by Jon Bauer
I can’t wait.
‘I was with another patient.’
‘She’s in the lounge.’
I watch her waddle off before I close the door.
‘Hello, Mary. You feeling poorly, eh? Let’s have a look at you then.’
Vicky perches on the edge of the couch and it’s clear Mum’s been sick while I’ve been pacing outside.
‘Can you get me a bowl or a bucket.’
I head off, my heart beating with a different urgency. I bring the bowl and Mum is vomiting, Vicky having got her over on her side, Mum’s head cradled gently. Green coming out. Such withering retching sounds, Vicky stroking and shooshing — no sign of disgust, only tenderness for a stranger. Vicky right up close to something I’m not sure I could face and it’s my own mum. Although maybe Vicky wouldn’t be so calm if it was her mum. I don’t know. I just know nurses are amazing.
‘I’ll need a tissue too,’ she says in the same tender voice she’s been using on Mum. I go for the tissues, Alfie outside the window, steaming up the glass. That piece of mica rock glistening at me from the window ledge.
Michael rock, Dad called it.
Mum is reclined and panting when I return with tissues, Vicky stroking her forehead. She mops at Mum’s mouth and hands me the bowl. I can’t look at it, carrying it finger and thumb into the bathroom and turning away, pouring, my breath held. Perhaps a few drops joining with Grandma’s blood on the U-bend. I flush the toilet and come back with a bucket.
‘Can you hear me, Mary?’ Vicky’s voice raised as if to be heard over the sound of the wrecking ball swinging inside Mum’s head. ‘I’m going to give you your medication by injection, Mare. It’ll make you feel better. And something for the nausea.’
She opens her bag, one of her hands never leaving Mum’s. Mum holding on too.
Then there’s me a few steps away from the back of the couch. I couldn’t hold Mum’s hand from here.
‘I gave her some painkillers and steroids just before, Vicky.’
‘I noticed,’ she says.
After the injection she lifts Mum’s eyelids and shines a light.
‘What does that tell you?’
‘I can see how the pupil reacts, but also distortion to the optic nerve from the intra-cranial pressure. Pressure in the skull. Can you do me a favour? Go and get your mum some ice cubes to suck on, she’s probably thirsty. And put the kettle on, eh? She’s not the only one.’
When she’s finished her examination she makes some notes, then sits for a moment just stroking Mum’s forehead, the room so quiet, just the three of us breathing.
‘I’m going to have a chat to your son now, Mary. You’ll be alright here for a bit. Just rest. Stay on your side. There’s a bucket in case you feel sick but the medicine works very quickly. We won’t be far.’
We both creep away as if from a sleeping baby.
I’ve opened up the back door to let some breathing in, Vicky and me at the kitchen table, teas steaming. I take my phone out of my pocket to make room, plonk it on the table.
‘She’s on the maximum steroid dosage now. That mightn’t necessarily stabilise her, we’ll just have to see. I’m concerned though. Have you had a chance to go through the leaflet I gave you, about the hospice?’
I nod. I am intent on what she’s saying. I really am. But even her South African accent is starting to seem attractive. Her cleavage soft and inviting. My desire tainted by a stab of guilt that I’m capable of thinking about this with Mum ill in the next room. But what better time for comfort than this? And what better comfort.
‘So you’re ok for me to go ahead and call them, put a bed on standby for her? I don’t think she’ll be at home much longer. It’s not fair on either of you. If the system were better there’d be more support available earlier in the …’ She’s got nice hands. The one not cradling her mug of tea is a little towards me on the table, no wedding ring and no tan line from where she might take it off for work ‘… In any case, your mum’s reached the stage where she does qualify, and the Santa Christi is just lovely, I promise you. They’ll make her very …’ My heart is that squishing of a kinked hose, my good hand ready, her chest a little exposed ‘… do you think? Someone who can give you some support too?’
It’s like I’m surrounded by static electricity as I reach for her, my hand on hers, my face set to earnest, and feeling it too.
‘Thank you for the way you’ve been with my mum. Seriously.’
She stiffens a bit from the touch, looks down at her tea, sits up a little straighter, my hand on hers, eyes burning into the top of her head, then her cleavage. My touch wandering up her arm and I can see her uniform going in and out, in and out from her breathing deep and full and I don’t care, I run my hand up over her shoulder, caress her neck, and the line is crossed and way back behind me. I’m out in no man’s land and there’s that glorious finish line. She looks at me now, her face flushed and anguished with wanting, both of us panting. It’s pathetic.
Push a lever …
‘You look even better than in your photos,’ she says, breathless, shy. ‘But this is totally against the …’
My whole body standing on end, my caress nearing her chest and as I’m about to cup a breast her mouth comes at me, wide open long before her lunge has brought it to mine, her teeth clashing on my lips, hurting, her saliva plentiful and warm and then we sort it out, a rhythm, standing as we kiss, her hip bumping the table and tea spilling, hands everywhere, mouths locked, my mouth not leaving hers as I bend my knees enough to get a hand lower than the hem of her skirt, and I’m standing full height again, my phone starting up ringing, making us both issue a short giggle but she gnaws so hard on my neck my mouth’s wrenched open by the pain, her hands at my belt, Patricia showing up on my ringing mobilephone screen and I could almost answer it but we’re locked in that flesh madness, the table banging against the wall.
18
Mum is in bed upstairs, steroids fighting the wildfires burning in her head, the hospice brochures down here on the table among all the empty beer cans. I’m pacing, beer swilling in my stomach, the TV on but down low, the carpet damp from where I had to mop up that mess.
I’ve got a date with Patricia but it’s hours away and I shouldn’t be going out at all. But I can’t stay in and I can’t go out, like I’ve got an itch in the centre of my brain. An itch all the alcohol I’ve had is failing to scratch.
I head upstairs and dress for the date, then go check on Mum, hoping she’ll look tucked up and peaceful in bed so I’m allowed out to play.
She’s in bed, that’s true, but she’s not quite tucked up, her face dappled with perfect beads of sweat.
I plonk myself beside her and undo my shirt button, trying to resign myself to staying home — a quiet night in with the screaming in my head.
I sigh, looking at the telephone sat silent on her bedside table.
Bingo.
I snatch up the receiver from its cradle and dial my mobile from it. Once it’s ringing I place her phone down beside her pillow and march off in the direction of my jingling mobile and answer it.
Contact! With her phone off the hook and connected to my mobile, I’m the world’s most portable babysitter.
I’m almost skipping up the road, my phone warm in my breast pocket, the charger with me and a cigarette smoking in my mouth. One of the smokes you actually really enjoy, one of those rare ones that doesn’t feel like injury, or servile, pointless addiction.
I take my mobile out and listen to the phone-call silence. Still, I’ll hear her if she shouts out.
‘I’ve drunk too much again, Mum.’
It’s dark now, mid-evening, not long till Patricia and my half-nine dinner date. Her idea to make it late. Nice and late. I can tell what she’s thinking and I like it.
In the meantime I don’t know where I’m going but at least there’s movement, plus more fleshy comfort to look forward to, my shirt collar buttoned up close against my neck to hide the regrettable love bit
e Nursey left behind. She was all panicked afterwards, worrying about her transgression.
It’s so easy to disown pleasure, once you’ve had it.
Up ahead is another beacon of my unsightliness, the photographer’s studio, the pavement outside it ablaze with light from inside. Even at this hour.
I can’t resist peeking in through the window and that must be Gary or Bill or Don Vincenzo or whatever. He’s in his forties. New family photos up on the walls. New window glass. He’s at the desk working on a picture. I can’t tell what it’s of but it’s a large image, no made-up faces in it. No pretence of happy. Only colour and shape. Looks like he’s just finished framing it — his face calm and content as he wipes the glass down with a cloth.
He can’t see me out here with those lights blazing inside. I put the phone to my ear and listen to Mum again, watching the photographer step back to admire his work, wringing his hands a little in a cloth he’s holding.
‘Shall I, Mum?’ I say, staring at the photographer I vandalised but listening to the sound of all that distance, the call signal travelling much further probably than the actual distance involved. The sounds converted into binary information in order to fly through the air and along those lines, so that I’m standing here listening to the ones and zeroes of Mum.
I knock on the shop door, a Closed sign looking at me, my innards rallying. He squints to see out into the dark where we are, Mum and me. Now he’s coming over. I fidget, doing up my shirt collar, undoing it.
He peers through the glass, a hand cupped to block out the light behind him. I’m wearing my best reassuring grin, trying to stop my body swaying, the phone still at my ear.
He unbolts the door then makes a show of switching the Closed sign over to Open, gives me a wide grin, the smell of marijuana coming out along with his head when he pokes it round the door. ‘Can I help you?’
‘You the owner?’
‘I am. Everything alright?’
‘Is that one of yours there you’re framing?’ I point in at the picture on the desk.
‘Sorry?’
‘That arty picture. It’s not like these other ones. Is it one of your own you’ve taken?’
He’s looking at me, his eye drawn to the phone in my unsteady hand. ‘Yes I took it, it’s —’
‘How much d’you want for it?’
‘You can barely see it from here. Why would you —’
‘I saw what happened to your window. Terrible.’ I give him a rock solid tut-tut and a shake of my head. ‘Kids, I s’pose?’
I’m picturing Mum listening in from her bedroom darkness, eyes open, mesmerised. Like this is a seminal radio broadcast I’m giving. The photographer staring at me, along with those airbrushed, framed, fakey faces in his window.
‘Do you mind if I pop in for a look? I’m an art dealer.’ I pat my pockets. ‘Don’t have a business card on me just now but — I’m not interested in these happy-clappy ones in the window, you must have more as good as that one there you’re framing.’ I put a palm in the air to show him I come in peace, then cover the phone’s mouthpiece with my finger. ‘I’m interested in what you’re smoking n’ all.’
We’re ensconced now, empty beers all over the table, I’m rolling a joint, he’s putting one out. Both of us with that bodily abandon of the inebriated — seated unorthodoxly on our chairs, tilted back on two legs. Elbows draped. My phone over on a ledge by the door. I don’t want her hearing this.
‘Hey, I lied about being an art dealer.’
‘No shit,’ he says. ‘You’re still my first buyer though,’ his face beaming at the picture, also by the door. ‘For one of my own, anyway.’
‘I won’t be the last,’ I tell him, pausing mid-lick of the rolling paper. ‘Were you insured?’
‘Insured?’ he says, picking absentmindedly at something caught in his back teeth.
‘The window.’
He nods, fingers still in his mouth, those eyes of his sneaking a look over at me from time to time. Even with all this inebriated camaraderie we’ve established, he keeps doing that, looking at me like I’m dodgy.
I sneak stares at him too. Watching this man I wronged but feeling like I’ve righted some of that wrong with the arm and a leg I just spent on his picture.
‘What work do you do?’ he says. I glance over at my mobile – drop the unfinished joint on the table, go fetch her. ‘Nothing. I lost my job.’ I look at the phone screen for a reaction.
In his drunkenness the photographer laughs at me. ‘What d’you do, shag the boss?’
‘Ah, you wouldn’t understand.’ I’m regretting embarking on this with him — a little flexing waking up in my innards. I sit heavily back down in my chair, set Mum on the table.
‘You did didn’t you, you dirty dog,’ he says, all lecherous and lit up. ‘I bet a face like that would get you into big trouble with the ladies. Look at yer neck.’
I push my beer away, pushing away the emotions, telling myself this is the last smoke and drink if I’m going to be on form for Patricia.
‘Mind if I save this for the road?’ I say, gesturing with the joint, and eyeing his big bag of weed. ‘I worked in the prison system as a guard. A paedophile was beaten to death, I got the blame.’
‘They deserve exactly what they get.’ He fidgets, leaning closer. ‘Did you though, you know, bust him up?’
I put the joint behind my ear, a little claustrophobic suddenly — standing up, feeling how much more overcooked I am now, reaching for his stash and grabbing a good pinch. ‘A small sweetener for all that money I just spent on your new career?’
He wafts the question quickly away. ‘Sure, but what did you do to him?’
I lean on the table, supporting my weight, ‘What would you do? Not what you like to think you’d do, what you’d actually be able to do. With these.’ I show him my hands, letting him notice the scar. ‘Locked up in a ten by seven, just you and a terrified old man. No repercussions.’ I straighten again, looking at him.
I don’t tell him (and Mum) how the prison system is what used to keep me going. How much I loved being part of that clumsy brotherhood. I loved it. As small-minded and brutal as it could be, it was all I had for a while.
I don’t tell him how obvious it is that someone like me worked with the guilty.
‘In fact,’ I say, quieter now, pocketing some tobacco and rolling papers, ‘What would you do if you were alone in a room with the person who broke your window?’
I light the joint, the flame warming my face for a second, making the room vanish, my hands shaky.
‘What if it was just an eight-year-old boy who broke it? Would you punish an eight-year-old?’
I exhale the smoke, suck in another lungful, sucking back the tears – children looking at me from the walls, all of them forced into formal, scratchy clothes, hair pulled back, tied up, flattened down, squashed.
‘I don’t get it,’ he says, a long swallow running down him, his body right back against his chair.
‘I was angry, but I didn’t mean to hurt him. It was an accident. Even Robert knew that. I’ve never meant to hurt anyone.’
Again, it’s her reaction I’m after, not his. Now I’m hiding mine by heading for the door, opening it – struggling to gather the enormous picture I bought.
‘See you, mate,’ I say to the street, my back to him in the open doorway. ‘I’m sorry about your window.’
19
Dad is singing Hey Now My Wife-friend’s Back and laughing at his jokes more than usual, which is a lot. Plus cleaning like a madman and making me do a thousand jobs. Robert doesn’t have to and it’s not fair but Dad says I can either do the chores or he can tell Mum I tried to put Alfie through the washing machine.
Leeks or broccoli.
‘Where’s the washing powder, Dad?’ he says then looks at me all seriously even though his good mood is shining through. ‘I see you with that cat again and I’ll have your guts for garters.’
I’m doing horrid jobs when I should be
in my lion’s den with my Transformer. Today it’s the monster.
When I grow up I’m not going to have any feelings at all. I’ll be a computer or a robot. And I’ll know everything too like the computers on telly that can have a conversation and fly the spaceship even while solving big problems. Unlike Dad who talks slower when he’s pulling out of a junction.
Robert wants to go along to get Mum from the hospital but Dad just rubs his head and smiles.
Now Robert and me are sitting at the kitchen table and listening to Dad’s reversing noise which sort of sounds horrid right now, maybe cos I hear it when it’s time to get up in the mornings.
Robert is having trouble sitting still. So is my tummy.
‘Do you want me to make you something?’ he says, pointing towards the kitchen.
I shake my head. I’m turning my Transformer from a monster to a robot, back to a monster. My hand is healing nicely but still looks a bit scarred for life.
‘Which one are you and which one is me?’ I say, showing him the robot, then put a finger up to make him wait. I change the robot really quick as I can, keeping my tongue in. Robert looks impressed.
I show him the monster.
He shrugs. ‘Which one do you think?’
I don’t know. I’m too busy staring at how happy and excited he is. I turn it back to the robot. Meanwhile it’s really quiet in the house between us like we’re divers in one of those pressurised tanks they have to sit in for days. Like me and Robert have got the bends.
The whole house is one of those metal pressure containers with bolts in it that could fly out any minute.
I stand up to get away from my tummy, go into the kitchen. I turn on the gas burner and light it with the special lighting thing. I like doing that when Mum’s out, burning the gas.
I hover the robot high above the flame then take it away, feeling the face and how hot it is. A bit sticky too. I do it again, feeling excited, putting the robot-robert face right inside the hot blue flame and it turns it purpley green. Black smoke. The face is burning. I like that. I LIKE it.
