19.08.19 (Clinic: BAR55, 15.08.19)
Consultant: Dr. Barriga
Ophthalmology—Direct Line: 020 5489 9000/ Fax: 020 5487 5291
Minard Surgery Group, Minard Road, SE6 5UX
Dear Dr. Wilson,
Hannah Somerville (06.07.93)
Flat 01, 3 Broadfield Rd, SE6 5UP
NHS No.: 566 455 6123
This patient was reviewed in the eye clinic today at her own request. Her visual acuity is 6/6 in the right eye and 6/5 in the left. The eyes are white and quiet. The CD ratio remains about 0.5 in both. There is no significant visual field defect and no evidence of glaucoma.
We have seen this young lady at least three times in the last six months, and can ascertain no physical cause for her complaints of intermittent visual disturbance and periods of “complete blindness.” These are reported as having lasted up to two hours on occasion, and she believes that their frequency is increasing.
I am of the opinion that we can do no more for her. I have referred her for psychological evaluation and discharged her from the eye clinic, with the advice to see her optician on an annual basis.
“I mean, all that fuckin’ gabbin’ and over-sharin’ like, everyone thinkin’ they’re bein’ all civilized again, and look how quickly that went the way of everythin’ else when they thought one had got in tonight.” He rocked back on his heels; the dirt crackled against his boots. The fire warmed her face and she leaned closer to it. She was always so bloody cold.
“Sharin’s never a good idea anyways. That posh divvy, he’s half mad on that Debbie one, the auld arse don’t know half as much as he thinks he does, Jimmy is more fuckin’ terrified of wild dogs than anythin’ could actually kill us. That’s all it is, ain’t it? Listenin’, findin’ out what makes folk tick, what makes ’em shit themselves. Survival instinct—if you’re smart like. Say nothin’ and let everyone else do the talkin’.”
He was from Liverpool and he was on his own. He had terrible teeth; often she could smell his breath before he even spoke. His name was Robbo. That was all she knew about him. That, and he did a whole lot of talking for someone so against it. He liked talking to her; she had no idea why.
“Why don’t you leave then?” she asked. It had started to snow: cold, glancing touches against her fire-warmed cheeks. She could hear the growing mutters and cries of dismay on the other side of the parked vans. They always built at least four fires now, one in each corner like a mobile Roman infantry camp.
“Nowhere to go is there? And folk need folk, like. That’s just survival instinct too, ain’t it? Some folks, they got that more than other folks. And, I mean, it’s not like you know which kind you’re gonna be till it happens, ay? Soft lads like Jimmy are scared of their own shadow, then you got the likes of Bob fuckin’ Marley runnin’ straight at everythin’ like a proper weapon. Debbie and that other bird—the Scottish one…”
“Sarah.”
“Right. Sarah. I mean, what have they done since we all hooked up, eh?”
“They’re just scared.”
“I’m fuckin’ scared. Don’t stop me helpin’ out, goin’ on patrol. I mean, explain that, ay? You look at the animal kingdom, right? It’s not like Peter fuckin’ Rabbit wakes up one night and thinks, fuck it, what’s the point? I can’t be arsed runnin’ away from anythin’ that wants to ’ave me for brekkie. Might as well give up and die like. Or just cry meself to sleep in me nice comfy VW.”
She smiled. “It’s not the same.” He was rattled. He was always wired, always opinionated, but the events of the day and then the wild dog that had snuck past the fires had got to him. His sweat was fresh, but it smelled bad; it reminded her of the days when no one had understood what was going on. When everyone had been trying so desperately to get away from a thing that they hadn’t yet realized was everywhere.
“I mean, fuck, look at you, ’ann. You don’t just go out on reccies, you fuckin’ lead a few. And you can’t see your arse from your fuckin’ elbow.”
She didn’t answer.
“Arr ey, you can’t, come on like. I’m not bein a fuckin’ dick. It’s a valid fuckin’ point.”
She liked the way his fucks and likes and dicks always sounded like the hissing hot water siphons of the coffee shops that she used to hide in when her sight started getting really bad. It was comforting somehow. She liked the way that he admired her too. Even before she’d proved her worth to everyone else, he’d always been the first to volunteer to sit watch with her. Back when she’d just been the blind girl.
There had been many convoys in those first few months, but none had stopped for her—or if they had, they’d moved on swiftly again without her. This one had initially said yes, she suspected, only because of Robbo. And as convoys went, it only just qualified. One of the vans was his beat-up Ford, still smelling of methylated spirits and paint and hash. The other—the VW—had belonged to a Brethren couple whose names she had already forgotten.
Robbo swore when they both heard sudden movement behind him.
“Grub’s up, ladies.”
“Nice one,” Robbo said, pretending that he hadn’t cursed, that he couldn’t hear Marley’s low chuckle. “Want some scran, ’annah?”
She put out her hands and relished the sudden warmth of the foil tray. “Thanks.”
Marley was big, she could tell. Sometimes—often—she could sense something other than scorn or tightly wound caution in him, especially when they were alone. Once, he had followed her to the shallow pit that they always dug on the periphery of their camp, and as she’d squatted and peed, she’d felt him watching; she’d breathed in the sea smells of him. If it wasn’t for Robbo, she knew that she’d have a lot more to fear from Marley than she already did.
After Marley left them alone again, Robbo attacked his stew with gusto. She suspected that he always ate with his mouth wide open; she found the sound of that oddly comforting too. She ate quietly, mechanically, tasting nothing at all.
“Why won’t this snow fuckin’ stop?” he eventually muttered. “Last thing we fuckin’ need is another fuckin’ whiteout.”
“I’ll be able to hear them,” she said, and he heaved a great sigh, even though it was a lie. It never failed to amaze her how easily that lie had been believed from the very start, as though the immediate consequence of her blindness should be a nearly preternatural sharpening of all her other senses. They did believe it though—all of them—and it was just as well. It made her useful, maybe indispensable. She knew that even Robbo’s surrendered Peter Rabbits remembered the night that the Whites had ambushed them while they’d all been sleeping. She knew that they remembered her warning scream, the dead White at her feet next to the opened VW door, the bloodied crowbar in her hands. When the Brethren couple had staggered out of the van, they’d pulled their coats tight around their bellies, crying and sobbing that God had saved them.
“Oh, aye?” Robbo had said, after discovering the body of a Pakistani man, whose name Hannah had also forgotten, lying by the makeshift entrance to their camp. “What he do to piss Him off then, ay?” The Pakistani had died badly. Even though Robbo had never told her exactly how, she’d been able to smell it; she’d been able to see it through the horrified witness of everyone else.
They’d burned both bodies on the periphery of their camp, and then buried the smoking bonfire under heavy, wet clods of grass.