Scarred Beginnings (4 page)

Ellen looked right back at him.
She narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t be so negative. You’re no different to before and you had plenty of girlfriends then. They won’t abandon you just because you have a few scars.”

David stared at her disbelievingly. She was so supportive, her attitude so positive but he couldn’t agree with her on this. He knew that the mass of scars on his face looked terrible and even the thought of the red, shiny stumps that had once been his legs, would put off the most forgiving heart. He didn’t even want to hope that a woman could see past his deformities. It would never happen and he couldn’t face having his heart ripped from his body again by even thinking of what could have been. It had been bad enough when he discovered that his legs were gone.

“Be realistic Ellen. Wo
uld you want a guy with only half a face and no legs? It’s a bit off-putting to say the least.” He hid his emotions behind his beer glass.

Ellen shrugged
dismissively.

“I want a man not his
legs. I don’t care at all that your legs have gone or that your face is just a bit different now, your heart is in the same place it always was. You are the same person you were before, maybe an even better one.”

David
shook his head and smiled gently at her. She had said it to him so many times during his recovery already, he knew that he would never be able to sway her opinion now. There wasn’t a bad bone in his sister’s body. Her loyalty was absolute and he certainly wasn’t going to argue the point on her birthday. He dug into his pocket and brought out a slim box wrapped in silver paper and tied with a bow. He pushed it across the table towards her.

“Happy birthday Ellen. I’m really glad that I’m still here to give this to you. I had it made especially.”

Ellen blinked over at him. She hadn’t realized that he meant an actual gift when he spoke of a birthday present for her. She had thought he might buy them their lunch and hadn’t expected anything at all as he’d been far too ill to buy a present himself. She picked up the box and turned it over curiously. It was small but unexpectedly heavy. She pulled the end of the ribbon. The bow slid undone and the wrapping uncurled. She lifted the lid of the box and gasped as white fire leapt out at her.

The diamond e
ncrusted bow sparkled in the light sending rainbows of colour shooting in all directions. She brushed her fingers across the top of the shimmering jewel.

“Oh David! It’s beautiful, and an exact copy of the one I’m wearing.
However did you manage to find one the same?”

David
leaned forwards. He reached out and pulled the bow shaped clip from her hair before he picked the one out of the box.

“I
commissioned it months ago, just after our money came through and before all this…this crap happened to me. I noticed the stones were falling out of your old one and as it’s just a cheap paste thing I decided to have a real one made for you. You’ve had that grotty old one for years, since I signed up and left home. It was my going away present to you if I remember rightly. But now I can afford something better I thought you could do with something a bit more up market. The diamonds are set in platinum and apparently they are all perfect blue whites. It was a devil getting the exact copy. The shops don’t stock them any longer and you never leave the old one off for long enough for me to photograph. I ended up taking a sneaky picture of you wearing it when I was last on leave and the jeweller managed to design it from that.”

Ellen looked up at him as he caught the new clip into her hair. Tears sparkled in her eyes.
They were nearly as bright as the diamonds.

“
The original is my most treasured possession. It was my link to you while you were on tour all those times. I’ll never throw it away but this new one is even more special now. Thanks David. It’s the perfect birthday gift.”  She came around the table and kissed him on his scarred cheek.

He picked
up his beer and clinked her champagne glass in celebration, glad that she liked his surprise. It was as unique as she was herself.

Chapter Four

Dear God!
He had no idea it would be so difficult. He puffed out before he took a calming breath in again and counted to ten as the physiotherapist beamed at his painful attempts.

“This is agony. I’m being rubbed raw,” he moaned under his breath
as he wobbled towards the chair.

The man obviously heard him.

“Let me take a look. We can nearly always do something about chaffing. You may need to wear another set of socks over your thighs. Sit down and rest for a moment while I take a look.” He waited while David sat and struggled with the cups on his thighs. He leaned forwards and showed David the clip he had missed. “There’s no time limit on learning how to use these things, you know. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Walking takes some practise. It’s much harder work than with your own legs because you’ve no muscle to help you and you have to make a conscious effort. You seem to have your balance now at any rate and seeing how fit you are, I bet you’ll be running around in no time.” He smiled encouragingly again and David resisted the urge to shout in frustration; the man was only trying to be positive.

“It might help if I couldn’t feel my own feet still. It’s
like I’m treading on hot needles all the time and it’s driving me mad. I keep thinking that I’m imagining all this and they’re going to suddenly actually appear again.” He inspected the metal below his thighs as if expecting it to turn into flesh and bone.

Colin sympathized
as he helped David remove the heavy, artificial limbs.

“
Phantom limb syndrome; it’s a fairly common occurrence. There are a couple of easy tricks that might help. The mirror thing isn’t going to work with you seeing that you’ve lost both limbs but you could try to imagine scrunching up your toes and releasing them a few times a day. Make sure you put ice packs around the injury sites every night before you go to bed too. If it carries on we’ll book you some appointments with a counsellor. She’ll have some other suggestions.” He wiped the inside of the leg cups and then rolled down David’s leg socks before examining his sore thighs. “Give it a go while I find you another set of socks. Wearing two pairs will reduce the friction.”

David sat and rolled his eyes at the thought of scrunching toes that weren’t there but
lacking any other brilliant ideas he gave it a try. He imagined curling his non existent feet, before he stretched them out and then tried it again. He looked up, slightly shocked as the pain disappeared for a few seconds. He carried on wriggling his imaginary toes then tried scrunching again and experienced the first pain free moments he’d had for months.

“It can’t be that simple surely?”
He asked when Colin returned with an extra pair of surgical socks.

Colin laughed
as he rolled the socks onto David’s thighs.

“Blame your brain. It can’t help it apparently.
It doesn’t recognize that your legs are no longer there. You know that the pain can’t be there because you can see that you have no limbs but your brain hasn’t yet accepted that fact so it feels as if your feet and legs are actually hurting. Don’t worry, no one thinks you’re going mad. It’s real pain, not imagined. Everyone says this sort of phantom feeling is one of the worst things about losing a limb.”

David grunted miserably.

“Well, it’s painful that’s for sure but I’m not certain it is the worst thing actually. I just feel like shit all the time. If I didn’t have a sister who would do anything for me I probably would have cut my own throat before now. I’ve been a grumpy bastard with her and she’s not bitten back once yet.” He wasn’t joking and the physiotherapist knew it.

“Everyone goes through that stage and it’s no good me saying anything
to try and make you feel better about yourself because it won’t work. I know that you lot get training and pre conflict counselling but nothing can prepare you for the shock of something as severe as this. You are lucky that your sister is so supportive but going out or getting back to work will help too. Feeling useless is the worst thing ever. You need to have purpose in life, everyone does. It makes you feel that you are worthwhile. Have you had any word from your regiment?”

David nodded and then grinned.

“They’ve offered me a desk job for a start. I can go back anytime I feel ready. To be honest I can’t wait. I’m missing all the general camaraderie and I want to go back soon so that Ellen can move on with her own life. She’s given up nearly everything to support me. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without her but she needs to move on as much as I do.”

Colin nodded.
Family support was so important but at some point you had to let go and get on with it yourself.

“Family can try and smother you sometimes but I’ve met your sister. She’s
obviously a wonderful person, beautiful too. All the guys moon over her when she’s about.”

David raised his eyebrows as he noticed Colin’s wistful expression.

“She’s engaged you know.” David gritted his teeth over the words. He’d hardly been able to believe it when Ellen had turned up from a shopping trip in London with a huge diamond ring on her finger only a few weeks earlier.

Colin sighed
audibly.

“Yes, to a flipping jerk
by the looks of him. I saw him not so long back. He wouldn’t come in but stood outside preening himself as he looked at his own flipping reflection in the window. Makes me sick that he is so vain what with everything that goes on in here. How on earth did she end up with someone like him? Makes the mind boggle sometimes.”

David grunted in
agreement and glanced up at the clock on the wall. Ellen wouldn’t be back for another half an hour. He turned back to Colin.

“She started going out with him when she was at university. He was alright
back then I suppose. It’s as he’s grown older that he’s become an idiot. I swear he was going to chuck her last year but after we inherited from our great aunt he just hung around. I know he’s just after her money now but she was lonely with me away all the time and she’s not the sort to play the field. He’s just someone familiar and she won’t give him up yet but I think she’ll come to her senses soon. I’m pretty sure she won’t get married to him.” He crossed his fingers as he spoke. “She has a brilliant idea for a new business but Justin doesn’t agree with it. He thinks she’s wasting her time and money but I can’t see her backing down on it. I’m sure she’ll end it with him soon. That’s another reason I want to get back to work as soon as possible…She won’t go and set this venture up if I’m not sorted out so I need to practise getting by on my own.” He pulled his prosthetics back over what remained of his limbs and stood up carefully. He could immediately feel the difference with the two socks and he balanced himself before he took a step forwards.

Colin grinned
encouragingly at him.

“There you go! Easy
, don’t lean so far forwards. Now let’s just get you walking slowly again. Hold onto the bars until you’re confident. As I said, there’s no time limit on this. Some people take to it like a duck to water and others struggle. You have some of the best hydraulics in those legs but they’re not easy to get used to. Your thigh and buttock muscles are going to give you hell by tomorrow.”

David rolled his eyes
and then winced as he placed one leg carefully in front of the other.

“Thanks, just what I needed to know. More pain.
”

“It’ll get better as your
upper thighs strengthen again. This is just a beginning. Remember, you were lying flat on your back for weeks and then you had months in a wheelchair. I know that you have kept reasonably fit but this is something else entirely, a whole new ball game. Prosthetics are no joke, they’re damned heavy and your thighs, glutes and stomach muscles are going to take up all the strain of that weight with no help. You’re going to need intensive physiotherapy over the next few weeks but you’ll soon see and feel a difference. You’ll feel better in yourself too once you’re back up to man height. Being four foot two rather than well over six feet can’t feel good. Wheelchairs don’t do much for your self-esteem either. All that conversing with belly buttons and crotches can become dull I’m told.”

David laughed aloud.

“You’re not wrong there. Ellen always sits when she talks to me but most people don’t even think about it and carry on chatting right over my head. I could make up a book about the different type of fly buttons and zips there are. I could also tell you a lot about some people’s underwear. Not what you want to see all the time, I can tell you. It’s most off-putting when you discover that your dentist wears Batman pants. It gives whole new meaning to the expression, ‘flying.’”

It was Colin’s turn to laugh.

“He doesn’t! Nice. I suppose that wearing Batman is better than wearing Robin but from now on, just in case I ever go ‘flying’ anytime, I’ll remember to make sure I’m wearing Iron Man undies at the very least!”

David
nodded and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Might as well give the ladies an idea of what to expect,” he
grinned back at Colin and grunted as he reached the end of the bars. He steadied himself before he turned around to head back. Every step was an endurance test but he was not about to fail it.

Steve had saved
both his and James’s lives that day, putting his own on the line as he had cut David from the wreckage of their burning vehicle. On a several occasions in the last months David had been less than grateful to his friend for that small service and in his lowest moments had even contemplated taking enough pain killers to end it all but now that he was feeling better and able to stand, he was thankful.

Seeing Ellen’s smiling face every time he came to the breakfast table was more than enough to tell him that she would have been devastated
if he had died. He couldn’t bear the thought of how unhappy she might have been.

He took a determined breath and let go of the bar as he took his next step. It took an agonizingly long time t
o reach the other end of the supports but he made it. Several people in the room cheered him as the perspiration ran from his brow. He gave a little bow of his head and felt better than he had done for weeks. He could walk. Such a small thing that he’d always taken for granted, but he would never do so again. He lifted his head and looked around the room at some of the other amputees who attempted to reach their own goals. Some wore grimaces of pain etched on their faces, others had smiles of triumph, all encouraged their fellow patients as they sweated alongside each other.

He grinned at his own small
achievement. It had been the hardest five-meter walk of his life but the world looked so much better from his normal height. He wasn’t scared any longer and he knew he wouldn’t give up. He could do this now. He would make it alongside so many others whose lives had been altered so irrevocably.

Two things had to be done
immediately. Foremost was to find Steve and grovel for forgiveness. He had to tell him that he was grateful that his life had been saved. A blush of shame covered his features as he remembered shouting at his friend when he’d come to visit him as he recovered from his injuries. David rolled his eyes as his thoughts weighed heavily on him.

Christ! The man had risked
his own life to save him, had suffered burns himself. It had been a bloody miracle that the guy was an expert with the vicious jungle knife he carried everywhere even though it wasn’t standard army issue.

Steve had understood the bitterness as David had yelled furiously that he should have let him die
rather than make him live with half a body and a savagely burned face. The guy had stood stoically and taken every foul word, every caustic lament probably knowing that David would live to regret his ire soon enough. How right the man was. David would track him down as soon as he left that afternoon to make things right.

The second thing was to get back to work. Sitting about doing nothing wasn’t in his nature and the last months had just proved exactly how miserable it made him. He grinned again as he thought of what Ellen might say as he penned his job acceptance letter. He knew that she would be thrilled for him but he hoped that she would be thrilled for herself too. She could soon start on her business plan and he couldn’t wait to see exactly what she would come up with.