by Hugh Fraser
‘How bad is he?’ I ask.
He takes a hand out of his pocket, brushes his hair back and says, ‘He’s got a severe case of Pertussis. What you would call whooping cough.’
‘Will he be all right?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘How soon will you be able to tell?’
‘Difficult to say. His vital signs are weak. He’s on antibiotics, which should kill the bacteria in time, but he may not survive the treatment. Children from slum conditions often don’t.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Malnutrition, damp atmosphere and dirt all contribute to a weakened immune system and reduced capacity for recovery.’
Georgie snivels. There are tears falling down her cheeks. The doctor takes a wad of tissue paper from a trolley beside the bed and gives it to her.
‘We’ll do what we can, of course,’ he says.
The nurse who we saw last night comes in and goes to Jack. She pushes the needle further into his arm and he stirs a bit. She goes round to the other side of the bed, takes his mask off and puts a small glass tube into his mouth. She holds his wrist, looks at a watch she’s got pinned to her apron and writes something down on a piece of paper that’s clipped to a board. Then she wraps something round his arm above his elbow and squeezes away at a rubber ball thing she’s holding in her hand, which makes the thing round Jack’s arm blow up. Then there’s a hissing sound and it goes down again and she’s looking at a dial and writing something else down on the board. She unwraps the thing round his arm and takes it off. She takes the little glass tube out of his mouth and looks at it then she writes something else on the paper on the board and hands it to the doctor.
He looks at what she’s written and then he hands the board back to the nurse. He goes to the side of the bed and folds down the sheet that’s covering Jack. He takes the same thing the doctor last night had out of his pocket, and puts the two ends in his ears and the metal end on Jack’s chest. He moves it to different places, then he puts it back in his pocket and goes to the door.
‘Will he be all right?’ I say.
‘Too early to say,’ he says, as he walks out of the door.
The nurse tucks the sheet back up again and says, ‘You must go now.’
‘I want to stay,’ says Georgie.
‘Visiting time is over now.’
‘Can’t you give us a few minutes?’ I say.
She looks at us and then at the watch on her chest and says.
‘All right. But you don’t touch anything, and when I come back you go.’
She hangs the board on the end of the bed and goes out of the door.
We sit on each side of the bed and I look at Jack’s pale face. I put my hand on his forehead and I can feel how hot he is.
Georgie holds his hand. She leans in close to him and whispers, ‘You’re going to be all right, Jacky, I know you are.’
Jack’s head moves under my hand and I can see his lips opening under the mask, as if he’s saying something. I want to lift the mask to hear him, but I don’t dare in case it’s bad for him. His lips stop moving and his head is still again. We sit with him for a few minutes and then the nurse comes back in.
‘You must go now, or I’ll be in trouble,’ she says.
‘OK,’ I say.
‘You can come tomorrow.’
She holds the door open for us. As we pass her, she puts a hand on Georgie’s arm and says, ‘Try not to worry, dear.’
Georgie looks up at her and says, ‘Take care of him, please.’ The nurse smiles at her.
‘Of course, darling.’
We walk back through the ward. The visitors have gone and a couple of nurses are trying to calm down a little girl who’s crying really loudly and thrashing about. We go down the stairs and out of the main door onto Harrow Road. We walk up to the traffic lights, cross over and go down Great Western Road towards the bridge.
I say to Georgie, ‘Fancy a walk along the canal?’
‘No. I want to go to school now.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
I walk with her to the school, getting her a bacon sandwich from the caff on the corner of Lancaster Road on the way. She says she doesn’t want it, but I make her eat it. It’s still the lunch break when we get to school and I leave her in the playground. Walking away, I see her standing by herself near the fence with her head bowed.
• • •
I go over the railway bridge and turn the corner into our street. Claire and Sammy are sitting on the steps above Claire’s. She sees me and comes along the pavement to meet me.
‘Dave was here looking for you,’ she says.
‘Yeah?’ I say.
‘He’s in the British Oak.’
‘OK.’
‘What’s going on, Reen?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Twice in two days?’
‘Maybe he’s not a queer after all.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Come round ours after.’
‘Yeah.’
Claire looks at me and says, ‘You all right?’
‘Jack’s in the hospital. Whooping cough.’
‘The poor little mite. How is he?’
‘He ain’t good.’
‘Are they looking after him?’
‘I think so. I’ll go back up there later.’
A football bounces onto the pavement between us. Claire kicks it back to the boys in the road.
‘I’d better go and see Dave,’ I say.
‘Be careful.’
I nod and she goes and sits beside Sammy. I turn and walk away, wondering if I should tell her about Dave and what we’ve got planned. I’d like to, but she’s my good friend and I don’t want to put her in any more danger than she’s in already.
I get to the British Oak and look in the window. The lunchtime drinkers are mostly old geezers slumped behind their pints and a few younger blokes reading papers or listening to the racing on the radio behind the bar. I hear a car horn toot behind me. I turn and see Dave sitting at the wheel of a black Jaguar. He reaches over and opens the passenger door.
I get in and he says, ‘Get your head down.’
I lie down on the seat and the car moves off. We drive for a bit, make a couple of turns and stop. I can hear a dog barking. Dave switches off the engine.
‘OK,’ he says.
I sit up. We’re parked in the middle of a scrap yard. An Alsatian is straining against a chain attached to the wall of a shed that’s squatting among piles of twisted bits of metal. The door of the shed opens and a man with a crew cut and a big beer belly steps out and looks at the car. After a nod from Dave, he yanks the dog’s chain, bellows something at him, and goes back into the shed. The dog lies down, puts its head on its paws and looks grumpily at us.
Dave reaches into his overcoat pocket, takes out a sheaf of notes, and puts it on the seat between us.
‘That’s two hundred,’ he says. ‘The Baileys are opening an all-night drinker on Walmer Road tonight. Nick’ll be there in his best bib and tucker with his firm.’
‘How am I going to get to him through that lot?’
‘He likes a young dolly.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘Me and the lads are going to drop in after closing time and stir it up a bit.’
I pick up the money, put it in my pocket, and open the car door. ‘Where in Walmer Road?’ I say.
‘Corner of Runcorn Place.’
The dog gets to its feet and gives a weak bark as I head for the gate.
Dave gets out of the car and walks towards the shed.
I need to see Jack.
I grip the money in my pocket and walk back to the hospital. I go in through the main entrance and the woman behind the glass partition asks me what I want. I tell her I’m waiting for someone and stand near the double doors. A few minutes later she
drops her pen on the floor, bends down to find it and I slip through the doors and up the stairs to the children’s ward.
It’s quieter now. Most of the kids seem to be sleeping or lying staring up at the ceiling. A little boy cries out and a nurse gets up from a desk at the far end and goes to him. I go through the door behind the desk while she bends over him and open the door to the room Jack was in before.
I go to his bedside and look at his pale little face behind the plastic mask. His breathing sounds weaker than it was and his forehead still feels hot. The door opens and the nurse who sent us away earlier comes in.
She shuts the door behind her and puts her hands on her hips. ‘You, girl! You must not be here!’ she hisses.
‘He’s worse, isn’t he?’
‘You’ve got to get out. Doctor’s coming now and if he sees you we’re both in big trouble.’
‘I’ve got to see the doctor.’
‘You can’t do that. He’s a very busy doctor. You must go.’
The door opens and the doctor from yesterday with the dark hair comes in. He sees me and says to the nurse, ‘It’s not visiting time is it?’
The nurse says, ‘She sneak in somehow. I tell her to go but she won’t.’
The doctor looks at me.
‘Nurse, kindly remove this girl so that I can attend to this patient,’ he says.
‘I can pay,’ I say.
‘What?’ he says.
‘For his treatment.’
‘He’s being treated already.’
‘It’s better if I pay though, isn’t it?’
‘Since you ask, it makes no difference. He’s receiving intravenous antibiotics and corticosteroids and he’s isolated in a sterile environment, at least he was, until you burst in and began contaminating the atmosphere with the filth of the backstreets. All this is presently being paid for by Her Majesty’s Government and I’d advise you to be grateful for that and leave immediately, so that I can instruct the nurse to clear his airways.’
The nurse opens the door and I go into the corridor. She follows me out and says, ‘Don’t you worry, dear. He’s a very good doctor. You come back tomorrow. Visiting hour.’
‘Will he be all right?’
‘Come back tomorrow.’
• • •
I come out of the hospital onto Harrow Road. Cars and lorries and carts are pushing and shoving in a hurry to get somewhere. I start to cry. I want to run back and pick Jack up and bring him with me, jump on one of these lorries and take him off to the country or the seaside and make him better. I sit down on the pavement and lean back against the wall of the hospital. I dry my eyes and tell myself that he’s best where he is with the snooty doctor and the big cuddly nurse.
A tall woman in a fur coat coming out of the hospital stops and looks at me. It’s the trustee lady who was talking to the nurse when I came this morning.
She comes over to me and says, ‘Is something the matter, dear?’ I look away from her.
‘Are you ill?’ she says.
I wipe my eyes and stand up. ‘No,’ I say.
‘You look distressed.’
She opens her hand bag, searches for something and says, ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘I’m all right.’
I turn to walk away from her but she puts her hand on my arm. ‘Here, have this,’ she says.
She puts sixpence in my hand. I look at her worried face, full of pity and half a smile. I throw the tanner on the floor and walk away.
‘Well, really!’ she says.
At the traffic lights I look back and see her getting into the back of a long black car.
The traffic stops and I cross the road. I feel dirty and shabby suddenly. I grip the money in my pocket. I want to go up West to the posh shops and doll myself up, but I’ve been wearing these same old threads for years and with what’s going off tonight, it might not be so shrewd to look like I’ve suddenly got money to throw around. I’ll go to Claire’s later and get the loan of a tight blouse and a pencil skirt and some shoes. For now, I’ll settle for a hot soak up Silchester Baths before I pick up Georgie from school. I need to make sure she doesn’t go to the hospital and get herself taken into care.
I get to the baths and hand fourpence to the old cow on the desk. She gives me a towel and half a bar of carbolic and writes number seven on a ticket. I find my cubicle, go in and close the bolt on the door. I take out the bath plug, turn on the cold tap and wash some hair and grime out of the bottom of the bath. Then I turn on the hot tap, sit on the wooden chair beside the bath and watch the steam rising. When it’s full, I take my clothes off and step into the warm silky water. As the heat seeps into my bones I start to feel sleepy, and I hold my breath and let my head slide under the water. I stay under as long as I can, then I breathe out and come up and rest my head back and feel the cool edge of the bath against my neck.
I feel so bad about our Jack. I should have taken him to the doctor before, but I never knew it was the whooping cough. I know that kids die from it. I’ll go up again tomorrow. I can only hope he’s all right.
I look down through the lovely warm water to where he hurt me. The bruises on my thighs are turning blue now. I brush my fingertips over them ever so lightly and then I stroke myself between my legs. I remember the feel of the soft skin on Lizzie’s neck when she put her arms round me when I’d killed Johnny and I want her to hold me again and kiss me; the feeling’s growing and getting stronger and it’s spreading out all over me and I’m crying out suddenly and there’s a banging on the door and a voice.
‘You all right in there?’
It’s her from the desk. I grip the sides of the bath, take a deep breath and say, ‘Yeah, thanks … I slipped over on the soap.’
I can hear her walking away. I top up the hot water and lie back again for a bit. I wash my hair with the soap, and then I wash the rest of me. I step out onto the cork mat beside the bath, dry myself and dress. I dab what’s left of the carbolic with the towel, put it in my pocket and go back to the desk. When I offer the wet towel to the old bag, she frowns at me and points at a bin beside her. I lob the towel in and walk out into the sunny street.
I pick up Georgie and take her home. She wants to go to the hospital, but I explain what happened when I went back earlier and she agrees to wait until the morning. When we get home, I make her a boiled egg and bread and marge. She eats half the egg and none of the bread. When I try to feed her, she jumps down, goes to the bedroom and sits reading a book she’s brought from school.
Mum’s sitting on her mattress with a drink, mumbling and looking round the room. I boil her an egg, show it to her and put it on the table. I try to sit her at the table, but she won’t move, so I leave her to it and eat the egg myself. I push the plate away and sit looking at the rotten state of the place, the mould on the grey walls and the clapped-out furniture, and I think it’s a miracle we’re not all ill with the whooping cough.
I hear a dog bark and voices downstairs. I go out onto the landing and look over the bannister. The rent collector is standing by the front door in his sharp suit, with his stick and his dog. Three black men carrying suitcases and carrier bags walk past him and go through the door into the ground floor front room. The rent collector goes in after them.
I go back into ours and sit down at the table. The dog’s barking downstairs and someone’s shouting. I decide I’m going to get us out of here as soon as I can. I go into the bedroom and tell Georgie to stay indoors while I go round to Claire’s.
13
I reach Laredo and follow signs to the Mexican border. After leaving the interstate and driving downtown in the gathering dusk, I stop at a hardware store and buy a roll of duct tape. I take the gun from under the front seat, crawl under the car and tape the gun to the topside of one of the chassis members. I check the map, drive across a four lane bridge over the Rio Grande into one of several separated traffic lanes at the far end, and tell the gum chewing Mexican customs official who examines my passport t
hat I am meeting my husband in Acapulco. When he looks in the boot of the car and questions my lack of luggage I tell him that American Airlines lost my suitcase. He waves me through and I drive into Mexico.
A mile or so into Nuevo Laredo, I see a sign for Highway 85 to Monterrey. I am soon clear of the town and rolling south again. I glance at the fuel gauge, see that the needle is flickering on empty and stop at the next gas station. The pump attendant is a busy little middle-aged guy with a cheeky smile who talks non-stop, in staccato Spanish, while he fills the tank, cleans the windscreen and takes my money, seeming not to require any response from me as he does so. I can still hear him chattering away as I get into the car and drive off. By midnight I reach the outskirts of Monterrey and pull into a motel. There is a lone pick-up truck in the car park. A lumpen receptionist sits behind a counter, smoking a cigar and watching baseball through a snowstorm on a small TV. I get his attention, point to the tariff on the wall and make the international mime gesture for sleep. He takes a key from a hook on the wall and mutters something ending in pesos. I hand him a note and he digs in a drawer for change. He takes me along a dark corridor to a room with a small double bed, a Formica sideboard and a tattered armchair. He hands me the key, points to a bathroom a couple of doors away and goes back to his baseball. I lie on the bed and take in the drab brown wallpaper and the sour smell of rancid bedding. I think of Charlene in her trailer and wonder if she’s sleeping. I wish I could be with her, giving her any comfort that I could, and feeling a warm body beside me.
I am woken by a knock at the door. I see that it is light outside and I am lying on the bed fully dressed. I am suddenly afraid that Lee has come after me for some reason and I curse myself for not bringing the gun from the car. I pick up a metal table lamp from the sideboard, hold it behind my back, move to the door and open it quickly. A small birdlike woman holding a mop and a plastic bucket is looking up at me. She says something that sounds like an apology and backs away. I put down the table lamp, point to my wrist and ask her what the time is. She shows me her watch and I can see that it is ten thirty. I smile at her, beckon her into the room, take a towel and the car key from the sideboard and cross to the bathroom.