Start again.
He looked at the cup. His mouth was tacky, dry, and there was a crust of mucus and probably blood on his front teeth. His gums were always bleeding – brushing and flossing had become too difficult to do properly. He ran his tongue over them. He was now obsessed with the water, the cup, the straw.
‘Oh, it’s just a symptom of the illness,’ said the specialist.
Just a symptom. Obsession. Included in the catalogue with loss of sight and bodily functions.
If he used his right arm he would have to reach much further. The width of his body more but it would mean he could grasp the cup face on, so to speak.
He put his left hand on the edge of the bed. He could feel the rubber sheet, slippery under the cotton one. He gathered his strength for a couple of minutes. This would be a one-chance mission. To grab the side of the mattress with his left hand and pull himself on to his side while throwing his right arm across with precision-aim to get his fingers wrapped round the cup.
Then he’d pause and worry about how to get it back. The whispering in his head started: What if he missed? What if he fell out of bed? What if? What if? He grabbed and pulled. His right hand landed on the bedside table only a couple of inches from the cup.
Good. Gary lay panting for a few seconds then, like a seal coming up the beach, flopped his hand on to the cup. It moved. Just a bit. Like a girl playing hard to get. Gently. Gently. He willed his sluggish fingers to stroke it, tickle it back into his palm. He grunted through a rictus of effort as he made contact with the handle.
Now what? He was stuck. His left arm was caught under his body and he hadn’t the strength to get on to his back and control the position of the cup. He lay there for another few minutes. By now he was sweating. He thought of Lawrence of Arabia and the scene when they ride out of the Anvil of the Sun. The thirst. And those little goatskin bottles of water. Even Peter O’Toole couldn’t get out of this one, he thought.
‘Bollocks, I wish I had a camel.’
He said it out loud and found his voice quieter than his thoughts. He started to giggle. Just another symptom. Laughing helplessly at finding oneself unable to perform simple tasks. Come on, man, think.
Right.
If I grab my pyjama arm in my teeth then heave my right arm back while at the same time moving my head, which is, after all, one third of my body weight, firmly and decisively to the right, I should, with a following wind and the intervention of several saints, arrive on my back with the water, unspilt, in my hand. Well, go on then, don’t just lie there. Five, four, three, two, one …
Gary bit his pyjama arm and heaved. The plan was good. So effective was it the only thing stopping him falling out the other side of the bed was the wall. As his right arm described an arc across his body he found himself unable to control it and watched the lid of the cup with its barber-pole straw lift off and land in his slipper. The water beneath didn’t want to go so far and slapped on to his chest in a reverse belly flop.
‘Oh … fuck … fuck, shit, balls, bollocks.’ Gary lay in the cold wetness. ‘Oh Christ… I’ve got fucking Tourette’s syndrome now.’
It was seven o’clock. He had been trying to get the water for forty-seven minutes. Now he had it.
The television at the foot of his bed snapped on. It should have been the radio alarm but Lucy had messed up the setting and they hadn’t been bothered to change it. It took him a moment to recognise what was happening. He had not seen the drama unfold the night before and this was shaky, hand-held footage of the inside of a community centre, but he had heard the name Shackleton.
‘… where two chief constables were last night held hostage. We will be speaking to one of them later in the programme. The other is being held in hospital with severe burns. Now over to Dodie with the weather.’
Gary was surprised at the strength of his hope that it would be Tom Shackleton with the severe burns. But then, no. No, Lucy mooning over an injured Shackleton would be worse. Her maternal instincts always went on the rampage with wounded puppies.
Gary had never plumbed the depths of Shackleton’s shallowness and assumed Lucy’s passion for him was because of his good looks and air of reserve. Gary thought he’d be bloody reserved if he was married to a piece of work like Jenni. He smiled. Poor Lucy, she went to such lengths to hide her passion for the man.
If only she could have chosen someone else. Someone with a mind relieved by the occasional flash of poetry. Someone with a soul. Gary wasn’t sure if Shackleton had sold it or if he’d just never had one in the first place. Was it jealousy? Gary lay in his wet pyjamas, unable to move, tasting the rottenness of his body in the scum that coated his tongue and thought: Yes. Jealous as fuck.
That bastard has everything I wanted. Including my wife. He turned his head sharply, trying to shift the picture of them making love. He couldn’t have loved Lucy more, but wondered why Tom Shackleton would want to have her. Because he could. Same reason as a dog licks its balls.
The mind that had so enjoyed grappling with Proust now wrestled with images of sex between his wife and his neighbour. He was disgusted with himself. With living. Lucy didn’t know but he’d managed to save up enough painkillers and anti-depressants to kill himself.
Six weeks before, while Lucy was out polishing Jenni’s ego, he’d taken the lot. It took the best part of half an hour. Then he’d sat waiting for death. What he got was diarrhoea. Vast crop-spraying quantities of it. Because of the diarrhoea his body didn’t absorb the drugs and instead of a romantically dead body, posed like Marat in his bath over the edge of his wheelchair, she came home to a carpet pebble-dashed in shades of brown and an odour it would take months to shift.
Gary had laughed until he was almost sick. Giving up was not an option. He had a vision of his God, like a cigar-chewing boxing coach, shoving him back into the ring unable to stand with eyes bruised shut to go another round with an undefeated world champion. He smiled. Everyone loved a loser.
And there was one good thing about Lucy’s infatuation: she was starting to take a pride in her appearance again. If Tom Shackleton restored her then Gary could and would forgive them both. No, he’d forgive them anyway. That would be his new life challenge. Take his mind off the paralysing boredom of disability. Paralysing. Disability. Ha ha. He enjoyed chasing the thought round that it was the dull repetitive boredom of disability that paralysed, not the illness itself. He toyed with a letter to the Lancet, the BMJ, New Scientist …
On the television they were trailing the live phone link with hero policeman Tom Shackleton. Gary could hear Lucy moving around upstairs. His mind started running down those paths that led to the debate of whether she was better off with him or without him.
‘Good morning.’
The door opened and his thoughts scattered like birdseed.
‘Oh Lucy, I’ve had an accident. I’m sorry. It’s only water – the catheter hasn’t leaked. It’s just water.’
He repeated the words quickly. He had caught sight of the expression on her face when she saw Shackleton on the television.
‘It’s video taken last night while he was hostage. Good stuff, I think.’
She wasn’t listening. He watched her as she tried to hide the softness in her eyes, the softness that had been his after making love when she’d ask, ‘You hungry? Cup of tea?’
Not for him, not really, but because she was always ravenous after. Now she was ravenous before. He hoped it was still before. Maybe that’s why Shackleton wanted her – if he did – because women didn’t look at men like that any more, with that mixture of gentleness and encouragement seen in the faces of Madonnas on Christmas cards. What she gave Gary now was that look mixed with pity. The Madonna after the Crucifixion. When it was all over.
She was undoing his pyjama top now, trying not to look at the screen. But she couldn’t stop herself when she heard his voice. Live from his home.
‘Recuperating from his injuries … bravery … modesty … an example to his colleagues.’
Lucy sat Gary up to peel off the jacket. She wanted to turn a handle and flush out the thoughts of Tom while she dealt with Gary’s poor wasted body. But she couldn’t. She was afraid her thoughts of Tom would be so loud Gary might hear them through the thin bone of her skull if she leaned too close to him.
‘No … Lucy. Leave that. Don’t you want to see what Tom’s got to say? Sit down a minute.’
Lucy couldn’t believe Gary had no idea of her feelings for Tom; thank God he didn’t. She felt as if she was wearing a neon sign saying: I AM OBSESSED WITH TOM SHACKLETON. But Gary hadn’t guessed. And with luck, he never would.
She perched on the side of the bed, composing her face to indifference. Perhaps he’d still be in the house when she went over to do her chores. What did she have clean in the wardrobe? No, the skirt was too formal – anyway she didn’t have any shiny tights left, only those nasty dull American Tan jobs from the supermarket.
She settled on jeans. They had an elasticated waist but he needn’t see that, she’d wear a short shirt outside. Good. Decision made. Her bottom was still pert for a size fourteen and as she spent most of her working time either bending over or on her hands and knees she thought she might as well show off her assets.
‘He’s good, isn’t he? Very plausible.’
‘Oh Gary …’ She was hurt by his coolness. ‘He’s not plausible, he’s really sincere. He does care about race issues. He cares about people, Gary.’
‘Very plausible. Not glib at all. Really quite believable.’
Jenni’s Gnome sat with the Prime Minister and his éminences grises. The five men watched the television screen. The Flamborough Estate story had been running all day. It was a slack news season so every programme was full of it, the fact, the comment, the hopes for the future. Tom Shackleton had gone overnight from being one of forty-three chief constables to being the acceptable face of policing. The One Who Understands. Compassion in National Policing. The People’s Policeman. The headlines were writing themselves.
‘But is he biddable?’
The Prime Minister looked at his advisers. Shackleton’s future was to be decided in this room by these three men, the grey men behind the PM. The Gnome thought of the rhyme from Richard III’s time: ‘The Cat, the Rat and Lovell the dog, Rule all England under the Hog.’
He smiled.
‘I think he is. He wants success more than he wants to be champion of the underclass.’
‘He’s good, he’s very good,’ said the Rat, a man whose physical characteristics were almost as appealing as the Gnome’s. ‘Does he mean all this about the issues? How much does he care?’
The Gnome waited a second before he replied.
‘Well, David. Let me put it this way, he’s on message with all the right principles but put a family of asylum seekers in his loft conversion and he might think twice.’
‘I think we all might,’ said the Dog grimly. ‘But if we let any more of the buggers in, he might have to.’
‘Now, Alan,’ said the PM mildly. ‘Be careful, we haven’t been swept for bugs. Anyway’ – the change of tone was abrupt – ‘you don’t mean that, do you?’
The Dog looked at him. The PM’s strange doll’s eyes were cold, alert. The Prime Minister’s appetite for cynicism was very small.
‘Of course not. No.’
The Cat looked across at the Dog.
‘Alan, when we make jokes it’s often a sign of something we really believe.’ He paused, he had their attention. ‘I’ve known Tom Shackleton for quite a while now and it’s true what David says, he’s not a hands-on type. He doesn’t want to get grubby unless there’s a camera crew there. Emotional involvement is not his style. It’s a job, and if that involves kissing babies or kissing backsides, he’ll do it. He’s not burdened with deep beliefs or a sophisticated moral code. He’s a pond skater, elegant, fast on his feet and unlikely to cause ripples. Most important he’s a star turn. Look at him …’
He rewound the tape and played it again: Shackleton smiling, nodding, shyly proud, quietly modest.
‘The public’s going crazy for him. He’s got the Kennedy touch. Let’s face it, he is what London needs.’
‘Yes.’ The Rat nodded. ‘The Caretaker Commissioner’s done a good job –’
‘Wasn’t his nickname George?’ interrupted the Dog.
The Rat nodded briefly, anxious to get on.
The PM raised his eyebrows.
The Dog took it as a question.
‘After the play, Prime Minister. The Madness of George III.’
‘And is he?’
‘As a box of frogs, Prime Minister. And very hands-on with his female staff, I’m told.’
The Rat made a movement that, had he been the real thing, would have been a ruffling of his fur, and continued.
‘Remember the chaos when he took over? He’s done well – but now we need someone with charisma. Media-friendly.’
The Gnome had waited his moment.
‘Shackleton’s your man. He talks all the right fights, Race, Drugs, Crime –’
The Dog bounded in again.
‘And let’s face it, the British public will forgive anything if they think you need them. Our heroes are all damaged goods. No one’s going to erect a statue to Michael Schumacher or Nigel Mansell – no, it’ll be George Best and Princess Di. Now, I’m not saying Shackleton’s a loser but he’s got that vulnerable look the housewives like. And the men can understand him. Good choice.’
The Prime Minister winced. He trusted the Dog’s judgement implicitly but he wished his opinions were formed by something more profound than pragmatism.
‘Give him the Met then?’
He looked at the Cat.
‘Well, the hoops will have to be seen to be gone through but yes, I don’t see why not.’ The Cat paused. ‘He wants a knighthood, you say?’
The Gnome nodded.
‘He’d prefer a peerage. Lower-middle background, can’t shake it off.’
‘Right. Good. That’s settled. Let him have the Met –’
‘Yes … he gets the K automatically and we can chuck him a peerage if he remembers which knife and fork to use.’
The Dog chuckled at his own wit. The Cat and Rat smiled. The PM didn’t lose his expression of concerned sincerity. He stood up.
‘And the Crime Tsar?’
‘Oh Carter, definitely Carter.’
The three wise men all agreed. No discussion. The PM left the room, hurrying off to a cabinet meeting. Smiling a caricature of a boyish smile.
The Gnome, casually, as if an afterthought, asked the Dog, ‘Crime Tsar?’
‘Don’t tell me you didn’t get the memo either. That bloody secretary, she’s pregnant and her brains seem to have dropped out when she opened her legs to conceive … it’s shortform for United Kingdom – what’s left of the ruddy thing – Anti-Crime Coordinator. The Cabinet’s got plans for a sort of FBI – remember we kicked the idea around about a year ago? Scotland’s gone for it too and Northern Ireland say they’ll cooperate. Fully paid up members of the awkward squad.’
The Gnome nodded.
‘Anyway, all serious crimes will come to this super force under the command of this Crime Tsar. Direct line to Europol, BWD, all of them. He’ll be able to take charge of any case from any area. So anything more serious than dropping litter will be his province. He’ll be a sort of Supercop.’
The Dog laughed. The Gnome smiled. The Dog was struck again by the sheer niceness of the man. How could someone so transparently a force for good and so patently ugly have risen so far? But then good looks had never been the mark of the British politician.
‘Pretty powerful position.’
‘God’s policeman, Robbie. All the chief constables will answer to him, except Northern Ireland and that bugger doesn’t answer to anyone. No, the idea is to try to get all the best coppers, all the best intelligence, under one roof. Natural progression from NCIS. Good idea, eh? Coming down to the bar?’
The
Gnome shook his head. The cheerios were loud. Confident voices, confident, powerful people. When the advisers had left the room Robbie – the Gnome – MacIntyre stood looking down at the Thames through the leaded window.
He loved the inside of the Houses of Parliament, he loved the stone of the walls and the wood panelling but most of all he liked the quiet power it exuded. Inside looking out. It was the objective of his life, to be an insider.
He loved being rich, he loved being powerful, but most of all he loved being accepted. Being liked even. Inside this building he wasn’t an ugly dwarf any more, openly pitied or scorned. Nobody here would shout after him: ‘What you doing for panto this year?’ ‘Oi, Grumpy, where’s Snow White?’ Both things had been yelled this week, and he’d smiled, and he’d waved.
His thoughts swirled like the water below.
Jenni. When should he tell her? What would get her knickers down? Telling her and hoping for gratitude or not telling her and dangling his influence like a fishing fly. No contest. Dangle. He smiled. So Carter would get the new top job and all Jenni’s scheming would be for nothing. He snorted. Serve her right. And her Action Man husband. He’d have her and have him over. What could be nicer?
Lucy had let herself in. There was no sign of anyone. Disappointed, she went into the kitchen. The coffee cups were on the table, the remains of toast and the lid off the honey. The central reservation, a rectangle of work surface the size of a snooker table, was uncharacteristically cluttered. Jenni’s kitchen could have accommodated any top chef – it was more than equal to the challenge of her occasional forays into lasagne and tossed salad.
The mess meant Tamsin and Kit were there. She bent down to get her cleaning-materials trug from under the sink. Her neat little tray of sprays and dusters.
The Crime Tsar Page 9
