The Ward (29 page)

‘Nah. Well, you never said. And he insisted you looked perfect all the time. You seriously don’t remember? Okay. In the beginning you used to get up early, put on your make-up, get
back into bed. So that when he woke up you’d be all, like, perfect. You were honestly buying into fuckedup shit like that. God, I can’t believe you can’t remember any of
this.’

‘But, since the accident, he’s been so… nice.’

‘Yeah? Well I’m just saying, girl. Watch your back.’ She stands up, adjusts her dress with a wiggle. ‘It’ll all come back to you in time.’

I walk her to the door and she steps forward and enfolds me in her arms. ‘Sheesh, girl, your tits get bigger or something?’ She stands back.

‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

‘No!’

‘Anyway, must fly. Hey, I got the Miss Sixty gig, how cool is that?’

‘That’s great, Noli.’

For a second she really looks at me, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. ‘Call me, yeah?’ she says.

I let her out of the townhouse, and lean my forehead against the door.

That was way too close.

Now will you see sense, Lisa?

I’m trying hard to pretend everything’s normal, but it feels like a lifetime since I last sat at this desk. A different life, in fact. Out of habit, I log on to my
MindRead dashboard, but it all seems trivial to me now. I don’t give a shit what these chattering people are talking about, or understand how I ever did.

Lizzie brings me my coffee.

‘Thanks,’ I say, and she smiles and turns away, just as she always has. ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Lizzie. Sit. You mind?’

‘No,’ she says, ‘of course not.’

‘Everyone’s looking at me, like, I don’t know, like I’m contagious or something.’

She smiles. ‘It was scary, when you collapsed.’

‘It was just measles.’

‘You still look a bit rough though, Farrell. Are you okay?’ She hesitates. ‘I mean with Katya as well. Is everything all right?’

‘Yeah. Sorted out. She’s… you know.’

‘Farrell?’

‘Ja?’

‘I’m so sorry that you were taken to No Hope. I swear, I should have taken you to Morningside myself.’

‘It’s fine. It’s all sorted out now.’

Eduardo strolls into the studio wearing sandals and plus-fours, carrying lunch in a pretentious brown bag. He spots me at my desk. ‘Farrell! Amico! You’re back,’ he yells in
his faux continental accent. He’s a fucking Portuguese boy from Edenvale, not a catwalk fixer from Milan or whatever he passes himself off as. But that’s our little secret. Over the
years he’s kept some of mine. ‘I would have fired that Mike bastardo, but he did the job himself. Never came back to work. But listen, listen, we’re going to help you deal with
what happened.’ Knowing his management style, this means he’ll probably arrange a group therapy session or a seance or something.

‘Thanks, but I was just sick. A virus, that’s all. I’m fine. Really. I just want to get back to work.’ Lizzie notices me minimising my MindRead screen as he passes me en
route to his office.

I don’t even know where to start to ‘deal with what happened’. But here at the office, away from hospitals and bandages and masks – and away from her – at least I
have a bit of space to myself.

This afternoon I should really be getting back to annotating the Camps Bay Slick shoot, and I try to lose myself in the images on the screen.

‘Phone!’ Lizzie calls from her cubicle.

‘Who is it?’

‘Doctor somebody, sorry, didn’t catch the name. From the Media Park medical centre.’

Finally. The first thing I did on Saturday afternoon while Lisa slept was head to the clinic to get a full check-up and blood tests. I didn’t care that I had to pay weekend rates; I needed
to know that whatever they’d done to me hadn’t caused any permanent damage.

I snatch the receiver up.

‘Mr Farrell, Dr Traverso here. How are you feeling today?’

‘Fine. Better, anyway. Are the blood test results in?’

He harrumphs. ‘I’ll get to that in a minute. How is your vision?’

‘Great.’ Thank God for that, at least. The images on screen are sharp and crisply defined; I’m still able to doctor a single pixel on the fly. Whatever else that fucked-up
Nurse Nomsa might have done, she at least gave me the right drugs. Dr Traverso confirmed that Maxitrol was the appropriate medication. If it wasn’t for her, maybe my eyes wouldn’t have
healed at all.

‘And the test results?’ I prompt him.

He hesitates. ‘Well, your white-cell count is normal, which indicates that the infection is no longer in your system; liver count’s good, protein’s fine, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So
you’re looking fine. But I must tell you, the bloodwork findings did reveal some other… oddities.’

‘Like what?’

‘It’s probably nothing you should worry about, Mr Farrell, there don’t seem to be any serious side effects. But it would help if you could tell me the name of the doctor or
doctors who treated you at New Hope.’

I almost laugh out loud.
Doctors, Dr Traverso? In No Hope? I don’t think so. Maybe you should speak to my butcher.
‘Um… Can I get back to you on that? I don’t
remember… I’ll have to look them up.’

‘No problem. And we’d like to schedule some follow-up tests at your convenience.’

Christ. The last thing I want to do is go back to a fucking doctor’s room. I’ll make an appointment as soon as things have settled down here. For now, as long as my eyes are fine,
I’ll get by.

‘I don’t know
what
they were giving you in there,’ he’s saying. ‘But I’d really like to know what they had in mind.’

No you wouldn’t, Doctor. If I tell him, he’ll think I’m insane. I mumble something about calling him back and hang up.

What the fuck was that place? I’m still not sure. Could an illegal organharvesting ring be so slick and organised? That’s a fucking scary prospect. It’s probably the black ops
of the medical-aid or pharmaceutical companies. And what’s scary is that there must be experimentation like that going on all the time. It’s a massive industry. Drug trials are just
the tip of the iceberg. I must have signed whatever authorisation they needed when I was out of it. Jesus, what a nightmare. But at least there’s some explanation.

But an experimental face transplant? On a perfectly healthy woman? The idea of Katya’s perfection being so needlessly destroyed… that I cannot fucking understand. And what the hell
happened to her before the corrective surgery? How could she have crashed so badly? Could it really have just been the coke? That’s what Nomsa seemed to blame it on, but I wasn’t really
listening. I
knew
she was still using, but I refuse to feel guilty. We’ve been over it a hundred times; she has to make her own decisions. She’s a fucking adult.

Was.

Was
a fucking adult.

I’m still struggling to accept that she’s dead. That this time she won’t come back.

‘Josh? You okay?’ I look up at Lizzie, my vision blurred.

I wipe my eyes with the back of my arm. ‘Yes. Sorry.’

‘More coffee?’

‘Thanks.’

And what about this Mike guy? The one who apparently delivered me to New Hope and then disappeared? He must have been working for them. Should I get on to HR and track down his CV? Fuck, what
would be the point now? Eduardo said he’s long gone.

I turn back to the photos on my screen. Blue sea and palm trees. The interns will airbrush out the litter and the hobos.

It doesn’t make it any easier to accept that Katya’s dead when her face is still living in my apartment. That Lisa’s a strange woman. She’s so unconfident; it’s
irritating how she curls into herself. If she just stood up straight and pushed her chest out, wore some decent clothes, she wouldn’t have any reason to feel ugly. This morning, in
Katya’s summer dress and trying on some black wedges, her legs didn’t look too bad. Not toned, of course, but long and a decent shape. When I walked in and she was wearing one of
Kay’s wigs, I remembered a photo June showed me of Kay as a kid, twelve, maybe thirteen years old. All long legs and puppy fat. Seeing Lisa like that, it made me wonder what Kay would have
looked like if she hadn’t wanted to model – if Glenn hadn’t wanted her to model. Probably a lot like Lisa. In body shape, at least.

Now, I don’t know, it would almost be like taking that young Katya and giving her a second chance. If it wasn’t for that fucking pig, Glenn. And June, his pathetic little enabler.
Just because she’s nice to me doesn’t mean she’s not as much to blame for what happened to Katya.

That’s right
. If they weren’t the crap parents they are, Katya wouldn’t have started taking drugs in the first place. She wouldn’t be dead. The fucking miserable
bastards make me sick.

I realise I’m about to snap my stylus and get up before I break anything. I climb the stairs to the mezzanine deck and grab a sparkling water out of the fridge. A group from design is
sitting on two of the couches looking at a set of pozzies. A couple of them smile across at me.

And what exactly
am
I going to do with Lisa? Katya’s Sedal shoot in Brazil is not until next month – three weeks away. Christ. Can we fake it for that long? Maybe I could tell
Glenn and June that a designer’s booked her for Rio Fashion Week as an in-house model, and they need her in a week or so for preliminary fittings. That way they’d believe that
she’d be away for two, maybe even three months. That would give me some time to make a proper plan.

Say we have a big farewell at the airport, make sure that Glenn’s convinced that she’s off on a long trip. Then Lisa emails Glenn and says she’s staying in South America,
she’s dumped me and is living with Enrique fucking Iglesias. But that would never work; Glenn will just jump on an aeroplane to see her.

Fuck
. It has to be a permanent plan. Glenn’s
always
going to be up my nose. He’s always going to want to see her. Lisa can’t be Katya forever. And something
about the way June looked at Lisa this morning makes me nervous. I don’t know if she bought it. If she says anything to Glenn, he’ll be straight round, probably with a couple of his
heavies. If he finds out what’s really happened, he’s going to kill me and Lisa. Twice.

I hear myself giggle, but it’s panicked hysteria.
Jesus
, I’m still in so much shit. I shouldn’t have listened to Lisa when she suggested the plan in the first place;
it’s insane. But what else could I have done?

One step at a time. I invoke my calming mantra as I walk back to my desk. If I can get Lisa to South America for a couple of months, at least I’ll buy myself some time. It’s the best
I can do for now. And in the meantime, before she goes, I’ll have to work harder at turning Lisa into Katya, because we’re going to have to see Glenn and June again –
there’s that fucking birthday dinner on Wednesday. We’ll have to go. If we start making excuses, June will just get more suspicious.

Lizzie approaches with my coffee, a man in a suit following closely behind her. ‘Mr Farrell, you have a visitor.’
Mr Farrell?
She obviously thinks this is someone important,
and is bringing her A-game: the attentive and professional personal assistant. Who the fuck is he, anyway? He’s wearing a fedora for God’s sake, even though they went out in the
nineties. The suit he’s wearing isn’t cheap, but it’s badly cut. Unremarkable face, no product. Seiko watch. Barker shoes, polished but not glistening. Too out of touch for a
designer or creative. Too badly tailored to be a fashion rep. Too smart to be a cop or a taxman. He might be an advertising sales rep.

‘Thanks, Ms Gebhart,’ I say. ‘Please, sit,’ I say to the man and shove some papers aside so that he has some desk space in front of him.

‘Mr Joshua Alphonse Farrell?’

Lizzie snickers on her way back to her station, but I’m suddenly skewered by a stave of ice. Nobody, except for those bastards in that experimental fucking clinic, ever uses my middle
name.

‘That’s me. How can I help?’

‘I’m Node Agent Rosen, associated with Mutual Medical Shortfall Insurance.’ He extends his hand and only his thumb and ring finger are intact. His index finger and middle
finger are lopped at the first joint. His little finger is missing altogether.

I feel like I’ve just woken up again, as if I just dreamed coming home. My face is instantly sheened with cold sweat. I glance around me; I’m still in the studio. Lizzie looks across
at me and I smile weakly at her. She watches me with concern for a few seconds then turns back to her screen.

He’s still holding his hand out. I can’t bring myself to touch him. I pretend to reach out my hand and hammishly knock a pile of prints off the desk. I bend to pick them up, taking
my time. I look up briefly, then drop down again. That folder he’s just placed on the desk. That’s the fucking contract I signed in the clinic. Jesus. This can’t be happening. I
pray for a hole to open up in the floor, but nothing happens, and eventually I have to surface.

He’s smiling at me expectantly, apparently unfazed by my rudeness.

‘Why I’m here, Mr Farrell, is because you haven’t yet met with a node agent, so I have come for a courtesy consultation. I hope this is a convenient time for you. I would have
called, but it appears the numbers you left are out of operation.’ Of course they are. I just made up any fucking number when I was filling in the form. He smiles across at me, mutilated hand
lying like a claw on the folder. ‘Just as well we know where you work and live,’ he says. The smile snaps off. ‘You have your copy of the contract?’ he continues.

‘Uh. It’s at home.’ One of the first things I did when I got home was chuck it in the wheelie bin outside the apartment. It was just a scam. I just signed it to play their game
and get out of there. It was just a fucking
scam
.

The fact that this mutilated man – so clearly one of
them
– is sitting across from me in
my
office, in
my
life, makes me want to vomit. I feel like I’m
going to have a heart attack.

‘Everything okay, Mr Farrell?’ Lizzie says, walking over to us.