Day 32
Lying on top of the blankets on his bed, John flicked through a wash-stained copy of Reader’s Digest he had trawled – and never thought he would read – from the bottom drawer of his bedside cabinet. He took a shine to a story about some old guy who took his son fishing, and a disembodied voice started calling to them. In the sticky warmth of the ward, he must have dozed off. In his dream he was the man’s son, fishing in a free-flowing river – something he had never done in real life. His dad had gone missing, but a cry hailed him from over the next crag. He followed the dip of the stream and climbed up a steep embankment, but no matter how quickly he ran, the wavering voice remained the same distance away. Clouds of midges rained down on him. Something flicked at his ears and he woke up. The book had fallen to the side of the bed. Janine’s halo of hair was above him and, as if she had just stepped out of the shower, she smacked of soap and shampoo. She giggled. ‘Caught you,’ she said, and poked a bony finger into his chest.
He had become a regular dealer wrapping his meds in toilet roll inside an old sock, then stashing them among his grotty shirts. But he was unsure whether to give them to her because she had been a pain in the arse with his mum. Something about her childish laugh, though, her bright eyes and lips, the way she was stroking through the stretched cloth of his Y-fronts, made his insides tumble like a fruit machine and all the answers to his questions came up YES, YES, YES.
Afterwards, when their breathing was shallow, they dropped off for a bit face to face on the single bed. He told her he loved her. Her eyes searched his for what seemed the longest time.
‘Good.’ She gobbled down the pills and turned towards the windowpane, where the splashing sound of rain playing drifted in from outside. He spooned into her back. Her tone was nonchalant. ‘I’m going out later to pick up my Giro. You fancy coming with me?’
‘Whit dae you mean?’ he asked.
‘I said I’m going out to pick up my Giro.’
He answered in an exasperated way. ‘I know whit you mean, but you’re talkin’ shite.’
‘That’s why I’m in here,’ she said. Sighing, she flung her legs out of bed and sat up. Her bra was on the floor and knickers puddled at her feet. She seemed taller and less frail dressed than she was naked. ‘You want to come or not?’ Her voice was harsh.
‘Aye,’ he said.
‘Well, then.’ Her ankle danced the twist as she pushed her toes into one shoe, then the other. ‘It’s no’ any problem for me to leave. I can come and go as I please. But getting you out, when you’re not settled, is a different kettle of fish.’
‘That’s whit I meant,’ he said.
‘We’ll need to arrange a member of staff to go with us,’ she said. ‘And that’s not easy. Cause they’re all lazy bastards.’
‘Some of them are alright.’ He was arguing for the sake of arguing. Rolling over to his side of the bed he made a patchwork of dressing, pulling on whatever clothes were nearest at hand.
Her pitying look suggested he had a lot to learn. ‘We’ll need to work it so we get the right one,’ she said. ‘It’s easier saying no than yes. And when it goes in the log-book, it’s like a precedent in case law. If you’re allowed to go out for a walk one day, you’ll be allowed out on others. At first a member of staff will always be with you, but they’re so lazy that soon they’ll be waving you through the door nae bother.’
‘Jesus. You make it seem as if I’ll be here forever.’
‘Suit yourself.’ She patted down her pockets for her cigarettes. ‘I’ll need to get a light.’ A fag stuck to her bottom lip as she edged towards the door.
‘Hing on a minute. If they’re so lazy, how are you going to get a member of staff to go along with you?’
She took the fag out of her mouth to answer, rubbing it between finger and thumb as if friction would set it alight. ‘Easy peasy, I’ll just agree to give them a blow job.’
‘You cannae do that!’
‘Well,’ her eyes fluttered as she vamped up his discomfort. ‘Obviously, I couldn’t give The Poof a blow job.’ Her eyebrows shot up, making a joke of it. Making a joke of him. Her hair framed a smirking face he wanted to slap. She continued in the same breezy manner. ‘I don’t do fat people, or the old fossils, so that rules out the female staff. That doesn’t leave much to work with.’
She made it sound like a game of Buckaroo. She waited for him to say something, her presence taunting him. ‘Yes or no?’ she asked.
His body drooped in defeat, but he raised his head and met her eyes. ‘No.’ He shook his head in disgust, like a mangy dog throwing off fleas from its coat, and his voice grew more emphatic. ‘Never.’ Like her, he found himself adopting a dramatic tone. ‘I’d rather die in here.’
‘Suit yourself.’ She stuck the cigarette back in her mouth, forgetting she didn’t have a light for it.
Something about her actions struck a chord, brought back a memory. But he didn’t know the right way to put it. ‘Those fags. Jocky gave you them, didn’t he? Every time I look up, he’s always hinging about you.’
‘You’re such a child,’ she said. ‘Of course he’s hanging about me. He works here. He’s always hanging about you, too. You played pool with him. I don’t go around accusing you of giving him blow jobs.’ She pulled the door open. ‘Fuck off,’ she said as a parting shot.
Day 33
In night visitations, over and over, Janine was haunted by the reek of coppery blood and cigar smoke. Her hand was framed on their front-door panel, but she felt safe as long as her dad stayed one side of the closed door, she the other. A fragile awareness grew that on the other side of the threshold she no longer heard her mother’s pleading voice. The sound of the traffic outside no longer worked its way up the stairs, and the shocks and spills of tenement life were muted. Her ragged breathing was the only sign of life. Dad had crept up the hallway. His ear was flattened against the other side of the door – listening. Pee gushed down her legs.
She woke with a start and flung her legs out of the warmth of her bed. Yanking down her knickers and crouching over the waste-paper bucket, urine sprayed over blackened douts, a Daily Record and Malteser wrappers, pooling in fag packets and collecting in darkened grime. It seeped out of the bottom and drained onto the carpet by her bed. Crinkling her nose at the stink and the mess she reached for a packet of Silk Cut on the chair beside her bed. Her breath caught in her throat as she picked it up and shook it, thinking that the carton might be empty, but there was one left. A life saver. The only way to start the day. All she needed was a light.
Sitting alone at a breakfast table, with nothing but a cup of strong black tea, she enjoyed the solidity of cigarette smoke around her face. Most of the regulars had already been served, a few tables cleared and stacked away. Lulu’s ‘Shout’ was screeching on the tranny behind the serving hatch. John sat a few seats across from her, elbow crooked, protecting a plate with sausage, ham, egg and fried bread. An empty cereal bowl had been pushed an arm’s reach along the table to make room. The matching ceramic white cup was positioned closer for swiping emulsified gook and quaffing hot tea after a few mouthfuls of grease. His eyes batted back and forth towards her, but the more he peeked, the slower he chewed. He finished eating, mopping his plate with fried bread. His chair legs screeched across the tiled floor. Standing slightly bow-legged, like a man frightened of farting, his hand perched on the top bar of a nearby chair, he allowed himself to notice her and to smile a lopsided grin.
‘I hope we can still be friends,’ he said.
Her cup rattled, leaving a red lipstick stain below the rim, as she placed it down on a plate. The mouthful of tea that she had been sipping was cold, but her voice was warm and upbeat. ‘Guys only ever say that when they want to screw you or dump you. Sometimes both.’ She raised one plucked eyebrow and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Which is it?’
He laughed, conscious of the nurse behind the hatch and an older patient, a balding man, staring over at them. His cheeks flamed and sweat
seeped from his pores. ‘I’d just like to be friends.’ His knee knocked against the chair closest to him as he lunged past it for the door.
Janine turned her head, watching him scuttle away. She dabbed carefully at the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin, her eyes watering as she giggled. A dull morning looked more promising.
She stayed in her room, avoided meeting him again until she was properly dressed. She stood at the entrance to the day room waiting for him to rediscover her. Long fingers were jammed inside the flaps of her oversized checked mohair coat. A Cossack hat flattened her head. But he had acquired a pad and a biro and was either writing or drawing. Eventually, when he did look over, she nonchalantly waved goodbye to him. She paused to pick at the flaked pink polish on her thumbnail with her index finger as she trudged, in matronly shoes, towards the nurses’ office.
‘Where you aff tae?’ John stood behind her, his body weight on the back heel for a quick getaway.
‘I was just going to get some air.’
‘That’s nice.’
She slipped her arm through his, looking up at him. ‘Why don’t you come?’
‘Aye, I’d love to.’ He tugged his arm listlessly away, but he was grinning.
She wrenched him closer. ‘I’m serious.’
‘I think we’ve been through this wan before.’ His glance wandered over her shoulder to the poolroom.
She plucked at his arm until he was minding her and not something else. ‘I can get you out of here.’
‘How?’ he whispered. He looked up and down the corridor, to see if anybody was watching them, but apart from a few patients hanging about nobody showed any interest in them. Day staff were ensconced in their office near the exit to the ward with the door shut.
‘I’ll make you invisible,’ she said.
He snorted. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
Her hand was held up in front of his face, her fingers making childish twinkling movements. ‘I can, you know. Make you invisible. Get you out of here.’
‘Whit are you? A witch or something?’
‘Wicked Witch of the North,’ she cackled.
They laughed, clutching each other’s arms for support. She was first to pull away, straightening up her coat, but still clenching his wrist. She whispered, ‘Just promise to do exactly what I tell you.’
‘OK.’ His face played it as a joke, but he sounded half-serious.
‘Right.’ She was Boadicea, slapping his arms so he stood straight as a soldier. ‘Follow me. And remember, don’t hesitate. Do exactly what I say. When we get there and they open the door for me to leave, I’ll give you the nod, and I want you to kiss me as if your life depended on it.’
‘That shouldn’t be too hard.’ He fell into step behind her, until Janine pushed him backwards, tilted her hip and flapped her hand fantail, signalling he should remain where he was.
He watched Patricia, the charge nurse, jingle the ward keys on the chain before selecting the right one to let Janine out. He tried to outguess Janine, keen to work out what kind of conjuring was going to track him round the nurse and smuggle him outside and into the grounds. He crept closer, stood within spitting distance of the office, leaning against the wall and trying to blend in. He knew that made him stand out like a banana in a packet of Wotsits. But he factored in the reverse logic of special pleading. Crazy people were allowed to stand out; if they did not eclipse their surroundings, there was something more seriously wrong with them than first thought. The charge nurse marked his position, but knowing she could take him out with one arm made her slack. She unlocked the door and held it open for Janine. He was deaf to what was said. Their utterances were brief. But they looked across and Janine promenaded towards him. She took one of his hands in hers, then the other, and pecked him on the lips. Her arms went round his neck and she pulled him close enough to taste perfume, whispering in his ear, ‘Remember what I told you.’ Her next kiss was forceful and mannish. She skittered along the corridor towards the exit with him pulled, whirling, in her wake.
‘For God sake, gee that a break.’ Patricia sounded squeamish, but more amused than upset.
The closer they got to the door, the more passionately Janine kissed him. He wondered if her plan might have included using his hard-on as a battering ram to help them escape. She let go of him at the door, the plan, whatever it was, stalling and breaking down. The charge nurse held in her stomach to let Janine pass, but she teetered on the threshold. The pull of his attraction seemed too much for her. She hooked herself to him like a life support-machine, closed her eyes, and spun him in a snog fest. Tottering, he stumbled as she shoved him backwards and pushed him through the doors.
‘Push off! Run!’ she cried. It was the kind of efficient voice that belonged in the wards of maternity suites, not a psychiatric unit. There was no arguing with her. He legged it through the double doors and into the grounds.
Janine scrambled out behind him, the doors flapped shut behind her. She was laughing so much she could hardly walk. Low sunshine sparkled and shone on acres of grass, and he filled his lungs with its musty green miasma. Taking her hand, they made their getaway like two drunks tagged together, past the lights of other windows and the graveyards of other wards. They were caught between two seasons. The trees in the grounds had lost their rustle and it was cold enough for sleet or snow. Wind whipped behind and between them. After being shut inside the Mediterranean heat box of the ward for so long he came unprepared in a thin T-shirt. The tarmac path curved in a half-moon towards Great Western Road and Hyndland Station. Leaf mould clogged their feet and sleet dampened their ardour.
‘Where are we goin’?’ he asked, teeth chittering.
‘Back to mine,’ she replied.
Shackled together they squished through broad leaves gathered on the bottom lane of the hospital. Two-storey houses locked in by rusting fences helped act as a windbreak, and Janine opened her coat out in invitation. They briefly clung to each other until they got to the low stone wall of the shallow pond. He dutifully tugged himself away from her, letting her gather her coat, button it up to her neck, and conserve heat. They were leaving the hospital grounds before he felt it safe to ask, ‘Whit do you think they’ll dae?’
She kept walking, her pace quickening. ‘They’ll do what they usually do.’ Her voice held no rancour. ‘They’ll do nothing and hope it’ll turn out alright, but they’ll be shitting themselves and working out a story about who to blame and how it wasn’t anybody’s fault.’
He tried to laugh, but it was too cold and his jaw ached. ‘Will they no’ go to your house right away lookin’ for you?’
She slowed to consider. They walked hand in hand to the Pond Hotel. Her voice was level. ‘They’ll not be looking for me. They’ll be looking for you.’
It took him a second to realise what she was talking about. ‘Whit will I dae then, should I go back?’
‘You’re just out! And you want to go back already?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Stop apologising.’
He nodded in agreement, drinking in traffic fumes as the traffic lights turned green and cars scooted past.
‘I’ll just nip in here and make a phone call,’ she said. ‘Let them know the lay of the land. Tell them that you were feeling a bit homesick and you’ll only be away for a few hours. They’ll like that. “Home visit” will already be sketched down on some bit of paper, ready to be endorsed as an official entry on your care plan as if they thought it was a good idea and authorised it. They’ll not want to contact the police just yet, cause then they’ll feel stupid. Whatever you do, don’t ever make them feel stupid. Cause they always get their own back on you.’
‘Aye.’ He hadn’t listened to half of what she said. Snow drifted, gathering in their hair. ‘Can you just hurry up, so we can go somewhere?’
‘We’ll go in here. I’ll make that phone call. Back to mine. Then . . .’ her eyes shone.
He grunted his assent before she finished speaking, imagining
what would come next. He imagined the unimaginable – not sex, just feeling warm.
‘Then we can go and see this little girl you keep nattering on about.’ She smiled, showing yellow teeth. ‘Perfect conditions.’
She made it seem like going for a game of golf. But he nodded. He would have agreed to anything.
Day 34
Four customers queued in Partick Post Office, a large cavernous room, but only one stood in front of Janine at the pay window. She was an elderly woman who reeked of clammy clothes and got flustered about what she had done with her change. She muddled between the purse on the counter with notes in it and another purse in a plastic carrier bag. Janine sighed and studied John as the man behind the counter patiently coached the old woman through what she had done with her pension book and money.
Janine thought her boyfriend – if he was worth calling that – looked shifty as a gang’s look-out, which might have something to do with the long, fur-trimmed Afghan coat she had given him to wear. It was the only thing that fitted him from her wardrobe and seemed, if not presentable, at least not too tight on the hips. But it left him looking like an unconvincing transvestite. He slouched, nose plugged to the door, peering out at the pavement, watching snow curling down and pedestrians stomping through the slush, ready, at a moment’s notice and a nod from his gang leader, to turn the sign on the door from Open to Shut and hold the place up with the sawn-off concealed under his coat.
Lily Poole Page 11