by Gee, Maurice
It behoves me …
The bus let Gwen down at the hospital and she carried the picture, wrapped in newspaper, up the steps and through brown corridors with dog-leg turns to Ulla’s room. Ulla lay on the high bed, in her halo brace, with her tubes. Her eyes were closed but there was a throbbing in the lids when Gwen looked close.
‘Ulla, it’s Gwen.’
‘Gwen.’ So slow. ‘Hej, Gwen.’ Eyes half open. ‘Is it night?’
‘Yes. Eight o’clock. You’ve had your tea.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Well, hospital teas … ’
‘Yes, I do. I must try not to.’
Was that a joke? Had Ulla made a joke?
‘Were you sleeping?’
‘Day dreaming.’
‘What about?’
‘Oh, it goes. I can’t remember.’ A whisper for a voice, with lovely cadences.
‘Olivia came.’
‘Did she? Yes. She read to me.’
‘What?’
‘Her school report.’
‘Was it good?’
‘Oh, middling. Is that … ? Is medium … ?’
‘Middling is right. She didn’t show me.’ Meaning, you’re her mother. How to tell if Ulla heard meanings of that sort?
‘And Damon came?’
‘Yes.’
‘How was he?’
‘He sits so still. With folded arms.’
‘Like … ?’
‘Sit up straight.’
‘Sit up straight at school?’
‘He told me a new jump. The barani. He practised it.’
‘He goes so high.’ Then understood – not practised the jump, but practised telling Ulla about it. She moved a wisp of hair on Ulla’s brow, left to right; saw it creep back.
‘Do you mind me touching your face?’
‘No.’
‘Damon’s very young.’
‘Yes, he’s young.’
‘Has he told you he might be going up to stay with Howie?’
‘When?’
‘Soon. If that’s all right?’
Ulla closed her eyes. Everything was slowed down. I’d give her my opinion now, in normal times, Gwen thought. She waited.
‘It’s all right.’ Ulla did not open her eyes, but spoke in more than a whisper.
‘You’ll be going up there too. Auckland. One day.’
‘Will I?’
‘Yes. That’s where the spinal unit is.’
‘How will I go?’
‘By aeroplane.’ She moved the wisp of hair again. Touch her face, the doctor had said. They need reassurance, they want to feel some contact with the people they love. She had not liked his ‘they’ and did not trust him to know anything about it.
‘There’s a letter from Tomas.’
‘How is he?’
‘I haven’t opened it. Would you like me to? I can do the Swedish, I think.’
‘He’ll be upset.’
‘I suppose he will. Would you like to save it for a while?’
‘No.’
‘Stop me when you’ve had enough.’
She tore the letter open – slowing time, keeping Ulla’s time. ‘Kära syster Ulla,’ she read. Ulla opened her eyes. She listened, seemed to listen with the whole of her face, as Gwen laid each word down carefully. ‘Jag vet inte vad jag ska skriva … ’
‘Always will,’ Ulla said in a moment.
‘What?’
‘He says he will always love me.’ She smiled. ‘Tomas is a little boy too.’
Gwen read on. She heard her vowels too flat and could not round them. Ulla smiled again – at her or at something Tomas said?
‘He tells me winter starts and he will buy his little Per some skates.’
‘For on the lake?’
‘Yes, on the lake. He tells me the snow is on the hills.’
‘Long nights soon,’ Gwen said.
‘Long nights.’
‘Shall I keep on reading?’
‘Please.’
She tried to make her voice lilt as Ulla’s would have done. Lovely language; language for the cold lakes and the sky. She did not need to know the meaning of it. Ulla closed her eyes again. The scar on her cheek made a shiny ridge and made her strange and wounded and cold; but the wound had healed, which made Gwen think of life for her and recovery. She finished the letter. Folded it.
‘Tomas,’ she said.
‘Yes, Tomas.’
‘Perhaps one day you’ll go and see him again – or he’ll come here.’
‘Ah, Gwen.’
‘People who can’t walk do travel. It isn’t impossible, you know.’
‘I will not travel.’
‘We can’t say … ’
‘You must help me to know what is real and what is not.’
‘I’m not sure I know.’
‘You must not ask me to help you.’ She seemed to sleep then, for a while, as though she had said huge amounts and exhausted herself. And oh how much she has said, Gwen thought.
A nurse came in. ‘Sleeping?’
‘Yes. Day dreaming.’
‘Half an hour. Then we’ll have to move her.’
‘Why?’
‘Shift her on the bed. For pressure points.’
‘Bed sores?’
‘Yes. We’re very pleased with her, you know.’
‘The infection’s gone?’
‘Practically.’
‘But all sorts of other things … ?’
‘It’s a long haul, Mrs Peet.’
Where to? Gwen wanted to ask, but felt that as an extension of Ulla she must say nothing to offend; she must make them pleased with her too.
‘I brought a picture from her house. I’d like to show it to her before I go.’
‘I’m awake,’ Ulla said.
The nurse smiled and went away.
‘People keep on coming at my face,’ Ulla said.
‘They’re trying to help.’
‘The world is right up against my face.’
‘It must be hard – ’
‘I feel as if they’ve put my body somewhere and now they keep on talking to my head.’
Like that punishment, Gwen thought, where – was it the Redskins? – they buried you up to your neck and your head lay like a ball on the sand and anyone could come along and do anything – play with it, poke out the eyes. ‘I brought the picture for you. Would you like to see?’
‘A picture?’
‘Anders Zorn. The sauna bath.’
‘Anders,’ Ulla said, properly.
‘I can never get it right. Anders?’
‘Right.’
She unwrapped the paper. ‘I’ll hold it where you can see.’ Which she did: angled down at Ulla, where her own hands would have held it if she had been able to raise them.
Ulla looked at it a while. Gwen watched her eyes move.
‘We had wooden tubs,’ she said.
‘And real stones?’
‘Oh yes. Now it is all electrics.’
‘See how they gleam. Gleaming flanks.’
‘Women are not so fat any more.’
‘Does it remind you?’
‘Of course. See her back. The water in the dipper is for the stones, to make them steam. But her friend will pour some on to her as well and it will run like in a gutter down her spine, and down between her buttocks there.’
‘Tickling.’
‘Sliding like a snake.’
‘Is it cold or hot?’
‘Oh, just warm. Everything heats up. You run out and jump in the lake – that is the cold.’
‘Past Anders Zorn watching in the door.’
Ulla laughed. It was like two little coughs, surprising her. She closed her mouth, not liking it.
‘Did that hurt?’
‘I could not tell where it started from.’
Gwen’s arms were aching. ‘Can I take it down now?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll leave it. One of the nurses can hang it up.’
‘No. Take it home.’
‘But they can easily do it. They can put it on the end of your bed.’
‘I’ve seen it now. I do not want fat ladies. A little bit of water, Gwen. A sip.’
Gwen helped her. She said, ‘I can bring it again, whenever you want.’
‘Yes, that will do. Leave Tomas’s letter. Put it somewhere I can see.’
Gwen made a tent of it and hung it on the rail at the foot of the bed. ‘Do you want to write to him?’
‘Soon. Will you scratch my eyebrow? The left one, by my nose.’
‘There?’
‘Yes, there.’
‘You’ll have to learn to think scratch. Like in science fiction.’
Ulla closed her eyes. A small tightening showed in her mouth: anger, Gwen was appalled to see.
‘You must let other people make the jokes,’ Ulla said.
‘Yes, I’m sorry.’
‘I cannot try very much now.’
‘You’d like me to go?’
‘Yes, go. You’ll come tomorrow?’
‘I’ll come.’
Gwen kissed her quickly. She carried the picture home unwrapped and people put their heads on one side to look at it. She turned it round and held the naked women to her chest.
How can I learn to help her? I don’t want her ever to let me go. But how can I stand it? she said.
Chapter Nine
Danny did not mind Sam as long as he was quiet. Leeanne fed him and changed him in her bedroom, and cuddled him as often as she could. She did not talk to him when Danny was around; he did not like it.
‘The kid can’t fucken understand.’
‘It’s how they learn to talk.’
‘He doesn’t need to talk. All he needs is keep his fucken mouth shut.’
She whispered as she fed him in the night. ‘We’re getting out of here, Sam. We’re not staying here. You wait, my baby, we’ll go soon.’ But she still hoped that Danny would go. He left for work early and came in late, sometimes with a mate or two and sometimes with a woman. ‘Hey, Leeanne, come in here.’ She did not hear it now more than once or twice a week and he was lazy and did not hurt her deliberately. He did not ask to see her feed Sam. It frightened her that her boniness and whiteness put him off fucking her sometimes. She kept herself out of his way, believing he might hurt her badly then.
She cooked his meals and washed his clothes. She washed his smell off herself as soon as he had gone to work, but it followed as she pushed Sam through the streets. People stepped back from her in shops. They looked at the yellow bruises on her arms and turned away.
‘There y’are,’ Danny said, slapping money down on the table. He was proud of himself, and liked her best, when he was providing. It allowed her to save a small part of her benefit.
‘Good feed, Leeanne. Kid’s asleep, eh? Leave the fucken dishes.’ The nights when he was friendly often ended as the worst.
She put Sam in his pushchair and she walked up the hill. She thought that she was bleeding down the inside of her thighs. ‘No more,’ she said, ‘no more, no more.’ She sat on a bench in a playground and let Sam crawl on the grass.
How can he be happy? Is it only children who know how? She did not want him ever to know about Danny, and there was only one way – never to go back.
I can keep on walking, Leeanne thought. She looked at the houses all around – up the hill, down the hill, stretching to the sea. Thousands of houses and not one where she could knock and say, Help me please. I keep on walking and where do I go? A man slept on another bench. He had an arm across his eyes to keep out the light and one yellow foot wrapped round the other. He’s like me, Leeanne thought, there’s nowhere he can go. She faced the other way so she wouldn’t see him.
Sam had got to a path and was chewing an empty cigarette packet. She took it away from him and fetched him back. She did not want him ever to grow up; in broken jeans, with tattooed hands and bare yellow feet. How do I stop him? She saw the chances for him narrowed down – a crack in a wall and no way through. Brown for a start. And a mum like me. And someone like Danny standing in for dad. Be happy now, Sam, because it’s stacked against you later on. She turned one way, then turned the other, as though by this she might break out and find a place and give Sam his chance. But it was like a blowfly rattling on a window pane. She did not understand the wall between her and other people, who drove cars and owned houses and took trips round the world. How did you get from where she was to where they were? How did you even get a decent couple of rooms and a decent table and chairs? All she had – a seat in a crummy playground, a prickling like blood on the inside of her thighs. And Sam there, on the grass, behaving like things were just okay. Where could she take him before he found out?
She put him in the baby swing and pushed him back and forth. The squeaking of the hinges went through her sharp as wire. You’d think they’d oil it, she thought, but they only oiled the mayor’s chair, or whoever. And that rich tart, that MP, who was going to live on the benefit for a month to prove to people like her that it could be done. Jesus, Leeanne thought, I’d like to put her in with Danny for a night. She pushed Sam higher, too high, but it delighted him and she kept on. He needed all the fun he could get because there wasn’t going to be any later on. If Danny ever touches Sam I’ll kill him, Leeanne thought.
She stopped the swing and listened. ‘A helicopter, Sam.’ It was somewhere round the hill, behind the pines. Then the noise changed to a clatter like wooden trays. A big white tadpole, Leeanne thought, as the machine leaned towards her on the hill. It came too close and she thought, There’s going to be a crash. Men’s faces looked out the windows. They were white but did not seem afraid. Tourists, she thought. Stuff the sods. Looking at me.
The helicopter paused and hovered, edging closer to the piece of waste land by the swings. Leeanne covered her ears, then took her hands away and covered Sam’s. She could not believe it was going to land. It lurched and found its balance and swung its tail round. The noise was like the inside of a washing machine.
Bastards, Leeanne thought. She tried to keep Sam’s ears covered and lift him out of the swing at the same time. The helicopter settled and stood still, but a storm of dust rose from the down-draught of the blades and raced across the waste ground and through the thistles by the wire fence and swept around Leeanne and Sam. Grit stung her face as she covered him. He screamed against her chest. The sound behind fell away to a chuk-chuk and the blast of wind was gone as quickly as it had come. She got Sam free of the swing and looked at his face. Dust in his eyes, that was all; but it enraged her. Men in suits were stepping down from the helicopter and walking bent underneath the down-slanting blades. They smoothed their hair and stood straight, looking round. Leeanne screamed at them. She held Sam in front of her and ran past the broken slide and leaned across the fence, holding him out. ‘Look what you done to my baby, you bastards.’ Sam howled. She pulled him back and cradled him, and kept on screaming, ‘Stupid bastards, stupid cunts, look what you done to my baby’s eyes.’ They were still; then three of them turned their backs on her. The fourth, an older man, came across the waste ground, red-faced and slant-eyed.
‘Is he hurt?’
‘Of course he’s fucken hurt. Listen to him.’
‘Dust in his eyes?’
‘And fucken grit. You got no right to land that thing. This is a kids’ playground here.’
The man turned and shouted at the pilot, who was climbing down from his machine, ‘You got a landing permit for here?’
‘You bet I have.’
‘There you are, so it’s legal.’ He looked at Sam, who cried still, with a glue of dust and snot on his upper lip. ‘I don’t think he’s hurt too bad. You buy him something, eh? Buy an ice cream.’
She saw his wallet bursting with money and she swung her arm and knocked it into the thistles. ‘Keep your fucken money. I don’t want your money. All I want is treat my kid decently, that’s all.’
‘Come on, Ho
wie, you can’t do anything there,’ a man called out.
‘I’ve got your number,’ Leeanne said, looking at the helicopter, seeing blurred letters as her own eyes ran with tears. ‘I’m going to lay a complaint.’
‘Hey,’ said the man, ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘big deal.’ She turned round and went back to the seat. She wet a napkin corner with spit and wiped Sam’s face and calmed him down. ‘Fucken bastards.’ She wiped her own. When she looked again the men had walked beyond the helicopter and one was pointing down the slope and tapping a paper in his hand. She could not hear what they were saying. The man who had offered her money stood with his hands in his pockets, looking the other way, towards the hilltop. She found a bit of his skin under her nail and scraped it out. At least I put my mark on the bastard. She strapped Sam in his pushchair and walked out of the playground. The guy on the bench had rolled on to his other side.
‘Sleep, you lucky sod,’ Leeanne said. She pushed Sam along streets and up and down hills in the direction of home, but not going there; she was going nowhere. The towers of the city, rising in front, were as far away and strange as cities over the sea. She passed the Indian dairy where Jody had bought her cigarettes. The helicopter swept over, heading for the harbour. She did not look up. Complaining would be useless, a joke. Where? Who to? They’d show her out and laugh when she had gone. She felt tears start in her eyes again, but wiped them away angrily. Fat pricks, useless pricks, they weren’t going to make her cry. Sam would get even for her, Sam would get them one day. Up an alley, kick their faces off.
Leeanne made a wail of anguish when she found herself thinking that. She seemed to be joining them, and helping them beat Sam, and she ran around to the front of the pushchair and hugged him and felt his pulses warm on her throat. ‘I’m sorry Sam, we’re not going to play their game, eh Sam?’ He cried as the straps cut into him. She let him go and soothed him and went back to the dairy and bought him a Buzzbar. If he got chocolate on him too bad. She had to give him good times right now. ‘We’ll go and visit someone, Sam. We’ll go and see your uncle. He might give us some money for an ice cream, eh?’
