Bad Dream

Doug had been to see them and they told him she had not taken being told she was adopted very well. A rift had formed between them and she had effectively run away. They hadn't seen or heard from her since she was eighteen.

They turned up at the hospital one day, but they didn't stay very long. It must have been upsetting for them to see her in that condition. I told them I would let them know when she regained consciousness; they thanked me and said they would return then. One of the nurses told me they called three times a day after that for progress reports.

Four weeks after the accident things had changed a little. Some of the bandages had gone, but we still sat there listening to the monotonous beep of the heart monitor. One of the machines that were recording Sheila's brain activity had been showing signs that made the medical staff optimistic. But they meant little to us.

Amy and I had both returned to work by then. We had a rota going - I sat with Sheila one day, Amy the next and one of the other girls from Sheila's office took the third day. Then it was my turn again.

Both Amy and I visited every evening and ate together afterwards. We had our own table at the fish and chip shop by then and a sign on the wall had appeared saying "No Change." Other customers and the staff had overheard Amy and my conversations and they had become involved in Sheila's plight.

We did all we were supposed to do. Played music that Sheila liked, talked to her about everything and anything. I discovered Doug Collins was calling in after he finished late shift to read "Wuthering Heights" - Sheila's favourite book - to her. He'd spotted her well-thumbed copy on her bedside table when he was searching her flat for her documents. We never did discover when they were taken from my flat or by whom, but we never found any of them.

I thought I was talking to Sheila one morning but I must have been a little more tired than I realised. I suddenly heard a croaky voice quietly say.

"Hello, Marty, are you awake now?"

I'm not quite sure what I did then. I know that the table beside me with cup and saucer on it went for six and that noise brought the nurses running. I must have said something to Sheila but I have no idea what. The next thing I remember is being ushered out of the room when the doctors arrived.

Then I started on a round of phone calls that led to folks arriving in droves. Only they were not let into Sheila's room. After some time, a nurse called Amy and I out of the waiting room where everyone had congregated. She told us we could go and see Sheila again.

When we got to the door I stopped and let Amy go first. She walked over to the bed, I saw Sheila smile at her and they started talking to each other. I took that as my cue to leave. I'd done my duty and stayed with Sheila whilst she was at death's door. Now my duty done, it was time to get on with my life.

I stopped into the fish and chip shop to give them the news and watched as they put up a sign saying "She's Awake." Then I went home to pack; the last month or so had been a strain on me. Christ, the last few years had been a bloody strain. I wanted to be somewhere else for a while. I must say my boss wasn't too impressed when I told him I was off to Spain for a couple of weeks, but he didn't argue.

+++++++++++++++++

I'd been at my friend's Villa for a week when Amy showed up. Curious as to why she was there I watched her get out of the taxi. The way she walked up to the swimming pool where I was sitting let me know she was not in a good mood.

"Just what the hell do you think you're playing, Martin Sleeman?" she demanded when she got close enough for me to hear.

"What's your problem? Aren't I allowed to take a holiday!"

"No, not when your wife needs you, you aren't."

"Hang on, Amy; you're forgetting Sheila isn't my wife anymore. She divorced me, remember? She decided she didn't need me anymore."

"Well, why did you sit beside her bed for five weeks whilst she was unconscious then?"

"Duty, nothing more; in sickness and health until the Lord put asunder and all that shit!"

"Don't give me that crap. You love her."

"Immaterial, Amy, Sheila divorced me. What I feel for her is unimportant."

"Marty, she loves you!"

"I don't believe that for one minute; remember what she did to me. That wasn't love."

"No, it was a mixed-up girl who needed help."

"Well, she chose someone else to give her that help. Now she's rich enough she'll have plenty of guys willing to help her, don't you worry."

"That's the point, I am worried. Look, she loves you and needs you."

"What for, her to shout at? To call a murderer or to knock her boyfriends around when they get stroppy, and give her an excuse to call me a bastard?"

"Christ, you are pissed off with Sheila, aren't you?"

"I am. I love her, but the year we were apart up until she had that accident, I think I was happier than I'd been in the previous six years. I can't say I was happy to be without her. But I wasn't walking on eggshells every day because I didn't know what kind of mood she was going to get out of bed in.

"But, Marty, Sheila was suffering from...."

"Oh, yeah, PMT, PMS or whatever shit you want to call it. But remember she accused me of trying to murder her. I don't need all that kind of shit in my life!"

"No, it wasn't PMT! Oh, the psychiatrists think that the hormone thing made it worse but they are sure Sheila was probably been suffering from clinical depression ever since little Kathy died. And you know Sheila's memory of you trying to kill her was implanted whilst she was hypnotised."

"Bollocks, Amy, PMT, PMS or clinical depression. What the fuck am I supposed to be, a fucking psychiatric nurse or something? And I'll never believe you can make anyone do something they don't really want to do by hypnotising them."

"But Sheila recalls that evening in detail now. She says that it was like looking at what was happening and not having any control over it. She says she remembers swearing at you and she even knew she was opening the wrong door. She says she just couldn't stop what was happening."

"I don't give a damn anymore. Look, I did my bit, I was there when she needed me, now I'm going to live my own life and forget about Sheila."

"Oh, I've wasted my time coming here then?"

"You sure have!"

Amy never said good-bye. She just turned around and walked slowly back to her taxi. She stopped and looked back at me one more time before she got into the taxi, then it drove away.

+++++++++++++++++

I'd been back from my holiday a couple of weeks when Doug Collins called round on the Saturday morning. He found me in the throes of packing up everything, as I was moving to a small house over the other side of town.

He told me that they hadn't been able to track the alias Tony Pride character down. They were pretty sure they knew who he was. Apparently they believed he was a great nephew of Sheila's benefactor. But as he was illegitimate, that had put him out of the running for the money. Unless there were no other living relatives.

Doug asked me why I hadn't gone to see Sheila since I'd been back and, well, we had the same kind of argument that I'd had with Amy. I won't go into that one.

++++++++++++++++

About six months later my solicitor asked me to call on him. He presented me with a cheque for nearly five million pounds. Apparently it was my half of Sheila's inheritance. We'd mutually agreed to split our assets down the middle when we'd divorced. As her great uncle had actually died before we were divorced Sheila had sent half the money on to me.

With due ceremony I tore the cheque into pieces and asked my solicitor to send it back. We went through that same pantomime at least five times before the cheques stopped arriving.

The next thing that hit me was the Inland Revenue. They sent me a demand for tax on the five million quid. It took a lot of persuading to convince them that I had not accepted the money.

One of the tax inspectors actually said to me, "Are you nuts?"

"I was when I married her, but I'm not anymore," I told him in reply.

I think he was the one who finally accepted the fact that I was not going to take the money.

+++++++++++++++++++++

During the next year I changed my job. Well, I was head hunted by another company. There I made a fresh start and started dating some of the girls in the office. Nothing serious - once bitten twice shy and all that crap.

One of the girls I went out with was a member of the local country club and she introduced me to golf. Hey, it was more exercise than I'd had in years. I wasn't much-cop at it, but I enjoyed myself playing. So I joined the country club myself.

Generally I tended to play on my own; not being very good I wouldn't show myself up too much that way. There are three courses so by making an early start in the summer; normally I was on my own on the course most of the time, with no one chasing up behind me.

One morning I was by the fifth green, hunting for at least one of the balls I'd managed to knock into the woods that day. After looking around for a while and locating two balls that weren't mine, I was just coming out of the small thicket but on the wrong side over by the sixth Tee when someone on the sixth must have sliced a ball, that made a hole in one, right on my nose.

I was stunned for a couple of minutes and found myself sitting on the ground nursing my nose, when the culprit came over apologising profusely.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you to shout fore before you tee off?" I demanded in anger. I couldn't see a bloody thing as both my eyes were watering so much.

"I'm sorry, Marty, I didn't realise you were so close."

Shit, I knew that voice, but for a minute I couldn't or didn't want to place it.

"Who are you? I can't see," I demanded.

"Don't you know?" the voice asked.

Shit! I did know. But I didn't want to know.

"I can't see. Point me in the direction of the club house," I said as I got to my feet.

"What about your stuff? I'll walk back with you and carry your clubs for you."

"No, don't bother. I'll get one of the caddies to collect them for me."

"Marty, I can't let you go off like this. I'm coming with you!"

"No, leave me alone. Haven't you messed up my life enough?"

"Marty, I've never meant to treat you so badly. I didn't realise how badly I'd behaved towards you until Amy told me when she came back from Spain."

"That's over now, Sheila. Just stay out of my life in the future, will you?"

"No, I'm not going to do that, Marty; I love you and I believe you love me. Well, you might not love me at this particular minute, as I've just hit you with a golf ball. But I know I can make you love me again."

"Huh!"

"I had planned that you would catch me up out here. I'm sorry I hit you."

"What's it going to take, woman, to convince you to stay away from me?"

"Well, I'd suggest you start by trying to get a court order. But as I've got enough cash to fight you on that, all the way to the European court, I think you'll be wasting your time on that one. Look, the sensible thing is for me to take you to the club house and then to hospital if need be. We can talk about everything else later."

+++++++++++++++

Well, I'm having that damned dream again. There she is, like always, bouncing up and down on me. But hang on, what's that bloody noise?

"Shit! The babies are crying!"

"Don't worry about that, the nanny will see to them. That's what she's paid for," Sheila smiled down at me.

Life goes on.