Eventually it was nearly midnight and she went back to the radio station, such as it was. She’d gone past it once, much earlier, and as there was nothing to look at other than a sign saying Hospital Radio and a red bulb on over the door, she’d kept on moving.
She leaned back against the wall opposite the station door and waited. After some time passed, it might have been five minutes or half an hour, she had no way of knowing, she decided to knock gently on the door. It opened and a middle-aged woman appeared.
‘‘Are you new?’’ she asked Laurie.
‘‘Em, yes,’’ said Laurie. ‘‘I’m here on work experience.’’ Where had that come from?
‘‘Work experience at midnight?’’ She seemed to examine Laurie. ‘‘Aren’t you a bit old to be on work experience?’’ The woman frowned as she ushered Laurie into the room.
‘‘It’s through the uni. I’m meant to be shadowing Gerry.’’
‘‘He’s a queer one to pair you with. Doesn’t speak much.’’ The woman frowned again. Laurie could almost see her pique at not being given a work experience student.
‘‘Maybe I’m supposed to get him to chat more.’’
‘‘Yes, maybe so. Maybe you’ll teach him a thing or two, eh?’’ She gave a yelp of amusement and nudged Laurie in the ribs. ‘‘Well, he’s a bit late, but I’ve put on the A side of this,’’ she held up a Shadows album cover, ‘‘that’ll keep things going for a while.’’ She picked up her rain coat and a plastic bag. ‘‘Nice meeting you. Have fun!’’ Then she was gone and Laurie was alone at the controls.
She sat down and put the headphones on. Granny music. She took the headphones off again, deciding to keep checking every few minutes that it was still playing. She prayed that Gerry would show up before she had to take decisive action.
Saturday the 18th of December
Just After Midnight
Chance of Snow
Gerry didn’t look surprised at all when he opened the door to the station. Laurie smiled up at him, holding the headphones clumsily against one ear.
‘‘Watcha,’’ she said in a cockney accent, doffing an imaginary cap.
‘‘Good evening.’’ Gerry made her a formal bow.
Laurie was actually delighted to see Gerry. That was what was really surprising about this turn of events: she was delighted to see him. He looked more attractive than she remembered.
‘‘You don’t mind. Do you?’’ she asked, beginning to rise from his seat – the only seat in the station.
He indicated to her to sit down and walked over to the controls. As he took the headphones from her, his hand glanced against her hand and then her hair, making her feel super-sensitive and clumsy. Then he turned the volume control up on the desk so they could hear the music in the room.
‘‘The bloody Shadows,’’ he said. ‘‘What a surprise.’’ He spoke to the ceiling rather than Laurie. ‘‘Just once I’d like to take over the reins from someone not playing music from before I was born.’’ Without turning back to Laurie, he reached into the bag that was slung across his chest, and took out a CD. He put it on, faded down the Shadows and turned up the CD. He perched on the desk for a moment listening to the music. The longer they sat, the more Laurie wanted to kiss him. The more she wanted to kiss him, the less able she felt to look at him. Laurie looked down at her hands and started to move her bracelet up and down her arm. Realising what she was doing, she stopped abruptly and clamped her hands shut in her lap.
Gerry slid switches up and down and made green lights flicker on the little windows in the control panel.
‘‘Maybe I should go,’’ murmured Laurie, half standing.
‘‘No, no. I’m just a bit weirded out, that’s all.’’ He turned towards her.
His face was still, a closed shell.
She wanted to say to him that she’d already taken a big step coming here, but then he smiled at her and reached a hand out.
‘‘I’m glad you came, I really am.’’
She smiled back. He dropped his hand by his side and they sat in silence for a minute. Laurie spoke first.
‘‘I just got a job.’’ She laughed. ‘‘I wasn’t even trying.’’
‘‘A job?’’
‘‘Yeah! Here in the hospital as a cleaner! Weird, eh? The thing is,’’ her face became more serious. ‘‘I actually need a job.’’
‘‘Oh. Did you lose your job?’’
‘‘No, not exactly.’’ She sighed. ‘‘But if I don’t turn up tomorrow, I think I’ll be fired.’’
‘‘Would you be bothered?’’
‘‘Well, I’ve no intention of going tomorrow!’’ She laughed breezily. ‘‘Anyway, I have this other job now, don’t I?’’
Gerry didn’t look convinced by Laurie’s carefree, plan-free, free-fall.
Laurie gave a little cough. ‘‘I’m starving. I forgot to eat today, I just wandered around all day. Oh!’’ She clapped her hands together. ‘‘That reminds me,’’ she fished around in her handbag, ‘‘I got you this.’’
She held out a little tissue paper wrapped package. She chucked it over to him.
He caught it, frowning. ‘‘What is it?’’
‘‘Open it.’’ She pointed at the parcel.
He held the gift in his hand for a moment, feeling the weight of it.
Laurie could tell he was embarrassed. He didn’t even know her. Not yet, anyway.
‘‘Go on. Don’t be shy!’’
He pulled the tissue paper away, revealing the lighter. He laughed.
‘‘Taking Care of Business! I like it!’’
‘‘I thought it was funny and handy. A winning combination in a gift.’’ She laughed and reached out for the Zippo. ‘‘A winning combination in life!’’
She tossed the lighter from hand to hand.
‘‘We could use it if there was a power cut, or if we went camping, or to light candles. Or cigarettes. Or something …’’ She trailed off, embarrassed.
‘‘It’s great, I love it. Thanks.’’
He stood up, took a step over to her and hugged her awkwardly. But then, after a few seconds, the awkwardness passed and they stood holding on to each other. He stroked the back of her head and she tucked her head into his chest. They made no attempt to kiss and when the song finished, Gerry stepped away to the mixing desk.
‘‘Do you know what? I’m going to put on a compilation so I don’t need to keep going back to change the music.’’ He raked around in his bag for a minute, then pulled out something called, ‘‘Acoustic Café’’ and stuck it into the machine.
‘‘There. That’s better. Now, for my next trick …’’ he said and left the room.
Laurie glanced around at the station. It didn’t fit in with her idea of what a radio station should look like. There were no pictures on the walls of the windowless room, no ornamentation of any kind. There was one bookcase filled with vinyl, stacked neatly in all but one of the shelves. The remaining shelf was filled with cassettes and A4 folders. There were no CDs at all. She got the impression from the shape of things and from Gerry’s colleague, that Gerry was probably cutting edge to the other DJs, what with all his new-fangled audio equipment and shiny silver musical discs.
She thought he must be a good DJ though. He had such a nice voice. It was a shame he didn’t speak to the patients when he was DJing, she was sure they’d find it very reassuring – those that were able to listen with any thought. She supposed the calm, assured voice came from his doctor dad. Not that all doctors had this kind of voice. But, in Laurie’s experience, the best kind of doctors did. It was like calming animals: you had to sound firm and sure. It wasn’t only men doctors that had this quality, but she would always prefer to have bad news from a man. Somehow, during her mother’s illness, the men had seemed to be better at expressing certain facts as they came to light. When her mother was attended to by women doctors, Laurie had difficulty seeing them as anything other than glorified biological housekeepers. The men better conveyed a s
ense of understood human tragedy.
The door opened and Gerry walked in holding a wing-back armchair.
‘‘Ta da!’’ he said setting the chair down next to her and ushering her into it.
‘‘Fancy! Where did you get this?’’
‘‘Geriatrics. That’s why it’s vinyl.’’
‘‘Ha! I like it. Wipe clean.’’
‘‘So, what are your plans?’’ asked Gerry, sitting down in the chair Laurie had just vacated.
‘‘Tonight or generally?’’
‘‘Either? Both?’’
‘‘Hmm. I don’t know really. Well, I know that I’m not going back to my crappy phone job and I am planning to turn up for the cleaning one.’’
‘‘I suppose that’s a start. Is cleaning something you want to do?’’
‘‘Not particularly, but working at night when there’s hardly anyone around appeals to me. Besides, I’m not qualified for anything really.’’
‘‘What have you been doing since you left school?’’
‘‘Well, Dad,’’ she started to laugh, but the look on Gerry’s face silenced her. ‘‘Sorry, I was only kidding.’’ Gerry reddened.
‘‘I mean it’s not like you’re that old. Not old enough to actually be my Dad.’’
‘‘I know,’’ he looked up at her, ‘‘but it’s a bit weird, isn’t it?’’
‘‘Not really. I thought you were just a really hard-living twenty year old.’’ She laughed properly now.
Gerry smiled.
‘‘How old are you then? If it’s not too impolite to ask an elderly person that.’’
‘‘I’m thirty four. How about you? Seventeen? Eighteen? As long as you’re legal!’’
Now Laurie was embarrassed. Gerry turned back to the controls and twiddled with the mixer. There was a silence for a moment. Laurie swithered about saying she was older, but she had the urge to start being a bit more honest. At times.
‘‘I’m twenty four, twenty five in January. That’s not too bad, is it?’’
‘‘No. That seems a reasonable age,’’ he smiled.
She noticed he had really nice, straight white teeth. He’d look so much better if he shaved his beard off and cut his hair a bit. Still, he had a certain bearish attraction. He looked capable and warm. He was definitely warm. She looked at the collar of his T shirt. There was a small tuft of brown hair there, but it was impossible to tell with any certainty if he was one of these hair-shirt sorts of men. He probably wasn’t, as the back of his hands weren’t too hairy and in her limited experience, that was usually a dead giveaway.
Gerry didn’t turn away from Laurie’s searching eyes, rather, he straightened his back in his chair and sat still.
Laurie stood up. ‘‘Well. I think I’d better be hitting the road.’’
‘‘Really? So soon?’’
‘‘Yeah. There’s only so long that I won’t be missed. Eventually people will realise I’m missing.’’
‘‘Who’s ‘‘people’’?’’
‘‘Oh, you know, flatmates.’’
So much for being more honest. But she didn’t want to talk about Ed yet. She was enjoying being Ed-free and different to her real life.
She stood up and put a hand on his head, moving her hand gently over his hair.
‘‘Can I come and see you tomorrow night after my cleaning shift?’’
‘‘Yes. I’d like that.’’ He stood up. He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. Where were things going, she wondered. But she didn’t really care. For so long she’d known exactly what was happening next and what was expected of her. She’d done okay at school, she’d done fairly okay at university. She had found a job and a flat and a boyfriend. But none of it was satisfactory. None of it was of any real interest to her.
The problem was she had no dream of what she wanted. She didn’t aspire to do charity work in Africa or climb Everest or hitch-hike across Europe. All she could think of was a list of niggly complaints. Petty moans about what was, on the face of it, an acceptable sort of life. At least now she had a little secret to keep her going. She was going to have to tell Ed about the cleaning job, but she was keeping Gerry to herself.
Saturday the 18th of December
Early Hours
Chilly
When she got home, Ed was in bed and all the lights were off. She took off her shoes and trousers and jumper, dropped them by the bed as quietly as possible and climbed in, trying not to shake the mattress and risk waking Ed. She lay on her back and listened to Ed’s steady breathing, cursing him for his ability to not give a shit that his life was devoid of meaning. It would be so much easier if she didn’t care about things. If she could be like everybody else going to their rubbish jobs and getting along with their pointless relationships it would be okay.
She stared up at the ceiling where a strip of light shone through the curtain. What now? What was she going to tell Ed? She’d have to tell him in the morning. She wished he wasn’t asleep so she could get it over with. All this secrecy was driving her mad. She was no Mata Hari. Maybe if she rolled over, she’d wake Ed. But she couldn’t move. The more she tried to roll over, the less able she was actually to do it. She started to feel as if the side of her body was electrified. Every time Ed breathed out she felt as if the hairs on that side of her body were reaching out to him like when you touched one of those electric experiment things in Junior Science.
Once she’d started paying attention to Ed’s breathing, she lost the ability to breathe without thinking. Every breath was an effort. She couldn’t get the rhythm right, either exhaling too soon or taking a too long in-breath. She tried to calm herself by looking up at the shadows on the roof, but they started to throb in time to Ed’s breathing and the ceiling started to move slowly down towards her, pressing her down. She lay like this, pinned to the bed, silently gasping for breath for what seemed like hours until she managed to inch her hand towards Ed and tap him on the hip.
He turned towards her immediately and gave her a long look. She couldn’t make out the detail of his expression in the darkness, but she knew what he was doing with his eyes. It was the thought of that sad puppy dog expression that snapped Laurie out of her fug. She made to turn over. But before she could, he clasped her hand in his.
‘‘Where have you been?’’
Immediately she felt scorched. She had no right to this concern. She was nothing but a bitch. A selfish, immature idiot.
She opened her mouth to speak, but Ed spoke again.
‘‘It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.’’
Laurie was perplexed. She was torn between making a full confession and crushing his hand. Was he trying that I’m-giving-you-space emotional blackmail shit? Jesus Christ! She gave him nothing but space. Always had. She was the one with the shitty, steady job. She was the one who made sure there was milk and bread. She was the one who paid the bills and thought about the future and stayed with him despite the fact he never had anything to talk about. What had she ever seen in him? Well, that was all changing now. She’d see how things went with Gerry and she’d give Ed an ultimatum. Before she could say anything, Ed spoke again.
‘‘I was on the phone to Mum today and she’s been speaking to my auntie Sheila.’’
‘‘Yeah?’’ Laurie had met Sheila a couple of Christmases ago. She was a teacher at the College and was quite funny for someone of her age. At the time Laurie had compared Ed’s mum and her sister, marvelling at how different they were. But then, Sheila had never married and that had to mean something.
‘‘And she said to mum that there’s a place left on the Community Education course that she teaches on and that …’’
He broke off and looked up at the ceiling.
‘‘Go on,’’ said Laurie.
‘‘Well, I thought I might do it. The course.’’ He was still looking up at the ceiling.
‘‘Wow. Well, that’s great. Are you interested in education?’’
‘‘Em, yeah
. I am.’’
Still waters, thought Laurie.
‘‘When do you start?’’
‘‘Actually, I went down to the college this afternoon and filled out the forms. I start next week. It’s lessons in the college for a day then out on placement in the community.’’
Laurie knew she should be delighted or relieved or something, but actually she felt annoyed that he’d done all this without asking her what she thought. And he’d lose his dole money if he did a course.
‘‘Mum said she’ll pay my rent while I do the course and I’ll get a part time job to pay for, you know, other stuff.’’ He turned and looked at her.
‘‘Well. You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?’’
He nodded, keeping his eyes on her.
‘‘What about …’’ She trailed off, unable to think of anything to question him on. It was a good idea and they’d be no worse off in the short term.
He’s getting his life together, she thought, patting him on the shoulder and turning away from him to feign sleep. She kept completely still and let the tears run on to the pillow unchecked. In the morning there’d be a black stain the size of a plum.
Saturday the 18th of December
Evening
Clouds Clearing
Laurie found that the cleaning job was exactly what she had been looking for. The work was easy and monotonous. She didn’t have to speak to anyone unless she initiated conversation. She was told where to go and what to mop or scrub. She was equipped with the appropriate soaps and sprays, scrubbers and brushes, all laid out on a trolley that she steered down the quiet corridors at her own speed. The trolley, Pat had informed her, was kept in tip top condition. Maintenance sprayed the wheels with WD40 weekly to prevent squeaks that would disturb patients. Pat was very hot on not disturbing patients.
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