Two's Company
By Yahweh
- 331 reads
Doctor Sarah Cameron came out of her office at the end of the white, clinical hallway and immediately the smell of antiseptic invaded her nostrils, the kind of smell that was specific only to hospitals.
She shot a look down the sun-soaked hallway, a few doctors and visitors walking back and forth to their destinations on the floor, and saw the lift doors sliding open, one young man waiting to get on. Typical, she thought. I’ll never get down there in time.
It didn’t stop her running for it, though. Her shoes clicked loudly on the tiled floor in her speed. The young man stepped onto the empty carriage and was just about to press the button for the appropriate floor when he saw her running.
At this point he recognized her as the doctor who was treating his father for the serious car accident he had been involved in, which had caused his even more serious injuries. She also recognized him.
She was going to indicate for him to hold the doors, but he already was. She jumped on, a little breathlessly after her run, and he pressed the button for the floor he wanted.
‘Are you okay?’ John Sanderson asked her.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ She had a gentle jog every morning, so exercise wasn’t out of the ordinary to her. What was out of the ordinary to her was a mad dash along a hospital hallway in shoes rather than trainers.
‘What floor do you want?’
As she looked at the panel, she said, ‘Ground Floor, same as you.’
The lift began its gentle slide down the shaft to the ground floor, and she said, ‘How’s your father this afternoon?’
‘Doing a lot better than yesterday. He seems to be making progress each day.’
‘Yes, I would agree with that.’
‘Have you not seen him today?’ Sanderson asked.
‘No. I’ll be doing my rounds this afternoon, I’ll be seeing him then.’
‘When do you think he’ll be ready to go home?’
‘If he continues in this way, I’d say next week.’
At that point, two things happened at once. The lift jerked, rocking their footing so that they stumbled, and then it ground to a stop and the lights flickered and went out.
Sanderson shot an anxious look around his darkened surroundings, the panic beginning to rise. Immediately, a back up system activated, flooding the darkness with light again, but the lift wasn’t moving.
The panic set in now. His breathing was growing heavy and he was trembling with fear, his face as white as it could be.
Cameron saw this when she turned to look at him to find out if he was all right, and concern immediately crossed her face. ‘Are you okay?’
Through his panicked, heavy breathing, he said, ‘Not exactly. I’m not very fond of … being in enclosed spaces as it is, never mind being trapped in one with no means of escape.’
His words seemed to make his condition worse, as he realized what the situation was. His breathing became heavier and his trembling increased. As he braced himself against the back wall, she moved in front of him, placing her arms on his.
‘Relax, just relax. Sit down on the floor,’ she said. ‘Come on, sit down.’
She helped him down into a sitting position, as he slid down the wall. She kept her hands on him, steadying him. ‘Look at me,’ she said, trying to take control of the situation. ‘Look into my eyes.’ He did, and she was staring right back into his.
Cameron spoke calmly, soothingly, as she said, ‘Take a few deep breaths, slowly.’
He did so, several times, drawing the air deep into his lungs, using her eyes as a focus point. His breathing slowly returned to its natural, calm rhythm. The fear was still there, but he felt calmer, more in control.
‘We’re going to be fine,’ Cameron said, continuing to stare into his eyes. ‘We’ll get out of here before you know it.’
She smiled at him then. Continuing to stare into her eyes, he realized that they were the deepest, darkest pools he’d ever seen. For a moment he completely forgot about the predicament they were in, so captivated was he by her eyes. In fact, he realized that she was beautiful.
She was thirty, her long, thick auburn hair hung loosely down her back, pushed away from her face. When she smiled, like she was doing now, her face lit up vibrantly.
He smiled back at her. She sat on the floor beside him.
‘Have you always been afraid of enclosed spaces?’
‘Yeah, since I was a kid.’ His voice was very quiet due to the initial shock of the situation. ‘I was six when I first realized it.’ He was twenty-three now, so it had been seventeen years living with this fear. He hated it being called irrational. Those people that termed a fear irrational had fear themselves, and some people’s were a lot more ridiculous than being frightened of confined spaces. But that was okay.
When he finished speaking, it sounded as though he wasn’t finished, that there was more to say, but he didn’t continue, just left it hanging in the air. Cameron inclined her head slightly, an indication that he could continue if he wanted, or perhaps needed, to. She was genuinely interested in what he had to say, and certainly concerned.
He looked at her, and decided that he would continue. ‘Nothing traumatic happened to me. It’s just a fear, everyone’s got them. But it was one incident that made me realize it.
‘My brother is a few years older than me, and used to torment me something rotten when I was little. There was an incident when he, tormenting me, put a blanket over my head, one of those ones with the holes in. I hated it. It got to me in such a way that I had never experienced before. I haven’t since. I started hyperventilating, and I couldn’t breathe at all. I told him that, and thinking that I was just saying that so that he would release me, he said “It’s got holes in!”’
Sanderson started to look back into the past, dragging those feelings to the surface that, truth be told, didn’t need too much dragging as they had always been there.
He continued. ‘It didn’t matter to me if it had holes in or not. It felt like I was being strangled, the air being cut off from my lungs in one great rush. I broke out in a sweat. I was struggling to get out because he wouldn’t release me, making my breathing worse in the process. I got myself free from his grip and I started to calm down, my breathing returned to normal, and I was all right again. I was probably too young to realize what claustrophobia was, but that was exactly what it was.
‘Don’t get me wrong about what I’m saying about my brother. He was a good brother. It was just the way siblings carry on with each other when they’re young.
‘Anyway, that was that. It made some of the other things make sense. Like wanting the curtain and door open when I went to bed so that I didn’t feel as though the darkness was pushing in on me and crowding me. When I was out with my parents I would always guide them away from the crowds. And I still do those things now, have the curtain and door open when I go to bed, and keep away from the crowds.
‘Like I say, just a fear, everyone’s got at least one.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly say it was “Just” a fear,’ Cameron said, looking at him, wishing that he wouldn’t belittle something like that. ‘It’s real for the person who experiences it.’
He saw the look on her face, more in her eyes than anything, and said, ‘What are your fears?’
She tried lightening her features, shrugging it off in the process, but without success. When she spoke, it was as if she was trying to do exactly the same thing. ‘Something you would expect - spiders. Can’t stand the things.’
He looked closely at her, especially into the deep eyes. Something had come to the surface there, the eyes going so deep that there was a lot in them, more than anyone should have existing in them.
He could see there was more to it than what she had just said, and because of the troubled look in her eyes and on her face, he didn’t feel as though he should let it go.
‘You can talk about it,’ he said gently. ‘It might help. It just helped me.’
‘No, there’s nothing to talk about. Really,’ she added.
It wasn’t very convincing. She didn’t convince herself, never mind Sanderson. He inclined his head in the same way that she had, and she started to look uncomfortable, but not because of what she was bottling up. It had been something she had lived with for years, had never really spoken about it in any depth, and now here she was, with someone who was basically a complete stranger, a chance to let it all pour our, and she actually found herself wanting to take the chance.
She took a couple of slow, deep breaths, and let them out with a long exhalation, trying to clear her thoughts. ‘My biggest fear is losing a patient.’ She was looking down at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact. Whereas with Sanderson it had seemed as though there was more he wanted to say, with Cameron, it was absolutely definite there was more to come.
She was trying to find the right words, but realized she didn’t need to find them at all. They were right there, had been for such a long time, waiting to come out.
‘I was sixteen when it happened.’ She swallowed, trying to force back a tear as she started to relive the worst day of her life. ‘I was waiting for my mum in the World restaurant. We were supposed to be meeting at twelve-thirty for lunch.’ A tear rolled down her cheek now. ‘It was quarter-past one and still no sign. I was at a table in a corner, so had no view outside, so couldn’t see if she was coming. There was the terrible sound of crashing outside and everybody ran from the restaurant to see what was going on.
‘I joined the crowd. A car had stopped across the road at an angle. Other cars had stopped, the drivers having got out, and they were standing around in a crowd. Everyone from inside the restaurant was also in one great crowd, an unearthly silence hanging over everything. There were gentle whispers all mingled into one sound.
‘From what I could make out of what was being said, it sounded as though there had been accident. I had a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach, and pushed my way through the crowd to find out what was going on. All I could see was a figure lying on the ground and it was obvious someone had been hit. The driver of the car was kneeling beside the figure, in a terrible state. He just kept saying “I couldn’t hit the brake in time. She just ran out in front of the car.”
‘As I got closer, I saw it was Mum.’ She started crying uncontrollably now, the tears pouring like water through a break in the dam.’
Sanderson moved closer to her and put an arm around her. She buried herself in the comfort he was giving her, the comfort that she had sought from somebody for so long.
He didn’t speak. He let her have her moment, a moment that seemed as though it was a long time coming and that she needed.
After a while she stopped crying. She sat up, out of the comfort of Sanderson’s arms, and took a tissue from her pocket to dry her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You didn’t need that. I shouldn’t have put that on you. It was unprofessional of me.’
‘I don’t mind,’ he said reassuringly. ‘It seemed as though you needed it, needed a release. As for it being unprofessional, right now, you’re not exactly on duty.’
She was glad he’d said that, glad that he had understood. But then she sensed an understanding in him anyway. If she hadn’t, she would never have opened up to him.
‘Thank you,’ she said, with a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘I felt so helpless. I was frozen, and didn’t know how to break free from it.’ She started speaking as though in a world of her own. ‘I sort of had one of those dream-like experiences where you feel as though you’re completely detached from your body, looking down on things from above. I just didn’t have a clue what to do. I can’t even remember clearly what happened after that.
‘Thinking back to that day the times I have, I remember people saying that she did run out in front of that car. The worst thing about knowing that is that the only reason she was in such a rush was because she was late meeting me.’
She started crying uncontrollably again, and it seemed that it had all built up over the last fourteen years and was now coming out in one great outpouring. Sanderson took her in his arms again, and she buried herself in his comfort. He thought he saw it then. She blamed herself. Because her mother was so late, she wouldn’t have been in a rush otherwise, and Cameron felt it was because of her.
After a time, she stopped crying and she sat up like she did before, drying her eyes with a tissue.
He looked at her gently, and spoke in the same way. ‘It wasn’t your fault, you know.’
She fixed clear eyes on him. ‘I know. I don’t blame myself. At first I did. Who wouldn’t? It took me a while, but I realized that it was an accident. A terrible, horrific one, but still an accident. I still feel guilty sometimes, I can’t help that. But I know that it could have occurred any time, any place, any where.’
She was looking back to that day, not needing to remember any feelings because they were all there, and started speaking again as though from her own world.
‘It was that terrible helpless feeling that I experienced that drove me to medicine, and it was my mother dying because of that accident that makes me fear losing a patient.’ She looked at him then, his eyes fixed on her, and she said, ‘I don’t expect you to understand something like that. Losing a patient is a terrible thing for a doctor to have to go through.’
‘I don’t understand it from a doctor’s perspective,’ Sanderson said. ‘But losing someone isn’t specific to a doctor.’
She looked at him enquiringly, that inclination of the head for him to continue if he wanted to, and he did. ‘I fear losing the people closest to me. Different from the fear a doctor feels over losing a patient, but still fear of a loss. Patients aren’t all that different to doctors.’
‘Fearing losing a loved one is perfectly understandable,’ Cameron said. ‘We all do that.’
‘Nothing prepares you for it. The fear of it grips me in a way like nothing has ever gripped me before. I feel the fear rising in my stomach, like a great rush of water, making the pit of my stomach tremble, and it surges through my whole body, threatening to explode outwards like a volcano.
‘Dad, Mum, my brother and me are really close. We’ve only got each other, we’ve only ever had each other, and that’s what’s made us close.’ He started talking now as though he was in a world of his own, the same way Cameron had. He was looking back into the past, the memories and feelings of the times he was thinking about still raw. He had tried to forget, but couldn’t. He had tried to bury the feelings and memories, but couldn’t. In the end he had just lived with it, ignoring them, because that’s all he could do.
‘My mum didn’t work because she was looking after my brother and me, but it didn’t matter because my dad had a good job. He came home one day and said that he had four weeks left at the company and then his job was over. The company director was laying people off in every department, and my dad was one of them.
‘Everything was going to be all right, though. He had four weeks to find another job, and even if he didn’t in that time, he would fairly soon after. It didn’t work out like that though. Things were going all right for about six weeks after he left the company, and then the cracks started to show.
‘He was signing on, not enough money coming in, and in the end he left for a while to try and find work somewhere else. He went to Kent to stay with a friend until he found something there, then moved on to Manchester where his brother lived. He went all over the place, picking up a day here and there, but nothing concrete.
‘At home, things went from bad to worse. Bills were piling up, Mum was trying to make ends meet, and things were getting tougher by the day. In the end, she asked her mother for help. She had to, she had no choice.
‘Now, she’s another story.’ There was a change in his voice when he said that, something harsh and blunt. ‘My mum has got an older brother, and her mother absolutely doted on him. There was an incident, apparently, when my mum’s brother was first born, that her father wasn’t interested in her brother in the hospital. There was apparently a lot of unpleasantness throughout growing up as well. I can believe it because he took an instant dislike to me. Because my brother was not only older, he was the first born grandchild, he was treated like a prince.
‘Throughout growing up, he was always treated better than me by both my mother’s parents. It was something that I learned to live with. Learning to live with things is something I’ve always done.
‘But back to what I was saying. It seemed that, because of the incident in the hospital, my mum’s mother overcompensated towards her brother, and in doing so, pushed her out.’
His voice grew quiet now, somehow, unnaturally low. ‘When Mum asked for help, her mother didn’t want to know. Her favourite saying was “What can I do?” Mum broke down on the phone to her and all she could say was “Oh well, I don’t know what you can do.” After a lengthy silence, she said, “I better go.” And that was that. A month later she went on holiday.’
He was silent for a moment, gathering himself together, looking down, but still there were no tears. He had stopped that long ago.
Cameron was looking at him with sad eyes, Sanderson could feel it, that was why he wasn’t looking at her. She kept wondering why he wasn’t referring to his grandparents as Nan and Granddad. Now she understood.
‘It wasn’t long before Dad found a permanent job. Unfortunately, it was in Manchester. He had no choice but to take it. So that was it, off to Manchester we went. We were there for about five years and a transfer opportunity back to London came. Dad put in for it and got it, which meant we were able to move back here.
‘We came through the dark times together.’ He looked at her now. ‘When my dad came in here, I thought that was it. The fear was going to become something real.’
Cameron realized the feeling that he must have experienced, without being able to understand. It had been touch and go for seven days, but finally he came out of the danger zone. She didn’t know what to say to the things he’d just said. No one should have to go through that. She wanted to go into it more with him.
‘I can’t tell you the relief I felt when he started coming through it,’ Sanderson said, emotion building up at the memory, but he didn’t cry.
‘Everyone dies,’ Cameron said, but she didn’t say it as way of an explanation or answer to what Sanderson said. It was said as a statement, painstakingly true.
‘It’s a terrible feeling that we don’t have the answers, any answers. Upon reflection, what would we do with them if we did?’ He sighed. He’d had many, many thoughts over the years on every aspect life. But no amount of thinking ever gave him any answers about anything, and he could never find the answers that he sought.
‘I came to the conclusion long ago that you can’t do anything about anything, and can’t resolve anything about Life, ever. But that doesn’t make anything easy to take. Life keeps kicking you all the time, and seems to enjoy doing so when you’re as low as you can get.’
‘That’s a little bitter, isn’t it?’ Cameron said, looking at him.
‘It’s the truth,’ he said, simply. ‘I tend to say things with a lot of brutal truth and honesty. All the unhappiness in my life has caused me to be that way. Anyway, life tends to come as being bitter and being hard.’
‘But you’re dad is pulling through,’ she said, almost pleadingly. ‘Life hasn’t kicked you here.’
‘After everything that’s happened in the past, this is a kick.’
‘Talk to me some more about it.’
At that point, the lift started moving again with a jerk and Sanderson jumped up with slight panic, wondering what was happening. Cameron joined him.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘The fault must have been fixed.’
A moment later it slid to a stop at the appropriate floor and the doors parted and Sanderson got out with haste. Many people were gathered in the hallway outside, looking to see what was happening because of a maintenance crew attending to the lift.
After being asked if they were all right, and assurances from both Cameron and Sanderson that they were, the crowd dispersed, and the maintenance crew continued with their work, trying to figure out what caused the fault in the first place.
‘You didn’t get the chance to talk to me about what’s happened in the past,’ Cameron said.
‘No. I don’t suppose I’ll get the chance now.’ There was a moment of silence between them, neither looking at the other, both wanting the chance to continue their conversation.
‘I’d like you to talk to me.’ It was the doctor in her that wanted to help, but she also liked him. The pain that had come out of him while they were stuck in the lift had hit her hard and she wanted to talk to him about it.
‘Do you want to get a drink?’
She looked up at him with a smile. ‘Okay.’
They went to the hospital’s cafeteria using the stairs, not the lifts.
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