by Iain Broome
Over time, my notes gave me structure, purpose and something to do. Like I had before the stroke. Like I was told I needed. They took my mind off Georgina. They kept me sane. I made lists of my clothes. Colours, materials and sizes. Underpants and overcoats. And I set myself challenges. I went to the mini-market, wrote down the names of all the checkout staff. I went there every day, even if I didn’t want to buy anything. The aim was to collect a full seven days’ rota. Charlotte, Christopher, Donna, Emily, Hannah, Katy and Lisi with an ‘s’. I can remember them all. Not one from M to Z. I made alphabetised lists of items in the house. Books in order. Records in order. Compact discs in order. Even though we only had five of them. Then I began to write down what I’d done each day. Where I’d been. Who I’d spoken to. I joined the library, but never borrowed books. I’d go in and pretend to read. I’d sit at the table with my back to the librarian, my notepad hidden under my arm. There were thirty-three cookery books in the food and drink section. I copied out every single recipe in full. But I never stayed there long. I had to get back to Georgina. It took me ten hours over sixteen days. Nine pads of A4.
Then I saw the Jehovah’s Witness’ mistress.
I began watching the street from the window. I made notes on my neighbours, studied their routines, learnt to predict their behaviour. Lights switched off. Cars in drives. Children meeting curfews. I stored my notebooks in the loft and bought some files from Wilkinson. Twenty-six sliding folders and a hundred A4 pads. They supplied a van to drive them to the house. The driver said, ‘What the hell are you going to do with this lot?’ and I said, ‘I’m going to build a bookcase.’ And I did. I bought plywood from B&Q and built a bookcase in the spare room. I labelled the files from A to Z. Then I stuck sixteen pieces of paper together and pencilled out a map of the street. I drew round a coaster, made squares for houses. Outside each square, I pressed firmly with a felt tip pen to make a dot, a different colour for every neighbour. Rectangles for cars and trees made from netting, stuck to the map with Pritt Stick. I found an old picture of Kipling and drawing-pinned him to the front garden. When I’d finished, I hung it on the wall. I wrote ‘Cressington Vale’ in the bottom right hand corner. My system was in place.
And then I saw Benny painting.
I watched him close his eyes and stroke the canvas with his brush. I was mesmerised. He was different from the rest. Don Donald with his hands in his pockets, Andrea with her towel and Ina in her chair. They are ordinary people with ordinary lives. But Benny isn’t ordinary. Benny paints pictures with his eyes closed. I don’t know why he does what he does. I don’t know what happens when he closes his eyes. I don’t know what his pictures look like. Watching Benny feels like being somewhere else. It feels like something out of the ordinary is happening. It feels like I am part of a secret. I stop writing notes and I think about God. I ask him to save me. I ask him to save Georgina. This is the time I keep for myself. Last thing at night. First hours of morning.
But now Angelica is here. Her file is thick already. She doesn’t go to work, but she gets up early. There’s been no visit from a husband and there’s no sign of children. She is friendly, but she isn’t my friend. I don’t know what she is. I speak to her as often as possible, but sometimes I don’t know what to say. Her door is now pink. And orange. And green. It reminds me of her toenails. She painted it last weekend. I watched her walking in and out of the house. Coffee breaks, cigarette breaks and television breaks. It took her six hours. All the light in the day. I had to start a new file.
‘Why don’t you try writing things down, Gordon? It might help you remember. We know it’s not been easy for you.’
So I did, and now it is. I never miss a trick.
Life is easier because I have my files.
*
This morning, like every morning, I woke at six. I walked from the spare room downstairs to the kitchen and made myself breakfast. I ate at the table. Kipling was asleep in his basket. I watched his ribcage rise and fall with his breathing, so slowly and with such long pauses in between that twice I stopped eating and waited for his next breath, made sure he hadn’t died. I finished my breakfast, put my plate in the sink and opened the cupboard underneath. I took out my manual: How to help your wife recover from a stroke in little under eighteen months, by Gordon Kingdom. It has everything in it. Everything we need. It’s thicker than my bible.
I wrote it all down. Every single detail.
The appointments, the tablets, the positions, the procedures. The do’s, the what definitely not to do’s and the what to do as a last resorts. The endless calculations. The graphs in rough and the graphs on graph paper. The facts, the figures and the mimicking of specialists. The doctors, the nurses and the physiotherapists. The speech therapists and the pain managers with the impossible job. Her incredible pain. Our incredible pain. It’s all in the manual. We did it all by the book.
And she got better.
We were getting better.
Extractions
We grew up together but went to different schools. I lived on one side of the void, she lived on the other. The void was Gutterton Half, a 150-foot deep opencast pit in the shape of a semi-circle. At its widest it stretched 100 yards, at its longest 200 yards. It was the town’s first coal extraction. They created a wall of soil around the site to block the sound. Vast heaps of freshly-seeded grass to hide an abyss of clay and coal. They’ve been tearing it out the ground ever since.
My father worked with Georgina’s father at Gutterton Half. Everyone’s father worked at Gutterton Half. Mine was a lorry driver, hers worked a loading shovel. One picked the coal up, the other drove it away. They worked twelve hours a day, from seven in the morning until seven at night. When they loaded the lorry, they communicated with hand signals, nods and winks. When they weren’t loading the lorry, one of them drove and one of them waited. Both smoking in silence. They only spoke during half-hour lunch breaks. Enough to strike a friendship. We used to alternate Sunday lunch between the two houses. Two families sat together eating properly round a table. Our parents, Georgina and me. Her father swore constantly. Almost every other word. He slid obscenities into sentences where you least expected them – ‘Mary woman, get-yerself-to-fucking-gether’ – and after a while, you hardly noticed because he made it sound so normal. My father was a man of the church. He never swore once. Not that I heard.
After lunch, our parents moved to the comfy chairs and drank until they were drunk. Our fathers drank whiskey, our mothers drank gin. We were thirteen-years-old and took it in turns to escort them home. It was our job. While they were drinking we’d have to occupy ourselves because they wanted us out of the house. Mostly, we didn’t speak. We had nothing in common. I was a boy, she was a girl. What was there to talk about? So we’d end up walking through the woods to the park behind Georgina’s school, where there were always other children. Sometimes, she’d speak to them and I’d have to stand next to her and wait. She looked much older than me. They asked if I was her younger brother. But I didn’t mind. It was better than standing on my own.
One day, instead of going to the park, Georgina decided we would walk out to the void. We climbed through a hole in the fence and sat on one of the huge soil heaps looking down into the pit. It was the middle of summer and the air was shimmering in the heat. We could see the machines lined up stationary for the weekend. They looked tiny, like toys. We were there for over an hour. And we began to talk. I told her I was sick of my father telling me what to do all the time. I said I never understood how he could go to church in the morning and then drink all afternoon. I said it didn’t seem right. Georgina told me she thought her mother wanted to kill herself. Then she kissed me.
Georgina was my girlfriend between the ages of thirteen and almost sixteen, even though we only saw each other on Sundays. She later said she never told her friends about us, whereas I’d told anyone willing to listen. We carried on as we always had, except we talked more, and we kissed each other when we ran out of things to say.
She used to tell me the things she’d overheard her mother saying to herself in the bathroom. I found it hard to make her feel better. I tried, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was just pleased to be there. It was fantastic.
When she turned sixteen, just five weeks before I did, Georgina decided to stop being my girlfriend. She took me back to the soil heap at Gutterton Half and told me it was time we both grew up. We needed to spend more time with friends from our own schools. I agreed with her, walked home alone and put my head under my pillow. Unfortunately, our parents still had Sunday lunch together, and we still had the job of making sure they got home. But Georgina soon resigned her post, she disappeared completely. When we went to their house, she was always out. When they came to our house, her parents phoned for a taxi.
It was three years before I saw her again, at her father’s funeral. He’d been taken to hospital with flu, or as my mother put it, ‘just a cold’. The following day he got pneumonia. The day after that he died. It happened so quickly that they decided to open him up. His lungs were riddled with cancer and had been for years. He’d never told a soul. My father was devastated. He stood with Georgina’s mother as they lowered the coffin into the ground. I had to stand with a crowd of relatives and half-friends, listening to the whispers. ‘He used to knock her about, you know,’ and ‘When’s the buffet starting?’
Family members were invited to throw earth into the grave. When Georgina’s turn came, she declined. She kept her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes fixed on the ground. Even when they asked her a second time, she didn’t reply. I watched her throughout the ceremony. She looked the same as she had when I saw her last: tall, slim and anxious. It made me realise how much I’d changed myself. I had shorter hair, cut by a barber instead of my mother. And I wore clothes that fit me. If I wanted, I could almost grow a moustache.
I decided to speak to her. The wake was held at the community centre, which backed out onto the park we used to walk to together. I waited until the buffet had cleared and she was on her own. I watched her go through the fire exit at the back of the room. She sat on a swing with her plate on her lap and a plastic cup jammed between her knees. The cup was filled with cheap, sparkling wine. Everyone had to have one. Her mother insisted. The mood had turned from sadness to celebration. Smiles and laughter. Though no-one said, ‘It’s what he would have wanted.’
I picked up my cup, downed my drink and followed Georgina through the fire exit. She smiled as I approached her. I could smell her perfume. She’d started wearing it just weeks before we split up. It seemed stronger than I remembered. I sat on the swing next to hers. I wanted to say something useful, something profound. We hadn’t seen each other for so long. But I turned towards her, opened my mouth and said nothing. I had absolutely nothing to say to her. And after a few seconds of silence, we laughed.
‘So, my mother’s not killed herself yet.’
‘I noticed.’
‘I don’t think she ever will.’
‘No? Well, that’s good news.’
‘I’ll have to put her in a home instead.’
We’d been outside an hour when the disco started. Someone turned all the lights off apart from the one by the bar. We heard a loud cheer. I could see my parents dancing in the doorway by the entrance. Twisting and shouting. And Mary, Georgina’s mother. One arm in the air, the other round the DJ. Her hips all over.
No-one came to look for us.
First strike
Nearly forty years later, almost eighteen months ago, Georgina had her first stroke. I’d arranged a neighbourhood watch meeting. Seven of us sat round a table in the Shoulder of Mutton. It was bank holiday weekend and the pub was full of people. I sat at the head of the table. On my left, Andrea Turner, John Bonsall and Georgina. On my right, Peter and Janice Smith, then Don Donald. Ina Macaukey’s morning milk had been stolen five times in two weeks. We had important things to discuss.
‘It’s just milk, Gordon.’
‘Janice, it might just be milk to you, but it’s not just milk to me and it’s not just milk to Ina. Remember, you might be next.’
‘Maybe it’s the milkman.’
‘I don’t think the milkman would need to steal someone else’s milk,’ said John. ‘He probably gets it free.’
‘He’s got something wrong about him.’
‘Everyone’s got something wrong about them,’ said Peter. ‘And anyway, why would he keep taking it from the same person? No-one’s that stupid.’
‘Here we go, straight away. My husband thinks I’m stupid.’
‘It’s not the milkman,’ I interrupted. ‘I asked him yesterday. He explained himself and said he knows nothing. And I believe him. We’ve obviously not been watching well enough. One of us should have noticed something unusual.’
‘Ina can have some of our milk, Gordon,’ said John. ‘We always get an extra bottle.’
‘No, that’s not the point.’
‘It wouldn’t cause a problem. It’s just milk.’
‘Stop saying that. It’s never just milk. Theft is theft.’
I shuffled my papers and tapped the end of my biro on the table. Blank faces stared back at me. I glared at Don. He nodded.
‘Gordon is kind of right, everyone. At the moment it’s just milk, but that could lead to something more serious.’
‘Like what?’ said Peter.
‘I don’t know. Cars? One thing leads to another.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s not ridiculous,’ I said. ‘It’s exactly why we need to take this matter seriously and exactly why we need to work out a shift pattern. We can do that this evening. Don’s kindly brought some graph paper and I’ve got a packet of felt tips.’
‘What do you mean by shift pattern?’ said Andrea.
‘So we can keep watch.’
‘I object to that.’
‘No objections. We need to work out who’s going to keep watch and when. The best way is to take shifts. So far, the milk’s been stolen at least once every three days and always between the time it arrives and the time we wake up. If we do our jobs properly, we’ll have our thief in no time. We can begin tomorrow.’
‘I’ll take five until six tomorrow morning,’ said Don.
‘Thank you. That leaves four until five and six until seven. Andrea, which would you like?’
‘I can’t object?’
‘No, you can’t object. Which shift would you like?’
‘It’s bank holiday. Why don’t we start all this next week?’
‘Right, I’ll put you down for the early shift tomorrow.’
‘No. Six until seven. I’ll do six until seven.’
‘Thank you, Andrea.’
‘We’ll do the same shift the day after,’ said Janice.
‘Will we?’ said Peter.
‘Yes, you will.’
‘Gordon?’
‘Yes, John?’ I said.
‘Would you mind if Pamela and I went to see my mother? We were planning to drive up tomorrow and stay there the night, you see. Will that affect the schedule?’
‘So, you’re away from the street on Monday, but you’re here tomorrow morning. How does four until five sound?’
‘Well, that does make it rather a long day. She lives in Glasgow. Could I perhaps do two hours instead of one when we get back?’
‘Well, maybe Andrea could swap her shift with you.’
‘Objection,’ said Andrea.
‘Then I’m afraid it’s going to have to be tomorrow. No-one can do two consecutive shifts. It’s just not practical. It’ll give you more time to pack.’
‘What if we don’t want to take part in this nonsense?’ said Peter.
‘Then someone will steal your milk.’
Don raised his hand, ‘Gordon, when are you keeping watch?’
‘I don’t mind. Of course, one of you may find our thief in the morning. If not, we could do our shift the day after. Georgina, what do you think? We could walk Kipling early and be back
for seven?’
The moment is framed as a painting on a nail in my mind. Our table, six heads all turned towards my wife. Behind them a room full of people. Moving, talking and drinking. And then Georgina, perfectly still in her chair. Her head cocked slightly to the left, her face lopsided. Her arms lifeless in her lap. A man wearing pleated trousers passed behind her. I remember they were pinstriped. He spilt some of his drink and brushed the back of her chair. But she didn’t notice. She was busy somewhere else. Somewhere new. And I remember her eyes. Wild and detached. Searching a whole new world. The old one lost forever.
Don Donald was the first to react. He ran round the table and wrapped his coat around Georgina’s shoulders. Andrea shouted, ‘Can you hear me? Georgina, can you hear what I’m saying?’ and Peter rushed to the bar to get the landlord to ring for an ambulance. Janice followed him, but the job was done by the time she got there. John Bonsall started crying. He sat next to me. I could feel him shaking. Within seconds a small crowd had gathered, but Don stood up and asked them all to go away. ‘Please, I have everything under control,’ he said.
And I just sat there. I said nothing. I did nothing. I watched the paramedics arrive and lift my wife into a wheelchair. They checked her pulse and spoke to her. They told her exactly what they were doing. Behind them, people continued with their talking and their drinking. They turned around every so often to look at the table with the paralysed woman and the man in tears. ‘Oh, that’s awful,’ they said. ‘Such a tragedy.’ Don asked Andrea to take John outside. Peter and Janice were already there. Everyone had their role. They’d been to flag down the ambulance. Don waved his hand in front of my face and said, ‘Gordon, they’re taking her now. You should go with her.’
