The Perfect Girl

SAM

I can’t do up the strings of my hospital gown because they’ve got lost round the back of me somewhere. I’m humiliated by having to shuffle along holding it together to avoid everybody being able to see my underwear.

The MRI scanner looks familiar to me from television but I’m not prepared for the noise once I’m inside it, or the discomfort of staying still for such a long period, my hands held above my head.

Amidst the darkness of the machine and the thumping sounds that penetrate in spite of the headphones they’ve given me, I try to think about what Nick has told me and what it means for Tessa and Zoe.

It means that unless somebody broke into the house, the chances are extremely high that somebody in Maria’s household murdered her, and the police will adjust their investigation accordingly. I think back to Tess’s arrival at my flat the night before, and her silence, and I wonder what it was she didn’t tell me.

I think of Zoe in my office this morning and I hope to God that she was telling me the truth.

I think of the magnetic waves that are passing through my body.

I think of all the people in the waiting room and how almost all of them had family with them, or a friend, somebody to hold their hand, or at least to talk to. Self-pity creeps in and ratchets up the feelings of desperation and claustrophobia I’m experiencing.

My relationship with Tessa is the best thing and worst thing about my life. I want nobody else, but while she stays with Richard I can’t have her.

There is nothing I would like more, at this moment, than to know that she would be there when I emerge from this machine.

It’s a terrible effort to keep still, but I tell myself I must because the very last thing I want is for this scan to have to be repeated.

A voice comes through the headphones I’m wearing and tells me that they’re moving on to my spine now. The scan of my brain is complete.

I wonder what the radiologist can see.