by Ray Robinson
He ironed his best shirt and trousers and at eight o’clock he phoned the Care Support Team. He knew the day shift would be in their office by then, sat in their poky kitchenette, gossiping over coffee and digestives.
Someone picked up with a sleepy sigh.
He told the woman someone had to be there at half past eight or nothing.
— This is very short notice, she said.
— But that’s your job. That’s why we pay you.
He heard her wilting.
— And it has to be half-eight, you say?
— No later. Kenneth’s wife has to be at work. You can’t leave him more than five minutes, max. He’ll go walkabout. You know this.
— I’ll see what I can do.
— No. You’ll phone Chris. He can be there in ten minutes, if he can get his fat arse out of bed, that is.
I have felt totally lacking in energy and enthusiasm.
Antony hung up.
He hated having to do this to Kenneth, dumping those useless fuckers on him. Kenneth needed routine, familiarity; he needed someone to prompt, to reassure, to operate his aide-mémoirs. Not those bone-idle arse-wipers.
— I’m sorry, Kenneth.
He went into the bedroom and looked at his bag. He couldn’t believe he was doing this.
* * *
The train was there on the platform, waiting, doors opened wide. Three hours on the Transpennine Express, that’s all it took to get back there.
Home. How it had pulled him into fragments.
The train was like a threat, waiting to materialise.
He remembered being at that very station three months before. How the train had swept his hair sideways and sucked the breath from his mouth, the woman’s outline reflected in the flicker of the carriage windows.
He dropped his bag.
I have a terrifying conviction something bad is going to happen.
Racing heartbeat.
Dry mouth.
Chest pain.
Rapid breathing.
Palpitations.
He was distorting. He was feeding back. Symptoms causing anxiety causing panic causing fear causing symptoms causing…
Like he was trapped in the echoing Tannoys.
He inhaled, gulped.
Fuck.
I have felt panic or terror.
He could see a train coming in on the opposite platform. He stepped back, ran. Heard himself panting, laughing. Up the stairs, over the footbridge, down the other side. He had no idea what he was doing. A train on the platform. He didn’t know. Doors opened. Hadn’t a clue. But the weight had lifted. The weight had gone. He jumped on.
* * *
He found himself in a small town he’d never heard of before. The sign on the platform said Welcome to Todmorden and some funny-bugger had written beneath: You’ll never leave. Hills filled the skyline in every direction and the town snaked along the bottom of a deep, narrow valley, gashed by the tarred windpipe of a canal. Terraced houses clung to the sides of jutting crags and fresh moor-air misted across his face, reminding him of something he’d rather not be reminded of.
The first stab of guilt: I’m letting Val down.
At the bottom of the hill he spotted the Fox and Goose. The pissing rain was getting heavier. He tied his hair back with a laggy band.
* * *
The careworn faces of flat-capped old men followed him as he walked between the tables and smoke. He ordered a bitter and found a seat beside two bulky, ugly bastard men, hoeing crisps into their gobs like a pair of stevedores, their Northern accents so thick it surprised him.
He noticed a fella chatting up some young woman at the other end of the bar. He wore a cheap blue suit and had bad hair and looked like a complete Norbert. The sort with blisters on his thumbs from playing video games. His face: smile stretching from ear to ear, eyes slitted. But hers said resignation, like she’d rather be anywhere. Norbert caught Antony staring and turned a cold shoulder. Antony coughed for no reason and sucked a few inches off his pint, watching how her smile missed her long-distance eyes.
He liked her, but didn’t know why. He could sense indiscreet piercings, wasted summers at muddy festivals, baggy jumpers and paint-splattered dungarees. The type, actually, that did his head in at Art School. Earth Mothers with an unhealthy obsession for nebulous shite like Fate and astrology and crystals and auras and chakras and holistic fucking healing. But he pictured a tattoo on the base of her spine: butterfly wings, spread.
She slapped Norbert’s arm.
— Fuck off, will you!
And Jesus, he was getting up, and in a tone unmistakable for aggression, he said, — Did you hear the lady?
Norbert stepped back, body sideways on.
The girl eyed Antony up and down.
— What the fuck, she said, has it got to do with you?
— Sorry. I just thought.
— Aye, well, you know what ‘thought’ did.
He laughed; it’s something Val used to say.
— Thought I’d shat myself, but it was just a wet fart?
Her laughter made heads turn.
Antony’s spine tingled. His eyes were drawn to the gap in her top. He coughed, shrugged, and shuffled back over to his seat.
Behind him: the loamy stench of geraniums dotted along the windowsill, bringing him back down to earth.
* * *
He checked his mobile.
— Where are you?
It was Kenneth.
— Why aren’t you here?
Then a voice in the background and the dead tone.
Antony wasn’t there that morning, so Kenneth had gotten his number, hunted it out, and dialled. Which meant that he’d been able to access what?
His procedural memory?
His temporal coding facility?
* * *
By two o’clock he’d had a bowl of chips and three packets of prawn cocktail crisps and the Bastard Thirst had started kicking in. That three-pint-point of no return. It looked like she was onto her sixth.
As soon as Norbert skedaddled—with a valedictory glare—she came and plonked herself down next to Antony. It turned out Norbert was an ex, trying to get back in her good books. Antony went, ‘Lunchtime booty call?’ and she laughed that laugh.
She told him how she’d been unemployed for two years after finishing her A-levels (euphemistically ‘having time out’ despite three A grades), had lived in Todmorden all her life, and no of course she was too young to be married, and no she didn’t have any kids, but yes she liked her lager and lime and Marlboro Lights and midday Monday drinking sessions at the Fox and Goose, thank you very much.
She was staring at him again. Telltale remnants of mascara?
— So what do you do? No, don’t tell me: bank manager.
— Funny. I’m a care worker.
The second real stab of guilt: I’m letting Kenneth down.
— You know, she breathed. But she didn’t finish.
She stood up and straightened her skirt.
— My brother used to have a carer when he was young.
— What’s his disability?
She raised an eyebrow.
— He’s deaf, but he’s a fucking dude. He’s a deejay, does deaf raves, and he fucking hates being called disabled.
He noticed, then, how she spoke with her hands.
— Care for another, Mr Carer?
He wanted to fingerspell a response, but just nodded.
* * *
Three drinks later their knees were touching and she was saying,
— I like to get back into bed and eat muesli while listening to audio books from the library. Don’t laugh. I’m on Ted Hughes at the moment. Crow. Fuck he’s got a sexy voice. Shame he carked it. He grew up round here.
— And Henry Moore.
— Henry Moore what?
— The landscape round here, inspired him.
— And the Brontës. They grew up the other side of the moor. So?
Antony s
hrugged and asked her what she liked doing at the weekend.
— Er, getting wasted. Oh, and I love the fact that, you know, I can lie in bed till two in the afternoon and not feel guilty about it. You?
— The gym, the movies, nice walks in the country.
She squeezed his upper arm; he flexed.
— You’ve never seen the inside of a gym, mister.
Her touch sent neurons firing. His hypothalamus literally ejaculated endorphins. But she pulled her arm back and cleared her throat softly, fist to mouth.
— Really, though?
She felt it.
— Same as every twenty-six year old, he said. I’m either in the process of getting drunk or recovering from the process of getting drunk.
They chinged their glasses together and he realised that not only was he six years older than her but that he was holding in his stomach and puffing out his chest like some sad middle-aged twat.
Then she said, apropos of fuck-all,
— Have you ever seen a dead person?
Breath rushing out of his mouth, but he felt nothing.
— Sorry, she said.
— It’s OK.
The X of her eyes focused sharply and her lovely mouth went,
— I didn’t mean.
— It’s just. Just I’m meant to be at a funeral today.
He looked at his watch, the numerals of its iris.
— Should be over by now.
She leaned back, extended a hand.
— I’m sorry. I don’t even know your name.
And something gave. Something definitely shifted.
He wanted to touch her.
He needed to touch her.
* * *
He laughed light-heartedly as they walked across the road to the pizza place. That bald directness—he got the impression here was a young woman who usually got her own way. And why not, when you looked like that?
— So you coming home with me or what then?
She told him she lived ‘up on the tops’ and that her flatmate wouldn’t be back from work ‘while six’.
He pictured a dank cottage with ethnic hangings and soot-blown walls.
— Party needn’t end here, Mr Antony.
Tension and anxiety have prevented me from doing certain things.
— Sorry. I’d love to. But I can’t.
She fell into a silent pout and flipped her cigarette away. He gave her his mobile number and said it’d be great to see her again. She raised her perfect eyebrows and started flirting with the Asian guys behind the counter.
— Can I get a home delivery again? Please. My feet are proper killing me.
One of them ducked through the hatch and brought her pizza box through. She followed the guy out the door; Antony followed her to the pizza van.
— You sure you don’t want to come up?
He looked at his watch, shrugged.
— I’ve really got to get back.
She climbed into the back of the van, sat on some boxes and went,
— Proper home delivery.
She pulled the van door shut and was gone.
* * *
On the train back to Manchester, he closed his eyes and imagined what could’ve been happening. He saw Jade’s drowsy, long-lashed smokiness. Saw her full lips parting in a post-come narcosis. Imagining the jealousy he’d feel when he touched her body. He was sure he’d never see her again.
* * *
He popped his mirtazapine, took off his shoes and lay on the bed.
Home. Going back there tomorrow?
Those streets. Those houses. That churchyard.
Val, dead.
He remembered blonde sticks of splintered kindling and the heady smell of Duraglit, fire banked high, cracking and spitting, and how the tangerine-flicker dancing across her living room hypnotised him.
Val was a mucky cow, always clarted up to the eyeballs and looking ridiculous in her mini-skirts and beehive hairdo. And she had a mouth on her. But he often wished he could live with her instead of Mam and Lou. OK, her house was disgusting; it was probably the scummiest house on the estate. It stank of cat piss and the wallpaper was coming off the walls and the carpets were threadbare and stained, but at least she did it with men.
He’d hear her alarm go off upstairs and put the fire guard round and go into the kitchen and bring the kettle back to the boil and carry the sweet, milky tea up to her. She would look at him narrowly, blinking in the lamplight.
She’d made an empty house. Their things lying around: Mikey and Barry and Lily’s clothes. Photographs of the three of them in summer. He tried to remember his cousins as kids, but all he could remember was trouble.
Lying on Val’s bed, chin in hands, he’d watch her transform herself from a lined, fatigue-faced woman, into a caricature of self-belief.
He knew he couldn’t do it, that train journey back there tomorrow.
He stared at the ceiling, willing his heart to decelerate.
— I’m sorry, Val.
* * *
Morning. He knocked and walked in. Lizzie, standing beside the kitchen table, coat buttoned and handbag poised, gave him a weary look and left without a word. Kenneth was sat at his computer playing Shit Scrabble Fuck. He eyed Antony curiously and went,
— Why do you do this?
— Do what, Kenneth?
— This do-gooding?
Antony hung his coat on the back of a chair and shrugged.
— Guess I must’ve done something bad in a previous life?
— Or this life, Antony. Or this one.
Kenneth had spent many years leading a successful life as a Unitarian Priest. Then the disease, then the brain damage, then the amnesia. The triptych of Kenneth’s pathology.
Physically he was fine—apart from a slight stagger and a tendency to walk too fast. It was just his memory stopped at seventeen-years-old. Inside his head, it was still 1967. Harold Wilson was Prime Minister and ‘All You Need is Love’ was at number one.
Antony stared at the back of Kenneth’s head, wondering what he must think when he looked in the mirror and saw a greying, myopic man squinting back, and not a freckle-faced youth? It’s lucky Kenneth and Lizzie were childhood sweethearts and he recognised her; Kenneth often told Antony how he fell in love with her every day, all over again. How he listened for her footsteps. How he sniffed the air for her perfume.
After a quick game of Shit Scrabble Fuck—where expletives scored the highest and which Kenneth always won—they had their first of many Coffee and Fag Breaks. Kenneth didn’t smoke until he lost his memory, but as soon as he came out of the coma and his aphasia had departed he was asking for ‘Marlboros! Marlboros! Marlboros!’ Smoking became his favourite pastime—so much so that Lizzie demanded he set strict Fag Breaks for himself, otherwise he’d happily sit and chain-smoke himself to death. Cigarettes, more than anything else, gave Kenneth’s life structure, meaning.
On the wall next to the kettle, Antony had pinned some picture-mnemonics of Kenneth’s care team. Antony’s was a red ant with the word ‘Dob’ and a picture of a baby wearing blue. Next to that: Coffee, milk, one sugar.
— So what’s my name? Antony said.
Kenneth turned his back to the wall and clicked his fingers.
— Your name is Antony cunting Dobson. My bastard conscience.
And to think he was once a Man of God!
— So what now?
Kenneth gawped around the room.
— What you fucker?
— What do we need to do now?
Antony watched him squint at the labels on the cupboards:
CUTLERY
TEA + COFFEE
PLATES + BOWLS
POTS + PANS
Then the labels on the doors:
CLOAKROOM
TOILET
LIVING ROOM
STAIRS
Antony cleared his throat, nodding towards the wall planner. Kenneth tutted and staggered over there, drawing a finger along the columns
and eyeing the clock a few times before going into the cloakroom.
* * *
Antony took his arm as they climbed the mossy steps out of the house.
— So which way?
Kenneth had lived on this street for decades, but still he looked up and down, a painful caricature of incomprehension. Then something triggered a response; he pulled the prompt cards from his pocket: images, arrows, scribbled words. Further aide-mémoirs. Coping strategies.
Walking to the Post Office, to pick up Kenneth’s DLA cheque, was always a treacherous affair. The formal Risk Assessment Antony had to produce for the short journey was twelve pages long. At the Post Office, Antony waited for Kenneth to sort out where he was and for what reason.
— Post Office. Stamps. No. Envelopes. Cunt. Post Office. No.
Then Kenneth was into the swing of things, repeating the same lewd dialogue with the counter girl, as if it was rehearsed, as if they shared the joke.
When they eventually got back they had another Coffee and Fag Break and then they played some music. Kenneth, the ex-Servant of Christ, loved The Who, and he was a mean piano player—a fact that didn’t come to light until after his illness.
Antony accompanied Kenneth on an old acoustic guitar and they played ‘Pinball Wizard’ and then ‘My Generation’ until he noticed sweat-rings under Kenneth’s arms.
Upstairs, a door was slammed.
Sarah, a cute but taciturn eighteen-year-old, made her scruffy descent. She entered the room, clearly hung-over and unamused by the din, muttering a hello. She went into the kitchen and slammed a few cupboard doors.
Kenneth, his nose touching the sheet music, sang,
— Who Are You? ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh.
Kenneth used to be violent towards her, this odd invader who looked like a relative, but, he was convinced, wasn’t. They’d had to ask her not to call him Dad, just Kenneth.
Sarah headed back up the stairs without looking at either of them.
Antony checked his watch. Bang on cue there was a rap at the door. Another of Kenneth’s sizeable care team.