Читать книгу The Stranger She Knew - Rosalind Stopps - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

October 2017

Lewisham

The door across the corridor has been closed for days. Whoever he is, he likes his privacy, that’s clear, although sometimes I get this prickly feeling. In the back of my neck, as if I’m being watched. I look out when I can but there’s nothing much to see from my room except passing ghouls leaning on sticks or walking frames or being pushed like babies. There are trolleys, of course, and if I could talk I’d try some conversation openers about them. Trolley dolly, I could say, or, have you got any gin on there? I used to know a whole song about hostess trolleys but I can’t get it out, even when I try really hard, one word at a time. I wouldn’t mind how it sounded if I could just say something. I read about someone once, had a stroke and when they started speaking again, they had a Russian accent. I’d even be happy with a Hull one.

It was an odd place, Hull. Always an ill wind blowing. An east wind off the sea. I’m glad I’ve ended up here. The Thames, that’s my idea of a river, you can keep the Humber. Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, I try to sing when they bring the lunch. It’s a small token of identity but that Kelly, I really do not like her, she holds my good hand down where I’m trying to make it conduct the imaginary band, and stuffs a spoonful of soup in my mouth. I hate soup. Food is food and drink is drink and let’s not get the two things mixed up, that’s what I say. What I used to say.

Jenny understands me sometimes. She’s the only one who does, and she doesn’t seem to mind about the spit thing. She leans in close, listens hard and then answers me. I’ve never been so glad to see her as I am these days. She comes most evenings, after work. She’s a teacher, my Jenny, like I was. It must be genetic, I tell her, only that always makes her frown and I think it’s because she doesn’t like being compared to me. I can’t blame her.

We’re doing an autumn display for the assembly hall, she said last night, leaves hanging from coloured hoops and some big firework paintings.

She used to love fireworks when she was little, my Jenny. All the kiddies did. The smell of burning and the excitement, choosing all the little fireworks one by one and imagining what they would be like on the night. All fakery, all up in smoke but she liked it.

Bonfire? I tried to say, then just, fire?

I’m sure she understood. I’m sure she knew that I was asking to go to see some fireworks, in my chair. I saw the shadow pass across her face and I read what was behind it. Please don’t ask me to do more than I can do, it said. I wished I could say more, maybe beg her to take me. She would probably have given in in the end, she’s weak like that, but I wasn’t going to get carried away. Not for a stupid firework display, with its oohs and aahs and heads pointed at the sky till the necks hurt. I’m glad when Jenny goes home.

Hull Fair was always on in October. It probably still is. Such a big thing, loads of streets shut off and all the children bundled into their coats for the first time that year and eating candy floss. I went with Alain. We didn’t have many dates before I got pregnant but for a little while afterwards we had some lovely ones. He used to say he was carrying the courtship into the marriage, or some such nonsense. I ate burnt cinder toffee, I remember the taste even now. I’d been sick a lot in the pregnancy, and I couldn’t keep much down at all, but that toffee, it tasted like something magic. Angel food, as long as angels don’t have teeth. He won me a Womble, Alain did, throwing darts at a target. He always had good aim, Alain, and I was as pleased as a child with it. I hadn’t ever done anything like that before, been to the fair with a boy. A man. I was as giddy as a girl.

I was older than Alain, but much less experienced. I’d spent most of my teens and twenties being the kind of girl that was asked along by other girls as a last resort. The kind of girl who went home on her own at the end of every evening out, unless one of her friends was extremely unlucky. A fat girl, if I am completely honest. A fat jolly girl with loads of pals and three similar navy blue dresses, worn in rotation. I see the fat girls now and they wear anything they like, bright pink leggings, crop tops, miniskirts, shorts. I don’t know what I think about that, but I do know it wasn’t a thing that could have been done in the early seventies. Fat girls bought their clothes from the fuller figure range at Arding and Hobbs, Clapham Junction, or Binns in Hull. There were Peter Pan collars and ruches and tucks that were supposed to hide the fat, only they didn’t.

I did have a boyfriend once. Brendan. He was a bit like me, awkward and tubby so everyone thought it was the best match, the cutest thing but he got handsome, almost overnight. That’s how I remember it, one moment he was like me, waistband straining and T-shirt too tight, and the next he was slim and tanned and could take his pick. He chose Cherry, picked her right away and I didn’t blame him at all. It made sense to me.

I stopped being a fat girl in 1976. Summer 1976 to be exact, when I started my teacher training year and everyone was singing ‘Dancing Queen’. It wasn’t my sort of music, but I used to put it on the record player every morning anyway, and I’d dance along to get my metabolism going. I was still doing it when I met Alain that Christmas, only I never told him. I was as slim as all the other young women by then, and I could see in the mirror that I was looking OK, but I couldn’t believe he chose me. He could have had anyone.

I’ve put the song into my head now, like a fool. I try drumming it out with my good hand on the tray over my bed, that always used to get rid of it. I’m hoping to send the blasted song packing but instead I’ve knocked over the cold soup that was sitting on my tray. It’s splashed all over the floor, the bed and even up the wall a little.

Kelly comes in. What have we got here, she says, what’s this? She pulls the bed covers back more roughly than she needs to and I don’t have time to make sure I’m decent underneath. What would happen if we all threw things we didn’t like, huh? Who would do the cleaning up then? I didn’t, I try to say, it was just that Abba song, that was all, I needed a drum roll but my hand wouldn’t do it.

We don’t need all that slobbering now do we she says, if you can’t speak properly best say nothing.

By the time she’s cleaned me up and settled me back into my chair we’ve used up at least half an hour. Even better, the head honcho, or shift supervisor or whatever they’re called, she comes in and has a bit of a go at Kelly.

Why are you doing that on your own, she says, you should have called for help.

I didn’t want to take anyone away from their own jobs, Kelly says, but head honcho sees right through that.

It’s not your decision, she says, it’s policy and that’s what we do here. She has a sniff in her tone that you could hear from across the river. But she’s good with the patients, or inmates, or whatever it is we are. It’s all, are you OK Mrs Beecham and I try to say, Ms, but she takes it as a yes.

Splendid, she says, splendid, shall I get the girls to bring you some more soup? I shake my head at that one, don’t even try to speak.

Fair enough, she says, let Kelly here know if you want anything else, won’t you.

She isn’t keen on that at all, Kelly, but she doesn’t dare to be rough any more. She has a killer look when she puts the blanket round my knees, but it only makes me laugh. I’ve seen worse than that, I want to tell her, I don’t scare so easily, not these days. You could probably get an axe murderer in here wielding his weapon and I wouldn’t flinch. The old me, the fat sad little me that I was in my young life, she was scared of everything. Everything.

Jenny comes later, after school like she usually does.

I hear there was a problem, Mum, she says, a problem with the soup.

Soup, I try to say.

For a moment I’ve forgotten and I have no idea what she’s talking about.

I forget where I am and think of soup, trickling down the walls, hot soup tipped over my head. Trying to wash the pieces out of my hair later.

No, I try to say, no no.

It’s OK Mum, it doesn’t matter, Jenny says and I’m back in the room, remembering the drum roll and the spilled soup. It’s such a relief to know that no one threw it at me, I’m not in danger, it’s all OK. I start to cry.

Mum I’ll tell them, Jenny says, I’ll tell them you don’t like it, don’t worry, it’s OK.

She looks worried but I can’t stop crying.

I don’t like it here, it’s all wrong. No one can understand me and I can feel the prickly feeling again, that tingle as though I’m being watched. I think it’s the man in the room across the corridor, I’m sure it is. I can’t tell Jenny, it would upset her but I’m sure I can see him out of the corner of my eye. He probably just sits there, watching, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Can I come home with you, I want to say to Jenny, I don’t like it here.

I can’t get anything out now except stupid crying, but I’m sure she understands me. She looks away.

Please, I try to say, and I hate myself for doing it. I know she can’t look after me, not with the toilet in her house being upstairs and anyway there’s her ex-husband, she shares the house with him, I can’t go there. I know all of that but I don’t seem to be able to stop myself.

Let’s go for a little walk, she says, let’s get out of this room and take in the sights. I’m on the back foot, pardon the pun, I can’t really say no. I’m sitting in my special chair that pushes me up and out at the flick of a control button, then it’s touch and go getting to the wheelchair. She’s a strong one though, my Jenny, and I make the transfer without too much folderol.

Round the Cape of Good Hope? she says and it makes me laugh a little, out of politeness.

She’s right, it is good to get out of the room. It crowds in on me, that place, squashes me down until I can’t get my breath. I used to feel like that in the little flat in Pimlico when Jenny was a baby, but I’d forgotten it until recently. He’s got his door shut, the man across the way, maybe he shut it when he saw me coming. She pushes me down the corridors past closed doors or worse, open doors with glimpses of old people’s lives in them. Televisions blaring, little stick legs on beds or dangling from chairs.

They’re not like people, I try to say, they’re an alien race of stick people. Sick sticks.

Ssh Mum, she says. I know she’d find it funny if I could just explain it to her, I’d love to see a twinkle in her eye.

Come to the dining room, she says, just take a look, it’s really pretty with flowers and fairy lights and everything. There will be a tree at Christmas, I bet it’s a big one, she says as if the sole aim of my life so far was to get to a dining room with a big Christmas tree. I don’t bother to answer. To be honest, the struggle isn’t worth it, even for Jenny. My words are on the ration, that’s the thing, and to be used sparingly like eye drops.

Come on, she says, cheer up, I hate to see you like this, you’re usually such a happy person.

I am? I think, really? I try to show her what I’m thinking by raising my eyebrows. I think it works on one side of my face. Jenny bursts out laughing.

Oh Mum, she says and she bends down to hug me in my chair. It doesn’t feel right. I’m supposed to be bigger than her, that’s how it goes with kids. Anything else is like dogs walking on their hind legs, or elephants playing cards. I try to tell her that but I think the only word she catches is elephant. She looks worried.

We sit there for a while, at one of the round tables in the dining room. Neither of us knows what to say to the other. She’s right, they have made an effort to make it look pretty. Soft lighting, big windows looking out on to the grass, more like an upmarket old-fashioned hotel than a nursing home.

Who’s paying for this? I want to say. Jenny has no idea what I’m talking about, so I make the sign for cash, rubbing my thumb against my fingers on my good hand. I don’t want it to come out of her inheritance, that’s what I want to tell her so I make a gesture to take in all the fancy lighting and the soft carpet that most of the residents can’t walk on anyway.

Pish, she says, don’t think about it, everything is fine.

How are you going to get away from that stupid oik of an ex-husband if I don’t help you? I want to say. I make the gesture of a walking stick, and a little wobble. I put my finger over my lip and under my nose like a moustache.

Ah, Jenny says, you’re talking about the walking stick again.

Yes I am I try to say, my movements getting a tad frantic. It’s a walking stick I own, you see, it’s in my wardrobe, it was definitely used by Charlie Chaplin and it should be worth something. I got it at an auction.

Hush now, she says, don’t worry, I know where it is, the stick. Let’s do a jigsaw.

I can tell that she’s a really good teacher. The kind of teacher who is loved by the children, but never promoted. Different from me, softer and kinder. I hate jigsaws, always have, but for once I think I ought to do something to please her rather than myself. And it’s calming, it really is. Looking at pieces, seeing whether they fit in, for a moment there’s no room for any of the ghosts who usually patrol my head. The jigsaw picture is of sweets and chocolates from the sixties and seventies, and my mouth is watering like a burst pipe in seconds. Opal Fruits and Bar Noir, KitKats with the real silver paper, Butter Snap and Aztec. All jostling for position on the table in front of us. It’s like it used to be, just the two of us only this time I’m the infant and Jenny gets to be the adult.

I’ve made a will, I try to say. I thinks she gets the word, will. I lodged it with Cate who lives next door but one, I want to say, you know, the woman with the black car and the brown dog. I notice that even in the words I don’t say I’ve been reduced to describing things by their colours. Cate, I could have tried, the woman whose husband died of oesophageal cancer two years ago last summer. As if I will ever attempt the word oesophageal again.

Don’t talk about wills, Mum, Jenny says, talk about Crunchies instead and she holds up the missing piece of Crunchie wrapper like a trophy. We both laugh and she reminds me that on a Friday we always used to have a Crunchie bar to celebrate the weekend. I’m struck by remorse and I can’t explain why. Was that enough, I want to ask, is that a happy enough memory to keep you going?

The fun goes out of the jigsaw for a moment and I try to sulk quietly. I have surrounded myself with the mundane, I think, and you are the unfortunate byproduct. I refuse to comment on the piece of Cadbury’s fudge she holds up. She’s hurt, I can tell she’s hurt, and I didn’t mean to upset her.

Only joking, I try to say.

I attempt to fit a piece of Galaxy bar into the jigsaw but my arm does that trick again of being out of control and swinging and the whole thing tumbles to the floor. All the pieces, upside down, all the progress we’d made, gone.

Sorry, I say, arm. I can’t see how anyone could understand, it’s just a shout.

That’s OK, she says, you couldn’t help it, it’s only a jigsaw, don’t worry.

But I liked it I think, I liked it and before I know where I am I’m sobbing like a baby again, crying as if my last hope had just died.

It’s OK, it’s OK, Jenny says, we can do it again, and she hugs me and I don’t like it but I’ve made so much fuss now that even I can see I will just have to bloody well put up with it. Just a jigsaw, just a jigsaw, she says in my ear, and I remember a time when I said similar things to her, it’s just a woolly rabbit, it’ll be OK, never mind.

I push her away. No point making a drama out of a crisis, that’s what I’d say if I could. I’ve always had a thing about clichés, tried not to use them too much but these days they speak for me. Least said soonest mended, that one works, too.

I try to rub my eye with my good hand and it’s then that I see him. Like rubbing a lamp to make a genie appear, my eye rub has produced a man over in a shadowy corner that I hadn’t noticed before. I think he’s the man who has been watching me, I’m not sure. From the room across the corridor. There’s something familiar about the tilt of his head.

Is everything OK? he asks, anything I can do?

Jenny replies to him civilly and they exchange a few words about the weather and the flower decorations, that kind of thing, and all the time there’s something playing at the back of my mind. I know that voice, I think, I know that person with his head tilted just so, as if he has a list of questions in his pocket to ask the world.

Mum, you’re shaking, says Jenny, let’s get you back to bed. Did you see that nice man I was talking to? He seemed really friendly, don’t you be flirting with him now.

I try to pull myself together. This is important, I think, this is no time to go to pieces. Think, May, think. It’s like an egg and spoon race in my brain when I try to think in a straight line. A slippery egg and spoon race through mud, with a gigantic egg and a tiny spoon. The harder I run at it, the more it slips off. What was it about the man? Why did he seem so familiar?

Before we’re even halfway along the corridor to my room I’ve forgotten the exact shape of the tilt of his head, and the way he looked at me doesn’t feel so bad. I’m an old woman, you see, and I’ve started thinking about toasted cheese sandwiches and chocolate instead. I can’t even keep the thread of my unease. It’s still there, in the background. It’s like one of those tiny figures in the distance in a painting by that chap, is it Lowry, I try to say his name to Jenny. I can see it, I know it’s there, but I can’t actually make out the shape. She doesn’t understand me this time, I can see that.

She stops pushing me along the corridor and she bends down close and says, what’s that Mum? Say it again. I catch sight of the lines around her eyes, close up they seem very prominent. Did I do that, I wonder. I put my hand up to try to stroke them away, it’s an instinct but I can’t control my arm at the best of times and this is the worst of times so I knock Jenny and she’s bending anyway so I catch her off guard and she falls.

I’m so so sorry, I try to say, I was only, I just wanted to, I’m sorry.

It’s OK Mum, she says, but I can hear she’s fighting tears.

I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you, I try but the egg has slipped off the spoon and into my mouth somehow and the words sound even more like rubbish than usual, even to me. Like the chorus of a bad pop song, over and over again with no meaning.

I have a sudden memory of Jenny learning to speak. She was such an earnest little thing. She tried so hard, as if someone had set her homework and she was going to be tested on it the next day. We had the TV on and it was Saturday afternoon, I remember. The presenter was reading the football scores. Liverpool one, Manchester United two, he said and every damn score he announced, she copied, with the exact same inflection in her voice and concentrating so hard on getting the shape of her mouth right. These days I would have videoed her I suppose, stuck it on Facebook for everyone to admire. Back then I just watched and marvelled and thought, I’m going to make sure things are OK for this child, I am going to keep her safe. Look at her now. Lined and lonely on the floor.

OK, I say, and my voice is suddenly clearer than it was by far. Go, I say. It’s as near as I can get. What I want to say is, it’s OK, you don’t have to visit me here any more. Go off, travel the world, have a baby, rob a bank. Have some fun. I can’t say it, only go, but I can see that she has understood anyway.

Mum, she says, getting up and brushing herself down, don’t be daft, I’m alright, you didn’t mean to, everything’s fine.

I’m too tired now or I’d tell her that everything isn’t fine, and that something today has made me think of danger, I’m not sure what it is, and that she would be better off away from whatever it is that I’m too knackered to remember.

Go, I whisper again as we get back into my room.

She rings the bell for the carers to help me get into bed, it’s too late for sitting in the chair now. I need to lie down and the tiredness is like a massive weight on my head. Go away, I don’t want to see you any more, I think. She understands that one, and there are tears in her eyes.

I’m saying it for you, I think, I’ve always tried to do what’s best for you, I’m not going to stop now.

I could come back tomorrow, she says, let you know how 5B managed their poems about autumn.

I want that more than anything, but there’s danger somewhere and I can’t remember where but there’s something about a tilt of the head and a smiling face that terrifies me and the least I can do is keep her away.

I’m tired, I try to say as the night duty carer helps me into the hoist, and I am, I’m tired, she must see that. Stay away, I think, let me rest, bloody Crunchie bars.

Don’t worry, the carer says. I think it’s Mary, the nice Irish one. Don’t worry, she says, she doesn’t mean it like it sounds, it’s the brain injury talking. Why don’t you just stay at home for a day or two so that you can catch a rest as well? That way, when you come back everything will be like shiny new again. She’ll be pleased as punch to see you.

I keep my head hanging down, don’t look up or she might see I’m crying.

What was it, I remember thinking just before I went to sleep, what was the danger? Tilt of the head, that’s the echo back, tilt of the head, rhyming with dead.