Chapter 1: Coma

The wife: They say once you go black, you don’t go back. Well, first time going black was a big mistake for me, a drunken prank that went badly wrong, so wrong. It was going to be a one-time thing for me but I ended up going back to black again, to the same man, albeit ten years later. The first reason and the second for doing so were so very different, but it all boils down to the same thing in the end, doesn’t it? Deception and reckless risks equals disaster. Contempt leads to getting caught.

It first happened more than ten years ago, when all four of us, without the kids, were on holiday. The four of us were very close then, neighbours, friends, best friends. There was Bob, my husband, Emma, my neighbour and best friend, and her husband Richard, Bob’s best friend.

Richard and I stopped, we stopped what we were doing almost as soon as we started. Well, he finished very quickly and rather unsatisfactorily, I remember and then the enormity of what we’d done hit me, even through the drunken haze I was in. I never thought I would ever be unfaithful to Bob, when we married nine years earlier and had our three beautiful children. Never ever, not for a minute ever. But once you’ve crossed that line, the next time is easier; the guilt gets spread thinner and thinner with the third and fourth time until it stops bothering you. You think you won’t get caught until you are brought up short.

Circumstances changed for Richard a couple of years ago, he had said, just in passing, when we were alone several months ago. They had changed for me, too, recently, but what he was angling for didn’t appeal. But he kept suggesting and I kept listening and so I gave in eventually. We started up again in the last three months or so, thinking that it would do both of us some good and, besides, nobody would get hurt. Neither of us wanted to hurt anyone, did we? We were each onto a good thing respectively anyway, i loved Bob, he loved Em; I didn’t love Rich and he didn’t love me. So why rock the boat? We could get away with this little thing that was just our little secret pleasure, for ever, couldn’t we? What did we know?

How did I know that we would oversleep? Well, we didn’t even do that exactly. No, Bob came home really early, really, really early and Rich and I were still asleep. The alarm was set for at least another hour. Emma was at her sick mother’s house, as she had been three nights a week for the previous six months. My three kids were all away camping for the weekend at the start of half-term holidays. Now, I don’t mind camping in the height of summer, but late October? In Derbyshire? What were they thinking? I blame their father.

The kids love the outdoors. They take after their father, of course. He would have been with them if the shifts were right and he hadn’t run out of annual holiday. Bob was at work, the last night of his cycle of six nights on, six off, until he was due to start a stint of days again next Saturday.

This was Rich’s one chance to stay with me all night instead of me sneaking over to his and Em’s place for half an hour at a time when she was away. Our first proper night together should have been perfect, Bob wasn’t due home until late morning, after he had his morning run, but there he was, quarter past five, standing there, crying, at our bedroom door. Crying at the sight us, treacherously entwined in sleep

Bob floored Rich with one punch, I think, I didn’t have time to put my lenses in, so I can’t be certain. I thought he was going to slap me, too, but he just stared at me for a moment, with a look of pity, or sorrow or hate, I imagined, in his eyes. I couldn’t tell, his face wasn’t in focus, he just looked at me while I squirmed under his awful gaze. Then he ran down the stairs and out the front door into the street.

I should have chased after him. Chased after Bob, my husband of almost twenty years, naked if necessary, anything to get him back, to explain the unexplainable to atone for the pain I caused. Instead I put on my dressing gown and tried to wake up Richard. Not to see if he was hurt, I don’t think. I didn’t have time or my wits to think. No. I desperately wanted him out of my bedroom before Bob came back. I wanted Bob, my Bob, to come back, to forgive me, I would do anything for that forgiveness, anything to make it up with my Bob, the man I knew and loved most, out of all the men in the world. But my Bob never ever came back.

“John Doe”: When I sneezed, I sent a pattern of events into action. Firstly the two voices stopped their insular interaction and adapted their stance to interact with me. I think they were panicking more than I was. They explained who they were, male nurse Ben and hospital visiter Helen. Helen held my hand, it was warm and dry and very comforting, while Ben explained what was happening to me. I couldn’t see because my eyes were covered. I was badly sunburned and suffering from photokeratitis, or something like that, apparently. Ben explained but I was still confused.My eyes would have be covered up for at least a couple more days, Ben informed me, except for dressing changes, to allow my eyes time and rest to recover. My face was also badly blistered, lacerated and bruised but I should make a full recovery in a week or two, probably with little or no scarring.

Then Ben told me that they needed to know who I was because I was found dressed only in trainers, socks, tee shirt and shorts and didn’t have any form of identification on me, not even a door key. The only other objects I had on me were a nondescript wrist watch and a wedding band. All they needed from me now was my name. It’s not much to ask, is it? What was my name? What WAS my name? I was dreaming of it just now, I am sure. It was there on the tip of my tongue...

The man had started breathing without respiratory aid for the last few hours and was occasionally twitching in his sleep. His eyes had been covered up, as precaution for when he awoke, since before Helen had come in this morning, relieving her mum, Sharon, who had been there since midnight, maintaining their vigil over this man.

Helen thought she had found a dead body when she came upon him the previous Sunday, early in the afternoon. She often went for a run through the open moorland in the late afternoon after her college studies during the week, and in the mornings at weekends, usually avoiding the woods on the edge of the moor. Yesterday, though, it was unseasonably warm for late September and, being a Sunday, she thought there was likely to be more children and walking families around, so she decided to chance it by taking a short-cut through the woods to get home early for a welcome cooling shower before preparing the evening meal. As it turned out, she didn’t get home until late evening and didn’t eat at all.

Helen Bister saw him lying still flat on his back on the ground in full bright sunlight. She saw something in front of her from a distance away as she followed a narrow track that looked like a short cut. At first she was uncertain what it was. She slowed down, sensing that something definitely wasn’t right. She was tempted to take a different path, but something made her warily walk towards the body, while looking all around for any sign of a trap. It wasn’t that she was naturally paranoid, but she had heard so many stories and been warned so many times by her mother about being alone in a dangerous place that she felt it sensible to be cautious. Helen unclipped her mobile, to have it at the ready but immediately noticed that there was no signal to be had there, which made her even more cautious in her approach.

She got near, more and more convinced that whoever he was, he was dead. He definitely looked dead. Helen had never seen a dead body before and this had all the signs she expected would constitute a dead body. He looked like he had been beaten up or murdered. He had dried blood on his head and a lot of blood on his arm and on the grass all around him. She tentatively touched his forehead. His skin was hot to touch, he was burning up in the unrelenting sunshine. She wasn’t sure, did heat mean he was still alive or that his death was very recent?

Helen shook him by the shoulder, gently at first and then harder but he was so deeply out of it, he didn’t respond. It was as if he was finally at peace and heading towards paradise. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. He was clearly a runner, dressed as he was, his running shoes old and well worn, probably as comfortable as her own ones were. He was old, probably retired, grey haired, thin-faced, even pinched although surprisingly, his face was relatively unlined, like someone who was spiritually at peace, ready to meet his maker.

Helen had about a quarter of a litre of water left in the bottle she carried with her and she splashed a little of it on his face. Some water must had gone up his nose as he suddenly started flailing his arms about and spluttering and trying to breathe. But he never actually woke up. Helen pulled out her ineffectual mobile phone again, and ran down the path towards the houses, watching the phone and hoping she would get bars up showing she was in range of a transmitter. As soon as she got a couple of bars on the phone reception, she hit 999 and got through straight away, immediately requesting ambulance and police.