by James Hannah
Steady, now. It’s nice to go at a glacial pace. Keep near the wall.
I glance in on the room to my left. There’s an old lady on the bed. A younger woman looks up at me from the visitors’ chair, and I’m gone.
Around the corner now. Bulletin board up on the right, pinned every inch over with flyers and leaflets. The papers at the bottom lift and flutter in the convection of the heater beneath.
Convection current. Another concept Mr. Miller taught us in science. Will I never be rid of that man’s influence?
St. Leonard’s Church Fete—£430 raised for the hospice. Not a bad sum. Or is it? It’s hard to tell. Huge thanks to all. Yeah, thanks.
Palliative Care in the Home. We all want to be where we feel most comfortable. Familiar surroundings. Not my home. With family and friends. Not my family. Or my friends.
Cancer, Sex, and Sexuality. Everyone is different. There is no such thing as a normal sex life. You may still have needs and desires even if you are very ill.
Massage. Karen Eklund. Swedish masseuse. Twice weekly sessions in the Baurice Hartson room. Sessions last approx. 50 mins. Write your name below for a consultation. No pen provided.
Reflexology, Bowen Therapy, and Reiki. Heal yourself.
Time to move on.
Laughter now colors in the corridor from the room at the far end. Audience laughter. And a voice. Familiar voice. By the time the sounds travel down the corridor to me, the words gather shimmer from the walls and the floor, so they are buried amidst the avalanche of sound, of gloss paint and vinyl. They talk of the corridor. They talk to me of pastel wallpaper and detergent. Shiny floor. Easy to clean. Health-inspector fresh.
I squeak along the corridor toward the sound, and the words grow more distinct.
“So what about the Budget then, eh? Terrible, wasn’t it?”
The Budget. Ugh, noise. Outside noise. Noise of a world carrying on without me.
“But you wouldn’t want to be chancellor, would you? No. You wouldn’t want to be chancellor.”
Everything in me wants to turn back to my room, to get back into bed.
“Can you imagine? Cutting all those public healthcare budgets. You wouldn’t dare fall ill, would you?”
No, come on, come on.
“…well, I’m sorry, Chancellor, all these health cuts, you know? I can’t afford to give you anything for constipation. You’ll have to stay full of crap.”
In the TV room the television’s broadcasting to an audience of empty chairs. Screen light switches upholstery now blue, now yellow, now white, now blue. I’ve gotten this far. I might as well sit and watch for a bit. I select the chair next to the big trunk of toys, pick a Rubik’s Cube off the top, rotate it uselessly in my hands.
“So what’s the answer, eh? You’re so good at budgets, I suggest you go back to number eleven and work it out with a pencil. Yes?”
There is loud laughter now, and I wince at the noise. They turn it up higher and higher these days.
“That’ll help him budge it, won’t it, eh?”
Laughter.
Amber appears at the doorway, carrying two empty coffee mugs. I look up at her and smile.
“Hiya.”
She peers at me from behind her hair, and I think for a moment that she’s not going to acknowledge me, but she does, tentatively stepping in and looking at the screen.
“On coffee duty?”
She doesn’t reply but looks down at the mugs in her hands.
“I’ve come to get myself a bit of culture.”
“Oh, him. Yeah. I don’t really like him.”
“They always turn the audience up so loud.”
She smiles politely. Ugh. Such an old-man thing to say.
We’re not such different ages. Twenty years. Twenty-two, -three. I just want to say to her, I understand you. I get what it is you’re trying to say. With your deep blue streak of hair and the way you dress. I mean, I want to turn to her and say, You, me, friends, yeah? Same, yeah?
But no. No, no.
You can’t cling on to things like that.
“Sorry to be a pain,” I say, “but if you’re off to the machine, would you mind getting me a cup of tea? I’d go myself, but—”
She clears her throat. “Sure,” she says. “Milk and sugar?”
She disappears.
I flick through the channels for something a bit less full-on. News, news, panel show. What would Amber want to watch? I end up on one of the music channels and leave it at that. Turn it down to background.
She returns bearing two mugs. Deep red and deep blue. One says Humph on the side, and one says Albert.
“Humph,” she says.
“Thanks very much.” I take it from her.
She retreats a few seats away and sits cross-legged, cradling the cup against her lips, propping her elbows on her knees. Green-and-black-striped tights.
“Have you got stuff to keep you busy out there?” I ask. “All the waiting. It’s draining.”
“I’ve got some books. But it’s not really the best place to read. I can’t concentrate.”
“No, it’s hardly surprising, is it? You want to try playing Sheila’s game.”
“What’s that, then?”
“Well, what you do, you go through the alphabet and think of a part of the body for each letter. Then you think of a story about that body part, like, say what is the best thing your fingers have ever done. The moment in your whole life when they were best used.”
My explanation grinds to a halt, and I think she must wonder what the hell I’m talking about.
“Adrenaline,” she says brightly. “I’d start with A for adrenaline.”
“Why adrenaline?”
“It motivates you and keeps you safe. It makes people do amazing things, like become superhuman. Do you know there was a woman who managed to actually heave up a car that was crushing her child?”
“No, really?”
“Yeah, in America. I read about it—it was the adrenaline in her arms.”
“That makes my Adam’s apple story feel a bit inadequate,” I say. “But that’s what you get for working in a garden center all your life.” I look at her, and I don’t see a light go on. “Garden of Eden,” I say. “Adam’s apple.”
“Which garden center did you work at?”
“You know the one down the road from here? At the junction?”
“I know. We go out to the café there sometimes.”
“Oh, yeah. Good cakes.”
“Yeah! Great cakes!”
We gaze at the TV screen for a while, and begin to get drawn in by its conversation-sapping magnetism. I try to think of something to say about adrenaline. I can only think of it as an antidote to drug overdose.
“I love your blanket,” I hear her say. I look, and she’s reaching over to touch the edge of it.
“Oh, thanks,” I say, smiling. “It was made for me.”
“Wow. It’s gorgeous. Can I have a look?” She turns a corner. “It’s a got a beautiful tension in the stitches. I’m looking to do textile design at college. I’ve always loved it.”
“Here,” I say, handing it to her. “It’s really heavy.” I can’t keep the pride from my face.
Amber interrogates the blanket with confident, intelligent fingers. Funny how a slight difference in movement or poise can tell you about a person’s talents. “Look at this.” She holds the blanket up to herself, talking to herself almost. “The hexagons. Really unusual. It must have taken forever.”
“She went for hexagons because they’re a bit more gentle, I think, than squares.”
“Who was it who made it?”
I hesitate a moment, unwilling to admit to ever having had a girlfriend, in case—in case what? Amber might be interested?
Jesus.
“
My girlfriend,” I say. “Ex.”
Amber looks up at me with sudden sympathy.
“She could do a lot better than me,” I say, to deflect any questions.
“It’s beautiful-quality wool, must have cost a fortune.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, totally. She definitely must have thought you were worth some trouble.”
“Heh. Yeah.” I smile, and then my face must fall a little, because Amber looks concerned.
“Are you OK? Sorry, I don’t mean to—”
“I always used to get roped into her big schemes. Always some plan to carry out some random creative act somewhere. She used to do yarn bombs. Is that a known thing in textiles, yarn bombs?”
“No… What’s that?”
“She used to plan to go to these places in town at four in the morning and decorate them with crochet hearts or daffodils or whatever else it was she was making.”
“Oh wow, that sounds amazing.”
“Yeah, little snowflakes at Christmas, little chicks in the spring. Just random acts of kindness, but executed to an insanely high standard. She was totally meticulous about it.”
“And you had to trail along after her?”
“Yeah, well, I never wanted to look at it like that. People used to say to me, ‘Oh God, I bet you hate getting up in the morning, don’t you?’ But I never wanted to be the person who hated getting up in the morning. It was hard, but it was never bad. It was really, really good. Maybe that’s how proper projects should be.”
“Didn’t the crochet just get swiped?”
“Oh yeah, they were inhaled. But that’s absolutely not a reason not to do it. People will be how they’re going to be. You’ll never be able to control that.”
“Yeah…” Amber looks unconvinced.
She hands me back the blanket, and I pat its thick form. It looks like a flag they fold up at military funerals.
“Would she come and visit you? Even though she’s an ex?”
The question takes me by surprise.
“No,” I say. “No.”
Fingers
“What’s this? It looks like a bumhole!”
Mal jabs a finger through one of the holes in the stitching of the blanket, and his fingernail raps the wood of the pub table beneath. The burned-down roll-up pinched between his knuckles drops a flake of ash.
“Mal! Fucksake.”
I flap at him.
He withdraws and snorts me a chastised smile.
I see it straightaway. Where his finger touched the blanket there’s a grubby mark. I look quickly up at you, but you haven’t seen it—you’re busy battling back the bags and wrapping that are sliding off the seat beside you.
I’m not going to point it out. It’s my birthday and my present, so I’m not going to take the rap for screwing it up. It’ll probably scrub out anyway. I might have a try in a bit.
“Oh, look at that. It’s gorgeous,” says Laura, reaching across and turning over the edge to look at the back. “You made this?”
“Yes,” you say, finally karate-chopping the discarded wrapping paper into cooperation.
“For him?”
You look at me and break into a warm smile. “Yes.”
“Do you know what?” I say. “I think it’s the first time anyone’s ever made anything for me.”
“That’s why I wanted to make it,” you say. “It’s made with love.”
I’m ashamed to realize I dart my eyes around to see if anyone’s registering their amusement at the word “love.” Becca is whispering something in Mal’s ear and laughing. He laughs too. A nice, private little joke.
“Ah, Ivo, you always get the best stuff!” says Laura. “How do you always manage to land on your feet? How many stitches are in this?”
“Ouu, I don’t know,” you say. “About…fifty, sixty thousand?”
“You’re mad,” says Laura. “Sixty thousand stitches? For him?”
“Is that mad?” you say, straightening the blanket, checking for imperfections, tutting when you find a loose end.
“I don’t know where you find the time for everything you do. You’re like a cottage industry or something, with all the guitar playing and songwriting and crochet as well as training to be a nurse.”
“Ah, you can find the time for the right person,” you say. “He’s worth it.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” says Laura, pulling an incredulous face. “I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet I’d do this for. Or I haven’t met him yet, anyway.”
I catch a brief cloud cross Mal’s face as she says this.
“I’ve enjoyed it. I had all those bus trips to work, and I used to fill up any quiet moments on night shift: I could pick it up and work on it, and it made me feel like we were together.” You look up at me. “Think of it as an apology, if you like, for being away on nights all those weeks. This blanket is made up of all those hours when I was thinking of you, and when I wanted to be back with you.”
“Aww,” says Laura, turning to me. “That’s lovely.”
“And whenever I got stuck with anything, there were a lot of the older patients who still had all their crochet skills—I learned hundreds of little techniques.”
“Do you love it?” Laura asks me.
Your eyes switch slightly shyly to me, and the pressure of expectation immediately swells.
“Yeah, it’s really… I like it a lot.” I feel myself scratching around for the kinds of words I want to be using, now the whole pub seems to be watching. “It’s really…really heavy.” I weigh it, impressed, in my hands.
“It’s only a blanket. All you want to know is, is it warm?” says Mal. “Is it going to keep those frail little knees from knocking together or not?”
Maybe there’s a twitch in my DNA, a switch flicked in my middle, but I look at Mal now, and I think what a child he seems. How puerile can he get? Surely he can do better than that.
I know I can.
“It’s brilliant,” I say deliberately and decisively. “I love it.” And fuck you, Mal.
“Well,” you say, turning to me, “as far as I’m concerned it’s just something someone thought enough about you to spend a lot of time making. And that’s what I wanted to do for you,” you say. “Happy birthday.”
I’m touched. I’m genuinely touched.
“Well, here you go anyway, fella,” says Mal, reaching around inside a plastic bag he’s got with him. “Happy birthday, yeah?” He lands a packet of twenty-four Kit Kats on the blanket and a packet of twenty Benson & Hedges on top of that.
I look up, and he’s primed and ready for my laughter.
“Aw, what’s not to love about that,” you say semiquietly. “Perfect for a diabetic.”
“Cheers anyway, fella,” says Mal, raising his glass and encouraging others to do the same.
Then, he says, “Sorry, Mia, I forgot you weren’t drinking.”
“I’m not not drinking,” you say. “I just haven’t got a drink.”
“Oh, right. I thought because of your dad and everything.”
“What about him?”
“Being an—sorry, was I not supposed to say?—an alcoholic?”
“Mal!” cries Laura.
“What?” says Mal, raising his hands in fake innocence.
You look at me, and I shake my head like I don’t know how he found out.
“What’s this?” you say.
Ah, shit, you’ve found Mal’s fingermark.
You glare up at Mal straightaway.
“This took me eight months. Mind what you’re prodding it with, OK?”
“I don’t get it,” you say. Your computer table and all your books are juddering as you stomp up and down the carpet of your room. “I don’t understand what kind of special code they want me to crack to gain e
ntrance to their little clique.”
“Will you sit down?” I say. I’m lying widthwise on your bed, my head propped up on a big cushion. “You’re making me tense.”
You sit on the edge of the bed, leaning forward.
“It’s hard,” I say, “but we’ve all known each other for years. I think they get a bit… I don’t know, a bit lazy when new people come along.”
“It’s been nine months now we’ve been seeing each other. That’s a bit more deliberate than lazy. I mean, what’s the deal with Mal? He deliberately made that mark on the blanket.”
“No, it wasn’t deliberate. I saw him do it. It was an accident.”
“Yeah, well, he wasn’t too apologetic about it, was he? He was openly taking the piss. Why do you hang around with such a bunch of piss takers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Seriously, they just leech off each other. Anything that doesn’t fall in with their little world view gets stamped on immediately.”
“I’m not like that.”
You sigh and slump back on your bed. “No, I know you’re not. I don’t know how you managed to escape it.”
“They don’t know anything about you. They don’t know the real you at all. It’ll just take time.”
“Becca’s supposed to know me, but she’s too busy being fawned over by everyone, all latching on to her.”
“Ah, no, Becca’s all right.”
“Oh, she’s lovely, but she’d never stand up for you. And what’s the deal with her and Mal, whispering like schoolkids?”
“No deal. They’ve just known each other a long time.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something there, you know. I don’t know why Laura puts up with him.”
“I don’t know why you put up with me,” I say, offering you a Kit Kat.
• • •
Actually: green fingers. It was my mum who said that to me. She said, “You’ll have green fingers.”
She was struggling to push the old hooded lawnmower up and down the lawn on a Saturday. Saturdays always made her sad. Sadderdays. It was something Dad should have been doing.