Desserts are my absolute métier. Always have been, ever since the Queen Mary. Lemon meringue, spotted dick, rhubarb crumble. All whisked up from scratch by your auntie Jim – none of that bought-in nonsense. Sherry trifle, treacle tart, apple pie. I’ve seen lassies come to blows over the last slice of my Black Forest gateau. And your auntie needs a mouthful too, doesn’t she? To keep her strength up. I mean, it takes energy to move the mountain to Mohammed, doesn’t it?
When the legs first swelled up, the doctor said it was blood pressure and gave me some tablets to make me wee. What a carry on that was at half past one in the morning! Trying to find space at le pissoir with all them lads in there, stotting all over, slipping on the tiles, percies pointing any old where. Must be nigh on a thousand gallon of Red Barrel swilling down that gulley of an evening. Like paddling on the bloomin’ beach. That Red Barrel’s pretty much piss to start with, mind. Give me a Babycham any day.
The tablets did help a bit with the legs, though. Then when the sores started, I thought maybes I’d overdone it with the Immac. So I went back to shaving, but it didn’t help. I was into the kaftans by then, luckily, so they didn’t show. Thank Mary for the Maharishi, eh? But it got me down, seeing them in the shower of a morning, and it put a bit of a kybosh on the love life, I can tell you.
So anyway, the legs had been giving me gyp for a few days, itching and aching like, and there’s this one big sore on the left one that’s oozing. And I’m feeling sort of under the weather generally, a bit feverish, and my eyes are stinging from all the tab smoke – like being downwind of the bonfire on bloomin’ Guy Fawkes. And it’s ‘All You Need Is Love’ on the turntable and ‘If You’re Going to San Francisco’, and I’m thinking, howay, that’s a bona idée.
So I’ve decided: Sunday I’ll take it a bit easy, then toddle off to the doctor first thing Monday. And I’m just bending over to get the profiteroles out the chiller when I come over all faint. Next thing I know young Davy’s shoving a couple of dish-towels under my head and folk are leaning over the counter to see what’s occurring.
Chapter Thirty
1967
They’ve brought me back home from the hospital, and here’s Edith Lillian hovering over me, fussing and faddling, trying to get me to ‘wipe your eyes now, pet, and try to count your blessings’.
So it’s a blessing my stumps are healing up so nicely, is it? Muchos gracias, I’m sure. And the new commode’s set up next to the bed? Fantabulosa. I can hardly wait to try it. And at least they haven’t taken your dick off, Jimmy. Ooh, goody gumdrops. So I’ll be back on the razz in no time.
What fairy’s going to want a romp with a mangled moll? Oh, I expect there’ll always be some sicko that will get off on a vada at the stumps. Is that all I’ve got to look forward to? Trapped in a wheelchair in a Tyneside flat while some drooling dorcas whacks off on my scars?
I’m blubbing again; I can’t help it. Just trying to get the bloomin’ wheelchair into the kitchen’s enough to set me off, and finding I can’t even reach the counter to cut a slice of devil’s food cake. I mean, it’s not till you’ve tried slotting back into your life that it comes home to you, how it’s going to be from now on.
So now Edith Lillian’s plonking a box of Kleenex Mansize in my lap and patting me on the shoulder. ‘I’ll get us a nice cup of tea,’ she says, like she must have said a dozen times since they dumped me back here this morning. ‘Davy will be along later to help get you into bed.’
Because that’s another total bloomin’ palaver, isn’t it? Getting me from pillar to post and back again. Off the wheelchair and on to the commode; off the commode and on to the wheelchair; off the wheelchair and into the bloomin’ bed. Even with my arms helping, the old trout can’t manage on her tod. I’m like one of those bloomin’ roly-poly omees, except when I go over I can’t bounce up again.
And the stairs! Well, she’s wheeled me to the top, and we’ve looked down them, and the bloomin’ face of your actual Eiger’s a stroll in the park compared to the prospect of getting roly-palone down them stairs and back up again. So I’m trapped, aren’t I? In a bloomin’ three-room Tyneside flat, in a bloomin’ four-wheel chair, with Miss Thin-slice-of-Hovis-and-a-scrape-of-Stork in charge of my galley.
Because the doctor’s told her I’ve to cut back on the sweeties. He says that’s how I got the diabetes in the first place, and the sugar’s started the rot in the legs. So she’s put the custard creams on the top shelf like a load of porno mags, and purged la Frigidaire. Vada in there now and you’d think it belonged to a nun in the middle of Lent.
By, that was a palaver and no flies! The old trout’s managed to get me onto the sofa but it’s nearly ruined the both of us. So I’ve reached out for the arm and have getten a grip, and she’s heaved me up by the shoulder, and tried to tip me off the wheelchair, except she’s forgotten to put the brakes on, hasn’t she? So it’s slipped out from under me and gone whizzing across the room, and we’re left tumbling half on and half off the bloomin’ sofa in a heap.
So now she’s sat on the floor with her skirt all rucked up, sobbing her eyes out, saying, ‘I’m so sorry, pet,’ and ‘it’s all my fault,’ and ‘I thought I could cope.’
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her cry and it shakes me to the core. You see a body every day for ten years and you think you know them, don’t you? So every day, on the dot of nine, rain or shine, here comes Edith Lillian, putting her key in the door and picking up the post, then hanging up her hat and coat, and trotting up the stairs in her sensible shoes.
I’m forever on at her about her sensible shoes. Saying she should let me buy her some proper high heels, and fishnets with lacy suspenders. Just to see the look on her face, bless her. But no, it’s Hush Puppy lace-ups for our Edith, with forty denier American Tan, and Mary knows what bit of old tat to hold them up.
And placid! The things I’ve said to her over the years, and she’s hardly blinked an eyelash. ‘I’ll pray for you, Mr M.,’ is all she’ll ever say. Or, ‘May God forgive you.’ I’m one of her good works, like her black babies and knitting her squares; doing the flowers in the church; that home for preggers lassies she goes on about. ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’ is her favourite saying. I’ve heard her muttering it like one of them bloomin’ mantra things when she’s dusting my nick-nacks. Of course that makes me try even harder to get a rise out of her – asking her to help me choose the right earrings or lippie, telling her about some filly-omee I’ve taken a fancy to.
That’s why it’s a shock to see her sobbing into the shag pile. So now it’s my turn to say, there, there, pet, and toss her the Kleenex. For she’s a bona old trout, for all her holier-than-thou-ness, and she’s stood by me through thick and thin.
Now there goes the doorbell, so she’s scrambling to her feet and wiping her eyes, then giving her schnoz a quick dab-a-dab with the pancake, and scooting down the stairs to see who it is. And it’s young Davy – I can hear his voice, but he’s not coming up. Then, what’s that? The door’s closed again and the hallway’s quiet. So now I’m miffed because they’ve gone off together, haven’t they? On their two pairs of working legs, leaving me dumped on the bloomin’ sofa like a pile of dirty washing.
And I’m just building up a fair old froth of pique, when there’s her key in the Yale, and here they come back again, cantering up the stairs blethering away nineteen to the dozen. And Davy’s got an armful of gladdies and Edith’s carrying the Asti and beaming away.
‘I thought a little glass wouldn’t do any harm,’ she says, opening the cabinet and fetching out the best crystal.
‘Let me guess,’ I say. ‘The two of yous are getting married at last.’
‘Better than that,’ says Edith. ‘Davy’s got a new job.’
And straight away I’m thinking, Ronnie’s got rid of me and promoted Davy in my place. Then I’m thinking, no, moll, don’t be so daft. The lad’s only just learnt how to work the Breville.
‘Congratulations, I’m sure,’ says I, sti
ll in a bit of a miff. ‘Doing what?’
‘Oh, lifting mainly,’ says young Davy. ‘A bit washing, a bit cooking. It depends on the boss.’
‘What about moolah?’
Now Davy’s looking at Edith – as if it’s up to her what he’s paid.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she says, quite back to her bossy old self. ‘He can afford it. He’s no option anyway. It’s either you or a nursing home, and I’m not having him in one of them places.’
The trouble is, I can still feel them. The bunions on my big toe, where I’ve squashed them into my stilettos, nipping sharp as ever. The scaly rash on my calves, where I raked away so hard it opened into sores: still crusty, so I want to reach for that Moroccan back-scratcher and have a good old scritch. Them creases behind my knees; I can feel the jock rot starting in again, that sticky itch, so it’s all I can do not to dredge on the powder. But it’s all in the mind, isn’t it? The itch is real enough, but when I go to scratch, there’s nowt there but thin air. But they’re still aching, still stinging, still nipping and oozing away. And it’s that bloomin’ vexatious I feel like chewing on the cushions.
They try to comfort me: Davy helping with my frocks and that, getting the sewing machine going to make them hang canny in the wheelchair; Edith doling out my ration of custard creams. But when your knees ache and you need to stretch them out, and put your feet up on your Egyptian leather pouffe, but there’s no knees to stretch out, and no feet to lift, well you start to wonder what’s the bloomin’ point.
Chapter Thirty-One
2007
Paul opens his eyes, and for a second he just lies there on that grotty old red sofa, that should have been taken to the dump years ago – and he can’t move his legs. Or rather he’s forgotten he’s fucking even got legs, because that Lord Jim bloke’s had his cut off, hasn’t he? So he’s just lying there thinking he can’t move his legs, which has to one of the worst things he’s ever experienced.
Christ. He can still feel the pain in his stumps. He touches his thighs to reassure himself they’re still there. And his belt, which is too tight, fair enough, but still cinched in to thirty-four inches, which is a lot better than it was.
Jesus, the bloke was grotesque – and once his legs were off he was even worse. Before the op he could at least see his fucking knees, more or less, when he was sat down; but afterwards, it was pure lard oozing all over the show, so you couldn’t even see his crotch, and it looked like he ended at the waist, if he’d had a waist.
Paul feels sick. His heart’s going nineteen to the dozen and his hands are shaking. He looks up and Ben’s there, leaning forwards on the pouffe, eyes round as saucers. And Dr fucking Charlton, smiling like the cat that got the cream. And that Ian bloke squatting down at the far end of the sofa, with the camcorder on his shoulder, pointing it straight at him with its red light flashing to show he’s still recording.
‘Turn that fucking thing off,’ says Paul.
‘OK. Sorry, mate,’ says the Ian bloke. ‘That was bloody amazing, though. Nothing to do with Annie, but bloody brilliant all the same.’
‘I knew him!’ goes that Laura woman, because she’s there too, isn’t she? Getting a fucking eyeful. ‘That was Lord Jim from the Jungle!’ she’s going, half hysterical with excitement. ‘And that Edith – I knew her too! It was me she hired to look after him before he died.’ She grins at Paul, like they’re old friends. ‘Even with his legs off he was a right old flirt.’
Paul rounds on the doc. ‘This is your fault,’ he says. ‘You’ve put things into my head.’
‘I’m sorry you think that, Paul,’ she goes, not sounding sorry at all. ‘But anyone here will attest that your recollections took you straight to that hospital bed without any prompting from me. On the contrary, I was attempting to lead you back to an earlier period in Jim’s life. But he was so traumatized by the amputations it was difficult to shift his attention anywhere else.’
‘You want me to believe I was a big fat poofter, is that it?’
‘As I say, it’s not what I want. It’s where your own unconscious recollections led you. All I did was put you into a trance—’
‘Well it’s fucking ridiculous. And you—’ he points a finger at the Ian bloke —‘get rid of that film, right? Press erase or whatever you have to do. Go on, do it now, while I’m watching. I don’t want any of this getting out. I’ll be a fucking laughing stock.’
‘You can’t be held responsible for something that happened before you were born,’ says the doc, in one of those calm-down therapy voices that just makes him want to puke. ‘But from what I could gather from our brief meeting, Lord Jim wasn’t an evil man. It could have been a lot worse. With some clients—’
‘Are you joking? He was a fucking poofter, for fuck’s sake! A disgusting obese biscuit-guzzling nancy boy.’
‘Oy, you mind your language,’ goes Laura. ‘That Lord Jim had a heart of gold. Wouldn’t harm a fly, the old softie. A bit of a rogue for the lads, but they all knew what they were getting into and no one ever complained that I know of.’ As if the bloke really existed. As if he was something to do with Paul.
‘This is all rubbish,’ he says. ‘She’s made it up because she was getting nowhere with Ben.’ Yeah, that makes sense, he thinks. ‘She’s probably in cahoots with Mr Camera over there, so he can get something juicy for his stupid programme.’
The Ian bloke laughs. ‘What, a camp diabetic amputee with a sweet tooth, spouting Polari? If I could make up stuff like that I’d give up documentaries and take up fiction instead.’
‘If you think it would help,’ goes the doc, ‘I could arrange a couple of private sessions to help you come to terms—’
‘There’s nothing to come to terms with, because it didn’t fucking happen, right? And, no, thank you very much,’ he says, standing up. ‘I don’t want any more fucking sessions. And neither does Ben.’
‘Dad! No—’ The lad goes to grab his arm, but Paul shakes him off and feels in his back pocket. ‘There, this should square us up,’ he says, peeling off a couple of fifties and throwing them on the carpet. ‘Come on, lad. We’re out of here.’
Paul can’t get away from the place fast enough, as though just putting distance between himself and that fucking sofa will get the disgusting old geezer out of his head. He’s got the lad by his wrist, dragging him along so he’s half tripping half running.
‘Dad, please! You’re hurting me.’
Paul loosens his hand and slows down a bit, but he’s still striding along. He can feel the sweat sticking his shirt to his back under his leather jacket. ‘Fucking quack. Who knows how many people she’s done that to? Made up some crap and passed it off as a past fucking life story. I should have checked her out before I let her loose on you.’
‘Dad, slow down!’ Ben stumbles and Paul yanks him up by his arm.
‘There must be someone I can complain to. I’ll get her struck off. And that film bloke. The BBC ought to know the kind of rubbish they’re spending our licence fees on.’
‘But what if it’s true?’
Paul stops suddenly and glares down at the lad. ‘It’s. Not. Fucking. True. Do you hear me? There’s no such thing as past lives. And even if there was, there’s no way that creep has anything to do with me.’
‘It wasn’t his fault he had to have his legs off.’
‘It was his fault he was so fat, wasn’t it? Necking sweeties all day.’ He gets a sudden flash of the biscuits coming towards his mouth, two chocolate digestives dunked in tea, choc sides together like a soggy brown sandwich. ‘God, I can’t believe I’ve just spent half an hour, an hour, whatever, inside the head of that freak.’
‘If he’s a freak, what am I then?’ The lad’s facing up to him, and there’s tears on his cheeks.
‘And that’s enough of that Annie crap too. You’re a boy, and the sooner you come to terms with it the better.’
‘I thought you were starting to understand.’
‘She was supposed
to turn you into a proper lad, not lead you down the crazy paving to la-la land.’
‘But Annie’s real! We found where she lived.’
‘Oh that doctor’s good, I’ll give her that. Even had me convinced for a while. And she’s obviously got Mr Camera eating out her hand.’
‘It was working, Dad,’ goes the lad, chin up, standing his ground. ‘The therapy and that. I mean, before I went to the doc, it was really scary and confusing, not knowing where all that Annie stuff was coming from. But now I know she existed, it’s like I can separate away from her a bit and start working out who I am.’
They’re walking more slowly now and Paul’s let go of the lad’s wrist. ‘You were fine before that fucking woman starting putting ideas into your head.’
‘She was helping me, Dad. And it’s not just me. Laura was cracking up before she went to the doc. She says after her sex-change—’
‘You what?’
‘Laura, Dad, remember?’ says the lad, all sarky, as if Paul’s some kind of idiot. ‘Don’t you get it? Before her sex change, she was that young Davy bloke who was with Lord Jim in the ambulance.’
‘Laura? I don’t believe this.’
‘Yes, Laura. That nice lady you liked so much, who’s been looking after me while you’ve been off on the boat. Well, she had a sex change, years ago. She’s got a website that says all about it. It was through her that I found the doc.’
‘Right, that’s it,’ says Paul. ‘You are never going near that woman – that man – that fucking creature – again. Christ, that is way out of order – I mean, she was practically flirting with me.’
‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ Ben says in a dull, bored voice. ‘She likes women, not men.’
‘I don’t care if she likes bleeding Labradors. If I find out you’ve been in contact with her again I’ll take a load of lads round to that bloody caff of hers and do the place over.’
Herring Girl Page 25