The Girls Beneath. Ross Armstrong

the injury on Friday.’

      It seems impossible. If he’d said I’d been here a year, or two, I’d have believed him. My muscles feel brown and dappled. I grapple with the controls like a madman, a blind pilot. I must be older. Two days? They have to be lying. But to what end?

      It’s then that I notice there is someone else in the room, to my left. My neck turns so my head can look at him. He looks back. His face is difficult to read. He looks apprehensive. I look away and he does the same. Then I look back at him and he looks me in the eye. He says nothing. Just analyses me. He must be some underling. He’s younger than the other man. Although I couldn’t say how old the man in front of me is. My brain isn’t giving me all the answers I need yet. His voice interrupts us as I go to look at the silent man for a third time.

      ‘Yes, it may seem longer. That can happen. Would you say it seems longer?’

      ‘Yes. Yes.’

      ‘That’s interesting.’

      He writes that down. Out of my periphery I analyse the silent man. He faces the doctor, too, not moving a muscle.

      ‘Do you know what happened to you, Tom?’

      The question lingers in the air…

      The bus. The shattered glass. The blood. The shouts. People with their phones out. I crawl across the road. I feel sick. No pain. But I feel faint. I hear a song from a nearby car radio. The man runs towards me.

      ‘I… I… had… a stroke?’

      ‘Hmm. Interesting.’

      He writes that down. Then scratches his nose. He turns as a nurse comes into the room and hands me a glass of water and a pill.

      I take it off her. Steadily. I look at my hand and try to will it to do my bidding. I put the pill in my mouth and force the water down the dry passage of my throat. I stare back at my hand and order it to give the nurse back the glass. When I turn back to the doctor he is checking his watch. His eyes meet mine and he smiles, sunnily, full beam.

      ‘Now, how long would you say that took? That little sequence of taking your pill and drinking your water.’

      Is this a trick question? What is their game?

      ‘Ten… twenty… ten… seconds?’

      He glances to the nurse.

      ‘That took six and half minutes. But don’t worry. I’m confident things will get easier.’

      He comes a bit closer now. The man next to me does, too. It’s become intimate.

      ‘Tom. You were shot. In your head. Do you understand?’

      I want to laugh. So I do. Ha ha ha ha ha.

      There’s no gap between think and do. Ha ha ha ha ha.

      The tears roll down my face again. The others stay stock still. As I laugh and cry. I don’t know why I do either of these things. My feelings fire off in all directions like stray sparks. I laugh, I wail.

      Then I stop. I look at the nurse. Then at him.

      ‘No. I wasn’t shot. I can’t have been. It didn’t hurt. I’m alive.’

      He breathes in, cautious, unsure how to put this.

      ‘The brain has no pain receptors. The nerves in your skin can’t react fast enough to register impact. A little bullet, at that speed… It just went in.’

      ‘And out…’

      ‘Err… no. It just went in.’

      ‘And you got it out?’

      ‘No. My God, no. Much too dangerous to move it, I’m afraid. It’s still in there, in three pieces. But don’t worry, it doesn’t pose you any danger. Think of it as a souvenir.’

      He pops out a one-breath laugh and turns to the nurse for support but she doesn’t join in. When I straighten up, so does the silent man. Copying my body language is supposed to make me feel comfortable, I suppose. But he is eerie.

      ‘So,’ says the doctor, ‘all your vital signs are remarkably good. Another twenty-four hours of monitoring and tests, then, all being well, you’ll move from intensive care to a general ward for recovery. Then you’ll spend some time in the rehab unit, and that’ll give us an idea of what outpatient care you’ll need after we discharge you. Sound good?’

      My breath rattles. I want to say things but thoughts rush at me. I grasp at consonants. I try a ‘p’, an ‘m’, an ‘n’. Then back to a ‘p’. He comes closer and puts a hand on me. I am calmed.

      ‘But I was shot… in the head?’ I murmur. I hear myself. I sound like a malnourished tracing.

      ‘Yes. But I’m confident you won’t be here too long. I think you’ll walk with a limp for a good long while and certainly a lot slower than before, for now. And so will your speech be. Slower, I mean. But you should be… next to normal, in no time. Better than normal perhaps. I look forward to seeing how it all pans out.’

      He looks at me, smiling indulgently. I take a note of his features. Ogling them for what is probably five or so minutes.

      He has a beard. He has small brown eyes. He is half bald. He is lightly tanned. He has soft grey hair. He has a striped blue shirt. It has a purple ink stain on it.

      ‘Somebody… shot me?’

      ‘It would appear so, yes. Now, all I’d ask of you is to take it slow. I will be with you throughout this process. You certainly don’t have to go back to work for a good long while yet. And they’ll absolutely look after you well, financially speaking, so you don’t need to worry about any of that. You were injured on duty, you’re getting the best treatment money can buy. In my opinion, ha! You shouldn’t want for anything while you recuperate. If there are abnormalities – and considering the places the bullet debris has come to rest in, there may be abnormalities – I’ll be with you every step of the way. We’re going to handle those… differences… together.’

      ‘Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Why am I not dead again? Why is my head still on my shoulders? What was I shot with?’

      ‘Well. A gun. A sub machine gun, I’d say. But just once, so that’s good.’

      ‘In… in… war… in films… in war… the head means… dead.’

      He’s excited by this, standing and taking his pen in his hand to gesticulate with.

      ‘Good question. Good cognitive reasoning. Now, I can only tell you that when you’ve seen people shot in World War whatever, or Kill whoever, or The Murder of Whichshit, the science is somewhat… bollocks. Sorry! Poppy cock, I mean to say. You do often die with a shot to the head. Very, very often. But a bullet wouldn’t really have the momentum to knock your head much to the side let alone blow it off its shoulders. Think of it this way, if a gunshot were powerful enough to throw your head back significantly, the momentum of firing it would throw the gunman back violently, too. And that’s not the sort of device that would be very viable on the mass market. What a gun is, is a compact handheld product made to eject sleek aerodynamic discharges that glide smoothly into flesh. So along with the shock and speed of the event and the way the device is engineered, of course you wouldn’t feel a thing. Which is a bit of a result in a way, isn’t it?’

      I’m not sure how to feel about this statement at this point.

      ‘Ask us one more question for today, please. It’s very good for you to ask questions. It’s a useful process. You’re doing very well, Mr Mondrian.’

      ‘Will… I… get… back to normal? Normal normal? Absolute normal?’

      The nurse averts her gaze. The cold room seems to get colder. He clicks his pen a couple of times and then comes further towards me, his face so calming. His rich voice echoing as if it falls all around me. He has me. I am his captive audience.

      ‘The