I should join you now.
Instead of imagining a black hat on Dr Bailstrom’s head, I will look at her feet and think of Dorothy’s ruby shoes. You never know, Dr Bailstrom might click hers together and I’ll return to the real world again.
I’m sorry, that was flippant. You know I tend to take the air out of big moments. The thing is, I will be with you and Addie again. Because Jenny is going to get better, so I’ll be free to get back into my body and wake up.
But when I was inside my body I couldn’t do anything. Nothing at all. ‘Banish that thought this minute!’ Nanny Voice says. ‘No houseroom for negativity in here!’ And she’s right. I just wasn’t ready. But I will join you again.
I’ve never seen you look slight before. But in here, outnumbered by doctors, you look hollowed out. Dr Bailstrom doesn’t fully look at you as she speaks.
‘We have run a series of tests, Mike. Many of them are repeats of the ones we did yesterday.’
Is she using your first name to be friendly, or because ‘Mr Covey’ would underline your connection to me, ‘Mrs Covey’, and she’d rather not major on that right now?
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to start preparing yourself for Grace never regaining consciousness.’
‘No, you’re wrong,’ you say.
Of course she’s wrong! The very fact I know that demonstrates it. And the thinking, feeling part of me will rejoin my body and I will wake up.
‘I know it’s a lot to take in right now,’ Dr Bailstrom continues. ‘But she shows only the basic responses of gagging and breathing. And we don’t think there will be any improvement.’
You shake your head, refusing to allow the information entry.
‘What my colleague is saying,’ interjects an older doctor, ‘is that the damage to your wife’s brain means that she can’t speak or see or hear. Nor can she think or feel. That is what is meant by cognitive function. And she won’t get better. She won’t wake up.’
He’s obviously a graduate from the sock-it-to-them-straight school of medicine. And totally-bloody-wrong school of medicine.
‘What about those new scans?’ you say. ‘People who’d been written off as cabbages were told to imagine playing tennis for yes, and the brain scan then picked it up.’
I’d heard it in one of my Radio 4 car journeys and told you about it as a snippet of interesting information. I’d liked the idea of imagining playing tennis for yes. A smash, I’d imagined, or an ace serve. Such a positive and vigorous yes. I’d wondered if it mattered if you’re useless at tennis and can, in all honesty, only visualise hitting the ball into the net, or pathetically limping it over. Will they think that’s a ‘don’t know’ answer?
‘We will try all the tests there are,’ the doctor says, irked. ‘We have already put her through many. But I need to be honest with you here. The bottom line is that she isn’t going to get better.’
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ I say. ‘The mother thing.’
‘In simple terms, all our scans show massive and irreparable trauma to her brain.’
‘My son needs me. It’s not just the big stuff; the proving that he’s innocent. In the mornings, I help him design an imaginary shield to put over his heart so it won’t hurt so much if people are mean to him.’
‘Her brain tissue is too damaged to mend.’
‘And some evenings he’ll only be able to get to sleep if he holds my hand.’
‘There’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry.’
‘But all of that could be bullshit, right?’ says a voice in the doorway. For a second I think it’s my nanny voice bossing someone else for a change, though she’s never said bullshit. I turn to see Sarah. I’ve never heard her say bullshit either.
She comes into the room. Behind her is my mother. Both of them have clearly heard the doctors.
‘Dr Sandhu is with Jenny,’ Sarah says to you. ‘He’s promised not to leave her for a second.’
And you no longer look slight because Sarah is with you.
‘Sarah Covey. Mike’s sister,’ Sarah announces. ‘This is Grace’s mother, Georgina Jestopheson. There have been patients who have woken up from comas after years, haven’t there? With “cognitive function”?’
The sock-it-to-them doctor is unabashed. ‘Yes, there are occasionally stories in the press about such cases, but on closer scrutiny you’ll see they are different medically.’
‘And what about stem-cell therapy?’ you ask. ‘Growing new neurons or what-have-you?’
You’re still grabbing at information half heard on the news driving home or skimmed over in the Sunday papers.
But I’m holding onto it too – imagining heavy lifting equipment heaving that wrecked ship of a body off the ocean floor; the rust being scraped from my eyes.
‘There’s no proof that any of these therapies will work. They’ve mainly been used on patients suffering from degenerative disease, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, rather than on massive trauma.’
He turns from Sarah to you. ‘You must want to know how long her state will continue this way. The answer is that it can last a very long time. There’s no reason why your wife should die. She’s breathing for herself and we are feeding her through a tube, which we will continue to do. So this state can go on indefinitely. But I’m not sure that it qualifies as living in the way we think of it. And although now it seems a relief that she’s not going to die, it can have its own particular problems for the family.’
Now that I am a long-term burden I’m ‘your wife’, underscoring your onerous responsibility.
‘Are you talking about a court order for withdrawing food and fluid?’ Sarah asks, and I think if a tiger was reincarnated as a police officer she would look like Sarah.
‘Of course not,’ Dr Bailstrom says. ‘It’s early days and would be premature to-’
‘But that’s where you’re headed?’ Sarah interrupts; prowling around her, growling.
‘A lawyer?’ she asks.
‘A police officer.’
‘A tigress protecting her brother who she’s been a mother to,’ I add, to try and clarify the situation for him, and loving Sarah for this.
‘We simply want to be straightforward with you,’ the sock-it-to-them doctor continues. ‘In time, yes, there may be a conversation about whether it’s in Grace’s best interests-’
Sarah interrupts again. ‘Enough of this. I agree with my brother that Grace can think and hear. But that’s not the point.’ She pauses then drops a word at a time into the silent pool that this room has become.
‘She. Is. ALIVE.’
Realising he’s met more than his match in Sarah, the doctor turns back to you. I see that Jenny has slipped in.
‘Mr Covey, I think-’
‘She’s more intelligent than the lot of you,’ you say, interrupting while I cringe – they are consultant neurologists, darling, brain surgeons. You take no notice. ‘Knows about books, paintings, all sorts of stuff; interested in everything. She doesn’t see how clever she is but she’s the brightest person I’ve ever met.’
‘What goes on in that head of yours?’ you’d asked me, a year into our romance, with admiration and affection. While you had wide open prairies in your head, I had libraries and galleries, stuffed full.
‘It doesn’t all just disappear,’ you continue. ‘All those thoughts she has and feelings and knowledge; all that kindness and warmth and funniness. It can’t just go.’
‘Mr Covey, as neurologists, we-’
‘You’re scientists. Yes. Did you know that four billion years ago it rained for thousands of years, making the oceans?’
They are listening politely; they’ll allow you this time to go mentally AWOL after devastating news. But I know where you’re going with this. You’d told Addie about it a few months ago; livening up his water-cycle homework.