Huts40

I was like a clockwork toy, scrambling up out of deep dark sleeps, in which I was always falling. Scurrying up. Out to work. Climbing the stairs to lie alone on my bed, to look at the white washed ceiling, for some sign of life, and unwind.

Friday came as a shock. Mainly because I thought it was Thursday. I looked at the day and date twice on The Glasgow Herald as if they were the headlines. Wullie the Pole never noticed. Despite food raining down on us like manna, he was munching into some kind of salami that reeked of garlic, he’d brought into Ailsa ward, to fend off all humanity. It certainly worked for me. Nominally, we sat at the same table, but my chair was as far away as it could be and was pointing it the other direction, towards the door.

Wullie the Pole had already given me my wage packet. The envelope was stuffed unopened into the back pocket of my jeans. That currency no longer gave me automatic entry into my pub. And I couldn’t summon up the energy to go anywhere else, with anyone else, even though I usually went myself. The rain pittered and pattered down, drifting like see through snow, but it could do its worst. It couldn’t hurt me.

But I slipped off one of the wet standing stones, which marked the boundary of the hospital, and battered my leg. My shoe came off and floated away like a lollipop stick before sinking. I limped hurriedly home, like Ahab, and hoped no one would see me, and mum wouldn’t be in, because, of course, the kitchen was her crow’s nest. I tried to light a fag, at the back door to fend her off and to give me some time to think about some kind of excuse. But my matches were wet and as I patted my pockets I realized I’d gave my last fag to that half wit Jim Largactil at work.

‘That nice girl came to see you!’ Mum said, almost jumping out of her seat, to tell me, temporarily ignoring my drenched appearance, and the mystery of the missing shoe.

‘Who?’ I asked, as if it made any difference.

‘That nice girl!’ reiterated Mum, stating the same thing twice, to make it more obvious.

The only girl that had ever come to the door, for me, was Maureen Hargreaves. And that stopped when I was about seven. But she had come one other time after that. And she had a boy friend. And mum knew her anyway. But she has called her a nice girl then.

‘Was it Maureen Hargreaves?’ I finally asked Mum blankly.

‘Don’t be so daft,’ said Mum, ‘she told me her name, very proper, but I forgot it. A nice girl’.

I was already away. Bounding up the steps to run a bath. I found the spindle on the record player with one spin and practiced index finger triggered the release mechanism. I didn’t even need to look when I lowered the needle onto the dark bump and grind of the track lines.

Al Jolson’s ‘Mammy, how I love you, how I love you, my dear old mammy,’ blared out and I couldn’t have agreed more.

I put some of that purple poofy smelly stuff in the bathwater, but I didn’t take long I was in and out like a fluffy kitten in dishwater. It was miraculous stuff, better than Lourdes water. I splashed on some Hi Karate as another line of defence against any lingering smells of shite from the ward, that lay like a patina on the unwary. There was a clean pair of denims lying on my bed and a new shirt that looked old. I dashed back towards the hospital.

Dan Adair looked at me glumly. He was on back shift and never finished until 10p.m. But he didn’t make a big fuss about it, just let me into Morrison ward and once more nodded towards Mary Russell’s room. I could almost have kissed him.

There was no noise coming from the room, but another female patient was taking an inordinate interest in my personal hygiene, almost sniffing me up and down, like an Irish setter, employed by the Crown. I gently pushed open the door of Mary’s room to escape. Mary was lying on a bed, with her specs on, idly kicking her legs, reading a book. I couldn’t see the cover, but all she ever seemed to do was read. I thought she must be some kind of book rat.

It may have been the other person lying on the other bed that alerted her to my presence, or it may have been me moving my feet, but Mary casually turned around and her smile turned into a frown.

The patient in the other bed didn’t look as if she could be moved without a block and tackle, but Mary moved her with one jerk of her head, towards the door. Then she turned her attention to me.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, getting up, taking off her specs and putting them carelessly on the little three drawer dressing table beside her bed.

‘I came to see you,’ I said.

Mary pushed past me and seemed to be listening. She pushed the door fully shut with one finger. ‘I can see that,’ she said.

‘Because you came to see me.’ I was pushing at her with my words, making it obvious.

‘What do you mean?’ she replied.

I wasn’t sure. She didn’t seem to know what I was talking about, but it could only have been her or Maureen Hargreaves that came to my door and it wasn’t Maureen, so… ‘You came to see me earlier, at my house?’

‘Never,’ she said simply. But there was no need for words. Her face and body spoke of not knowing.

‘Well,’ I said, trying suddenly to think of something to say, ‘we could go out?’ I felt suddenly shut in, stifled in her room, like a claustrophobic in a lift, I began to sweat profusely.

‘What’s that thing you’ve got on,’ said Mary eyeing me up.

I grabbed at my shirt defensively. It really wasn’t that bad. But Mary just shook her head, as if that wasn't worth bothering about.

‘No,’ she said, sniffing the air, ‘that Pansy Potter perfume stuff.

‘Great isn’t it?’ I knew now it was terrible and the only use it would have in the future was to spice up landfill, but it was less embarrassing than trying to explain my mistake.

‘Yeh,’ said Mary, ‘I’d open a window, but…’ she looked around at a window that was jammed open about an inch. ‘It’s probably better if you stand down wind,’ she said, then changing her mind, pushing at me, ‘or outside.’

‘Give me a minute’ she said, holding onto me while she slipped some sandals on. And she was smiling up at me, with that look in her eye, as if that had been her plan all along.