I thought it was Chas outside when, careless with anticipation, I took the chain off the door at eight o’clock that Friday evening, but as I peered up the steps to see who it was had knocked, a man stepped forward from the shadowy recess of the bogey hole where we kept the household refuse. The lights were coming on at street level, showering a dull illumination on a head of greasy black curls. In spite of the warm atmosphere, the man was wearing several layers of outerwear, such as tramps might wear, or those we now generically dub homeless: the flotsam of no fixed abode. He looked primeval, a man from the bog lands, a green man, hardened off against the weather. At his feet was a Tesco carrier bag, and his hands were stretched out to me in a vaguely religious gesture, although from the frozen look he wore on his face, I did not take this to be an attitude of blessing.
I knew who he was, of course. I knew it in my bones. He didn’t even have to say his name. I bolted back inside and got the chain on, but his foot was already in the door.
‘I’ve come about my mam,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to be scared.’ This scared came pitched as skered, the accent of my Liverpool home. Of course I was scared. I was petrified, in fact, frozen in my unlocked doorway with the sounds of footsteps in the street above, walking on by, crossing over to the other side, not wanting to know.
The visitor puffed out the red pouches of cheek above his beard, though made no further move to push inside.
‘You must be Mr Woods,’ I said at last, although it felt as though my mouth was full of cotton. ‘I am very sorry about your mother.’
He withdrew his foot and rummaged inside the Tesco carrier, extracting a fine blue scarf with his spade-like hand and pushing it through the crack in the door. ‘I brought this for you.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t take it,’ I mumbled. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’
The light in his eye turned stormy. A wild, defensive reflex made me slam the door on his fat fingers. The panic in me was dynamic. I leant with all my weight against the door, crushing his hand, which must have hurt like hell, although he made no sound except a heavy breathing, like a cow behind a hedgerow. At last he withdrew, and then I saw him peering through the kitchen window, rubbing his squashed thumb and seeking me out with his small black eyes. I heard the sound of the sea in my ears. Adrift, I thought. Several miles offshore without a sail. I sank to my knees below the window, too afraid to move. I don’t know how long I crouched there like that, it seemed like ages, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes.
‘Are you in there, Louise?’ Chas shouted finally. ‘Why don’t you open the door?’
I pulled myself up to the window ledge, breathing thickly through snot and salt, and peered out. Chas gawped back at me, his hair coming loose from its knot, his rider’s helmet awkward under his arm. ‘What’s up?’ he shouted. ‘Why don’t you open the door?’
I stumbled towards it and pulled it open again on the chain. ‘Someone was there,’ I said. ‘I thought I was being attacked.’
Chas glanced back into the basement area. ‘There’s no one there now, Louise. Take off the chain.’
I took it off and fell into his arms. ‘I’m frightened,’ I told him. That was all I managed to get out.
Chas sat me down on one of the unforgiving kitchen chairs and fetched me a glass of water. Minutes passed before I found my voice.
‘It was a man,’ I spat out. ‘Big, well, fattish, not like you. He was there just a minute ago.’ I wiped my mouth.
‘I was parking the bike,’ Chas said doubtfully.
‘You think I’m cracking up,’ I said. ‘You don’t think he was there, do you? You think I’m seeing things now.’ I sat forward, pressing my hands into the top of my spine. I knew Roy Woods had been real. In the darkening shadows of the basement stairwell, he looked like a large green frog, the sort that would not turn into a prince, the sort I wouldn’t kiss to find out
‘It was the son,’ I said. ‘I told you about him, didn’t I? It was the son of that old woman with the forked tongue, the woman you cut up before you went to Brighton. I told you about him, Chas. He’s one of Sammy Veil’s patients.’
Chas frowned, but still looked unconvinced. ‘A relative? Why would he come hounding you at home, Louise? How would he have your address?’
I had the sudden and painful thought that the Bubba had sent him around, just to persecute me, or maybe Dr Veil. But he couldn’t have sent Roy. He didn’t know where I lived. ‘My boss must have told him where I lived,’ I said, incredulous. ‘He had one of his mother’s scarves. What if he was at his mother’s house when she died? What if he pushed her?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Louise, she died of a stroke. How many more times?’
‘But someone could have pushed her.’
‘She had a stroke, Louise.’
‘But maybe I should report it.’
‘Maybe you should. Yeah, I think you should.’ He took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.
‘Wait a minute.’ I passed my hand before my eyes, saw Roy’s hand inside my door, the weight of my body against it, shutting him out. ‘I may have hurt him more,’ I said. ‘Don’t call the police, not yet.’
‘What are you saying now?’
‘I trapped his fingers in the door. He was trying to get inside. He had her scarf. I thought he wanted to strangle me.’
‘So report it. We’ll call them now.’
‘No, no I don’t think so. No.’ I looked at the water glass. I should have reported it, I knew, but I remembered the indifference of the interviewing officer when I made my statement about the woman on the bus, how they had let her go unheeded, just one more nutcase, scattering bile and bad deeds.
‘You’re here now,’ I said to Chas. ‘Let’s just forget it. Let’s just go to bed,’ I blurted suddenly. Chas stared at me, then looked away.
‘That’s not a good idea, Louise.’
‘Why not? Is there someone else?’ My mouth was dry. I swallowed some of the water.
Chas looked at his long white fingers. ‘You’ve had an accident.’
‘No need to make excuses.’
‘It’s not an excuse, it’s a gold-plated reason for taking it easy. It’s not because I don’t want to …’
‘I thought you wanted to. ’
‘Not right now I don’t, no. Look at the state you’re in.’
‘What state? You think I’m some kind of lunatic, don’t you? You think I’m, seeing things.’
‘No.’ But he shifted his gaze. ‘Look, I’m sick of push button sex.’
I blinked, feeling the recoil like a red hot wire. ‘Push button sex,’ I repeated. ‘Was that what …?’
‘No. It came out wrong. Forget I said it.’
‘You’re not exactly Mr Sensitive,’ I retorted, augmenting the pain in my head. ‘You never even took your gloves off.’
‘You finished it, Louise,’ he smiled. ‘You nailed the coffin shut on what we had.’
‘I thought we were over the hill with that. So you resent me,’ I concluded. ‘OK then, bugger off. We can’t move on with you resenting me.’
‘You’ve read me wrong, that’s all. If you think I’d go to bed with you tonight, when you’re in this state, then you can’t think much of me.’
‘I read you loud and clear, Chas. You said you were sick of push button sex.’
‘I didn’t mean you.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘There’s someone else. Why didn’t you say so?’
‘You told me there was a man outside, trying to attack you. For Christ’s sake, Louise, for Christ’s sake.’ He put the empty water glass in the sink, for something to do I supposed. The area steps cast lengthy shadows beyond the window, and beyond the shadows there was dark on dark: the darkness of a mind split into two, the dark side of the moon.
‘There’s no one there, Louise,’ Chas told me softly.
‘I’m sorry I importuned you,’ I said pompously.
‘You’re not listening to me. Still, if that’s how
you want it.’ He hovered uneasily before the door. ‘I’ll call you in the morning. Are you sure you’re quite all right?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think you’re not feeling too hot.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ I said furiously. ‘Can’t you see I’m mortified? There’s nothing more to say now, is there?’
‘You could come over to my place.’
‘No, thanks. The landlord fitted anti-rape locks. No push button sex around here, unless I let the vampires in,’ I rounded nastily.
‘Now you’re being silly, Louise. If this guy was round here frightening you, then you should either come back home with me or call the police. You should call the police,’ he said finally.
‘No. I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to deal with it. I’ll be OK.’
‘I’ll call you when I get home then,’ he said. ‘The locks are sound. You’ve had a shock. You’ll be OK.’
‘Depend on it,’ I told him. ‘Thanks for dropping by.’
I shot the bolts behind him, checked all the blinds were down and the windows screwed shut and went into my bedroom to call Dr Veil. I wasn’t frightened any more. I just wanted some answers.
‘I’m glad you’ve got in touch,’ the psychiatrist said sharply, no trace of that diffident hoarseness in his tone this time. ‘I gather you’ve heard from Roy Woods?’
‘You sent him here?’ I gasped. ‘How did you …? You told me he wasn’t violent.’
‘Violent?’ The doctor sucked in smoke. ‘Isn’t that a behaviour you need to address within yourself?’
‘What?’ My voice packed up on me.
‘I’ve just had a call from the accident and emergency department at The Royal Free. Roy’s with them now, with three broken fingers and in some considerable psychic distress.’
‘Have you seen him then?’
Veil gave a long exhalation. ‘No, not yet. A psychiatrist there is assessing him.’
I swallowed hard. ‘He’s been following me, Dr Veil. He came round to my house. He tried to force his way in.’
‘You should have called me straight away. He was trying to find out about his mother.’
‘Yes. He offered me one of her scarves. Did he get that from you?’
‘From me?’
‘You’re storing her effects, aren’t you?’
‘I haven’t seen Roy in six months, Miss Moon.’
‘But I thought you’d told him …’
‘No, I did not. It appears he was brusquely updated by some of your colleagues, from what he’s been raving about to my colleagues at The Royal Free. I will be lodging a complaint with the Coroner about the way this case has been handled.’
‘Are you saying my colleagues gave him his mother’s things?’
‘They gave him his mother’s ashes in a carrier bag, a carrier bag, Miss Moon, together with a copy of her death certificate and Professor Androssoff’s autopsy findings – all highly in order, I’m sure, but hardly the kind of details one wants passed on to a person with Roy’s history.’
‘I haven’t been at work all week,’ I said feebly. ‘He showed me a scarf I thought he’d taken from his mother. I didn’t know what else was in the bag. Are you sure it was the ashes?’ I knew the Bubba had a heart of stone, but handing Roy Woods his mother’s remains in a Tesco carrier was too refined degradation, even for her.
I heard Veil light another cigarette. ‘You have no idea how many of these people the police and the general hospitals try to palm off on me at every hour God sends. It’s not fair on me and it’s not fair on the ones on my ward who are seriously ill. I’m not a policeman. Roy was told his mother had died, and in his bewilderment and grief he simply sought some answers from the people who removed her. He is no more psychotic than you are, Louise, although I fear that this will set him back some way, as I warned you it might. Did I not tell you that people with his diagnosis are far more sinned against than sinning?’
‘You did and I believed you. I’m sorry,’ I said miserably. ‘Is he staying at The Royal Free then?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I’d like to know.’
‘For your own peace of mind, I expect,’ Veil sneered, although with perfect accuracy. ‘The Royal Free will keep him overnight, and then we’ll try to get him a bed in a hostel somewhere.’
‘I didn’t set out to injure him. I was frightened, Dr Veil. He tried to push his way into my house.’
‘Try to put yourself in his shoes. He’s homeless, depressed …’
‘Which hostel?’
‘What he really wants, of course, is to come back to us,’ Veil continued. ‘But that is out of the question. We don’t operate as an asylum any longer. We’re a Trust now, a Service Provider, although what we can actually do for people like Roy makes an absolute mockery of that terminology. I know people mock at my radio show, but it’s not just some vainglorious exercise. There are other things I could do with my Saturday nights than try to reach out to people like Roy. He’s not a hopeless case, far from it, but I am sure he’s suffering now.’
‘I’ve been injured, too,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘There’s no need to run through it all again, Miss Moon. I get the picture.’
‘What do you think I should do now?’ I asked. What could I do?
‘Leave Roy alone. Look, I’ll have to cut this short now,’ he said unexpectedly, ‘I’ve another call waiting.’ The psychiatrist at The Royal Free, I guessed, or maybe Roy again, demented and suffering, accusing me of causing him that pain. But I had caused him pain. Roy was neither a ghost, nor an imaginary fragment. He was standing up to be counted. I needed to share the burden, diffuse some of the guilt I felt about the way we’d treated him, so I called Chas.
‘To put your mind at rest,’ I said, ‘he’s locked away for the night at The Royal Free. I broke three of his fingers.’
Chas was eating something. I heard a faint chink of china, as though he was setting down a plate. ‘The guy who was round at your place? Who told you that?’
‘Samuel Veil.’
‘He called you up?’
‘No, I called him,’ I said. ‘I wanted to know who had given Roy my address.’
‘That fuckwit …’ Chas began.
‘No, Veil said he didn’t give it. He hadn’t heard from Roy until they called him from A & E.’
‘So who did?’
‘It must have been Bubba,’ although even I was having difficulty coming to terms with that betrayal of the rules. ‘She also gave him his mother’s remains today, in a Tesco carrier.’
‘You’re joking?’ Chas was moving into another room now, his bedroom perhaps, I recognised the acoustic.
‘That’s quite a refinement, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Beats stuffing body cavities with copies of The Sun.’
‘Yes, I think it does,’ Chas said. ‘Does the Coroner know?’
‘He will know. Dr Veil is lodging a complaint.’
‘Well it’s nothing to do with you, Louise. You weren’t even there.’
‘No, I was here,’ I said, ‘shutting his fingers in my door, pushing him out, just like I pushed his mother off on you. You can’t begin to know how bad I feel about this.’
‘Don’t feel bad,’ Chas said. ‘Don’t get involved …’
‘Don’t get involved, don’t take it to heart, maintain safe boundaries. I know,’ I finished. ‘I just thought I’d let you know.’
‘Let Veil just try and make a complaint about me,’ Chas scorned. ‘If complaints are being bandied about, my question would be who let this fruitcake out of the asylum in the first place?’
‘His being a fruitcake as you put it has nothing to do with Roy being given his mother’s ashes in a carrier bag. I saw that carrier,’ I said, seeing it again in my mind’s eye, crumpled and distressed looking, as though the print was wearing off, as though it had been blown about the park a bit in all weathers, refusing ever to biodegrade, unlike the human remains which it con
tained. I felt sick and shaky and an unfathomable disgust.
‘Put it out of your mind for now,’ Chas said. ‘Just try to get some sleep. Take two of your pills – you can take two, you know. They won’t upset you.’
‘I’m upset enough already.’
‘Do you want me to come over?’ he asked. ‘I can be there in fifteen minutes.’
‘No. No, I don’t think so. I just wanted to let you know.’
How could I sleep? My mind turned into the street where the North London hostel for men stood palely loitering. It was a huge Edwardian edifice of yellow brick with tiles of ivy green that picked out a design below the guttering. It was the sort of place you could smell before you actually got to it, a bad smell of cloudy urine and wasted lives, a living smell, though, not like the mortuary. When we approached the dead, we did it with special disinfecting creams dabbed under our noses, but you couldn’t do that with the living. That would have been rude. You had to take the living as they came or pass by on the other side. Unwashed men, in layers like those worn by Roy, were always lurking up and down the street outside this hostel, some sitting on the pavement, their backs against the wall of the building, swigging from cans or bottles of extra strong cider that had a sour-sweetish smell and made the urine sprayed against the walls gleam bright as barley sugar. There were posters stuck to the windows advertising The Salvation Army and a clothing bank, overflowing with filled carrier bags, some of them from Tesco. How did Bubba sleep, I wondered, and the mortician with the mullet hairstyle? Janice Impawala – how did she sleep? And Chas, who had refused to sleep with me? I took two pills, as he’d prescribed, and tried to wash it all away.
Grave Truths Page 6
