Читать книгу Roar: Uplifting. Intriguing. Thirty short stories from the Sunday Times bestselling author - Cecelia Ahern, Cecelia Ahern - Страница 7

There’s a gentle knock on the door before it opens. Nurse Rada steps inside and closes the door behind her.

‘I’m here,’ the woman says, quietly.

Rada scans the room, following the sound of her voice.

‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,’ the woman repeats softly, until Rada stops searching.

Her eye level is too high and it’s focused too much to the left, more in line with the bird poo on the window that has eroded over the past three days with the rain.

The woman sighs gently from her seat on the window ledge that overlooks the college campus. She entered this university hospital feeling so hopeful that she could be healed, but instead, after six months, she feels like a lab rat, poked and prodded at by scientists and doctors in increasingly desperate efforts to understand her condition.

She has been diagnosed with a rare complex genetic disorder that causes the chromosomes in her body to fade away. They are not self-destructing or breaking down, they are not even mutating – her organ functions all appear perfectly normal; all tests indicate that everything is fine and healthy. To put it simply, she’s disappearing, but she’s still here.

Her disappearing was gradual at first. Barely noticeable. There was a lot of, ‘Oh, I didn’t see you there,’ a lot of misjudging her edges, bumping against her shoulders, stepping on her toes, but it didn’t ring any alarm bells. Not at first.

She faded in equal measure. It wasn’t a missing hand or a missing toe or suddenly a missing ear, it was a gradual equal fade; she diminished. She became a shimmer, like a heat haze on a highway. She was a faint outline with a wobbly centre. If you strained your eye, you could just about make out she was there, depending on the background and the surroundings. She quickly figured out that the more cluttered and busily decorated the room was, the easier it was for her to be seen. She was practically invisible in front of a plain wall. She sought out patterned wallpaper as her canvas, decorative chair fabrics to sit on; that way, her figure blurred the patterns, gave people cause to squint and take a second look. Even when practically invisible, she was still fighting to be seen.

Scientists and doctors have examined her for months, journalists have interviewed her, photographers have done their best to light and capture her, but none of them were necessarily trying to help her recover. In fact, as caring and sweet as some of them have been, the worse her predicament has grown, the more excited they’ve become. She’s fading away and nobody, not even the world’s best experts, knows why.

‘A letter arrived for you,’ Rada says, stealing her from her thoughts. ‘I think you’ll want to read this one straight away.’

Curiosity piqued, the woman abandons her thoughts. ‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,’ she says quietly, as she has been instructed to do. Rada follows the sound of her voice, crisp envelope in her extended hand. She holds it out to the air.

‘Thank you,’ the woman says, taking the envelope from her and studying it. Though it’s a sophisticated shade of dusty pink, it reminds her of a child’s birthday party invitation and she feels the same lift of excitement. Rada is eager, which makes the woman curious. Receiving mail is not unusual – she receives dozens of letters every week from all around the world; experts selling themselves, sycophants wanting to befriend her, religious fundamentalists wishing to banish her, sleazy men pleading to indulge every kind of corrupt desire on a woman they can feel but can’t see. Though she’ll admit this envelope does feel different to the rest, with her name written grandly in calligraphy.

‘I recognize the envelope,’ Rada replies, excited, sitting beside her.

She is careful in opening the expensive envelope. It has a luxurious feel, and there’s something deeply promising and comforting about it. She slides the handwritten notecard from the envelope.

‘Professor Elizabeth Montgomery,’ they read in unison.

‘I knew it. This is it!’ Rada says, reaching for the woman’s hand that holds the note, and squeezing.