The Hand, First Half of a Short Story

The Hand                                                                                         

His fingers squeeze my throat. The nails I manicured for him press into my skin. My chest feels like something is trying to tunnel a way out, escape into the explosive air. Pinpricks of light.

            Then, abruptly, he lets go. He always knows when to stop, when bruises are too deep to flower. Coughing, I touch my neck with my right hand, rub the soft skin, like a lover,  remembering.

            I’m in bed in a long, gloomy room, thin curtains between the beds. Alone in my flimsy tent. A dream, then? But the pain in my throat is real enough.

            I open my mouth to call for help, but I can’t remember the name of those kind souls dressed in white. I reach for the red button. I can smell disinfectant, watery cabbage and my own sweat. Except it doesn’t smell like me, at all.

            I wait, I don’t know for how long. They’ve taken my watch. It’s early morning, perhaps, but I can’t see a window from my bed.

            A woman appears at the end of my bed. She smiles: a warm, generous smile, like she’s bringing me a bowl of fruits, red, yellow as the sun, green as a parrot. She’s holding a  wide band that she wants to put around my arm.

            `Hello, Joy. How are you feeling?’

            `How…?’ What’s the word I want?  `I can’t… remember.’

            `You’ve had a little stroke,’ she replies, strapping my arm with cool fingers. `I just need to take your blood pressure.’ She pumps up the band till my arm goes numb and fizzy at the same  time.

My left hand reaches out and tweaks her nipple.

 I didn’t want it to do that. I have a very clear sense of how long and warm the nipple was, pressing against her uniform, caught briefly between my finger and thumb.

`Stop that now! What do you think you’re doing?’

I’m a naughty child, the kind I never dared to be. What’s the word I want?

`Sorry!’ That’s it, I plucked it from the air like a ripe banana. `I…’ What was I going to say? It’s hard to know, because the slap comes swift and hard, pushing my cheek against my teeth. It doesn’t seem right. I make my eyes big and round, stroke my cheek with my right hand.

She’s frowning, shaking her head. And then it comes again, a big, hard slap, like you see mothers do sometimes in the supermarket, when they’ve completely lost it with a little girl who won’t be told. I’m staring at the woman as it happens. She’s crossed her arms over her substantial chest, shielding it from me, perhaps.

`You need to calm down,’ she tells me. `They’ll be doing the ward round soon. Let’s see what the doctor suggests. Here’s some water. Sip it slowly.’

I shake my head at her. I don’t think water is a good idea.

My left hand reaches out to take it and then suddenly the water is dripping from the twin peaks of her… The word has gone, swallowed as quickly as her patience.

                                        ***

There’s a man in a brown suit at the bottom of my bed. The suit looks expensive, but old; the cloth bags out over his bony knees. There’s a huddle of white-coated men and women around him. They all have clip boards.

My left hand tugs at the front of my hospital gown. I can't bear for them to see the initials he carved on my right breast, using his little pen knife with the mother of pearl handle.  The one his granddad gave him, when he was a boy. He likes to run his thumb over the ridged scars, when I get home from work. Just to check it’s still me, he says.

            There’s a fight going on: my right hand yanks the night gown up, my left hand pinches the skin on the back of my right hand. They say you can tell a woman’s age that way: how quickly the pinched skin rebounds. Is that the word?  I used to be good with words, before this happened. Words are my only escape. I read as I cook our meals and clean the house, hang up the washing, mist the orchids. I turn the pages so quietly he doesn’t know. It’s perhaps the only thing I get away with at home.

            `Good morning, Joy. How are we feeling?’ The voice scrapes along my spine.

How does this man suppose I’m feeling? I haven’t heard my name in a man’s mouth for a long time, it’s not the way my dad used to say it, an admonition, is that the word? Spare the rod and spoil the child, as he used to say. The children at school all call me `Miss’ and my husband uses other nouns- that aren’t proper.

`Try to wedge your left hand between your legs,’ the man says. I wrestle it under the bedclothes, press down hard with my right hand. I must look like a child in class who needs to go to the toilet.

`What’s wrong with me?’ I ask. My voice sounds different. I used to hate the sound of it, all timid and apologetic. But this voice is mellow, like I drink whisky deep into the night, smoke cigars, tapping the end into an ashtray on a mahogany stand.

            `You’re recovering from a mini stroke affecting your left side. As a result, you appear to be suffering from a rare neurological disorder. It’s called Alien Hand Syndrome.’

            `Oh no, that sounds like something out of, what’s his name? Pole. No, that’s not it.’ My left hand points at the man’s groin and I can feel myself blushing, heat shooting up my neck. Someone stifles a giggle.

          `Sorry. Poe, that’s who I meant. Is there a cure?’

            `I’m afraid not, though in time it’s possible your hand can be controlled by giving it a task, such as holding an object. Shall we try that now?’

            He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a thin gold pen. My husband has a pen like that from the signing of some deal or other, when he was an investment banker. Before the accident.

            The man walks along the side of the bed and his students make way for him soundlessly, like the parting of the Red Sea, a story I tell the children sometimes in RE. He reaches his hand towards me, holding the pen. I drag my left hand out from under the bedclothes with my right, hold it by the wrist and stretch it out towards him.

            Take it! I urge my left hand. Don’t embarrass me here!                                                                                            

           The man pushes the pen into the loose fist my hand has made. There’s something obscene about the gesture; it reminds me of adolescent boys.

            My left hand rearranges the pen into the correct position and my right removes the cap. No one has thought to provide any paper. I smile at the nearest student. It’s meant to be my best primary-school-teacher smile, but my mouth doesn’t want to co-operate. I’m hoping he’ll give me his clip-board, but he hugs it against his chest. Maybe I’m not supposed to be writing anything, just holding the pen.

            My left hand has other ideas. My arm swings forward so that I feel the loose flesh quiver slightly. And then I’m writing right to left across the front of my hospital gown, so that everyone can read it. I hope it’s washable ink.

            Help me! it says.