Trace Memory

FOUR

Owen Harper opened his eyes and saw a ceiling he didn't recognise. Not that he was an expert on ceilings, of course, but he knew his own ceiling when he saw it, and this wasn't his ceiling.

Next up was the awareness that his mouth was dry. No, not just dry… His mouth was desiccated. And then there was the headache. It felt like somebody had put his head in a vice and was still cranking it up. It felt like his head was going to explode.

But first was the matter of the ceiling and the hard floor beneath him. Reaching out with his fingertips, he felt the bristly surface of a carpet and, reaching further, his fingers delved into the dusty mess of an overflowing ashtray. He recoiled in disgust, and his hand brushed against the side of a can, tipping it over on its side. He heard the glug-glug-fizz of beer pouring from the can and soaking into the carpet. This wasn't a bed, and this wasn't a bedroom.

Through his one open eye, he saw a television in one corner of the room, and on the wall several posters of Johnny Depp.

If it wasn't his ceiling, then it wasn't his living room, and if it wasn't his living room, then whose living room was it?

The answer came in a voice from the nearest doorway.

'Oh, you're awake. Did you fall off the sofa or something?'

He sat up straight, and that was when his head really began to throb; a dull pulsating agony that started in his temples and reached all the way in behind his eyes. The medic in him lectured him on the dehydrating effects of alcohol, how it leached moisture from the brain, causing it to shrink, pulling on all the microscopic fibres linking it to the skull and resulting in a headache. The human in him was simply practising the art of suffering.

In the doorway stood a goth girl in pyjamas. The pyjamas weren't particularly goth; pink with pictures of Hello Kitty. She was a goth girl only from the neck up, a shock of black hair and slightly smudged mascara left over from the night before.

His heart sank. Had they…?

'Where am I?' he asked.

'Our living room, silly,' replied the goth girl, giggling.

'And… where is your living room?' asked Owen.

'In our house. In Cathays,' said the goth girl. 'Near the uni.'

Owen sat fully upright and, with weak arms, hoisted himself onto the sofa. He rested his head in both hands and let out a long, traumatised groan.

'Hung over?' asked the goth girl.

'A little,' said Owen. 'What happened last night?'

The goth girl laughed again. 'You don't remember?'

Owen shook his head. Even that hurt.

'Your friend's upstairs,' she said, 'with my housemate, Kirsty. I'm amazed they didn't keep you awake. They were a bit, um, noisy.

Mind you, you just kind of passed out.'

His friend? Oh, that was right. A little bit of memory came back to him now; a mere shard of recollection. Lloyd was upstairs. With Kirsty, whoever Kirsty was.

Owen looked at the goth girl, wincing at the question he was about to ask. 'And did anything… I mean…'

The goth girl raised one eyebrow, and shook her head. 'You're fully dressed,' she said. 'Or hadn't you noticed?'

He looked down at himself, and realised he was indeed still wearing all the clothes he'd worn the night before. He was dismayed to see a gory dash of chilli sauce down the front of his shirt. At least he'd remembered to take his shoes off.

'And you've got a girlfriend,' said the goth girl, smiling sweetly now. 'In fact, you didn't stop talking about her. Would you like a coffee?'

Owen shook his head. That throbbing pain again, and a sudden, violent stab of nausea. 'Um…'

Work. The word exploded in his brain like a firework, like it was lit up in neon or carved in bloody great big stone lettering. Work.

'Actually… I've probably got to make a move. I've got work.'

'Work? When?'

He looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. And his shift started at half ten.

'An hour and a half,' he said, quietly. 'Where am I?'

The goth girl laughed. 'Cathays. I just told you.'

Owen sighed. Cathays. Just outside the city centre. It could have been worse. It could have been Swansea. He was still struggling to piece together the last few hours of the night. There had been the Cross Inn and, at some point after two or three pints, the urge to grab a takeaway and a video had left him, and they were in a taxi and heading into town. That was when it started to get just a little hazy.

But Cathays wasn't too far. It was further away from the hospital than his flat and, thinking about it logically, going home first was no longer an option, which meant he'd have to go in wearing the same clothes he'd worn the day before, but that wasn't the end of the world.

'Can I use your shower?' he asked.

The goth girl nodded. 'Top of the stairs, first on the right. There's towels in the airing cupboard.'

Owen lifted himself up from the sofa with a nauseous groan and tiptoed out of the living room, nodding a wordless 'thank you' to the goth girl before climbing the stairs.

It was while he stood under the hot spray of the shower that further fragments of information came back to him. The trawl around Cardiff's coolest bars and a few that weren't so cool before they wound up in Metros nightclub. They'd looked a bit out of place, Owen and his fellow doctors, all of them in their Ben Sherman shirts and shoes, while around them kids with spiky multicoloured hair and piercings, most of them dressed from head to toe in black, bounced around to System Of A Down and Green Day.

Lloyd had started talking to another goth girl, the girl he assumed was Kirsty, and then introduced him to Kirsty's friend, the girl who was now downstairs in Hello Kitty pyjamas. Quite what Lloyd was playing at he wasn't sure; perhaps angling for some kind of orgy; Owen could never tell with Lloyd.

Whatever his game was, Lloyd had persuaded Owen to join them in the taxi back to Cathays, stopping at a kebab shop en route. He'd tried eating the kebab in the back of the cab, and the driver had shouted something at him about no food and drink in the car. That was when Owen had dripped chilli sauce down his front. It was a little sketchy after that — a drunken conversation on the sofa; the goth girls rolling spliffs, and then nothing. He'd blacked out pretty quickly.

As Owen left the bathroom, he knocked on the door that was signposted 'KIRSTY'S ROOM' by a brightly coloured wooden plaque, and said, 'Lloyd… It's Owen. Come on, mate. We've got to go to work.'

He heard a groan and a giggle from inside the room; the groan Lloyd's, the giggle Kirsty's.

'Not me, mate,' said Lloyd. 'I've got the day off.'

'Bloody typical,' thought Owen. 'He drags me into town, gets me pissed, and then he's got the day off. Bloody typical.'

'Do you really have to go to work?' the goth girl in pyjamas asked as he returned to the living room to put on his shoes.

'Yeah, kind of,' said Owen. 'I'm a doctor.'

Minutes later, he stepped out into the very bright and very cold light of day. He needed food, but there wasn't time to buy any. He also needed to find his bearings. He hadn't lived in Cardiff all that long, and much of the city was still new to him.

Added to his geographical disorientation was the feeling of shame, as he made his way past pensioners pushing trolleys and commuters on their way to work. It was as if they all knew exactly what he'd done the night before, as if they could see right through him. Or maybe they could just smell the booze as he walked past. Either way, it wasn't a good place to be.

The bus journey was marred by screaming toddlers, which he really didn't need as that headache began to kick back in. He could have phoned in sick, of course, but that wasn't really an option. Doctors don't 'do' sick days. Doctors, according to unwritten law, have immune systems that can defeat any virus, and they most definitely do not have hangovers.

He got to A amp;E at the hospital almost an hour after he had left the goth girl's house. His colleagues and so-called friends were waiting for him, all with grinning faces or pursed lips.

'Tut, tut, tut… Where did you get to last night, you dirty stop-out?'

'Feeling a bit worse for wear?'

'Is that kebab sauce you've got down the front of you?'

'I think Dr Harper's going to need a lie down. Shame we need him over on 5. Grab a coffee, and put on a jacket. Can't have you walking around looking like a bloody tramp. You're coming with me.'

The first patient he had to see was a young boy who had been hit by a car on his way to school. When his superior, Dr Balasubramanian (Dr Bala, for short), pulled the curtain aside, Owen felt his heart sink. He could deal with all aspects of the job; the blood, the injuries, the bodily fluids; but it was always hard when it was a child. Luckily he'd not had to deal with too many of them, and all the kids he'd dealt with had left the hospital breathing.

'Dr Harper, this is Darren. Darren, this is Dr Harper. He's just going to take a look at you, to find out what we need to do to make you better.'

Darren Lucas was nine years old and somebody's blue eyed boy, but now he was lying in a hospital bed, crying every time he moved. Just looking at him, Owen could tell he had a broken arm, perhaps a broken collar bone. They'd need to run him through a CT scan and a chest X-ray. He talked in hushed tones with Dr Bala, running through procedure, and Dr Bala nodded, and added a few suggestions, as he always did. When he'd finished the consultation, Owen turned to Darren.

'You're gonna be OK, Darren,' he said, smiling softly. 'We'll have you playing football in no time.'

'I hate football,' said Darren, between sobs.

'OK,' said Owen, 'well, whatever it is you like playing.'

He leaned a little closer to the boy.

'Listen, mate. I know it's scary and I know it hurts, but you're gonna be fine. OK? D'you trust me?'

Darren Lucas nodded.

'You're being very brave, Darren. You carry on like this and we might have to give you a medal.'

Darren smiled, before another jolt of pain caused him to wince.

'You know, we have nurses for that,' said Dr Bala, as they walked away from Darren's cubicle.

'What do you mean?' asked Owen.

'Friendly patter. We reassure, but you don't have to go overboard on the nice-doctor act.'

'It's not an act. I just think how would I feel if I was in their shoes. It must be pretty bloody scary. Big hospital. Lots of doctors talking incomprehensible gibberish.'

'Yes, I know that, and don't think I'm indifferent to it, but you do have to maintain just a little bit of distance sometimes. It's a lot of hard work, you know.' Dr Bala laughed and gave Owen a hefty pat on the shoulder, another of his trademark gestures. 'Now the other patient I'd like you to take a look at is the gentleman in 7. Very strange, this one. Came in fifteen minutes ago. One of the ambulance drivers found him outside the main doors.'

They approached the bed of the next patient, a young man no older than twenty-five. He was covered in soot and black ash, but not burned in any way. He was shirtless, and a dressing had been applied to a wound on his chest.

'Who are you?' the young man asked.

'This is Dr Harper,' said Dr Bala. 'Dr Harper, this is Michael. Michael, would you care to tell Dr Harper what you just told me, about your accident?'

'It wasn't an accident,' said Michael, solemnly. 'It wasn't an accident. They were bombing us. They were bombing the city. I couldn't stop it. The bombs just kept falling.'

'And when was this, Michael?'

Michael said simply: '1941.'

Dr Bala turned to Owen and surreptitiously raised one eyebrow.

'Michael was on Neville Street, in Riverside, during the Blitz.'

'Where am I now?' Michael asked. 'I was dreaming, wasn't I? It was a dream?'

'That may well be the case,' said Dr Bala. 'That may very well be the case. Could you tell Dr Harper your date of birth?'

'Yes. First of April, 1929.'

Dr Bala turned to Owen again. '1929,' he said. 'Michael tells me there was some sort of accident, in 1953, and that he then found himself in 1941 during the Blitz.'

'Stop talking like that,' said Michael. 'Like I'm… like I'm gone in the head.'

His voice shook and his eyes filled with tears.

'I just want to wake up,' he said. 'I just want to wake up again, back home. I just want this to stop.'

'OK, Michael. I'll send one of the nurses in shortly. We'll help you,' said Dr Bala, before putting one hand on Owen's shoulder and steering him away from the cubicle.

'Well?' he said.

'Schizophrenia?' said Owen. 'I mean… Paranoid delusions, displacement… That's probably schizophrenia, isn't it?'

'Not our problem to diagnose, but I reckon it's a good guess. What would you do?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, what would be your next course of action? His injuries were very slight. The wound on his chest… a splinter of wood… was superficial and has been treated.'

'Check for concussion?'

'Yes. Already done. What next?'

'Call in psych.'

'Good. And…?'

'You want the honest answer?'

'Of course.'

'I'd send him to St Helen's Psychiatric. No reason to keep him in here if he's been treated, and he's as mad as a bucket of frogs.'

'Quite. Though I'm not sure I would have used your vernacular.'

Owen paused. What had happened to that empathy they were just talking about? Now here he was half-joking about somebody's madness, when it was clear the guy was scared out of his mind. What he was saying might not be true, but it was clearly true to him.

'Do you reckon he'll be OK?' asked Owen.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, at St Helen's. I mean, what happens to him next?'

'Chances are he was already being cared for in some capacity, or he has family who are worried sick about him. It's unlikely he'll have to remain there in the long term. The important thing, Owen, is that the moment he walks out of that door you forget all about him. It's not easy, I know it's not, but it's important. If you're a doctor for any length of time you'll get to see hundreds of patients like him, equally out of their minds, equally distraught. You can't go worrying about all of them.'

'You met him?' asked Toshiko.

Owen nodded.

They were in the Autopsy Room, Owen leaning back against the far wall.

'I couldn't say anything. I… I didn't know what to say. What if I'm the reason he's here? And it wasn't just that, it was something else…'

'What?'

Owen took in a deep breath, sighed, and shook his head.

'It's stupid, really. I mean really, really stupid. I was a doctor for how long? Saw everything on the wards. You name it, I saw it. People coming in who you'd barely recognise as human, let alone alive. Burns, car crashes, stabbings, shootings. We had it all.'

'What are you talking about?'

'It was that day,' said Owen. 'It was the same day. One minute I'm talking to Darren Lucas, this kid who's been run over, then I'm talking to Michael, the crazy guy who's been to 1941. I was talking about Michael all afternoon, to the other doctors, and the nurses. I'd almost forgotten about Darren.' He paused. 'He was only nine.'

Owen rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb and walked away from his desk.

'I worked a twelve-hour shift that day,' he said. 'The boy… Darren… he had to wait God knows how long for one of his scans, but I popped in to see him a couple of times, and he seemed OK. His parents were worried sick, but I told them everything was going to be fine. And then, just before they were going to take him up for the scan, he died. Just like that.'

Owen closed his eyes and shook his head.

'It was a blood clot. Something we hadn't picked up; couldn't have picked up. I had to go and tell his parents. I'll never forget the look in their eyes…'

He paused again, rubbing both eyes with the palm of his hand.

'Darren Lucas. The funny thing is, you get so many patients, and you forget their names eventually, but I never forgot Darren's. I forgot all about Michael. There were dozens more nutters over the years; you can't remember all of them. But now he's back. It must be my fault. It must be something I've done, something I've screwed up. He comes to me all those years ago and now he's back, here, now.'

Toshiko went to him immediately, putting her arms around him. There was a moment, just a moment, when they looked into each other's eyes and neither of them was entirely sure what the embrace meant.

Toshiko broke away suddenly.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'But trust me, Owen. It's not just you.'