Same disclaimer as before

Chapter 5

The Man without Memories

Ruth was glad to have all those duties to attend to. It was better than just sitting there, worried sick. As with every job she had ever done, she carried out her nursing duties with a high degree of professionalism.

She had done some research on the internet. They said that some coma patients could hear you, even if they were otherwise unresponsive. In between her chores, Ruth would read from the newspapers to Harry. Alternatively, Ruth would talk to Harry as if he was part of the conversation. She reminded him of ops they were on, taking care not to speak too loudly in case one of the ICU nurses or family members of other ICU patients could hear her. Sometimes she would recite from favourite poems or novels. Mostly she left Harry alone so that he could rest.

Every now and then, Ruth would feel frustrated. All this talking to myself cannot be doing me any good. Why wouldn't he wake up? The doctors said that after such a traumatic experience, Harry's brain had gone into protective mode and it would take time before this lockdown was reversed. It sounded as though the doctors were confident that Harry would emerge from his coma, yet when Ruth pressed them further, they remained vague as to Harry's prognosis and declined to give a time frame for recovery.

After a lot of debate with herself, Ruth decided that on the whole, she was glad to be here. What if Harry was shot in some other op and she had to find out via news reports? She would have moved mountain and earth to sneak back to London to try and see Harry. At least now, she had a legitimate cover to maintain constant vigil by Harry's bedside.

Ruth received numerous requests from the people on the Grid, and from other government departments, to come for a visit. She turned them all down. She did not want anyone to see Harry in a vegetative state. They were all busy people, she argued. They should come and visit after Harry woke up. She did thank them all for the flowers and get well cards Harry has received. She did not have the heart to tell them that flowers were not allowed in the ICU. She had to give away the flowers to the nurses or sent to the pediatrics ward to cheer up the sick kids. She did manage to take pictures of each arrangement she received, with the camera in her mobile phone, and she carefully recorded the names of the senders. She downloaded these photos to her laptop and prepared a list of thank you notes for Harry to sign, when he woke up. Harry always said that he appreciated her organizational skills.

The word which Ruth always used in her thoughts was "when" Harry woke up. She briefly considered the other possibility : what if Harry did not wake up and a decision had to be made to turn off all life support machines? None of the doctors had ever raised this possibility, so Ruth did not know where she got this notion from. Ruth was just being her old analytical self. She was being practical, and wanted to cover all contingencies. The idea was too awful to consider and when it did make an appearance in her brain, it never failed to get her all teary eyed.

You cannot do this to me, Harry Pearce. We have unfinished business. You have to wake up and this time, I will make you tell me what it was that you wanted to tell me that day on that dockside. If you wake up, I promise I will never run away from you again, no matter what happens. Even if you no longer feel about me the same way as you did before. As long as I still have your friendship.

Perhaps there was a god after all. Two weeks after Harry was sent to the ICU, he regained consciousness.

When Ruth was giving him the usual dry rubdown, she noticed that one of Harry's toes twitched when she tried to clean between his toes. She thought that it was just normal reflex. Then the entire foot moved, followed by movement in the fingers on his right hand. Soon, he was struggling against the breathing tube they had inserted down his throat. Ruth immediately alerted the other nurses.

"Calm down Mr. Pearce," said one of the doctors who had now arrived. "We will remove the tube from your throat. Now on the count of three, cough as hard as you can and the tube will be out."

After the breathing tube was removed, Harry continued to cough and sputter. Ruth gave him a sip of water and cleaned his mouth. Harry slowly opened his eyes and looked around the room.

Ruth was overjoyed. "Hey there, welcome back."

Harry blinked and said nothing. There was no sign of recognition in his eyes. It looked as if he had never seen Ruth before.

"When patients emerge from a coma, they do not usually regain mobility in all of their limbs or the ability to speak right away," the doctor informed Ruth. "This process will take several days, as the body slowly lurches back into operational mode." Ruth was happy just to see Harry regain consciousness. The fact that he regarded her as a total stranger was not important, not now anyway.

On the third day after Harry regained consciousness, he asked Ruth in a hoarse voice, "Who are you and where am I?"

"You are in the ICU. You were shot and suffered some serious injuries."

There was a doctor in the room when this took place. That, and the fact that Harry had no memory of her at this time, made Ruth decide to keep to her legend for the time being.

"I'm Rachel, your private nurse."

Still no sign of recognition.

The doctor who was doing his morning rounds spoke. "Mr. Pearce, can you wriggle the toes on your left foot for me please. Good, very good. Now try and follow my finger as I move it from left to right. Very good. Can you remember your name and do you know what year this is?"

"No. I …, I …, my …" Then he closed his eyes again as he tried to search for relevant information in his brain.

"That's OK Mr. Pearce, we'll take this nice and slow. Don't worry. Just take a rest for now. You have been through a lot in the last few weeks."

Outside Harry's room, the doctor explained to Ruth what was happening to Harry.

"Rachel, the good news is that Mr. Pearce has emerged from his coma. He appears to have suffered only limited brain damage since it looks as though he still has good motor and speech skills. The bad news is that because of the traumatic nature of his injuries, he has temporary amnesia. This is not uncommon in patients in similar situations. A psychiatrist will be assigned to him in order to give a more accurate assessment of his brain injuries." By now, the doctor was used to the look of shock and dismay on the faces of family members who were given this information in similar situations.

"I am confident that in time, he will regain some of his memories but it is difficult to say how long this process will take. You must also be aware that even if he gets his memory back, he may not regain all of his memories. He will have a better chance of retrieving long term memory but may be inclined to block out more recent experiences." The doctor noticed that Ruth was not taking this information well.

"I have just checked on his wounds. I am happy to say that they are healing nicely. You have obviously done a good job in looking after his dressings. I will make some changes to his medication. Sister Margaret will brief you on these later on. I will check back on him tomorrow when I do my rounds."

Ruth was unsure how to assess this recent development. Sure she was happy that Harry was now awake, but he did not know who he was, let alone who she was; well no, that's not entirely correct, she had just given him her legend, an entirely new person, so Harry now knew her as Rachel instead of Ruth.

Even if he remembered everything else, there was still a chance that her place in his memories would have been lost, irretrievably. Come on, you've come this far, don't give up hope, Ruth told herself. Right now, she had to concentrate on a new task, to help Harry regain his memory. But first, she sent an email to Adam, Malcolm and Connie to give them the good news.

One week after Harry regained consciousness, Tring sent a psychiatrist to visit Harry. His name was Dr. John Middleton. Dr. Middleton had privileges in this hospital and given his specialty in helping coma patients and his training in psychotherapy, Tring felt that it was more appropriate to assign him to the case than Diana Jewell or any of the other psychiatrists on staff.

John Middleton was a tall, handsome, rugged looking type who wore the currently fashionable day old stubble. All the nurses swooned when he walked by. He did not pay any attention to Ruth at first. He thought that she was just one of the nurses. From early on in his career, John Middleton had decided not to fraternize with the nurses. He would respect them on a professional level, but he would not have anything to do with them on a social basis. If you were a doctor and you broke up with a nurse, it could make life very difficult in the work place.

"Good morning, Mr. Pearce. And how are we today?"

"Not as well as one would hope. You see these bandages, I could do without them for starters. My head still hurts and I cannot remember a damn thing about my life. I hope life is treating you better." Harry wanted to add "you sanctimonious prig" but thought better of it.

"OK, here's a start. Anger is good, in these circumstances, though it does nothing for your blood pressure. You have been through a traumatic incident. It will take time for your brain to start functioning normally again. From now on, we will have these chats on a daily basis. For each session, we will do some mental exercises which are designed to help you remember things about your life." Dr. Middleton did not like the look which Harry just gave him.

"It would be too easy for us to simply tell you about your past. It does not work that way. After all, you are the only one who knows about your past life. So it is essential that you remember things on your own. That's the only way we can ensure that you regain and retain all the relevant memories. I just stopped by today to introduce myself. I shall be back tomorrow. Have a good day."

As John Middleton turned to leave, Ruth stopped him in order to ask more questions about Harry's current status. That was when he noticed her.

He answered all of Rachel's questions patiently. John Middleton thought to himself, this woman was taking her duties a little too seriously to be your usual private nurse. Since he knew that he was treating a spook, he assumed that Rachel must be some sort of bodyguard for the patient. As far as bodyguards go, she was more emotional towards the patient than your run of the mill security detail. So, what was her real relationship with the patient?

Now that Rachel got his attention, he studied her facial features more closely. John noticed that she had a lovely oval face which was made more attractive by a pair of large, expressive eyes. The longer he looked at her, the more attracted he became to this woman. Then there was her voice. A very soothing, husky tone. I could easily spend an afternoon gazing into her eyes or listen to her read the phone book, John noted, and god knows its been a long time since a woman has produced this kind of response in me. In the end, the dimples were the clincher. He decided that he must find out more about Rachel.

Even though Harry was now better, the doctors kept him in the ICU for another week before he was transferred to one of the other wards. Harry snorted when he heard this and gave his doctors a filthy look.

Since Harry regained consciousness, Ruth noticed that he seemed to be in a perpetual bad mood. Perhaps that was understandable, given his frustration in not being able to remember who he was and what he had done in the past. The doctors had said that anger was not an uncommon trait in recently traumatized patients. Ruth always knew that Harry could be bad tempered, and it was a shame that right now, that was the only side of his personality that had resurfaced. He could be very rude to the nurses, except for sister Margaret and Ruth. He seemed to have a grudging respect for sister Margaret, because of her seniority. As for Ruth, since she gave as good as she got, Harry learnt very quickly that this was one nurse that he should not mess about.

Ruth tried her best to protect the other nurses from Harry's temper tantrums. She did not leave his room unless it was absolutely necessary or when he was asleep. One day, she thought it would be safe if she took time off to do some shopping for essentials and got a haircut. Harry usually napped for a few hours each afternoon.

Ruth had to be accompanied by an agent when she left the hospital. She was delayed in getting out of the hospital because the agent who was supposed to take the place of her agent on the ICU floor was late. All she needed was a trim but she didn't count on the hairdressers being so busy. By the time she got back to the hospital, she noticed that she had taken longer than she should. As she approached his room, she could hear cursing and dishes being thrown on the floor. What now?

"This food is not fit for human consumption. It must be against the law to serve this kind of crap to sick people," Harry bellowed.

When Ruth came into the room, she saw what was the trouble. Harry was served dinner by the hospital staff, took one bite and swept the entire contents of the tray onto the floor. The lady who was in charge of serving meals to patients was cowering in one corner of the room, on the verge of tears. The bear with the sore head had struck again.

Ruth did not say a word. She gave the meals lady a comforting squeeze on the arm and a smile. She then proceeded to help her clean the mess on the floor.

"Well, I'm glad to see that the gastronomical section of your brain is functioning well," Ruth said, finally, when the mess was more or less cleared.

"I may have lost my memory, but I know, sure as hell, that my normal diet does not include this sort of rubbish."

"Well, here's a thought. You do realize that you have suffered major injuries to your body."

"That should be plainly obvious to anyone, even a blind person can see that."

"Alright, hear me out. Your body has been under siege and now needs time and sustenance to recover. As far as I can see, this crap you have been served is approved by the hospital nutritionist. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I'll grant you that its not as tasty as something that a restaurant might serve, but we are not in a restaurant, are we? If you don't eat, you won't get better. I know that you are not used to being in such a helpless position, but there is something you can do to reduce that helplessness and become strong again."

"What are you saying?"

"Having a temper tantrum will only elevate your blood pressure and we all know that that's not good for you. If you are as clever as everyone seems to think you are, then you should know that in the face of adversity, you should always go with the flow and bide your time until conditions improve. In your case those conditions will improve as you regain your memory."

"I suppose I can see the point which you are making."

"You have to eat, otherwise it will delay your recovery process. How about I order up some sandwiches and a salad for you, not from the hospital cafeteria, but from the deli across the road."

"I don't want tuna and I don't like tomato soup." That was what Harry had been served the last few days.

"Alright, no tuna or tomato soup. Just for today. We can't make a habit of bringing in outside food for you. Anyway, you need to behave and stop giving the nurses and helpers a hard time. If you're good, I'll take you out to a proper restaurant when you get better and let you eat whatever you want." It was like talking to a three year old.

There was something authoritative about his nurse and her arguments. Even though Harry didn't like being talked to like he was a child, he felt a little tired after that little tirade. He had a feeling that he was not going to win any arguments with her. Anyway, what she said sounded logical, and it was so much better hearing it from her than one of the other nurses.

"I will hold you to that promise."

"I know you feel frustrated and all, but there is no reason to take this out on the hospital staff. They are only doing their job, they have done nothing wrong."

Harry turned that comment over in his head. She had a point. It was not like him to vent his anger on more junior officers who were simply following orders. It was those people who pretended to be experts when they were not, or those who were simply not trying that usually got the full force of his anger and sarcasm. Junior officers. Why did he think in terms of 'junior officers'? Did he use to be in the army? If so, did he see action in any war or armed conflict? How did he know, with a degree of certainty, that he used to berate only fools?

Harry filed that information away for further consideration. He supposed that he ought to apologise to the meals lady, but he was too proud to admit that he was wrong. No, he would make it up to her another day. That was another trait to file away. He was a proud man and was used to be in a position of authority. Maybe he was a general in an army or something. They did say that he was shot. If he simply had a desk job, he wouldn't be shot, would he?

A few days later, Adam, Malcolm and Connie came by for a visit. On Dr. Middleton's advice, each person only came in for 5 minutes, just to say 'hi'. By this time, Harry's head wound had healed sufficiently well so that his dressing no longer resembled a turban. His hair had also started to grow back. Ruth suggested that perhaps Harry could wear a hat of some sort to hide his head wound. Harry grunted and gave her a filthy look. Ruth took that as a "no".

Again, on Dr. Middleton's orders, each person was instructed not to volunteer information about Harry's past to him. For a first visit, each person was ushered into the room, exchanged pleasantries and then left. Harry was on his best behaviour throughout this visit. He did not make any snide remarks or shout at anyone. He regarded each visitor with a degree of apprehension, but decided ultimately that he liked these people, for whatever reason.

After the team left and John Middleton was finished with Harry, he asked if Rachel would like to have coffee with him in the cafeteria. Ruth initially declined his offer but since he was quite insistent, Ruth relented. Harry had been given his medicine and she knew that he would doze off soon. She needed a break anyway.

Ruth found Dr. Middleton very easy to talk to. He was only a few years older than Ruth. She was surprised that Dr. Middleton was so keen to tell her about himself. Maybe I am a good listener, Ruth thought. I have always been a good listener.

"I've been divorced now for five years. No children. My ex-wife is a neuro surgeon with a very busy practice. We met at university, but once we started working, we saw less and less of each other. In the end, we both just felt that we have stopped caring for each other and divorce was the logical next step. It was all very amicable. We still run into each other professionally. How about you? With all that time you have logged in that room, do you have any kind of social life?"

Ruth decided to keep to her cover as a private nurse. There was no reason for her to disclose her true identity to this doctor, not yet anyway. She was not used to discussing her private life with strangers.

"I guess not. When I am on a job, I give it 100. My patients need me, otherwise they wouldn't have employed me. Since they are paying me on basis of 24/7 care, I really can't complain if that does not leave me with any sort of social life. I don't really mind. Its not often that I get this sort of assignment. There are times when the agency does not call and I get worried if I will ever get another nursing gig. I like my work." As usual, Ruth was able to lie convincingly in character.

Dr. Middleton thought that Rachel was wrong in her assessment of her importance. Private nurses were usually employed on 12 hour shifts, not 24/7. Unless you were a doctor doing your internship, no one worked for 24 hours a day non-stop, seven days a week. He also noticed that Rachel did not say anything about her family, or give any clue as to her marital status. He decided not to press this topic and moved on to their respective interests and hobbies.

After that first coffee, Dr. Middleton made it a habit of stopping by Harry's room after he has completed his rounds to see if Rachel wanted a break. Sometimes Ruth would make excuses and say that she was busy with some aspect or other about Harry's care, but once in a while, she would take a break with Dr. Middleton. She did not want to be rude to Harry's psychiatrist. She could take the opportunity to pick his brains about Harry's recovery.

When Dr. Middleton found himself being quizzed by Rachel for the umpteenth time about what they could do to improve Harry's memory, he pointed this out to her.

"Without sounding like a pessimist, you cannot rush this kind of thing, and you should prepare for the possibility that there might be parts of Harry's past life that he might never remember. I'm not saying that he will somehow be disabled. I mean, the human brain is a wonderful piece of equipment. Even now, we don't know enough about the brain to say with certainty how it will behave or react in a given set of circumstances. I have seen patients recover 100 of their memories. In fact, looking at them now, you wouldn't be able to tell that they suffered from amnesia at one time. Equally, I have had patients who made poor recovery. When that happens, it can be very hard for families and loved ones to accept the reality of the situation."

"It would be a shame if Harry ends up losing part of his memories. Its so unfair. Its not as if he asked to be shot at."

"I think you are taking your job too seriously. You worry too much. There's nothing certain about Mr. Pearce's prognosis. We just have to wait and see. You need to take some time off, pull back from the job a little. Didn't you say that you liked 40s movies? They are doing a Greer Garson revival in the cinema down the road. Would you like to take in a movie with me one of these nights? I don't usually get paged in the evenings, so I should be able to get away."

That was the first time Ruth realized that Dr. Middleton was expecting more from these coffee sessions than she was prepared to offer. She was not finished with Harry Pearce yet, how could she start another romantic liaison? She declined his offer politely. She also decided that she was not going to have coffee with Dr. Middleton again. There was no point in leading this man on. Yet, she must take care to remain friendly with this doctor. Right now, he was Harry's only hope of making a full recovery, or so Ruth thought.

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