‘At the end of the week Marie sat at the table she and Ira had shared and drank to the end of romance. She asked Elani, the woman who had run the taverna for over thirty years, to join her for a farewell drink. She told her that she believed Ira to be dead and Elani crossed herself and said that she had wondered where he could be. “You two became like the seasons,” she said, smiling. “Reminding us that time is passing, but reassuring us that some things stay the same.”
Marie realized that this was perhaps the only time she would ever be able to speak of Ira and so she found herself confessing. She said: “I suppose it was love? But it was a funny love. We kidded ourselves that we were an honest corner in the world but I kept a secret from him anyway. He was the father of my younger daughter. My husband doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to know. I’m not sure which. I never told Ira. I wanted to, but then he got married and time passed and… I did what I thought was best.”
Elani poured them both another glass of wine. Then she told of the time many years ago when Ira had stayed on the island alone after Marie had left, and at the end of his stay he had said: “I love her but I cannot have her. I have lied to her and told her about a wife who does not exist. I lie to keep an equal distance between us, to keep a balance and to protect her world.” Asked why he did not tell the truth, Ira had replied: “Because if she knew she might not come, and if she did not come what else is there?”
And Elani shrugged and said: “These are the things that people do.” Which apparently is true.’ Black feigned embarrassment. He expected a hug at least.
Anna nodded and said quietly: ‘That is very much a ‘you’ story.’
‘How so?’ he asked.
‘It’s sad and it doesn’t mean anything.’
*
Adam was doing press-ups; it was 7.12. One hundred and fifty of them in sets of fifty. He had already done two hundred sit-ups and eighty tricep presses. He had got up at 5.30, played his guitar very quietly for an hour and then done some old Kung Fu forms in a distracted way for ten minutes. He would cycle to work. This was him fighting back. He began most, if not all, mornings as if preparing for a fight, training himself, knowing that he would crumble the moment he smelt the mix of bleach and piss that was the hospital. He sat cross-legged on the floor and closed his eyes; he tried to empty his mind. It was a ludicrous idea, like emptying a well with a fork. So he tried to think about his body and notice what it was telling him. It was like a gum after a visit to the dentist: numbed by an injection that was wearing off and revealing a throbbing pain that promised to get worse. It started in his chest and worked its way outward. He stopped sitting cross-legged and did some more press-ups. It was 7.18. By 7.29 he was running a bath.
*
‘Shall I tell you a story? It seems only fair.’
Black knew that impatience this soon after sex was rude, and rudeness led to time being wasted arguing about manners, so he tentatively said: ‘Well, that would be nice, but won’t you be late for work?’
‘Yes I may be, but I’ll make up something dramatic like witnessing a knife fight on the Central Line and it will be forgotten.’
‘“I overslept” won’t cut it?’
‘No, the mundane has no place where I work. If it isn’t dramatic people think you are hiding something and that makes them suspicious.’ Black stared at her. Anna looked away. ‘You wouldn’t understand. Would you like a story?’
Black was nervous, unsettled and not equipped to say no. ‘Shall I make tea first?’
Anna nodded. ‘Yes, tea would be good.’
*
Adam would leave at 8.20. He was dressed and ready at 8.05 and for no good reason had decided he would not leave early. He stood in the middle of his flat staring at his spider plant. His living room was painted a soft grey and characterized by eighteen houseplants located according to their varying needs for light or shade. Two of the leaves on the spider plant were turning brown; he tore the ends off the leaves and felt the soil. It didn’t need watering. It was 8.06. He could make a plan, he thought, a plan for the weekend. That was what people did on Wednesday or Thursday or whatever day it was. He picked up a red exercise book from the small table by the window and flicked through it. Louise: he had met her at a hospital party but she wasn’t a nurse. She was an art therapist but not too middle class. He picked up the phone and called the number. An Australian woman answered.
‘Is Louise there please?’
‘It’s 8.08,’ said the Australian woman.
‘Yes it is, but thank you anyway. Did I wake you?’
‘No but… oh never mind. Louise!’ she shouted.
Adam heard the Australian woman put the phone down and could hear voices mumbling briefly. Louise picked up the phone and said ‘Hello.’
‘Hello, its Adam Sands, we met—’
Louise laughed. ‘I remember who you are. It’s nearly ten past eight in the morning.’
‘Do you people have a really big clock by the phone?’
Louise laughed again. ‘I wasn’t sure I would hear from you again.’
‘Are you doing anything on Saturday?’
‘Dunno, what do you have in mind?’
‘A film, pizza, maybe wine. No dancing.’
She laughed again, more flirtatious than joyful but good enough. ‘Promise no dancing?’
‘Guaranteed. You get to pick the film, nothing too heavy or violent please.’
‘Police Academy 3?’
‘Or ridiculous.’
‘OK, where and what time?
‘How about seven, outside Burger King on Piccadilly Circus?’
‘OK. I’ll check the film listings, you do the same and we can argue about it over pizza.’
‘Cool,’ Adam said. ‘And sorry for calling so early. Work, you know.’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s fine. See you Saturday.’
It was 8.13. He still had seven minutes to go.
*
Anna was sitting up in bed with the sheet pulled up to cover her breasts and her legs tucked in. She cradled her tea and began her story.
‘There was this young girl, seventeen, called Hannah. She lived in Wolverhampton with her younger brother Ian and her parents, Tom and Cora. She was a pretty normal teenager from a pretty normal family but like all normal teenagers she had a ‘thing’. Her thing was dancing. She liked any kind of dancing really, and given that this was the Seventies there were less kinds around. She bopped around at discos, she went to tap class; she baulked at that chiffon-waving contemporary dance nonsense because she was working class and not ridiculous, but she took to ballroom dancing, and in 1976, just before Punk reached Wolves, she and her brother came fourth in the All Midlands Ballroom Dancing Contest (Youth Section), and they were up against twenty year olds. Hannah and Ian had a talent. Some people celebrated it, one or two others resented it, but that was the way of things where she was from.
Anyway, one day they were dancing in a competition for their own age group and were frankly head and shoulders above the rest of the couples. They did a wonderful rumba, a glorious bit of swing and, while their tango lacked the sexuality one expects from a dance like that, it was very well executed, or so the judges said.
After they had collected the trophy—a large garish plastic piece of nonsense that they would mock all the way home but miss if it was in anyone else’s car—and were getting ready to go, a thin faced middle-aged man, who walked like a dancer and talked like a cross between Quentin Crisp and Noel Coward, approached their parents and introduced himself as Lance Feyeraband: dancer, choreographer and teacher. He managed to be both polite and condescending at the same time, a manner which served to charm Hannah and Ian’s parents, while reminding them that they were very working class and they were not in a working class place. Mr Feyeraband—nobody in that family was ever going to call him Lance—talked of the promise he saw in
Hannah and Ian, the raw untrained talent, that glimmer of something special and, on the off-chance that their potential was lost on Tom and Cora, he mentioned that they could end up on the television and not ITV either, but BBC2. He felt that they needed, however, a proper coach, someone who knew dance, someone who could loosen Ian’s shoulders and lift Hannah’s heel that extra half an inch. Someone like Lance Feyeraband. And he wouldn’t cost them anything. Just think it over and sign this contract, take it home, read it over, basically it secures a share of prize money and any TV fees that come about as a result of Mr Feyeraband’s professionalisation of the talented but naïve couple.’
Anna was talking in a near monotone, almost delivering a speech but with less volume. She paused for a moment to adjust her sheet, pulling it up higher and making sure the whole of her body was covered.
‘And so Lance Feyeraband became coach, mentor and agent to Hannah and Ian. He had what can only be described as a very hands-on approach to coaching. Both teenagers were unfamiliar with being touched. They knew they didn’t like it but assumed their distaste was born not of a good instinct for broken boundaries but rather a lack of sophistication. Dance was a physical world and was there really a difference between having their shoulders pulled tightly back and held firmly to demonstrate the correct shape of the spine and the casual cupping of a buttock or breast? Ian was always naïve. A very pretty boy, he either didn’t notice or didn’t process the fact that he was followed home from school every day by small groups of fifteen-year-old girls who would giggle when he turned round and leave cards and chocolates on the doorstep on Valentine’s Day, his birthday and most Fridays. Hannah was a bit more knowing. She knew that when Mr Feyeraband stroked her leg as he talked to her about school, dance and the glamorous world of Solihull that it wasn’t quite normal, particularly as he edged his hand up and inside her thigh and stretched his fingers clumsily toward the cotton of her knickers. She instinctively pulled her legs away and pushed his hand from her skin and could not, would not, disguise the look of disgust she gave him. But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t speak.
And neither did Ian, or at least not until he had come home and sat sobbing in the bath for two hours. Then he spoke, hesitantly, shamefully, before he was sick. He spoke about what Mr Feyeraband did, and what Mr Feyeraband made him do. Cora and Tom didn’t say anything at first. Hannah began to rage. She expected Tom to beat Mr Feyeraband to a bloody pulp, but only if Cora didn’t get to him first. Instead Cora said ‘You have the All England Championships coming up, you know.’ She said it quietly, something like shame in her voice, but not enough to make the words sound any less revolting to Hannah or her brother. Ian lifted his head to his father and Tom said, without looking at him, ‘Are you sure, Ian?’
Later, much later, Hannah screamed at Tom, told him that he had stopped being a father the moment that doubt left his lips, the moment it even crept into his head and Tom said the strangest thing Hannah had ever heard. He said ‘Be careful not to cut off your nose to spite your face, you two.’ Ian didn’t look at his father when he said that, in fact he didn’t look at his father ever again but he must have heard him, because months later, after the voices had come and after he had begun to hurt himself in whatever way he could, he got very drunk on Thunderbird and sherry and tried very hard, using his father’s razor blades, to cut off his beautiful nose.’ Anna fell silent.
Black, uncertain, unable to find a clue in what he should do, looked at the clock, 8.47, and said: ‘What happened to them?’
Anna shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Hannah left home after that. Never went back, changed her name I think.’
‘Poor kids,’ mumbled Black.
Anna laughed. ‘Yeah. Anyway, I like to finish on a story, Black.’
She stood up naked on the bed and stepped over him and began to put on her underwear. ‘It’s been fun, I liked the sex and it was interesting to meet someone from your world. Weird world, by the way, can’t be sure what gets you out of bed in the mornings, it all seems a bit pointless but hey, each to their own.’ She put on her black dress very quickly as she talked and began to brush her hair while looking in the mirror. She would do her make-up on the tube, she decided. ‘But frankly I am bored now and the sex has peaked, so don’t call and good luck and stuff.’ She spoke with a cool authority, not rushing, not investing very much in the words and not looking at Black.
‘Sorry?” he said.
‘Don’t be.’ She put on her shoes and quickly checked around the room to ensure she had not forgotten anything. ‘It was fine but it’s done with now. Bye.’ And with that she picked up her bag and left.
As she walked towards the tube station she found herself wondering about her body. Ovulation was not an exact science and it would be a pain to have to do this with someone else. She found herself looking at the men she passed on the way to the tube and disliking herself for it. However, if she could improve the odds of success she would be a fool not to. All we can ever do, she thought, is notice when something matters, keep as much control as you can and try to reduce the variables. These were things she believed herself to be good at. By the time she was on the tube, remembering that she had a ward round to go to and noticing that she felt relieved to be heading east, she was smiling to herself. Her instincts told her she was going to be OK and she had come to trust her instinct above just about everything else in the world.
5. Parade
Adam hated the ward rounds the way a child hated the dentist. His loathing began as an instinctive distaste that evolved into a physical revulsion. He experienced them as squalid: soulless dances of frailty that aroused the senses of people in ties. A time and place where, essentially, the patients put on a show. He remembered his first, nearly six years earlier:
‘How have you been? Yes I know the medication is making you fat and tired but it is making you better isn’t it? Isn’t it? Hmmm.’ And later, after the nervous young man with schizophrenia in his head and dribble on his chin had left the arena and the nurse had mentioned that he had told her quietly that he could not get an erection, the doctor had turned to the students and said ‘One would like to think he doesn’t need such a thing in here.’ And, in laughing, they congregated around the belief that he was somehow less than human.
It was the thought of the ward round that had drained him of whatever he imagined his sit-ups had provided. And so he re-armed himself on arriving at work by popping down to the drug room and taking two diazepam and something pink they gave to Mary Peacock for a heart condition. He left the door open as he swallowed them; he always did. If anyone saw him, nobody said anything.
The dayroom was where they held the ward round. It was always a mess: misplaced armchairs faced in random directions; out of date magazines and the odd dressing pack littered the room. It was a cross between a corridor and lounge for twenty-four patients and numerous staff, but it also passed as a dining room, shouting arena and cafe. It was never going to be homely: the chairs smelt of cigarettes and sweat and, if you were stupid enough to sit on the unsprung and ancient piece of sponge that was referred to as the sofa, you would need a winch to get out of it. The last time Adam had seen anyone use it voluntarily was when the when the thirty-four-year-old, 13 stone and 5 foot 2 Karen ‘Kazza’ Chamberlain—a woman with a diagnosis of manic depression and a penchant for Guinness laced with brandy—had, during This is your Life, suggested to four surprised fellow patients that they should have sex with her while the adverts were on. George Wimimundu was one of the ‘men’ and had laughed at the funny jokey woman with bright red lipstick rubbed into her cheeks and no knickers on. The other three had shrugged and decided to give it a go. The attendant Nursing Assistant had tried to ignore it, hoping in vain that the mad people would come to their senses or lose interest prior to penetration, but in the end the nervous and religious woman had called Adam and Grace for help in disentangling and distracting the patients as well as persuading them to pull up their
trousers.
Later, Grace, who was writing in the notes belonging to one of the men, had said to Adam: ‘I’m not sure how to phrase the group sex incident? “Colin and two others were invited to have sex with a hyper-manic fellow patient in the day room. He appeared confused but joined in anyway before staff intervened”…?’
Adam had nodded. ‘Yeah, that ought to do it. Maybe try “appeared to engage” instead of “joined in anyway”?’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I knew “joined in anyway” made it sound like a craft group.’
In the main people had avoided the sofa since then, but it was nonetheless where the three medical students sat while they waited for the Consultant to arrive.
After breakfast had been cleared away, the nursing assistants tidied the ward with a pace and zeal they applied to nothing else, with the possible exception of feeding patients when the food trolley was late and the end of their shift was drawing near. They piled up papers, rearranged armchairs, unplugged the TV and radio and chased all the mad people away. They laid out eight chairs in a horseshoe and told the students to get off the sofa. They then covered the sofa with a sheet—they didn’t want the Consultant to think it was stained or anything—and retired to the office to eat biscuits.
Next to arrive was the Occupational Therapist, a round-faced young woman in a purple smock and with no discernible chin. Her name was Phoebe. She nodded to the students before sitting down on one of the circling chairs and placing her hands in her lap. She was followed by Tim, laden with patient notes. Tim put the pile of notes on the ground, removed a bleep from his belt, checked it, put it back on his belt and sat down. He pulled his baggy brown corduroy trousers up at the thigh as he sat and immediately stood back up again and checked his bleep before sitting down, turning to Phoebe and nodding hello. Adam sat in the office watching the meeting form and sipping his tea. The last thing he said to Grace before he got up and joined them was: ‘If I set fire to a psychologist today it will be your fault.’
Stranger Than Kindness Page 6