Sooo Not Looking For a Man: A witty, heart-warming and poignant, feel-good journey.

by CJ Morrow

  I slump back on the pillows and sigh. I could cry again, but I’m not going to. It’s so bloody pointless.

  ‘You need to have a shower and change your clothes, I’ll tie up your hair, then we need to get you to the hospital.’

  ‘It’s too early. We can go later.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Cat says, I have things to do. Four kids, remember. Anyway, we might wait less time if we go now.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Ten to six. Come on.’

  I sit up, wincing and complaining and heave myself up off the bed. Beads of sweat gather around my hairline. The dress feels as though it is contracting around me, getting tighter and tighter.

  ‘These laces are hard to undo,’ Cat mutters to herself.

  ‘Cut them.’

  ‘It’ll ruin it.’

  ‘Like that matters. Please just cut them, there are nail scissors in my toilet bag. And please hurry up, this dress is crushing my ribs. I can’t breathe properly.’ I pant several times to prove my point.

  Cat dashes off to the bathroom, then returns and snips me out of my constricting hell before helping me out of the dress.

  I stand there in my underwear feeling stupid and embarrassed. I’m wearing white stockings and a suspender belt with matching bra, all chosen because I know Leeward would have appreciated this ensemble.

  Cat looks me up and down. ‘That stupid Leeward,’ she says, her voice softening. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s missing.’ She puts a warm hand on my shoulder. ‘Okay, what else do you want help with?’

  ‘Can you just undo my bra and run the shower please. Oh and find my shower hat, I don’t want to have to wash this yet.’ I stab at my hair with my good hand.

  In the end she has to undress me completely and basically give me a shower. I know she’s my sister but it’s still humiliating. Once I’m wrapped up in several towels, she cleans off the industrial makeup that Suzi applied.

  ‘Bloody stuff,’ Cat moans. ‘It took me ages to get it off my face too. It’s more like paint than makeup.’

  ‘And it was wasted anyway,’ I say, managing a little laugh.

  Cat laughs with me.

  Finally, I’m ready, comfy soft sleeveless top and leggings that I brought to wear to breakfast before putting on something more elegant. Cat has done her best with my hair but it still looks like a bird’s nest. A blonde bird’s nest.

  ‘Shoes?’

  ‘In my bag?’

  ‘Already looked. Can’t find any.’

  I think for a moment. ‘Oh shit, I don’t think I have any.’ Isn’t this how it all started, my finding out about Leeward’s infidelity because I’d forgotten my shoes?

  ‘You’ll have to wear these then.’ She thrusts the wedding pumps onto my feet.

  They look just great with the leggings. The sparkly toes, now a bit grey and grubby, attempt to twinkle at me.

  ‘Are there any biscuits in that fridge?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My arm is killing me. I want to take painkillers but not without food.’

  ‘Here,’ she says, fishing a breakfast bar out of her handbag. ‘Have this.’

  I munch away while Cat collects all my things up and stuffs them in my bag. She says I might as well check out now and save the hassle of coming back to do it; I think she means save her the hassle.

  Once everything is loaded in the car, Cat helps me into the passenger seat. I wince and gasp as she does up the seat belt.

  ‘You’re not going to be sick again, are you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘If you are, let me know, I don’t want that in my car.’

  ‘Okay.’

  And I’m not sick again as we head off for the joy of an early Sunday morning visit to A&E.

  I only have myself to blame, well, no, it’s his fault. Gollum.

  Five

  It’s not as busy as I feared it would be in A&E. That said, the waiting room is large and there are more than enough people here especially for so early on a Sunday morning.

  We check in at the reception desk and I give a brief explanation of what happened. I must be rambling on because Cat cuts across me.

  ‘She fell over onto her hand.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Last night,’ Cat says before I can answer.

  ‘Okay. Name?’

  Once I’ve divulged my name and address, which Cat corrects to that of our parents’ after I give Leeward’s address, we’re told to sit and wait. We file over to the rows of chairs facing the TV where BBC News is playing but with the sound muted. Even though none of it is of any interest to me and I struggle to read the subtitles due to the constant movement of the ticker-tape breaking news, I find myself compelled to stare at the screen, and so does everyone else.

  I look down at my feet, the shoes twinkle at me, as if taunting; they’re uncomfortable too, so hard and unyielding. What must I look like, my shoes, my hair?

  I’m staring at the TV, wincing occasionally and thinking about nothing and everything Leeward, when I become of aware of Cat’s nose twitching.

  ‘What?’ I snap as I turn towards her. I’m wondering if she’s going to tell me I smell like a brewery, not that I can smell anything at the moment, I think last night’s excess of alcohol has numbed my senses of smell and taste.

  ‘Can’t you smell it?’

  ‘What?’

  Cat casts a furtive glance around, then mouths, ‘Poo.’ It always amuses me that she says poo when most adults would say shit, I suppose it’s due to years of being around small children even if some of them are now obstreperous teenagers.

  ‘No, but then I can’t smell much at the moment.’

  Cat rolls her eyes and slowly spins around to ascertain where this supposed smell is coming from. Her eyes alight on something or someone and that look of realisation dawns. Then her eyes widen. Abruptly, she turns back to face the TV before shuddering theatrically.

  As a man in his fifties with fashionable grey stubble saunters past us, his smart navy suit crumpled, Cat leans away from the aisle and towards me.

  ‘It’s him,’ she whispers.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. We’ll have to move.’

  ‘Where? Why?’ I really don’t want to move, my arm, immobile all the time we’ve been sitting here is finally less painful and I don’t want to remind it that it hurts.

  ‘We can’t sit here, we’re downwind of him. Come on.’

  I glance over at the man who is now feeding coins into a vending machine full of snacks which are definitely not of the healthy variety. He turns and heads back towards us with three packets of crisps. They suddenly seem very appealing; I imagine the taste of salt on my tongue even though crisps are not something I would normally want.

  ‘Why are you smacking your lips?’ Cat says, her tone accusatory.

  ‘I’m not,’ I say like a child caught doing something she shouldn’t.

  Crumpled suit man skates past us, apparently not able to pick up his feet. Cat holds her breath and makes no attempt to hide the look of disgust from her face.

  ‘Come on.’ She stands up and waits for me to obey.

  ‘Urgh, must we?’ I groan as I haul myself up.

  As we move away I notice that smelly man is back in his seat in front of the doors which constantly squish open when people arrive or leave, hence Cat’s comment about us being downwind of him; the seats adjacent to him and the two rows in front are empty. Cat finds us two seats in the middle of a row far from him and the TV. Now we’re staring at the vending machines – snacks, tea, coffee, water, coke – and I find myself craving salt again.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ Cat asks.

  ‘Yes. Please.’

  I wait for her to get up and go to the coffee machine, but instead she whips out a bottle of water from her bag.

  ‘Don’t slobber on it, we’ll share.’

  ‘I can get another one,’ I glance over at the machine. ‘Or a coffee maybe.’

&
nbsp; Cat puts her disgusting face on again. ‘Not from a vending machine, God knows how long that stuff has been in there.’

  ‘Not that long,’ I say, nodding towards the snack machine as smelly, crumpled man is back feeding coins into it again.

  Cat shudders once more and I think I see the start of a retch. She reins it in, ever stoic.

  ‘I can’t see it,’ I say, nudging her, then wincing as the movement makes my arm throb.

  ‘Can’t see what?’

  ‘The shit. You’d think, with the smell…’

  ‘It’s definitely him. I can’t see it either. I don’t want to think about it too much.’ We both watch as he slides back to his seat, several more crisp packets in his hands. Cat leans in to whisper into my ear. ‘Nappy?’

  ‘Could be. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that, given where I work.’ I snigger. So bad of me. I blame the alcohol abuse. The alcohol abuse is directly attributed to Leeward. I blame Leeward.

  Cat frowns and I shut up.

  My name is called and Cat jumps up and insists on leading the way. I pick up my handbag with my good hand and follow her.

  I feel extremely foolish as I explain how I fell from the stage after my turn at the microphone.

  ‘Karaoke?’ The nurse smiles at me.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Cat jumps in.

  ‘Okay, well it doesn’t look too good does it? Lots of bruising. Let’s get you x-rayed then we’ll see you again. Take this yellow slip and follow the red line.

  The waiting room in x-ray is much smaller than in the main A&E. We flop down into the seats and wait to be called. I stop Cat from accompanying me into the x-ray room explaining that they won’t let her stay anyway.

  It takes minutes and when the radiologist comes back from checking the x-ray, I ask her if it’s broken.

  ‘They’ll discuss it with you in A&E,’ she answers, diplomatically. ‘Here’s your yellow slip. Just wait to be called again.’

  I hold the yellow slip as we head back through the A&E corridors; there are now two trollies with patients on them, looking forlorn and waiting to be moved elsewhere. Thank God, that’s not me. A broken wrist, though tedious enough, isn’t life threatening.

  As I head out through the door to the waiting area Cat snatches the yellow slip from me and puts it in a box on the wall.

  ‘They don’t tell you to do that, but if you don’t, you’ll wait forever.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, believe me, this isn’t the first time I’ve been up here.’

  ‘Okay.’ She’s right, I should have known this, I used to work in this hospital, though not in this department.

  We find seats again and I notice that the exclusion zone around smelly man is getting bigger. Cat gags and even I begin to notice the stench of shit. He’s dozed off with piles of crisp packets on the empty seats either side of him.

  ‘It’s the staff I feel sorry for,’ Cat says. ‘Having to deal with that.’

  ‘Don’t judge,’ I reply. ‘You don’t know what’s wrong with him.’

  ‘Okay. I bet I know what’s wrong with her,’ she says, nodding at a teenager sitting on the floor and being sick into a cardboard bowl. Beside her an anxious adult, her mother probably, holds a spare bowl in her hand.

  ‘Chemo?’ I offer.

  ‘Your sense of smell may have gone, by mine hasn’t. I know the smell of regurgitated alcohol.’ She gives me a half smile, then clamps her lips shut, thus indicating the end of the discussion and that she is right and I am wrong. She’s such a big sister!

  For the next ten minutes we sit and listen to the sound of the teenager retching into her bowls. I don’t look but Cat casts glances over at her whenever the noise gets too much, as do several other people. We’re all grateful when the girl’s name is called.

  ∞∞∞

  My x-ray is on the screen when I go into the cubicle.

  ‘Is it broken?’ I ask, fearing the answer.

  ‘Yes.’ There’s a little smile of sympathy. I know that smile, I do it myself.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘The position isn’t as it should be so we’ll just put it straight and get a cast on you.’ That sounds so innocuous, only I know exactly what that means. And it means it will be painful. She gives me another little smile.

  ‘Do you work?’

  ‘Yes.’ I want to say, of course I do, why wouldn’t I?

  ‘What do you do?’

  I think about this for a second. ‘I work in a care home.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘She’s a senior nurse in a nursing home,’ Cat sets the record straight at the same time making it sound as though I am the only qualified person in the entire nursing home. Neither of us adds that I now only work part-time.

  ‘You’ll need some time off work then.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I nod.

  ‘Okay, if you’ll wait again, someone will call you.’

  ∞∞∞

  I tell Cat that she is not coming in with me again. I don’t have a go at her because she keeps speaking for me, that would just be too ungrateful, I just tell her it’s not appropriate.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, a faint look of relief on her face.

  ‘Can you have a look in my bag for my phone?’

  ‘It’s flat,’ she says, once she finds it, before dropping it back in my bag.

  ‘Charger’s in there. And there’s a socket on that pillar.’ I nod just past her knees.

  She sighs and gets both the phone and charger out, plugs it in and sits with the phone on her lap, just out of my reach. I’m about to make a grab for it when my name is called.

  There’s a nurse and a doctor waiting for me in the room. A small conspiratorial look passes from them to me, they will have seen from my notes that I’m a nurse, they will know I know what is to come.

  We go through a few inane pleasantries while I confirm my name and date of birth, I glance over at the piece of paper on the desk, my age is underneath my date of birth, 35yrs and 5mths.

  ‘Do you need gas and air?’ There’s a smile and I glance round the room looking for the tank.

  ‘Do you have any here?

  ‘No, but we could probably source some.’ Another smile. The doctor is young and weary looking, I wonder how long she’s been on duty.

  ‘No, just do it.’

  I take a deep breath as they pull my bones into position. It hurts like hell but I don’t shout or scream, just breathe so fast I almost pass out from hyperventilating. Then it’s over. The doctor escapes and the nurse starts to slap on a cast, a back slab, just to stabilise it until the swelling goes down, which will probably be the best part of two weeks. She ties my arm up around my neck and tells me to keep it elevated.

  ‘How does that feel?’ Cat asks as I slump back down next to her.

  ‘Heavy. And wet.’ I give a little shrug. ‘But better; it doesn’t move now, so it doesn’t hurt so much.’

  ‘Did they give you anything for the pain?’

  ‘No.’ I laugh. ‘I can take paracetamol or ibuprofen. Is my phone charged?’

  ‘No, not yet. Come on, let’s go.’ She yanks the charger from the wall and stuffs it and my phone, still connected, into my bag, swings it over her shoulder and stands up.

  I trot along behind her as she clears the way for me, just as we reach the door, we see the sickly teenager appear, wrapped in a blanket but evidently better. She gives me a sheepish grin. Cat sees it and scowls.

  ∞∞∞

  Cat puts me in her car, literally, she folds me in and does up my seat belt. I just manage to wrestle my handbag from her before she closes my door.

  As she’s driving us home, I find my phone and switch it on, there’s enough charge for it to start up and run for a while, but as soon as we get home – wherever that is now – it’ll need to be plugged in.

  ‘No messages.’ I sigh.

  Cat nods as she concentrates on driving.

  ‘None, from anyone. If I didn’t know better, I’d say my ph
one was disconnected from the network.’

  ‘Switch it on and off.’

  ‘That’s already happened.’

  ‘Right.’ Cat isn’t interested.

  ‘I’ll check Facebook, see if I am connected.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ Cat asks without looking at me, not even a glance.

  ‘Why? Oh God, there’s not a video of me reading out Leeward’s dirty messages is there? Oh God.’

  ‘No. Not that. Couple of comments about the wedding not taking place, nothing nasty…

  ‘Then what…’ But I don’t need her to tell me because I’ve found it for myself; a video of me singing I Will Survive, well my version of it anyway. It’s not quite how I remember; my words were witty, rhyming perfectly and so, so cutting and very tuneful. In this version I am screeching, and it’s mostly incoherent except for the swearwords, which are extremely clear and vile.

  Cat says nothing as the video plays out, her face impassive and turned to the road.

  ‘It’s had nearly five-hundred hits.’ I can’t quite believe it. ‘And I sound awful, did I really sound that bad? And the swearing, oh my God, it didn’t sound like that to me. What bastard filmed that and uploaded it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘One of his friends. Bastard. That swearing…’ I hang my head.

  ‘Just a few f-bombs…’

  ‘If only… There were c-words and words I didn’t even know I knew. I’ll have to emigrate, have plastic surgery, something so people don’t know it’s me. Or die. That might be easier.’

  We’re stopped at lights and Cat turns towards me. ‘Don’t ever say anything like that again. Right. Are you listening? Life is precious. You, of all people, should know that. Promise me.’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  ‘Anyway, it’ll soon fade…’ The lights change and she pulls away.

  ‘Five-hundred views,’ I say, in case she missed it the first time. ‘Five-hundred.’ I scroll on down. ‘And there are comments.’ I read a few. Some are typical OMGs, but hidden amongst the strangers are comments from my friends at work, sympathetic, sweet messages.

  Cat says nothing.