by Laura Marney
Fiona stops and looks at Maria. She looks into her eyes and smiles.
‘I forgive you,’ she says quietly.
Fiona never does anything quietly but she utters these words with such simple dignity that Maria, overwhelmed with relief and gratitude and love, wants to hug and squeeze Fiona and demonstrate with the force of her squeeze how much she means to her. She wants to squash and physically imprint on Fiona’s big body her strength of feeling. But she won’t.
With Fiona, hugs and kisses must always be on her terms. She has to be the one to initiate physical contact or else she freaks out. So, carefully, Maria lifts Fiona’s hand. Slowly and while maintaining reassuring eye contact she brings Fiona’s hand to her lips. Without any sudden movements to startle her Maria deposits a kiss of gratitude and love on the back of Fiona’s hand.
Fiona tolerates this contact. She receives the kiss as her due and then pulls Maria into her ample bosom and squeezes her tight.
‘I’m so sorry, Fiona. I lost my temper, it was a bad thing to do, very, very bad.’
Not only must she apologise for her own appalling behaviour but she must also make Fiona understand that violence of any description is unacceptable.
‘Very bad,’ agrees Fiona, releasing her from the violent bear hug.
Maria lets out a relieved laugh.
‘Yes. Very, very bad,’ Maria agrees.
‘He’s a bad man.’
‘Who is?’
‘The man,’ says Fiona. ‘The man with the strawberry.’
Her tone is chatty and friendly. ‘But it wasn’t a strawberry today, unless you can get black strawberries.’
Fiona has a habit of changing the subject when she doesn’t want to talk about something or she becomes bored. She almost always changes it to her favourite subjects: celebrities, crisps or cake. Obviously she doesn’t want to discuss the crisp-throwing incident any longer and Maria is happy to drop it.
‘Yes,’ says Maria, trying to match Fiona’s lightness of tone, ‘I think it was strawberry, it was strawberry jam roly-poly. That’s what Alice said, anyway.’
Maria is keen to widen out the conversation to include Jane.
‘Jane, you make a terrific waitress.’
‘I’m a nurse. Grade G staff nurse.’
‘Oh yes, I know that, but you make a great waitress, too. It’s still a good job, still helping people.’ Maria tails off unconvincingly.
‘But you had a good time, didn’t you? You want to go back, right?’
‘I am going back,’ says Jane boldly, ‘same time next week. You have to take me,’ she says imperiously.
‘Yes, that’s right. We’re all going back, same time next week. It’ll be great fun.’
‘I don’t want to go back,’ says Fiona.
She says this calmly. There is no hint of acrimony; she’s simply stating a fact.
‘And why is that then?’ says Maria, trying to laugh, but only producing a soprano cackle from her throat.
‘The man with the strawberry, but it wasn’t a strawberry today.’
‘What man?’
‘Can I have crisps please, Maria?’
Maria sighs. She knew it was only going to be a matter of time before the thorny question of potato snack provision came up again.
‘What, you want crisps now?’
‘Yes. Now, please.’
Maria knows it’s wrong. Apart from the damage the crisps are undoubtedly doing to Fiona: her blood thickened to paste thundering through her kinked and frayed blood vessels like stringy chewed offal, her arterial walls plaqued like chewing gum-spattered pavement, her blood pressure a ticking bomb, apart from all that, she knows it’s wrong to give in.
‘Okay then,’ Maria says reaching into her bag, ‘cheese and onion, all right?’
Once they get over this crisis Maria can refocus Fiona on healthy eating again, get her off the crisps for good.
‘No,’ says Fiona quietly, ‘I want Walker’s Sensations Thai Chilli flavour.’
Maria lays an affectionate hand on Jane’s arm.
‘Do you want crisps, Jane?’
‘Yes, I’ll have a packet of Seasons Sea Salt and Crushed Pepper, please.’
The day that had been shaping up in Maria’s meditation to be so perfect has so far turned out to be a nightmare, but if she thinks this is bad, it’s about to get worse.
Chapter 44
Once he waves off Maria and the girls Ray makes a start again on his sideboard. George King, the guy that commissioned them, phoned him yesterday. He had a laugh and a joke with him and put him off for another couple of weeks. He’s hardly made any progress on the cabinets since the rehearsals started. Every day someone asks him to do something or other, paint a backdrop or build a set. It’s getting out of hand.
Marianne is doing her usual thing of coming up with brilliant ideas. Her latest is to run a coffee bar during the interval in the show.
‘I’ll check it out, Ray, but as far as I know we don’t need a licence so long as we’re not selling alcohol.’
‘You weren’t thinking of selling alcohol, were you?’
‘Good grief! Believe me; absolutely the last thing I was thinking of was selling alcohol. We’ve got enough on our hands with this lot, never mind a load of drunken Hextors. Mind you, it might make them enjoy the show more.’
‘I think they’ll enjoy the show just fine.’
‘Well, thank you for your vote of confidence.’
Ray lets Marianne lead him towards the snooker table.
‘This thing is a bit of a liability. It’s the opportunity cost I’m thinking of.’
‘Opportunity cost?’ says Ray, baffled. She’s obviously forgotten who she’s talking to. He’s just a joiner.
‘Yes. It’s taking up valuable seating space – on the night of the show we could have at least six more paying customers in there. It’s costing us bums on seats.’
‘And you can never have too many bums,’ says Ray.
Coincidentally, as they approach the table he can see a magnificent example of quality bum, a perfect specimen. Some of the choirgirls are playing snooker, four of them at a time. One is leaning across the table trying to make a shot and meanwhile presenting a deliciously juicy young arse.
Jailbait. It’s exciting but unnerving to be around them. Ray will never understand teenage girls. It’s the giggling. What the hell do they find so hysterically funny? He always thinks they’re laughing at him and he doesn’t know why, or how to stop them. The girls are now standing around the snooker table bickering about whose turn it is. They hassle everyone else who plays snooker, the serious players, to get their turn on the table and then when they do get on they’re less interested in playing than in who’s watching them play.
The rest of the choir hang together in clumps, whispering with occasional noisy explosions of giggling, waiting their turn.
‘Excuse me please, Chantelle,’ says Marianne to one of the snooker players. ‘Could you let us in a minute here, please? Ray needs to measure the table. Thank you.’
All four girls move away and lounge around on one of the pews that have been brought from the church into the hall.
‘I thought if you could make some sort of lid that fits on top,’ explains Marianne.
Ray understands quickly and easily what it is she wants.
‘That way we could use it to serve coffee from on the night.’
Although he’s nodding his head, he has tuned into the buzz and increased volume from the choir girls. Something’s going on but as he’s trying to give Marianne his attention he can’t work out what it is.
An old sheet, more recently pressed into service as a dust cover, is draped over the pew the girls are standing around. It’s daubed here and there with the burgundy paint Ray used in the backdrop for the Hexton Hot Steppers. But there seems to be something moving beneath the sheet. The girls are giggling and pushing each other towards it. One or two of them prod it and then retreat giggling to their friends.
Marianne is deliberately tuning out the noise from the girls and raises her voice slightly to compensate.
‘Not only that,’ she almost shouts, ‘but it would mean the table was protected from anyone spilling anything on it. Alice gets really antsy if any of my lot go near it with their cans of coke.’
Ray has stopped listening. Something is about to happen. The girls are laughing and squealing, shoving each other towards the thing under the sheet. Agitation has risen to fever pitch until one girl runs forward and tugs the sheet off the pew.
The girls shriek in terror. They start crying. The burgundy paint was not paint but blood. There under the sheet, pinned to the pew by a six-inch nail through the neck, is one of the magician’s rabbits.
Amidst the screaming, Ray and Marianne run to the schoolgirls. All other activity in the hall ceases as people rush forward, jostling to get a view. One girl screeches and points.
‘Miss, the rabbit, the rabbit! Please, Miss, please!’
Marianne turns to Ray.
‘Can you deal with this? I’ll have to get the girls out of here.’
She moves forward with her arms wide, trying to sweep the girls together.
‘Girls! Come on now,’ she says, ‘let’s move outside.’
But Ray can’t deal with this. He’s not good with blood. He doesn’t like to get it on his hands, it scares him.
The rabbit is not dead. Though it is impaled through the neck and bleeding profusely, it is fully conscious. Just because he’s handy with woodwork doesn’t mean he can deal with this. If he has to touch it he might faint, here, in front of everyone.
‘Come on now, Alison, love,’ Marianne says in a soothing singsong voice to the most hysterical girl. ‘Let’s go outside and get a breath of air. It’s going to be all right, we’ll leave Ray to sort this out, shall we?’
‘Miss, we have to help it!’
‘We can’t leave it like this, we have to do something! Please, Miss!’
Despite their protests the headmistress gently puts her arm around Alison, but she fights her off, howling and clinging to her friends. Then Marianne’s shouting above the chaos.
‘Please pay attention, girls! Now we are going to leave calmly and quietly. I insist that you leave the building with me immediately!’
But this end of the hall is too congested now for them to push through the excited crowd. She’s forced to give up and let them weep and cling to each other, alternately watching the rabbit and burying their heads in each other’s necks.
The rabbit is lying on its side on top of the pew but as it struggles it slides off. Adults gasp, children scream. They’re all expecting him to do something, to fix it, Mr Fixit. Now the rabbit is dangling, its paws and feet swimming in the air, suspended by the nail which is slowly tearing through its throat. Blood is bubbling from the hole in its neck.
Ray grits his teeth and lifts the rabbit back up onto the pew, taking the strain off its neck wound while he tries to figure out what to do. He can feel its heart beating, the throb of its pulse through his fingers and with each throb he feels a hot quiver of nausea. He tries not to look at it, to avoid seeing its torn flesh as he takes his hammer from his tool belt. This increases the volume of the girl’s screams.
He’s going to be sick. The screaming is like two thin steel blades entering his head via his ears. He can’t think straight, the blades of noise are fighting a bloody duel, slicing and cutting his brain to chump meat. He hates to hear a woman scream, he’s heard enough screaming to last a life time.
‘Don’t hurt him!’
‘Ray, help the wee fella!’
He holds the rabbit with one hand trying to lever the nail out between the prongs of the claw hammer. His hand is shaking, knocking the hammer against the nail. He’s hurting the rabbit, making things worse. He pulls hard on the hammer trying to ease the nail out of the wood, out of the rabbit’s throat but it’s not working. To get any leverage he’d have to bear down on the rabbit and that would surely kill it. The nail is deeply embedded and although it bends, it won’t leave the wood. The rabbit’s blood flows more quickly now. It’s sticky and hot in his hands. Ray feels dizzy.
He’s bent the nail, he’ll never get it out now and still everyone is screaming at him. The rabbit is more trapped now than when he started. Ray can’t save the rabbit. Its breathing is becoming more laboured, it’s drowning in its own blood. The kindest thing to do would be to end this slow asphyxiation. He has to kill it. He can’t deal with this.
The rabbit looks at him out of the side of its eye. It isn’t angry or scared or accepting, it just watches him as though gathering evidence. It seems to know how this scene will play out.
Ray has seen this look before.
He turns the hammer in his hands.
‘Miss, please don’t let Ray kill it! Please!’
‘For God’s sake put the wee thing out of its misery!’ a man’s voice shouts, setting off another round of screaming from the teenagers. The crowd have moved closer, crowding in on top of him, so close he hasn’t the elbow room to work.
Ray turns and faces them. ‘Would you just please move back!’ he shouts. ‘Look, what is it you want? You want me to take the nail out? Yes? No? Look, the rabbit’s going to die, whatever I do. I can’t work miracles, I don’t know what it is you expect. What the fuck do you people want from me? Eh?’
The crowd has fallen silent. Ray is wiping the sweat from his forehead when someone pushes through. Alice emerges and takes the hammer from Ray’s slack hand.
‘Give me the bliddy thing,’ she says.
As if practising a putting shot Alice puts the hammer to the rabbit’s head and then with one swift tap kills it stone dead. There is a squashing sound as its skull bursts followed by the sound of a hall full of people inhaling loudly. Eyes pop, hands fly to faces, teenagers wail.
‘Okay, show’s over, get back to whatever you were doing, the lot of you.’
Transfixed by the horror of the executed rabbit and the pony-tailed woman with the blood-streaked face, nobody moves.
‘You heard me!’ she yells.
This shout galvanises them and the crowd, mumbling and whispering their shock, begin to shuffle away. Marianne pulls her girls, still weeping and clinging, away from the scene.
What the fuck is he doing here? Why did he come to this place? These people expect too much. They don’t know him, they don’t know. When space has cleared, Ray turns and walks out the hall. He’s uncertain at this moment if he’ll ever return.
Chapter 45
When Maria and the girls arrive back at the centre, there is no sign of Dezzie and the boys. Where are they? They left the church before her; they should have got here ages ago. It’s not as though she can ask anyone. That would be admitting that she doesn’t know where they are and, as Key Worker, she is responsible. Perhaps they went the long way back through the park. Half an hour later, when they have still not returned, she has to discount this theory. She imagines Brian’s mum and dad’s faces when she has to tell them she’s lost their son. Despite Brian’s difficult relationship with them, especially his dad Phil, they are devoted to him. He’s their only child. Like other parents of disabled children they blame themselves and ceaselessly try to make up for it by spoiling him with every indulgence they can possibly afford. Maria is scared of what Brian’s dad might do with his baseball bat if Brian was ever to come to any harm.
Martin’s parents are different; they’re elderly and very easygoing. Too easy-going. They make light of the fact that Martin has Down’s Syndrome and give him far too much freedom. This lenient attitude has led Martin to have an inflated idea of his own capabilities.
What if they’ve had an accident or been mugged? The streets of Hexton have, up to now, been a safe place for clients. Though the locals might not let them into their clubs, they don’t generally attack them on the street. But there’s a first time for everything.
If some doped up junkie, desperate for his next fix, thought they had a f
ew quid between them they could get mugged. He’d only need to wave a kitchen knife, it would be that easy. Maria almost weeps when she considers how defenceless they are. She knows exactly how Dezzie would react. He’d protect the boys, her boys, with his life if necessary.
Worst case scenario would be trouble from Martin. Martin is affectionate and fun-loving, especially with the women clients, but he hates people taking the piss and he can be aggressive. He’s young and physically powerful and has every arrogance of the strong young man. Over the years, through various disputes and tussles for dominance with the other men clients, Martin has become recognised as the alpha male. Centre staff do all they can to discourage these power struggles but they are inevitable. Unfortunately this has led Martin to believe that he’s a hard man. He’s unlikely, given the reputation he has to maintain, to allow anyone, even a crazed junkie with a kitchen knife, to mug him.
His tough guy standing is based on a few shouted arguments and a bit of pushing in the lunch queue. He’s not up to armed combat. Maria prays that he wouldn’t try any of his have-a-go-hero stunts he uses in the show.
She’s crying again. This is all her fault. If she hadn’t lost her temper with Fiona, they would all be here now, warm and safe inside the centre. The buses will be here in a minute to take everybody home. And still no sign of them.
What if Dezzie does put himself between Martin and a drug-crazed knife-wielding mugger? If he sacrifices his own sweet, firm, but nonetheless vulnerable, body for Martin’s flabby pink one? Would she still love Dezzie if he were disabled? If he were crippled and unable to have children?
Yes.
Or physically intact but brain damaged?
Of course.
Even if he was drooling and vacant?
Her love is unconditional.
If she was ever lucky enough to become Mrs Desmond Stewart, it would be for better or worse, in sickness and in health. Although making love to a drooling swivel-eyed husband doesn’t seem right somehow.