Because for years,
I did no such thing.
The doctor asked me about the bruise on my neck.
Did you fall?
I did.
Did you fall onto something?
I came here to get a urine test, I said, not the Spanish Inquisition.
I want to listen to your chest, he said.
You’ll do no such thing. I never heard of chests being listened to when it’s my kidney that’s complaining.
But he insisted.
And I complied.
Because I thought he’d report me or write a report on me as the whole world, it seems, is being paid to write reports on me, which is another good reason why I am writing my own report (on me) right here for you.
Are you afraid of anyone? Is anyone stealing from you? he asked.
Do I look afraid of anyone?
He put the stethoscope around his neck and asked me to look left and right.
He checked the back of my ears and I winced because my ear was still painful back where Eddie had thumped me. He stared at my forearms and turned over my two palms.
You can get dressed, he said.
When he handed me the antibiotic, he instructed me to come back and see him again next week.
I’ll tell you the truth. I never went near him again.
He was too good a doctor and I’d be in too much trouble if he sent someone to the house to see why was I bruised.
I needed another solution
This much I knew.
That’s another warning.
If you know you need another solution
Don’t dilly dawdle on it.
Or you’ll only attract suspicion.
If you’re going to attract suspicion
Save yourself the bother
Just divulge the truth to someone you trust
Tell them to deliver the information to the world on your behalf.
Once you’re dead.
Whisper it
Write it
However it might be imparted
Just somehow let it be said.
Don’t leave people wondering
The way Phil has me left wondering.
It creates a whole new round of inexplicable brokenness and bruises
Only these ones are worse because they’re
Unseen.
Only you can feel them
In spaces you didn’t think could be broke.
Trust me when I tell you
All of it and all of you can be even more broke
Than you can see or imagine.
Make a pact.
I don’t know how
But make pacts
With those who are worrying you.
Once I tried to make one with a man who worried me.
A simple pact that he’d go to the doctor.
Will you promise me you’ll go to the doctor on Monday, I said.
I can’t promise you that, he said.
And I remembered that too-good doctor and
I knew well the man who wouldn’t promise me didn’t want to be saved
Which was why when the Tall Man came
I helped.
I did it without a second thought.
I did it for those who don’t want saving.
Rather than punish them
For knowing it.
And leaving them with it.
And leaving it with them.
For I know what it is to be trapped
Because I was trapped.
I trapped myself.
I know all this and no one needs to tell me it.
I am 74 years old and I know a lot of things.
And these poor blighters who didn’t want to be saved hadn’t trapped themselves
Instead
Their bodies had bolted on them.
Or bolted them inside their houses.
In a manner that you can’t negotiate a way around.
Only declare a way out.
An exit.
So
Instead
Therefore
Better you assume if you are stupid enough to let a man like Eddie into your kitchen, he’s very likely to hit you on the head.
I tried to tackle him: You hit me on the head.
I did not.
You did.
When?
Yesterday.
I don’t remember that.
I showed him the cut and bruise over my ear.
Really, he said. Are you sure?
He spat a bit onto his hand and rubbed his palm up against it.
It was one of the kinder things he did.
He left his cupped palm up against it for a few seconds in penance.
If you ever do it again, I said, I’ll have you shot.
He never hit me on the head again.
But the words I issued were unfortunate.
These are the words he’s given over to the authorities now.
See how he can take the sheet from under me.
Even from afar.
Because I wouldn’t give him the land, see.
(He was at me to sign it over to him)
I’m stupid but not that stupid.
I see them coming once they are here.
Like icebergs, I suppose.
When they are on top of you
You feel them.
You say, ah there you are.
I see you because I can feel you.
Then you drown.
But when someone hits you on the head you feel it and you see them.
Incontrovertible
Intractable.
Scrabble has all the words for it.
Once you know your letters
You find all the words
That score.
Careful with the language lads.
Watch the language there.
Pay attention to the letters.
That was obviously a warning.
It’ll come back for you.
I play Scrabble for this reason. As a reminder. To remind myself what all the combining of letters and words can achieve and to keep myself in check. If I play it here, I have no further need to play in life. There should be no more surprises at my age other than upon the Scrabble board.
Are we agreed?
We’re not.
Right.
On we go.
There were a lot of disagreements in the Group. Often the disagreements were nothing to do with the Group at all. They were disagreements over maps and directions and who told who and what time and I don’t like the way that fella says and she’s a bit cold and minor stuff that could become medium stuff without you even noticing.
I kept one of the plastic bags. The Exit bags. Or Hoover bags as we called them on the phone. I kept one for myself and I think that’s why the Group keep phoning. They probably want that bag for someone else. They might think with all the trouble I’ve caused I don’t deserve a bag. I don’t agree with them. But if they come here and ask me for it I’ll hand it over. I’m just not for doing deliveries these days. I’m in bed, where I’m staying warm and waiting for whatever the verdict is.
Isn’t it funny that never happens in reverse? That the major stuff like a big lump of Eddie doesn’t become minor or medium stuff without you noticing? The major stuff only becomes minor stuff if you disappear on it entirely. Or I suppose if you are lucky enough, in the rare case, to have it disappear on you. Or have someone else disappear it for you.
That seems to happen a lot in hotels and at boxing matches these days. And it’s nasty men is doing it. I am not in hotels or at boxing matches and I wouldn’t give money to a nasty man to solve my problems. I’m in bed so I suppose nothing is going to change that way for me. Not even my sheets, unless I get up and change them.
I believe in merciful releases. I do. More people should pray for them. Even if it involves asteroids.
The smell you create is the smell that follows you into the ground, as my mother, God rest her, would say.
Never left a smell
She.
She wouldn’t be happy about these sheets. The Lord save us Bina, would you get up and move about, never mind lying there like a stuffed pig. There’s work to be done and nothing gets done only by looking at it. If you see it needing doing, get on with it, she’d say. If it smells, wash it! If it doesn’t need saying, shut up and leave it unsaid!
Listen to mothers, they know a lot about smells.
What they mean and how to locate them.
Eddie was clueless about smells
He smothered the place with them
And him gone.
And me stuck here still again with all the smells he created.
What harm?
Plenty harm is what.
I don’t know if I’ll convey the scale of (the) harm before the red dot.
My mother wouldn’t approve at all of what I am saying here. How many times have I told you? Too many times to tell you again! That’s what she’d say to all this. When I came back from England a hairy failure she merely said wash your hair, we’ll say no more about it, but I knew she was angry. She was angry for years. It’s why I stopped still and was in no hurry to make changes. I wanted to be reliable. She didn’t mind that since she needed someone to bring her places and drop things off. I became very good at ferrying things about. I was practical in my rehabilitation. I became very good at picking up things I dropped and hiding matters I wanted no person to know about.
Another warning: Careful what you think you are hiding, as it’s probably on full view. Careful not to hide suffering because you are only making more work for the people who have yet to discover it. Complain. Complain. Complain. Suffer loud and plentiful or be doomed.
For months afterwards, Eddie asked what did I say before he hit me on the head. And explained that if he couldn’t recall striking me whatever I said must have set him off. It was down to the drink. And he was going joining some group 20 miles away for people gone mad on the drink and who were going mad getting off it. He hinted they’d eventually invite me in to be apologized to, because it had happened last week and the invited-in woman had cried and recovered and cried again when she was apologized to by the man who crashed her car, ran over her foot and her cat and more generally destroyed his life, her life and the cat’s life. Eddie was keen to tell me she’d cried twice. Like there’s salvation in the repetition of suffering.
You were off the drink when you hit me on the head, I wanted to tell him, but I honestly couldn’t think of a single good reason for doing so.
Instead I said nothing and I will tell you, sometimes saying nothing can be the most powerful thing with such a man. Because men like Eddie, bullies in woollens, expect you to mend them. They expect you to patch over what they say and what they have done, and in saying nothing, I would be doing no mending. If I’d spoken, he would be easy relieved.
I would warn you not to meet the eyes of a man who is a bully. You cannot negotiate with a bully. You cannot give in to a bully. You can glower. Silence can be surprisingly powerful when it is accompanied by no mending whatsoever.
Remember that.
Turn on your heel.
Walk away.
Or better, when they hello
Don’t respond.
Don’t make them feel better.
Leave them with what they have achieved.
They work very hard to become the catastrophes they are.
I am not suggesting that getting sent to prison is the only effective action that results in the removal of a snuck-into-your-home man or woman catastrophe, but in my case it did work.
Otherwise Eddie never would have budged.
I had to become worse than who he thought he was himself.
Except, it should be understood, he still has no idea how bad he is.
Has she warned you about Thursdays?
Bina doesn’t like Thursdays.
I don’t like Tuesdays either, she’ll tell you.
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday are the bad days.
Weekly.
Have you got that now?
Is it clear?
Are we clear?
Was that a warning?
She is starting to wonder.
Hard to remember what’s gone on above
Without going back.
If it’s back Bina goes, she’ll lose us.
On.
On.
On I must go
To reach the red dot.
Who are you here for?
Your son is it?
Within is he?
What’s that?
Unconscious you say.
Lord save us, did he live?
Not my son
Just that I was the one found him
In the ditch
Beside my wall
Did she say that?
You’re a relative is it?
No, no he’s the son of a neighbour.
Maeve that’s fine
She’s fine
She’s family
She can come in.
Grand Maeve
No that’s fine.
Maeve said Bina could come in.
Hello again.
How are you?
He’s in better form today
Not awake yet
But he’s showing more signs of life.
It’ll be nice there’s someone here to welcome him back.
Makes a difference to the recovery when there’s family around.
Big family is it
Brothers has he
Parents.
Dead
We think.
No, I know his uncle, he’s not well himself
Is that right.
Awful sad, will anyone come in, we sometimes think.
I often ask myself in this job
Would anyone come?
That.
Do you think everyone asks that?
Oh they do.
They do.
That.
See it
All the time
In here
We wait
To see
Does anyone come?
Sometimes
The odd time
A rare time
They don’t.
You could go out of here in a box or even an urn and no one would notice you were gone.
Urns?
Oh yes, urns are all the rage
Like when there’s no one like to collect them?
Cheaper
Sssssh.
Wouldn’t want that to get out
These days, huh?
Oh yes.
Dreadful lonely.
Where do you send them if
No one?
Rehab
When there’s no one at home.
If there’s a bed!
Or even no home to go to?
Laughs.
Common these days
Oh it is.
Pushed out I suppose.
Or have pushed themselves out
Both.
Cruel though.
It is.
If there’s no one to go home to, sometimes they can never go home.
He’s young though.
Even the young.
Usually someone comes in for you if you’re young.
Hello again.
You’re back.
Who are you here for?
Ah he’ll be glad
There’s been no one
Since
Last you were in.
Did anyone locate the parents or the family?
Ask the social worker.
She’ll be down to you now.
Bina’s stopped saying she’s not family anymore.
You a relative
You the social worker
Any contact
Can you help?
We were hoping
Have to move him.
Beds are needed.
Patie
nts on trolleys.
Too many trolleys
So many car accidents
You wouldn’t believe
Oh I believe
Driving like drunk monkeys the young.
What’s his story?
I’ve no idea
Only he drove into my wall.
Of your house?
Field
And landed in a ditch.
Miracle he wasn’t killed.
It is.
Will you find him a place?
Well we’ll have to.
A neighbour you say
Can you take him?
Me?
Me take him?
No. No. I can’t take him.
They do better with company.
Even temporary.
Well I suppose if it were temporary.
Until he can go to his uncle or wherever he came from
Oh temporary would be a great help.
We’ll support you.
And you’re family and we prefer family to take them.
Well I am not really close family
Well you know what I mean
More family than he’ll have in here or any facility.
Full of old people
Frustrating for the young
And we need the beds for the lesser able
But he’s brain injured?
Not at all. No, no. He’s just bruised.
He should recover fine.
How long?
A few weeks
Of physio.
I’ve seen some not make any progress in fifteen years.
He’s the lucky one.
Better progress if someone minds them
Always.
Right so.
But just temporary you say
That’s it.
We’ll send help out to you.
Have you stairs?
I have none.
Great, he wouldn’t be able for stairs yet.
There’s no stairs.
No stairs written down in the paper file.
Bina Page 6