by RR Haywood
She finds the tap connected to the hose and starts pulling it back in. The end comes into view with water still pouring out after she forgot to switch it off last night. She turns the tap off, gets the hose back and assesses the job that needs to be done. Hands on hips, frowning slightly, eyes narrowing and taking in his broad shoulders, thick limbs and solid mid-centre. All of which is encrusted with filth and grime. Will he even let her wash him? Dogs don’t like it. He’s not a dog. He’s an infected man. Yes but he’s a very smelly infected man and if she’s keeping him then he needs to be cleaned.
She does find a small set of step ladders though and a long handled brush that she uses to whack the ladders about the yard until all the spiders have dropped off.
Right. Here it is. She sizes him up again while biting her bottom lip and wondering where to start. Top. Got to be that t shirt, or what’s left of it.
‘Arms up,’ she says with a big smile and clocks the softness coming into his eyes. After taking a breath she goes in to grab his wrists that get lifted up and pushed at the elbows until he’s arms are both up above his head. ‘Stay there,’ she grunts, not wishing to breathe in. She grabs the hem of his t shirt and starts tugging it up. Still holding her breath she gets the top to his chest then confronts the next dilemma of not being tall enough to push any further up.
‘Bend down,’ she whispers.
He doesn’t bend down.
‘Paco…bend over…’
Paco stays where he is with his arms up in surrender. It’s no good. She needs to breathe in. She turns, snatches air and comes back into the fray. Sod it, she darts off to grab the step-ladder, opens them out, locks the safety bar in place and gets them positioned in front of him. Paco remains as placed. His arms straight up above his head while his eyes track her every movement. She climbs up to tug and prise the filthy garment over his head.
‘One down,’ she drops from the ladders, kicks them back and goes for his jeans which are even more encrusted and stiff than the top. The button is undone, the zipper pulled down then the material is once more prised from his skin to be pushed and pulled down his thighs. ‘Good lord,’ she recoils at the sight of the muscles in his legs and glances up to see his arms are still in the air. ‘You can put your arms down now,’ she tells him. ‘Paco…arms down…arms down…oh never mind…my god you stink so bad,’ she turns to gulp air and comes back to get his jeans down to his ankles. ‘Boots,’ she tells him and starts unlacing. ‘Leg up old chap,’ she grabs a leg to lift that remains fixed where it is. ‘Paco…lift it up…lift your bloody leg…’ he gets the gist of the movement and leans over to lift one foot an inch off the ground. ‘No…bend it, bend your knee a bit. Here, like this, see…that’s it!’ She starts working on the boot, tugging it free from his foot as a fresh whiff of oh so cheesy feet hits her nose. She recoils sharply, yacking and gagging on the spot.
Paco stands with both arms up, leaning over with one leg bent and his jeans wrapped round his ankle while Heather pushes his leg to get it back down. He watches her closely. His red bloodshot eyes never leaving her form. Docile and content to do as told and bid.
‘Other one,’ she tugs at his ankle which rises instantly to bend at the knee. ‘Well done,’ she beams up while bent over, her face red from the exertion and the smile genuine. He doesn’t react but his eyes show something. She works the laces, grunting to get the boot off then the sock until she finally staggers back with a light sweat already forming on her face.
‘Yay,’ she shows him the last sock which gets lobbed away then looks admiringly at her handiwork as two things start to dawn. The first being that he is still standing on one leg with his arms in the air. The second being that despite the fact he is infected, filthy and covered in wounds, he does have a tremendous body. Really tremendous. There’s no other word for it. Look at his stomach. All ribbed and bulging and the way it tapers down from his chest. She cocks her head over without knowing she is cocking her head over. His waist is really quite small too but then sweeps out at his thighs and my god, those thighs. I mean, just…and back up to his stomach that’s so defined. What does it feel like? She goes forward without invite and without thought. A hand reaches, gloved and protected but she feels the ridges nonetheless. They’re so dense, like so hard. She pokes one, marvelling at how pliable yet firm it is. Good lord look at his chest. That’s a big chest. You can see all the striations and everything and those shoulders. Yeah, that’s why he was a famous actor. Just that. That’s enough right there. Indeed. Yep. Tremendous.
‘Right,’ she blinks and grins awkwardly at him staring at her staring at him. ‘You can put your leg down now, and your arms…’ he doesn’t put his leg or arms down. She does it for him. Pushing first his leg then going back for the step-ladder to climb up to reach his arms.
‘Ah,’ she pulls a face on noticing he still has his boxers on. Tight white ones too. Or at least they were white once. They aren’t white now that’s for sure. ‘Gotta come off I’m afraid,’ she tells him apologetically. ‘Now let’s not be shy. We’re all boys together. Well, you’re a boy and I’m a girl but that doesn’t matter holy shit, Paco….’
She walks quickly away to stand facing the other direction blinking furiously and blowing air out through her cheeks. It’s just a penis. Just a willy. Every man has one. She turns to go back then stops and spins back round. Just a penis. It’s Paco Maguire’s penis and it’s…I mean it’s…she peers over her shoulder with a flinch. Jesus. Don’t even look at it.
She doesn’t look at it. Instead she gets the bucket of soapy water and stares at the ground, at her gloved hands, at the brushes and anything but his penis. He’s infected anyway. Yeah but it’s Paco Maguire’s dongle and it’s so...stop it, he’s like a puppy. That ain’t a puppy. Puppies don’t look like that. Yes but he is a puppy. He’s dumb as anything and standing naked because you undressed him. The thought is instantly sobering. She imagines the situation being reversed. The indignity of it. What if she was stripped naked to stand docile while some strange bloke groped her tits? Shame creeps up her face, burning hard with deep blushes spreading through her cheeks. Any thoughts of his physical form vanish in a second. He watched her showering last night and had zero reaction. Be a decent human being, Heather.
‘Right come on, let’s get you washed eh?’ She smiles sadly at him with the sting of her own chastisement still smarting. Her own eyes now soft with creases in the corners that speak more of sadness than laughter.
She imagined she would scrub him with a thick brush but within the first few seconds of the water running black she realises a stiff brush will only pull the scabs off and open his wounds again. Instead she opts for soft cloths and sponges. Soaping softly over the wounds and bruises. Not that he flinches. He doesn’t move a muscle or show any reaction other than constantly tracking her movements. It becomes absorbing too. A task that she finds herself relishing for the simple fact of having purpose and objective. The long days in the self-imposed exile of the church kept her alive but the lack of stimulation became something worse than injury. It sapped her mind, her motivation and brought a depressive fug down that made her stare for hours at the distant treeline. Now she has something to do and a reason for doing it. Paco will keep her alive and in turn, she will keep him alive. She soaps his arms, legs and back. She washes his stomach and chest, across his shoulders and uses the ladder to ever so gently clean his neck, picking bits of grit out from the wounds with her gloved fingers. She gets close as she works, her face sometimes an inch from different parts of his body. The heat is incredible and grows as the morning goes on with a blazing sun baking the yard and humidity that draws the sweat from her body.
After changing the water she climbs up the ladder and lifts an eyebrow while staring at his face. She works delicately round his jaw, scrubbing at the strands of his beard to make sure the filth is washed away. She works his cheeks, his nose and laughs when he sprays soap bubbles from his mouth and goes even more gently when she cleans the area around hi
s eyes.
Every inch of him is cleaned. Well, apart from several inches that are ignored until she finishes and has to accept the inevitable. She replaces the soapy water and goes behind him to do his backside first. Not looking but going quickly to wipe and clean. It has to be done. Dirt causes infection and the human body in this heat will be a breeding ground for bacteria. She rinses the cloth and heads round the front with a big sigh. Again she doesn’t look but gets the soapy cloth and lifts his penis to clean underneath. She smiles at him, showing this is being done through necessity and not for any other reason.
‘Got to be clean,’ she murmurs. Testicles done. Now the big one. No, not the big one, don’t say big one.
‘I didn’t say big one,’ she tells him quickly. She grips and starts cleaning, not too hard but hard enough to rid the filth and grime. She could see he isn’t circumcised and knows that means she has to pull the skin back to clean the head of the penis. Right. Hold the shaft and slide the skin back then clean the head. Okay, she grips the shaft in one hand and uses the other to ease the skin back to expose the head. She doesn’t look but goes by touch alone and feels the ridge of the head in her gloved fingers then guides the cloth to start rubbing gently.
It becomes a moment of meaning. Not of sexual intent or any hint of desire. Not of physical admiration or yearning of any description but a hint of tenderness to do something you don’t wish to do to keep the other safe. He kept her safe yesterday. He killed for her. Nearly every one of these bites and marks were made by him killing to keep her alive. So for that she will do this.
She steps back and smiles warmly from the eyes, ‘all clean,’ she says. ‘You look so much better, really you do. Right, hold on there. Got a few more bits to do.’
The antiseptic comes next. She knows he doesn’t feel pain but she goes gently anyway. It feels right to go gently. She holds the previous feeling in her mind, of what he did for her. She wouldn’t be alive now if not for him. Every cut is cleaned with antiseptic and even though she has no idea if it does any good she guesses it can’t do any harm.
At his neck she moves with something close to tenderness. Dabbing softly to get the liquid into every laceration. As she works she notices those wounds are meshing together and the puncture marks are already closing up.
She dabs his face, his ears and cheeks. His right eye where it was swollen yesterday and any part that looks bruised, cut or bit. After that she opens the first aid box and unwraps a sterile white bandage that she uses to wrap round his neck. Securing the end with a tie off. The deep bite on his arm is dressed, one on leg and the nasty scratches round his stomach too. He gets plastered and bandaged with medical tape and gauze.
‘Oh my gosh,’ she says proudly, stepping back once more to admire her work. With his neck covered he looks like Paco Maguire. The Paco Maguire. ‘Wow, look at you,’ she adds with an approving nod. A warm feeling spreads inside and she frowns while smiling then laughs gently at the utter surrealness of it all. She just washed and bandaged a big time movie actor. Bloody hell.
‘Clothes,’ she says after a fashion. ‘You need clothes, come on,’ she heads off back to the farmhouse with a naked but bandaged Paco following dutifully behind.
In the bedrooms upstairs she goes through drawers and wardrobes, pulling out jeans and trousers that would fit his leg length but that are about ten waist sizes too big. She finds boxers and gets him covered. Clean socks go on his feet. A t shirt is tugged down over his head and she guesses he would approve at the way his arms bulge from the sleeves. Still no bottoms though. Everything is way too big and even a belt wouldn’t work with a size difference that great.
The only thing she finds that could work is a pair of blue thick cotton dungaree coveralls with two straps that hook over the shoulders. The waist is quite big but at least they stay up. From there she leads him down to the bathroom and still with her marigold rubber gloves on she uses one of the toothbrushes to clean his teeth. Pushing the bristles into his mouth while leaning away to avoid any spray. He stays as docile as ever, even when she reaches down his dungarees and gets a hand up his t shirt to spray deodorant into his armpits.
She can’t help but smile while leading him back downstairs and outside to find his boots. They too get cleaned and scrubbed then left to dry in the sun. That warm feeling stays and grows as Paco follows her everywhere she goes. Never complaining, never nagging or doing anything but always watching and always scanning.
In the kitchen she moves round the bodies that smell so much worse now Paco is clean and puts a pan of water on the gas stove that thankfully hisses to life. She finds dried pasta and whacks a load in then adds another pan of water to make tea. She goes outside while it heats to clear her nose and stands listening to the birdsong and up at the beautiful open sky. Funny how little things can change a day. It’s still the end of the world. There are dead bodies in the kitchen and another one over there by that building but she’s alive. She smiles at Paco who stares back. He’s not drooling now. She watches him closely, noticing that his head seems to hold a bit higher now and his eyes look sharper, more focussed. She dismisses it with a sigh, putting it down to him being cleaned and dressed. She inhales deeply and catches the scents of toothpaste and fragrance then looks at him for several long seconds in the silence of a morning stretching away.
She eats pasta and tuna mixed with peeled plum tomatoes and drinks hot black tea with sugar. It tastes divine. Paco is fed too but this time he seems to remember what happened last night and takes the food in without issue. He chews too and swallows. She even gets a big glass of water down him without any being spat out.
Suddenly she is done. Paco is washed and clean. Both are fed and watered. She stands in the living room wondering what on earth they should do now. She’s been so busy but it’s been great having something to do. She doesn’t want to stop. She wants more tasks and objectives. She wants to keep washing and fiddling with his clothes and bandages. For a second she considers shaving his jaw but figures the razor will take the scabs off his face.
She could do anything. They probably have some books here. She could make more tea and crash out on the sofa reading something. She could doze, put her feet up and relax but she’s had days of doing that and it’s the last thing she wants. The room becomes too silent, too gloomy and musty and the smells of the bodies seem stronger now. She needs to go outside and do something, go somewhere. Like a new sense of freedom and courage have been found. She has Paco. Paco can kill anything. She saw it yesterday. Not one of them got past him and he’s strong again now. Don’t be absurd. It’s safe here. She looks round the living room that suddenly looks old and belonging to someone else. The carpet is threadbare and worn through. The wallpaper peeling at the corners. Thick dust on every surface and cheap furniture that looks ready to fall apart. She knows in that second she cannot stay here. Besides, other people have been here before her. What if they come back or some other survivors take refuge here. No, she can’t stay here. As an escape it was perfect, as a bolthole it’s great but there’s two corpses in the kitchen and another one outside. Staying here would mean moving them and the idea of that is too disgusting to contemplate. They’ve got what they need so it’s time to go
‘Toothbrush!’ she announces the idea the second it pops in her head. ‘I need a toothbrush,’ she winces as she says it, knowing how ridiculous it sounds. ‘So er…we’ll go get one yeah?’
Seventeen
New shoes on her feet. New bag, now cleaned and stuffed with water on her back. She walks with him up the lane to the cattle grid that he crosses with ease. Which is another thing she notices in his development of motor skills.
The unmade road is shorter today too. She had to push him up it yesterday and it felt like miles but now, striding along with a bounce in her step it only takes a few minutes to reach the end and once more into the country road.
‘This heat,’ she says with a glance across at him. ‘Never felt anything like it. Got to be something to do wit
h this all happening,’ she trails off to think. ‘You know, think of all the planes and cars that were pumping fumes and like gases out.’ She thinks again. ‘Factories, houses…schools…well everything really. They’ve all stopped haven’t they so it must have messed with the weather. Changed it. Having said that, it was bloody hot before this even happened but I’m sure the weather forecast said it was a mini-heatwave which suggests it wasn’t due to keep going.’
They fall into a quietness of feet treading on tarmac and birds singing in the canopy of trees overhead that seem to sag from the oppressive temperature.
‘Want to hear something funny?’ She asks him, glancing across then realising he’s walking at her side instead of behind. Well sort of at her side. At her side but back a bit so he can still see her. Maybe he was just tired yesterday which made him keep falling back. Yeah, that was it.
‘So anyway,’ she says, smiling then looking ahead. ‘I had the chance to train to be a doctor. I didn’t though. Then I thought I would be a blood scientist but changed my mind and thought about being a barrister. Point is, if I had trained to be a blood scientist I might have understood what the disease is or the infection or whatever it is. I don’t think doctors would have much of a clue. Not like GP’s anyway, or like most of the doctors in hospitals to be honest. They’re experts alright but in their field and not with stuff like this, you know, like what’s inside you. Mind you, if I did become a blood scientist then I probably wouldn’t have been in the gym on that Friday it happened and would have most likely been eaten by now. Hmmm, which kind of makes it a moot point.’
They walk on with her thumbs hooked in the straps of her bag. Her legs should be stiff and sore from yesterday but instead she feels strangely full of energy. Those long days in the church have done something and made her suddenly hungry to keep moving.