grace

After a while she put the book down, Flaubert’s Parrot. She’d gotten a bit confused. There was a magazine rack with a pair of tatty blue slippers in it and, when she picked it out from a stack of books under his bed, she thought she might like it, because she liked animals and once had a dog called Rusty.  

‘Don’t put the light off.’  His eyelids flicked once or twice as he stared at her with watery- green eyes.

‘I won’t.’ She’d sunk down, almost fell asleep, wiggled her hips, stretched a little, sat up a little straighter in the hard plastic chair.

‘Don’t put the light off.’ A pillow has been slipped in against his back. He had already been turned and cleaned. The smell came from inside him. Yet also somehow outside him. It left a sticky residue like fag smoke that clung to the heavy sheets and hospital corners, crucifix about the bed,  gave a shine to the warped varnish of the chest of drawers beside the window and leached into the heavy brocade of closed curtains that hung like tombstones blocking out the light.

‘Is that you Gracie?’

 She touched her fingers to her hair and covered her mouth as she yawned.   

‘Gracie, I wish you’d rub my back. It’s hell of a sore. My legs hurt. My shoulders hurt. I wish you’d rub me all over like you used to.  And I cannae get a breath in this fuckin—’ He shut his eyes, then opened them again a few seconds later, looking at her.  ‘I’m warning you, don’t put the light out.’

She sat forward in her chair, leaned across. ‘Would you like something to drink?' Her head was cocked, listening. 'Perhaps a wee sip of water?’

‘Fuck off!’ His voice grew stronger, the blankets rising for a moment as he made a tower with elbows and heels, just as quickly slumping and falling.  ‘You know what I need Gracie.’ He fell into sleep, a guttural choking sound vibrating from his nose and mouth.

She tried not to listen. Opened a page at random and read “Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat our tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity”.  There was a phlegmy sound and then nothing. The chair dragged across the floor as she stood up, looking down at him. Not sure. The cover had slanted at the bottom the bed, tugging the blankets back she touched his wrinkled forehead like she would a crocodile. His eyes opened and he coughed and coughed.

‘Jesus, you scared me.’ She jumped back and laughed, slumping back into the chair. He was watching her again, making her uncomfortable. ‘Try to sleep.’

 Getting up she bolted through to the bathroom next door and ran the cold water tap. A shaving mug sat on the windowsill with DRINK HOT, HOT, HOT etched in jokey script, with a balding toothbrush and squashed up Colgate toothpaste inside, his false teeth lying pink beside it and jar of Aqueous Cream-BP, with a bottle of Old Spice perched precariously on top of it cluttering the surface. His toilet seat was raised up, with a handrail beside it, none too clean. She perched about it, with her knickers down to pee. A slither of soap sat in the plug hole which she used to lather her hands and splashed water in her face, waking her up. The toilet though the wall flushed, startling her and she could hear someone clearing their throat and the dull thumping sound of someone’s tread as they walked away.  It was beginning to get light outside. The house opposite was beginning to take shape as she peered out the gap in the window, sucking in the cold air.   

She pushed her palm against the wall and fumbled her way back into the room, her foot kicking against the chair beside the bed.  After being in the hall, even for such a short time, the bedroom felt overheated and squalid. But she shivered as she turned the night-light on, had no recollection of having turned it off. The old man lay where she left him, but she knew he was dead.

She was unsure what to do next, didn’t know whether she should try and shut his eyes, or who she should call. Her coat was on top of her bag, which was beneath the chair, she scrambled about inside it for her phone. She put her coat on, without buttoning it.  It was a cheap mobile, pay-as-you-go. The screen lit up.  She checked the time. Another hour and half before she finished. The Agency would dock her pay from the time she called. She knew they would. Anything to cut costs. She scrolled down the screen until she got to her boss’s number.  Then she remembered she had no credit.   The chair creaked as she sat down. She stood up again and took her coat off, lifting the chair and swinging it around so the old man wasn’t looking at her. She picked up the book and flung it down again, sat with her hands folded over the phone in her lap and she flicked the light on and off a few times to check the time.

When she heard the front door opening and the other agency worker plodding up the stairs she stood up and kicked her bag beneath the chair, turning it back round to its original position. She stood up and waited, not sure what to do with her hands.

A bobbed head, wearing wire-rimmed glasses poked in the door. ‘Just seeing how you were getting on.’  It was her line-supervisor, Marjorie, an older woman, ex-policewoman.

She fiddled with the button on the neck of her polyester uniform as she spoke. ‘Fine, but I think our client’s just died.’  

‘Oh dear!’ Her boss blinked, looking owlishly at her for a few seconds, her eyes straying over to the where the old man lay in bed. She brushed past her, wetting her lips with a sucking sound as she got down on one knee and put her hand on his chest. ‘Yes, he’s gone.’  She leaned on the bed to stand up. ‘No great loss, after what he’s done.’

‘What?’

‘Didn’t you know?’

Marjorie grimaced, made a huffing sound. ‘Wouldn’t have stayed all night with that old bastard for all the tea in China.’   

 The swear word from someone so prim and proper was like a slap in the face. ‘I’ve got two kids. What? What?’ Her hand reaching out and grasping the cuff of the older woman’s long black coat.