none of his vital organs had been permanently damaged. Initially, they’d feared they might have to amputate his arm, but even that battered limb had started to heal now.

Unfortunately, that was only part of the story. Ben had suffered severe head injuries in the crash. He’d been in a coma since the accident and the senior medical staff were beginning to doubt whether he would ever regain consciousness. Less discreet junior staff were saying it was time for him to be ‘switched off’.

Minster examined one of the machines positioned around Ben. It emitted a quiet ‘beep’ every few seconds and the screen showed a series of green lines above a set of numbers. The lines were almost flat, with only the slightest undulation, the numbers hardly changed from one second to the next.

The young doctor was doing his best to look important in front of the nurse. He was still smarting from her rejection last week, but thought he might yet stand a chance if he could impress her enough. He didn’t really know what he was looking for as he scrolled the screen to the right and watched the barely wavering lines, but when he saw a sharp spike in one of them, he knew it was something important.

“Hey look, he’s alive.” In his surprise at seeing any sign of life, he forgot about impressing the nurse. Reluctantly, she strolled over to see what he’d found.

“It’s probably nothing,” she surmised, “the monitor has a glitch like that every now and then; it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not worth bothering Doctor Carpenter about. I’ll put it in his notes and she can see it when she comes in. She’s on duty today.”

She returned to her station. Minster realised he’d been dismissed. He walked back down the corridor to the rest room.

*

Pain; terrible, agonising pain.

At first, the pain was the only thing he was aware of. He was floating alone in the universe with nothing but his pain.

He became aware of a thick fog around him. He was floating in the fog, with his pain, but still he was a formless being unsure whether he was alive or dead, or even what the difference was.

Gradually, he began to take physical form. He became aware he had a head and he turned it downwards to look at his body. Something was wrong, he knew that much, but he couldn’t see past his waist, the fog was so thick, he could only see a few inches.

At last the swirling fog began to clear. Maybe it wasn’t fog. No, it was smoke. He peered downwards. He could see a little further now, but there was still nothing below his waist. Then he knew what was wrong. There wasn’t anything past his waist; his entire lower body was gone. He flopped back onto the sand and waited to die as the others ran up the beach into the maelstrom of shells and bullets.

*

A week after Minster’s discovery, Susan Carpenter was driving through the rush hour traffic on her way to work. As so often these days, and especially on Monday mornings, she was thinking about the state of her career and the events that had brought her here. On this particular Monday, it was also a good way to take her mind off the predicament her ex-boyfriend had left her in, not to mention the thumping headache she’d woken up with.

She used to love her job before she’d transferred to Princess Diana Memorial, back when she was a registrar at Queen Square. The work had been so fulfilling then. There were bad times, of course. What doctor doesn’t see their share of tragedy? But the successes had outweighed the failures so that, on the whole, those had mostly been good days.

She’d always wanted to be a doctor, ever since she was a little girl. Well, nearly always, there’d been a couple of brief spells when she’d had other ideas. When she was seven, she’d decided to be an archer. She’d been quite good with those little toy arrows with the suckers, she always beat the boys when they played ‘Cowboys and Indians’. Her father bought her a proper archery set for her birthday. She was overjoyed when she unwrapped it that morning until, minutes later, her mother made him take it back to the shop. After that, she lost interest in archery.

At thirteen she wanted to be a singer. She spent long hours in front of the mirror wailing into a hairbrush, or dressed up as ‘Baby Spice’ with her hair in bunches while she tried to copy the dance moves and sang at the top of her voice. This fad came to an abrupt end one Saturday afternoon when her mother burst into her bedroom and screamed, “Will you shut the fuck up, I’ve got a monstrous fucking headache and you can’t sing a fucking note to save your life you silly little cow.”

She’d run to her father in tears. Ever the diplomat, he’d suggested she might try miming the words when her mother had one of her ‘bad heads’, “They always mime on Pop Toppers. You’ll need to practise for when you’re a big star.” Despite his encouragement, she could never bring herself to sing again.

Later that night, she’d overheard her parents shouting. Still later, she came to realise where her mother’s ‘bad heads’ came from.

But, apart from these short-lived phases, she couldn’t remember wanting to do anything other than be a doctor. From an early age, she’d wanted to care for all the sick people in the world and make them better. When she was very young, she’d even believed it was her destiny to save them and she was the only one who could. That grandiose notion had passed of course but, aside from the occasional distraction, her determination to be a doctor and care for the sick had grown stronger with each passing year.

She could still recall her father sitting patiently with his arm outstretched as she bandaged his imaginary wounds. He would grumble good-naturedly as he tried to eat his dinner with both hands swathed in bandages and they would laugh together at his hopeless efforts to cut his food and lift his glass. Her mother would scowl at the mess he was making, but he would clean it all up and keep the laughter going with a few well-placed winks and other tomfoolery. It seemed like she always went to bed laughing in those days and her father would kiss her on the forehead and say, ‘Good night, Doctor Susie, thanks for making me all better again.’

Later came secondary school, GCSEs and ‘A’ Levels; vital to her dream of getting into medical school. He supported her every step of the way, often sitting up late at night to help her with her studies, even when he had an early start on site in the morning. When she got her acceptance from University College London, he was crying as he handed her a bottle of Moet et Chandon and a small envelope. The envelope contained the keys to her first car and a little note that read ‘I always knew you’d do it Doctor Susie!’

She was on a voluntary attachment after her first year at UCL when she got the call that changed her life. Her father was a senior and well-respected Chartered Surveyor. He didn’t need to do site visits any more, but he always preferred to see things at first hand. It was the middle of a long hot summer, possibly the hottest day of all. Normally an absolute stickler for health and safety, he took his hard hat off for a second to wipe the sweat off his brow. Hundreds of feet above him, a worker accidentally dropped his hammer. The heavy tool plummeted earthwards and struck her father’s unprotected head.

They rushed him to hospital where he lay in a coma for three days, clinging to life by a thread. She hurried to his side as soon as she heard. One of the doctors found out she was a medical student and explained her father’s condition in more detail. “We just know so little about brain injuries,” he concluded, “it’s frustrating really. If we understood more about the brain’s physiology we’d be able to save a lot more people like your father.”

When he died, she thought she would just collapse into her grief but, with her mother in an almost uninterrupted drunken stupor, she found a strength inside herself she never expected. She organised the funeral just as she hoped her father would have wanted. She could only guess because, at forty-four, it was something he hadn’t thought about yet. One thing she knew for certain though, his favourite song. He loved to tell her how he’d seen it performed live for the very first time the night he’d met her mother. So she made damn sure they played ‘I Have Loved You Since the Dawn of Time’ by the Vomix. It was a bit before her time, but it was her favourite too.

As the familiar chords rang out, she almost managed to sing along. But she glanced at her mother standing next to her and remembered her screaming ‘you can’t sing a fucking note to save your life you silly little cow’, and she just couldn’t. She mouthed the words instead.

From her meagre savings, she’d bought a wreath that bore the words ‘With Undying Love and Eternal Thanks – Your Doctor Susie’. When her mother saw it, she said, “You’re not a doctor yet Susie.”

“Don’t call me that,” she responded; “that’s what Dad called me. No-one gets to call me that any more. From now on, my name is Susan.”

She decided two other things that day. She would see her mother as little as possible and, when she graduated, she was going to specialise in the treatment of brain trauma.

In the years since then, she’d often wondered if she would have been so successful if her father hadn’t died. Every hurdle she faced, every problem she encountered, she would always push herself onwards for him. After everything he’d done for her, she owed it to him to succeed. Remembering all his support, all his undying faith, gave her the strength to carry on and overcome the obstacles in her path. Sometimes she felt he was still by her side, holding her hand and whispering, ‘You can do it Doctor Susie.’

She graduated first in her class and won a highly coveted post at the National Hospital for Neurology in Queen Square. She took a two year sabbatical to research the physiology of the brain and treatment of brain trauma, and gained a PhD. She could just imagine her father doing his Basil Fawlty impression, ‘Oh, you’re two doctors now then,’ while his eyes glistened with tears as love and pride overwhelmed him.

As she turned into the staff car park at the rear of the hospital, she felt the usual sadness that came from thinking about all the great days in her life she hadn’t been able to share with her father. She knew he’d be proud though and, as always, that comforted her. She parked in her allotted space, one of the few perks she was entitled to, and headed for the locker room. Her damn head was still thumping away. It seemed to be growing worse as she got nearer the building. She resumed her reminiscences to distract herself from the pain.

She’d got her ‘CCT’, her ‘Certificate of Completion of Training’, at the age of thirty-three, pretty young for a neurologist. This qualified her to take up a consultant role; as soon as she could find a vacancy. But it quickly became clear there would be no suitable openings at Queen Square nor, in fact, anywhere in London, for quite some time.

It was at that point she’d been offered her current post. She’d been happy at Queen Square and she had reservations about the hospital’s private work, but Princess Diana Memorial had the largest, best equipped, brain trauma unit in the country. She knew she had to accept, she owed it to her father, she owed it to the little girl she’d once been, the little girl who wanted to care for all the sick no-one else could save. The further she progressed, the more she could help. It was as simple as that.

Except it wasn’t; for three years she’d been bogged down in a mire of administration, bureaucracy and hospital politics. She enjoyed her clinical work, and sometimes it was immensely satisfying, but her patient contact seemed to be getting less all the time, while the hours taken up by management duties were escalating by the day.

Then there was the head of her department, Professor Worthington. Their relationship had deteriorated since day one. He always seemed to be looking for ways to undermine her, to make her look small in front of other staff. She was sure he hated her, but she couldn’t understand why, especially since she knew he’d gone out of his way to secure her transfer into his department.

She wouldn’t mind these frustrations if she felt she was achieving something. But the harsh reality, even as a consultant, was she wasn’t able to influence the quality of patient care anything like as much as she wanted. To have any real impact on how the department was run, she would need to progress further up the greasy pole of hospital hierarchy. But that, in turn, would mean even less patient contact than she was getting now. Still, at least she might get more control over her workload if she was in a more senior position. She looked at the mirror on her locker door and stared into her crystal-blue eyes as she tied back her long blonde hair, ‘I can’t go back, I have to go forward.’

For weeks she’d been mulling over whether to apply for the Deputy Head of Neurology post. She was relatively inexperienced after only three years as a consultant, but she had all the credentials. And, despite the obvious problem of Worthington’s attitude, she felt sure she could do a better job than the other likely candidates. Steve Parsons, the Acting Deputy Head, was a nice enough guy, but he was out of touch with the latest techniques and struggling to keep up to date. Then there was Ray. Well, that was another matter. God, just thinking about him was making her headache worse. Ouch, that was bad. She’d have to stop off at the pharmacy before she started her rounds.

She looked into her locker and considered her choices. The white coat Worthington insisted on or a nice clean set of scrubs, comfortable, hygienic and with the added pleasure of pissing him off. She thought for a moment then reached inside.

*

The pain was back. It was bad, but not as bad as before. It wasn’t all over this time; just down one arm.

The fog was back too. Quickly, he realised the ‘fog’ was actually the smoke and dust of the artillery barrage. Why couldn’t he move? He needed to move forward, to march on for King and Country; march on towards the enemy trenches through the mud and chaos.

He looked down. There was barbed wire around his arm. That wasn’t too bad, he could soon unwrap it. Then he’d be alright. He’d get the sarge to safety then go on with his pals, marching towards the German lines. Marching to the victory which this time, finally, must surely be theirs?

He felt several thumps across his chest, like an unseen giant had punched him. He staggered backwards for a moment then slumped forward with no control over his limbs. Everything began to fade away.

*

Susan swept along the corridor with a quick, confident stride, her white coat flowing behind her like a cloak. Wore open, it revealed a navy blouse, a white skirt, and a beautiful woman.

Her head was still throbbing. Even the best painkillers the hospital pharmacy could provide couldn’t shift her headache. Despite this, she was in a good mood.

Partly, this was because she was about to see her patients, the one part of the job she cared passionately about and the whole reason she’d become a doctor in the first place. Mostly though, it was relief at having finally made a decision. She was going to apply for Deputy Head. Sod it, they can tell me I’m not experienced enough if they want; I’m going for it anyway. That’s what Dad would have told me to do.

She’d made her decision in the locker room, the same moment she decided what to wear. She didn’t like playing politics or sucking up to anyone, particularly Worthington. But, if she was going to stand a chance with this promotion, she’d need to win him over and that meant playing by his rules; for a little while anyway.

She turned a corner and passed a group of young men standing around a coffee machine. From the corner of her eye she saw their heads turning to watch her as she swept past. She smiled to herself. She was well aware her appearance made an impact on most men. They were probably all more than a decade her junior, but easily fooled by her fresh face and the youthful spring in her step.

Her looks were something she’d been conscious of since her teens. She didn’t flaunt them, she didn’t hide them; she simply accepted them as a fact of life. They had their advantages and their disadvantages. For one thing, they got her noticed, got her plenty of attention, but it wasn’t always the kind of attention she wanted. There’d been no shortage of boys vying for her company at school and university but she’d soon found the type of guys her looks attracted were the same type that seemed to think a pretty girl was some kind of dumb accessory to enhance their standing in public and pander to their whims in private.

She’d hoped her experience with men might improve as she got older but time and again her relationships had broken down because they either couldn’t accept how important her career was to her, or felt threatened by her intellect. Even now, her looks were still attracting unwanted attention. In the last year alone, four men on the staff had made advances. Two of them she’d known were married; one had been quite sweet, but not her type; the last was Ray.

Thinking of her ‘ex’ shattered her mood, her smile turned to a grimace. Her problems with Ray had been whirling around her head all weekend. She wondered if they might be responsible for her awful headache.

At first she thought she and Ray were a good fit. Another consultant on the staff in the department, he had no reason to feel intimidated and naturally he understood the demands of her job. They’d dated for three months and things seemed to be going well until she found out he had a cocaine habit. He wanted her to ‘join the fun’, and turned nasty when she refused. Frightened by his reaction, she fled his flat and drove home in the middle of the night.

That had been two weeks ago. She’d been avoiding him ever since. She’d smoked a bit of pot at university, but always kept away from anything harder. She’d always been afraid of getting addicted, terrified of what it might do to her. Besides which, there was her career to think about. Taking hard drugs as a practising neurologist was pretty irresponsible, not to mention highly likely to get you struck off if you were caught.

Ray’s drug abuse had left her with a real dilemma. Should she report him to the hospital authorities? She knew she should. But nobody likes a whistle-blower do they? And being associated with a drug addict was going to reflect badly on her too. Damn him, it could cost her the promotion.

Shit! She had another thought. Now she’d decided to apply for Deputy Head, reporting him was going to look like a sneaky way to put him out of the running. It would look as if she was making it up so she could get the job herself. He’d always told her she didn’t have enough experience, he was bound to claim she was trying to knobble him. Now she came to think of it, he’d been pretty keen to talk her out of applying all along. Maybe he did feel threatened after all?

Uuughhh... either way, Ray Barker had turned out to be a total loser and had proved, once again, what atrocious taste in men she seemed to have. Why did she always get involved with such creeps?

She reached the door to the I.T.U. Pushing it open, she simultaneously pushed aside all thought of her personal problems and concentrated her attention on the task in hand, her battered but resilient RTA victim, Ben Carlton.

A week ago, it looked like Carlton might never come out of his coma. But the report she’d received that morning confirmed what had originally looked like a random glitch in his brain patterns had, in fact, been the beginning of a cycle. Short spikes of intense brain activity were followed by long dormant periods. Those dormant periods were growing steadily shorter and, while she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, it certainly seemed a positive sign.

She’d never seen a case like this before. She’d seen people as badly injured, but they’d always died soon afterwards. Neither she nor any of her colleagues could understand how this man had survived when, right from the start, their textbooks and experience said he would die. Somewhere inside, there was a spirit, a force, a God-knows-what, which was defying the odds and wouldn’t let go. What was it within this man that gave him the strength to carry on when most others would have had a memorial service with a grieving widow in attendance?

That prospective widow had been to see him, but she didn’t look like she was ready to do any grieving. She was altogether too composed, too matter of fact, too much like she accepted widowhood as a birthright she’d been expecting for years. In short, she looked like her lucky number had come up. She wasn’t going to have to go through that messy divorce after all; fate had found her a softer option.

Except, she was wrong, fate wasn’t going to comply, it wasn’t going to give her the easy way out she wanted. Ben Carlton was going to LIVE.

Well, good for him, Susan thought, ‘Go for it, Ben.’

She leant over to examine the monitors clustered around his bed, making notes on her tablet. Yes, it looked like he was beginning to recover alright, nothing short of a miracle really. She’d have to tell Mrs Ice-Cold. Pity, the man deserved better. Shame she couldn’t just keep it quiet, let him find a new life.

She studied his features. His short dark hair was distinguished by a few specks of grey around the temples. It framed a ruggedly handsome face with a dark complexion, perhaps a little lighter than her father’s favourite rugby player, Jeremy Guscott. His nose had been broken, but re-set so well few would notice. She knew from his notes the scar on his cheek was the result of a close shave in Afghanistan. She also knew he had eyes the colour of polished teak, though she couldn’t see them now.

A few days’ worth of stubble coated his chin. She could see it beginning to show a tinge of red. He must have an interesting ancestry. It was a sign Jenny hadn’t been on duty for a couple of days. She was meticulous about that sort of thing, unlike some of the other nurses.

Carlton’s recovery amazed her, no doubt about that, but she also felt something else. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she sensed it every time she was near him. Yes, there was some physical attraction, but it was more than that, something intangible, something she couldn’t quite grasp. A sense of familiarity, or belonging, or even... Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming wave of affection for the broken man beside her.

‘Susan!’ she chastised herself at the absurdity of her behaviour. It was just sympathy that was all. What’s more, it was totally unprofessional. Carlton was a patient, strictly off limits. She shrugged off her feelings and continued her examination.

But later, as she walked back along the corridor after morning rounds, she found she still couldn’t get the last echoes of the feelings Carlton had evoked out of her head, ‘Well, at least they’ve displaced that bloody headache anyway.’