Cast Iron

Chapter twenty-nine

Sunlight slanted into Bertrand’s room at an acute angle through venetian blinds, and lay in stripes across the white sheet that covered him. Stripes that followed the contour of his leg, raised under the sheet and supported from below. The softness of the pillow beneath his head felt so luxurious that he had no real desire to come fully to the surface of what felt like a very deep sleep.

For the first time in a long time, there was no pain. No sensation of any kind. He might have been floating.

But gradually he became aware of an electronic beep that sounded at regular intervals, and it dawned on him that it was keeping time with the beat of his heart. With an effort he turned his head to his left, and saw a bank of electronic apparatus spilling wires and tubes across the floor to the bed. A drip almost directly above him feeding clear liquid into a vein in his arm, sensors stuck to his chest.

His mouth was so dry he could barely separate his tongue from the roof of it, his lips cracked and sore. He tried to swallow, but it seemed there was a boulder in his throat.

He heard a door opening and lifted his head a little to see an elderly nurse bustling into the room, her crisp white uniform swishing as she walked. She leaned over and looked at him with soft, kindly brown eyes. ‘Good morning, young man,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to see you are finally awake at last.’

Morning, Bertrand thought. Morning? What morning? What day? Where on earth was he?

‘How are you feeling?’

He struggled to find his voice, then finally heard it croak in the quiet of the room. ‘Not bad.’ What else to say?

The nurse smiled. ‘Maybe now you’ll be able to tell us who you are and where we can get in touch with your family.’

Bertrand was confused. Why would they not know who he was?

Then recollection returned like a sledgehammer and set the machine beside his bed beeping at an alarming rate. He sat bolt upright, and the nurse stepped back in surprise. ‘You’ve got to get me a phone,’ he said, suddenly finding strength in his voice. ‘You’ve got to get me a phone, now!’