The First Cut

16 Kirsten

Like most people who hear bad news, Kirsten went through all the textbook stages, including the belief that a second opinion would prove the doctor wrong, and that what he had told her was gone forever would somehow be miraculously restored. The first night, she convinced herself that it was all a bad dream; it would pass. But it didn’t. Even in the mild light of the next morning everything was the same: her stitches, her aches, her wounds, her loss.

The nightmares of painless, almost bloodless, slashing and slicing continued. She never woke up screaming, but sometimes she would open her eyes suddenly at some ungodly hour of the morning to escape the relentless images and to puzzle over them.

Other times, she lay awake all night. Especially when it was raining. She liked to try and empty her mind and pretend that her hard hospital bed was really a pallet of pine needles deep in the woods behind her parents’ house in Brierley Coombe. The rain pattered gently on the leaves outside her window, and for short periods she could imagine it falling, soft and cool, on her eyelids, and she could almost escape the horror of her condition.

At least she wasn’t dead. In a way, the doctor had been right: she was lucky. If that man hadn’t been walking his dog so late and hadn’t got curious when it started to growl and scratch around in the shrubbery, then she would have simply bled to death on a summer’s night out in the park, only a hundred yards or so from home. But the man had stopped, and for that she should be grateful.

Now she was a cripple with all her limbs intact-external limbs, anyway. Her sense of violation and loss was almost unbearable at times; that most intimate part of herself had been stolen and destroyed. She cried, prayed and even, at one time, fell into a fit of hysterical laughter. But ultimately, she accepted the truth, and depression bore down on her. At its heart was that thick cloud, an opaque mass swelling like a tumor in her mind, repelling all light and taunting her with its darkness and its heaviness.

The doctor and nurses ministered as best they could to her healing body. The stitches dissolved, leaving the flesh bunched up and corrugated around her breasts. Livid scars quartered her, like the doctor had said, in the shape of a cross with a long vertical bar and a short horizontal, from just below the breasts to her pubic hair-at least to where that hair had been, for the nurse had shaved her down there and now all she had was itchy stubble. Externally, the pubic region didn’t look too bad. She glimpsed it for the first time when she was able to walk to the toilet alone. It was red and sore, covered in a lattice of fading stitchwork, but she had expected worse. It was inside where most of the damage had been done.

Her parents came in and out, her mother still too upset to say very much and her father taking the burden stoically. Superintendent Elswick dropped by again, but to no avail. She still couldn’t remember what had happened or give them any information about her attacker, beyond the feel of his callused hands.

Sarah visited again, too. She said she’d take on the small flat if Kirsten was going home to convalesce. Kirsten agreed. It would save a lot of trouble moving stuff when her parents took her home. She didn’t tell Sarah about the full extent of her injuries. Maybe later. At that time, she couldn’t bear to talk about it. She did, though, ask her to try and keep the others away for a while.

And then, a full week after she had been given the news, Galen turned up, breathless, from the station, lank dark hair flopping over his ears, concern etched in every feature of his thin, handsome face. He sat beside her and grasped her hand. At first neither of them knew what to say.

“I came before,” Galen told her, finally. “They said you were unconscious and they didn’t know when you’d come round. I phoned every day. I couldn’t stay. My…”

Kirsten squeezed his hand. “I know. I understand. Thank you for coming back.”

“You look a lot better. How are you feeling?”

“I can get up and walk around now. They tell me I’ll be able to go home soon.” She touched her face gingerly. “The bruises have all gone now. The swelling’s gone down.” How much did he know about what had happened to her? She didn’t want to give anything away.

Galen lowered his head and shook it, his face darkening. He smashed his fist into his palm. “If I could get my hands on the bastard-”

“Don’t,” Kirsten said. “Just…don’t. I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I’m sorry. You can’t imagine how I feel. I’ve been blaming myself ever since it happened. If only I’d been there, like I should have been.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s not your fault. It could have happened to anyone at any time. You can’t be expected to guard me night and day.”

Galen looked into her eyes and smiled. His grip tightened on her hand. “I will from now on,” he said. “After you’ve recovered and all that. I promise I won’t let you out of my sight.”

Kirsten turned her head aside and looked out at the dazzling tower blocks rinsed by last night’s rain, and the sunlight dancing in the polished leaves. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

Galen shrugged. “I don’t really know. I suppose I’ll just hang about at home for the rest of the summer. Mother’s still taking it very badly-grandmother’s death. And I’ll come and visit you in Brierley whenever I can. It’s not too far away and I’ll have the car.”

“It might be better if you didn’t visit me,” Kirsten said slowly. “At least, not for a while.”

Galen frowned and scratched his earlobe. “Why? What do you mean?”

“Just that I need some time by myself, to recover.” She managed a smile. “Call it postoperative depression. I wouldn’t be very good company.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ll need me, Kirstie. And I want to be there for you.”

She rested her free hand on his forearm. “No. Not for a while. Please. Just let me get myself sorted out.”

Galen got up and wandered over to the window, hands in pockets. His shoulders slumped the way they always did when he was disappointed about something. Just like a little boy, Kirsten thought.

“If you say so,” he said, with his back to her. “I suppose it’s the…er…the psychological effects that are worse than even the physical ones, is it? I mean, I don’t know. I couldn’t know, could I, being a man? But I’ll do my best to understand.” He turned around again and looked at her.

“I know you will,” Kirsten said. “I just think it’s best if we don’t see each other for a while. I’m all confused.”

She still wasn’t sure how much they had told him. He knew that she’d been attacked, that was clear enough, but had they been vague about the nature of the assault? Perhaps he assumed that she’d been raped. Had she been? Kirsten wasn’t too sure about that, herself. As far as the doctor had been able to make out, there had been no traces of semen in the vagina. It had been such a mess, however, that she didn’t see how he could possibly be so certain. Did penetration by a short, sharply pointed metal object count as rape? she wondered. In the end, she just had to settle for the general opinion that people who do what this man did to her are usually incapable of real sexual intercourse.

“What about Toronto?” Galen asked, returning to the chair and hunching over her.

“I don’t know. I just can’t see myself going, not the way things are now. Not this year, at least.”

“But it’s still a month or so off. You’ll probably feel better by then.”

“Maybe. Anyway, you go ahead. Don’t worry about me.”

“I wouldn’t go without you.”

“Galen, don’t be so stubborn. There’s no point sacrificing your career because of me. I can’t promise you anything right now. I can’t even-” And she almost told him then, but pulled herself back just in time. “I just don’t know how things are going to go.” She started crying. “Can’t you understand?”

The effort of letting him down gently and hiding her feelings and her disability from him at the same time was proving too much. She wished he would just leave. When he bent down to comfort her, she felt herself freeze. The reaction surprised her; it was something she’d never done before. And it came from deep inside; it was completely involuntary, like a twitch or a reflex action. Galen felt it, too, and he backed off, looking wounded.

“I understand,” he said stiffly. “At least, I’ll try.” He patted her hand. “Let’s just leave it be for now, okay? Plenty of time to think about our future later on, when you’re fully recovered.”

Kirsten nodded and wiped the tears away with the backs of her hands. Galen passed her a Kleenex.

“Is there anything you want,” he asked, “anything at all I can bring you?”

“No, not really.”

“A book?”

“I’ve not felt much like reading. I can’t seem to concentrate. But thank you very much. You’d better go, Galen, go back home and take care of your mother. I’m glad you came. I know I don’t seem it, but honestly I am.”

He looked disappointed, as if he had been summarily dismissed. Kirsten knew she hadn’t managed to sound very convincing. Her breasts ached and she felt close to tears again. He took hold of her hand, that little-boy-lost expression on his face, and didn’t seem to want to let go.

“I’ll come again,” he said. “I promise. I’ll be up here for a couple of days sorting things out, anyway.”

“All right. But I’m tired now.”

He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. She caught the toothpaste smell on his breath. He must have brushed his teeth on the train, she thought, or as soon as he got to the hospital.

When he left, she gave in and let the tears fall. There just seemed to be no future. Certainly there would be no life for him with her. If he was lucky, they would drift apart and he would go to Toronto in September. He might even meet someone else.

Kirsten had no idea what her full recovery would feel like, or even if such a thing were possible. The doctor hadn’t sounded very hopeful about reconstructive surgery. Presumably, she would feel fine on the outside, though the scars would remain and have to be covered up. Was she just supposed to get used to her new state, put her past behind her and get on with life? Go to Toronto with Galen, even?

He would be very understanding about her disability, at least for a while. Perhaps he would even marry her out of love and pity, and as time went on she would considerately turn a blind eye to the bits on the side he needed to give him what she could no longer supply. She would be grateful just because he was self-sacrificing enough to love a cripple.

No. It didn’t sound right. Such a life could never be, should never be. Without really telling him why, she would have to ease Galen out of her life for his own good.

The depression was on her, in her, a kind of numbing fatalism that would admit no light, no comfort. She couldn’t imagine it ever ending, things getting back to normal. Already the carefree, cheerful young graduate who had stepped out of Oastler Hall, enjoyed the warm air and scanned the night sky for the moon as she sat on the stone lion was gone. Utterly. Irredeemably.

And who or what was going to take her place? Kirsten wondered. She felt vague and disturbing forces moving inside her, like flitting shadows in places so deep and dark she had not known they existed. And she felt powerless to do anything about them, just as she had when Galen had tried to hold her and she’d frozen on him. She was no longer in control.

But it was more, even, than that. She knew she only controlled enough of herself to give the comforting illusion of being in command. At best, like most people, she could control certain aspects of her behavior. It was mostly a matter of manners, like not burping at the dinner table. But her habits and mannerisms shouldn’t change so dramatically unless she made a great conscious effort to alter them. She surely wouldn’t just wake up one morning and no longer bite her nails under stress or stop blushing when she overheard someone talking about her. No more than Galen could stop his shoulders slumping when he didn’t get what he wanted, or Sarah sucking on her upper lip with deceptive calm before responding sharply to a remark that had offended her.

Yet that seemed to be just what had happened. What Kirsten had done when Galen had reached for her-before she had even had time to think about it-was something that had never been in her repertoire of responses. It was her habit always to return the embrace of a friend or a loved one. But that part of her-the part, perhaps, that responded to affection and love-was gone now, changed. She no longer recognized herself.

It would be typical of the doctors, she thought, to put it down to what had happened to her. It’s like, they would say, touching a hot coal and flinching the next time the hand nears another. Once bitten, twice shy. Conditioning. One of Pavlov’s dogs. Naturally, they would go on, anyone who has suffered and survived such a vicious attack is bound to react with suspicion when another man, however familiar, approaches her in any intimate way.

Well, maybe they were right. Perhaps it would pass in time. Animals and humans who are used to being ill-treated often strike out at first when someone finally offers them love, but in time they come to accept it and trust those who give it. Surely she, too, could relearn the right responses? But Kirsten wasn’t convinced. For some reason, she believed that this new instinctive and frightening reaction to her lover’s concern was only the beginning, that there were other changes going on, other powers at work, and that she had no control over any of them.

What was she going to become? All she could do was wait and see. Even then, she realized, she would probably be none the wiser, for she would have shed her old self and would have nothing left to compare the new one with. After all, she wondered, does a butterfly remember the caterpillar it used to be?