by Alex Marwood
He laughs, more explosively than she expected. ‘I should say so. Is she…’ His face changes, goes suddenly rusty, like he’s been left out in the rain. She realises that he’s on the edge of tears. ‘Vesta, is she okay?’
Well, well, she thinks. You never know with people. It must have been a horrible shock for him, finding her like that. She gives his arm a tentative rub, then finds herself overtaken by the urge to give him a hug. His body is stiff against hers, as though the show of affection has come as a shock. It takes him a full five seconds to respond, then he wraps his arms around her like a teenager at a dance and practically crushes the breath from her. Vesta is suddenly filled with a powerful urge to fight him off. It feels so wrong, squashed against his body like this, smelling his nervous sweat. ‘It’s all right, lovey,’ she sputters. ‘It’s okay. You did brilliantly. She owes you, she really does.’
He lets her go, and seems to stagger slightly as he goes to lean against the banister. ‘She was just so… oh, my God, who would do something like that? She’s only a kid. I thought she was going to die. I honestly thought I wasn’t going to get her home and she was going to just… I thought she was going to die right there on the street, in my arms.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘Poor you – it must’ve been horrible.’
He snatches his specs off and polishes them ferociously with the tail of his shirt. Without the shading lenses, his eyes are huge, pale blue, like the eyes of a bush baby. ‘She’s only a kid,’ he says, again. ‘Can I…?’
‘Not right now, Thomas. She’s sleeping. Best to leave her. I’m sure she’ll want to see you later.’
‘I think – I should have taken her to casualty. I just wasn’t thinking. I should have.’
Again, she rubs his arm. She needs to calm him down. There can be no hospitals for Cher. No GPs, no crime reports. ‘No. You did the right thing. You did. She doesn’t want the hospital. You can’t make her if she doesn’t want it.’
‘But that’s crazy, Vesta. She shouldn’t be… I mean, what if there’s some internal damage? She could be bleeding inside, and…’
‘Well, we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,’ she says, more matter-of-factly than she feels. She’s worried about the big nasty bruise on the girl’s stomach herself. It doesn’t feel hard to the touch, but then, she couldn’t touch it very firmly, with Cher howling and fighting her off. It might have to be the hospital, whether Cher likes it or not.
‘And she was filthy. Covered in dirt. And all those cuts…’
‘I know. I know. We washed her, gave her a bath, and we’ve put antiseptic everywhere we could get to, Thomas. Please, don’t worry. We’ve got it as under control as we can.’
There’s a hesitation. She can tell that he wants to ask about the blood on her leggings, doesn’t know if he can. Despite the fact that this is the person who carried her home, who stroked her hair off her face as though she was a toddler, Vesta feels as though confirming his fears would be some sort of betrayal. She puts him off. ‘She’s sleeping. No better medicine. And she’s got the medicines Hossein got for her – penicillin and enough tramadol to knock out a horse. Thank God for the immigrant community, eh?’
I wish I could help,’ he says. ‘Isn’t there anything I can do? Can’t I help?’
‘You are helping. You have helped. She was just lucky she bumped into you. I’m not sure she’d have made it home if she hadn’t. Go on. I’ve got to get back. I don’t want to leave her alone for too long.’
‘Okay,’ he says, doubtfully. ‘You’ll call me if —’
‘Won’t need to,’ she says firmly. ‘You can come down and see her when she’s awake.’
‘Would she like something to read, perhaps? She’s going to be in bed a while, I should think. I’ve got some old Spectators and New Statesmen. I know they’re probably not…’
She fights an urge to laugh out loud. Oh, bless you, Thomas. You don’t have the faintest idea, do you? ‘I don’t think she’ll be up to reading for a while,’ she replies soothingly. ‘But it’s a kind thought. I should get back to her now, though. Sorry. And thank you.’
She leaves him standing on the landing and re-renters the bedroom. The air in here is acrid with sickness, overlaid with Dettol. In the bed, the diminutive figure lies on its side, hair plastered to the pillow, the cat wrapped in her sleeping arms. He hasn’t left her side, that cat, since Thomas brought her home. Sits and lies beside her all the time, emitting a loud rattling purr, as though he thinks that this will somehow help her heal. Vesta tries to creep across the room quietly, but Cher hears her and jumps awake with a gasp.
‘It’s okay, Cher,’ says Vesta. ‘It’s okay. It’s just me. You’re all right.’
The girl groans as she shifts in the bed, and the cat moves a couple of paces away and squats, glaring evilly. Vesta goes to shoo him off, but Cher grabs him by the scruff and squashes him to her chest. Vesta leaves it. He must be all over germs, that cat, but Cher loves him and it’s pretty clear that the feeling is, as far as cats go, mutual. God knows, Cher’s not had many things to love in her life. Why deprive her of this one?
And the girl needs all the help she can get. Vesta’s stomach churns as she sees the mess this man has made of her face, of the mouth that gingerly presses itself to the sensitive patch behind Psycho’s ear. Such a pretty face. She could probably have done with stitches in that lip, but what can I do? I’m not a nurse. I’m just a first-aider. How am I meant to know if that’s a straightforward black eye, or if something’s actually broken in there?
Cher’s face looks like a muddy football, half-deflated. Her bruises are turning black, and the left side of her face has swollen so badly it’s hard to imagine that it can ever go back to anything resembling its original shape. Her right eye is squeezed shut, just the tips of eyelashes full of gunk poking out from the slit. Her mouth, lopsided, hangs open, a great chasm down the centre of her lower lip.
‘What time is it?’
‘Going on four.’
‘Have I been asleep?’
‘Yes,’ says Vesta. ‘You dropped off a couple of hours ago.’
She takes the water glass from the bedside table and holds it to the girl’s mouth, waits patiently as she sips. ‘How are you feeling?’
Cher drains the glass and collapses back against her pillow. A single pillow in a sickbed – I must bring some up, later. So she can sit up, at least. Poor little kid, I’ll bring her some more pillows and cushions when I come back up. Pity she hasn’t got a telly. She’ll be bored to tears in a bit.
Cher feels around the inside of her mouth with her tongue, exploring. ‘I think I cracked a tooth.’
‘I’m not surprised. How’s the pain?’
Cher pulls a face, and a single tear forces itself out from her closed eye.
‘Your tummy?’
‘No, I think that’s just a bruise. My ribs hurt really bad. He got me there more than in the soft bits.’
‘You can have another pill, if you like.’
‘Yeah,’ says Cher, and her voice goes small. ‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
Vesta fetches the tramadol and the penicillin, refills the glass. ‘At least you didn’t turn out to be allergic to that. You’d’ve had to go to the hospital, if that had happened.’
‘Who says I never get a break?’ says Cher, and coughs. Vesta puts a hand behind her head, supports it as the girl drinks once again to wash down the pills. Under her hand, Vesta feels a lump the size of an egg. Oh, God, what if it’s fractured? What if her brain’s leaking out and I’ve no idea? We should have taken her to A&E. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens.
‘There,’ she says, trying to sound more confident than she feels, ‘there. You’ll soon be feeling better, I promise.’
Cher allows a small sob to escape. She’s been so tough, but she must be worn out. Vesta hurriedly puts the glass down, and takes her hand in both of her own. Strokes the back of it, feels the rough scabs on the grazed knuckles. ‘Oh, love,’ she says.
‘Oh, lovey. You’ll be all right. Just you see.’
The sides of the girl’s mouth turn down and a whimper breaks from her lips. ‘I don’t know what to do, Vesta! I don’t know what to do!’
‘Shhh,’ she soothes. ‘Shhh. You just concentrate on getting better.’
Cher’s face is wet. The salt must sting her grazes. Vesta pulls a hankie from the box and dabs, gently, around the cuts and the bruises, tries to get it all up.
‘He’ll kick me out,’ says Cher. ‘I know he will.’
‘What? Kick you out for being ill? Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘But I won’t make the rent. I don’t know how I’m going to…’
‘Well, he can bloody well wait.’
That bastard, she thinks. Socking the rent up like that, just because he knows he can get away with it. I’d like to show him what he’s done, driving her out to take risks like that. I’d like to rub his bloody nose in it. I’ve got a good mind to go over there and give him a piece of my mind. Lecherous old stinky creep, picking on young girls and probably getting off on it as well.
‘You’ve not to worry about that.’ She is surprised by how calm her voice sounds when it comes out, given the spitting rage inside. ‘We’ll sort it out. I’ll sort it out. He doesn’t want to mess with me.’
Cher moans and closes her other eye, shifts on to her side, trying to find a comfortable position. There are cuts all over her buttocks – Vesta and Collette had to pick bits of glass out last night, while she was still warm and sedated from the bath. There’s barely a position she can lie in and be comfortable.
Vesta’s heart wrenches in her chest. She wants to cry. She may be old, but she remembers how it was to be young, in the sixties, when everything was fresh, when life promised exploration and adventure and nothing could go wrong. It’s all spoiled now, she thinks, right from the start, for Cher. She never stood a chance. No one’s looked after her, all her life. For girls like Cher, things like this are just part of the general beastliness.
She reaches out and smooths the girl’s hair away from her face. It’s crunchy under her fingers, the texture of rough wool. I don’t even know which of your parents gave you that hair, she thinks. Which one was black and which one was white. Could have been neither of them, for all I know. I know your nanna was white, because I’ve seen the photo, but I’ve no idea whose mum she was. Oh, it shouldn’t be like this. Not for you, not for anybody. It’s just not fair.
Another tap at the door. Cher raises her head, then drops it back on the pillow as though the effort is just too much. ‘Who is it?’ calls Vesta.
‘Collette.’
Vesta is relieved. She’s been on watch since eight this morning, and her back and hips are aching from sitting in the battered chair. She limps over to the door and lets her in.
‘All right?’
‘Yes,’ says Vesta, and turns to look over her shoulder. ‘Aren’t we, love?’ she asks, encouragingly.
Cher doesn’t reply; just lies on her side and stares at the bedside table.
‘She’s just had her pills,’ she tells Collette. ‘And she’s had a little sleep. Hopefully she’ll drop off again soon.’
‘And how does she seem?’
‘In a lot of pain. But I think it’s okay. I don’t think anything’s broken. Not badly, anyway.’
Apart from her skin, and her heart, and her spirit, she thinks. But all those things can mend. Scars, yes, but they’ll mend, if she lets them.
Collette advances into the room. She’s got a bunch of flowers – carnations, cheap things that Vesta associates with graveyards – and a bag of tins and packets. ‘Soup,’ she says. ‘I thought soup would be good. And I got some bread. And some grapes. You should eat something, Cher.’
‘Not hungry,’ says Cher.
‘Well, maybe later,’ she says. ‘I got Ribena, as well. Everyone likes Ribena, right?’
Cher looks up, her eyes full of tears again. ‘Yeah. I like Ribena.’
Collette grins. Gosh, she’s lovely when she smiles, thinks Vesta. All that pinchedness drops away and she’s just – pretty. She goes over to the sink and fills the pint glass. Puts the flowers in it and makes a show of trying to arrange them. ‘Hossein sent these,’ she says.
‘There, you see?’ says Vesta, trying to jolly the atmosphere up. ‘Isn’t that nice? Everyone’s done their best, haven’t they?’
‘Big whoop,’ says Cher, and closes her eye.
Vesta closes the door and lets her face drop. The strain of keeping up a good front, of projecting reassurance for all these hours, has drained her. That bloody man, she thinks. I’m going to have a rest for a couple of hours, but then I’m right round there. I can’t believe he’s got the gall. Utter bastard. I’m going to go round there and tell him. Just because they’ve done away with tenant rights doesn’t mean he can just bully people. I’ve had enough. Really, I’ve had enough.
She’s so stiff she has to hold on to the banisters all the way down the stairs, take them one at a time with her right foot first. She feels old today, and hates it when she’s forced to remember that nearly seventy is old. She has always taken such pride in staying young, in fighting all those generational attitudes when they’ve tried to creep up on her, and the thought that in the end it’s all inevitable fills her with dread. She wishes she’d remembered to neck one of Cher’s tramadol while she was up there, but there’s plenty of ibuprofen in the flat. A couple of those, a cup of tea and a lie-down, and I’ll be right round there, she thinks. I’ll bloody well tell him he can’t bully people.
The stink hits her the moment she opens the flat door. Like the rat – rotten and foetid and old – but far, far worse. It’s a thick, viscous smell, and it’s huge.
‘Oh, God,’ says Vesta. What now? Haven’t I had enough already? Really, today, over the last few weeks? Haven’t I?
She turns on the light and goes in, covering her face with the sleeve of her cardy. It’s sewage. She knows it is. It’s not hard to tell the smell of shit and fat and urine, even if it’s not a stench you smell every day.
The carpet is damp and sludgy beneath her feet. Vesta gags, and forges forward. It’s the drains. Those bloody drains she’s been asking him and asking him to sort out. Something has gone terribly wrong, and now it’s all over her kitchen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘I told you. I told you! How many times have I asked you to sort it out? And now look!’
The Landlord sits up and puts on his specs.
‘Who is this?’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know who this is. It’s Vesta Collins! And my bathroom’s all over shit! I told you that you needed to do something about those drains!’
‘Calm down, dear,’ he says, and hears a shriek of rage.
‘Don’t tell me to calm down! Don’t you dare tell me to calm down! And don’t bloody call me dear. I am not your dear.’
Someone’s set fire to her bra, he thinks. I’m taking that phone out of the hall, first chance I get. I’m not paying line rental to have her shout at me.
‘You’re a lazy, greedy little man, Roy Preece! You were like that when you were a kiddy, and you’re worse now! My flat’s ruined! It’s ruined! There’s sewage all over the bathroom, and it’s coming out into the kitchen, and it’s all your fault!’
‘Well, I don’t know how you work that out,’ he says, sulkily.
‘Because you’ve stalled and stalled on getting the drain people out, and now every time someone flushes upstairs, or uses the water, there’s more sewage coming out of my loo! You need to get Dyno-Rod, and you need to get them now. Do you hear me?’
Like that’s going to happen. I’m not made of money, even if she thinks I am.
‘I’ll come over and have a look in a bit,’ he says.
‘No! No! No! You need to get it sorted out now! Hossein’s been up to his shoulder in kaka for the last hour, and he’s got nowhere. There’s some sort of fatty stuff clogging it all up. It needs a professional with a b
unch of rods, not you and a bottle of bleach!’
‘I said,’ he repeats, ‘that I’ll come in a bit.’
‘And what are we meant to do in the meantime? No one can use the bathrooms without it all coming straight back out again. And I can’t use my flat. It’s unusable. I can’t wash, and I can’t cook. If I try and make anything to eat in here, I’ll probably die.’
And wouldn’t that be a tragedy, you horrible old bat, he thinks. You’ve been around quite long enough, in my opinion.
‘I swear, this is your last chance,’ she says. ‘If you don’t get this sorted out, I’m calling the council tomorrow. Then you’ll not just be looking at the drains, you’ll be having to replace all those manky water heaters, and probably putting in heating, as well, and the fire provisions. And doing something about the door locks, and dealing with the damp down here, and all the other things I’ve let you get away with. I’ve had it up to here with it. This is the final blimmin’ straw. I’m going to stay in a hotel till it’s sorted out, and you’re footing the bill.’
‘Now, hang on! Nobody said anything about hotels.’
‘Well, what do you want me to do? You want me to report you? Do you? I’m sure they’d be interested. Rats and sewage and that poor kid up in her room, all covered in cuts because of you.’
‘You what?’
‘Oh, yeah. Don’t think I don’t know about you and your random rent rises.’
Cher Farrell. Something to do with Cher Farrell. ‘What are you on about now?’
‘And she can’t even wash, for God’s sake. It’s disgusting! I’ve a mind to report you anyway, greedy-guts. I suppose you think you can get her to… to whatever. You disgust me, Roy Preece. And I’m not taking any more of it. I’m living in a slum.’
‘Well, you get what you pay for,’ he replies, triumphantly. ‘You wouldn’t even get a slum for the rent you pay me. You could always move somewhere else, if you don’t like it. Be my guest. Because I’ll come in my own good time.’
Vesta goes silent. When she speaks, she seems to have regained her control, as though someone’s thrown a switch.
