Someone to Watch Over Me

CHAPTER 4 Wednesday, 6 January 2010

Thank God there were only ten minutes of the programme left. Margeir couldn’t recall ever being so desperate for a broadcast to end, however bored he usually was by the end of the day. The host of the next show hadn’t arrived yet, but that didn’t matter: Margeir was going off air on the dot. He would just rerun an old show and hope no one complained. He doubted anyone would; already about half their output consisted of repeats, as it was the only way to keep such a small private radio station going. The number of listeners decreased throughout the evening anyway, and it was unlikely that the few who were still listening by this time would make a fuss. Margeir’s show was hardly keeping its head above water; it was based on listeners phoning in, so when he didn’t have any callers, there was no show to speak of. For far too long he had put off asking the station manager to get it moved to an earlier time slot, to the extent that now he’d got sick of it; it showed in his performance, which in turn made it less and less likely that his wish would be granted. Margeir couldn’t pinpoint the precise moment when his interest in his job had started waning, nor did he understand what had caused the decline, but suddenly he was plagued by apathy – and it showed.

A red light blinked, indicating that a listener was on the line. Margeir turned down the volume on the music he played to save having to come up with the inane babble he resorted to between callers. His producer was on holiday and there was no budget for a temporary replacement, so Margeir had been forced to relearn all the technical details he’d been taught years before: how to play advertisements, cue up songs and answer phone calls. Others had lined up the more complicated elements before he went on the air, and he’d been told on the phone that all he had to do was turn up, wait for the pre-recorded show ahead of his to finish and jump in at a designated time. On his way to work he had wondered what he’d do if the preceding programme had stopped before he got there. He decided that rather than try to get help he’d just go home, allowing the screeching of the broken equipment – or just silence – to be sent out across the ether.

The light blinked faster and Margeir cursed inwardly for not having had caller ID transferred over so that he could see who was on the line. When the producer was on duty he was told in advance whether the caller was a ‘friend of the station’, one of the ones who called every show to talk for the umpteenth time about their interests – or rather, their obsessions – with an enthusiasm that bordered on mania. Their complaints were never original, and none of them was interested in having their views refuted; they considered the station their private soapbox. It was precisely these people that had drained away all the pleasure from his job; every recycled word eroded the happiness and expectation that had characterized his first month at the station. Originally, the focus of his show wasn’t meant be politics; the idea was to broach lighter subjects, and by doing so reach a younger audience. It hadn’t worked. The people who called in had no interest in movies or new music, and even less in the lives of actors and pop stars. The same group that listened during the day listened during the evening, and all they wanted to do was hold forth on political topics. The light was still blinking; apparently the listener hadn’t given up. Margeir didn’t even need caller ID, he could see that this was one of the obsessives; any ordinary person would have hung up after holding for so long.

The song ended, abruptly; now he had a dilemma. Either talk about something random, or fight to get a word in edgeways amid the ramblings of God-knows-who. Margeir could think of nothing clever to say, so he took the call. ‘Good evening, you’re through to Margeir, what’s on your mind?’

‘I’ve been listening to the show and I wanted to say that I think my friend Gunnbjörn, who called in earlier, is getting stupider every day. What’s he got against the European Union? Is he scared, or something?’

Out of old habit Margeir defended the person being attacked. The stream of nonsense continued, and whenever he tried to interrupt, the caller raised his voice. Soon he was practically screaming, which had the desired effect because Margeir stopped interjecting. In the end, however, he’d had enough, and by raising his voice to a volume he didn’t know he was capable of, he managed to overwhelm the ranter. ‘Well, it’s time for a commercial break, so unfortunately we’ll have to say goodbye for now. Thanks for calling.’ He hung up, not caring if it caused offence, and quickly ran an ad. He knew he’d started resorting to this as a means of escape too often, and as the station manager had once pointed out when giving him a dressing-down, while the sponsors might initially be delighted that their advertisements were heard more often, it wouldn’t take long before they realized the number of listeners was decreasing for that very reason. Unfortunately, people didn’t actually tune in to hear commercials.

There were only five minutes left of the show when the final advert on the tape finished. Instead of giving in to his desire to put on another song, he decided to talk about a newspaper article on cycle paths. He actually had no opinion whatsoever on this area of transport policy, and it amazed him how good he was at discussing a topic without meaning a word of what he said. This had started to affect his private life; the women he met weren’t impressed when he automatically switched to bland DJ patter every time there was an awkward silence. Lately even his parents had started rolling their eyes when he joined in conversations at family gatherings.

The light had started blinking again. This time the call was a godsend; the show was about to end, so it didn’t matter what dickhead was on the line – he wouldn’t have long. ‘Good evening, you’re through to Margeir, what’s on your mind?’ He winced as a screech of feedback pierced his eardrums. ‘Could you please turn down the volume on your radio, caller?’ This wasn’t one of the regulars, that was certain. They had learned long ago to turn off their radios when they got through. The noise stopped and Margeir repeated his greeting, which had become so hackneyed that he could say it backwards without any problem. ‘Good evening, you’re through to Margeir, what’s on your mind?’

‘Good evening, Margeir.’ He didn’t recognize the voice, and the emphasis on his name sounded sarcastic.

‘To whom am I speaking?’ Margeir had been so busy grumbling to himself about the regular callers, he had forgotten how difficult first-timers could be.

‘To me.’

Margeir looked at the clock in the hope that just once, time had sped up at the right moment, but he was disappointed. Four minutes left. ‘Well, my friend.’ The man must be drunk; sometimes heavy drinkers called the evening show just to have someone to talk to. Yet another reason to want an earlier slot. ‘Our time is running out, so you’d better hurry up if you want to share something with the listeners.’

‘I called to talk to you. Just you.’ The voice was not slurring at all; on the contrary, every word was clear and seemed loaded with hidden meaning.

‘Well, that’s too bad, my friend. You’re on air. Don’t you want to share something with the listeners?’ The damn clock must be broken. Time simply refused to pass.

‘Do you want the listeners to hear what I have to say?’ The caller paused. ‘I’m not sure you do.’

Margeir wasn’t used to letting listeners throw him off balance. He couldn’t deny he often found them tiresome, but he always kept his composure. This call, however, was nothing like the ones he was used to; the voice was calm and level but somehow unpleasant, as if the man was about to burst into mocking laughter. ‘Hey, I think our time’s up. Karl will be on in a minute, so if you’re lucky you can call back and have a chat with him.’ Margeir should have just said ‘goodbye’ and hung up, but he paused long enough for the eerily composed man to speak again.

‘Be careful.’ The voice sounded odd, and Margeir suddenly wondered if it was a woman, or even a child, pretending to be a man. ‘Soon there will be a reckoning and it won’t be pretty. Did you think this was over?’

‘This? What do you mean, “this”?’ Again Margeir knew he was being unprofessional; he should be cutting the caller off, not encouraging him.

‘You should know.’ There was a quiet chuckle, which stopped as suddenly as it had started. ‘What do you do when you get too drunk, these days? Things aren’t going that well, are they, one way and another?’ The man’s breathing got heavy and ragged, then he said: ‘I’m so hot. I’m burning up.’

Margeir had had enough. ‘OK, thanks, pal.’ He disconnected the line. ‘That’s it from me. I’m leaving you now, listeners, but I hope we can meet here tomorrow evening at the same time. Good night.’ He tore off his headphones and played the programme’s theme music, then stood up, his knees weak. He ran back through the brief conversation in his mind but couldn’t put his finger on exactly what had caught him off balance unless it was the voice itself, which had been impossible to read. It was unusually calm, completely at odds with the voices of the other listeners who called in. That must be it. He was tired and bored and fed up with everything at the moment. He moved down to the other end of the table, where the producer usually sat, and lifted the little handset that displayed the callers’ numbers. He checked the most recent one, but the little screen showed only the letters: P.No for Private Number. Margeir gnawed the inside of his cheek and stared at the screen. The flesh was bumpy there, scarred by the nervous habit even though he hadn’t done it for many years. Now his teeth caught on the scars.

‘Hi! Sorry I’m late. Damn car was playing up again.’ The next DJ in the schedule had arrived without Margeir realizing. The man’s loud greeting startled Margeir and he had to take a deep breath before answering.

‘I was just going to put on a pre-record.’ Margeir put down the caller-ID gadget. ‘My outro music is still playing, so you have a few seconds.’

‘Who was that nutjob at the end? I was listening to it in the car. Man, I hope he doesn’t take your advice and call me too.’

Without knowing why, Margeir felt sure that wasn’t going to happen. His instinct told him the caller thought he had business with him, not the other hosts. He felt uneasy as he walked out to the dark car park. In his mind the abhorrent thought took hold that he knew exactly what the caller had been talking about, and as soon as he was in his car he quickly locked the door.

‘Is she asleep?’ Svava put down the pen and took off her reading glasses, happy to be able to take a break from peering at the small print. She had chosen the glasses at random in a petrol station and their strength was not right for her at all. She couldn’t put off making an appointment with the optician any longer.

‘Who?’ The young woman was one of the temps who moved from department to department, covering sick leave and holidays, so it was hardly surprising she didn’t know who Svava meant.

‘Room 7, the girl who was just admitted.’

‘To be honest, I didn’t look in on her. I was checking the drip in Room 3. It was running out, so I changed the bag.’

‘No problem.’ Svava stood up. ‘I guess I’d better check on her.’ She placed her glasses on her forehead in case she needed them; they didn’t make that much difference, but they were better than nothing. She smiled at the temp; it actually didn’t matter whether she’d checked on the patient, as Svava liked to keep an eye on the new patients and try to learn a bit about them. Often you could detect when a patient was about to go downhill, through signs you wouldn’t necessarily notice unless you knew them. Only by learning what was normal for a patient could you identify abnormalities.

She walked from the staffroom down the corridor to Room 7. Her route took her past several rooms, and from each open door she could hear slow breathing and the electronic beeps of monitors and other equipment. Everything seemed normal, or as normal as could be expected, and as she approached Room 7 she heard nothing to make her quicken her pace. Assuming the girl was asleep, she tiptoed into the spartan white room, almost empty apart from the huge bed. No attempt had been made to disguise the hospital bed as something more homely; the chrome frame was clearly visible.

Svava had never given it much thought until this young woman was admitted, since there seemed little point. Most patients weren’t in the department for long, and their illnesses ended with them either going home or being carried out in a coffin, which would at least be spruced up with a satin lining. It was a different matter for this girl, who was a young woman really. She had spent many years of her short life in hospital beds, and would be in one until it ended. She was completely paralysed, which confined her to the bed for the larger part of each day. The only change came when she was moved – with great effort – into a specially modified wheelchair and allowed to go out for a breath of fresh air with an orderly. This was not a service provided by the hospital; she was seriously ill and it was not considered safe to move her. Svava wished the room could be made more comfortable somehow, but she thought any attempt to do so would be like hanging Christmas lights on a shotgun. The girl wouldn’t be in the room for long no matter what, so it was futile to make any kind of effort doing it up; Svava’s role, like the others’ in the department, was to nurse and heal, not to play interior designer.

As Svava entered the room she noticed something odd. The sterile smell that generally overwhelmed everything was contaminated with what smelt like body odour. She went to the girl’s bedside and saw that her forehead was damp. Grabbing a flannel from the bedside table, she wiped off the girl’s brow before laying her hand across it to check whether she might have a temperature. This didn’t seem to be the case; the girl was rather cold to the touch, if anything. Still, there was something wrong, because the girl’s eyes were wide open and moving back and forth as if she were having some kind of attack. Maybe she was suffering from cramps, though of course her body lay motionless, as her muscles were no longer under her brain’s control. Her EKG showed a rapid pulse, far too rapid, although her systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings appeared normal. If the girl was simply feeling off colour she might be a bit panicky. Svava had plenty of experience in dealing with the physically disabled, but it was rare to see someone this seriously affected, who was unable to express herself except with her eyes.

‘Did you have a bad dream?’ Svava leaned closer to the girl’s face and followed her eyes closely. She thought she’d been told that the girl would blink once for yes and twice for no but had never tested this out, so it could very well be the other way around; Svava couldn’t remember. The girl blinked twice and Svava decided to stick to her first instinct. ‘Are you thirsty?’ Again the girl blinked twice. Svava hoped she’d guessed correctly; it would have been awful if the girl had woken from a nightmare dying of thirst and was given nothing to relieve it. ‘Are you… are you awake?’ A ridiculous question, but it was the only one that Svava could think of to test out the answer. The girl blinked once. So Svava had got it right: one blink was yes and two was no. But although she had worked this out, they’d be here all night if she didn’t ask the right questions.

‘You can use the cards.’ She looked up and saw the locum nurse in the doorway. ‘I’ve worked in departments that take care of people as acute as her, and I learned a bit about communicating with them. There’s computer equipment that’s a lot more sophisticated, but nothing like that seems to have come with her, if she even knew how to use it.’ She looked at the girl, then back at Svava. ‘Not that I know how to use that kind of thing myself, so I wouldn’t have been much help. But I’m pretty good with the cards, which should be here somewhere…’

‘What cards?’ Nobody had told Svava.

The girl walked in and looked around. She bent down to the bedside table and picked up some plastic cards, each of which was divided into a number of squares with pictures or symbols. She positioned one of them directly in front of the girl’s face and started pointing. The girl used her eyes by blinking or looking left or right, seemingly directing the nurse to the right square. After doing this for some time and working through several cards, the girl suddenly shut both eyes and didn’t open them again. Only then did Svava dare to say anything – she hadn’t wanted to disturb this primitive, almost alien communication. ‘Did you make any sense of that?’

The woman shrugged and looked puzzled. ‘I’m no expert at this so I may have misunderstood her, but what I did get wasn’t exactly helpful.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Hot. Burning.’ The woman shrugged apologetically. ‘Something like that.’

‘Burning?’ Svava didn’t think the cards were much use if this was the result. ‘She doesn’t seem hot to the touch; but maybe I need to change her duvet for a lighter blanket.’ She put her hand on the motionless girl’s leg; yes, if anything, it felt rather chilly. ‘I guess the best thing would be to advise the morning shift to get a developmental therapist in to speak to her. Someone who can communicate with her properly.’ She looked at the young woman, who appeared to be sleeping – though that wasn’t very likely – and noticed that she had an earphone in one ear, plugged into the radio. She pulled it out carefully and held it up to her own ear. It was set to one of the talk-radio stations; she recognized the theme music that was playing. ‘Wouldn’t it be nicer for her to listen to something a bit lighter? Although whatever’s playing, it’s not ideal to sleep with that in your ear. Maybe she just wanted to block out the noise.’

After putting the plastic cards back in their place, they both walked out. Svava turned in the doorway and looked back at the young woman’s pale face and lank hair.

Hot. Burning.

What did she mean?