Music Man Pt. 06

"I've already got Mrs Copthorne down and Vivienne Percival. I got the names of the rest of your music group as well. Anyone else?"

"Cassie?" Ged interjected.

"Cassie?"

"Cassie Copthorne."

"She's down on your records as your next of kin," the nurse replied. "Is there a problem?"

"My next of kin?" then Ged realised. "I put her down before I went on tour. We've split up since then, and I don't want her coming round here. I don't want her as next of kin either."

"You don't want her? She was here for hours last night, very worried. She was the one who gave permission for your operation."

"She's playing games. I don't want her anywhere near me. She's messed up my life enough."

"Well, if that's what you want. What about Mz Percival?"

"She's welcome, as are the rest of the group. Oh, perhaps Cheryl Foster and her husband Brian. And Gus Mettleson - he's my manager."

The nurse wrote the names down.

"If anyone else turns up, please ask me first," Ged was flustered, "and I need to piss."

"OK," she said and walked out of the room, returning with a bottle. She lifted the sheet off him and placed the bottle so his penis was inside the angled spout. She held it there while he urinated and then got a tissue and wiped him.

"I'll be back," she said, taking the bottle with her. She returned with some pain killers and another tumbler of water, which she duly administered.

"Anything else I can get you?" she asked. "I know it's mid-afternoon, but breakfast?"

Ged did not feel hungry, but thought he ought to eat. He nodded.

An orderly arrived and fed him cereal and toast, and of course tea.

After he had gone, Ged had time to take stock of his position. Physically he seemed to have mobility, but his genitals hurt and felt swollen.

He looked at his hands. The right hand was completely plastered, and though he tried, he could not move any part of it beyond the wrist. The left was tightly strapped up but the index finger beyond the first knuckle and the thumb were visible, and tentatively he moved them. There was immediate pain from the other fingers on that hand.

It was clear to him that he would need someone to help him with even the most elementary tasks. He cast about in his mind: who could or would be able to help him? How long for?

It had just begun to impinge upon his consciousness that the damage to his hands might be catastrophic for his musical life, when another doctor arrived.

He introduced himself as Mr James Tweedale, the surgical orthopaedic registrar assisting Mr Watkinson. He did the usual perusal of his chart and pronounced his recovery from the surgery a success.

"Any questions?" he asked.

"What's the damage to my hands, Doc? Will they heal? Will I be able to play again?"

"Oh," Mr Tweedale said. "You're a musician, aren't you?"

His face clouded. "I won't sugar the pill, Mr Smith. Someone wanted to destroy your hands. It was quite deliberately done. Your right hand suffered worse, there was a lot of bone and tendon damage, some bones were crushed. Mr Watkinson did a superb job piecing it all together again. Your left hand is less damaged, some fractures.

"I assisted in the operation; we were at it for five hours which is why I look like shit this afternoon, so I can tell you honestly that your left hand should recover.

"Your right is a different matter. There's no way of knowing how much use you'll get back. You will get some use back, but there's little chance of full use. Sorry. We did what we could."

Ged sank back onto the pillows, defeated. How could he go on without playing his music? He felt bleak.

"That's me finished then," he said disconsolately.

"Don't cross bridges Mr Smith - Ged," said the doctor. "As I said, we don't know how well you'll heal. With therapy who knows? Wait and see," with that he left.

If Ged had wanted to wallow in self-pity, he would have been disappointed, for through the door came Vivienne.

"Ged!" she said in greeting. "They told us to come back at four, but we rang and they said you were awake. How do you feel?"

"Rotten!" he muttered. "I've just been told I may never play again."

"Don't lose hope, Ged," she tried to reassure him. "We asked the doctor and he said it's impossible to tell. Don't give up just yet. Anyway what all this nonsense about you refusing to see Cassie? She's outside and very upset."

"Oh big deal!" Ged mocked. "She comes to mess with my head, and wonders why I don't want to see her."

"Come on Ged," she reprimanded him. "You're better than that."

"Look Viv, she's fucking some guy called Harry now. I don't want her near me. It breaks me up she's found someone so quickly, and I don't need her rubbing it in that she's with someone else. She doesn't care about me, or she'd have given us a chance. I begged her, Viv, and she turned me down. She wanted someone else, let her go with him and leave me alone."

He closed his eyes, feeling tired out with his outburst, but Viv was not finished with him.

"God, you're so stupid, Ged," she reproved him. "Listen to me, this is the truth. She has not had sex with Harry. Cheryl told me she discussed it with her, and decided to give it a long time before going that far.

"She was with Harry last night, they had had a meal at his place and they were watching the Ten O'clock News. Not very romantic eh? Your name alerted her and she heard something had happened to you. She left him flat and rushed here. She loves you, you idiot."

"She came because I stupidly didn't remove her as next of kin."

"No she didn't! She only found out she was next of kin when she got here. You do realise that if she hadn't authorised the operation on your hands they would have had to wait until your mother got here? How long would that take, eh? Any healing of your hands is down to her taking that decision. She waited and waited for news; she was distraught, Ged, understand? Distraught!

"Now she's outside and you won't see her. She's in pieces Ged, what sort of a man are you?"

He was silent.

She started again. "Tell me Ged, when she finished with you in that pub, what did you say? I'll tell you what you said, you moron, because everyone knows what you said - you told Marie.

"You said you would wait for her to come back to you. Well, she has come back, and you won't see her. Which is the lie, Ged, what you said in the pub or what you're doing now?"

"Lie?" It had not occurred to him.

"OK," he said, "Has she come back to me, or is she just worried about me?"

"I had a long talk with her and she thought things through last night. You will have to ask her, but you won't ask her will you? You're too pig headed."

"All right, all right!" he said petulantly with resignation. "Tell the nurses I will see her. She can come."

Viv grinned. "At last, some sense!" she said with relief. "I'll do that now."

She left, and Ged was left to wonder and to think. Why had she left this Harry and run to him? She was so adamant that it was over. She had said she loved him and that was why it had to finish. Did she love him? Really? She was so confusing. She had hurt him so much by finishing with him, but now she had come running. Why?

Well, he thought, perhaps I'll find out, though somehow I doubt it.

He was interrupted in his thoughts. Cassie came into the room.

Once again he was struck with her beautiful face, though her eyes were red, and her cheeks showed there had been many tears. Once again he had conflicting feelings about her. One part of him wanted her, and the other feeling was resentment that she had dumped him at the pub, but mainly because she did not smile when she saw him.

She saw his face cloud over, and he saw her jaw set in that way of hers. She came up to the bed and stood, though there was a chair. She looked at him and he thought her look was cold. She studied his hands then looked up at his face.

"It was mean and petty of you to stop me from coming to see you," she said, though without anger, more sadness really. "Making me stand outside the hospital with the reporters and the fans. Some of the reporters recognised me. It was embarrassing and humiliating, and it will make the press tomorrow. I hope you're satisfied with your little temper tantrum."

Ged wanted to apologise but the words that came out were different.

"You've moved on," he said showing irritation at her opening speech. "You're over me now, and it didn't take you long, did it? Shows your real feelings for me. I hope 'Harry' is up to your exacting standards."

She was angry at that. "You really are a self-pitying wimp, aren't you?" she snapped. She launched into a singsong parody of Ged, "Oh, poor little me, left in the lurch by that unfeeling bitch!

"Shows you up for a liar - you said you would wait for me to come back. Well, I'm here, I'm back, and you're just as antagonistic to me as you have been since you got back from that damned tour.

"Perhaps it was a mistake to come running when I heard you were injured. How much longer are you going to keep this up, Ged? You said you were over it in the pub, but it seems you aren't."

It was unexpected, this aggressive attitude on her part. What did she say? She'd come back?"

"I'm sorry, Cassie," he said, putting on an air of puzzlement, "Did you say what I thought you said?"

"What's that?"

"I said in the pub that I was waiting for you, and now you've come back?"

Her face softened; he remembered she could never hold on to anger for long when they were together.

"You don't understand, do you?" she said. "When we met in the pub and I forced our break-up, I couldn't see any future for us. You had been so inconsistent and so hurtful to me. You were wrapped up in your own self-pity.

"I was living in a world of pain, anguish and guilt over what I'd done. I felt revulsion that I had allowed that toe-rag into my bed, grief that I had been so deceived. You know why. But even though you knew why I acted as I did, you still rejected me over and over again.

"You'd seem to soften and then we were back to your self-pitying judgement of me. I was suffering too, and you, the one who could always empathise with others, had no interest in my feelings.

"I couldn't take it any more, Ged. I was at the end of my rope. Then when I met you to finish it, you turned full circle yet again and were begging me to come back. Can't you see how hurtful that was? To push me away so far and then want to reverse everything at the last minute?

"All I could see was a repeat of the previous weeks, I would weaken and then we'd be back to you ignoring me, belittling me, rejecting me all over again. For my own sanity, I wanted you to move on without me, and leave me to try to make a life for myself without all that pain.

"It was so unfair of you to say you would never go with another woman. It was blackmail and I hated it. D'you know, that's what finally decided me I was doing the right thing? I felt you were playing with me. I began to live as a single woman again, and d'you know? It wasn't that bad. Not exactly good either, but not bad.

"Harry came along. We work together. Some of the men had been hitting on me because they'd seen it on the news that I was divorcing Zak. Harry didn't. I invited him. He was kind and gentle and thoughtful. He's handsome and loves music and literature. We were getting close rather too quickly and I longed for his affection and love.

"Cheryl told me I should take it very slowly. I was already thinking that Harry would be 'the one' for me after you. I had really been able to move on. I was over you.

"Well, I wasn't over you at all, was I?

"I was with Harry last night, and we were watching the news. When I saw and heard you were in trouble, I didn't look back, I didn't think, I ran, and it's as well that I did, for I didn't know you had named me as next of kin, and I was able to give permission for your operation.

"So there it is. I'm not as totally over you as I thought I was after all, though I'm not pining away for you either. I know now I can go on without you."

She stopped talking and sat down. Ged was stunned. The last thing he had expected was a diatribe of criticism and the display of her own resentment at his self-absorption and lack of appreciation of her own suffering.

He had realised before that his own hurt had clouded his concern for her. Now, was there a glimmer of hope? She said she had come back, though he wondered whether she still loved him as she had before. She seemed different, more distant. He knew he had to say something and quickly.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That's all I can say: I'm sorry. Really, it wasn't revenge or resentment that made me block you this morning. About the pub, when I'd finally come round to seeing how stupid I'd been and wanted to try again, it destroyed me when you finished with me. I wanted you so desperately by then.

"I've been half alive ever since. So this morning I was afraid of the pain of seeing you again and knowing you were now with someone else. I felt defeated. I'm in a bad way as you can see," he raised his hands off the bed briefly as illustration, "and I hadn't the strength to face you after your rejection of all my pleading last time. Please believe me on that. Forgive me?"

She did not respond directly, or say she forgave him. Her face did soften, but she seemed off on another tack.

"Ged," she said thoughtfully, "Let me put it this way, and let me make you an offer. To be realistic, I honestly don't know whether we can make it together any more, or whether there has been too much hurt on both sides - too much damage. I thought that in the pub and I still think it may be true now.

"I've started dating Harry and though we've not been to bed together, we're getting pretty close to it. He's very good for me and very caring.

"On the other hand, it's obvious to me that I'm not over you, and I'm not sure I'm happy about that. On the other hand, you keep telling me you're not over me either, but I don't think all your anger and resentment is over yet. That puts me in a dilemma."

His spirits sank at that. At that point she seemed to go off in yet another direction.

"Have you got anything sorted for when you go home?" she asked.

"No," he said. "It's all happened so quickly."

"I'm offering to come home with you and be your hands."

It came out of the blue, totally unexpected. He blinked as if struck.

"Cassie, I can't ask you to do that! Some of what you'd have to do isn't that pleasant, you know."

"I've thought of that. I went home last night and thought the whole thing through. I was awake half the night. If I come and do that for you, live in the house, help you day and night, we'll have a chance to see if we can make it together.

"It'll be at least six weeks before your hands will be free, and even then you will need time and a lot of hard physio to get the movement back. I know some of what I'd do would be very intimate, but that's what I think we need.

"Look, we have been intimate with each other in the past. I know your body and you know mine. Won't you feel more at ease with me than with anyone else? And I can help you with the music."

"The music? How?"

"You use a composing programme on your computer. I can type what you want typing. I can play the tunes on the piano or keyboard."

"How could you do that?"

"You forget, I got to grade eight piano. I still play. I used to play when you were out of the flat!"

"But I'd need you all day everyday. What about your job?"

"I'd have to negotiate that, but most of what I do at work can be done at home. I can fit some work round you during the day, or after you've gone to bed."

"What if your publishers won't play ball?"

"I'll resign."

"You'll resign? You'd do that for me?"

She misunderstood the tone of his voice for disbelief when he was simply amazed.

"Look Ged, you keep saying you want me back. You know I have reservations about it working, bit it doesn't mean I don't want it to work; I do, very badly. I'm willing to give up my job to try to make it work. It's that important to me."

Then as if to herself, "You're that important to me."

"Bloody Hell!" This was all so sudden, he was finding it difficult to cope.

"So, will you have me as your hands?" She was smiling now, and the smile lit up her face.

"Cassie, of course I will. It's what I've dreamt of. I'd love you to come home with me and live together-"

"Hold on, boy!" she interrupted with a broader smile. "Let's be clear. I help you out with all your physical needs, but it stops short of sex.

"I'll keep house, do the shopping, washing, washing up, feed you, wash you, put you on the potty, wipe your bum, dress you, all that, but beyond that, we need to work out if we have a future and be bloody sure of it before going down that road."

She had a really cocky look on her face, and he loved it. Then he had another thought.

"What about Harry?" he asked meaningfully.

"If I know Harry, he'll wait until I make up my mind. I might see him from time to time, but platonically."

The comment about seeing Harry was too much for Ged. He had naïvely thought Cassie would be his once again after they were together, but she was far from convinced of success. Was she doing this out of guilt? Was that all it was, not love but guilt?

He realised with a sinking feeling that they would never again be the same couple they had been. They really would have to build something completely new, and he was not sure any longer that she seriously wanted to do that. It gave him a new awareness of the damage that had been done to her, but at the same time he could not bear her going off to spend romantic time with someone else.

His expression gave him away.

"What's the matter Ged? You're not happy. What's up?"

"It's nothing."

"Yes it is," she insisted. "If you want any chance of this working out, you have to be honest with me."

"What you've just said sums it up. 'If I want any chance of it working out.' 'Harry will wait until I make up my mind.'

"I'm not running after you Cassie, you're not the only one who hasn't made up his mind you know. Neither of us is sure of where this will go.

"So what will you have to do to have any chance of this working out? It sounds very one sided to me. Yes I know you'll look after me, but a nurse would do that."

She looked puzzled, and she was. What was he getting at?

"OK, I'll say it," he clarified. "If you want any chance of this working out you can't go off seeing other men, even platonically. It makes me think you are not as committed to trying to make this work as I am. If you're not fully committed, I'll get an agency nurse in, I can afford it."

Cassie in her turn was disconcerted. She had not realised that she had been enjoying calling the shots, assuming that Ged would do anything to get her back, or at least testing to see how committed he was.

She really did want him, even desire him, even in her uncertainty about him, and she had seen that being his hands and being so intimate with him while holding herself off him sexually was a way of having him back while testing his desire for her. She had given the game away.

"Oh," she said. "You don't trust me with Harry."

"It's not a matter of trust. Of course I'd trust you. What it shows is a lack of commitment to me and our getting back together. You're hedging your bets. You have reservations. Fine, I get that.

"Look, we've had a hard time and we've hurt each other badly. It's not going to be easy, but that's why it's all the more necessary to be fully committed to making it work, and from what you're saying, I wonder whether you're committed enough, that's all."

"I am, you know," she said quietly. "I really am."