by Fiona Gibson
By morning my hand feels as if it’s trapped in a tight rubber glove. I try to shower but this involves keeping the poorly hand out of the spray, as if I’m performing some weird dance. I feed it gently through a shirtsleeve and pull on a pale gray sweater. I waggle fingers over invisible keys.
As I’m leaving for work Diane stumbles out of her house, tugging on a denim jacket over a bulky mohair sweater. The jacket has lilac sparkles, shaped like shooting stars, on the pockets. ‘Late again,’ she mutters, banging the door behind her.
‘Me, too. Been trying to get hold of the doctor, but they’re constantly engaged.’
‘What’s wrong?’
I show her my hand. ‘That looks awful,’ she says. ‘Come on in—I’ve got bandages, magic cream. Midge is always falling off walls, cutting herself, bloody liability.’
‘It doesn’t need bandaging,’ I protest.
Diane stabs a key into the door and tugs me into the kitchen. The table is scattered with runaway Coco Pops. I tread in a puddle of brownish milk. Next to the open cereal packet lie an overflowing ashtray, shaped like glossy pink lips, and a brush that’s matted with so much aubergine hair, it looks like a small rodent’s trapped on it. ‘Bloody Beirut,’ Diane huffs, ‘every morning.’
The room smells of wet washing and hamster bedding. ‘What you don’t want,’ she continues, lifting down an ice-cream carton from a wall cupboard—the tub still bears its Neapolitan Softie label—‘is it blowing up and going pussy.’ She flashes a reassuring smile. ‘That happened to Midge after her jab. Her arm puffed up, all this stuff oozing out…impetigo, as it turned out.’ Sometimes I wonder if it’s just as well that Alex and I never got around to the business of having children.
The carton is crammed with squashed tubes and bottles of liquids in varying shades of pink, all of which appear to have entirely crystalized. ‘No bandages,’ Diane announces. She pulls out a kitchen drawer and slams non-medical items onto the work top: rusting spanners, a screwed-up Chinese take-away menu, Midge’s confiscated glitter pens. ‘Here,’ she says, unearthing a small pot of antiseptic cream and a strip of grimy-looking cloth. She gently dabs on the cream, winds the cloth around my hand and secures it with a gigantic safety pin from the drawer. My hand throbs even harder.
‘There,’ Diane says, patting my knee as if I, too, am a child who’s turned out to be a bloody liability.
My first lesson is at Greenhills Primary, a neat little cottage of a school, close to the sluicey grime of the docks. The children are learning to sight-read, penciling letter names beneath the notes on the stave. Diane’s homespun bandage bites into my skin. In a far corner of the classroom, I unfasten the pin and drop the grubby strip into the wastepaper bin. When I turn back, six pairs of curious eyes are assessing my wound. ‘What?’ I ask brightly.
No one speaks. The children are poised on their chairs, as if awaiting some startling announcement. I draw notes on the whiteboard: crotchets, quavers, semiquavers. I remind the children of their various lengths, and the lengths of the rests that fall between them. Sweat tweaks my forehead. ‘Can anyone remember this note’s name?’ I ask, pointing to a crotchet.
‘Breve?’ asks one girl hopefully.
‘Semibreve,’ chirps the boy next to her.
I lower myself onto the nearest chair, still clutching the black marker pen. It’s okay. This will pass in a minute. Breathe slowly, deeply. Focus. ‘Demi-quaver?’ another child offers, her gaze firmly fixed on my hand. I want to be home, in my cool, quiet bedroom, far away from these kids with their gawping eyes. I need to lie down.
Sarah Pengelly shrinks back, away from me, as if crotchets and quavers have left a sour taste in her mouth, and festering hands might be contagious.
In the surgery’s waiting room, a cluster of squalling toddlers tussles over a plastic fire engine. Its siren starts wailing each time someone presses its light. The chairs are all occupied by the children’s mothers and a small clump of elderly people who are conducting discreet chats about ailments and medication.
‘Doctors are running late,’ the receptionist announces through the glass partition. This means I’ll probably miss my first afternoon class at Greenhills, on top of the woodwind group’s practice, where I should be right now.
As all the seats are taken, I loiter beside an enormous clear plastic bubble. There’s a slot, through which you can post money for charity. I fish out a coin from my purse and push it through the slot. It rolls round, on an invisible helter skelter, finally dropping down through a hole to join the rest of the coins at the bottom. I feed in another coin, and another, watching them spiral. ‘Here, have mine,’ says a man who’s just walked into the waiting room. His pale brown hair, and the shoulders of his sweater, are speckled with light rain.
From his pocket he produces a small pile of change. He has elongated green eyes and a soft Scottish accent. I hold out my left hand, the undamaged hand. His fingertips graze my palm as he hands me the money. ‘Thanks,’ I say.
He smiles and says, ‘Glad to get rid of it.’
I post in the coins, one by one, and we watch them roll. When they’re all done I delve into my bag and rummage among Chewy Jewel wrappers and Diane’s tub of antiseptic cream, plus a spare strip of material and more safety pins, which she insisted I take for emergency bandage repair. My fingers come out from my bag dusted with ivory powder. My compact hasn’t shut properly since Jojo asked for a go with it, and patted it all over her face and neck, lost in a world of fairy pinkness.
After a few moments’ hush, the toddlers have started squabbling again. ‘My fire engine,’ yells a redheaded boy, gripping the toy tightly. He slaps a little girl hard on her back, which sets her screaming wildly.
‘Ryan! It’s everyone’s fire engine,’ snaps his exhausted-looking mother.
‘Why?’ the boy bellows.
‘It’s for sick children, to make them happy.’
‘No it’s not. It’s mine.’ Ryan tries to deconstruct the fire engine by removing its flashing light and ladder, but succeeds only in activating its siren again. The girl whom he smacked has peed on the carpet. A pregnant woman in denim dungarees lurches for the bathroom and emerges with fistfuls of paper towels, which she uses to scrub at the small, dark pool that is creeping along a join in the carpet tiles.
The Scottish man catches my eye and smirks. ‘Your turn,’ I say, handing him the rest of my coins.
He touches the skin near Surf’s claw marks. ‘What happened?’ he asks.
‘My Dad’s dog scratched me. He’s just excitable—Dad’s made no effort to train him.’
The siren wails over and over. Something’s gone wrong with its workings; it won’t turn off. The receptionist glowers at the redheaded kid but, unlike most adults, he is unafraid of the fierce-looking women who bristle behind glass partitions in doctors’ waiting rooms. ‘Poor you,’ the Scottish man says.
‘I’m sure I’ll survive.’
There’s a pause, and I can sense Ryan, still clutching the fire engine, fixing his beady gaze upon us. ‘Doctors are running at least fifteen minutes late,’ the receptionist tells an elderly man through her partition.
Good, I think. Be late, late, late.
‘Live round here?’ the Scottish man asks.
‘Pretty close. Briar Hill, do you know it?’
‘No, I’ve just moved—’
‘Stella Moon?’ calls Dr Marsden at the door that leads to the surgeries.
‘Interesting name,’ the stranger says.
‘What’s yours?’
‘Ed. Very ordinary.’
I mean to say it’s not ordinary, but it comes out as, ‘You’re not ordinary.’ Hotness creeps up my neck.
‘Miss Moon?’ Dr Marsden calls out impatiently.
I look at Ed. Trapped in his eyes, like speckles in amber, are sand-colored flecks. The smile floods his face as he says, ‘Beautiful woman savaged by bonkers hound.’
I have cellulitis, an infection of the blood. ‘Keep it clean and dry,’
Dr Marsden says, ‘and take a couple of days off work. You’re running quite a temperature.’ He scribbles a prescription for an antibiotic and adds, ‘See the nurse at the end of the corridor. She’ll dress it for you.’
‘Will I be able to go swimming?’ I ask.
‘Of course not,’ Dr Marsden mumbles, turning his tweed-jacketed back to me.
I’m wondering, as the nurse parcels up my hand, if Ed will still be waiting by the charity box. But when I come out there’s only Ryan and his mother—he’s lost interest in the fire engine now—and a frail-looking man huddled over the Telegraph crossword, crunching lemon-scented sweets.
That lovely face, lovely voice—it’s as if I dreamed them up.
Wednesday must be Diane’s day off because Queen comes thick and fast all morning: ‘The Show Must Go On,’ ‘We Will Rock You,’ ‘Another One Bites the Dust.’
Over and over, with Diane’s squawking lead vocal and her Hoover providing a whining accompaniment. The record stops, and the Hoover stops, and she rattles out to the back garden, singing flamboyantly.
I want to break freeeee…
She stabs at the hardened soil with a garden fork, then looks up and beckons me outside with a flapping hand. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asks.
‘Ropy. I’m taking a couple of days off work.’
She stamps on the fork with her slippered foot. The slippers have ears and doleful-looking eyes and are meant to be puppies. ‘D’you like Queen?’ she asks.
‘They’re okay.’
‘Rock’s not really your thing, is it?’ she says, delving into a pocket in her fleece and extracting a custard-cream biscuit, which she nibbles at, rodent style. ‘More…orchestra-ish, aren’t you? Stuff that chunders on for hours—violins and stuff—with no lyrics or choruses.’
‘That kind of thing,’ I say, laughing. ‘How’s Jojo getting on with the flute?’
Diane shrugs. ‘Plays it all hours, till God knows when. Nice of you to lend it. Looks expensive.’
‘She can keep it for longer if she’s enjoying it. I could teach her, if it’s okay with you.’
‘We can’t afford stuff like that.’
‘That’s okay. I’m happy to do it.’
‘What about your flute? Don’t you need it back?’
‘She can hang on to it for now. I have another one anyway.’
‘Don’t let her think I’ll be buying her one,’ Diane adds firmly. ‘I don’t want her getting any ideas.’
‘I’m sure she won’t—’
‘Because it’s not like all this schoolwork she’s having trouble with, is it? I’m happy for her to have a little hobby, as long as that’s all it is.’
‘She’ll have to practice, if I’m going to teach her. It shouldn’t interfere with her schoolwork. She had a natural ability, Diane, like I’ve never—’
‘I enjoy my music,’ she cuts in, ‘we all do—but it’s not important, is it?’
‘Well, it can be. It might help with her confidence, bring her out of herself….’
‘Are you saying there’s something wrong with her?’
‘No, of course not—’
She sucks in her lips, then her face softens, and she says, ‘Thing is, Stella, the flute’s not the instrument I’d choose for a strapping girl like our Jojo. She might bust it.’
‘I hope she’s playing it, Diane, not sitting on it.’
She throws back her head, laughs a deep, barking laugh and says, ‘Don’t suppose you’ve an electric guitar you could lend her, do you?’
9
Unwanted Goods
Smart shopping, as Diane calls it, enables her to whip round the charity shops—RSPCA, Sue Ryder, Oxfam, Cancer Research—in minimal time without doubling back on herself. ‘You need an eye,’ she tells me, ‘for smart shopping. I’ve got the eye. It’s a rare gift, Stella.’
Her hands are large and powerful-looking, her nails the color of dried blood. In Oxfam her eyes scan shelves bearing butter dishes, color-enhanced photos of piers and Winter Gardens, and huge cookie jars shaped like teddy bears—stuff that serves no purpose apart from filling space. Diane had insisted I come shopping. ‘It’ll take your mind off your poisoned hand,’ she declared. She selects an onyx sphinx ornament, a nightie covered with dancing fairies for Jojo, and a battered book entitled Mercury Rising: The Untold Queen Story.
Diane has drifted toward the clothes rails. There’s an over-abundance of dark brown knitwear, and the occasional splash of garish color that my mother might have called nasturtium or aquamarine. A handwritten sign above the bookshelves reads: Quality Clothing, Books, Magazines and Bric-a-brac Gratefully Received. I scan the books’ spines: Hors d’Oeuvres Made Easy, Dinner Parties in Color, 1,001 Pasta Recipes. Rather bruised looking, its jacket frayed at the edges, is More Frankie’s Feasts. Dad beams from the cover, his broad hands resting on a table bearing plates of unreal-looking food. Everything looks too shiny, as if it has been glazed. A trout is garnished with apple slices and a gloop of something that looks like hair conditioner.
Diane crunches a free Glacier Mint from the dish on the counter. ‘Buying that book?’ she asks.
I slide Dad back onto the shelf. ‘Just browsing,’ I say.
Back in the Midlands, before she left him—he’s called George, but Diane refers to him as ‘their dad’—she tried to set up obedience classes for dogs. ‘Could have made me a fortune,’ she says. ‘I had a talent for it. All my friends—they’d bring their dogs to me. I’d have them sorted in no time.’
‘So why—’ I begin.
‘Too bloody complicated with insurance and whatnot. And, of course, their dad wouldn’t help me. Ended up working in the visitors’ center at a honey farm—lucky if we had four visitors a day.’
‘What did you do?’ I ask.
‘I had to let them taste the honeys—that was the downside, sticky bloody fingers all over the shop—and make candles. Midge, of course, she’d make wax guns and torpedoes and blast the hell out of anyone who’d dared to wander in.’ She laughs and flumps onto a bench on the seafront, dumping the carton of chips on her lap.
Carrier bags are bunched around her feet. I can’t figure out where she’s going to put all this stuff. When Mrs Lawrence lived next door, the house felt sparse and eerily still. Occasionally I’d help her in with shopping and she’d make a pot of insipid tea. Entire rooms contained just an old wooden chair, a small table and billions of swirling dust particles.
‘I’m in bedding now—factory work,’ Diane continues. ‘Just short-term to tide me over. It’s all right. You get to bring offcuts home. I make stuff with them, my sideline.’
‘What things?’ I ask, prodding at my chips. They’ve gone cold already, and loll in their paper wrapping like slugs.
‘Rag rugs,’ she explains. ‘You cut your fabrics into strips and hook them through the backing material. I’ll show you. Your place is a bit plain-looking, isn’t it?’
‘I like it…’
‘Could do with brightening up,’ she concludes, marching over to the railings to tip our unwanted chips into the bin.
We wander along the breezy seafront. A woman is showing her son where to put money into the toy grabber machine. She maneuvers the silver claw—the grabber—until it appears to be gripping a cuddly tiger. But at the critical moment the claw goes limp and the tiger remains in the glass box with all the others. The little boy bangs on the glass and shouts, ‘Again, again!’, until his mother stuffs in more money.
Diane throws her a sympathetic look, the way women do with fellow members of their club—the mothers’ club. ‘Did you speak to Jojo’s teacher?’ I ask, lugging a bag of vases in my good hand.
‘I went to school, like you said. Met that snooty head-mistress.’
‘What did she suggest?’
We’re climbing Briar Hill now. Diane’s breathing is ragged; she’s tugged off her jacket and stuffed it into a carrier bag. ‘Gave us this pile of books—stupid stories for kids of Midge’s age. And extra mat
hs work for Midge, like I’ve got time for that.’
‘I’m sure she’s just trying to help.’
‘You would say that,’ Diane huffs, meaning: you’re one of them, aren’t you? ‘You stick together,’ she adds, ‘like doctors.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We had a spot of bother at the girls’ old school. I went in, not looking for a fight. You know me, Stella—reasonable. And of course it’s our Jojo’s fault. Not Mr-Bloody-Henderson’s fault.’
‘What had happened?’
‘He made her read out loud in class, and she just couldn’t—not at the front of the classroom with everyone staring.’
‘And he forced her to? That’s terrible—’
‘My little girl,’ Diane continues, her eyes glimmering now, ‘went and wet herself in front of the class.’
‘Diane, no one would treat her like that at Paul Street.’
‘So you can see why I’m not very keen on teachers.’
We dump the carrier bags at her front door. Diane swipes her eyes with the flat of her hand and rummages in her shoulder bag for keys. ‘We’re not all like that,’ I add.
She sighs and says, ‘Remember to take your antibiotics.’
‘Yes, Miss.’
Diane tries to give me a stern look, but the smile flits across her round, pink face, like a bird escaping.
Alex subscribed to specialist magazines: Trout and Salmon, Caged and Aviary Birds, Poetry Now. He’d never get around to canceling subscriptions so they’d keep rolling in, long after his brief interest in poetry had given way to canoeing.
Quality Clothing, Books, Magazines and Bric-a-brac Gratefully Received. They’re stacked tidily on the top of the bookcase. Occasionally, when a heavy vehicle roars up Briar Hill, one slips from its pile and lands on the floor with a resounding slap. There, at my feet, lies an article entitled: Tried and Tested: A New Generation of Soft Baits.