Bonkers Read online

  Lisa was being sucked towards the bed.

  Faster and faster and faster.

  She was going to crash into the people! She flung up her arms and covered her face.

  Lisa was choking. There was something in her throat and she was choking on it. She tried to lift her hands to claw at her mouth, but they seemed to be weighed down. Someone had tied her arms down! She could feel something wrapped about her forearms, tugging at them when she tried to lift them. It was impossible to get at the thing in her mouth and she couldn’t scream for help because of it. Inside her head she cried out for George, but his warm, reassuring presence was gone.

  There was a rush of activity around her, female voices speaking quickly, issuing orders.

  ‘—coming round—’

  ‘—give her a bolus and get her under again—’

  And just as she began to slip away, Lisa heard one last voice say, ‘Better let her husband know she’s come round.’

  She hoped they would think to call her parents when they called the other woman’s husband.

  There were so many dreams.

  At least Lisa thought they were dreams until she realized that the people who spoke to her were really there. Sometimes she opened her eyes and looked at them before falling back to sleep again.

  It was a strange twilight world.

  The lights were bright, and the people touching and talking to her were in dark-green uniforms and didn’t speak quietly. They were kind in a brisk sort of way. Lisa wanted to ask them if they could read her mind, but she was too tired and couldn’t stay awake. She almost expected to see George and Moira, but this place wasn’t imbued with a wonderful sense of peace. Even worse, she hurt just about everywhere.

  Gradually, she became more aware of her surroundings. Whenever she woke, she was lying in bed and she was never alone. She guessed she must be in hospital and the voices and touches belonged to the nurses looking after her. Lisa began to recognize some of their faces and the routine of bed baths and turns from her left side to her right.

  ‘Don’t want you getting any bedsores, do we, love?’ one of them said by way of explanation.

  Lisa’s main concern was her throat. It was so sore that she avoided swallowing unless she absolutely had to, which was difficult because the nurses kept forcing her to sip water through a straw, explaining they wanted to get rid of her drip. What drip? Who cared about that when her throat felt as if somebody had taken a piece of sandpaper to it? Her other major gripe was her head, which felt swollen to twice its size, and there seemed to be something wrong with her right leg, too. Otherwise Lisa was quite content to lie in bed and let them do what they wanted, provided she could fall back into the deep, dreamless oblivion of sleep.

  Sometimes a man poked and prodded her, forcing her to open her eyes and pay attention. Lisa didn’t like him. She grudgingly tried her best to do what he wanted, but the lure of sleep was so seductive that she let herself slip into it and away from him and his demands.

  ‘Time to get her out of here and onto the ward,’ Lisa heard him say as if she were a car that had broken down. ‘Let’s get her moved.’

  2

  A nurse with dark-brown, curly hair and a plump figure said, ‘My name’s Nancy and I’ll be looking after you today.’

  She put a small, white plastic bulb attached to a long lead in Lisa’s hand. ‘Here’s your call bell. I’ve safety-pinned it to the sheet so you can’t lose it.’ Nancy eyed Lisa keenly. ‘I’ll be popping in and out all morning. Once you’ve had your bath, we’ll get you up in a chair for an hour or so.’

  The doctor who poked and prodded had got his way.

  Lisa had been transferred along a bewildering series of corridors and in and out of lifts until she reached a room with a window and bright sunlight that hurt her eyes. The nurses were different and they didn’t stay with her all the time.

  She hated being left alone; it made her feel anxious. After wanting nothing more than to be left in peace, she now felt like a baby abandoned by its mother. Nancy’s maternal figure in its blue-striped uniform represented security.

  The bath and hour or so sitting in a chair had exhausted Lisa. Her right leg felt heavy because it had a plaster cast on it from the knee down. Lisa had been born with a left club foot and had spent endless months in and out of plaster. Seeing the cast on her leg now brought back memories of photos she had seen of herself as a baby with her leg in plaster after operations to correct the deformity.

  Her head had gone from feeling like it was full of cotton wool to pounding as if the entire cast of Riverdance were rehearsing inside her skull. Lisa found it hard to speak; her mouth didn’t feel like it belonged to her. It felt odd. Her lips felt fuller and her mouth seemed bigger. When she ran her tongue around her teeth, her chipped upper incisor was perfectly smooth. In fact, all of her teeth were perfect. She had to try several times before she could tell Nancy that her head hurt. Her voice came out in a croak and her lips felt like they were made of stiff rubber when she tried to form the words.

  When the nurse suggested a couple of Panadol, Lisa stared at her in disbelief—surgical removal of her head was more what she’d had in mind.

  Nancy gave Lisa two tablets and a loan of her sunglasses for the rest of the day. Lisa sat in her chair, holding her head and looking like one of the Blues Brothers while Nancy and another nurse stripped her bed and changed her nightdress.

  ‘Why does my throat hurt so much?’ she asked hoarsely, wondering why her voice sounded so weird.

  Nancy and Chris, the other nurse, exchanged a speaking glance. ‘It’s from the tube you had down your throat when you were in Intensive Care,’ Nancy explained as they threaded Lisa’s arm into her nightdress.

  ‘Intensive Care?’ Lisa repeated, feeling her meagre supply of energy dwindle even further.

  ‘Yes. You were on a ventilator for nearly a week. The tube in your throat connected you to the machine.’

  Lisa was bewildered. A machine had been breathing for her?

  The nurses put her back to bed when her hour in the chair was up. Lisa was deeply embarrassed at the personal nature of the things they were doing for her. She wondered where her mother and father were, and had to try several times before she managed to say, ‘My mum and dad? Where are they?’

  Nancy shook her head. ‘I don’t know about your mum and dad, Linda. I thought all your relatives were in the States.’

  Lisa thought that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. Why would her parents be in America? They’d hardly have flown off on holiday while she was so sick. And why had Nancy called her ‘Linda’? Until now she’d called Lisa ‘love’. Lisa decided she must have misheard.

  Nancy was racing on full steam ahead. ‘I thought we could wash your hair later today; it must feel horrible after all this time. Your husband’s brought in all your toiletries. You have some beautiful stuff, Linda.’

  Lisa stared at Nancy’s departing back as she rushed off muttering about plastic bowls and towels.

  There it was again—she’d called her Linda. And husband? Had Nancy said husband?

  Lisa’s heart began to thump uncomfortably against her breastbone. When she put her hand against her chest, she could feel it vibrating and thudding beneath her palm. It felt nothing like it had in the waiting room when she’d been feeling so frightened. She was definitely alive, but why was she being called Linda and why on earth did Nancy think she had a husband?

  Linda.

  Linda.

  Linda.

  Lisa let out a great shuddering gasp and put her hand to her head. When she touched her hair she froze. It felt tangled and dirty but what concerned her most of all was that it felt straight.

  Straight.

  She had straight hair.

  Clumsily, she grasped a strand from behind her ear and was amazed to discover that it was long enough to reach the end of her nose.

  But she was downright shocked when she saw it was black.

  Jet black.

&n
bsp; Surely a car accident couldn’t do that? It couldn’t take a mop of short, unruly blonde curls, straighten them out and turn them black. Could it?

  Lisa smoothed a shaky hand backwards to a limp ponytail resting at the nape of her neck and forced herself not to panic. Nancy had given the impression that she’d been sick for some time so her hair would have grown—but not this much.

  Something was wrong.

  Something was very wrong.

  Lisa noticed her hands and began to hyperventilate. They were long and elegant with those acrylic nails Sherry treated herself to from time to time. And her left foot—the one not encased in plaster—was much too far away to be her foot. Her legs weren’t that long. Her family affectionately called her the runt of the litter because she was only five feet two inches tall.

  Nancy came back into the room carrying a blue plastic bowl and towels. ‘Right, I’ll just get your sponge bag out—’

  Seeing Lisa’s white face, she dropped the bowl and towels on a chair and hurried to the top of the bed. ‘Linda? Are you feeling dizzy? I’m just going to lower your head.’ She reached for the lever at the side of the bed.

  ‘No!’ Lisa croaked, clutching at her arm. ‘Please, Nancy, please get me a mirror! I need a mirror!’

  Nancy’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A mirror?’

  Lisa nodded desperately, still clinging to her arm.

  Nancy hesitated, and felt Lisa’s pulse. ‘Are you sure you’re not feeling faint?’

  ‘No!’

  But Nancy wouldn’t bring her a mirror until she’d checked Lisa’s blood pressure. ‘I don’t want you getting all upset about the way you look,’ she said with a faintly disapproving air. This wasn’t the reaction she expected from a woman who’d been dragged back from death’s door. ‘You’re hardly going to look a million dollars when you’ve been unconscious for an entire week.’

  She reluctantly passed Lisa a small hand mirror.

  Lisa chewed her lip, strangling the slim handle in her fingers, suddenly terrified of what she would see.

  ‘Well?’ Nancy asked. ‘Do you want to see yourself or not? I won’t have time to wash your hair if we don’t get a move on.’

  Taking a deep breath, Lisa lifted the mirror.

  The face she saw was exquisitely lovely, despite the bruising and unhealthy grey tinge of the skin. Jet-black hair parted in greasy strands across a high, smooth forehead. Large, clear blue eyes with long, dark lashes gazed at her apprehensively. She saw high, patrician cheekbones and a long, narrow nose above a lush, pink mouth.

  It was the face of the woman she had seen in the waiting room.

  The face of the woman driving the blue convertible.

  The woman called Linda.

  George had put her back into the wrong body.

  Nancy didn’t wash her hair. Instead the doctor was called and Lisa was given something to calm her down and make her go back to sleep.

  It was evening when she finally woke. The only light in the room was from her overhead lamp, which somebody had tilted towards the wall so it wouldn’t shine in her eyes. Lisa guessed that Nancy had done it. She had been so kind when Lisa had broken down and sobbed and sobbed. Nancy had held her hand until she finally went to sleep, stroking her hair and saying, ‘There now, sweetheart. We’ll soon have you looking your old self. You’re a beautiful girl, but what’s really important is you’re alive.’

  Lisa had run out of sobs by then, so the tears just trickled down her face and into the pillow beneath her cheek. How could she explain to a practical, sensible soul like Nancy just how ironic her comment was in the circumstances?

  She was alive—but inside another woman’s body. How could something so unbelievable have happened? Lisa suspected George had disobeyed the rules and sent her back instead of Linda. She had stolen Linda’s life. Although that didn’t seem so wrong when she considered that it was Linda’s thoughtless driving which had killed her in the first place.

  Killed her? What was she thinking? She was here, alive. In the wrong body perhaps, but still alive.

  I’m going mad. I’m going stark, raving mad, Lisa thought miserably, and tears began to well again in her swollen eyes. A faint sound near the bottom of her bed halted her plan to indulge in another crying fit. Listlessly, she raised her head.

  A man sat in one of the orange plastic chairs that were standard hospital issue. Lisa couldn’t see him properly because of her puffy eyes and the low light.

  ‘You’re awake,’ he said in a deep voice with a pronounced American accent. Getting to his feet, he took the few steps required to bring him alongside her and into the pool of light from the overhead lamp.

  Lisa stared up at him and blinked.

  He was extremely tall and dressed in a dark-green polo shirt and dark-grey chinos. His thick, dark hair needed cutting; it flopped onto his brow and curled over the collar of his shirt. It looked messy, as if he had a habit of running his hand through it. Lisa could see the wary expression in his eyes as he looked down at her. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something.

  Faced with yet another strange face in a day full of strange faces and experiences, Lisa was at a loss. She thought he must be one of the doctors—on a better day she would have been delighted to get one this handsome. But she didn’t want to hear anything more that might add to her problems. Instead she lowered her eyes and followed the impressive length of his legs from his belt buckle all the way down to his tasselled grey shoes.

  ‘How do you get a pair of trousers to fit?’ she managed to say slowly in a voice that didn’t sound anything like her own. She looked back up at him. ‘Did the shop sew two pairs together?’

  He stared at her in shock for several moments before giving a reluctant laugh. It sounded harsh and cracked slightly in the middle, as if he hadn’t done it in a long time. ‘I buy my clothes at a tall men’s shop in the city,’ he said.

  Collecting the chair from the bottom of the bed, he came to sit beside her.

  Close up, Lisa could see he looked tired and haggard.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked in that wonderful, deep voice.

  Lisa eyed him thoughtfully, wondering just where he was going to fit into the puzzle. She realized the calmness she felt wouldn’t last. It was just her mind shutting down after everything that had happened that day. She was numb. Frankly, she’d given up caring for the moment, which was why she replied indifferently, ‘My head hurts. My leg hurts. Oh, and they stuffed some suppositories up my backside this afternoon. Apart from that, I’m absolutely bloody marvellous.’

  She could tell she’d shocked him again. He laughed reluctantly, but his eyes were troubled, as if he couldn’t work something out. Lisa looked back at him sympathetically. She felt like telling him she couldn’t figure it out either.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Lisa stared back listlessly. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ He tilted his head as if he were listening to her very carefully. ‘You don’t recognize me at all?’

  Lisa went to shake her head but changed her mind when pain stabbed her in the temples. ‘No,’ she said with difficulty. ‘Why? Are you famous?’

  He smiled fleetingly, showing strong, white teeth. ‘I’m Dan,’ he said, watching her reaction closely. ‘Dan Brogan.’

  Treacherous tears began to pool in her eyes. Lisa was amazed she had any left. She took a shuddering breath. ‘Nice to meet you, Dan.’

  His grey eyes continued to watch her keenly. ‘Sssh. Don’t cry,’ he soothed. He snagged a couple of tissues from the box on the locker and handed them to her.

  ‘Am I s’posed to know you?’ Lisa asked wearily after she’d blown her nose.

  ‘Mmm hmm.’ His expression was tinged with irony.

  ‘Are you one of my doctors?’

  He shook his head.

  She decided to take the plunge. ‘Who do you think I am, Dan?’

  Once again he seemed fascinated by her voice. Lisa got the feeling
it intrigued him just as much as what she was saying. ‘Don’t you know who you are?’

  ‘Oh, I know who I am,’ Lisa replied bitterly, her voice beginning to slur again with tiredness. She just couldn’t seem to get the hang of shaping words with Linda’s mouth. ‘It’s just a matter of who everybody else thinks I am.’

  Dan Brogan frowned. ‘OK, you’ve lost me.’

  ‘Tell me who you think I am!’ Lisa burst out in frustration, then wished she hadn’t because it made her head throb.

  ‘You’re Linda,’ he replied quietly. ‘Linda Brogan.’

  Clutching her aching head, Lisa stared at him in dismay.

  Brogan.

  Maybe he was Linda’s brother.

  ‘Are you and Linda related?’ she asked, guessing that the way she was referring to Linda in the third person was the cause of the confusion in his eyes.

  He searched her face intently for several moments. ‘I’m your husband, Linda.’

  Lisa gasped. ‘My husband?’ she burst out. ‘But I’m not married!’

  ‘I’m afraid you are,’ Dan Brogan insisted quietly, his long fingers beginning to tap irritably on the orange plastic between his spread knees.

  Lisa suddenly noticed he was wearing a wedding band on his left hand, and she blurted out desperately, her words tumbling over one another in her haste to get them out, ‘No, you don’t understand! I know it sounds mad but I’m not Linda! My name is Lisa! Lisa Jackson! I was put back in the wrong body by mistake…’ She trailed off, realizing how utterly insane she sounded.

  Dan stared at her in silence.

  So now they’d lock her away with all the other nuts.

  Nice one, Lisa.

  He ran a hand agitatedly through his dark hair. ‘How about we talk about this tomorrow?’ he suggested at last. ‘I’ll talk to Rod Cameron, your neurosurgeon, and tell him how you feel. OK?’

  Lisa was too shell-shocked to reply.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, Linda,’ he continued quietly. ‘You’ve spent the last week in ICU with a head injury. It’s hardly surprising you feel confused.’