Page 125 of Tendu: Dancing in the Castle

A body mangled, smelling of ammonia and metal and sick. What had gone on here while I’d been gone? Had she finished me with that hammer? Was I about to die? My pulverised being vibrated with intense pain, except for one arm. It was numb.

Michelle sat against the opposite wall, crying again, holding the sledgehammer as if it were a baby. “I knew the chains would fit you,” she said. “They were mine when I was a girl, you see. I learned to be good. You can too.” She sobbed on as she crawled her way over to the table, picked up a hypodermic needle and stared at it.

I wouldn’t let her harm Aleks and Will, and I knew they were almost upon us. That part of my dream was true. It had to be. The golden lady had given me a task. It would keep them safe. And if these were my last moments on earth, I could make them useful ones.

Visualising Amalgamation C proved to be a powerful pain killer as I hummed the hateful melody and mentally ordered the boulder in the ceiling to fall. The roof creaked, and the huge rock plunged in slow motion, an enormous and pointed stone, stolen from the circle long ago. The carved lions widened their eyes in amazement. Michelle looked up and made a sound of rage before vanishing in an explosion of dust and rubble.

I was free to go again, through that restful blackness to ceiling stars and a blue sky, gentle hands and soft sleep.

Chapter 38

Glimpsesoflight,shortbreaks in the dark. Kind arms: holding, lifting, taking the strain. Will’s eyes, his face dirty, streaked red and brown. A siren. An unknown man said, “Can you hear me, Amalphia?” Bright lights. A jumble of voices that faded away.

I blinked and breathed and took in some basic facts. The bed had white sheets and a yellow blanket. The floor was grey. Justin read a magazine in the distance. Aleks had a beard; his elbows indented the bed as he rested his forehead in hands, eyes closed.

“You’re hairy,” I said, surprised by how my voice croaked.

He looked up and took my outstretched hand. His face was strange, as if he’d grown much older, as if I’d been asleep for years.

Justin stood at the other side of the bed now, also unshaven.

“You’re hairy as well,” I said, wanting to take his hand too, but finding my right arm to be all tied up. “I’m hurt. How hurt? Tell me.”

“You will mend,” Aleks began, sounding a bit croaky too. “All. Your arm…”

Justin took over, cheerily, matter of factly. “Broken in seven places. You had a long op for that. Don’t you remember? No, well, they’ve put pins in. We’ll get you a bionic-woman costume, cape, tights, the works. You’ll look great. You’ve a sprained ankle. Don’t worry, you’ll dance again, blah de blah. The rest may feel bad, but it’s really just cuts and bruises. Superficial is the word they keep using. As if you could ever be that, Phi.” His cheeriness faded and wobbled with this last bit, and he looked like he might cry.

“Oh,” I said. Missing information existed on the other side of some sort of chemical fog. “They’ve given me strong drugs, haven’t they?”

Justin nodded. “Narcotics, straight into your veins.”

It was nice there was no pain. There had been too much pain. A visual of Michelle vanishing under the stone appeared like a trailer for a film, a very bad film that hadn’t really been a film.

“Is she dead?” I asked them.

They looked at each other. Aleks answered. “No. Very much injured. In other hospital. Other city. You’re safe now. I should not have left you.”

Justin’s eyebrows assumed their annoyed position as he looked at Aleks and gave a tiny shake of his head. I didn’t understand.

“Rest, Phi,” advised Justin. “Enjoy the drugs while they last. They’ll take them away soon enough.”

“The golden lady held me,” I remembered, before drifting away on a cloud, still holding Aleks’s hand.

The next awakening was different. Two women – two nurses – were in the room.

“Good,” said one. “We thought we would have to wake you.”

They washed my unsightly body as I remembered specific things. I didn’t want their hands on me. They removed various tubes and helped me walk to the toilet. My ankle hurt, but I could stand on it. Everything hurt.

They chatted on as if everything didn’t hurt and was, in fact, normal. “He’s a bit gorgeous, your man,” remarked the older one. “The tall blond one’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”

I was momentarily transfixed by her London accent. It was like a voice from long ago, from before. From somewhere I could have stayed and been safe. They changed the dressings on my battered arms and legs without reaction, not even to the large scabbed ‘W’ on the thigh. Correct labelling. Whore.

They talked on and on. They’d sent my friends away to get a meal. “Doesn’t want to leave you, that one. Must be love,” teased the nurse. “Three days, and I don’t think he’s slept.”

“I’ve been here for three days?”

She nodded. “The police want to speak to you this afternoon. Your other friend’s coming back for that. She brought you some clothes in. Let’s put them on. You’ll feel better.”

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