The Ward (22 page)

How did they do this? I’ve seen a couple of documentaries on face transplants and they looked swollen and fake and awful. But this… this is something else. How could they do this
without any scarring or swelling or blood or pain?

It’s impossible. It’s
too
perfect. There’s not a surgeon in the world who could perform such a flawless transplant.

I turn my head to the side to check out my new profile. What would it be like to look like this all the time?

You can’t think like that
.
It’s not your face
.

I tilt my head to the side and pout my lips. What would it be like to walk into a room of strangers looking like this? Their glances admiring instead of disgusted, their eyes gleaming with envy
or—

‘You fucking
bitch
!’ Farrell shouts.

Something thumps against the bathroom door.

I fumble for the lock and pull it open. Nomsa is slumped on the floor next to the door, holding the side of her face, and Farrell is standing over her, his breath escaping in ragged bursts.

He doesn’t even glance at me. ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ Farrell screams at her. ‘What the fuck are you people up to?’

Nomsa raises a hand. ‘Mr Farrell—’

Farrell draws his fist back and I leap over Nomsa’s body and grab hold of his arm. He’s trembling, and his skin is slick with sweat. I’m expecting him to turn on me, push me
back, maybe hit me, but he doesn’t. He stands frozen, as if he can’t believe what’s he done, staring down at the nurse on the floor.

Nomsa gets to her feet, adjusting her skirt as if nothing has happened. Her expression is blank, and she shows no sign of pain or even a flicker of anger or fear. She absent-mindedly wipes the
dribble of blood that’s dribbling out of her nose with the back of her hand and rubs it onto the front of her crisp white skirt.

She cocks her head to one side and clucks her tongue. ‘Now, Mr Farrell, I understand that this must come as a shock.’

‘A shock?’ he says. ‘A
shock
? Are you fucking mad?’

Nomsa smiles calmly and for a second I’m sure that Farrell has hit the nail on the head. She is mad. She must be.

‘What are you people doing in this place?’ he says. ‘What the fuck are you doing? What do you want with us?’

Nomsa sighs. ‘You were scouted, Mr Farrell. Chosen.’

‘Chosen by who? Chosen by what?’

‘By the Ward Administration, of course.’

‘You’re not making any sense. Is this some sort of sick experiment you people are doing here?’ He taps the side of his head. ‘Fucking with our brains? Seeing how far you
can push us?’

‘I assure you that that is not the case,’ Nomsa says. ‘It really is best if you just accept this situation at face value, Mr Farrell.’

‘You can’t do this to us! To me! I’m
somebody
, I’ve shot Sophie fucking Ellis-Bextor, for fuck sakes! And Kay… Katya is…
She’s…’

‘Mr Farrell—’

‘I’ll go to the police!’

‘Oh, Mr Farrell, you don’t understand. The police can’t help you here.’

‘Why not? Are they in on it?’

Nomsa actually laughs. ‘In on what?’

‘Whatever you’re doing here.’

The door bursts open and a male orderly enters the room. He holds a large metal syringe in his hand. He’s huge and square-jawed and his eyes have a vacuum of cold blankness behind
them.

‘It’s under control,’ Nomsa says, waving at him dismissively. He steps back, but doesn’t leave the room.

‘Put her face back on,’ Farrell hisses to Nomsa. ‘Put Katya’s face back. Make it right.’

Oh God. The room is beginning to flip in and out of focus, and I have to bite my tongue hard to stop from laughing out loud again.

‘I don’t have the authority to make those decisions, Mr Farrell.’

I’m still holding his forearm, and I feel his muscles tighten. ‘Who does have the authority?’ I say, amazed at how calm my voice sounds. Nomsa looks at me properly for the
first time since she entered the room.

‘The Ward Administration,’ she says.

‘We need to see them. Can you make that happen?’

Farrell shrugs out of my grasp. ‘Lisa, let’s just—’

‘Shhh,’ I say to him. ‘Well?’ I say to Nomsa.

Nomsa clucks her tongue again. ‘Clients are, naturally, permitted to petition the Administration for reversal, but it’s most irregular.’

‘But it can be done?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re saying they can fix this?’ The fight has gone out of Farrell’s voice.

Nomsa ignores him and looks right into my eyes. Her black irises are as dead as those of the orderly standing to attention behind her. ‘Are you sure you want to do this, Client
Cassavetes?’ For a second it’s as if she can see right into my soul. That she can read my thoughts. That she knows what I was thinking in the bathroom.

I nod. I’m not sure at all.

‘Very well.’ She looks at Farrell. ‘And I suppose you want him to join you?’

‘Of course I’m bloody coming!’ Farrell roars. ‘That’s my fucking girl—’

‘Eeeeeeeee!’ Katya screeches. ‘Eeeeeeeeee!’

She’s pointing at me, her mouth opening and closing like a slackjawed carp. Oh God. The mask! I left it in the bathroom.

‘Oh shit,’ Farrell says, rushing to her side. ‘Katya, Kay, baby, it’s going to be okay.’

Katya gawps at me through her death mask; just staring and making that inhuman keening noise.

‘Don’t you worry, Mr Farrell,’ Nomsa says. ‘We’ll take good care of her.’ She nods to the orderly, who slips behind me and approaches the bed.

‘No!’ Farrell yells. ‘Don’t you touch her!’

‘Now, Mr Farrell,’ Nomsa says. ‘She needs to keep calm. Who knows what complications will arise if she excites herself too much?’

Farrell opens his mouth to retort, and the orderly takes the opportunity to jab the syringe into Katya’s arm. Her eyeballs flip up into her skull like barrels in a slot machine, but she
carries on wailing.

Tears are streaming down Farrell’s cheeks. He strokes her hair, careful to avoid touching the raw flesh of her face. ‘I’ll be back, baby. I’m going to make them fix this,
you’ll see.’

Her screams start losing their power, dissolving into a short-breathed whimper.

‘Mr Farrell?’ Nomsa says. ‘Shall we?’

He glares at Nomsa and stalks away from the bed, pushing past us roughly. I don’t look back at Katya as I follow Nomsa out of the room.

Farrell is leaning against the corridor wall, his eyes shut, his fists clamped in his hair.

‘This way, Mr Farrell,’ Nomsa says, moving past him.

He snaps into life, catches up with her and grabs the back of her uniform. ‘You’d better make this right, bitch,’ he hisses. ‘You’d better make this right. Or I
swear to fucking God almighty that I will fucking hunt you down and kill you. Do you hear me? Do you?’

She wriggles out of his grasp and readjusts her clothes. My eyes are drawn to the brown smear of dried blood on her skirt. ‘Mr Farrell, let me be clear. I am assisting you. If Client
Cassavetes wants you to accompany her to see the Administration, then that is what we will do. She has the right according to the Ward Users’ Rights Charter.’ She smiles her cold,
professional smile again. ‘I could always take you back to Preparation?’

‘Come on, Farrell,’ I say. ‘We don’t have any choice.’

We follow Nomsa into the lift. She plucks a key out of her pocket and inserts it into a slot below the control panel. None of us speaks as the lift grinds into life and starts moving. Downwards.
My head is beginning to hurt again, a dull, throbbing ache. I don’t know whether it’s a lingering effect of the drugs or simply my battle to stay sane.

The doors slide open and we step out into what looks like the lobby of an extremely plush office. Everything – the walls, the floors, the chairs, and the large S-shaped desk in front of us
– is carved out of pale-pink marble. It’s cold under my feet and the air con blasting out of the ceiling makes me shiver. A woman suddenly pops up from behind the desk. Her hair is
bright yellow and lacquered into a beehive and she’s dressed in a smart blue suit with huge shoulder pads. There’s some sort of device stuck to the side of her face, some kind of
hi-tech earpiece. As we approach I realise that it’s actually sewn onto the side of her face with thick black thread. After what I’ve seen the last few hours, I can’t bring myself
to feel even a flicker of disgust.

‘Yes?’ she says to Nomsa.

‘Request for fast-track Administrative Intercedence. Client Lisa Cassavetes.’

The woman looks at me and twitches her lips upwards. She points to Farrell. ‘And this is?’

‘Donor Joshua Farrell. He’s…’ – Nomsa waves a hand around her head – ‘enmeshed.’

‘This is most irregular. Have you completed a mid-level station-elevation document and put in a request for a pre-interference form?’

‘No. This is a special case, code purple, and I cannot be responsible for any delay in its administration. I will file the requisite documentation post hoc.’

The woman purses her lips. ‘It is most irregular.’ She mumbles something into the earpiece sewn to her face, then looks down and skitters her fingers on what sounds like a keyboard.
She sighs and shakes her head.

Nomsa turns round and rolls her eyes at me, as if we’re just two ordinary people dealing with a bureaucratic mess together. Next to me, Farrell is standing absolutely still, his head
drooping, his eyes fixed to the floor. He looks like I feel – exhausted, bewildered and utterly shell-shocked. I reach over and squeeze his hand. It’s cold, and he doesn’t
respond.

‘Farrell? Are you okay?’

‘What do you think, Lisa?’ he hisses. He raises his head and looks at me, but his eyes slide away from my face almost immediately. I wish I’d thought to reapply the mask.

The woman behind the desk bends down behind the counter and something beeps a few times. She stands and stretches her back as if she hasn’t moved for hours.

‘Ensue, please,’ she says.

Nomsa gives us a small ironic salute.

‘What about Katya?’ Farrell says to her. ‘What will you do to her while we’re here?’

‘She will be seen to.’ Nomsa smiles her professional, cold smile again. ‘And anyway, her welfare should be the least of your concerns right now, Mr Farrell.’ Then she
turns her back on us and strides into the lift.

We follow the yellow-haired woman down a marble-floored corridor. She scratches at the back of her neck and I catch a glimpse of a large seeping scab beneath her hair. Again, I feel nothing.
Just a distanced, numb acceptance.

The woman pauses in front of an arched doorway, pulls open the door and stands back to let us enter first. The room is small and warm, its walls, floors and ceiling covered in flesh-coloured
padding. Apart from a pair of square, low benches, upholstered in the same material, there’s no other furniture in here.

‘Please repose,’ the woman says. ‘You will be assumed shortly.’ She pauses and stares at Farrell in distaste. ‘Are you sure you want this donor with you, Client
Cassavetes? Shall I relocate it to another salon?’

‘No. No… He’s part of this. It’s fine.’

The door closes, and there’s a click as if she’s locked it behind her. I’m too exhausted to check, and Farrell looks one notch above comatose. He hasn’t bothered to wipe
the drying tears from his cheeks. We both flump down on the padded benches, and I lean my head back against the wall.

We sit in silence for a while. Then, abruptly, Farrell stands up and stalks to the door. He pushes against it. There’s no handle and it doesn’t budge.

‘
Fuck
,’ he says. ‘We can’t just let them play with us like this.’

For a second our eyes meet and again he looks away.

‘We don’t have any choice.’

He kicks the door again. ‘
Fuck
. And look at this place. We don’t even know where the fuck we are.’

I glide my fingers along my jawline.

There’s not a surgeon in the world who could perform such a perfect transplant. Not in this world, anyway.

‘Farrell, I’ve been thinking and… and I don’t think we’re even in Johannesburg anymore.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t actually think we’re… Look, I just think we’re somewhere else.’

‘You mean like a different city?’

No
.
A different reality
.

But Farrell’s in no shape to deal with that concept.

And neither are you
.

‘Yes,’ I say instead.

He waves his hand dismissively. ‘I’m sure they’ve just moved us to some… facility. Probably right next to New Hope.’

Or underneath it
.

‘But it’s obvious what they’re doing now, isn’t it?’ Farrell continues. ‘You heard what that bitch Nomsa said. They
chose
me. They must’ve picked
Katya, too. Because she’s beautiful. Because she’s perfect.’

I drop my head so that he can’t see the hurt expression on my face.
Her
face.

‘Maybe they’re… doing this for rich criminals who need new identities or something,’ he says.

‘But why give
me
a new face, Farrell? I can’t pay them. I’ve got nothing to offer them.’

‘Yes. Why
did
they give it to you?’ I don’t like the sound of his voice, it’s cold and hard, and this time he stares into my eyes without flinching. Something in
his face frightens me and I lean back as far away from him as I can get.

‘I didn’t ask for this, Farrell!’

He relaxes slightly. After a long pause he says, ‘I know you didn’t.’

Yes you did. You did ask for it. You’ve got what you’ve always wanted. A new face, Lisa.

I need to change the subject. ‘What do you think they’ve done with Gertie? She was in that… Preparation Ward, too.’

Farrell shrugs. ‘Who knows?’

‘Do you think they’ve made her… disappear?’

‘How would I know? I just want to sort Katya out and get her home.’

‘Do you think they’ll really just… reverse what they’ve done to us? I mean, why would they? And are they just going to let us go?’

‘They have to. They must have realised that people are going to come looking for us, asking questions. We’re not the kind of people who can just disappear without
consequences.’