She walks with him through the door and down the corridor, dodging other staff members. ‘So how do you know Tim?’ She knows it isn’t her place to ask but she can’t help but wonder.
‘We knew each other years ago. I… I read about the attack in the paper. I would have come sooner but I’ve got a big case going on at the minute.’
‘I understand the nurse you talked to at reception explained the situation.’
‘Yes. She explained everythi—’ He stops mid-sentence. His expression turns blank, his eyes empty.
‘Hello. I didn’t expect to see you.’ She sees Watson walking up to them.
‘No… no, I didn’t expect to see you either.’ The man bites his lip and casts his eyes to the floor. What is that, Maisie wonders. Anger? Concern? Irritation? A change of atmosphere chokes the hall. The nurses – usually an insensitive bunch – turn and look, eyebrows raised. Lailah sends her a questioning glance. Maisie shrugs, putting her hands up as if to wave away the fug of tension. ‘So you know each other too?’
Watson pats the man’s back, a warm smile stretching across his lips. ‘Yeah. We go way back, don’t we, mate? Huh?’
He cringes, shuffling out from under Watson’s arm. ‘Yes. I suppose so. I’ve come to see Tim.’
‘He’d be so glad you’re here, mate.’
The man frowns, glancing at Watson. Glance. Glance. Glance. It’s almost as if he is looking for something. Something he can’t find.
‘Follow me, please.’
The three of them stop outside room 217. ‘I’ll leave you both to catch up.’ Maisie watches the man follow Watson into the room. They sit either side of Tim, Watson exuding warmth, his friend staring at the floor, cold and reticent. A sharp contrast to each other. Maisie wonders if they had a disagreement in the past. A tiff that has stretched long fingers into the present. She smiles, hoping they can resolve their issues, then turns and makes her way down the corridor to check on her other patient. When she returns the man is gone. Watson is leaning over Tim, holding his hand tenderly.
She watches thoughtfully, a smile playing across her face. Watson’s lips are moving but Maisie can’t tell what he is saying.
Miller
Thursday 4 June, 1987
Mother holds the phone to her ear, nails tap-tap-tapping on the plastic. She preens her hair with the other hand, subconsciously flicking and twirling her dry and brittle locks. This is a habit that has withstood the derailment of everything else. The red varnish on her nails is chipped and cracked. Brown roots sit at the top of her head, a nasty contrast to the yellowy shade of blonde from copious amounts of Sun-In. Her face, once plastered with layer upon layer of make-up, is empty, the pores and blemishes she tried so hard to disguise there for all to see. A woman who was once confident in a beauty only she saw has sunk into a pool of disarray.
Father is much the same. I hear them in the bedroom next to mine. At night they take two deep breaths to steady themselves; in the morning they take four, bracing themselves for another day, needing strength to seep into their bodies. And for the rest of the time, a silence sits between them. Deep and unrelenting.
In the evening they watch television, flicking glances over to me. I know they are thinking about her. About their sweet angel, Mary, and wondering if perhaps it was not a game. I can see the question in their eyes. Did he have something to do with it? No, he couldn’t have. No child of theirs could do something as wretched as that. No. He is a naughty boy but never, no, never. They look at me, wondering, denying their wild thoughts, their eyes unblinking, a mixture of confusion and disbelief blurring together. When they do this, a smile I find hard to contain flips onto my lips. They look away instantly, banishing those wild thoughts to the backs of their minds. And even though there is no love or even warmth between them now, their hands nevertheless seek each other’s out.
The only enjoyment Mother sucks from life is to gossip with her friend Maggie. The silly, idle chatter they share reminds her of who she used to be. She performs with gusto, the blather blowing her up like a balloon. For a few hours she feels better, fuller, then, when she puts down the phone and looks at me, the air escapes her and she shuffles away. Poor, sad Mother.
I watch her now, tapping away with those nails. I grit my teeth and instead focus on the words falling one after the other out of her mouth.
‘I know, Mags. I know. Well, why don’t we take a cake round for her? Show her she has support. I know, she probably won’t eat it. Well, she can take it with her to the hospital, can’t she? Her husband’s had a stroke, I’m sure he can still eat cake. Sugar might do him some good. I know, Mags.’ She juts her lip out, brows knitting together, false sadness dancing across her features. ‘I know. So sad. Yes, let’s. She needs to know we’re here for her.’ Sympathy, if real in the first place, has a use-before date that prevents it lasting more than a few weeks. When the time is up, the avalanche of ‘I think she needs to move on now’ or ‘This has been going on for weeks’ pours in.
Mother puts a hand on her hip and begins tapping the cabinet instead.
I try, Blue-Eyes, I try so very hard. It is almost a game now, you know, holding down my anger, seeing how strong my reserve is. Sometimes, though, the sound of those nails is just too much to ignore.
She gasps as I pull her hand to my mouth and rip four fake nails off with my teeth. They taste chalky and sour in my mouth. She screams, shying away, eyes expanding into shocked saucers. I pull the last one away, feeling the varnish break up in my mouth as I so often imagine. She yanks her hand to her chest, cradling it, skin slick with saliva as I spit the nails into my cupped hand. I can hear rumbling in her throat, a combination of a groan and a whine. The phone skitters to the floor and I hear Maggie shriek, ‘June, June? What is it? June!’ I drop the mess onto the cabinet, stretch my arms around her weak little shoulders and kiss her cheek. ‘I’msorryI’msorryI’mreallysorryMum.’ Like a little naughty boy, I stare at my feet and force tears into my eyes, sniffing, wiping the snot from my nose because I know it will make her cringe.
She wriggles out from my arms and pats my head as if she is patting the back of a slug. Her nose wrinkles. ‘That’s… that’s OK. Now off you go.’
She picks up the phone and continues her conversation with Maggie, finger poking the mess of spit and fake nail on the cabinet. She won’t tell Maggie, not that I would be worried if she did. Her pride gets in her way: she could never admit to the oddity that is her son, to having a child as naughty and strange as me. I walk to the door, her gaze needling the back of my head as I go.
On the street, people cluster together in the sun, tongues wagging, hands waving, faces greasy with sunblock. It makes the wrinkles seem deeper on the old and the spots redder on the young. The middle-aged men, carrying paunches that bend their backs to the floor, stand and talk with their hips thrust out and their faces taut with arrogance. The women, stick-thin from attempts at keeping their husbands’ attention, mill about like hens, clucking and swapping titbits of information, glancing at the men as the men glance at the girls across the street.
The elderly sit in their deckchairs, sipping tea despite the blistering heat, gazing sadly at the young, wishing they could still leap and jump and run with their friends. Wishing their skin was as smooth and their hair was as thick. They sip and they sip, drowning their sorrows in tea. The young flitter about, playing hopscotch and riding their bicycles, alive with freedom, the perils of adulthood something far removed from their small universe.
Do you know the arrogance makes me sick? It turns my stomach and makes me want to heave. The teenagers flick their hair and flaunt their bodies like salesmen showing off their wares on the market. They see themselves as gods and angels in a world of mortals. The way they walk, the way they stand and talk and believe they are