Heller's Revenge (23 page)

But without warning, I lost
control. The car veered dangerously to the left and I tried to
steer it to the right, wrenching the wheel all the way. It didn’t
respond. We jumped the curb and I slammed on the brakes, but it was
too late. The brakes locked up and we skidded, crashing headlong
into a two-metre high concrete retaining wall, the airbags
inflating immediately.

Everything was a blur after
that. It was quiet after the impact, almost peaceful, the only
sound a rhythmic pinging noise and a gentle hissing from the
crushed engine. When I looked over at Niq, he was limp and
unconscious, unnaturally sprawled against his door, blood pouring
from his head and his hand, the airbag pressing up against him. I
tried to undo my seatbelt so I could drag him from the car, but I
couldn’t seem to think straight. My arms wouldn’t do what I wanted
them to and I drifted into unconsciousness.

I woke up again in a panic.
Niq!
I turned towards him, managing this time to undo my
seatbelt and reach for him. There was blood everywhere. He wasn’t
moving. But I wasn’t either I soon realised, as I attempted to
shift in my seat.

“
Niq!
” I screamed,
stretching over painfully to shake him. “Niq!”

He didn’t respond. His body was
floppy and lifeless. I rolled my head in slow motion to the other
side and thought to myself that I had to get out of the car and
find some help, but I couldn’t seem to move. People peered at me in
horror, tapping on my window and talking distraughtly into their
mobile phones, one man even attempting to pry open my crumpled
door. Then I was gone again, slumped over in the seat.

The next time I surfaced, there
were people in uniform all over us. Lots of flashing lights. It was
night time by then and the flashing lights in their beautiful
colours set off a strobe effect in the car – red, blue, orange and
yellow. It was as though I was in a nightclub – the Extreme Pain
Club – very exclusive, but where nobody was able to dance because
of their excruciating hurting. I giggled hysterically at the
thought. Was I still alive? I wasn’t sure anymore.

I was contorted like a pretzel.
My left knee was jammed up around my ear. The dashboard was crushed
around it, trapping my left arm, the airbag a tattered balloon. The
steering wheel had impacted into my stomach at a bizarre angle.
Everyone was talking at once. There was a lot of shouting going on.
My head lolled back on the seat and I blinked, trying to focus on a
good-looking but grim man who was working determinedly to get me
out of the car. My eyes were sticky and blurry and I blinked
repeatedly, raising my free hand slowly to my face to wipe them
clear. When I brought it away, it was dripping with blood.

“Not me. Get Niq. Please. He’s
hurt,” I begged the man urgently in a weak voice. I limply clutched
his arm with my bloody hand, looking up at him with desperation in
my eyes before sinking away again.

The next time I came to, I was
out of the car lying down somewhere, maybe on a stretcher. People
were leaning over me, talking about me, touching me, doing invasive
things to me. I stared up at the stars for an instant then suddenly
tried to sit up, shoving everyone away from me.

“
What about Niq?
” I
shouted at them, hysterical with panic and pain. “What the hell’s
the matter with you people? Forget about me! Get Niq out of the
car! He’s hurt! Why isn’t anyone listening to me?”

Then there were soothing voices
and hands pushing me back down. I thought I glimpsed Heller in the
crowd, but his face was so haggard and bleak that I thought I must
be mistaken.

I didn’t remember anything else
for a long time.

~~~~~~

My eyes fluttered open. It was
semi-darkness and I had no idea where I was. I looked around, but
nothing seemed familiar. Nothing except the much-loved person
sitting in the corner, slumped fast asleep in an uncomfortable
chair, head leaning against the wall.

“Mum,” I croaked weakly. It felt
like I hadn’t spoken for a while. Her eyes flew open instantly. The
joy that infused her face at the sound of my voice made me cry. She
rushed over and hugged me tightly, careful of the tubes that poked
out of every part of me.

“Don’t cry, darling. Mum’s
here,” she soothed, cradling me tenderly and stroking my hair,
tears pouring down her own cheeks.

I kept crying for a while. I was
in so much pain. “What happened?”

“You were in a terrible car
accident. You’ve been unconscious in hospital for a week. You’ve
had some operations.” The tears fell even more heavily from her
eyes. She was finding it hard to speak. “We didn’t think you were
going to make it, my darling baby. But the doctors are now telling
us that you’re going to be okay. Eventually.”

“I’m so tired,” I murmured and
drifted off again, comforted by her gentle touch.

When I woke up again I was
panicked, back in the car. I sat up violently, accidently ripping
tubes out of my arm and causing stabbing pain in my abdomen. Alarms
started beeping urgently.

“
Niq!
” I screamed,
looking around blindly in fright. “Where’s Niq?”

Strong arms circled me and I
heard Heller’s comforting voice. “He’s safe, Matilda. He’s in
another room. You can see him soon.”

“It’s all my fault,” I confessed
groggily and started crying, clinging to him.

“It’s not your fault. Please
don’t cry, my sweet,” he murmured, kissing my forehead. He had to
move away then as a team of nurses rushed in to give me an
injection of something and started to reattach my tubes. I kept my
eyes on Heller while they worked on me. He looked awful, far from
his normal immaculate self. His clothes were rumpled as if he’d
slept in them and he was unshaven, with tired red-rimmed eyes. Our
eyes were locked together as I drifted away again.

Will was sitting on the chair in
the corner when I woke up next. I focussed my eyes on him. He
looked good and I made an attempt to stretch my lips into a smile.
It took a lot of effort. He jumped up hopefully at my slight
movement and rushed over to me, grasping my hands.

“It’s my job, Will. That’s what
I do,” I whispered weakly, continuing our last conversation.

“I know it is, sweetheart, I
know. Don’t worry about that right now. Just concentrate on getting
better. We all just want to get you out of here.”

“I want to go home.”

“Soon. Just focus on getting
better.”

“Where’s Heller? I want to see
him.”

He shot me a wounded glance.
“He’s with Niq at the moment. He’ll be back soon.”

I fell asleep again. And so the
days passed.

I suffered through a very slow
and painful recovery, spending over two months in hospital in
total. I had broken ribs, a fractured pelvis, a broken arm and some
internal injuries that had required emergency surgery. I looked an
absolute fright, with black eyes and extensive cuts and bruising
all over my body, including a terrible gash over my right eyebrow.
I couldn’t bear to face my reflection in the mirror. I felt as
though Death had visited, played with me cruelly and then left
without me.

Wanting desperately to be free
of the hospital, I behaved myself and did everything I was told,
including the tortuous physical therapy and additional exercises I
was instructed to do. And each day I healed a little more, felt a
little stronger and a little less tired.

The first day I was deemed fit
enough to move around, I demanded to be taken to Niq. Everyone
advised against it, but I insisted stubbornly and bluntly refused
to cooperate with anyone until I was allowed. If I was honest,
there was a part of me that didn’t believe everyone when they said
he was alive. I worried that they were only trying to spare me and
I really needed the proof of my own eyes. I endured a painful
transfer to a wheelchair and an orderly wheeled me to Niq’s room.
He was lying motionless on his bed, pale and small, tubes still
attached to him. Daniel was sitting on a chair pulled up next to
the bed, holding Niq’s hand. He was so gaunt and drawn that I
wondered if he had left the room since Niq was admitted.

“Daniel.”

He looked over at me with
red-rimmed, weary eyes and sprang up to hug me fiercely. “He’s
comatose, Tilly. He received some brain trauma. No one knows what
will happen to him or if he’ll ever recover.”

I started crying again and I
couldn’t stop. I sat in my wheelchair, clutching Niq’s hand to my
cheek, crying and crying and crying. I’d never realised that one
person could shed so many tears, but I just didn’t seem to be able
to stop.

I sat there all day. People came
and went – Heller, Will, Mum and Dad, my brothers, Daniel, the
twins, Rumbles, Dixie, doctors, nurses, all trying to persuade me
to go back to bed. I ignored everyone and sat next to Niq’s bed, in
silent vigil for my dearest little friend. I’d been responsible for
his safety and I’d failed him badly. Heller was never going to let
me take him anywhere ever again. He’d be trapped in the Warehouse
forever, because of me.

Heller returned late in the
afternoon and again tried to make me go back to bed. I turned my
tear-stained face to him. “He told me that he thought of me as his
mother.”

He pulled up a chair and sat
next to me, holding my other hand. “It’s not your fault, my
sweet.”

“Yes, it is!” I insisted, tears
pouring down my cheeks. “I didn’t drive properly. I was driving too
fast. I was trying to slow down because I knew I was driving
dangerously, but I lost control of the car. I couldn’t steer
it.”

“They shot out one of your rear
tyres. It’s not your fault you lost control.”

I stared at him. My voice
cracked as I spoke. “Are you lying to me to make me feel
better?”

“No! That’s what happened. It’s
not your fault, Matilda.” In my injured state, it took me a while
to absorb what he’d said.

“All this time, I thought I was
to blame.” More tears. Where in God’s name did they all come
from?

He squeezed my hand. “You’re
not. There’s someone to blame all right, but it’s not you. I know
who it is. We traced the number plate on the car following you. And
by God, he’s going to pay for this.” And the expression on his face
and tone of his voice frightened the hell out of me.

Niq stirred in his sleep. Heller
jumped to his feet and gently stroked his hair.

“Niq,” he said quietly but with
a desperate urgency. “It’s Heller. Come back to us, Niq. Please,
darling boy.” He continued to speak gently in the same vein. There
was another stir from the bed. Heller glanced at me, a hint of hope
in his eyes, and pressed the nurses’ button.

He explained the stirrings to
the nurse who arrived in response and she rushed off to find a
doctor. There was much conferral and some disbelief, until Niq
definitely moved again with everyone in the room as a witness. More
conferral and muttered debate, probing, testing and, in the end, a
diagnosis of ‘uncertain recovery’.

Heller forced me to eat
something and to take a laborious and painful shower. But he
couldn’t stay awake all night, whereas I felt that I had been
sleeping for years. I sat with Niq, holding his hand, kissing it,
and talking to him long into the night. Close to dawn, just when I
thought I couldn’t stay awake one more second and Heller had been
dozing, awkwardly cramped in a chair for a few hours, Niq’s eyes
flickered open.

He looked around and focussed on
me briefly. “Tilly,” he said and smiled weakly, before his eyes
closed again.

“
Niq!
” Of course I
started crying again. That’s all I seemed capable of doing. I
pressed the nurse button straight away.

We all rejoiced at this sign of
improvement and with each passing day there were more and more
positive signs that Niq was going to recover.

One day, while I was in bed
reading a magazine, the police came to interview me. It wasn’t
every day that a car was shot at, even in this city. I told them
that I didn’t remember anything. Nothing at all. Not one little
detail. I professed complete ignorance about why someone would want
to shoot at Niq and me. I swore black and blue that such a thing
had never happened to me before. They left, suspicious but none the
wiser. I trusted Heller to sort it out, because I couldn’t deal
with anything more taxing than choosing what to have for dinner
each evening.

My own recovery was coming along
well, and finally I was ready to return home. After much
excruciating physical therapy, I was able to walk again with a
stick, my pelvic bone, ribs and arm healed, but stiff and sore. I
had one final check up and a last chat with the consulting doctor
before I was due to be released very late in the day. Mum was there
with me, holding my hand as he regarded the both of us with a
serious face.

“Tilly, I’m sure your mother has
told you that we had to operate on you after your accident. You had
some serious internal bleeding, mostly because the steering wheel
impacted into your stomach. Everything is fine inside you now,
except for one thing.”

I stared at him, eyes huge with
anxiety.

“The accident has affected your
ovaries, I’m afraid. They were crushed badly. You’re going to find
that your periods will become erratic and unpredictable. They’ll
probably stop all together. And it’s never one hundred percent
certain of course, but it’s most probable that you will find it
impossible to conceive in the future.”

I sat for a few moments, taking
in what he’d said. “Are you saying I can’t have children?
Ever?”

“I’m saying that it is almost
certain that you are not ever going to be able to conceive.
Medicine isn’t precise of course, and maybe . . .” He petered out,
not wanting to give me any false hope.

I started crying again. God, I
was starting to bore myself with my sogginess. Mum decided to join
me in the symphony of tears and we sat on my bed, crying together.
I really didn’t even know why I was crying, because I had
absolutely no interest in having children, but I didn’t like my
options being taken away from me like that. The poor doctor was
completely overwhelmed by two weeping women on his hands, and
escaped as soon as politely possible.