by Jane Davis
Jim frowned. “It can’t be my father.”
“Not your brother?” Ayisha suggested.
“Uh-uh. This guy’s old and,” Sophia sighed loudly, “How am I gonna put this politely? We couldn’t let him in without puttin’ him in quarantine first.”
“Bins?”
“That’s how they say he smells. He’s refusing to go anywhere else without seein’ you.” The nurse threw up her hands. “I’m not sure what we should do!”
“Is there any chance I could go down?”
“I don’t know about that.” Sophia’s eyes flared. “I’ve seen you breaking out in a sweat getting back from the bathroom.” Tight-mouthed, Sophia consulted the chart on the end of Jim’s bed then sighed heavily. “I s’pose your friend here could smuggle you down in a wheelchair. But not for long. Don’t make me come looking for you!”
“Sophia, you’re a gem.”
The nurse turned to Ayisha: “You’re in charge, you hear?”
Ayisha stood aghast, but Jim was holding one hand out to her enthusiastically. “Pass me my binoculars, will you? They’re on the table.”
Ayisha picked them up, then brought them to her chest. “Have we got time for this?”
“Bins must be here because of Shamayal. Ordinarily, he never goes anywhere.”
“They know each other?”
“Bins knows everybody.”
“If it’s not a stupid question, what do you need your binoculars for?”
“Because he won’t recognise me unless I’m wearing them.”
CHAPTER 41: JIM - AUGUST 1992 - 407 BUS
Every detail of Jim’s journey to the police station has been consigned to memory. Catching the bus; the hands that steered him past the inviting staircase into the first available seat; shuffling sideways across coarse tartan; hemmed into a window seat; grime-encrusted glass blotting out his view of the bridge.
The heater under the seat spewed ankle-scalding air, but Jim felt little. Save for the knot that tightened his stomach, all his pain was condensed into the door-punched knuckles of his right hand, the sight of which caused his mother to sigh so. Pretending to nurse them, he squeezed extra mileage out of his hand when it stopped throbbing quite so violently. The foot closest to his mother was idly tapping, poised for the first opportunity to escape.
Jean cupped the offending knee. “Just tell the truth. That’s all you have to do.”
Sinking down, Jim stared at the graffiti on the back of the seat in front: names of people who had marked their territory like dogs leaving scent on a tree. Where did that instinct comes from? Was it a way of warning other people off, or was it just the need to leave something behind? He thought again of the curves and loops of Aimee’s handwriting. If his mother hadn’t been seated beside him - if he’d had a pen or a Swiss army knife - he would have left a mark for her. An RIP.
Jim’s chin rested on the knot of the tie Mum had made him wear. It was his uniform tie: the only one he owned. He was conscious of the way his mother held her handbag, elbows tucked in by her waist, making herself as narrow as possible. He knew how difficult any contact with the police was for her - particularly helping them with their enquiries. They’d taken away her husband. Despite the domino effect Frank had on their lives, she couldn’t help feeling a certain loyalty. Still, she wanted Jim to ‘do right’.
“All you can do is tell them the truth.”
In the past, as far as Jim was concerned, truth was a dangerous thing. You tell the other guy where your weak spots are, it’s like taking the stabilizers off your bike; going into battle minus your armour. The only person who had managed to extract anything resembling the truth from him was Aimee. It wasn’t that he’d trusted her. It was just he didn’t think she could harm him with it. The summer had taught Jim a very powerful thing: when you tell the truth you can be yourself. “This is me: like it or lump it.” He had told Aimee the worst about himself, and she had shrugged, “You think you’re the only one with problems?”
But what if it’s not just your story you’re telling? It wasn’t as though Aimee was there to ask, “Is it OK if I tell them what you were doing when I first saw you?”
If Jim answered the policewoman’s questions, would he be helping Aimee? Or should he leave the lid safely on that can of worms? Stare as he might, the letters on the back of the seat in front refused to spell out any answers, and then - too soon - his mother was saying, “This must be our stop,” grabbing the pole to haul herself up and ringing the flat-sounding bell.
CHAPTER 42: JIM - AUGUST 2010 - ST HELIER HOSPITAL
Ayisha wheeled Jim out of the lift. The first set of automatic doors whooshed apart as they approached, and a rumble of traffic accosted them. It felt strange to be venturing outside.
“Do you know?” he attempted light-heartedness, “This will be the first time in almost six weeks that I haven’t had to look at the sky through a pane of glass.”
A porter approached, addressing Ayisha: “Need a hand, love?”
“Thanks, but we’ll only be a few minutes.”
The second set of doors parted. Even greeted by the trill of a blackbird Jim felt apprehensive. Shading his eyes, he looked back at the entrance to read the raised letters of the plaque informing visitors that Conservative MP John Major was born here. He had always relied on his memory, but he could not remember arriving at the hospital or the two days that followed.
Ayisha rounded the front of the chair and pulled a pair of folded sunglasses from the v of her t-shirt. The sky’s blue was the colour of her top and its wispy clouds were a mirror of her skirt. “Here. Borrow these.”
They were the oversized type that female film stars use to disguise themselves from prying photographers. He would look like a fool in them. “Bins won’t recognise me if I wear them.” As with all good excuses, this one had the benefit of being true.
“So you keep saying.” She dangled the sunglasses in front of his face. “I don’t remember being consulted, but apparently I’m responsible for you.”
“It’s true! He doesn’t recognise faces, so he relies on the shape of your hair, what you’re wearing, how you move -”
Ayisha seemed to find this amusing. It took Jim a moment to catch up. It wasn’t Bins’s disability she was laughing at: it was him. He hadn’t had a haircut for six weeks, the shape of his face was altered by drugs and several days’ growth and, here he was, in a wheelchair! The thought of how altered he was depressed Jim. Not the lack of a haircut: that could be fixed. It was his wasted muscles; his new pot-belly; the fact that his body had aged, to say nothing of his mind.
“Like Chuck Close?” she was asking.
“Who?”
“You know. The American artist.”
Jim didn’t.
“I saw a documentary about him. One of those unpromising-looking things that turns out to be really interesting. He was treated like an idiot when he was growing up, all because he didn’t seem to be able to remember people’s names, while the real issue was that he couldn’t tell them apart.”
Jim chuckled at this revelation. Suddenly it was very clear why he needed to wear binoculars.
“There’s a name for his condition. Prospognose, prospagnose - something beginning with ‘P’. Anyway, it means ‘face blindness’.”
Was it possible that face blindness was all that had ever been wrong with Bins, but they’d managed to convince him otherwise? With a new wave of nostalgia at the thought of seeing the old man, Jim looked about. Where could he have got to?
Colours seemed more vivid than their memory. Everywhere, there were contrasts: the red of a Dial-a-ride bus; the yellow of an ambulance; the brown of a dog studiously sniffing the base of the wall at the entrance while his owner - oblivious - tugged at the lead. The dog, who only then decided to cock his leg, was dragged, hopping and yelping, leaving a dark trail. Behind the low wall a congregation of loyal smokers - most of them nurses - watched the queue for the car park lengthen. Beyond that, the green of a playing fiel
d. As Jim filled his lungs with the diesel-perfumed air, he remembered its borders filled with daffodils when he last came to visit his mother. She always said it was the trains that gave her headaches. All those years... she should have realised something else was wrong.
“Can you see him anywhere?” Ayisha was asking as she pushed him past the Dial-a-ride bus.
Jim checked himself: he had become unanchored again. “No.” He looked to his left; through the gap between two parked vehicles he saw a man wearing a fluorescent tabard, crouched down. “Wait! Back up a bit.” The first man was speaking to an old man in a tatty raincoat, who was sitting on the kerb, shaking his low-bent head in a continuous flow of worry. “That’s him.”
“Poor thing looks lost.” The chair jerked as Ayisha struggled to manoeuvre it.
On hearing their approach, the Dial-a-ride man glanced over his shoulder and raised the hand that was on Bins’s shoulder in a gesture that was neither a wave nor a warning. “We don’t want you blacking out again,” he was cautioning gently. To Jim’s frown, the man mouthed in an exaggerated manner that displayed his teeth, ‘He’s fine.’
“That’s it,” Jim said. “I’m getting out of this chair.”
“I’m the one in charge and I don’t think you should,” Ayisha warned.
But he was already pushing upwards. “Three steps, that’s all. Then I’m going to sit back down.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. “At least let me help you.”
Once on his feet, Jim moved cautiously, a slow-sliding motion more suited to polished corridors. He was grateful for the arm Ayisha offered, but it was a far stretch of the imagination to think she could support the weight of a hefty six-footer. Pulling his dressing gown tightly over his backside, he levered himself down to the kerbstone. As he dropped the final few inches and rocked backwards, as his binoculars gently nudged his chest, something seemed to give - perhaps an internal stitch. “Blimey!” He laughed to reassure Ayisha. “That was further down than I thought.”
Bins opened one eye and saw the binoculars. He curled his hands into barrels and squinted through them: “Jim Stevens! You’ve grown a beard.”
The Dial-a-ride man reached one hand around Bins and said amicably, “Let me shake you by the hand, Jim. Good on you.”
“Tony Maloney,” Bins concurred, addressing Jim’s binoculars. “He drove me here today.”
“Tony.” Stiffly, Jim twisted his body to reciprocate, although this was a stretch too far for him - both the physical reach and the matching of images in his head. “Good to see you.” The man clasping his hand was balding, jolly and middle-aged, and the other… a bully who dangled small boys from balconies. “So this is your bus?” he said stupidly.
“That’s me. We’ve had a right old song and dance, haven’t we, mate? Never mind.” Tony slapped Bins’s knee before heaving himself up. “You’re here now, Jim. I don’t suppose there’s anywhere I can get a cuppa?” He winked. “Leave the two of you to catch up.”
Jim opened his mouth, but Ayisha was already pointing the way. “There’s a café, just inside and to the left.”
Bins appeared distracted. Following the old man’s sight line, Jim noticed that, in the sunlight, Ayisha’s linen skirt was see-through, revealing the smooth outline of her thighs and the t-bar of an insubstantial g-string. Ayisha would be mortified if she knew this. Thank God it wasn’t something she’d wear to work: the boys would have a field day, posting photographs by the dozen on Facebook.
Only Tony appeared capable of ignoring the vision. “Keep an eye on him, won’t you, Jim?”
“Bins, this is my friend -”
“Hello Princess Jasmine.” The old man slowly inclined his head. “I’m sorry I can’t stand up, but my head is dizzy.”
You sly old charmer! Jim thought, turning to see Ayisha’s unblinking reaction.
“Then I’ll join you - if that’s alright.” She crouched, holding her see-through skirt modestly in place under her knees with one hand and putting the other on the kerb to take her weight.
“Actually, Princess,” Bins winced. “I need to talk to Jim Stevens. In private.” He copied her etiquette. “If that’s alright.”
Jumping back up, she employed her schoolteacher voice: “Five minutes and that’s your lot! I’ll go and keep Tony company.”
They both watched her walk towards the entrance, pushing the empty wheelchair. A few yards away, she turned back to ask, “Does anyone want anything? Latte? Water?”
“No,” they replied in unison, eyes lifting to her face.
Her eyebrows twitched slightly. “OK,” she said and went on her way.
“She’s lovely.” Bins was toying with the frayed ends of the string that hung from the belt-loops of his raincoat. “Is she your girlfriend?”
Jim thought of Ayisha’s bedside vigil over the past five weeks, the softening of her large anxious eyes. He had no idea how to describe what had passed between them, except that he had never before trusted anyone enough to tell them what he had just told her. What had made him take the risk? “I don’t know how to answer that,” he spoke honestly.
“Does she know…?” He nodded after Ayisha. The further away she got, the more pronounced the outline of her thighs became.
Jim stopped Bins with a firm, “No.” Then, seeing fear shadow the old man’s face, he softened his voice. “Princess Jasmine! How did you dream that up?”
Bins grinned sheepishly. The plaque of his teeth was stained orange-brown. “She’s the Disney character with the lovely brown skin and the dark hair.”
“Her name’s Ayisha,” he said.
“Ayisha Stevens.”
“Ayisha Emmanuel!” Even as he snorted air through his nostrils defiantly, Jim was aware of feeling light-headed. “Why is everyone ganging up on me?”
“No, no.” Bins wagged a finger. “Everyone’s ganging up on Shamayal.”
Instantly, the small talk was over. As suspected, this was no social call. Jim’s recent history with the old man would hardly justify the effort it must have taken for him to leave the estate. “You know where he is?” Jim asked.
Bins picked up what looked like a small button from the ground. “I know where I left him.” He licked it tentatively. “Orange Smartie.”
Jim refused to be side-tracked. He felt like demanding facts, but Bins had to be coaxed. “And where’s that?”
“They dumped him in one of the bins, but I’ve moved him to the boiler room. It’s warmer there.”
Bins used to make it his business to know everyone. Jim doubted that had changed. He needed specifics. “Who dumped him?”
“It doesn’t seem like a normal game of hide-and-seek to me. He says they’re trying to protect someone.”
Struggling to piece together drip-fed information, Jim’s head pounded. The midday sun, directly overhead, threatened to burn his scalp. Perhaps he should have accepted Ayisha’s offer of sunglasses.
A mute ambulance pulled up behind another ambulance outside the entrance. Its driver disembarked and eyed the empty vehicle disdainfully, as if it might be bullied into moving.
“What kind of a state is he in?”
Bins waggled his head, sighed. “He can walk. But we need to get him away from there.”
Yes. Get him away from there. Jim wiped one hand from his mouth to his chin. “He’s in this mess because of me.” Think! “If I tell the police - even if they catch them - more will come. They’ll keep coming.”
“No police.” The old man’s voice was insistent. “That’s what Shamayal said. He wants to disappear himself.”
Feet traipsed past them: fat and squashed into court shoes; small and sandaled. A little-girl voice whined, “Why are they allowed to sit on the ground?” and was shushed. “Here! Have this!”
Watching the scrunched sweet-wrapper drop from a sticky hand, Jim’s mind turned to the empty jeans dangling from a branch. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“No, he has a plan.” Jim found Bins’s hand on his
shoulder, its fine lines highlighted with dirt. “It won’t be like Aimee White.”
Hearing her name from his lips came as a shock. To think, Bins knew it all along. He must have somehow connected the Verity who introduced herself to him with the picture of the girl whose photograph was splashed all over the news - perhaps by her frizzy hair, perhaps by her gap-toothed smile - figured out there was a reason she didn’t want to be known by her real name. Jim realised he had no idea what Bins’s given name was, but it wasn’t the time to ask. “I’ve got to get Shamayal away from here.” He stood and the sky turned black. Blinking stars, he staggered backwards finding a woozy kind of balance.
“You alright, Jim Stevens? You’ve gone a funny colour.”
“I’m fine.” Instinct warned Jim to lean forwards. Letting his head hang, his view was of hands that looked peculiarly unlike his own.
The old man was now bending over him. “Are you feeling dizzy as well?”
The tarmac appeared to be at the wrong angle. At least as blood delivered oxygen to his head he began to think straight: “I can’t go anywhere in this state.” Defeat forced him to be logical. “Anyway, I’m no good to Shamayal. If I go near him, I’ll put him in more danger. The same probably goes for Ayisha.”
Angling his head, Jim saw anxiety in Bins’s expression, but the old man’s voice was decisive: “Your brother. Nick Stevens.”
As his throat constricted, Jim fought the suggestion. His legs hurt under the pressure from his hands. The tarmac beneath his feet was fluid. Jim racked his brains: there must be an alternative. “What about Tony? He’s got transport.” Even with this small adjustment in gravity, his face felt misshapen. “Are the nurses still behind the wall?”
“Yes.”
Speaking, even breathlessly, was an effort. “I’m going to need them.”
“Over here!” Briefly, one of the old man’s hands passed through Jim’s line of vision. “A red bus stands out. It’s got to be Nick. No one questions a locksmith.”