It was made worse by her continually asking questions. ‘Do you like this? Shall I bend forward? Faster? Slower?’ Then there were the instructions. ‘Put your hand here. Harder, play with my breasts, talk dirty to me.’ He flipped her over, stopped worrying about what she was saying, kissed her hard to shut her up, and looked down at her firm young body. That did it, and he came in two minutes flat. Tension always made it more of a release, but even as he was coming he felt sad for the loss of what he had done the night before, when he had been looking into Karen’s eyes, and Molly’s frenzied cries of ‘yes, yes, yes’ did nothing to cheer him up.
He woke up twice during the night with Molly enthusiastically giving him a blow job. The first time he kept his eyes closed, grabbed her hair, and manipulated her like a blow-up doll, pushing into her mouth, which to be fair she seemed to enjoy, judging by the moaning. The second time, her liberal use of teeth during Round One, which he hadn’t really noticed at the time, had left him in pain and taken away all his enthusiasm, and he rolled away on to his tummy and dropped off, to the plaintive sounds of Molly saying in his ear, ‘What about me, babe?’
He couldn’t have cared less.
Tam woke up disorientated and feeling as if he needed a shower. The room was not tidy, in fact the bedside table was a testament to the youth of its owner. Tampax mingled with half-used make-up containers, a couple of tissues of unknown origin and a bottle of lube. Lovely.
He couldn’t get out on his side as he was leaning against a grubby wall, and he didn’t want to wake her up. Apart from anything else he couldn’t remember her name, and his dick felt as if it had been in a mangle. Something was digging into his cheek, and he picked a false nail off his face. It was covered in glitter and matched the ones on her hand. Gently, Tam slid the sheet off his body, and started to shuffle towards the bottom of the bed and a clean getaway.
Just as he was nearly there, she grabbed his head, which was now parallel with the top of her thighs. In the morning light he realised that she didn’t have a single hair on her body. That hadn’t registered in the dark drunken hour before he had fallen asleep. He had watched enough porn to know that pubic hair was a rare commodity these days, but Karen obviously hadn’t got that memo and he’d been glad. The next thing he knew she was pushing his head towards her crotch, and sleepily murmuring his name. Tam stretched out his legs, made contact with the floor and jumped up. He had his limits, and she hadn’t even showered since the night before. He looked around anxiously for any evidence of used condoms. Nothing. He was officially back to being a complete idiot.
The journey home, in a Tube filled with normal people apparently living normal lives, was a long one. Women talked to toddlers, read books on Kindles, ate wilted kale from Pret and recoiled as he came through the carriage. He smelt bad, even he could tell that, and he knew from past experience that when you could smell yourself that was not a good sign. He closed his eyes and vaguely remembered a bottle of tequila being produced from the barmaid’s bag when they got home. The single life was not all it was cracked up to be. He seemed to be sweating pure alcohol, and the screams of ‘fucking bastard’ and ‘you were shit in bed’ still echoing in his ears weren’t making him warm to the fully functioning smug marrieds or maybe just smug commuters surrounding him. He felt exhausted and would spend the next two months praying she was on the pill, and didn’t have any STDs. His second youth was not working out any better than his few days of monogamy.
When the front door of his house was finally in sight, Tam lifted his heavy eyelids and glanced up at Karen’s window. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw her jolt with surprise as she saw him. Did he imagine the look of disgust on her face before it disappeared behind the curtain?
What the hell was she doing looking out for him at eight a.m.? Tam got the key in the door, leaning against the wall for support as he did so. Just as he was turning it in the lock, the door opened from the inside and out came Nick, staring at the ground. He seemed even more agitated than usual, if that was possible, and as soon as he saw Tam he jumped back into the hall and slammed the door in his face.
‘Fuck this, open the fucking door.’ Tam was furious, and had no sooner got his key back in the lock than Nick opened it again and rushed past him, talking to himself, head down and carrying a rubbish bag. He zigzagged towards the bin, smoothing his hair with one hand, and lifting the lid of the bin with the other. Tam watched as he adjusted it a few times, and then carefully closed the bin, and zigzagged back to the front door, slamming it behind him.
Tam was exhausted, and needed some sleep. But old habits died hard, so he walked to the bin, opened the lid and stared at the white translucent bag. He could see the outline of a Shreddies packet, and the triangle of a sandwich container. It looked like rubbish, general household waste, but he had started down this road now, and the bin men were coming tomorrow. He picked it up, just as Karen came scurrying out of the front door.
She had already seen him from the window, that much was clear by the way she studiously looked straight ahead, but even she hesitated when confronted with him looking like an alley cat and removing rubbish. It only took a moment; her mouth opened as if she was about to speak, then she closed it again and looked down. Walking purposefully to her car, she drove off without a backward glance.
Tam had to resist the impulse to shout something after her like ‘fuck you’, or give her the finger behind her back. Instead, he went inside, carrying the spoils from the bin, and put them down, ready to be examined later. Then he had a shower, a long hot one, trying to avoid his damaged dick, and went to bed and lay carefully on his side. His life was turning into a series of random nights in different beds with crazy fucked-up women.
11 | Nick
‘We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.’
— Plato
Wednesday morning
Work had made fitting in all my week’s commitments very difficult and I knew I had to make more cuts. My teeth were grinding together, and I could feel how agitated I was getting, but I couldn’t calm down. I had looked at my schedule the night before and decided that exercise was the only area where I could save time. I was going to order a skipping rope on Amazon, and put ‘Leave in the hall’ on the delivery instructions. It could come tomorrow which was Thursday and I could start using it in my bedroom. It was probably not a good idea to go to the park at the moment anyway even though I missed the deer. It made me feel upset. I had tried to go last weekend but when I set out I kept wanting to just go home, and I couldn’t decide whether to keep going and I got on the Tube, then back the other way and then eventually I got to the gates and I saw posters of the man and woman who had been having sex by the pond and I felt so agitated and worried that I just didn’t go in, I went home on the bus. I still wanted to go to the police and tell them what the couple had been up to, and what I had done to stop them, but people weren’t all like me and they couldn’t always see what was right. I had learned that a long time ago.
My grandpa and my mother still had to visit every week, that was important, and if I tried to change it they wouldn’t understand. Work was important and I was good at work. I would keep going to the morgue whatever happened. I liked looking after the bodies. I felt relaxed around them and I could do everything that I was asked to do by Pete. It was a calm place, and I sometimes wished I could sleep there instead of coming back to all the noises and interruptions of the house. Last night I unravelled both the sleeves on my jumper and bit my lips and chewed all the skin off round my nails, but I spat it out in case it had germs. Upstairs it sounded like an army was marching. The children, the neighbour from downstairs, the doors closing and opening, people running up and down the stairs. I tried putting on the hoover, but it just made more noise so I turned it off again. It went on for hours, while I sat with my back against the wall and banged my head against it. Eventually the front door closed and they got quiet, then there w
as new banging, above my head this time, rhythmic against the same wall my head was on. Sex. I realised then – the neighbours were having sex again; they were doing it all over the house. I grabbed a cushion and screamed into it.
This morning, for the first time in my life I woke up and realised that I was on my side, on the floor, against the wall. I was cold, I hadn’t had my shower and I hadn’t cleaned my flat or even emptied my bin, but my bed must be tidy, because I had made it yesterday before I went to work. My grandpa says, ‘Always make your bed’. I needed to go to work today. I worked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday now, because I was a good worker, and today was Wednesday. I tried not to worry about my list, I had told Grandpa I would be at work and he was going to come at the weekend, instead of Wednesday. Before I left I had to change and brush my teeth. I had no idea how many germs I must have breathed in during the night. I had never slept anywhere outside my bed before, and my whole body ached. I needed calm and I wanted to be in the morgue.
I stood up, and straight away I couldn’t keep still, my mouth was clenched. I thought about putting the clothes I had slept in into the dirty clothes basket for my mother but the germs had probably had time to breed now and she might not know how to kill them, so I peeled them off, all of them, and put them into the bin bag, then took them out again because I had thrown so many clothes away since that day in the park that I wouldn’t have any left soon. I could take them myself to the launderette for a boil wash when I wasn’t working and then I could send them to my mother afterwards for a normal wash. I spent an extra ten minutes in the shower, with four soapings and four rinses. I needed to get out of the house and get to work and I couldn’t take a lift with Karen; it would be too much.
I managed to comb my hair, holding the comb in both hands, taking it slowly. Breathe, I could hear my grandpa saying in my head, breathe and take it slowly. It won’t hurt if you don’t panic. I wanted to cry. I picked up my knapsack, did up the clasps, and picked up the bin bag. I couldn’t even tidy the flat, or put the dishwasher on, and I didn’t know what time it was, I just knew that I needed to leave. It took me twice as long as normal to get down the stairs, every step was a challenge, and, as soon as I got one foot down, the other one went back up, and then my downstairs neighbour got in my way just as I was going out. I was looking forward to the cool of the morgue, and as the cold air outside the front door hit me I calmed slightly, and laid my rubbish on the top of the bin; it felt like order and made me a little bit less panicky.
My progress was slow down the path and my head was jerking around, but I put one foot in front of the other on tiptoes, avoiding the cracks, and little by little, by keeping my eyes on the pavement, then the Tube steps, then the pavement, I arrived at the hospital. As I went in through the entrance the volume of people made me turn around for a moment and then I noticed Karen, the neighbour who was responsible for me feeling like this, coming through the car park. I had managed to avoid her at least and the thought of her trying to talk to me pushed me on through A and E, which was the name for Accident and Emergency, and to the lift and down, into the calm below.
But things just kept getting worse. It was not calm. The floor from the lift was messy, that was the first thing I noticed. There was a nasty path made by the wheels of a trolley, it could have been mud or blood, I couldn’t tell, but I didn’t want my feet to get in it. I let the lift doors close, then open again, and on tiptoe I walked around and between it, avoiding contact like the cracks in the pavement.
The mop was in the cupboard and I hung my coat in the rest area – luckily the wheels had gone straight on – and I filled the metal bucket with hot water and bleach. When Mark came round the corner I was mopping, three times over each section of the stain, making sure every trace was gone.
‘Jesus, Nick, you scared the shit out of me. What are you doing? We need you down at the autopsy room. This can wait.’
I looked ahead, and the trail led all the way down the corridor and was cut off by the double doors.
Mark walked away, and I stood rooted to the spot, panic rising. I hadn’t really had to deal with anything like this yet, and I started mopping more quickly to get to the room without having to confront the sticky path ahead. I could see up ahead that it got worse towards the doors, I wouldn’t be able to avoid it, as there were drops everywhere and then a big pool of the same, as if they had stopped there. I started to sweat.
‘Nick, get your ass down here!’
I hated that word, and I hated being shouted at. I suddenly had an idea and kicked the bucket of hot water towards the worst of the mess, but it made things even messier, and the brown liquid started flowing back towards me. I ran to the rest room, head buzzing, and heard Mark shout again. Then I remembered. I had seen a sign upstairs which said ‘Chapel’. When I was at school I had gone to the school chapel to be calm, and I needed to be calm now. I jumped from the doorway of the rest room, and got ahead of the water. Following the path I had already mopped, I tiptoed and zigzagged back to the lift, pressed the button and the doors closed. I got out and followed the signs to let myself into the chapel, and sat on a wooden chair which looked very clean. I started to cry. Every part of my body was moving and frantic, and I remembered another day when I had been in this hospital, and it was a long time ago and the same panic was all the way through me. I curled my knees up and hugged them to my chest, and thought about the last time I had come here.
I was fourteen, with a face full of spots which I hated because they were full of germs. Mother told me I was going to see a doctor about my skin, so I had agreed, because I was having to change my pillowcase every time my face touched it because the germs from my spots were breeding there. She hadn’t wanted to come, and so Grandpa had come to the house, and in the morning he talked to me about what to say and what I mustn’t say, in case they locked me up. I didn’t understand why anyone would lock you up for talking about spots, and I didn’t understand what the games Grandpa played with me had to do with it either, although sometimes I did worry about germs, and it made me feel sick. Grandpa had germs on him too, everyone did. I had learned that in science.
When we got to the hospital we went to Reception and Enquiries, and Grandpa asked for Psychiatry, and I said it should have been Dermatology because I always did my research, but no one listened.
I was high on my tiptoes, knees bent, and we went along lots of corridors, but not the same one as goes to the morgue, and Grandpa told me again which things not to say and we came to another reception and someone told us to sit on chairs. After a long time, a man came out and called my name, and I pulled at Grandpa’s arm, but the doctor told me to come on my own, and there would be a nurse chaperone. I didn’t like it at all.
I can remember it now. I had to spit in a cup, walk in a straight line, look into the doctor’s face and keep eye contact, tell them my mother’s name, my father’s name, stick out my tongue, and answer lots and lots of questions about how I was feeling. I was mostly feeling like I wanted to go home. Did I love my mother? Did I have friends? I wanted to tell them that one spot, the one on my chin, kept coming back and I had looked it up and it needed antibiotic cream, but they didn’t listen.
The questions went on, for hours. I stopped listening. My father didn’t have a name, because he wasn’t someone I knew. I didn’t know what missing someone meant. What is the name of a young sheep? I knew that, a newborn sheep was a lamb, then at a year they were called hoggets, so that one was right.
I had to have a needle in my arm, and it was clenched so tight and I was screaming so loud that they couldn’t get the needle in. My muscles were taut, I heard the nurse say so, and still no one came to get me. After a while of being still, they told me they needed to keep me there for observation, and not to get upset or they couldn’t let me go home, so I tried to be calm, and I closed my eyes for the needle, and then they showed me a bed where I would sleep but I told them I didn’t have my pyjamas and I had no slippers, but Grandpa had given them to t
he nurse. I hated him even more then. Tricking was bad, and lying, and he had done both.
I didn’t sleep and I kept my slippers on in and out of the bed. I wouldn’t get dressed into the dirty clothes I was wearing the day before, and I had to take a pill just to walk to the car still in my night things and go home calmly. I didn’t speak and I couldn’t even look at Grandpa; when he said he would calm me down I went to my room and I jammed a chair under my door handle and put my hands over my ears and screamed into my pillow. The white walls calmed me and my bed was clean. I wouldn’t eat for a long time, I had to wait and see if any of the germs in the hospital had got into me. I was very lucky, they didn’t. I wanted to be on my own in my own place with my own rules and no one forcing me to do things.
From then on, I knew to try as hard as I could not to get agitated. My nails were bitten down to below the quick, which is painful, and my teeth were clamped together. I walked on my tiptoes everywhere now, and I didn’t go anywhere with Grandpa unless I had to. I knew he still had to correct me, and I knew he was trying to make me a man, but one part of me didn’t believe him any more when he said he was on my side and everything was for my own good.
No one talked to me about the visit, but I saw Mother whispering to Grandpa, and then one day she left a letter on her desk when she was out shopping. I saw the name Stephen Stanniforth and I remembered.
Hello, Nick, I am Mr Stanniforth.
I remembered the questions, and the nurse, and the needle, and I picked up the letter and began to read. I am a very good reader, I have a visual mind.
Dear Mrs Peters,
Thank you for bringing your fourteen-year-old son Nicholas to see me recently for a psychological assessment and evaluation. I conducted a series of tests and a full physical examination, which was hindered to some extent by Nicholas’s resistance to being touched and to removing or lifting up any of his clothes.
The Man on the Middle Floor Page 14