The King of Spain

by Robert Ford

  ‘Rodents, Morris. Rodents. Don’t want any rodents coming in here, mate. Don’t want any rodents in here at all.’

  From the back of the room Ted started to sob, head in hands.

  ‘OK. Sam. According to the directives laid out to us the self-defence procedure that you are required to use in case of an attack by one of the residents is this...’

  With quite some enthusiasm, Morris jumped high in the air, landing both feet hard on the ground, shoulder width apart. Then, bending at the knee, he held out a massive arm and shouted sharply, at the top of his voice: ‘No!’

  Sam stood and stared, unsure what to say or do next.

  ‘OK, now your turn,’ said Morris.

  Behind him, Spike crawled on all fours towards the suspect section of skirting board.

  ‘Seriously?’ said Sam, not meaning to be facetious in any way.

  ‘OK, sure, I’ll show you again.’

  Morris repeated the action.

  ‘Got it?’

  ‘That’s self-defence?’ asked Sam

  ‘Yeah, right!’ Spike called over, momentarily diverting his attention away from the wall.

  Morris smiled before answering. ‘As far as our employers are concerned, yes, it is. My advice to you, off the record, would be that if you find yourself in a tricky situation - run. Keep your eyes open and learn as much as you can from the other guys and I’m sure it won’t come to that. OK. So let’s all do it this time.’

  At last Spike turned away from the wall and joined Sam and Morris, while at the back Ted continued to cry, a lost cause.

  ‘OK. On the count of three. One, two, three...’ And on Morris’s count they all jumped and landed and shouted, ‘No!’ - Sam and Morris together and Spike several seconds later.

  ‘Very good,’ said Morris. ‘And again: “No!” And again: “No!” And again...’

  HANDLING

  ‘You see mate, the trick with handling is... well, it’s like riding a horse. You ever ridden a horse, Sam?’ Spike asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah. Right. Imagine a bike. Or a car. Yeah, a car. That’s a good one. Driving a car. In the rain. Blindfolded.’

  ‘Right...’

  Spike nodded energetically. ‘Great. Great. Great.’

  The four men crossed back into the house and made their way along the cloisters at an easy pace, until before long they passed through the double doors that led into the main hall from the cloisters. In contrast to Sam’s previous visit, the room was quiet and still, pale autumn light from the vast windows lending the room a chalked, desaturated hue.

  ‘Stick with Spike,’ Morris called over. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  Sam nodded back as they made their separate ways between the oak tables towards the rear. Here Sam and Spike waited with the ten or twelve other handlers who were already in attendance, chatting to one another in low tones.

  Soon though, the peace was shattered. There came a sharp crack and whistle followed by a long, drawn-out grating sound, as if a huge metal bolt were being slid back. Another dreadful snap, a tear almost, and two large doors to the side of the hall were heaved open. Sam stared as the residents shuffled in under the supervision of several handlers, over to the tables. There, they were seated. Their clothes were expensive, laundered and pressed to an extent that they looked somehow overly new, as yet unburdened by the forces of flesh and bone. The hair, both on the men and women, was beautifully styled, helping to highlight the attention that had been paid to their grooming. They looked young, very young, all of them, and apart from a slight dullness about the eyes and the smell, the fetid waft that began to permeate the room upon their arrival, it would have been almost impossible to tell these ancient folk apart from those much, much, much younger.

  However, the clues were in their manner, their speech and behaviour. Most, if not all, carried at the wrist a small electronic device much like an old mobile phone, that was kept available through the use of a rubber loop that ran around their tanned, muscular wrists. They were duds, did not function, but instead it looked like they were used to comfort; the residents pawed at these modules constantly, running ungainly probing fingers across touch screens and over buttons, grappling as part of some half-remembered autonomic response. More than this, though, more than the vacancy which seemed to linger around their eyes, the thing that gave away the actual age of the residents was their speech - or lack of it. They babbled and clucked and moaned, their tongues clumsy and delinquent, speech centres bereft of capacity; language was beyond them, had ceased to be part of their existence.

  In spite of having seen them before, the residents’ callow appearance was still shocking to Sam, particularly given the fact that none of the handlers had undergone the prohibitively expensive process of epidermal rejuvenation, which meant that despite the vast age differential, almost all of the staff members appeared to be senior in years, crumpled middle-age chasing the supple ambivalence of conjured youth.

  At the back of the hall, large metal hatches opened onto elaborate kitchens where, Sam soon found out, the rank green ‘Meel’, the porridge-like food that residents ate as part of their youth-perpetuating regime, was prepared by a small team of cooks: Mrs Skeets and her merry band, red-faced folk charging to and fro between frothing pots, swearing, shouting, shoving as they went.

  Sam followed the other handlers, making a start distributing the lunches. The format seemed easy enough; they collected bowls of Meel and placed them on the tables in front of the residents, then once all the bowls had been distributed the staff would retreat a few yards, helping as and when they were needed. However, with the arrival of the Meel on the tables, there came a shift in the tone of proceedings, a change that was definite and swift. The noise levels began to rise, from a soft babble to a livid chorus of yelps and grunts, of bangs and scrapes, as the residents became more and more agitated. It was almost as if they knew instinctively what the Meel was, that somewhere deep down in the aching architecture of their derelict brains they had identified this food’s complicity in the ongoing entrapment of their souls, and so a good many rejected the food with petulant shoves and swipes and groans.

  Having placed the last of his dishes, Sam moved round to the other side of the table to assist a tall man with cropped ginger hair. Dressed in a bright green polo shirt and grey slacks, the man had already managed to spill most of the contents of his bowl and had started to bang the table hard with his fist, head rolling about his muscular neck as he hammered away, short glottal volleys of distress emanating from his mouth. Sam tucked in beside his right elbow, close in so he could try and help. But what to do? How exactly best to assist?

  Looking around the room, it seemed that all of the other handlers were engaged in similar activity, that their role in this situation was physical. A little way across the hall Spike struggled with a female resident, a woman dressed in a delicate black chiffon gown. Forehead planted on the table in front of her, she cried violent, inconsolable tears, shoulders heaving up and down with each extended breath.

  Catching Sam’s eye, Spike beamed back through the melee.

  ‘Get in there, mate.’ He mouthed, smiling despite it all.

  Buoyed marginally by this display of bonhomie, Sam looked to his charge, placing his hand on the man’s arm, leaning in.

  ‘OK. Alright. Let’s try and eat some...’

  Before he could finish his sentence the ginger man unleashed a dangerous looking swipe that just missed Sam’s groin.

  ‘Wow. OK.’

  Sam stood and dithered, feeling suddenly a little like an enormous Polo mint stuck in a stable full of horse. The ginger man snorted, his right eye winking a frantic rhythm. Then, with a surprising speed, he half-stood and pushed Sam hard in the chest, a solid, muscular shove that sent him scuttling across the polished hall floor.

  ‘Sorry! So sorry!’ squeaked Sam as he flailed straight onto a woman with a sleek black bob.

  Quite startled by this sudden invasion, the woman yowled, a sound that
was canine perhaps, feral certainly, her manicured hands snapping and pinching at his posterior.

  ‘No. No. It’s alright,’ Sam cried by way of self-preservation, scrabbling back onto his feet so that he was out of range.

  Standing back for a moment, Sam cast his eye over the room, now a sea of gurning features, of twisted and ignoble mouths, of clouded eyes and strong, straining limbs. The mood was slipping, tumbling through an ever-increasing pattern of distress. The others had been right. He could see now why they had questioned his exposure to horses, to animals. In a way, these poor people had become bestial versions of themselves; reduced, incomparable.

  Amid the chaos, another handler on the far side of the hall caught Sam’s eye. She was short and plump, around thirty years of age, with thick, kinked, strawberry blonde hair. As an absolute contrast to Sam, she carried out her duties with the utmost calm, performing her expert ministrations with the minimum of fuss. Aware that someone was watching her, she looked up, over towards Sam, and registering the bewildered expression on the face of this odd looking young man, she smiled, an encouraging, friendly grin and wave before turning back to one of the residents in her area, a man who appeared to have half-swallowed a spoon.

  It would be fair to say that Sam’s thoughts were elsewhere as he turned back to his own tables, bending low and to his left. Indeed his eyes still followed her progress as she extracted the cutlery from the man’s gaping mouth. For a moment Sam let his mind wander, imagining her as a stage magician - top hat and tails, a spotlight trained in as she next removed a string of brightly coloured flags, a rabbit and a toy car.

  ‘Ta-daa!’ The voice in Sam’s head called out as she stepped forward and bowed towards a roaring crowd.

  Sam smiled, laughed a little, even. And so preoccupied was he with this vision that he simply never saw the elbow coming, flying in at an angle from one of the larger, seated residents to his left. There was no intent to harm, or even hit Sam, this was just a random jerk, a twitch, although such was the physical condition of the resident that his arm was travelling at quite some speed, striking Sam on the bridge of his nose with sufficient force that he was thrown backwards onto the floor.

  For a moment Sam lay on his back staring at the beams high above, which seemed to come and go, in and out of focus. His whole head felt swollen and dislocated, much larger than it ought to be. Indeed it was only when he managed to labour up into a sitting position that the pain of the blow began to surge through his face. Head bowed, legs turned out to the side, blood began to pour from his nose, forming a small pool on the floor between his knees.

  Before long, a set of huge polyester trousers appeared at Sam’s side. He looked up to see Morris, his face split by a broad, toothsome smile.

  ‘Take one in the chops, huh, Sam?’

  ‘Nose.’

  ‘Classic. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.’

  With Morris’s help Sam clambered back up onto his feet. Looking around, he had half-expected the room to be at a standstill, handlers and residents watching on as he was led away, but in actual fact it seemed that hardly anyone had noticed the incident at all.

  ‘OK, so we best get you down to the infirmary then,’ Morris calmly asserted as they walked together from the hall, through the double doors and into the cloisters beyond.

  ‘Aaaaarrrh,’ replied Sam as he meandered along, right hand pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to staunch the flow of blood.

  ‘Hey, Moz, wait a sec.’

  They both turned round to see the ‘lady magician’ heading out of the hall.

  ‘You get back in there,’ she said, approaching.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yup. No problem.’

  ‘Thanks. OK, Sam I’ll catch up with you later.’

  With that Morris turned and marched back into the fray, ready for action.

  ‘Hello there, I’m Rachel,’ the magician said.

  With his right hand employed, Sam held out his left to her, palm up.

  ‘Sam.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, peering at him. ‘Come on then, let’s get you to the infirmary.’

  They turned and walked together along the cold grey cloisters, the frantic noise from the main hall receding behind them as they went.

  ‘Looks pretty nasty.’

  ‘N’ya errr guess,’ said Sam. ‘Hurts.’

  ‘Sure. Dr Fell will have something for you. He’s... well, he’s an authority on pain relief, you could say. You might find him a little unorthodox. Might.’

  Sam grunted and lowered his chin, allowing for a more natural gait, although such was the peculiarity of Sam’s build that one could never had described it as a conventional stride, reminiscent in this instance of a heron walking across hot sand.

  Rachel was much shorter than Sam, with a round, soft face covered in part by a fine layer of downy blond hair that lent her complexion an incredible translucence. Her eyes were small and rather too close together, but they sat well within the context of her features; soft brown and sympathetic above a smallish nose and mouth. Her hair, the colour of brass, was naturally wavy and too long at the fringe, which meant she was often flicking a hand across her brow in a vain attempt to keep it from her eyes.

  Straightaway, Sam recognised a warmth about Rachel, an openness and generosity of spirit that was simply part of her make up, that was genuine. Despite his discomfort, Sam couldn’t help but feel at ease in her presence, and for the first time since arriving at Edge Hill he had a feeling that perhaps everything might be alright. But for his nose, he might have grinned.

  POOPED

  A chill eastern wind licked golden leaves across the path as Sam and Rachel crossed the lawn in the direction of the infirmary. A squat cob huddled amongst large balding willow trees, the building was single-storeyed, with small frosted windows along its sides and a flat felt roof, a countenance bearing the painful utilitarian plainness that, by some quirk of architectural homogenisation, had been the lot of health facilities for decades.

  The two squeaking plastic portals that constituted the main entrance led into a whitewashed reception, a rectangular space with chairs along one wall and an unmanned desk opposite, behind which ran off a long, bright corridor.

  ‘Dr Fell?’ called Rachel, almost as if the doctor might be hiding, ready to jump out at any moment. ‘Dr Fell?’

  They both hesitated a moment and listened for signs of life but no reply was forthcoming - the building was deserted, it seemed, save for the occasional shout or slam from the interior.

  ‘Right. Come on, then.’

  Rachel led the way along the corridor to the right, Sam traipsing behind. His nose had stopped bleeding, although dark circles of bruised tissue were starting to form under his eyes, giving him a rather insomniac appearance. As they passed along the corridor he craned his neck so as to catch fleeting glimpses through the small windows that lined the passageway; snatched impressions, room upon room of strange electronic gadgetry and pristine bedding, some bustling with medical staff, some empty, some with a solitary resident laid flat out.

  At the end of the corridor they turned left and then immediately right, through a shabby green door and into a dank storage area. In contrast with the rest of the infirmary, this large dimly-lit space was completely chaotic; for the main part the room was given over to the storage of medical supplies, hundreds of tan cardboard boxes arranged in huge unsteady piles six feet high. In front of these lay a slightly more open area, a circular space covered by a large zebra skin, complete with head and tail and hooves, the white of its stripes mottled light green and grey from years of underfoot abuse.

  ‘He’s in here somewhere, I can hear the bugger,’ said Rachel stepping forward onto the hide.

  Indeed Sam, too, could hear a voice coming from the other side of the store, a high rasping tone that seemed to suggest in equal parts both distress and extreme elation. They edged further into the room, between the stacks, until there, upon rounding a corner, was D
r Fell.

  A small man, compact, with a flyweight’s physique, he wore a long white coat over a grubby vest and cream linen shorts several sizes too small, a pair that clung in a most unflattering way to his tiny sparrow’s legs. He had dark sunken eyes which, together with the cragged skin of his face, gave him the look of a man much older than his forty-something years.

  Sam stood and marvelled at the doctor. He appeared to be in the process of reprimanding a poorly rendered papier-mâché dog which sat on the floor in front of him, a forlorn face marked out in green felt tip around the snout. Ranting with incredible gusto, Dr Fell cut an impressive figure, appearing to Sam like some Old Testament prophet, possessed by the force of his argument, evangelical, furious, desperate.

  ‘Dr Fell? Hello?’

  Hearing Rachel’s voice, the rage seemed to leave the doctor’s face, the tension in his limbs replaced by an altogether more relaxed demeanour.

  ‘Hello,’ he said in a soft, uncertain voice, squinting round at them as if he no longer trusted his own eyes.

  ‘Dr Fell, this is Sam. He’s new here and as you can see he’s taken a blow from one of the residents.’ Rachel explained in the most simple terms.

  The doctor stood still, his head bent over to one side. ‘Yes, I see. Oh dear. Right. Fine...’ Dr Fell trailed off as he began to feel his way blindly around the edge of the room. ‘And you would like me to do what exactly?’

  ‘Well, I should think some first aid might be in order, wouldn’t you, Doctor?’ Rachel took extra care to enunciate, as if she were reprimanding a child.

  Dr Fell came to a stop in front of them. Certainly he appeared unwell, his skin damp and pale, right arm bobbing erratically at his side.

  ‘He’ll snap out of it,’ said Rachel to Sam. ‘I should be getting back. Goodbye, Dr Fell. See you another time.’

  ‘Wait, I...’ Sam called after her but it was too late, the rub of her shoes receding as she marched back down the corridor towards the reception and away.