I often wondered whether Mrs K genuinely had a cause for celebration whenever she invited her two children out for dinner or whether it formed some convenient excuse just to eat out and be a little extravagant. There was certainly an air of forced obligation when I escorted her daughter to the now-familiar fish restaurant – although, considering how the events earlier on that day had played out, it’s fair to say her daughter was escorting me – and met the elder of the two females of the family outside. It was at this point that I realised how infrequently I’d seen Stu in the company of his own mother in public, which may or may not have been the real reason for his outward look of unease. Oddly, he seemed to be guarded around his sister too, so I certainly felt as though I was in a bit of an awkward position. It was about to get even more awkward.
“I know it was going to be just the four of us celebrating my team’s latest funding application, but their dad happened to be in town on business, and insisted on meeting us all,” Mrs K explained in a tone that was unusually apologetic for her. Judging by the two other reactions to this piece of news, the feeling of surprise was apparently universal. I had a rough idea of the general situation, which meant I could understand why she and her husband were the two members of the family who were oblivious to how uncomfortable this sort of situation would be.
Strictly speaking, they were divorced. Both were successful in their respective fields, they lived on separate continents and both of their children had long since grown up, left home, gone through university and started careers of their own so it was easy to see how it had settled into the current state of affairs. Owing to his obsession with businesslike efficiency and her similar brand of pragmatic matter-of-fact-ness the separation was surprisingly low-key and the legal side of things was settled with the minimal amount of wrangling and bad feeling.
It was a somewhat strange match from the start. After making waves in the specialised electronics industry as a self-made entrepreneur in the post-Quake ruins of Japan’s rebuilt capital, Mr K met a promising young British environmental biotechnology researcher while on a business trip to Scotland’s Silicon Glen. What common ground these two people found while on a corporate-financed tour of an Edinburgh whisky distillery none of us really figured out, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when they went their separate ways two decades later. Still, it was a meeting of minds and perhaps intellect was the source of mutual attraction.
The two children were however more affected by this upheaval than their parents were, and the relationship that Mr. K. had with his two children was very strained indeed. I had a strong suspicion that neither of them really mentioned to their parents how strained it was…hence the very surreal setup that I was witnessing on this particular evening.
Once again, the proprietor was doing a fine job of easing a tense atmosphere and selling numerous glasses of his produce at the same time, making an obvious attempt at engaging Mr K in conversation at the bar. As their mutual obsession with fishing sent ripples of old-man banter across the secluded upstairs lounge (the fishing was one of Mr K’s favourite pastimes when visiting the UK; the other being, naturally for a wealthy middle-aged businessman, golf) the other four of us tried our damndest to settle in. I’d already done the damage limitation exercise in explaining my current situation to Mr K so yes, I was managing just fine after a break-in and two attempted assaults and no, I I’d be living under the same roof as is his daughter for only as long as it took to get my own flat back into habitable condition. I may have been overdoing the protestations of innocence considering how I’d know the whole family for a number of years, but I was erring on the side of caution.
Mr K spoke with the clear, measured and gently-accented accuracy often shown by well-educated people when speaking their second language. He was dressed semi-casually, which meant he had spent what amounted to the equivalent to a fortnight’s worth of my wages and, in all probability, had benefited from the sharp eye of a live-in housekeeper to look that casual. He was in fact less concerned with my current living arrangements than I feared, and instead was intent on talking shop. Mrs K had actually organised the evening to tell us all about a microbial trace mineral recovery project she’d just got off the ground, but apparently her ex-husband just wanted to hijack the evening to brag about his work instead.
I for one was okay with letting Mr K ramble on for a while, mindful that she’d have plenty of time afterwards when he’d returned to his hotel, caught his plane or done whatever it was that overpaid corporate types did that kept them away from their spouses and children. It was, according to him, a potentially lucrative deal in audio hardware but a particularly nasty rivalry with a competitor had forced him to jet over to England to sort things out himself.
“They’re resorting to hacking, petty crime, intimidation…” he went on after the second or third beer. I wasn’t drinking for the simple reason that I wasn’t feeling well at all. I nibbled at a small plate of assorted fish and vegetables, listening politely. Apparently his company, Northvil Electronics was locking horns with some larger organisation and he was refusing to back down.
These lowbrow tactics were somehow escaping the attention of the law but it was common knowledge in the local area that the branch in our city had connections with organised crime gangs (“is that why you were asking me to look into the raids on local nightclubs, dad?” “Don’t encourage him,” Stu retorted). It wasn’t until he referred to them by name that I made the connection: in my earlier searches into the identity of the backer for my – that is to say, Stu’s – latest contract I’d stumbled on a lot of subsidiaries, and this organisation was on that list. Simply put, Stu and I could be indirectly working for the company that was trying to sink his own dad’s business. Could this evening get any worse?
As if on cue, the pounding headache and squealing tinnitus made a glorious return somewhere between the main course and the dessert…which I was already in no fit state to eat anyway. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable on a number of levels, not least because, apart from a few comments about Mr K’s business ventures, neither of his children said much to me, their parents, or even each other. I was keenly aware of Mr K’s strictness with formality when in public but fortunately the alcohol had taken the edge off that. At this point he was giving Stu some decidedly informal and fatherly advice about relationships, which was making the poor guy even more ill at ease. Not as ill as I was though; I’d barely managed to excuse myself and make it to the door before I pretty much blacked out.
*
A shockwave from behind, just to the left. Panic. Police sirens. My parents looking more frightened than I’ve ever seen them; a look of helplessness and incomprehension that I never wanted to see again. My mother mouthing a silent “you’ll be all right…” as my dad wrapped makeshift paper towel bandages around my head to staunch the blood that dribbled out of my ears and down my neck.
It had been a terrorist strike, according to the new stories. I dumbly watched the headlines scroll across the screen in the hospital ward, wrapped in an isolating blanket of silence. Apparently my family had been among the lucky ones: it had been an ordinary shopping trip punctuated by a car bomb that had left twelve dead and scores more injured. Out of the three of us, my parents had been unharmed but being the independent kid that I was, I’d run on ahead and caught some of the force of the blast. It was a miracle that I’d not suffered burns or cuts from flying glass, but I’d lost ninety per cent of my hearing in one ear and my other was completely beyond repair. In the public outrage that followed I’d experienced the brief attention of the media spotlight and found myself thrust into the limelight as one of the kids who fronted the charity campaign for the victims. As a result of this I’d been subject to pioneering treatment for hearing loss…
*
Can you hear me? The mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear the words. I’m see you’ve come around. We need to do some more tests. Sit still and you’ll be fine.
I was in what appeared to be a cubicle at my local A&E department. Again, a blanket of silence surrounded me but this time a worried-looking young doctor, barely my own age and probably younger, was holding one of those ridiculous pencil light things that they use to test iris reflexes in their more comatose patients. I wasn’t sure at this point how my voice would sound, assuming I was able to speak at all, so I pointed at my ears with both hands and slowly shook my head, which made it throb like hell. Electrodes had been attached to both wrists, measuring who knows what. That’s going to hurt when I pull them off, I thought dumbly. The pads’ll rip the hairs out of my arms.
You passed out in the restaurant earlier this evening. Do you remember? You seem to have suffered some form of poisoning. We’ll keep you in under observation.
The doctor chattered briefly to some younger subordinate – how young can these people be? Her subordinate would have to be a secondary school kid! – who returned with a tablet-style handheld with a stylus. I can’t hear a thing. I wrote clumsily. Head hurts. It took a few more painfully scribbled lines to explain to this clearly under-qualified doc about the procedure I’d experienced back in my childhood, at which point an appointment with a specialist was hurriedly booked and the overworked A&E bod got back to his safe, familiar queue of broken legs and abdominal pains.
I got to see my parents for the first time in months. Perhaps because of the built-in location pinpointing GPS of handhelds, nobody usually bothered to tell their loved ones where they were or what they were up to; an ironic side-effect of the digital communications revolution seemed to be the fact that people felt the need to communicate less. Their looks of concern and the accompanying eerie silence brought back some bad memories.
The news, as it turned out, got worse. Being a high-profile charity case in the face of indiscriminate anarchic malevolence, I’d been subject to the medical fraternity pulling out all the stops to undo what the faceless terrorists had done. Cutting-edge stem cell/grafting techniques repaired the skin of some poor girl who had been a few yards further down that shopping street than I was that day, and some other guy made the news by learning to walk again on bionic limbs. My high-tech surgical miracle was less obvious on TV, but it was no less life-changing. Thanks to technological breakthroughs that I never fully understood, the kid who lost his hearing in a bomb blast was able to hear again. And now, as an adult, it was all going wrong.
After the bad news was broken I persuaded my exhausted parents to go home. Until the specialist contacted another specialist and further tests were conducted none of us knew what the damage was going to be or even how to reverse it. Left alone in an ante-room I idly picked up my handheld and messaged my closest friends one by one. I didn’t know what to say.
Stu was the second to reply and gave a typically manly I’ll be over in a bit. Got really worried when you dropped like that. Never saw dad act so surprised before. The other reply was less sympathetic about Mr K’s reaction. The stupid old git just stood there. Mum had to ring the ambulance in the end and Stu and me carried you out. I was at a loss. As my closest friends they had a right to know, and I was worried about causing a scene since I couldn’t remember so many details. Thanks for being there, bud. I typed and sent it to Stu’s handheld. My bionic ears are trying to kill me. Kinda sucks, huh?
The nausea, tinnitus and headaches were all starting to make sense but to my shame I couldn’t us the same flippant tone with his sister. She’d see right through it anyway. It’s like I’ve got two timebombs inside my skull and the medics don’t know what to do about it. I’m so effing scared. Will keep you posted. Sorry about the rent BTW.
You might be about to die and you’re worried about the f***ing RENT? Goddamn moron. Get better already. I’ll be round to visit as soon as.
I had another appointment and some 3D cranial scan scheduled that evening and because of the accuracy needed to map the extent of the damage and degredation – not to mention the ongoing pain – I was heavily sedated for the next couple of days. The lack of hearing was making me afraid to close my eyes and lose the other link I had with reality, but there wasn’t much more I could do. Somehow, to my tentative relief, I was able to sleep.