Page 35 of Copper Script
“Absolutely.Can’t interfere with the strong arm of the law.”
“Long arm.Not strong.”
Your arms look strong enough, Joel thought, though he managed to keep that one to himself.“So it is.I suppose I was thinking of strong-arming people into things.”
“You usually seem to be,” Fowler said, but without offence, which was good, because Joel hadn’t precisely meant offence.He just tended to banter with bite, and all the more when he was nervous.“On the subject of arms...”
“Go on,” Joel said, as permission seemed to be required.
“What did you mean, you don’t want to get used to your prosthesis?”
“Sorry?”
“You said earlier that you didn’t want to, but you were still practising, and—I realise it’s none of my business.I just...”He paused a second.“I struggle to quite work you out.”
Does that mean you want to work me out?Joel felt the tingle all over.Down, boy.
“Ask away,” he said.“I’m very easy, really.A man of simple tastes.”
Fowler narrowed his eyes and lips fractionally, as he tended to do when Joel flirted.It still wasn’t clear if he was disapproving or stopping himself from responding.
“Prosthesis,” he reminded himself as much as Fowler.“Well.The thing is, they wouldn’t give me one for ages.I still had my right hand, and since all right-handers seem to be convinced that left-handers just do it for our own perverse entertainment, apparently I was barely disabled at all.And, in fairness, there were plenty of people in more need than me, but I didn’t ask to have my hand shot off and I do actually feel that the people responsible for the war should be responsible for the consequences.So I made a bit of a fuss and eventually got the hook affair, and it’s awful.I hate it.Ahook, like the villain in that bloody play with the flying children.”
“It’s not that bad.You wouldn’t take your eye out if you scratched your nose.”
“It feels that bad when it’s strapped to me.And it’s notindependent.It holds things adequately, but it’s a pain to open and close it, and it makes me feel ghastly.I don’t want it.”
“No,” Fowler said.He was listening closely, a little frown between his brows.“I see that, but is there an alternative?If you can’t learn to write with your right hand—and I take your word on that—what else is there?”
“A better prosthesis.”Joel didn’t usually talk about this, but then, people didn’t usually ask.“There’s a surgeon who’s developed an artificial hand with articulated fingers, operated by arm muscle movements.I’ve seen a film.Chaps using them to hold teacups, and drink from them.One of them takes a matchbox from his pocket, and a match out of the box.It’s not fast, of course, but it looks like a hand and it works independently.I want that.”
“Good God.That’s remarkable.How do you get one of those?”
“At vast cost.The inventor’s a German—oh, the irony—so I’d probably have to go out there to have it fitted, and the devices are ferociously expensive.I’m never getting one from the Government, I can tell you that.”
“So you’re saving up for it,” Fowler said.“Which is why you live in that rathole and do the graphology.”
Joel would have taken exception to the description of his home as a rathole if it had been less accurate.“I don’t know a better way to get the sort of money I need, except robbing a bank, which probably creates more problems than it solves.”
“Professionally speaking, I would advise against it.Do you think—” He stopped.
“Do I think it will help?”Joel asked.“Do I think it will feel like a hand rather than another ungainly artificial thing strapped to my arm?Do I think it will make me whole again, or persuade other people that I am?”
“Of course you’ve thought about it.”
Joel sighed.“I realise I might spend a fortune to get something that looks a bit more like a real hand and feels marginally less clunky, and discover I hate it just as much.Iknowthat’s possible.But I still want to try.”
Fowler’s dark eyes were fixed on his.Joel said, “What?”
“I don’t know.I’ve done things because they feel like they might solve a problem, and then realised the problem is too big for any one thing to fix.You think it’s the solution until you get there and it turns out it’s just a plaster on a gaping wound.”He grimaced.“But sometimes you simply need to know you’ve tried, and now and again, things work.I hope you get your hand, and I hope it gives you everything you want from it.”
“Thank you,” Joel said, a slight wobble in his voice.
“And that’s why you’re working so hard with the current device?Getting your arm stronger?”
“I should have been doing exercises for years.You know how it is.But now I’m putting some money away, it makes sense to get the arm back in shape, so I’ll be ready.”
“Sensible,” Fowler said.“I suppose you’ve already had a lot of people assure you that there’s no shame in a war wound.”
