by Matthew Crow
“Good to know,” Chris said, and took a square of Toblerone.
“Here, new girl, you got any lip gloss? Mine ran out,” Kelly called from her bed.
Amber looked up, but before she had a chance to answer, her little sister chimed in.
“Beauty should come from within,” she said, with a wise nod.
“Says who?”
“I’m Olivia,” the kid said politely. “Nice to meet you.”
“Your sneakers are crap,” Kelly snorted, before returning her attention to Amber.
“I don’t wear lip gloss,” she said.
“Everyone wears lip gloss.”
“Maybe in your culture,” Amber muttered. “Come on, Ol, help me with this.”
The other girl did as she was told and began rifling through Amber’s assortment of belongings, pinning photographs to the wall above her bed using a dirty clod of adhesive putty that she had found amid the chaos.
“Your fly’s undone,” Kelly said eventually from across the room, pointing to the white patch of underwear that had begun to poke through the lowered zip of Amber’s old jeans.
Amber didn’t blush. She barely even moved. She just glanced down at her crotch and then back up at Kelly.
“Yeah, I know, supposed to be. It’s mating season,” she said, and then carried on unpacking.
In the chill-out room Chris pocketed the 8-ball and pretended he had meant to all along.
“I do try making friends,” I told him. Mum must have had a word with him about my lack of socializing on the unit. I sometimes thought she forgot why I was in there. It was the same as when I used to go to youth club. She would always frisk me on my way out to check I hadn’t packed a secret book in my coat pocket, even though I was quite happy to buy a ten-pence bag of candy and sit reading while everyone else played touch football and tried to unhook the girls’ bras.
“. . . and I know you’re only asking because Mum made you, and that if you were me there’s no way you’d talk to people like that either.”
Chris put down the cue stick and came to sit beside me. Outside some of the nurses were fussing and clanking over the dinner cart, which meant visiting time was technically coming to an end even though on our ward they were mostly okay with people staying as long as they liked. “I know. I’m just trying to make it easy on her. She worries. She’s talking about redoing the kitchen so it’s new when you come back.”
“That would not help.”
I would need familiarity and stability upon my return, not to enter my front door and be faced with a strange and unknown vista. The sudden change could send me spiraling into a relapse.
“I’ll have a word,” Chris said.
“Amber seems okay,” I said eventually, only to try and make him feel better. But he gave me a funny look and shook his head.
“What?”
“She’ll spit out your bones,” he said, and laughed.
This was typical of Chris. He could be puerile at times. It was almost impossible for us to watch a sophisticated sex scene in a film together without him guffawing. I remained composed, so long as it was entirely necessary to the plot.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, and winced, hoping that he would think I was in pain and change the subject. It didn’t work. He just carried on.
“Frankie . . . do we need to have The Talk?” he asked. I rose above it and did not respond. “Should I tell Fiona that there’s competition? She’ll be heartbroken.”
“Don’t tell her!” I said, and then regretted it straightaway when Chris fell about laughing. He could obviously tell that I wasn’t enjoying the conversation as he pulled himself together and then pulled me to his chest in an awkward sort of hug. People kept doing this to me. I did not mind hugs where appropriate—Christmas and birthdays, and following major family bereavements—but since everything had kicked off, all anyone seemed to do was clutch me to their bosom. It could be quite intrusive at times. On more than one occasion I had considered wearing some of Chris’s old spiked jewelry from his short-lived Goth phase as a deterrent.
“You’ll be fine,” he said.
I said I knew that to his chest, and could hear his heart beating beneath his T-shirt.
“Do you want me to bring anything in?” he asked. “CDs? Books? Condoms?”
“CHRIS!” I said, sitting up.
“Come on,” he said, trying not to laugh. “I’m only doing it for the LOLZ. I’m your king, remember. . . . I brings the ruckus.”
He stood up and took me by the hands, hoisting me off the sofa.
Back at the beds Amber had headphones on and Olivia sat on the floor reading a book.
“Of course,” Colette was saying, semi-squatting by the side of the bed, “by the time Olivia came along I had come to know myself and my body so much better, I wanted to be present for each moment of her delivery, and so we opted for a water birth.”
Grandma cleared her throat and looked to the floor; Mum’s jaw was hanging open.
“What’s all this then?” Chris asked as I settled back into bed.
“Oh,” Colette said, “just getting to know one another. A brief family history. We’re discussing your origins . . . the joy of new life.”
“Oh,” I said.
“And what about you, Mum?” Chris asked. Grandma gave him a gentle kick, which Chris ignored. Mum looked like she was going to launch him. “Did the joy of new life carry you through the pain?”
Mum breathed out loudly and glared back at him.
“I wouldn’t know. You were adopted,” she said with a smile that wasn’t really a smile.
Grandma laughed nervously and shook her head. “He wasn’t adopted,” she said to Colette, and laughed again. “You weren’t adopted, flower,” she said to Chris, as though he needed reassurance.
“Anyway, I wasn’t feeling anything, not from the waist down at least,” Mum said, standing up. “Full epidural . . . absolute bliss. ’Course, it was the twenty-odd years afterward I really needed anesthesia for.”
“Julie!” Grandma said, laughing even more nervously. “Oh, she’s a joker all right, this one,” she said to Colette.
Grandma always cares what people think. Even if she thinks less than little of them, the thought that they may form any ill judgment of her and hers is enough to give her a heart attack. For three years after Dad left for good she told people he’d got a manager’s job at the head office. Dad has his own business. Everyone knows this.
“Well, we’ll be getting off then,” Mum said, kissing my forehead half a dozen times. “Bye, darling, you take care. And if you need anything . . .” she said, cupping her hands firmly around my face, “. . . then you just call me, understand?”
I nodded and said my good-byes.
“Look forward to seeing you again,” Colette said as they left. Mum nodded but did not respond. They weren’t even off the ward before I heard her, Chris, and Grandma arguing.
Half an hour or so passed and eventually Colette and Olivia made their exit, too. Paul was asleep and Kelly was being wheeled somewhere or other by her aunty who had come on a rare visit, so it was just Amber and me, on our own.
She still had her headphones on, so I couldn’t start talking to her even though I wanted to, if only so that I could play it cool and prove Chris wrong about everything he had implied.
I started to rearrange my books so the spines were pointing her way, hoping to impress her with the range and depth of my reading matter. I pressed the button on the bed—which Jackie had taught me how to use properly—and felt myself bob up and down like I was riding a wave.
I was just taking out my notepad and pen to make some notes when Amber let out a long and lingering sigh.
“God, I’m booooooored,” she said, half turning her head to look at me. “No offense, Francis, but your conversation skills are fas
cinating.”
“Sorry. I thought you were listening to music. I’m normally much more interesting.”
Amber shook her head and held up the plug of her headphones, unattached to her iPod.
“I just put them on to get rid of people. Sort of like your mum’s trick with the curtain, only slightly more subtle.”
“Sorry. About Mum, I mean. She’s okay really, you just have to get to know her.”
“She’s a card.”
I shrugged.
“Thanks for the chocolate. You can have some of the supplies my Grandma left,” I offered.
“I fully intend to,” Amber said. “I like your brother, by the way.”
“He’s gay,” I said. Then, for no reason at all, added, “He fancies boys.”
I could tell Amber was trying not to laugh. She did an all right job of it, too. Better than the job I was doing of trying not to blush.
“Oh . . .” she said, sitting up in bed and turning to face me. “How . . . exotic.”
She picked up a grape from the side of my bed and threw it up into the air, swooping her mouth into position so that the grape landed with a popping sound straight at the back of her throat.
“Bull’s-eye,” she said, proudly chewing. “So,” she said finally, standing up and tightening the scrunchie around her short ponytail, “what do we do for fun around here?”
CHAPTER SIX
Christian was brought in once a week to do a group therapy session, when we were all feeling up to it. He had a naturally soft voice and wore vegan shoes. Amber said his qualifications were probably off the Internet. He called himself a healer of sorts. Amber called him something much worse when she caught sight of him for the first time.
“Do you feel anger toward your situation?” asked Christian.
He spoke quietly and somehow managed to make eye contact with us all at once. He always started gently enough. During the first session Amber came to he made each of us draw a picture using only six lines to describe how we felt. My talents never did lie in the visual arts, so my picture wasn’t as accurate as I’d have liked. Then he asked us all to pick a color that best described our personality. Kelly said pink because it was her favorite. Paul said black and white for football-related reasons. Amber said rainbow because she was “all about the love” in a voice that suggested she was anything but. I said white, because it was the color of the gown I was wearing, and I had been sulking since I did so miserably with my mood picture that I couldn’t be bothered to participate. Then, after a bumbling lecture on love and positivity, Christian managed slowly to channel the conversation toward our situation, like a bad TV presenter linking two unrelated segments of a show.
“I suppose I do feel angry,” Kelly said. Christian nodded encouragingly. Christian did everything encouragingly. Everything was worthy of reward in his eyes. You’d think this would create a more cheering environment. Really it was just annoying. If even stupid things get praise there’s no point in trying to be clever or right. So I just sat quietly and observed. “Hardly seems fair, does it?” Kelly went on. “Loads of old people are healthy. And loads of bad people too.”
“I hear you,” said Christian. “And one point I cannot stress strongly enough is that, no matter how unpleasant, emotions like these should be faced head on—meet them at their level. It can sometimes be too easy to find a culprit and direct all our negativity toward that one object or person, but that isn’t dealing with what really matters. There should be no attempt to attribute blame for—”
“Oh, you can always blame something,” Amber said, interrupting him. Anyone else would have shot her down and told her to let them finish. But Christian wasn’t that sort of man. He just smiled and nodded as she gained momentum.
The attention of the whole group turned toward her. Kelly narrowed her eyes but Amber just carried on speaking.
“Yeah, you can blame anyone or anything you like: the government, state education, trans fats. . . .”
“Amber, you’re deflecting attention from—”
“Naaaaaaaht!”
“Amber, I understand that at times our emotions can be confusing, and that in an attempt to cope we can reach for an easier, more familiar approach to certain subjects. With you, that seems to be a sort of . . . aggression.”
“No, I’m not being aggressive, I’m being glib.”
“You’re being a total cow, Amber. I was speaking,” Kelly broke in.
“Can we have lunch soon?” Paul asked.
“Not long,” Christian said, tapping him on the knee.
“Why do you even want lunch? You only chuck it straight up anyway,” Kelly asked.
“Now that was a hostile comment,” Amber commented.
“Oh my God, it was a joke!” Kelly said.
“Christian,” Amber pointed out, “I think Kelly’s deflecting.”
“Shut up, Amber! We’re trying to talk seriously here.”
“Let’s just remember that this is a friendly environment; there is to be no negativity here,” Christian said, looking nervous.
“I reckon she’s more scared than she lets on,” Kelly said, trying to get a reaction out of Amber. “I reckon she acts this way because deep down she’s terrified, like the lot of us.”
Christian nodded and turned to Amber.
“Is Kelly’s comment something you’d like to address?”
“A census taker tried to test me once,” Amber said eventually, her voice cold and deadpan. “Didn’t end so well.”
“Fear is nothing to be ashamed of.” Christian was at least persistent. “If anything it should be celebrated. It keeps us alive.”
“Not me. I’m immune.”
“Why don’t you just try and think about it?” he asked. “Some things must make you scared. Make you sad.”
“Fear and sadness aren’t the same things,” Amber said.
“Indeed . . .”
“Oh, loads of things make me sad,” she went on. “Grown men eating packed lunches, old people sitting alone on park benches, ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA, the video for ‘Coffee and TV’ by Blur. . . .”
“Why do you always have to be the clever one?” Kelly said.
“Same reason you always have to be the thick one.”
“You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously,” Christian observed, but with concern instead of accusation in his voice.
“Why should I? I didn’t ask for it. I can take it however I like. And anyway, I’m just sharing.”
The rest of the session consisted mostly of Christian trying to fill in the awkward silences. Afterward on the unit none of us said a word. Kelly and Amber never really talked in the first place, not since Amber had erupted onto the ward like Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and upset its natural balance. In school Kelly would have had the upper hand. No matter how much she spat and snarled, Amber would have been torn limb from limb by Kelly and her crew, like a wildebeest calf faced with a pack of lions. But in the real world she had Kelly over a barrel. Every time she said something stupid, which was always, Amber was there to set her straight. Kelly didn’t stand a chance. So she sat and scowled, occasionally swearing at Amber when the pressure got too much.
Paul carried on his strong and silent routine. When she had arrived he had glanced Amber up and down, and noticing that she didn’t straighten her hair or gloss her lips or scrub herself orange with fake tan, had dismissed her as someone he didn’t need to know. She might as well have been invisible. And to Paul she mostly was.
This meant the battle lines were drawn. Amber had me, and Kelly and Paul had each other. This was the setup. And it suited me down to the ground.
“Do you want to watch a film?” Amber asked in the chill-out room. We were alone even though Jackie kept popping in to make sure we were okay. All morning I had felt nauseous and weak. My
legs and arms would shake when I tried to haul myself out of bed, but Amber had said that the unit was destroying her buzz so we’d moved to the sofas to be alone.
“If you like. They haven’t got any DVDs at the minute, though; you’ve got to use the menu and select one from there.”
“I’m on it,” she said, sitting down next to me.
“Do you think I pushed Kelly too far?” she asked as she scrolled through dozens and dozens of films on the TV, dismissing them one by one.
I shrugged and asked her if she felt bad about it.
“No. Not bad. I just can’t stand the crap that seems to be coming out of everyone’s mouth. It’s not her fault. She’s doing the best she can with grim genetics. Christian needs teaching a lesson, though. Same goes for this telly,” she said, although she was flicking so quickly I’m not sure how she could tell. “Ugh . . . Titanic . . . kill me now!”
I remained silent. You have to pretend to hate Titanic for reasons I’m still unsure of as it is probably the greatest romance of our time. Their love was as doomed as that voyage.
“Yeah,” I said. “That film’s the worst. Maybe we could get Chris to bring in some DVDs for us to watch. He has some good ones. Better than all this.”
“Yeah, do it. And get him to bring in some conversation while he’s at it. You’re killing me here, Frankie,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“I’m joking; you’re not that bad. You okay today?” she asked. “You keep grimacing.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Things are a lot more interesting with you around.”
Sometimes I’d catch myself staring at Amber and only realize I was doing it when she’d throw something at my head—a grape, once, usually an empty pill cup—and tell me to stop being a creep. She didn’t look the way most girls did. She was pretty in her own way, with pale skin and big eyes and a mouth that seemed to stretch from ear to ear. Nor did she move the way most girls did. A few years before, when we’d all gone back to school after summer holiday, it was like every girl had been invaded by a body snatcher. They looked the same, but they moved differently. None of them would play anymore; they’d stand at the side of the yard, rolling their eyes at everything that happened around them. In lessons they’d sit upright where they always used to slouch, and press their chests up like they were offering them to the gods.
