Magnificent Joe

by James Wheatley

  ‌21

  I’ve been watching the same splatter of dried blood on the wall of this room in A&E for the past God knows how long. Hours. The blood looks like a map of a cluster of islands in a sea of semi-gloss emulsion. I’ve studied their geography, all their bays and inlets and peninsulas. It’s my only entertainment. There is no choice but to stare at them; every time I look around or move I feel sick and dizzy and the blood is right in front of me.

  Some bloke goes past. I sense the blur of his body and the swish of his walk. I yell out after him, ‘How, daft cunt!’

  He ignores me.

  I let my eyes close.

  I wake up retching. Someone comes along and a bowl appears on my lap. I hang my head over it, but not much really comes out.

  ‘You’ve a concussion. It’s normal to feel disoriented and sick.’

  I look for her face, but she doesn’t stick around. She’s already swishing away. Every bugger here swishes. I lean back and fall asleep again.

  A clang wakes me up. The bowl is now on the floor.

  ‘Look, don’t start any trouble, OK?’

  ‘It fell. My head really hurts.’

  ‘That’s no reason to throw things around.’

  ‘It fell.’

  ‘I’ll get you some painkillers.’

  She doesn’t come back for forty-five minutes. I know because my watch is on my wrist tick-tick-tocking away. It’s almost 5 a.m. I am up with the larks, but maybe it’s almost 5 p.m. Two little plastic cups arrive. One with two pills in it, one with water.

  ‘These should help with the throbbing.’

  ‘It’s more like my skull is trying to give birth to my brain through my eye sockets.’

  ‘Just take the pills.’

  Swish.

  I’m in the half-place where you’re not quite sure if what you hear is real or a dream.

  ‘Get him out of my treatment room and put him in observation.’

  ‘Yes, sister.’

  Tremors in the bed and then the ceiling flows over me.

  New room. No blood. Less noise. The weird seasick, drunken feeling subsides a little. I was walking home and somebody hit me. I’m not sure if I know that because I remember it or because somebody here told me. I haven’t seen a mirror yet, but my face feels stiff so I know it won’t be pretty. My wrist looks swollen. Maybe I landed on it when I fell. I must have fallen because they said someone found me lying on the pavement.

  It is strange to realize that after all these years of keeping myself to myself, I suddenly have enemies again. The question is, which one of them would do this? And then, as if the world was moving with the drift of my thoughts, the pigs turn up.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ says the older one.

  I just stare at them. What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? At least now I know it’s morning, not afternoon. Seconds pass. The younger one glances at the older one. The older one coughs, as if – despite the fact I’m looking right at him – he thinks I haven’t noticed his presence.

  ‘What do you want?’ I finally ask.

  ‘You were assaulted.’

  ‘I know.’

  His eyes narrow. I shrug and find the movement painful. He calls out through the open doors of the room to a nurse sat at a big curved desk, ‘Is he lucid?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘This isn’t my ward.’ She returns to whatever it was she was doing.

  The copper looks back to me. I can see the broken lattice of drink in his face, like a red frost under his skin. It’s far too early in the morning for him, and he hates me for it.

  ‘I’m lucid. Ish. I think. I keep throwing up.’

  ‘Concussion.’

  ‘Aye, they said that.’

  ‘Could you tell us what happened?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you remember anything at all?’

  ‘Just being hit from behind, falling over and…that’s it.’ I remember a car, but I won’t give them that: they might start to think they have a lead. I don’t want them to get involved, not that they appear to give a fuck. The copper squeezes his jaws together. The tip of his biro rests on his notepad, but he’s not looking at that; he’s staring me down. I’m a thug in a hospital bed.

  ‘What time did this happen?’

  ‘About eight thirty, mebbes.’

  ‘Anything taken?’

  I have to pause to think about this. ‘I don’t know.’ I feel the impulse to pat my pockets, but I’m not wearing my clothes. ‘I’m not even wearing my clothes.’

  ‘We can check what you came in with. What were you carrying last night?’

  ‘Just my wallet, my phone, a tape measure, and a notepad.’

  They go off and leave me lying here. About fifteen minutes later, they return.

  ‘Your wallet’s gone.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘It looks like you were mugged, then.’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose so.’

  I give him the details of what was in my wallet, and he takes my address, telling me they’ll be in touch. Of course, it won’t really be them who get in touch – I’m not sufficiently middle class for the police to care about – I’ll receive a vague letter from Victim Support and that’ll be it. All of which suits me.

  They’re walking out when I think of something else. ‘What about my phone?’

  They stop and the older one says, ‘It looked buggered to me. Must’ve been when you fell.’ Then they leave.

  Brilliant. No cash, no means of getting any cash, and now no phone. I don’t even know which hospital I’m in. I swing my legs off the bed and shuffle my body until I sit on the edge. Movement hurts, but I think that once I get warmed up, I’ll be OK. I place my toes on the floor. It’s cold. I wait a few seconds. Now I shift my whole weight to my feet and feel the sticky spread of skin on lino.

  Standing, the draught reminds me that I am wearing a backless gown. If I go walkabout, I will expose my arse to everyone I pass. Maybe that’s what these gowns are for: to keep you where you’re put. I can’t remember them getting me into it – that could have happened at any time during the blur and hum in A&E – and I certainly can’t remember them taking away my clothes, but maybe that happened in the ambulance. I’ll be pissed off if I find out that they cut through my jacket. I can’t afford a new jacket.

  I pull the blanket off the bed and drape it round my body. It comes down to just above my knees and thus saves my modesty. There are two other beds in this room. One is empty; the other has the curtains pulled around it. I’ve heard nothing from behind those curtains since I was brought in here. I feel the briefest of urges to peek, then tell myself to stop being silly and take my first step.

  It quickly becomes clear that in my current condition the idea of walking is a bit optimistic. I settle for a shuffle and make my way out of the room. It opens out onto a corridor, along which other rooms are arranged. I stop and check the nurses’ station. The one from earlier is gone and has been replaced by a male nurse engrossed in the contents of an overstuffed lever-arch file. It crosses my mind that I could just talk to him, but since my arrival here nobody has shown much interest in doing anything for me beyond the basics of preventing me from actually bleeding to death, so I decide to leave him to it.

  I look the other way down the corridor. It ends at a wall, in which there is a window. Chances are I’m in Hartlepool or Stockton, and I’d recognize either of those shitholes at a glance. Therefore, if I look out of this window, I will know where I am. Having worked this out, I feel quite pleased with myself. That in turn makes the dizziness easier to deal with, so I manage to move along the corridor with only my palm against the wall for support.

  There are people in the other rooms, three or four in each. They don’t do anything; they’re just there, on beds. One man has acquired a newspaper from somewhere, but the others simply stare into space or sleep. Some of them look worse than I feel, a few of them are attached to tubes, and all of them ignore me as I go past. I get closer to the window
and I realize I’ve made a mistake.

  I don’t know why I thought I would be high up, but I’m not. It’s a ground-floor window and all I can see is the backside of another hospital building and a patch of concrete littered with fag ends. There’s not even a sign anywhere. The sound of a seashell gathers behind me. I’m tired. I rest the top of my head against the glass, and as the corridor starts to move, I see it stamped on the blanket that I’m wearing, ‘University Hospital of Hartlepool’. Well, that answers that, but I’m sinking up to my knees in something thick and tipping over, and I just can’t move in time to miss hitting the floor.

  ‌22

  Geoff has stayed up North for long enough. He wants to get away. Besides, this town is too familiar; he’s scared to leave the hotel in case he bumps into someone he knows. He doesn’t want to answer anybody’s questions. About anything. Even the ‘Hello. How are you?’ of the maid who came to turn down the bed this morning was physically painful to bear.

  So he’s leaving. He folds each article of clothing and stacks them neatly inside his bag. He leaves out only a change of underwear, his toothbrush, and his shaving kit. The train leaves at 8.51 a.m. tomorrow. Change at Darlington and then nothing to do but watch England slide past all the way to King’s Cross.

  It’s ages since Geoff was last in London, but he knows he can lose himself there for as long as it takes to get the money safely in his hands. He remembers the filthy B&B he and Barry dossed in when they were jobbing down there, and smiles grimly at the memory of the dirty sheets and rat shit. That was ten years ago, when Jim was still in prison and before Barry turned himself into a miserable fucker, years before his time. ‘Premature middle age,’ Laura used to call it. Another one of her clever little jokes, the ones Geoff used to love. He kicks the minibar; the bottles inside rattle.

  There’s one more job to do before he leaves. It struck him today as he skulked back from McDonald’s with a bagful of hamburgers, and almost shat himself at the sight of a copper. Geoff hasn’t really done anything illegal, yet, but it made him think. He doesn’t care what Laura thinks – let her worry, not that she probably cares – but if he just disappears and leaves her to wonder if he’s waded into the sea, the next copper he sees might be one who really is looking for him. That would fuck everything up.

  He sits on the end of the bed and turns his new mobile phone over and over in his hand. It would be easy enough to dial the number, but Geoff knows that if he hears her voice, he’ll vomit Big Mac all over the carpet.

  ‘Fucking hell.’ He drops the phone onto the quilt and kneads his face between his hands. ‘Fuck her, just think about the money.’

  Anyway, he wants her to have it in writing. She can’t argue with that, especially if he delivers it by hand. He’ll wait until it’s late, then he’ll call a cab.

  Just think about the money. Just think about the money.

  ‌23

  A full day later and the world has righted itself. A doctor told me to take it easy, but I’m fit enough to go. Even better, there is some spare change in the pockets of my jeans. I feed a twenty-pence piece into the payphone next to the WRVS shop and stab out Geoff’s home phone number; it’s the only one I can remember by heart.

  ‘Oh. It’s you,’ Laura says.

  ‘Aye. Is he back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right.’ I don’t know what else to say to that. To be honest, the fact that Geoff’s still out of the picture will probably make it easier to get a lift home. ‘Look, I hate to ask, but I need some help.’

  ‘You need help?’

  ‘I’m in hospital. I’ve been beaten up.’

  ‘Oh Jesus.’

  ‘They took my wallet, and my mobile’s smashed. I’m stuck.’

  There’s a pause and then, ‘Do you want me to pick you up?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I feel guilty, but I let her know where I am and she tells me that she’ll get here soon.

  —

  In the event, it takes her over two hours. I see her first. She walks through the automatic doors and starts looking on the wrong side of the atrium. After sitting for so long, it’s hard for me to get up again, so when she turns, she catches me half crouched like an old man with my hands on my thighs. She purses her lips. I straighten up and creak towards her.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘it could be worse.’

  ‘I think I was lucky, under the circumstances.’

  She looks unconvinced by this, but doesn’t argue with me. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t really know. I remember someone coming up behind me, but that’s about it. I got knocked out. I’ve been here two nights.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘It wasn’t Geoff, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t Geoff. Come on, let’s get you home.’

  ‘Thanks for coming for me.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ She links her arm with mine, and although I don’t really need any help to walk, I let her do it and she leads me outside to her car. It’s parked miles away from the door, but the cold, fresh air feels good after so long inside a hospital.

  Once we get into the car, I feel a bit sheepish. ‘I’m sorry for the bother.’

  ‘Forget that.’ She rummages in the docket under the steering column and produces a piece of paper. ‘Here, read this.’

  It’s a sheet torn from a reporter’s notebook, folded once. I open it.

  Laura Im alive and well so dont bother calling the police or anything daft like that. I know evreything so Im fucking off dont try to find me. Geoff.

  I fold it over again. ‘Fuck. I mean, at least you know he’s all right.’

  She takes it back from me and returns it to the docket. ‘It was hand-delivered in the middle of the night. I heard the letterbox go, but when I went downstairs, there was nobody there. I even walked outside, but the street was empty. It scared me.’

  ‘He must have been out there somewhere.’

  ‘Well, I wish he had the sense to come and talk to me. I just want to tell him the truth.’

  ‘By the sound of that letter, he’s too angry to listen to it. For the moment, like.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’ She trails off and sighs. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  We drive away and she doesn’t talk again for a while. I flip down the visor and inspect myself in the mirror. My left eye is well blackened, and that side of my face is swollen and hatched with grazes. A neat row of stitches runs in a shallow crescent just below my hairline. My wrist is strapped up, and under my clothes bruises splatter my ribs.

  If I hadn’t been knocked out immediately, they might have stuck the boot in with even more relish. Maybe I should be grateful for the head wound. Clearly, though, the attack itself was undertaken seriously. They followed me and waited for a good opportunity to kick the shit out of me. Taking my wallet was just a ruse. It must have been Steve who arranged it; he’s got those kind of contacts. Barry might have known about it, but in the end he’s just a dickhead and nobody would do this kind of thing on his say-so.

  ‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’

  I look over at her, but she has her eyes on the road. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m talking about what happened to you the other night. It was to do with all this mess, wasn’t it? Barry and his vengeful fucking God complex.’

  ‘His what?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t see who it was.’

  ‘Well, don’t get dragged into anything, right. Just walk away.’

  ‘I think that’s the idea they were trying to impress on us.’

  ‘Then take the hint. Please.’

  I have to agree with her. I have nothing to gain by getting into a feud now, especially one I’m bound to lose. They’ve got back-up and I’m completely alone. Still, if I could, I’d smash out their teeth with a hammer.

  ‘I know what’s good for me – don’t worry about
that.’

  ‘I hope you know what’s good for you, because at the moment you’re all I’ve got.’

  I look at her again. She indicates right and checks her mirror, then pulls out to overtake a slow-moving car. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, you’re the only other person who knows what’s really going on. There’s nobody else I can talk to.’

  ‘Fat lot of good I’ve been so far.’

  ‘Well, you’re better than nothing.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  —

  When I get home, I go straight upstairs and run a bath. I need to get the filth and infection of the hospital off my skin and out of my hair. I lean over to turn on the taps and pain pulses in my body like an electric shock. The pills they gave me are wearing off. I have a prescription for some more, but no money to pay for it. I wanted to ask Laura to sub me twenty quid, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  I shrug off my jacket and the pieces of my knackered mobile clatter in the pocket as they hit the floor. I unwind the bandage from my wrist, roll it up, and put it in the bathroom cabinet. Then I stand there and watch myself disappear as the mirror steams up. Geoff’s letter bothers me. I’ve known him for years and would never have believed that he might act this way. Most of those years were years of routine, though, and this is no longer routine.

  I reach out and wipe a patch of steam from the mirror. I’m a six-foot-two skinhead who has obviously been in a fight. Undoubtedly, I look like a thug. And here I am, framed in the same square of glass I stand at almost every morning, while Geoff has fucked right off. ‘Are you jealous of him?’ I ask my beaten-up face. He’s escaped and gone to do something new. It’s what I should have done, except I went to prison and missed all my chances – exams, college, a proper job. So yes, if you want the truth, I am jealous. I kick away my shoes, let my jeans drop, and – with some difficulty – tease, tug, and peel the rest of my clothes from my body.