self-drilling screws; it is as though he is being armed for survival.
Easter Sunday is four weeks to the day since Milesâs accident. I canât help it, but the combination of four precise weeks falling at Easter feels imbued with signiï¬cance, though of what exactly Iâm not sure. Perhaps some atavistic stirring, that Easter is a day of hope, of a rising from the dead, of new life beginning. Lying in bed in the hotel room with Ron next to me, here for the weekend, I try to suppress the strange excitement that something is going to happen today. It feels like a private premonition that I will ruin if I speak it out loud, so I donât mention it to Ron, and instead we talk about our plans for the day. He thinks perhaps it would do us all good to go out for lunch after visiting Miles. I can see how exhausted you are. Itâs Easter, and everyoneâs here; itâll do you good to have a treat. He plans to take us to the restaurant with a sheltered garden near the Hofgarten, the beautiful Imperial Court Park on the edge of the Old Town that we have often passed on our walks through the town. We can sit outside and enjoy the sunshine, he says. Iâll book a table. In my superstitious state even his suggestion seems signiï¬cant; he is attuned to Miles, maybe he too senses that something is different today, that ï¬nally there may be something to celebrate. Spring has arrived in Innsbruck and the town has come to life, window boxes now blooming with colour and the trees in the sombre winter parks alight with new growth. Everything suggests renewal; surely Miles will be part of it.
As we gather together in the hotel foyer after breakfast I try to gauge if anyone else is sharing this feeling I canât shut down. Maybe I am oversusceptible, but somehow the atmosphere feels heightened. Perhaps itâs just that Ron is right, Iâm exhausted. Stepping out all together from the dim interior of the hotel into the bright spring sunshine I wonder if itâs visible to others, how fragile a group we are, how taut with uncertainty. Reality feels ï¬uid; nothing is ï¬xed any more.
Turning the corner into the plaza for a moment I think I have truly lost my senses. Huge white rabbits are dancing in the sunlight to music played by three wizened old men dressed in Tyrolean costume playing squeeze boxes, their short leather trousers, long white socks and feathered hats making them look like ancient schoolboys. The normally sedate cobbled space is a riot of noise and colour, small children racing through stalls laden with elaborate breads and cakes, bright marzipan sweets, painted eggs, colourful wooden toys, and all the while the stout men and women dressed in their rabbit costumes are, I now realise with even more bewilderment, selling loops of giant sausages as they regale the crowd. We wend our way through the surreal scene, smiling politely at the stallholders as they offer their wares and dodging the happy children as they run around us.
Our destination, when we reach it, seems just as surreal. My superstitious hope is irrelevant to Miles as he continues to lie, oblivious, on his high hospital bed.
The senior consultant on the Neurosurgery ward is Professor Benir. He introduces himself and explains that he has been in America at a medical conference, which is why we have not met before. His manner is quiet and thoughtful, his dark Middle Eastern features severe against the crisp white of his doctorâs coat. We are standing by Milesâs bed and he looks down at him, studying him silently for some time before he turns back to me.
I would like to know about your son, he says.
And so I tell him about Miles. That he has been a joyful son to have, my ï¬rst born child. That from the beginning he has been quick and bright, an adventurer, a risk-taker. That one of the things that has deï¬ned him has been his brain. After academic success throughout school he got a ï¬rst class
Easter Sunday is four weeks to the day since Milesâs accident. I canât help it, but the combination of four precise weeks falling at Easter feels imbued with signiï¬cance, though of what exactly Iâm not sure. Perhaps some atavistic stirring, that Easter is a day of hope, of a rising from the dead, of new life beginning. Lying in bed in the hotel room with Ron next to me, here for the weekend, I try to suppress the strange excitement that something is going to happen today. It feels like a private premonition that I will ruin if I speak it out loud, so I donât mention it to Ron, and instead we talk about our plans for the day. He thinks perhaps it would do us all good to go out for lunch after visiting Miles. I can see how exhausted you are. Itâs Easter, and everyoneâs here; itâll do you good to have a treat. He plans to take us to the restaurant with a sheltered garden near the Hofgarten, the beautiful Imperial Court Park on the edge of the Old Town that we have often passed on our walks through the town. We can sit outside and enjoy the sunshine, he says. Iâll book a table. In my superstitious state even his suggestion seems signiï¬cant; he is attuned to Miles, maybe he too senses that something is different today, that ï¬nally there may be something to celebrate. Spring has arrived in Innsbruck and the town has come to life, window boxes now blooming with colour and the trees in the sombre winter parks alight with new growth. Everything suggests renewal; surely Miles will be part of it.
As we gather together in the hotel foyer after breakfast I try to gauge if anyone else is sharing this feeling I canât shut down. Maybe I am oversusceptible, but somehow the atmosphere feels heightened. Perhaps itâs just that Ron is right, Iâm exhausted. Stepping out all together from the dim interior of the hotel into the bright spring sunshine I wonder if itâs visible to others, how fragile a group we are, how taut with uncertainty. Reality feels ï¬uid; nothing is ï¬xed any more.
Turning the corner into the plaza for a moment I think I have truly lost my senses. Huge white rabbits are dancing in the sunlight to music played by three wizened old men dressed in Tyrolean costume playing squeeze boxes, their short leather trousers, long white socks and feathered hats making them look like ancient schoolboys. The normally sedate cobbled space is a riot of noise and colour, small children racing through stalls laden with elaborate breads and cakes, bright marzipan sweets, painted eggs, colourful wooden toys, and all the while the stout men and women dressed in their rabbit costumes are, I now realise with even more bewilderment, selling loops of giant sausages as they regale the crowd. We wend our way through the surreal scene, smiling politely at the stallholders as they offer their wares and dodging the happy children as they run around us.
Our destination, when we reach it, seems just as surreal. My superstitious hope is irrelevant to Miles as he continues to lie, oblivious, on his high hospital bed.
The senior consultant on the Neurosurgery ward is Professor Benir. He introduces himself and explains that he has been in America at a medical conference, which is why we have not met before. His manner is quiet and thoughtful, his dark Middle Eastern features severe against the crisp white of his doctorâs coat. We are standing by Milesâs bed and he looks down at him, studying him silently for some time before he turns back to me.
I would like to know about your son, he says.
And so I tell him about Miles. That he has been a joyful son to have, my ï¬rst born child. That from the beginning he has been quick and bright, an adventurer, a risk-taker. That one of the things that has deï¬ned him has been his brain. After academic success throughout school he got a ï¬rst class
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