‘Maybe he’s not the real father,’ one of the nurses said.
There was a special kind of disappointment that came with expecting little from someone and still being let down by their actions. I’d hoped, assumed, thought that at the depth of his being, my father loved me, and at the very least, wanted me alive. But the evidence to the contrary sat on the surgeon’s desk in the form of the keys to my mother’s Mercedes Benz sedan. On her knees, she’d handed over her car keys – a gift from my father – pleading for my life. Why they accepted, I wasn’t sure; I wouldn’t have been the first patient left to die because I didn’t have the means to pay for my treatment. We read similar stories in the newspapers or heard about them through someone that knew someone that it had happened to all the time. Perhaps it was the frantic desperation in my mother’s eyes or the elegance of her clothes or the fact that she’d driven to a government clinic in a car like that. How could such a person not afford to pay for a life?
‘Extradural haematoma is not something patients recover from overnight,’ the doctor told my mother, his voice low in an ineffectual attempt to avoid waking me. I’d been conscious for over a week but the doctors insisted on keeping me in the hospital for observation.
‘We’ve run all the tests,’ the doctor continued, then looked down at my file in his hands. ‘And she seems to be recovering well, but we’ll have to wait and see. To put it simply, losing blood from the brain means there’s a deficit. Luckily, she’s regained most of her abilities – it could have been much worse – but she will still need to undergo cognitive therapy for three to six months, depending on how she responds and how fast she recovers.’
My mother nodded, her hands folded in front of her in abject humility. ‘But will she be fine? Will she be able to go back to school?’ Her voice cracked; I’d never heard her sound so afraid, not even when my father was raging.
‘Not immediately. She’ll need some time to recover, maybe a few months. Considering the side of her brain affected, she might have some issues with short-term memory loss or small lapses. I’ll put you in touch with the therapist we usually recommend before she’s discharged.’
‘Thank you doctor, thank you so much,’ my mother effused as he turned to leave.
He stopped at the door to pull something from the front pocket of his lab coat. ‘I was asked to give this to you, your payment has been received by the accounts department,’ he said, handing my mother her car keys. And I felt hope bloom in my chest that my father wanted me to live after all.
Two weeks after my return to consciousness, the doctors signed the papers discharging me. I left with a note to a therapist and a bag of medication, and found my sisters seated at the back of my mother’s car. The direction we headed was not my father’s house.
My mother turned on the radio. When Mariah Carey’s ‘Always Be My Baby’ came on, we sang along, crooning the lyrics in disjointed voices like our lives hadn’t just been turned upside down. I bent my neck to the side, to feel the breeze and sun beating against my shorn head and the cranial scar that contoured it – a confirmation of life.
7
Almost British
It was impossible to ignore because the entire country was alight with it in the ember months of 2014 – especially Twitter.
Election season was upon us, and despite my best efforts to avoid the discourse, it trailed me like a sinister shadow of gloom with immigration at its centre.
The news cycle was set up to thwart anyone who sought the solace of avoidance. Fleet Street headlines were read on the news, talking points repeated and debated on morning and evening shows and included in stand-up routines, until they seeped into everyday consciousness. It was a phenomenon that had to be experienced to be understood and I often marvelled at the effectiveness of this machinery in moulding society.
Politics in Great Britain, I’d learned, was split, just like my hands, into left and right; each side spouting differing ideologies on how they believed the country should be run. It was extraordinary when they were united on any given issue, as was the case when the Labour Party announced it would implement immigration curbs if elected in the upcoming elections.
In 2010, the Conservatives had been voted in on the back of a promise to significantly lower the number of immigrants to the country to ‘tens of thousands’, a promise they’d failed to keep, but one the populace demanded.
A lesson in the art of the boogie man: bombard the airwaves with enough insidious stories and carefully worded headlines about a group of people and they become no longer human but the cause of every societal issue: higher taxes, rising cost of living, a collapsing system. For good measure, employ people who look just like them to sit on panels and insist there is nothing insidious about it all.
‘I read this great column by Hannah Switch the other day,’ Leo – short for Leonidas – a senior solicitor who’d worked at the firm longer than me, said in the lunch room one balmy morning as a group of us waited for the coffee machine. ‘It’s on the new housing tax on council flats and homes above a certain grade and the income it brings to the government. Too many people have leeched off the government for far too long and are costing us more money than they bring to the country.’ He had an upper-class accent that indicated Eton and then Oxbridge as an nth generation attendee – someone who had no idea what it was to live in a council flat.
Bile crawled up my throat and I swallowed it down, training my eyes on the patterns on my mug. Leo often featured unknowingly on my Twitter account:
Rayan nodded slowly. ‘Ah Hannah Switch… she also has some astute columns on the immigration crisis and the potential danger it poses to our systems and culture, and the need to create a hostile environment for illegal immigrants.’ I wondered if he emphasised the word ‘illegal’ to underscore the difference between them and him.
The next day I would tweet:
It would spark a debate.
‘The situation on the Mediterranean is preposterous,’ Leo continued. And I thought with disgruntled admiration that he said preposterous in a manner only a posh English man could, a blonde curl at his temple vibrating. His ice-blue eyes fixed on Rayan’s face, awaiting his endorsement.
‘Absolutely,’ Rayan responded in an almost exaggerated tone. ‘Hannah’s a fantastic writer and doing a good job keeping us informed in these times.’
Efulefu was what my mother would call someone like Rayan: a man who’d lost his way from his roots.
‘Do you have something to say, Ego?’ a posh voice asked.
I glanced up, realising in a panic that I’d hissed loudly. Every eye in the lunch room was trained on me.
‘Hannah is married to that MP, isn’t she? She isn’t as unbiased as you might think,’ Ceri interjected. I appreciated her boldness and support, though she had less to lose than I did.
