By Cliff McNish

London Bridge tube station is close to Guy’s Hospital. I bolted down enough pints at the nearby Shipwright’s Arms to drown out some of the details of the day, then headed into the underground bowels of the northern line. 

It was midnight, and when you are drunk and down in the tube station at midnight, you obviously need to play Down in the Tube Station at Midnight by the 1970’s group The Jam on your headphones, so I did. 

While I listened, I watched a pair of mice scrabble around between the tube tracks. I wondered if they were deaf. Wouldn’t the constant trains rattling so close overhead destroy their hearing? 

Given the lateness of the hour, the platform travelling south towards Oval station where I lived was almost empty. A woman and two young men were also waiting for the train. The woman – mid-thirties perhaps, black high heels, stylish beige woollen coat – was even more focused on her phone than everyone else is these days. I was so tanked up that it took me longer than it should have to realise she was attempting to fend off the unwanted attention of the two young men. 

‘Alright?’ one of them called out when she walked past him, his voice echoing harshly along the platform. The second man wolf-whistled as she passed him, his eyes following her legs down the platform. He looked hammered. Both men did. You risk bumping into men like this any night on the tube, but the drunkenness has been worse since they opened up the northern line at the weekend. 

The woman’s heels clicked loudly on the concrete.She took up a position as far from them as she could. This brought her close to me, and I removed my headphones.

‘Hello darlin’,’ the first man said. ‘Been out, have you? Where you been then?’ 

The woman turned her back to the men, studying her phone intensely.

I glanced up to check when the next train was due. Not for another four minutes. Long enough for the man who’d spoken to decide he was pissed off at the woman who was not paying him attention. He sniffed and slapped his knees. Then he got up and walked towards her. 

When his companion joined him, I knew that this might get iffy. 

I positioned myself a little closer to the woman, and she glanced at me gratefully. One of the men eyed her straight up and down.

‘Where are you going, then? Back home, is it?’ 

‘Yes,’ she replied stiffly. 

‘Where’s that, then?’ 

She hesitated. ‘Clapham.’

‘That’s a coincidence.’ the first man grinned. ‘I live in Clapham, too. Me and Leo here can walk you back home.’ 

His companion laughed and the woman tensed. Her mouth pressed into a thin smile as she looked at me. 

‘Don’t be like that,’ the first man said to her, an edge to his voice now. Adding, when she tried staring at her phone again, ‘Bitch.’ 

It was at this point that I raised a hand and said, ‘Hey.’ 

‘Bugger off out of here, Grandad,’ came the offhand reply from the first man, without even looking at me. 

‘Yeah, see them steps?’ his companion said. ‘Run off on up them, you old git.’ 

He laughed at his own joke, but the first man did not. There was a much less casual air about him now. This was confirmed when he glanced quickly up and down the platform. I guessed that he was checking to see if anyone new had arrived. Maybe, if he’d played out scenes like this before, he was also checking for cameras. 

‘Hey, that’s enough lads,’ I said. 

‘You’re dead, mate,’ the first man said. ‘You had your chance.’

*

If a fight is inevitable, throw the first punch. I’d read that somewhere. Apparently, most bullies are cowards. If they believe you won’t go down easily, they often think twice. 

I ventured forth a drunken arm. As soon as the woman saw how ineffective my closed fist looked, she – very bravely I felt – tried to draw me away. The men laughed. Then they stopped laughing. 

*

I saw my reflection in a glossy poster on the tube wall walking backwards. Staggering backwards, lifting my arms to ward off the blows. 

Clutching her bag, the woman screamed at the men to stop. This only seemed to encourage them. 

The first blows didn’t do much damage. Then one of them tripped my ankle, knocking me down on the platform. I think the very next boot that hit home must have struck my head because for a few seconds I couldn’t see anything at all, only hear the woman’s shrieks. 

When my eyes finally stopped rocking in my skull, I spotted her again, but from floor level this time, only her calves and the lower part of her coat visible. My head seemed to be on its side, my cheek against the cold concrete. A moment later a tooth popped out of my mouth like a small piece of white candy, and weirdly this struck me as funny. In retrospect, this reaction must have had something to do with that first or perhaps the second kick to my head. 

The woman’s heels clattered percussively up the platform steps. I’m sure she was only running to get help, but the result was the same: I was left alone with the two men. 

A memory came into my mind then. Of three greyhounds I’d once known. Unrelated dogs, but they knew each other well, and had always got on fine. I’d often join a dog-walker friend of mine called Mike on strolls with them. One day, when we were in Dulwich Wood, one of the greyhounds got its head stuck inside a hole in the ground. I’m not sure why the dog couldn’t free its head, but it began whining and desperately scrabbling at the soil. 

The other two dogs paused for a moment. Then, as if a signal had passed between them, they attacked the stuck dog – ruthlessly tearing at its hind quarters and skinny legs. 

To this day I’m certain that only Mike, wading in furiously, saved the trapped greyhound’s life. He was traumatised by the incident for years. He’d known all three dogs since they were pups. He told me afterwards, having researched the subject obsessively, that an instinct can kick in with male dogs. A primal reflex. The third dog had been so utterly prone, so vulnerable. They just couldn’t resist. 

I think something similar might have occurred between the two men on the platform. 

For a while I felt their kicks more and more. Then, at the same rate, less and less. Eventually I saw a train pulling into the platform and the two men jumping through the opening doors. 

It was only in the brief moment before I lost consciousness that I realised a third man had been on the platform all this time. 

Someone a bit younger than the other two. Late teens or early twenties, maybe. A thick shock of black hair. Lanky. Brown leather jacket. 

Throughout the attack, rather than help me and the woman, he’d apparently been hiding, crouched in a shadowy recess. There was a look of absolute horror on his face as he watched me, but my emotion, seeing him, was one of shock, followed by anger. 

As injured as I was, it occurred to me that I should try to memorise his features in case the police needed extra witnesses to corroborate the attack. When his face started to slip away, to melt into greys, literally sinking into the wall behind him, I was confused at first. Then I realised that the platform was slowly darkening from the edges inwards like an old-style pirate’s treasure map, and that what was slipping away was not the man in the shadows but me.

1

I woke up lying on a bed. Or rather, I was aware of activity around me, though my eyes refused to open, no matter how much I tried. The rest of me would not move either.

Snatches of medical conversation I overheard confirmed that I must be in a hospital. Staff around me – clearly nurses – mentioned names, which then immediately slipped from my mind. From time to time I’d hear bitter, quiet moaning from what I assumed was a patient in a nearby bed. It struck me as the kind of moaning that was more mental than physical. Several times I also experienced a heavy rocking motion, transmitted through my mattress, as if someone very close to me was trying to comfort themselves. 

I had a strong desire to console this person. Why weren’t the nurses helping them? 

*

At one point someone forcefully tilted my mattress, and I understood that my body was being rotated. I tried to wake then, to let the staff know I was aware of them, but could not. 

Soon after that – or perhaps a long time after that, I had a sense of time passing, but not how much – my bed sank slightly, the weight of someone sitting on it. This was followed by a voice in my ear. 

‘Can you hear me, Carl?’ 

A woman’s voice. Faintly flowery perfume – jasmine, I think – wafted between us. 

Yes, I said. I can hear you.

‘Try to move something if you can.’ 

I’m trying, I said. 

‘Your middle finger is the easiest thing to move. Can you try to do that for me, Carl? Try as hard as you can.’ 

A pause, then a long sigh from her. Evidently, I had not been able to. 

*

My son Jack came to visit me early on. At first, I did not know who he was. I only felt someone gently take my wrist. But it had to be him. True, I had colleagues and friends who might have visited me in hospital, but no one else would have held me like this or for so long. His mother had not been part of my life for a long time, but Jack and I were close. In fact, we were very close. It must have been awful for him to see me this helpless.

‘Dad,’ he said, in the saddest voice I’d ever heard. 

He visited me several times after that, and on each occasion stayed not for minutes but for hours. Sometimes he held one of my hands; other times both. The length of his visits also confirmed something I already suspected: that I was not in a general ward but an Intensive Care Unit. Only an ICU permitted such flexible visiting hours. And the reason they do so, of course, is that the patient is on the edge of a precipice. They are somewhere between life and death. Judging from the fact that I could not move, or speak at all, I knew that I was almost certainly in a coma. 

2

A single nurse was responsible for most of my care. That made sense. In ICU, I recalled, you get dedicated one-on-one staff attention. Her name came up often in chit-chat across the ward: Emma Umbeki. The other staff seemed fond of her. Her voice was welcoming, a soft contralto, and she’d occasionally talk to me, unlike the other nurses. The days when she did not do so were very lonely indeed. 

One time she and a consultant were near enough for me to hear them clearly. 

‘I don’t understand it,’ the consultant was saying. ‘His latest EEG rhythms keep suggesting that he is about to wake from his coma, then he sinks back under again. I don’t understand why we can’t bring him back.’

‘Will we need to switch to long-term protocol?’ Emma asked, and my pulse thumped with fear. ‘See? See that?’ she said, sounding excited. ‘I think he can hear us! Look, his heart rate just rose! I’ve been reporting this. Have you read –’ 

‘It barely rose,’ the consultant cut her off dismissively. ‘And if you look over the last days, it has been doing the same thing regularly. Nothing unusual for this patient.’ 

I can hear you, Emma! I shouted.

After an interval, the consultant said in a conjecturing, rather pompous, manner, ‘What are we to make of Mr Morgan here? Despite showing good brain activity this past month he’s still unconscious and unresponsive.’ 

A month, I thought, shocked. I’d been here over a month!

The consultant continued. ‘He’s still on the lowest rung of Glasgow Scale. No response to verbal commands. Yet scans reveal no obvious nerve damage or trauma artifacts.’ He grunted. ‘His brain was dealt a severe blow, of course.’

‘What about the shaking?’ Emma asked.

‘Tremor is a neurological condition that is not uncommon in coma patients, nurse.’

‘But what about the crying? I’ve never seen that before.’

 A hesitation. ‘That’s more unusual, I’ll admit.’

‘It suggests an emotional response, surely?’

‘It can do. In this case, it’s probably just a reflexive response to his body being stuck in set positions for such extended periods. The body, minus the brain, feels irritation, and seeks comfort in the only way it can – in tears. The explanation might be even simpler than that. His damaged brain might just be randomly stimulating the corneal sensory nerves that trigger the release of tears in the lacrimal gland.’

‘We are going to continue treating him, aren’t we?’ Emma said. Then, more formally, ‘His relatives certainly want us to. They’ve made that very clear.’ 

‘Try not to get personally involved,’ the consultant said, sounding irritated with her now. ‘You know as well as I do that after twenty-four hours most of those individuals in this man’s condition will either die or remain in a vegetative state. And even if he does wake, he has only a 7% chance of good recovery.’ 

Silence followed that, and I tried to swallow. Something massive and solid that was lodged in my throat prevented it. 

Emma ventured, ‘I wish I had something positive to tell his family.’ 

‘False hope is the last thing you should offer them,’ the consultant replied. ‘Anyway, when this patient’s brain activity starts to flatline, which I firmly predict it will, you’ll find that those difficult discussions with relatives to discontinue treatment become much easier.’ 

A pause. Following which Emma said, with a sigh, ‘You don’t think he’s going to come through, then?’ 

Another pause, from the consultant this time. ‘It’s touch and go with this one.’ 

3

A significant amount of time elapsed following this frightening conversation. I tried to judge how much by keeping count of the number of occasions my body was turned, presumably to avoid bedsores. But at some point I got my numbers mixed up. I started a new count, but lost track of that too.

Then this: the feel of a breath close to my left cheek. Followed by Emma’s warm voice in my ear: ‘Can you hear me, Carl?’ 

I could smell her perfume again. Amid the aridity of other senses available to me, it was almost unbearably sweet. But this time her voice, instead of soothing me, set off panic, because she sounded like she was losing hope, and I sensed that if Emma of all people was no longer actively fighting my corner I must not have improved for a very long time. Was I slowly descending into the vegetative state the consultant had mentioned? 

*

Then, one morning, I experienced a miracle. I attempted, as I’d done hundreds of times before, to open my eyes, and this time … it worked! 

I gasped and stared around me. I was lying on my back, gazing up at a high white ceiling. Next second a shadow swept across my face and an attractive woman leaned over me. 

‘Oh, my goodness …’

‘Emma,’ I croaked, deciding to surprise her with her own name. 

‘Carl!’ 

She broke into the most delightful laugh, and I waggled my feet.

‘I’m alive, then,’ I said, wanting to see her laugh again. 

‘Yes,’ Emma said. ‘You are apparently very much alive, Mr Morgan! Oh, this is wonderful!’ 

She looked incredibly pleased, exactly as I’d pictured she would be. 

‘Are you thirsty?’ she asked. 

I swallowed, realised that I was. 

‘I’ve been in a coma, haven’t I?’ I croaked.

‘Yes,’ Emma confirmed, touching my shoulder through the bedclothes. ‘But you are not in any such dark place now. Just give me a moment … I need to inform people …’ 

She rose to leave, but I didn’t want her to, and weakly clutched her arm. My fingers fell away almost immediately. I couldn’t believe how little strength I had. 

‘How … how long have I been asleep?’

‘For quite some time, Carl.’ 

‘Was I badly injured?’ 

She paused long enough to place a cushion gently under my head. 

‘You’re recovering.’ 

‘I feel fine,’ I told her, and strangely, apart from being exhausted, I really did.

‘You are not fine,’ she chided me. ‘First waking can be precarious. It’s easy to slip back under. Don’t you dare do that.’ She wagged her finger at me. ‘I need to find your consultant. I won’t be long.’

‘What if I need to go to the toilet?’ I asked, trying to keep her here with me.

‘Do you need a bed pan?’ 

‘No, I don’t think so.’ 

‘Well then, I’ll be back in a jiffy.’ 

‘… OK!’ 

I think there must have been an inane smile on my face as I watched Emma leave the ward. It was only when my eyes drifted away from her that I realised there were other patients in the ICU. One directly opposite me was attached by multiple tubes to a bank of electronic equipment. Wires swung ominously above her head. The nameplate slotted onto her bedframe read Pauline. Most of her face was covered up. 

‘Hello Pauline!’ I said, unable to stop grinning. 

She stared at me under furrowed, spindly-grey brows. 

‘Are you OK?’ I asked, but the words didn’t come out quite right. In fact, they didn’t come out at all. ‘I think … I think I may need help,’ I said to her, but that didn’t come out either. 

Pauline didn’t seem overly concerned. The last thing I saw and heard before I blacked out were her acorn-brown eyes screwing up and her raspy voice grunting, ‘Don’t start moaning again, for God’s sake.’ 

4

Pop! My eyes sprang open, and I groaned with relief this time, expelling the stale air from my lungs in a great ragged splurge.

‘Emma!’ I called out desperately, sitting up as fast as I could, trying to stop my body from falling back under like it had last time.

No response to my call. Where was she? In fact, where was I? On my back again, yes, and in bed, but … wasn’t the ceiling higher?

I turned my head to the left and saw that I’d been moved. I was in a general ward. Eight beds. Good, I thought. That’s a good sign. I’ve been moved from ICU. My life is no longer in danger.

All the beds were occupied. A teenage girl across from me had her right leg hoisted up on a pulley above her head at the angle of a Nazi salute. She blinked and pointed at me as if she’d seen a ghost.

‘Look! He’s awake!’

A nurse bustled across to me. Not Emma. A middle-aged woman. An unyielding, rather hard-lined face. Hair tucked severely inside her hat. She looked extremely tired – hassled I would say. Worked to death probably. 

‘Mm.’ She checked my pupils by lifting the upper eyelids. ‘Good morning, Mr Morgan,’ she said. ‘You’ve joined the world again, I see.’ 

I tried a smile. ‘Has it missed me?’ 

‘Ah, who can say?’ 

And it was weird. Because I had a feeling that if Emma had been the one to quip this, the words would have sounded charming. This nurse, however, looked like she was going through the motions. She didn’t even look particularly happy to see me awake. I tried to be charitable about that. Perhaps I’d just given her a lot of extra work in what was clearly a busy shift. 

‘I’m Hayley, the ward sister,’ she said, looking at her thermometer, not me, as she took my temperature. 

She double-checked the result, and in the silence that followed, as she marked my chart, I asked, ‘Where’s Emma?’ 

‘Emma?’

When I explained about ICU, Nurse Hayley rolled her eyes. ‘This is Ward 6. There are over nine thousand nurses and midwives at Guy’s Hospital, Mr Morgan. We don’t all know each other.’

Ouch. Was she telling me off? That felt a bit brutal. I cleared my throat. ‘I think … I think … Emma would … I think she might like to know I’m awake again.’ 

Nurse Hayley gave me a disapproving grunt. 

‘She’ll have moved onto another patient by now, Mr Morgan. If she is in ICU, I can assure you that the new patient occupying her roster will be taking up all her precious time.’

*

A little later, Nurse Hayley removed the various tubes I was attached to. It was an embarrassing process because a couple were in private places. I’d like to say that she warned me with a smile and a ‘Here we go,’ or something winning like that before she detached those tubes, but no, she didn’t. One of the clips hurt like hell as she untied it, but I gritted my teeth, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of hearing me grunt with pain. I didn’t like this glum-faced nurse. What was wrong with her? I’d just come out of a coma, for God’s sake! 

Further indignities followed. I had to ask her for a bed pan and couldn’t piss for ages. Instead of just leaving it with me in the bed, she insisted for some reason on just standing there, waiting. Later, I was so thirsty that I had to ask for her help again, and she brought across a pink plastic beaker with water. When I struggled to hold it she sighed, looking annoyed that she had to take most of the weight as I brought it to my lips. I felt like a silly child under her bored stare. 

*

When Nurse Hayley finally moved off to deal with another patient, I spotted a middle-aged man a little way across the ward. He was not in a bed, but the visitor’s chair next to it, and he was sobbing. I recognised the cadence of the tears, but couldn’t place where I’d heard them before. The tears trickled steadily between his fingers. So many tears, in fact, that the entire scene began to look slightly unreal to me, as if he was a character in a Harold Pinter play, a man who had been waiting the entire drama not to deliver a speech but just remorselessly weep, representing some kind of commentary on the horror of life. 

Every now and again a spasm of shaking overtook the man. Each time he let this ride itself out, as if he was familiar with the process and had done so many times before. 

‘Are you alright?’ I called across to him. ‘Do you need a nurse?’

He stopped crying and looked up at me. Then he said, ‘God, don’t you feel like swearing in a place like this? Profanity! Bollocks, yes! The only solace in this vale of tears!’

That shocked me, and I looked around to see if anyone in the nearby beds was offended. If so, none of them reacted. 

The bed beside the man was empty. It was obvious that someone had recently been under the sheets, however – I could still see a depression where a tall body had recently lain. 

Nurse Hayley raced by in her usual I’m-too-busy-to-be-bothered way, and I pointed urgently at the man. 

She glanced distractedly at him, then shook her head and raised a finger at me to stay quiet. Shortly after that she returned to hold the water beaker to my lips again. While she did so the man, no longer crying, stood up and left the ward. 

‘I know that man,’ I said, once he was gone. ‘He was in the ICU with me. I heard him, anyway. He looks pretty raw, doesn’t he?’ 

‘He is,’ Hayley answered, her voice softening a little. ‘His son just died of meningitis. He’s the father.’ She shook her head. ‘At least he never saw his son die. Is that a good thing? I can never make up my mind on that one.’

‘I think I can go on my own to the bathroom now,’ I told her.

5

Two police officers interviewed me the next afternoon. About time, I thought.

The younger of the two was in his early twenties. Slender for a policeman. Harry-Potter-type specs. A tiny, carefully-shaven goatee he kept plucking at. The other policeman was a large man, grey around the temples and reassuringly confident-looking. I wasn’t surprised that he was the first to speak.

‘Good morning, Mr Morgan. My name is Detective Higgins. This is trainee detective-constable Fleetwood. I understand that you only fully emerged from your coma yesterday.’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘And that one of the very first things you did was to ask to see us.’ Higgins looked mildly surprised by that, which puzzled me.

 ‘I assumed you’d want to interview me as soon as possible about a crime as violent as this,’ I said, maybe a little tetchy. ‘I was surprised you hadn’t already left your details. I had to ring several people from my hospital bed just to find out who was in charge of the investigation.’

 Trainee detective-constable Fleetwood fingered the outer fringe of his goatee and glanced in confusion at Higgins, who gave him a warning glare.

‘Don’t you want to catch whoever did this to me?’ I asked them. 

‘Who did this to you?’ Fleetwood didn’t bother to hide his bewilderment this time.

Higgins shot him another glare, as if he’d just acted unprofessionally.

 ‘My apologies for that, sir,’ he said. ‘Officer Fleetwood is not used to dealing with trauma victims. The memory loss.’

‘Memory loss?’ I muttered. ‘What are you talking about? I have no memory loss.’ When they both stared at me, I said, ‘I can tell you exactly what happened.’ 

Higgins straightened his jacket. Slid a small black pad from its inside pocket.

‘Um. Indeed. Go ahead, sir.’ 

While I recounted the details of that night Higgins nodded, jotting notes from time to time. Not very copious notes, I have to say. ‘Do you need me to slow down so you can keep up?’ I asked. 

‘No, I’m using shorthand,’ he reassured me. 

Fleetwood kept casting me odd glances from under his brows.

‘What’s wrong?’ I eventually asked him point blank. ‘Why do you keep looking at me like that?’

Before he could answer, Higgins cut in smoothly, ‘I am the senior officer in this case, Mr Morgan. And yes, corroborating your story, I can confirm that you were beaten badly by two men.’

‘Have you caught them?’ I asked, my pulse racing.

‘Oh yes,’ Higgins said. ‘We certainly have, sir. Security cameras recorded everything. In fact, the train driver saw that something dodgy was happening on the platform. He kept the doors shut at London Bridge station, so the … um … perpetrators couldn’t escape. Transport police found you and them almost simultaneously.’ 

‘There was a third person,’ I said. 

Higgins nodded. ‘Yes. We know about her. Amanda Redfern. She alerted the tube staff. She had been out with colleagues that night. A pre-Christmas bash. Wrong place, wrong time, you might say.’

‘I don’t mean her,’ I said, ‘though I’m glad she’s OK. I mean the third man down on the platform. Black hair. Young. Wearing jeans and a brown leather jacket.’ I added, ‘It’s likely the men wouldn’t have started anything had they known he was there. He let me down badly.’ 

Fleetwood stared at his toes. Higgins also lost a hint of his composure, which I sensed was unusual for him. 

‘There is no record of a third person, Mr Morgan.’ He flicked through his notebook. ‘It’s interesting you mention it, however. We’ll check the footage again, obviously, but I don’t think so. You’ve explained that much of what you saw was via a reflection in a poster. Perhaps that was it.’ 

‘No. I saw him in the flesh. On the platform. He was staring right at me.’ 

Higgins took a complicatedly long breath and levelled out his shoulders. He was a tall man, and I had a feeling he used that size to his advantage when he felt he needed to. 

‘You suffered a head trauma, Mr Morgan,’ he said. ‘A major one. Perhaps things have got jumbled up in your mind.’ Then, surprising me, he placed a meaty hand on my shoulder. ‘You let us take care of the crime. Speak to the trauma specialists at the hospital about the rest. That is what they’re here for.’

---

Cliff McNish’s middle-grade fantasy novel The Doomspell is translated into 26 languages, and his ghost novel Breathe was voted in May 2013 by The Schools Network of British Librarians as one of the top adult and children’s novels of all time.

Amongst other places, his adult stories and poetry have appeared in Nightjar Press, Stand, Confingo, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Literary Hatchet and The Interpreter’s House.
Facebook: cliff mcnish; Instagram: @cliffmcnish