Island Hideaway 10 - Shipwrecks​

I sat by the bed and watched Mo’s prostrate body. She was breathing, the machinery told me, but not discernibly, there was no sound, no movement, just the flicker of lights on a screen. A few times that first night I refused to believe the screen, I fetched a mirror and watched the very, very slow build-up of breath, as if I were holding the mirror over a mouse or vole. Reassured, I would go back to watching the absence of anything, the flicker of light on screen which meant life, and the prostrate deadness of Mo’s body that made no sense.​​
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My bladder bulged, I was dying to leave her side to pee, but I had convinced myself that I had to be there every second. Eventually I could hold back no more and finally gave up to the urgent call of the facilities. I gushed piss for a full five minutes, as if I had swallowed an ocean and not noticed. Eventually I ceased to a trickle, then to a random drip and splurt, then to nothing. I felt stupendous relief and returned to her side with renewed hope, which lasted no time at all. ​​
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I slept eventually, fitfully, on the chair beside the bed. When I woke it was morning and the birds were singing (not the dodos, they never made a sound, except when they were mating). I went to the kitchen and made coffee, had a bowl of cereal and went to the toilet, where I wrote up notes on the day's events. ​​
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I had a few pieces of work commissioned so after checking in on Mo I went to my office room and rattled off articles on cobblestones, double glazing repair and spicing up your love life. I still had half an hour before the morning boat, so I wrote a couple of blog posts and a poem about stoats for a wildlife magazine I occasionally contribute to. ​​
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I walked down to the boat. The Boatman was my sole source of human contact and had been since I moved here. I said hello, asked for the latest gossip from the mainland and bought a couple of things I needed. I was dying to ask whether Eddie's boat had been seen, but I daren't, it was another secret, like the secret of the dodos, like the coma patient in my spare room. For a man living alone on an isolated island I had a lot of secrets. I bought a couple of books and a magazine, for I had the idea of reading aloud to Mo, if her brain was alive in there she'd be getting bored senseless, and though I was there in the room with her I couldn't do much to entertain her, it's not like I juggle or anything, and even if I did a girl in a coma can't see a man juggle. That's a fact of life you can never change. ​​
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I had books, of course, dozens of books, hundreds of books, but we didn't share an interest in literature, Mo didn't like fiction, she thought there was enough life in the world without inventing more of it, so I bought a history of the Crimean War, a book about shipwrecks and a biography of a long dead French Queen. The Boatman runs a second-hand book store, along with everything else, when you've finished a book you can sell it back to him, and he'll sell it on to someone else in the archipelago. Some of the books have been read by every single resident of every single island, a shared culture, the like of which would be impossible on the mainland. In that way I was bound to people I'd never met, to people I even knew existed. ​​
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"Your reading's changed," the Boatman said, for he noticed everything and I had been, up to that point, a man of pure fiction. ​​
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"Well I've read pretty much everything else in your bookshelves," I said, which was true as it happens.​​
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"Should get some more books soon," he said. "Old Geoff from the Faraway Island is having a clear out. I got a load of old boots from him yesterday. You don't need old boots by any chance. Size fives?"​​
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"I'm size ten," I said, which of course the Boatman knew. Then again, I suddenly thought, Mo was a size five and she'd arrived with just the pyjamas she was lying in, plus a spare pair of pyjamas for me to change her into while I washed the original pair, that was an embarrassment I had to look forward to. If she came back to life what would she wear if she went for a walk. "Is that UK five or an EU five?" I said.  ​​
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"Ha, this is old Geoff we're talking about, UK of course, he won't touch anything from the EU, even his trousers are English."​​
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"I could do with a pair," I said, "Just in case I have a friend with size five feet come to visit and forget their shoes."​​
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"Yeah, you never know," the Boatman said, with the air of a Boatman who had seen it all. "Just the one pair?" ​​
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"Should be enough,” I said, “It's only for an emergency as I say. The Boatman went to the depths of the boat where he kept all things, and came back with a pair of battered but still useable black walking boots. That'll do, I said, handing over the requested five pounds, let me know about the books."​​
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Having finished with the Boatman it was time for lunch. I could feel the emptiness in my belly, I was extra hungry, as if I was additionally responsible for eating for Mo, though of course she had her drip to supply all the nourishment she needed. I cooked pasta and chopped and fried a couple of vegetables and combined the two with the last portion of a batch of sauce I'd made earlier in the week.

I took the pasta to Mo’s room (it was her room now, in fact from this point forth it always would be, long after she had gone) and ate it in front of her, making the occasional comment about the benefits of not being in a coma and being able to eat pasta - not to taunt her, you understand, but to encourage her to get better, to fight the forces that trapped her, for I was convinced that she could hear me, that she was alive in there, like a hedgehog hiding in a suit of armour, and if I could find the right words I could lure her out, like the magic words that opened a secret door.​​
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After I had finished I made coffee then checked Mo’s drip, her assorted tubes and connections and her bedding.  Satisfied, I sat down and started reading the book about shipwrecks. It was written by a man (well, most books are written by men) who had made a career of visiting shipwrecks, and had helped salvage a few. It was like an underwater Time Team in book form, though Time Team never had to fight off sharks whilst looking at ancient artefacts. I can't help thinking they'd still be on TV if they had. ​​
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Mo said nothing, did nothing, there was nothing there, visible at least, but still, I felt I was doing something positive, if she was conscious in there she would have learnt an awful lot about an 18th century French merchant vessel that had sunk about twenty miles shy of Portsmouth. For the first time since Eddie had brought her here I finally thought I was doing good. ​​