Warhol's Prophecy

83

THE DRIVE TO the hospital seemed to take an eternity.

All the way there, Hailey sat gazing blankly out of the side window of the police car.

There were questions she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t seem to force the words out. And, as they drew nearer to the huge building, she felt as if her vocal cords had seized up.

The car pulled up outside the entrance to Accident and Emergency, and the younger of the two policemen led Hailey through the reception area into the hospital itself.

An ambulance had just arrived, its blue lights turning silently. Hailey briefly glimpsed someone being lifted onto a gurney from the back of the vehicle. She saw blood, heard a moan of pain, then it was gone.

She followed the policeman along a series of corridors; they passed nurses and porters on the way. But Hailey’s overwhelming impression was one of silence. At such a late hour most patients were sleeping: some soundly, some with the aid of painkillers. In this monolithic structure, people were in pain. Some were dying. Some were already dead.

She forced the thoughts to the back of her mind, or at least she tried to. And, all the time she trudged along with the policeman, that antiseptic smell she hated so much clogged her nostrils. To Hailey hospitals smelled of pain and suffering.

They passed a cleaner using a buffing machine to polish the floor of one of the corridors. He looked up briefly as Hailey passed, no doubt wondering who this sad-looking woman was here to see. Then he returned to his work.

Hailey and the policeman rode the lift to the third floor and he stepped out ahead of her.

There was a small nurses’ station to her left, lit only by a dull night-light. There didn’t seem to be anyone on duty.

The policeman crossed to the desk and looked behind it, towards a small inner office.

A tall, thin-faced nurse in a blue overall emerged and smiled efficiently at him.

‘Robert Gibson?’ he said.

‘Room 311,’ the nurse told him, returning to her duties, as Hailey and the policeman made their way towards the room she had designated.

There was a single plastic chair outside it, and perched on that chair, a copy of the previous day’s Mirror in his hand, was a man in a brown suit and a pair of unpolished shoes. He stood up when he saw Hailey and managed a smile.

‘Mrs Gibson?’ he said.

She nodded.

‘My name is Detective Constable Matthew Tate,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been assigned to your husband’s case.’

‘Please let me see him,’ Hailey asked.

‘Look, I’ll warn you now,’ Tate said almost apologetically, ‘he’s taken a bad beating. The facial damage is severe but . . .’

‘Please, just let me see him,’ she said irritably, and barged past the plain-clothes man.

During the drive to the hospital she had tried to prepare herself for every possible eventuality. Imagined what he might look like. How bad his cuts and bruises would be.

‘Oh my God,’ she whispered softly, and the tears began to flow immediately.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she now saw.

Rob lay propped up on three pillows.

‘Oh my God,’ Hailey repeated, moving closer to the bed.

There were drips running into both arms. His right hand was heavily bandaged. So too was his scalp and most of the left side of his face. What remained exposed was a collage of purple, red and black flesh. Bruises and gashes seemed to overlap, and his whole face looked as if it had been inflated, so great was the swelling. Both eyes were almost closed. The skin around them was blackened with bruises, and one eyelid, she noticed, was slightly torn. Two stitches had been inserted into it.

His lips were cracked and split and his head lolled to one side, despite the neck brace he wore.

His upper body was uncovered, and that too showed a patchwork of cuts and bruises. Every single inch of flesh seemed to have been damaged in some way: his shoulders, his arms. His stomach and sides were tightly strapped.

Hailey crossed to the bed, only now noticing that there was a nurse in the room. She’d been so mesmerized by the appalling sight of her husband as soon as she’d entered, she hadn’t even seen another figure in the small room.

‘Rob,’ Hailey whimpered.

‘He’s heavily sedated,’ the nurse told her quietly.

Hailey stared again at the terrible injuries. She wiped tears away.

‘He’s stable now,’ the nurse insisted. ‘He’s going to be OK.’

‘How bad are the injuries?’

‘He’s got a broken finger, two broken ribs. He’s lost a couple of teeth. There’s a hairline fracture of the jaw and some very bad cuts and bruises. We did a scan when he was brought in. There’s no damage to his brain, despite the head injuries. No severe internal damage either.’

‘Can he hear us?’

‘Probably, but he can’t speak. His jaw is wired at the moment.’

‘I thought you said it was only a hairline fracture.’

‘It’s just a precaution. He’ll be chattering away again in a few days, you’ll see.’

The nurse paused by the door. ‘I’ll leave you for a few minutes.’ She smiled.

Hailey sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her husband.

‘Oh, Rob,’ she said, her voice cracking. She wiped her tears away. ‘Who did this to you?’

His eyes flickered open slightly – at least as far as the puffy swollen flesh around them would allow.

‘Can you hear me?’ she persisted.

He tried to speak, but the effort caused great pain. He winced instead.

She gripped his unbandaged hand.

‘Tol’ police,’ he croaked.

She leaned forward, anxious to hear his garbled words.

‘Did you see who did it?’ Hailey wanted to know.

‘Didn’t know them,’ he continued, pain creasing his battered features.

She gripped his hand more tightly.

‘Rob,’ she said urgently.

He closed his eyes.