She touched the front door handle and then withdrew her hand. She looked at the boys and closed her eyes and said some words in her head to whomever was listening.
‘Where are we going?’ the older boy asked when they were in the hallway.
‘Sshh,’ the mother said. ‘We must be quiet now.’
But it was already too late. The door was opening, and he stood peering at them, Mr Mihashi. The mother stopped, paralysed.
‘You … you are going out?’ Mr Mihashi asked.
‘Yes, yes. We are going … We are going to …’ She could not find the words, the excuses, the lies she needed.
‘You go on holidays?’ Mr Mihashi suggested, noticing the suitcase.
‘Yes, yes. We go on holidays,’ she nodded quickly. ‘We are going on a holiday.’
But he could see the face, tear-stained, and the way the hands shook, and he had an inkling he might never see her again.
‘You … you must wait. One moment. You must wait, Mrs Odesola,’ he said. He shuffled into his apartment.
The mother glanced at the elevator doors at the end of the hallway. If the doors opened and her husband appeared she did not know how she would survive. She thought she would leave now, before it was too late. But then she heard his voice.
‘I can find not so many things.’ Mr Mihashi came towards them stuffing fruit and biscuits and rice crackers into a shoulder bag. He gave it to the older boy to carry. ‘When, when you are on holidays my English will decline.’
‘Your English is very good, Mr Mihashi,’ the mother said. ‘You have nothing to worry about.’
‘Our talking, Mrs Odesola, it brings me many, many pleasures. You must have a good holidays, a good rest,’ he said. ‘Gifted, Mrs Odesola. You also are gifted. You see, I use it already.’ He gave a broad smile.
‘Thank you, Mr Mihashi. You are very kind. You have always been kind to us. But we must go now or we will be late.’
They walked to the elevator and waited. As the doors opened and the mother picked up the suitcase, Mr Mihashi called, ‘Mrs Odesola,’ from his open door, but then he was quiet. He waved to the boys.
‘Look, it’s still snowing,’ the older boy said.
The ground was thick with it as they trudged down the hill towards the bus stop. The mother struggled with the suitcase as the pavement was too soft with snow to wheel it.
‘Is anyone inside?’ Dayo asked as they walked past the nursery.
‘No, stupid,’ his brother said. ‘Everyone’s at home.’
The boy thought about this for a moment. ‘I’m not at home,’ he said.
They walked in silence until they arrived at the bottom of the hill. It was busier here; cars came and went, and passers-by stared at them. When they turned to cross the road, the mother slipped. She came down hard and lost her grip on the suitcase. She felt it all in her thin body: her thighs, her ribs, her neck, the bruised places. But the snow cushioned the impact. The boys came running to her, making noises of concern. She looked at them. She looked up at the sky, at the snow falling in her face, and she began to laugh. When they saw her laughing, the boys smiled uncertainly. They helped her up and the older boy dragged the suitcase for a while, but he was not strong enough to take it across the road.
When they were in the hotel room, the mother began to remember things she had forgotten: their slippers, her nightgown, all their toothbrushes, her underwear. She would have to buy these things the next day. She thought of everything she would have to do: the phone calls, the travel arrangements, the decisions she would make back home. The chaos.
‘I left the oven on!’ she gasped.
The boys turned away from the television to look at her. They were sitting on the carpet, eating the biscuits Mr Mihashi had packed for them.
The older boy asked, ‘What should we do?’
The mother shrugged and said, ‘It doesn’t matter now.’ She began to notice a side to herself that wanted to return to switch off the oven, to be back in the apartment, and she would always have to fight this side.
The boys still looked at her because they were all anxious.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You watch your programme. You shouldn’t worry.’
She sat on the edge of the bed, gazing beyond their heads at the glowing television screen, at the machines that changed and moved and fought just like humans. She saw them everywhere.
IN THE GARDEN
HE SITS ON a plastic chair by the sliding doors, gazing out at the people in the garden. He spots you, then
quickly looks away, pretends not to notice your arrival.
You place a hand on his shoulder and he says, ‘Oh!’ He’s surprised. You reach down to brush his forehead and he looks out at the garden again. He does not want you to think he has been waiting.
‘Look!’ He points. ‘Mrs Emmerson.’
You follow the wavering line of his index finger. Mrs Emmerson is being guided by a nurse’s aide with tiny twists for hair and a heavy jaw line. She steers the old woman with an iron grip. You think, she’ll do. I wonder what she would be like? As firm as she is being with Mrs Emmerson?
‘She’s looking good today, Mrs Emmerson,’ you say to your father. ‘We haven’t seen her up and about for a while.’
Your father nods, pleased you have noticed this, noticed something he has pointed out. You drag another chair and sit beside him, watching the two women’s slow progress beyond the patio. There are other people too: Mr Garcia, Sheila Wickham, Grumpy Les. You do not know all their names. A flotilla of clouds passes, cooling the air. It disappears and the warmth returns. You wish he would say more, your father, that he could say more, but it is an effort for him.
‘Look!’ he says, and you look again, but only for an instant. You smile at him and he smiles for you. This is when your patience is tested. You are ready to leave after less than ten minutes, but you do not want to see his face collapse. You do not want to be responsible for that again. You think of words you can say. Sentences. The child who fell into the Thames, who could not swim. By the time you arrived he was nearly dead, but he came back. ‘I rescued him,’ you could say. Or, ‘Sometimes we speak on the phone, but she’s more and more distant. I don’t think she’ll ever come back.’ You could mention the roses at the edge of your garden. Your Ferdinand Pichards. How their bloom surprises you constantly. How the view from the kitchen window is changing. Like television, you want to say, only slower, without actors.
Mrs Emmerson and the nurse’s aide have moved beyond the ash tree. You cannot see their faces now, only their shapes and the brilliant white of Mrs Emmerson’s house dress, the azure blue of the aide’s uniform.
‘What are you thinking, Papa?’ you ask. He only wants to stare through the glass and smile. ‘There is someone at work,’ you say. ‘Edna – she’s always asking after you. Maybe I can bring her sometime? If we’re in the area? She’s nice; you’d like her. I can tell. She’s a nice person.’
Your father nods and smiles and repeats ‘nice’, but you do not know what he feels. Sometimes you talk and you wonder if he really knows you, understands the words you say.
‘She had a ring through her nose when she first started, but they asked her to remove it. “Potentially dangerous”, they said. She made a big stink, but she looks much better without it.’
You smile at the memory and your father laughs along with you. It is time, you think. You reach across to him. There is a visible recoil, a look in his eyes. Fear. You hold him, but there is no response. He is so thin against you, a person wasting away. You leave him there in the plastic chair by the patio. He looks at you, at the floor, back to you again. He does not want you to go, but you cannot stay. He watches you limp out of the room – he must know who you are now, one leg shorter than the other. His crippled son. He will never forget that.
Edna says, ‘What are they looking at? Really, just what are they looking at?’
You shrug as Victor parks the ambulance. They make the shape of a fan, a
butterfly; the men up front, the women, the children in-between, as they peer on tiptoe over the people ahead. Two or three dirty-faced children squeeze to the front, but they do not know what to focus on, not really. You move as swiftly as you can holding the blanket like a matador’s cape, your stiff clover uniform, the muted clip of your shoes against the road. Your head is bleating already in the afternoon sun when you see her pinned against the fence.
‘Jesus!’ Victor says under his breath, and he tries to disperse the crowd.
There are two thin lines of raspberry lipstick sealed against her face. But the people do not witness this; her face is turned away from them. They do not see how beautiful she is, only the twisted ribbon of her body, the thin arms wrapped around the pylon, the summer dress, the newly waved hair, the stocking still clinging to the leg, the separated knee. She looks alive, but, on the other hand, she is as far from life as it is possible to be. Perhaps it is because she is beautiful. Was beautiful. You wonder – where is her life now, her soul, her essence? She looks up, resigned. Not startled or angry or even afraid. Her eyes barely register surprise.
A battered Datsun sits several metres away, the dent of her body in its side, the blush of her existence sprayed onto its white surface. The driver sits sideways, feet on the tarmac. His mouth is moving, but the words do not arrive. You look at Victor, nod towards the driver, and keep walking, holding the blanket. You cover the woman so the people can no longer see. Why do they always congregate; their open mouths, the curious, nervous eyes? A woman in a crocus-yellow cardigan drops to her knees, crosses herself and begins to mutter.
‘There’s nothing to see,’ Edna calls. ‘Stand back.’
‘Time to move on,’ a policeman shouts. He uses his hands to push them away.
They pick up their bags, their laundry, hitch their belts, shuffle back, but no one is willing to leave. The woman in the cardigan is praying openly now in the clear space vacated by the others. After a moment, the crowd surges forward again near to where she kneels. A child stands staring at her, the praying woman, as if she is the spectacle.
You and Victor release the woman from her grip on the fence. You do your checks, but they are superfluous now. Edna and another paramedic bring the stretcher, and the people part so you can carry the body away. You watch them in the wing mirror as the vehicle departs. They stand there, waiting. You notice the woman praying still, facing the now vacant fence. Perhaps she is still there for them, the woman in the back of your ambulance. Her soul. Something.
‘I’m starving. Anyone for food?’ Victor asks.
‘I’ve just eaten, thanks,’ says Edna.
‘Sunday?’
‘I’m fine. Not hungry. Later maybe.’ But you will not eat.
You drive and you wonder what your father is doing. You do not think about the woman in the back, her face a porcelain doll’s, the body ruined beyond repair. Is he sitting by the sliding doors, is he occupied with someone else, has he eaten? Is he alone? The thoughts swim in your head. You must stop thinking, worrying. You like the work you do. It takes you away – the drama, the variety, the times you are useful. Sometimes you are shocked by what you see, but you have a job to do and you do not think; you are only working, working, working.
Edna asks, ‘How is your father these days?’
You are rolling cigarettes on the hospital balcony. A warm wind lifts her copper coloured hair from her face. For a moment she looks younger, fresher. Less like Edna.
‘Still the same,’ you say. What can you say? ‘He’s smiling, noticing things. Don’t think he recognizes me, though.’ You huddle away from the breeze to strike a match while Edna waits for you. You suck in the nicotine and let it linger and exhale and it feels good. You light her cigarette with your own. You say, ‘All medicine involves critical thinking and problem solving, right? A problem is presented to us. We take what we know about the human body and use that knowledge – with equipment and medication – to create a positive outcome … There’s no positive outcome with him.’
You are both quiet for a minute with your cigarettes. Edna peers over the railing at the parking lot, at the path leading from the Tube station to the hospital, the procession of patients and staff.
‘You should visit more often,’ she says. ‘That might help. It might trigger something. Do you take photographs?’
‘Take photographs?’
‘Of when you were younger. Of the family. It could help trigger his memory. Help him to remember.’
‘Sometimes I do,’ you lie. You do not want the conversation to continue. To satisfy her you say, ‘Perhaps you’re right; I should go more often. There never seems to be enough time.’ But you know you will not increase your visits. Everything will remain as before.
Edna reaches out, touches your arm, returns to the staff lounge.
It would be nice, you and Edna, you think sometimes. She does not overtax you. She is not unattractive. She knows what to say, what to do in situations other people would balk at: when there is a loss, a calamity, people needing to be spoken to honestly, soothed. She would be a good mother. Sometimes you notice when she is with you, she talks too much. Fidgets. You know there is an interest there. But you do not want that ‘lovey-dovey’, that connection, the tenderness.
Crème brûlée. You work backwards in your mind. What should precede the dessert – veal, chicken? Even that is too heavy, too bloating for tonight. Fish would be perfect, but you would like something new, something you have never tasted before. You ask for red snapper at the counter, and hurry to fruit and vegetables, and make your selection. You do not like to linger under the cold fluorescent light. Other people’s idiotic stumbling irritates you. By the time you arrive in your kitchen, everything is planned, even the timing.
You fry the sauce – okra and red-green tomatoes – and cover over the red snapper. You dip the cauliflower florets in batter and fry until lightly browned. In the minutes when there is nothing to do, you dash to the dining room and arrange things: the candles, the three place mats, the spray of white lilies in the centre of the table.
While you are eating the cauliflower, savouring the zest of lemon in tahini sauce, the alarm sounds – the fish is ready. This is inconvenient. Do you allow it to bake for another five minutes, do you interrupt your first course to turn off the oven and lower the snapper? Decisions. You gather the two untouched dishes and empty the florets into the bin. This is a shame, but there is a schedule to adhere to. The fish is tender and steaming, not a minute over-cooked. The eyes have shrunk, the tip of the tail only slightly curled. The white wine is cool and fruity – a hint of melon – a perfect complement. You raise your glass to the two other chairs: at the head of the table and opposite you. You do not sit at the head since this is not your place. According to the clock you are eight minutes late. No time for pause between dishes now.
You hobble back to the kitchen. The blow torch is nowhere to be found. Eleven minutes behind schedule. Will you be late, are you already late, are you trying to be late? You could forgo the dessert and be on your way, but that is not what you choose to do. Instead, you descend to the cellar and scour your work things. Nothing is out of place. Each drawer needs only a cursory glance and you can move on and there it is. Middle drawer, between tape measure and spirit level. You bound upstairs and crisp the crème brûlée with the flame. When it is perfect – not too caramelised – you sit to eat. You savour the crunch of the skating-rink surface against the soft underbelly. You do not look at the wall clock again until the ramekin is empty. You glance at the two ramekins ahead and beside you, the nervous energy of the candles, the soft fading light of the summer evening. Your mother loved this dessert.
There is a diversion which takes you out of your way. The traffic is worse than expected. By the time you park outside the house there is no longer any point in worrying. You ring the bell to number fifty-four and there is such a long silence you think no one is in. Several children are playing hopscotch on the pavement – three girls, and
a boy with Down’s syndrome. The boy jumps in when it isn’t his turn, tries to imitate the girls’ moves. But he is hopeless. The girls allow this, though. They seem patient and kind. A middle-aged man walks a terrier towards the park at the end of the road.
‘You’re late,’ she says. She is standing in the doorway in her work clothes – the pinstripe skirt and jacket – as if she is not going to let you in. She looks you up and down, then moves to one side, jerks her head. ‘Get in there, you.’
‘Sorry. I lost track of time. There was a diversion. I’m sorry.’ You stumble at the entrance in your clumsy right shoe, swaying slightly, balancing.
‘I’ll give you sorry,’ she says. ‘Like I care. Pathetic. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.’
She leads you to the utility room at the back of the house. There is an assortment of clothes and contraptions heaped in a basket. She tells you what to wear and you do not question her. She watches you undress, watches as you put on the outfit she has selected.
‘These are too tight,’ you complain, indicating the thigh-high boots.
She looks at you, then looks away. Sniffs. ‘Come with me.’ She leads you to the room downstairs. You know where everything is, what everything does, what it is all used for. But you do not know what she has planned for tonight. You wonder when she will get changed.
She leaves you there, your head under the guillotine, ankles and wrists tied together, neck squeezed in the lunette. Facing the floor. You hear her movements on the stairs, in the rooms above. What has she chosen to wear tonight? You liked the rubber body suit she wore last time, but she does not wear the same outfit consecutively. Will she use the paddle, the hose pipe, a switch from the garden? Please, not the leather bullwhip. Your mind is full of the possibilities and it excites and frightens you both.
Her footsteps clunk on the stairs – the slow, sideways descent of stilettos. She is wearing a raincoat. You wonder what it conceals.
A Life Elsewhere Page 21