Shifting Skin

Chapter 23

Dawn Poole leaned forward and gently applied a finishing touch of mascara to the patient’s eyelashes. ‘There, you look wonderful.’

‘Really? How bloodshot are my eyes?’

The bedside mirror had been moved, so Dawn didn’t lie.

‘They’re not clear yet, but compared to a few days ago, they’re so much better.’

The patient’s head fell to the side, face bandages rasping lightly against the pillow. The front doorbell went.

‘That’ll be him!’ Dawn jumped to her feet and hurried from the room.

As soon as the bedroom door shut a whir of wings came from the window. The robin sat there, head cocked, expectantly looking in.

The patient reached slowly for the biscuit on the bedside table, broke off a piece and crumbled it on the bedcover. With a hop and a flutter, the bird alighted centimetres from the red fingernails. It pecked a fragment, looked up and around, then pecked another.

Apart from the occasional blink, the patient could have been a statue. Or a corpse.

Footsteps were coming up the stairs and the bird stopped feeding to listen. As soon as the door began to open, it darted back out of the window.

Dawn stood aside, allowing Dr Eamon O’Connor to step into the room. The patient tried to smile.

Dr O’Connor walked slowly round the bed, brushed the crumbs off the cover and sat down. ‘OK. Let’s get these bandages off and see how your face is mending.’

‘Will it hurt?’ the patient said, fingers fluttering at the collar of the nightie.

‘Not at all,’ O’Connor said, opening his briefcase. After methodically cleaning his hands with an antiseptic wipe, he took out a pair of stainless-steel scissors. ‘Now, hold that pretty head still and I’ll just snip your bandages.’

The blades of the scissors came together and the outer layer of gauze fell away.

‘Good,’ O’Connor said, laying the scissors down. He took a loose end and slowly unwound the layers obscuring the patient’s lower face.

As he reached the final lengths watery brown liquid had stained the material. ‘You still have some discharge from the wound, but that’s to be expected. Keep taking the antibiotics I prescribed.’

Carefully he eased away the final strip, revealing an oval face marred by a thin laceration running along the entire length of the jaw. More bandages held a couple of splints in place down each side of the patient’s nose. The wounds on the jaw were held together by a thicket of incredibly fine stitches.

Dawn stared with affection at his face. The masculine edges had been almost totally smoothed away. She thought the feminine look suited him far better.

O’Connor leaned forwards to survey his handiwork. ‘Excellent, if I say so myself.’

The patient’s eyes were wide. ‘Will there be any scarring?’ O’Connor shook his head. ‘With sutures applied this well?

Keep out of direct sunlight and use the cream I give you, and no one will be able to see a thing. Now, my dear, let’s take a look at your nose.’

He took a pair of tweezers from his briefcase and used them to prise away the gauze. Then he slid the lower blade of the scissors beneath and carefully snipped upwards. The patient sat rigid in the bed, eyes tightly shut.

Gently, the doctor pulled the covering away, easing out the little splints and eventually revealing a swollen nose, the skin stretched so tight it shone. Ugly bruising spread away from it, staining the skin beneath the patient’s eyes a purplish yellow.

‘Hold still. We’re nearly done.’ O’Connor took a pencil torch from the briefcase, bent forward and shone it up the patient’s nostrils. ‘Can you breathe through your nose?’

‘Just. But the left nostril feels blocked.’

O’Connor nodded. ‘It looks like dried blood to me, not how the cartilage has settled. Dawn, can you fetch some warm water and a towel?’

She jumped to her feet and went into the bathroom.

‘So I’ll be OK, Doctor?’

He smiled at the frightened-looking figure in the bed. ‘Of course. We talked about how the process of becoming who you want to be will have its ups and downs, didn’t we? You’re doing well and I’m certainly happy with how things are going.’

Dawn came back into the room. ‘Here you are, Doctor.’

‘Thank you.’ He arranged the towel like a bib over the patient’s chest, tested the water with a forefinger, then removed a cotton bud from a small pot and dipped it in the bowl. He inserted the end into his patient’s left nostril and rotated it very slowly. It came out stained dark brown with dried blood. ‘Any pain?’

‘No,’ the patient whispered.

He turned the cotton bud over and repeated the action, slowly dissolving away more blood.

‘Very gently now, try breathing in through your nose.’ The patient did so, eyes opening wide. ‘I can.’

‘Well, thanks for sounding so surprised,’ O’Connor said, standing up.

‘I’m sorry.’ The patient tried to smile.

The doctor clicked his briefcase closed. ‘I’ll be back to remove the sutures in a few days. In the meantime, keep taking the antibiotics and don’t, whatever you do, start to pick.’

The patient nodded meekly. ‘Doctor, what about my other pills?’

‘Absolutely not, I’m afraid. Not until you’ve completed the course of antibiotics. Don’t worry, no appreciable differences will manifest themselves before then. You can go back on them soon enough.’