by Susan Finlay
Meg paid for her hats and carried on walking, past the beginnings of the sales and the remnants of the protests, and up into the Market Square. She paused in front of one of the stalls, and examined the very chic children’s toys that were laid out on a felt cloth in front of her, before selecting a miniature train. Then she handed it, and her money, over to the stall owner, thinking that it would make a suitable gift for Denesh, which was the name of her new first cousin once removed. And then she reached for her phone.
Stan
STAN WALKED UP THROUGH THE Market Square. He was carrying a large coil of German sausages, which he had bought on account of their being not dissimilar to Polish sausages, which were one of the few things about the old country that he missed. It had only just stopped raining, and as he turned the corner into Friar Lane he almost slipped on the remnants of an abandoned placard. He stopped, steadied himself and looked down at the slogan – ‘Bring Our Boys Home’ – that was slicked to the pavement in front of him.
Stan shook his head and carried on walking until he reached the Games Workshop, and then stopped again, wondering quite what he should do with the sausages. Briefly he considered putting them down his trousers, but then thought better of it, and a moment later looped them over his belt instead. He entered the shop and strolled over to Paul, who was sitting behind the till, painting a miniature dragon. Stan coughed loudly and Paul looked up, taking in the sausages, and then his ‘In Case of Emergency Break Dance’ tee-shirt. Stan smiled at Paul, pointed at the hazard tape and said, ‘Matchie, matchie.’
Paul put down the paintbrush, and then passed his hand across his mouth, inadvertently covering it with a large streak of red enamel.
‘Oh, um, yes. I see what you mean.’
‘You work for Dave, yes?’
‘Well sort of yes. I mean I actually work for the Games Workshop, but yes Dave’s the, um, manager, but he’s not actually working today so—’
‘Dave thinks my tee-shirt very funny.’
‘Yes, I’m sure he does, but I – it’s his day off and I’m actually the assistant manager—’
‘So you are not the manager.’
Paul blushed and stood up rather awkwardly. Then he walked Stan over towards the display unit and said, ‘Okay, so this time it’s the other side that’s broken.’
‘More mice people?’
‘Yes, and so if you don’t mind fixing it back onto the wall again I’ve got a few um bits and pieces to be getting on with.’
Paul turned back towards the counter, while Stan began to unwind the string of sausages from around his waist. Then, as soon as he had finished untangling them, he grabbed hold of Paul’s retreating shoulder and pressed the sausages against his chest.
‘You look after for me, yes?’
‘Um . . . ’
Reluctantly, Paul took the sausages and stashed them beside Dave’s laptop underneath the till, while Stan began to rummage in his toolbox until he found a bag of nails. He inserted one of them between his lips and said, ‘Sausages go well with beer, yes?’ And then, when no answer was forthcoming, ‘It is good to have the beer, yes?’
But Paul’s attention was already taken up with a customer.
‘That’s sixteen pounds then please.’
‘Sixteen? But yesterday they were free.’
‘Well I’m sorry but the, um, the recommended retail price is still sixteen pounds.’
‘Sixteen pounds is too much,’ bellowed Stan from the window. ‘You get cheap doll, very cheap, down Sneinton Market.’
‘They’re not dolls’ – Paul’s voice took on a prissy tone – ‘they’re miniatures.’
Stan snorted. He began to hammer one of the nails into one of the boards, and as he hit it, squarely on the head, he thought firstly about how much he liked Dave – whose awkwardness seemed like more of a trope, or form of politeness even, than genuine unease – and then about how best to have some fun with Paul, who was boring. He watched as Paul handed over one of the boxes, and then waited for the boy who had bought them to make his way towards the exit. Then, just as he was passing by, he gave a vigorous tug to the only part of the shelving unit that was still attached to the wall. The board crashed down onto the floor and the boy jumped back, nearly upsetting the other, only recently mended display, while Paul cowered meekly behind him. Stan laughed loudly, and then began to hammer in another nail. After a while he said, ‘I would like the beer now yes.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Dave always gives me the beer. I work cheap. So I get the beer.’ Paul looked unsure but nevertheless put down his paints and disappeared out the back. A minute later he returned holding a dusty bottle which Stan took from him, and then uncapped using the claw end of his hammer. Straight away he took a swig and said, ‘I do not mind if you also have the beer Paul. You must not stand on the ceremonies.’
Paul nodded but did not take a beer. Stan banged in another row of nails and said, ‘Paul I have feeling that one day it will be you, not Dave, who is manager.’
Paul blinked very slowly. ‘Well, I mean, Dave would have to, um, resign first. Or get fired, or else I mean I suppose that they could always bring in some sort of, um, restructuring and—’
Stan put his hammer back in the toolbox, went over to the counter and slapped Paul on the shoulder. Then he picked up the half-painted figure in front of him, inadvertently covering his fingers in red. He turned it slowly and, looking at Paul, said, ‘Look, your lizard is bleeding.’
‘It’s not a lizard, it’s a dragon.’
‘Ah yes,’ and Stanisław laughed loudly so that the gold teeth at the back of his mouth now showed. ‘Ah yes Paul, the dragon doll.’
Kathy
KATHY STARED, HARD, AT ONE of the many computer screens in the New College Media Hub. She felt sick, and also hungry, because having felt permanently sick ever since she saw the video of Eoin, she hadn’t really been eating, and this meant that she’d finally reached a point where the sickness and the hunger just spiralled round and round inside her, not quite filling up the empty space. Then she typed ‘www.hotmail.com’ into the navigation bar, and then her email, and then her password, and then she deleted all of the unread messages from journalists and trolls, and then she stared at the no new or unread messages that failed to fill her unfillable inbox, before clicking onto ‘Astro Alerts’, where the daily horoscope for Cancer read:
Today’s trine between Neptune in your ninth house and the Scorpio moon will do much to soften the crab’s hard shell. Life will be a lot easier when you’ve made certain pressing decisions; just remember, every interaction holds the promise of deep personal connection and fulfilment.
Except that she couldn’t even remember what it felt like to connect, or to be fulfilled anymore, because she couldn’t even remember Eoin anymore – only that he had left her and that nothing else could fill the space. She remembered what the photographs of him looked like obviously, all of which were by their nature flat and partial, and she would have remembered the fragments of his voice had the last voicemail message that he left her not been automatically deleted – but as for the man himself? The Internet had erased her hope, and this hope, she now realised, had been indistinguishable from her love. And then she cracked her knuckles, so that they made a sound like her spine breaking, and typed in the following:
Dear Eoin,
Margaret is ill in hospital. If you ring the Queen’s Medical Centre and ask for Stroke Recovery they’ll put you through.
Kathy
Which translated as:
I am dead, blind, implicit – or even nothing.
Kathy pressed ‘send’, and then watched as the ‘compose’ screen morphed into the ‘your message has been sent’ screen and then back into the ‘inbox’ screen with no new or unread messages. Then she signed out of her Hotmail account, closed Astro Alerts, and opened a new blank Word document, because she had decided to apply for a place at a film school that was not in Nottingham, which, although it didn’t necessarily
mean moving forward, would at least mean moving away.
Kathy started typing into the new blank Word document, detailing how and why she met the course criteria. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jackson approaching her desk, and then, as soon as he drew level with it, he stopped and smiled.
‘So Kathy, I hear that you’re thinking of making an application to film school?’
‘Yes I’m doing it now actually.’
‘Well if you need a reference . . . ?’
She typed the words, ‘I am passionate about all aspects of film production’ into the Word document.
‘Yes, that would be great.’
‘Or if you need anyone to look over it for you . . . ?’
She typed the words, ‘I would relish the opportunity to continue my studies in a critically engaged and supportive environment’.
‘Yes that would be great.’
Jackson checked his watch.
‘Well the session finishes in five minutes. Why don’t we go for a coffee?’
Kathy checked her phone.
‘I’ve got to meet my mum.’
‘Well another time then?’
‘Sure.’
Kathy adjusted her baseball cap to show that the conversation had ended and Jackson walked away. Then she deleted all of the words, and stared at the sick, hungry space. She still didn’t know if Eoin had made it into the actual newspapers yet, but she was pretty sure that everyone, including Jackson, including her friends, including her parents, must just know; just as she was pretty sure that their response to it wouldn’t be to offer her the relief that would come from being the victim of their anger, their rage even, but the slow, cold ice of pity . . .
Kathy closed the new blank Word document without saving. She zipped up her big white puffa jacket so that her body, like her face, became invisible, and then she left New College. She could see a newsagents up ahead, but as soon as she got near enough to read the headlines she pulled her hood up over her baseball cap and shut her eyes. And then she began to run. And kept on running, away from New College, and the newsagents, and towards her mother, whose love and familiarity she wanted but whose unspoken knowledge and pity she feared. She knew that she must be stepping on every crack and every line but what did that matter when every part of her was already broken? When the someone, somewhere, who was punishing her, had already stuck so many pins into their little Kathy-shaped doll that there wasn’t any room for any more?
Kathy opened her eyes just as a woman carrying a poinsettia stepped out of a nearby doorway. Kathy swerved, skidding on the remainder of a placard stuck to one of the concrete slabs. She tried to stop herself but there was nothing to grab onto except the poinsettia, which she now knocked out of the woman’s hands, smashing it as she fell. Then she lay on the wet, white ground, not entirely comprehending what had happened to her, while a small crowd of people began to gather. Gradually she saw that there was a piece of terracotta lodged in her palm, which was bleeding, and then that her jacket was torn, and that the duck down feathers that had filled it, and which were now sticking to her hair, were almost the same type of white as the snow.
Kathy looked up at the sky and then down at the ground and she saw that there was white snow, and red blood and bits of broken pottery; and a torn piece of paper that said ‘Number One Terrorist’; and flowers, petals, on her hands, her face, her body, which must have been symbolic of something.
Margaret
MARGARET FELT VERY SAD AND very lonely and very scared, but also very determined not to let it show. Instead she sat, very still, in her metal-framed hospital bed and grappled with her rosary. She was aware of how, when she had first arrived, she wouldn’t even have been able to make a fist with which to hold the beads, but that now she could place the chain within the palm of her weaker hand, and then pull it through with her stronger one. She was still some way off being able either to hoover, wash up, make tea, arrange the flowers or send an email, but at least she now had the tools with which to will them into happening.
Dear Holy Mother, said Margaret, in silence, Dear Holy Virgin, Dear Our Lady of Sorrows, Grace, Light, Mercy, etc., please help me, and him, and them to get through this, just as I have gotten through everything else that God, in his infinite wisdom, has thrown at me. And then she pulled the first bead into the centre of her palm and began on her first Our Father. And as she prayed she looked at the Our Lady-shaped bottle of water stood on the side, the height, colour and painted expression of which was almost identical to the statuette at home. And then she tugged the chain with her stronger hand, and held a new bead in the palm of her weaker one and thought about how, if Albertina kept on like this, then she might, just possibly, be allowed to assist her with the flowers . . .
‘Looks like you’ve got a visitor Margaret,’ said Lucy, and Margaret’s right eye flickered.
Sure enough, there was another black lady stood behind her, only instead of a white cotton uniform, she was wearing a waxed cotton dress. Margaret watched as Lucy inspected the clipboard attached to the end of the bed, and then smiled her nice smile, while Blessings pulled out one of the chairs and arranged her frills upon it.
‘And how are you doing today?’ said Lucy.
‘Much better thank you. I should be able to go home soon don’t you think?’
Lucy wrote something on the clipboard, while Blessings took Margaret’s weaker hand, and thus her rosary beads in hers. ‘Yes. But we want to make sure that you’re absolutely fighting fit first,’ said Lucy, still smiling.
‘We had Father Jonathan say a mass for a speedy recovery,’ said Blessings, smiling also.
‘But I do want to go home soon,’ said Margaret, looking from one nice black lady to the other. ‘I want to be home by Christmas.’
Lucy and Blessings smiled at each other, while Margaret’s right eye flickered and then stopped. She looked from Lucy to Blessings again, and said, ‘You know you two could almost be sisters.’
Lucy and Blessings both laughed.
‘But I am old enough to be her mother. And I am fatter too,’ said Blessings.
‘Oh no Blessings not at all, you’re a fine figure of a woman.’
Blessings and Lucy smiled at each other again as Lucy picked up one of the ordinary hospital pillows and plumped it up to make it poufy. Then she placed it, and another type of pillow made from foam, behind Margaret’s back, and said goodbye. Blessings then pulled her chair even closer to the bed and, taking hold of Margaret’s other hand, so that she now held both of them between her bigger, darker ones, she began to talk about St Flannan’s. And as Margaret listened to the soothing pitter-patter of these very minor gossips, she felt the strength of her fear, as well as her hatred, subsiding . . .
‘Pray for the mourner,’ she said sadly.
‘I’m sorry Margaret?’
‘It’s from a hymn. Hail Queen of Heaven. I used to sing it when I was a girl.’
‘Hail Queen of Heaven? Would you like me to ask Father Jonathan to include it? Next time we have a mass said?’
‘Oh no. And I won’t need another mass. I’m nearly well again.’ Margaret removed her hearing aid and placed it beside her Bible, and then, in a frail attempt to change the subject, ‘And do you sing the same songs in Malawi?’
‘Oh no. It’s very different. For a start we have drums instead of an organ, and everybody dances.’
‘In church?’
‘Yes. We dance in the spirit.’
‘Oh . . . Well I suppose if the priests don’t mind.’ Margaret tried to smile, although the thought of drumming and dancing throughout the mass didn’t seem quite right to her, mainly because she could not imagine, and indeed did not want to imagine, any such thing at St Flannan’s, and then, ‘And what about the animals? Do they join in as well?’
‘The animals?’
‘I don’t know . . . I just thought that . . . ’
‘Yes?’
‘You know Eoin always wanted a puppy. But it was difficult you see. Esp
ecially after my daughter died. I didn’t have much money, or a garden . . . ’
They both sat quietly for a minute. The noise of the television in the next cubicle drifted through and mingled with the sound of a trolley being wheeled along the corridor. Margaret sighed and said, ‘Will you say the rosary with me Blessings?’
‘Yes Margaret. Yes of course.’
Blessings reached inside her purse for her own set of beads, and then both she and Margaret bowed their heads. They murmured their way through the first Our Father, and then the first Hail Mary, and then, just as they were about to start on their second, another, younger voice cut across them, saying, ‘There’s a call for you Margaret.’
Margaret raised her head and saw that Lucy was back at the end of the bed, but that this time she was holding a telephone.
‘For me?’
‘I can tell him to ring back later if you’d like?’
‘No, no it’s alright.’
Lucy squeezed in around the side of the bed and handed her the receiver.
‘Hello. Nottingham 923 . . . ’ said Margaret, but then stopped, remembering that she wasn’t at home, and listened instead to the sound of static refilling her aging ears. ‘Hello?’ She tried and failed to tap the speaking end. ‘Hello? Hello?’
‘Nana it’s—’
She felt the strain in her frozen hands, as they attempted to grip the receiver, as tightly as possible, against her ear.
‘Eoin? Eoin is that you?’
‘Aye Nana. It’s me. It’s Eoin.’
Paddy
PADDY, WHO HAD ONCE BEEN Eoin O’Shea but was now just plain Paddy Nothing, looked up and the guard, who was also a soldier, caught his eye and nodded. Paddy nodded back at him and said, ‘Goodbye then.’
Then he placed the old-fashioned telephone receiver back in its cradle and followed the guard to what was now his cell in Colchester Military Prison. He knew that being here, in D Company, was considerably better than being in the Military Customary Platoon, the majority of whom would soon be sent on to Pentonville, but considerably worse than being in A Company, all of whom would eventually be returned to their regiments as opposed to being dishonourably discharged.