by Rosie Chard
The doctor returned to the desk and sat down opposite me. “Any problems?”
I was certain I hadn’t taken snuff. “No.”
“Excellent.” He picked up a small torch, switched it on and shone it in my eye. “Look at my face.”
Looking is harder than listening. Listening can be anonymous. I tried not to peer straight into his eyes; I focused on his nostril hairs, an assortment of whites and greys and blacks.
“Peripheral vision looks good. Hang on . . . don’t have a cat, do you?”
“No.”
“Cat’s hair under the top lid.”
I shuddered. “Is that a problem?”
“Animal fur and incisions aren’t the best bedfellows. I’ll get it out.” His hand hardly seemed to touch my eye so fast was the movement.
“Thank you. And . . . I have a question.”
“Fire away.”
“Is it possible that I could have been hit by an animal?”
“What sort of animal?”
I shifted in my seat. “I know it sounds a bit mad, but could it have been a bat?”
The doctor unfolded his hands from his lap. “A bat?”
“Yes, I was wondering if–”
“Most unlikely. Bats’ navigation systems are superb. Virtually infallible.”
“Virtually?”
“Well, yes. The only way they’d collide with a human is if they were sick or dying or if . . . their navigation was somehow . . . thrown off. Now Mr. Harcourt, any itching?”
“Not much.”
“You’re healing up very fast. Eyeballs are a tad dry, though.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Thanks.”
“I’ll get you some more moisturising drops. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Left alone with the giant eye, I felt nervous. It stared at me. I stared at it. It had an accusing look to it. No, I definitely hadn’t lifted any heavy objects, I felt certain. The doctor was taking a long time.
I glanced at the papers on his desk, and then I looked at the books on his shelf, avoiding the eye. Finally I picked up the stethoscope lying beside his computer. Such an odd instrument, I held it in my hand, not guilty, not worried, fully prepared to look the eye in the eye.
I slung it round my neck, all doctorly and professional. Then I placed the buds into my ears. They fitted rather nicely. I inspected the listening piece. It wasn’t rough and concave like the sound mirror but smooth and flat. I placed it down on the doctor’s desk. Silence. I placed it on my knee. More silence. Then, under the steady gaze of the eye I placed it on my chest. I’d never heard the inside of myself before. I’d always imagined calm in there, a tranquil environment of organs working in unison and blood quietly flowing. So I was unprepared for what I heard. A booming thump, thump, whoosh. Then a pause.
4:30 pm Friday 4th November
Tottenham Court Road Tube Station.
Old man: Smelt rotten down there.
Young man: What do you mean ‘rotten.’
Old man: Mouldy. Something rotting on the train. You didn’t mind me coming round with you, did you?
Young man: No.
Old man: Sure?
Young man: Yes, sure. But . . . you needn’t have bothered.
Old man: Why not?
Young man: He wasn’t there.
Old man: Wasn’t he?
Young man: Not today anyway.
Old man: Okay. Not today–
Young man: Hold on a second. Can you hear that noise?
Old man: What noise?
Young man: A sort of. . . .
Old man: Sort of what?
Young man: A hum . . . just a minute . . . a low frequency hum.
Old man: No.
Young man: Listen harder. It’s there. In the distance.
Old man: Nope. Nothing. It must be inside.
Young man: Inside what?
Old man: Inside your ears.
STANLEY was the first patient to enter the dentist’s waiting room. The staff seemed unprepared for the arrival of customers and he felt a little narked by the smell of early morning chlorine rising from the damp floor. He’d grown tired of the Job Centre. Everyone was either sad or boisterous (never both) and he’d begun to feel beaten up by the whole thing. Also, eavesdropping amongst the lost and dispirited had become increasingly difficult as he’d got known by the regulars, young lads with paint on their trousers and aftershave on the backs of their necks who insisted on pulling their chairs close to his and wanting to know what his problem was when he refused to impart the wisdom of his age.
He quickly set up camp in the corner of the waiting room with a copy of National Geographic on his lap and set to work on an article about the recreation of woolly mammoths in Outer Mongolia.
“You’re too early,” said the receptionist.
“That’s okay. I’ll catch up on my reading.” He winked in the direction of the woman behind the reception counter and returned to details of the legendary creatures with long hair and short woolly undercoats. He was puzzling over the shape of mammoth molars when he heard other people come into the room. He didn’t look up.
“How’s your Fred since he’s been in the old people’s home?” said a voice nearby.
“Oh, he’s really settled in now and I visit regularly,” replied another voice – deeper, rougher, ex-smoker.
“That’s good. My Reggie went in permanently a few weeks ago, and now he wants to come back home.
“Oh, yes?”
“But I’ve burnt his slippers.”
With his finger perched on a photo of an enormous tusk Stanley looked sideways. As predicted he saw two elderly women, matching handbags clutched tightly to their chests. But there was a third person in the room. A child. Alone.
Stanley dropped his gaze back down and studied a map of Distribution in the last glacial period.
“So what are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“The slippers?”
Stanley looked up again. The child was watching him. She wasn’t shy, not like he’d been at that age; she didn’t even have the expression of a child. He wasn’t good at guessing age; the girl had the body of a child but the eyes of a woman. He opened the magazine to a double page spread of the mammoth, turned it round and held it out towards her. She smiled. Her teeth were perfect, white and ultra-straight and he wondered, why was she there? Was she there on false pretenses too?
“Mr. Stipple, I’ve checked our diary and I can’t see any record of your appointment this morning.”
He didn’t like the receptionist’s tone one bit. “Oh, really?”
The woman glanced at the magazine on his lap. “Yes, really. Would you like to book one?”
Stanley rubbed his gum in the way he had seen cocaine addicts do it on the telly. “Yes. I’ll come tomorrow at eight o’clock.”
“Nothing until next week,” said the woman – cruelly, he felt.
“Don’t worry, I’ll come by just in case. In case of a cancellation.”
He didn’t look at the girl when he left the room, but he knew she was watching him.
Beryl was in a strop when Stanley got home. Not the usual. Not just the grumpy neck and hunched shoulders but a complete black mood of accusing eyes and sideward glances that rendered unspoken things said. He made a cup of tea then changed his mind and left it steeping on the kitchen top while he went upstairs to the bathroom. He pulled his lower lip down roughly and peered into the mirror. The inside of his mouth was shiny and pink as bubblegum but his teeth, oh my, his teeth, they were like pieces of broken brick pulled up from the soil. Not at all like her teeth; they had been spotless.
“We’re giving up caffeine,” Stanley announced to Beryl on returning to the kitchen. “We’ve got to get our teeth in better shape.” He peered into the cage. Beryl was grinding her beak on the cuttlefish, back and forth, back and forth. “I’m going to the chemist’s to get some supplies.”
Beryl didn’t answer.
> That was the day he started his new routine. Every morning he’d begin with the normal clean, the pea of toothpaste on the soft brush like everyone else up and down the land, followed by a sprinkling of water and the gentle up and down strokes. Then the deep clean would begin, the hard brush dipped in bleach, all finished off with a generous helping of salt rubbed round his gums. He was cultivating top quality gums – the envy of the street, the sort of gums that provided the backdrop to top quality words. And it didn’t really matter that his gums bled – they were new to such cleanliness – and it didn’t really matter that he had blood on his pillow every now and then. What mattered was that he could pull back his lips and show the world that there was more to this old codger than they first thought. Next he would purge his ears too. Yes, that was long overdue.
CHAPTER
23
I dreamt Jack wore a military uniform. I dreamt I brushed Missy’s hair. I dreamt I put Stanley in a drawer and closed it.
We had agreed a weekly meeting schedule – time enough to get out and about and listen to a statistically relevant sample, yet I found myself wishing time would move faster, that Friday would come sooner.
Stanley was holding court by the time I arrived for our fifth meeting, tipping his chair right back and talking about getting some customised T-shirts made up. Violet had a glazed look on her face, a look that could not be shattered even when he waved the sketch for his design in front of her face.
“What are you getting T-shirts made for, Stanley?” I said.
He frowned in a smiling way, and then he turned to Violet who filled in the missing word with all the enthusiasm of a teenager at a pension plan briefing. “Us.”
“What do you mean us?”
“We,” she said, as if by explanation.
Stanley took this as a cue to give the full story, not just the gist, but the extensive backstory involving his grandnephew’s art class and the hen party he’d seen from the top of the bus.
“He means we get matching clobber with an E on the front,” said Violet, briefly dragging her attention away from the half moon on her thumb that she was exposing with pokes from a vicious-looking tool.
Stanley smiled. “Yours has a bigger E than ours . . . as you’re the boss.”
“Stanley,” I said, struggling to keep condescension out of my voice, “the main idea is that people don’t notice us. We merge into the crowd. We disappear.”
“It’s not for work,” he said. “It’s for . . . you know, get-togethers.”
Now I was the idiot child, pinned beneath Stanley’s stare. “Whose get-togethers?” I said.
His look was of a mother who realised her child had been humiliated. “Ours,” he said gently.
Ours. The word seemed to mark the air.
“Stanley’s having a buffet at his house.”
It was Eve who spoke; she had eye make-up on for the first time I noticed, thin black lines that seemed to have landed randomly on the edge of her eyelids. I looked away and was instantly embroiled in judgmental imaginings of Stanley’s buffet: fish paste sandwiches, defrosted sausage rolls, tinned mandarins with evaporated milk.
“I thought I’d make a curry,” he said happily.
“But Stanley, why would we need matching T-shirts for a buffet at your house?” I said.
Stanley looked astonished. “To show we are family, of course.”
“It’s a nice idea, Stanley,” I straightened my papers, “. . . great idea, but can we start our reports and think about this later.”
“Maybe we could go over the details in the pub after work?” he said.
“Um . . .”
“I’ll pencil in the 15th, okay?”
“ . . . Okay,” I looked towards the end of the table. “Jack, can you begin?”
Jack didn’t like to begin. He opened his notebook slowly and looked back at me with nervous eyes.
“Go ahead,” I said, forever the kindly uncle.
“I haven’t got much– ”
“Don’t worry, just read us what’s there.”
He stared down at his notebook. “Every word is a goblin.”
“Jack, can you speak up a tad,” I said. “It’s noisy in here today.”
“Every word is a goblin.” Jack’s voice sounded different at a higher volume.
“Did they say anything else?”
“No. That’s all they had to say.”
“Jack,” said Stanley. “Were you finding it hard to listen? You know, to concentrate?”
“A bit.” Jack’s voice was low.
“The bloke in the crowd,” continued Stanley, “he wasn’t there when I came round with you, was he?”
“No.” Jack pressed the spine of his notebook flat. “But he’s back.”
I felt Stanley’s eyes on me. His irises were saying something, but I can’t read irises. “Jack, are you sure you want to continue with the job? You don’t have to if–”
“Yes! Yes, Mr. Harcourt, I do. I’ll get more next time, I promise.”
I smiled. “Quantity isn’t important, Jack. It’s the content that I care about and . . . ” I glanced down at my notes; “‘every word is a goblin’ . . . you can’t beat that for . . . for . . . ”
“Shall I start my report?” said Eve, her hand resting lightly on Jack’s shoulder.
“Yes, Eve, yes do.”
Her hand dropped towards the bag leaning against her chair, and then returned to her notebook. “I noted down a conversation I heard in the launderette between a man and a woman.”
“Were they together?” asked Missy.
“No. They don’t know each other.”
Stanley’s eyes sparkled with interest. “So, why were they talking?”
Eve frowned. “I don’t know.”
“What did they say?” I asked.
“Shall I just read?”
“Yes, just read.”
“Shall I set the scene?”
I nodded. “Please set the scene.”
“The man was reading the newspaper and the woman looked over his shoulder.”
“Smart chat-up move,” said Stanley.
Eve’s cheeks flushed pink.
“Stanley, just let her speak, ” I said.
Eve held up her notebook in front of her face, the words were hard to catch. “Woman in a blue dress–”
“Long or short–?”
“Schhh! Stanley,” I said. “Pleeeese let her speak.”
“A woman in a blue dress said . . . ‘Have you ever killed a man?’”
“Fuck!” I glanced round the group “Sorry. So sorry everyone. Eve, did she really say that?”
She looked me calmly in the eye. “Why would I lie?”
I was slow in forming my next question. Questions demand answers, but I was scared of the answer. “What did the man reply?”
It was Jack who interrupted this time. Jack never interrupted. “Eve, did these people know you were listening to their conversation?”
“Oh, no.” She smiled. “ I was hidden. I was behind the big drier. No one goes back there. Only me.”
“What did the man say,” said Violet. Her nails rested on the table.
Eve looked back down at her notebook. “The man said, ‘Yeah, sweetheart, every . . . effing day.’”
I forced something out of my mouth. “He was joking, right?”
Eve smiled. “Of course . . . well, I think so. But Mr. Harcourt, should we . . . be interpreting meaning?
“ I . . . maybe . . . sometimes.”
“Did he really say ‘effing’?” asked Stanley.
Eve’s cheeks deepened to red. “Not exactly. There was actually an F and a U and a C and a K.”
Stanley glanced in my direction but did not utter.
Bloody hell, me again. “We should write the exact words, Eve. Okay?”
Eve performed the most perfunctory nod I had ever seen.
“So what happened next?” asked Violet.
Eve continued to read. “The woman in the blue d
ress said, ‘I could help you with your laundry, if you like.’ Then the man said, ‘Oh yeah, I do a lot of laundering.’”
“Wait! Eve,” I said. “Did he say, laundrying or laundering?” I glanced at Stanley, my most learned of allies.
“Does it matter?” Eve looked down at her notes. “‘Laundering,’ I think.”
Stanley whistled. “Sounds like a bit of a tangle.”
“What do you mean?” said Eve.
“You know, two different meanings.”
“Are there?”
“Yes,” I said. “Laundrying is washing your clothes, kind of, laundering is. . . . it’s sort of, disguising or . . . recycling your stolen stuff.”
Eve picked up her pencil, licked the end and crossed out a word on the page. Next she wrote a new one in its place. She smiled brightly.
“Eve,” I asked. “What did you just do?”
Her smiled brightened further. “I made a mistake. I’ve corrected it.”
“So did he need any?” asked Violet.
Eve frowned. “Any what?”
“Help.”
“He didn’t actually say. But he certainly did.” She looked straight at me. “My interpretation.”
“Eve, I have to be honest,” I adjusted my tone, “I’m concerned that you are overhearing a conversation such as this one.”
“Me too,” added Stanley.
“You did change launderettes, didn’t you?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why did Eve need to change launderettes?” said Jack.
“The last one was a bit dodgy,” I said, sensing a problem with my choice of adjective as it arrived in the sentence.
“All launderettes down the Cally Road are a bit dodgy,” said Stanley.
Nobody spoke. A shout from the street entered the room, a scrap over a parking space.
“Talking of dodgy,” said Stanley, “have you been down those Camden toilets again, Missy?” He looked around for approval.