Amy's Gift

‘Another glass of red.’

‘We’re closing in 5 minutes. Sorry.’

Josh blinked blearily at his watch. ‘It’s only quarter to,’ he protested. ‘You’ve got time to pour me another.’

‘Last orders are always 20 minutes or so before we start chucking people out.’ She was only a slip of a thing, but the girl behind the bar stood her ground. ‘Anyway, you haven’t finished that one yet.’

He tossed the liquid down his throat just to spite her. He didn’t enjoy the taste these days – but then he’d always had other reasons for drinking. What did that doctor know anyway? Self-medication, he’d called it. He’d looked all of 12, shuffling through his notes as if he were a grown-up and not some kid straight out of medical school. And the way he’d tried to put the frighteners on Josh, telling him his liver was shot to pieces and that if he didn’t cut down on his drinking now, he might not live to see 55.

He was still feeling angry as he stumbled to the car park and pressed the key to locate his Lexus. 3 glasses of wine – that’s all he’d managed before that girl had stopped serving him. The pitiful amount of alcohol had only taken the edge off the day he’d had. Perhaps the off-license would still be open.

His car was being uncooperative tonight. Must be due a service – the steering was all over the place.

And then a cat or a fox or some other animal appeared from nowhere, right in his path, and  although he tried to slam on the brakes, his reflexes were just slightly too slow to avoid hitting it.

*

Of course, his conscience pricked him the next morning when he finally awoke. (Was it still morning if it was after twelve but before lunch?) His hands trembled as he groped for the bottle on the bedside table. Empty. He remembered now that he’d needed a few swigs in the early hours when he woke sweating, feeling the cockroaches gnawing at his brain. He couldn’t go on like this. Perhaps that boy-doctor had been right after all.

              He still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t stopped. Guilt, maybe. Then again, it was only a cat. No, it had been too big for a cat. A deer maybe. But what would a deer be doing in a built-up area? He wasn’t an expert, but he was pretty sure the streets of Leeds weren’t their usual habitat.

He tried again to recall the events of the previous evening. A kaleidoscope of memories spun and twirled in his mind, but each time the fragments settled, the picture was incomplete. He could remember having a glass or two of wine, the annoyance he’d felt when that mouthy girl in the pub had refused to serve him another, and driving home in the dark. He’d taken the short cut past the new housing estate to avoid the road works on Queen Street.

The memory sharpened with sickening clarity not a deer: a girl. His car had hit a human being. Why hadn’t he stopped? But it had happened so quickly that he hadn’t really registered what was happening. Until now.

              He found himself reaching once more for the empty bottle, hoping that just a few dregs remained. He’d have to go out for more – see if that Australian white was still on special offer. But his guts were aching. Too much wine on an empty stomach. He thought about staggering into the kitchen but he knew already that the fridge and cupboards were empty. There might be some days old pizza in one of the discarded boxes under the sofa, but he doubted it.

              There it was again – the sharp pain in his abdomen. Was he having a stroke?

And then his stomach heaved and he found himself vomiting up several hours’ worth of wine and vodka, the sour stench of it making him want to gag even more. He’d never been this bad before.

He managed to call the emergency services just before he passed out.

*

This time, he awoke in freshly laundered sheets. He reached for the bedside wine bottle but could only find a jug of water. He still ached, but it was a different pain now.

              Running his hand experimentally over his side, he felt some kind of dressing. Had he fallen over and hurt himself whilst drunk?

              ‘And how are we today?’ a cheery voice asked. ‘How are the stitches, Mr Johnson?’

              Stitches? ‘Was I in an accident?’ he asked.

              ‘Acute liver failure. You were lucky the ambulance reached you in time – and that we had a replacement liver for you too. We’ve had some people on the waiting list for years, and then you arrive at the same time as the organ you need.’

              ‘I’ve had a transplant?’ Perhaps that doctor hadn’t been so wide of the mark after all.

              The nurse was bustling about, checking his blood pressure and his temperature and then writing things down on the chart at the end of his bed. He would have a look once she’d gone.

              ‘You can have two painkillers every four hours – don’t ask me for more. Take these now, and I’ll bring your next lot round at six.’

              He swallowed obediently, not noticing much difference in terms of the ache coming from the place where he supposed his stitches to be. ‘Do you know anything about the person who gave me their liver?’ he asked; but she had already gone.

*

‘Do you think you could manage some food?’

              ‘What have you got?’

              ‘Soup. Cottage pie. Nice piece of fish. Jelly and ice cream. Apple crumble and custard.’

              He chose the soup and the crumble, aware that he hadn’t eaten properly in days. The soup when it came was a startling orange – he assumed it was tomato, but it tasted like something entirely different. The crumble was a little more successful, although the custard was lumpy and of a similar consistency to wallpaper paste.

              ‘Whose liver did I get?’

For a moment, the nurse (not the one from earlier: a different one with thick ankles and a yellow cardigan over her uniform) looked blank. ‘You had soup, not liver.’

Josh sighed. ‘The transplant. Whose liver did you put in me?’

‘All donations are anonymous. If the relatives of the deceased choose to contact you, that’s fine, but we don’t encourage patients to hunt people down.’

Deceased? ‘You mean, you gave me a dead person’s liver?’

‘That’s how it normally works, yes. Now, let’s check your vitals.’

After she’d removed the thermometer, he tried again. ‘Can’t you tell me anything about the donor?’

‘If you want to say thank you to the family, you can write a card and leave it with us. Admin will make sure it goes to the correct people.’ She added her findings to the chart. ‘Carry on like this and you’ll be home by the end of the week.’

*

He hadn’t expected visitors – to his knowledge, no one knew he was here. Ali next door pretty much kept herself to herself, and the Polish lot downstairs didn’t speak much English. There’d be no one from work – they’d pressed ‘early retirement’ on him over six months ago: it was a euphemism for being sacked. Still, he couldn’t blame them: he’d stopped turning up mentally long before they told him to clear his desk.

              No, no one knew he was there, and no one would have cared had they known; so when the nervous looking couple came and sat down by the side of his bed, he thought they must be looking for someone else.

              ‘We’re sorry to disturb you,’ the woman began hesitantly. ‘We’d just like to talk to you for a while.’

              Bloody Jehovah’s Witnesses! Was nowhere safe from them these days?

              Only, they weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were a couple in… he guessed their late forties/early fifties. Mrs Clark’s eyes were red-rimmed, and she and her husband both wore pinched faces. He realised after the first minute or two that they were grieving parents.

              ‘Amy was a lovely girl,’ Mrs Clark told him. ‘She would have been 19 in August. She’d just finished her first year of university. She was training to be a vet.’

              For some reason, that last detail disturbed him most of all. She’d been a girl with her whole life ahead of her – someone who would have made the world a better place – for cats and dogs and hamsters at least.

              ‘Had she been ill for long before she-‘ He’d been about to say ‘died’ but amended it to ‘passed’.

              Tears filled both parents’ eyes. ‘Her health was good,’ Mr Clark said, his voice quavering with emotion. ‘It was a car accident that… that…’ He was unable to continue.

              ‘The driver didn’t even stop.’ Mrs Clark took up the tale. ‘We don’t know how long she’d been lying there when she was found by someone else. She was still breathing, but only just.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.’

              Would it have made a difference if he’d stopped? The girl – Amy – might have survived; but then what would have happened to him? Would he be here now?

              He felt a sudden irrational surge of anger towards God. It all seemed so… wrong, somehow. Why should Amy die just so he, Josh, could live?

              ‘It should have gone to someone who deserved it more,’ he muttered. Someone who would make the most of this chance to start again – not an alcoholic in his fifties who would probably ruin this new liver too.

              ‘No.’ Mrs Clark shook her head. ‘She would have been pleased to know it went to someone who needed it. She was like that – always thinking of others…’ The sobs began again.

*

After they had gone, he lay there a long time, staring up at the ceiling. He had been given the gift of life, but all he could think about was how much he wanted to return it.