Even though I am able to make myself tea and toast with one hand, I’m not capable of leaving the house today. So I take my breakfast back to bed and slide under my duvet to create a cocoon. Normally the thought of getting crumbs on the covers is enough to drive me away from this scene, but today it is a comfort. In the end, it takes me four hours to peel my fingers from my neck.
When I was dreaming, every thought and feeling was piercing me like tiny ice shards crawling into my nervous system. For some reason this reminds me of Clive’s scar, the one not unlike mine. It’s two inches wide, a slash as opposed to a cut, and the more I know about Clive, the more I realise that scar holds a secret.
I glance at my own mark. No one knows what secrets this scar masks or the tragedies it led to. Those secrets stayed in London, stuck firmly in my past. I didn’t let them follow me down here. I hold the lock and key to the story and I don’t utter a word of it to anyone. With my tattoo, I’ve gone as far as to try to hide its very existence.
So is the same true of Clive’s scar? Or does he hold the lock, and is he just waiting for someone to come along with the key?
My fingers hover over my carotid again, eager to do the next check even though it isn’t time.
‘Nobody knows about this,’ he’d said. ‘This is my secret. And now it is ours.’
The more I wonder… Is the key supposed to be me? Am I supposed to find out what happened to leave his heart broken? Not in the way I thought with my PhD study, but in finding out what happened to Clive?
What I want is for life to get back to normal. I’m hoping Lucy being home will be the first step towards that. Then work can go back to the consistent tick-box process that it usually is even if that does mean the return of boring biscuits. And any future contacts with study participants will be scheduled appointments, with no added risks of forming friendships and being compelled to care.
Despite trying to cast my thoughts elsewhere, I keep coming back to the dream. I don’t know how to block out the sensation of not feeling a pulse. The memory of my father is closer to the surface than it has ever been. It’s floating there and pointing out with no uncertainty that it was my fault. That I was unable to save his broken heart.
My coping mechanism has always been to trace my pulse. It may be totally irrational, especially given that I can’t stop, but I find it’s the only reassurance that helps. It’s stupid, I know, because if my heart was in trouble, the likelihood of being able to take my own pulse is minimal.
But what once was serving to check that I was still alive is now beginning to prevent me from living.
Today, I should be at work. I should be seeing Tess and making sure Clive settles in. I should be preparing for Lucy coming home.
Instead I’m stuck. I function only to make tea and toast, to use the loo and take my pulse. I’m only able to stop checking my heart rate for two minutes at a time. I know, because I’ve taken count.
Each of those one-hundred-and-twenty-second periods are longer than any pop song I’ve ever listened to on the radio. They seem longer than a five-minute wait for the bus. They seem longer than the length of time it took for the paramedics to arrive all those years ago. It seems infinitely longer than so many things and yet, of course, it isn’t.
It takes two minutes to wash my hands. Two minutes to butter my bread. Two minutes to change into fresh pyjamas. You can achieve a lot in two minutes.
By midday, I know I need to get a handle on things. Everything within my logical mind knows that nothing bad is going to happen. If I take my hand away and give that small patch of skin an hour or so just to breathe, everything will be fine. No harm will come to me. My heart will not stop. Life will carry on. But how can I be sure? How can any of us be sure?