“So who is the right Adam?”
“I don’t follow.”
The sun streaked in through the dirty windows of Iris Fleet’s office. She was sitting back in her chair, arms crossed over her bosom. If Adam had to think, he would wonder why she was presenting herself in such a defensive manner.
“You’ve said you don’t feel like yourself. That you feel all wrong, since your accident. So I’m asking you. Who or perhaps what is the right Adam? The correct version of you? Does Mrs Campion share this view that you are the wrong version? Does she, I wonder, think that a different version of you has emerged since the accident?”
“Probably,” Adam shrugged. “Certainly a lesser version. I mean. I’m not exactly a full man any more am I.” He gestured towards his lower half. “How the hell can she think I’m the same?”
“When something such as this occurs, we can lose all sense of self. The phantom limb will contribute to this sense of loss and longing. It reminds us of what we no longer have and we struggle. Depression and self image crisis is very common post trauma. You essentially have traumatic stress. I have worked with a lot of ex-service men that have come back from the middle-east, suffering extensive trauma to various parts of their bodies. With them, the results of such an event varies but ultimately share the same root. Have you been using compression garments? To help with the phantom limb?”
“Yeah, but it’s not that. I accept that I no longer have the use of my legs. I’m pretty resilient, or I like to think I am. It’s more that I’m, well, if you’ll excuse my language, fucking pissed off. I’m pissed off at myself for buying that stupid fucking bike, I’m pissed off at myself for going out in those conditions, I’m pissed off at myself for riding it at a speed blatantly not suitable for those conditions and I’m fucking pissed off I don’t have my fucking legs.” He paused, realised he hadn’t taken a breath, and inhaled slowly before blowing the air out noisily. “Sorry. I’ve never ranted like that before.”
Iris continued to sit back in her seat. Behind her plain laminated desk. To her side was an old iMac that was probably two generations behind what was current. Beside that was a stack of brightly coloured plastic trays overflowing with paperwork. A small photo faced her, with Adam unable to see what was on it. He appraised her, as she no doubt appraised him. First appointment and it didn’t seem to be going so well. He couldn’t see how she was going to help him, and he didn’t see the need for a psychological prodding of his brain workings. It wasn’t his brain that was the problem. It was his fucking legs. Or lack of fucking legs.
Ya won’ even be doing any mo’ fucking with no legs boi.
The inner voice came out of nowhere and he stifled the manic urge to laugh, thrusting the knuckle of his left hand in to his mouth and biting down.
Iris Fleet unfolded her arms and took a few sheets of paper from the top of the pile on the uppermost tray, spreading the sheets out in front of her, bending forward to look over the content. Despite himself, Adam found himself focusing his attention on the dark triangle that was formed from the opening in her blouse, straining to find detail within. He chided himself and looked away embarrassed, knowing that she wouldn’t have even been aware he had done so. He felt heat rising to his cheeks and found something outside the window to focus on. There was nothing but the plain blue sky, but it was a cold blue. There was no heat from the sun, no warmth. Far above a jet dripped across the glass, leaving a contrail streak that bled into the vast azure ceiling. They were too high up. There was nothing to see. Ex pet whatever that was in the corner of the glass. A slight green, the natural geometry of the familiar. He didn’t expect to see that here, not so high up.
Huh, ivy.
“What was that?” Iris was looking across the desk at him, her arms back folded across her chest. His eyes flickered to below her chin, and he noticed that she had done the errant top button back up, which caused the heat to continue to rise. He supposed that she had just noticed when glancing down at the paperwork, and it wasn’t because she had felt his eyes boring into her. Then again, her expression was unreadable.
She’s at least ten years older than you. Possibly fifteen. Not your type either. What’s wrong with you?
“Nothing, just funny that there’s…” He was going to say about the ivy only he must have shifted in his seat, as he couldn’t see it.
Blink.
No, he was mistaken. It was still there. It had grown. A long tendril and three leaves could be seen from where he sat, wheelchair in hand.
Was I the other Adam? Or was I myself?
A half remembered first meeting with Dr Iris Fleet. Miles away, in both distance and time.
The ivy had grown. From the corner where he had first seen it. He turned on the couch, letting the chair fall to the floor. Sweat was running from his hairline, down his forehead. He could feel it on his neck. He would need to wash before heading out. A mission in itself.
There, the tendril attached to the glass with those tiny hooks, like a centipede. He didn’t even know it could attach itself to something as smooth as glass. There was nothing for those little hooks
those legs
to attach themselves to. Yet he could see it clearly from where he sat, mere feet away. Three familiar shaped leaves and a good four or five inches of stem. From wherever it grew from, across his window. Where it was going, he would have to find out.
Unless he didn’t have to.
“Of course you don’t have to.” His voice, as ever, sounded naked when sounded aloud in the empty flat. He would never get used to it. Even before Amber and Violet left his life, in the other house, if both were out, he never liked the sound of his voice. That empty space, the lack of response. He worked from home. Violet at school. Amber at work. He would hum to himself, along with the music he had on (something ambient and European - he couldn’t work with lyrics for some reason, they interrupted his thought process). That was not always enough to punctuate he silence, and he would sometimes find himself saying something entirely mundane and inconsequential out loud. Like an “ah, there you are,” when finding a particular graphic pen he had been looking for. Yet it was wrong. There would be a pregnant silence in the air afterwards. A silence on the cups of opening it’s jaws and swallowing him for daring to punctuate it with his inanities. He would wish that he could inhale sharply and withdraw the words from the air, so the atmosphere could settle back once again like the surface of an invisible lake.
He inhaled. The surface settled.
Whump.
Again.
Whump.
The other side of the wall. Thin animalistic sounds followed. Or not. He wasn’t sure if he had imagined any of it.
He checked his watch. Only Yana home. Denys at work. Wherever he worked.
He frowned. Was the exhibition today? The retrospective?
A phone rang. Somewhere nearby. He thought it could have been his. It would help him locate it. Close. He turned back around and felt around him on the couch, letting his hands slide between the cushions. There. Something hard, hot, vibrating. He pulled his hand out.
This isn’t my phone.
This was older. At least twenty years older. Nevertheless he recognised it. If not the number that was displayed as blocky black text on a yellow background. He pressed a button, holding the phone up to this ear.
“Hello?”
Static. White noise. Waves breaking on a faraway shore.
“Hello?” He said again.
“…cream.” The voice was barely audible, yet there was no mistaking it as a child’s voice. A girl.
“Say that again?” Adam pulled the phone away, trying to find a way to put the volume up. Up and down arrows beneath the display he presumed. He pressed the up arrow frantically, watching the black bars crawl and ascend across the diminutive square display.
“Sorry, you’ll need to speak up. Can you say that again?”
A rush of noise. Another digital wave crashing over an unseen beach.
“Violet? Is that you?” He went to stand up, his limbs making the movement. He felt it. Confusion as to why he was still seated.
Phantom limb, yet I don’t fucking get phantom limb.
“Da…” A fraction of a word. It could have been anything. It could have been dad.
“Vi? Is that you sweetheart? What’s wrong? What’s happened?” She was on a beach somewhere. Amber had taken her to the coast perhaps, always preferring a home boy the sea. Somewhere in Brittany, not far from where they lived? Or further afield? The south coast? A holiday? She didn’t have to tell him, and didn’t. She hadn’t contacted him in forever. Yet his daughter was calling him, on a phone that wasn’t his.
“Da…he…cream,” the voice said, fainter now, more of that digital noise washing over the words, what little fragments there were.
“Vi where are you? Tell me where you are. Tell me what’s happened.” He tried to keep his voice calm, controlled and authoritarian. Yet cracks appeared at the edge of his words. A lilt in his voice conveying the panic that was settling into his bones. “Vi, baby, it’s daddy. Where are you?” Daddy sounded wrong, but it didn’t matter. None of that mattered.
“…cream…” Almost inaudible now. Even the waves were receding, under a blanket of silence.
“Vi, please. What’s wrong?” He knew his voice was raised. A shout was not far. To hell with Yana and whatever she was doing. His daughter was in trouble.
“WHAT’S WRONG?”
There it was, but had he said it aloud?
Click.
The line was dead. Silence. No waves breaking, no child’s voice.
“Vi? Hello?” His words in a vacuum. The surface of the lake rippled.
“Fuck.”
He sat back. Mind spinning. Fragments of thoughts like pieces of a Kansas farmhouse in a tornado. Did he have his ex-wife’s number? Yes. In his phone. Except this wasn’t his phone. Despite that, he thumbed to the address book, simultaneously surprised and not to find that his contacts were all there. He navigated his way to Amber - third one down - and pressed dial. He would pay a fortune calling her in France but that was the least of his worries. His phone company could join the queue of his creditors. He held it to his ear, listening to the faint clicks and pops. A short silence and then he could hear it ringing.
And ring still.
A click and he heard her voice. He hadn’t heard it in a lifetime. Perhaps never as this Adam.
“Amber, it’s Adam,” he began. “I’ve just had a call from Vi and -”
She continued talking over him, yet he couldn’t make out a word that she was saying.
“Amber, listen to me, it’s important. It’s Adam and -”
A long beep.
Of course. Her voicemail. In French. Her new language. Her new life.
He left a message, urging her to call him. To let him know that everything was okay. He then hung up and stared dumbly at the ancient handset in his fingers. A soft furtive sound behind him.
Scratch.
Something against the glass. Something moving across the surface, almost imperceptibly slowly. Something that didn’t wish to draw attention to itself.
Whump.
Beyond his wall. The other sound began again.
Whump.
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