Читать книгу Blood RED - Paul Kane - Страница 11

CHAPTER ONE

She lifted him by the arms and pulled him up.

“There we go,” she said softly. Hefting someone who was almost twice your size wasn’t that tricky once you got the hang of it. It was all in the momentum, really. Use their own bodyweight to help bring them up and always remember to stand properly, like they’d taught her, just so she didn’t put her own back out. “That’s it.”

Rachael Daniels held on to Mr Abrahams for a few seconds to make sure he’d gotten his balance, then let him take his first tentative steps of the morning to his Zimmer frame. But she stood close-by in case he still needed her. When she was satisfied he was all right, she straightened his bedclothes, tucking them in at the sides again.

Mrs Abrahams, who wasn’t that far from needing home help herself, was coming around the side of the bed to give her a hand. Rachael didn’t tell her that she could manage herself, as some might have done—instead, she let her straighten one corner. It was a matter of pride, and she knew that. After all, Mrs Abrahams had virtually looked after her spouse for the last ten years on her own, ever since a debilitating fall had caused his arthritis—which was bad enough before—to worsen considerably.

Rachael watched the man of seventy-five make his way alone to the bathroom, shambling baby steps all he could manage. In his own way, he had just as much pride as his wife, and though he was grateful for all Rachael did, she was fully aware that if he could manage without her, she’d probably be told to leave quicker than you could say, ‘I’m not going in any home’.

“Thank you, Rachael,” said Mrs Abrahams, the skin around her eyes even more wrinkled through lack of sleep. “Whatever would we do without you?”

Rachael smiled. If she weren’t around, there’d be other carers—Mr and Mrs Abrahams wouldn’t have to worry about that. In some respects, they were a little like robots: one breaks down and another takes its place. And this wasn’t something the twenty-three-year-old intended to do until she retired. But she shouldn’t grumble. When she’d first moved here from the sticks, expecting the acting jobs to find her rather than the other way around, she would’ve starved without this line of work to fall back on. Plus, it was nice to know she was helping people and, from time to time, they actually showed that they appreciated it.

She watched Mrs Abrahams walk out onto the landing, following her husband and placing a hand on his back. “Now you watch your step, John. There we go.” The devotion this woman had shown to him was above and beyond the call of duty. I guess that’s what it really means to be in love, thought Rachael. I guess that’s real commitment.

She followed them too; her next job being to wash Mr Abrahams, then see that he made it okay to the stairlift, and finally to his electric chair. He didn’t have much of a life, not being able to get out of the house—but at least he had his wife of forty years by his side. Would Rachael be able to say the same when she reached that age? She doubted it.

Doubted it very much indeed.

* * *

Rachael turned the corner and headed towards Handley Crescent, one of the delightful locales making up the notorious Greenham Estate.

Miss Brindle was the last name on her list, and though she always looked forward to her time spent in that little old woman’s flat, Rachael was aware that this area wasn’t nicknamed ‘Downtown Basra’ by the locals for nothing. Look too closely at any of the side streets or alleyways and you’d find drug dens, even needles on the floor that residents had pleaded with the council to clean up. It hadn’t happened. One woman had even taken the stand of not paying her Council Tax until she felt it was safe to live in this neighbourhood again. The solution according to the powers that be? Lock her up for six months and leave the gangs and druggies on the streets.

Rachael folded her arms, pulling the blue tabard she wore tighter around herself. She hadn’t encountered any trouble here. For one thing, it was too early in the day for that, but walking through still made her uneasy. It wasn’t even as if she owned a car, so she could lock the doors and roll up the windows—feeling a little safer, at least. She couldn’t afford such luxuries on her wages. Walking and public transport were her only means of transportation ... and the authorities put as much money into those as they did into looking after the Greenham Estate.

She reached the door of the flat system, buzzing Miss Brindle—or Tilly, as she’d insisted from the start—to let her in. She wasn’t in anywhere near the state of Mr Abrahams and could get herself up with the aid of painkillers and her own two hands, rather than having to rely on Rachael. Nevertheless, she needed help with other things around the flat, and Rachael would always fix her some breakfast, too, while she was there.

It didn’t seem right to say it, because there shouldn’t be any ‘favourites’ in her job, but Tilly had turned into exactly that. Her visits didn’t seem like work at all, and Rachael always felt guilty when she tapped in the numbers on Tilly’s phone to let her bosses know she’d arrived, punching them again when she left so that she could earn her pittance.

“Hello, hello, sweetheart,” said Tilly when she opened the door of her bottom floor flat. Still ineligible for sheltered accommodation, she was forced to live alongside families with screaming babies and music blaring from the flats above her. But Tilly had at least been given an apartment that she didn’t have to climb stairs to reach (the graffiti-riddled lifts around here were more for show than any practical purpose).

For someone pushing eighty, Tilly looked remarkably spry. Her permanently coiffured hair had a bluish hue, thanks in no small part to the hairdresser who called every Wednesday afternoon and told Tilly what a perfect colour the rinse was for her. She kept this in place using the gallons of hairspray on her bedroom dresser. Her face, though wrinkled, was full of character instead of saggy, and her kind green eyes reflected the lifetime of experience she’d amassed. Tilly wore the most hideous patterned dresses, however, which looked like a throwback to the sixties and seventies. Rachael had offered once to shop for more ‘fashionable’ attire, and the woman’s answer to that was: “I’ve never taken much notice of trends, love. These suit me just fine.”

Rachael busied herself making Tilly her Weetabix, letting the milk soak in and churning it into a sort of cold porridge. “When you get to my age,” she’d said to Rachael one time, “toast for breakfast is completely out. The closer to liquid it is, the better.” Then she poured two cups of tea from the teapot.

“Sorry it’s taken so long,” said Rachael. “I had to wait for the kettle to boil again. Plugged it in but forgot to switch it on.”

“You’re just like me,” said Tilly, smiling. “I forgot to put the water in one time, almost blew up the kitchen. Right pair of scatterbrains, aren’t we?”

Tilly settled into the chair at the kitchen table as Rachael placed the bowl and cup beside her. She couldn’t help noticing the older woman wince as she tried to get into a more comfortable position.

“Are you okay?” she asked her.

The woman nodded, but it was abundantly clear she wasn’t. “Things are catching up with me, dear. Time, for one thing. Ah, you know you’re like family to me, young Rachael. Always worrying, always there when I need you.”

The carer felt her cheeks flushing. This was her job, but in a funny sort of way she felt the same. Maybe it was because her gran and granddad on her mother’s side had died when she was a little kid (to track down the others would require delving into her father’s background, and Rachael wasn’t about to stir up that hornet’s nest again). In the space of a year since she’d been doing this round, Rachael had come to think of Tilly as family, she supposed.

“But that’s not all that’s bothering you this morning, is it?” said Tilly, spooning up some of the Weetabix. “Something’s on your mind. It has been for a while.”

“Is it that obvious?”

Tilly laughed lightly. “Well, for one thing, you’ve been stirring that tea for the past five minutes. You’ll be down to the tablecloth in a minute, love.”

Rachael stopped immediately, but within seconds she was playing with her blonde ponytail instead.

“When you don’t see many people in a day, you tend to notice the subtle signs,” Tilly offered. “You haven’t been yourself all week. What is it, not your place again? Don’t tell me the landlord still hasn’t fixed your sink.”

“No ... I mean, yes he has—finally. It’s not that.” Rachael gazed into the tea.

“Ah, I see ... boyfriend trouble, eh?”

Rachael looked her in the eyes. “You could say that ... if I still had a boyfriend.”

Tilly reached over and took her hand. “Oh no. Do you want to chat about it?”

“Nothing really to say; it’s no big deal,” she lied. “Mike and I haven’t been together that long, anyway. It’s not as if we’re childhood sweethearts or anything.”

“Now that doesn’t matter, if you liked him.”

Rachael sighed. “I thought I did ... I thought I could trust him.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about men in my time, it’s that the trustworthy ones are few and far between.”

“Is that why—” Rachael stopped herself, realising she’d said too much.

“Why I’m still alone? It’s all right, dear, you can say it. No ... the reason I’m still alone is ... Well, I lost the love of my life a long time ago, before either of us was ready.” There were the beginnings of tears in her eyes as she said this. “No one really matched up to my Leonard.”

This was the first time she’d ever mentioned a significant other, and Rachael was going to ask about him, but decided against it. She didn’t know who was the better off, Mrs Abrahams who now had the burden of watching her husband deteriorate in front of her eyes, or Tilly—who had lost her one true love somehow, and obviously still had that perfect mental picture in her head.

Tilly pulled her hand away and dabbed at her eye with a handkerchief. “Look at me,” she said, laughing. “Silly old fool ... we were talking about your problems. What are you planning to do now, then?”

Rachael shrugged.

“It could be worse, you know,” Tilly told her. When Rachael looked blank, she handed her the paper. “Page seven, there’s a piece about a woman who was killed by her husband. Murdered her in a restaurant toilet, of all places—I ask you!” The old woman tutted. “The police caught up with him at home, and he even had the gall to deny it. Said he’d been driving all night and didn’t know a thing about it, even though there was an eyewitness. What’s the world coming to? Mind you, there was a time of day that would have made page one. Two at least ...”

Rachael read the sketchy report, putting it down before she’d finished it. “Guess you never really know anyone,” she said, attempting to say something profound and failing miserably.

“Some ...” said Tilly, starting in on her porridge again. “Some you do, young Rachael. You just have to choose carefully. You’ll find your Leonard one day, I promise.” And she said that like it was the best compliment in the whole world; which in her mind, thought Rachael, it probably was.

* * *

As she left Tilly’s flat, reminding her again that it was the weekend tomorrow so she wouldn’t be round, Rachael brought up her mental ‘to do’ list for today. It was a ritual she’d gotten into when growing up, her memory for doing things so bad that she needed to write down a list in her head, just to remind herself. She would have written this down on a piece of paper, but Rachael knew she’d only forget where she’d put it.

She was so busy thinking about the imaginary list, she didn’t notice the two youths who had gathered just opposite the main entrance to the flats. It was only when she came to open the door, and caught them looking across at her, that she froze. It was just for a moment, but the sight of those figures—one of them wearing a hooded tracksuit top, one a cap—threw her slightly. Shouldn’t have done that, she thought to herself, shouldn’t have shown any kind of apprehension.

True, the lads looked harmless enough; only a couple of years younger than her, they were simply hanging around on some steps and laughing, smoking stubby cigarettes. But now that they sensed she was alarmed, they got up. Rachael closed the door and walked as boldly as she could across the plaza.

“Hey there, gorgeous!” the one wearing a cap shouted. She speeded up her gait a bit. “Hey, what’s your rush? Come on over and say hello.”

Rachael kept up her pace, skirting around them and thinking about the list, picturing it in front of her. She heard them laughing behind. Don’t look, she told herself, almost willing them to vanish. If you don’t look, they can’t exist.

But she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder just as she was about to turn onto another street—to see if they were still there. To see if they were following.

They weren’t. They’d given up on her and gone back to their steps, hardly paying her any attention now. She breathed a huge sigh of relief. Rachael walked on, away from the Crescent, and realised her hands were now balled into fists. She unclenched them, then read the list to herself again:

1) Do shopping on way back from rounds (your bread is mouldy, Rachael!)

2) Ring Steph about tonight (to cancel!!)

3) Check out auditions in Stage for any possibles (yeah, right)

4) Buy yourself a treat (something tasty and preferably fattening)

She paused on the street as she came to the final number on her list. She’d added it as a black joke to herself that, after the conversation with Tilly this morning, was anything but funny.

It simply said: 4) Mend broken heart?

Rachael mentally screwed up the list, taking a certain amount of satisfaction in doing so. Then she ran for the bus which would take her into the heart of the city.