“Yeah, that’s right, most cases are. Including mine. So when I was diagnosed as a teen, at a fairly routine eye test for headaches and poor concentration at school, it came out of the blue. My parents both carry the duff gene but are not affected themselves. No one else in my family is.” He examines his fingernails. “Back then, I didn’t really care, because aside from struggling to read in dim light, it didn’t much impact my life. The dyslexia was a bigger problem. And…and when you’re fourteen, thirty-three seems like a lifetime away.”
“But it impacts it now.”
“Yeah.” Neil rubs a hand across his jaw. By now, Alaric would be sitting next to him with an arm around his shoulder.
I’m not Alaric.
“It’s been creeping up on me for a couple of years but has got worse over the last six months or so. Bright lights dazzle me and,as you’ve probably picked up on, I’ve lost a significant chunk of peripheral vision.”
Neither of us speak for a minute or so. I could tell him how sorry I am, but he already knows that.
“If you knew it was a recessive gene, then you also know what having an RP diagnosis means, don’t you?” he says eventually.
I nod, my answer no doubt written across my face. Gradual, irreversible, total blindness. A steady erosion of the retinae, from the outer edges in, until all that’s left is a tunnel of light, then a keyhole, then a pinhole. And then… nothing.
“But you’re doing something about it, right?” I press. “Having whatever treatment there is, to slow it down? Optimising and prolonging what remaining eyesight you still have?”
“No.” Neil’s mouth sets in a grim line. “I’m not.”
“What? But I thought you were under the care of Moorfields.”
He seems startled. “What makes you think that?”
I feel up my sleeve for my beads. “Full confession. Your phone screen lit up with some random ad the night I came up here when you were drunk. I read the message and the one below before I’d even realised I was seeing them. The font is?—”
“Big, yes, I know,” he interrupts sourly.
“I just saw the word Moorfields and then…then everything else about you fit together. I knew you weren’t drunk that time you fell off the stage. Things weren’t adding up. Sorry. I had absolutely no intention of prying. It was just there.”
Abruptly, Neil paces to the window, looking out into the darkness with his back to me. I twang my wristband hard. I should have stayed downstairs, Alaric and Gerald will have arrived by now. They’ll be laughing and dancing and having fun. They know not to ever put me on the spot like this.
“I ran out of my appointment.” Neil stares out of the window. “The afternoon I got drunk. It was the first one I attended in years—I get invited for a check-up every year—but I couldn’t stand it. After I went through all the tests, I panicked and left without having the consultation with the specialist about possible treatments.” He laughs humourlessly. “What a fucking loser, right?”
“No, you’re not. Don’t call yourself that.”
“Why? It’s true.”
“It’s not. But…don’t you think that by not confronting the problem or trying to hide it, you’re only hurting yourself more? Stacking up even more problems? The specialists at the eye hospital can help you.”
“What’s the point?” Neil reels to face me, raising his voice, making me flinch. “Which part of ‘RP is incurable’ don’t you get?”
“I didn’t say RPwascurable. I said the specialists might be able to help you.”
“How?” He stalks towards me, jaw clenched tight, dark eyes stormy. “You want me to start walking around with a white stick so nice ladies stop to help me across the road? Should I wear a fat yellow lanyard with a big sign attached, sayingwatch out for the poor blind bugger? Download some chirpy little app that alerts me where the pavement ends?”
“No, but…” Sometimes patients need to rant. They don’t always want immediate solutions; they simply need to get their fears off their chest. Nonetheless, with Neil bearing down on me, my heart races, my words stuck in my throat behind a wall of panic. Ezra should be here talking Neil down, not me. He’d take advice from Ezra.
“Listen. It’s not your fault you’ve got RP, Neil. You know this. It’s just horribly bad luck, in the way that being born with severe spina bifida or…or only one arm or a heart defect is badluck.”Or developing crippling anxiety.“None of those things are weaknesses. They don’t mean you’re not capable. Having RP simply means?—“
“Means what?” Neil lets rip a bitter, barking laugh. “That I’m disabled? Handicapped? Someone to pity?”
“No! Of course not. It might mean you can no longer do some of the things you used to, but I don’t pity you, Neil. Why would I, with everything you’ve done and achieved already in your life?”
“Achieved,” he parrots. “Note the correct use of the past tense, ‘cos I sure as hell shan’t achieve much more. Ezra doesn’t want a useless blind business partner. And Pretty Vacant doesn’t need a blind bandmate who can’t even find the fucking stage.” With a howl of frustration, Neil bangs his fist against one of his plain cream walls. “And what about all the other things I want to do? We had plans for this place, Luke! I had plans for me.”
“And you can still have them. A visual impairment isn’t the end of that. Needing to ask for help from professionals and friends and family just signals that you’re human, doesn’t it? That’s all. Like the rest of us.” I grasp my wristband hard until the beads dig into my flesh. “Frankly, the only person doing any pitying around here right now is you. And it’s fucking unhelpful.”
A long pause follows, unsurprisingly, because I’ve gone way, way too far. Quickly rising to my feet, I shoulder on my coat. If I don’t escape right now, no amount of wristband twanging and box breathing will save me from myself. When Neil’s recovered from the shock, he’s going to unleash a verbal diatribe all of his own, and who can blame him?
