school photos 21

Janine passed John in the dayroom a few times before he even noticed her. She knew what had happened, but that didn’t make her any less mad at him. They’d hit him with the old uppercut of Diazepam and followed through with the knock-out blow of Largactil. Those were the sort of meds that would knock out a busload of pensioners for a month—they’d think they’re quietly drinking a maximum of four pints of lager in the sun, but their brain synapses had been captured by a marauding band of neuronal pirates, having a party in their head, making them chug down two-and-a-half bottles of Eldorada in one mad gulp. She’d went to the trouble of putting all her make-up on specially for him and what was the bastard doing? Head sunk down and dribbling into his chest. He was young and strong  enough to get used to it, but the worst part was she’d planned to take him back to her room, or even his room, but all the loser would want to do when he got there was get his head down—which was a good thing—but to snooze. Loser.

She did another circuit of the ward, scratching around like a chicken let out of its cage and looking for dinner, but met no one but her designated nurse, carrying a brown leather briefcase.

            ‘Hi Janine,’ he’d said in his poofy voice. No doubt he was on his way out to some important case review or yak-yak-yak-fest that would make him feel important.

            She didn’t bother answering him. He was only talking to her because he got paid for it. She’d got a swatch at her care notes a few times. Knew he’d probably write something like I tried interacting with Janine this morning, but she showed some hostility and a marked inability to engage. Engage would be underlined three times and have an exclamation mark or two. Loser.

            Giving up on humanity she slumped into the chair beside her erstwhile lover boy. His drawings were lying near her feet. She put them in her lap and started flicking through them. She thought they’d be childish rubbish, but was struck by his ability to show real things: an old motor car, the chassis sitting up on bricks with wooden huts behind it, a phone box, with a telephone pole growing out of it, the clouds behind them- maybe that one wasn’t so good, but the last few of a little girl were real quality art. There was also something disturbing about the repetition. She flicked backwards and forwards between drawings. The girl wore the same school uniform; her hair was tied back from her face by Kirby clips and coloured bands. In one of them she was wearing a hat and smiling. That wasn’t it though. The eyes in each drawing seemed to belong to a different person. In the final one of the quartet they were black crayoned holes a pre-school child would make. She flicked back a page, then two.  Despite the muggy heat of the ward, she shivered. The little girl’s eyes were the colour and shape of her own.

She snaked her hand into his lap to see if that would waken him. Her fingers became playful circling round his zip. It did waken part of him, but his eyes remained closed.  They suddenly flickered open. The horny bastard had been faking sleep those last few minutes.

He caught her wrist as she tried to sneak her hand away. ‘Geez a kiss.’ Leaning over, his hair brushed the side of her cheek.

            ‘No chance.’ She pulled firmly away from him, her hand up as a barrier between them. ‘Your breathe’s absolutely minging. I think when you’ve not been dribbling on your t-shirt all morning, you’ve been eating dog-shit.’        

            He cupped his fingers a few inches from his nose and breathed into them. ‘It’s no’ that bad.’

            ‘No that bad if you like the smell of doggy poop.’ She playfully pushed his arm. ‘Go and brush your teeth or something.’

            ‘Ah don’t know what it is.’ He shook his head and his eyebrows slanted down. ‘Ah mean Ah’m hardly eating anything…Maybe that’s what it is.’ His voice gained traction and ended on an upbeat note.

            ‘Nah. It’s your meds. That Chlorpromazine. It rots you from the inside out.’ She shook her head in dismay. ‘All your teeth will probably fall out by the time your twenty. And your tongue. And your hair…Nah, your hair will be alright.’ She slapped him on the side of the face as if he was a dumb animal. ‘Stick your tongue out.’

            He stuck the tip of his tongue out. One look at her stern face and he stuck it out further and tried looking down at it.

‘You fit right in here,’ she sniggered, looking like that.’ But sitting straight-backed in her chair, she reverted to her semi-serious tone. ‘Could tell just by the way you were speaking. Doormat tongue. Feels like your tongues swollen up and doesn’t fit in your mouth.’  

‘How do you know all this?’ There was admiration in his voice.

She didn’t want to say she was a few years older than him. ‘Been there. Seen it. Read the book.’

Her eyes stayed fixed on his. He was first to look away and first to speak.

‘But how…how can Ah…?’ He didn’t know how to put it and his body slumped down, looking at the crumbs on the floor in defeat.

The music from the telly swelled up behind them. Janine took her time picking open a ten packet of Silk Cut. His eyes followed the curve of his fingers as she placed the fag in her mouth. ‘Give me a sec,’ she said, ‘I’ll need to get a light.’ She turned her head to check.

Jocky, one of the care-assistants, was slouched down lower than a gut shot, in the row of chairs behind them, watching telly with the other patients. He’d a big pregnant belly and a big laugh and didn’t seem to care who heard it. You could turn to him with the meanest dog-end and he’d give you a light, even if it was nipping your lips. Janine draped herself over the side of his chair to get a light. She knew he fancied her, but he just wasn’t her type. Not that she had a type. But if she did have a type, he wasn’t in it.

She lifted her chin, stretched her neck and leaned forward a little to show him what he was missing.  ‘Thanks.’ She blew him a little kiss, knowing he’d be watching her ass as she returned to the seat beside John.

He seemed more perky and awake. She figured the day might not be totally wasted and blew out a smoke ring and let it float between them. ‘You ever watch those American cop films were all they seem to do on stake-outs is eat doughnuts?’

‘Yeh.’

‘Well, it’s a bit like that in here. They don’t really give a shit what you do. The only thing they’re interested in is watching themselves get fatter and fatter.’ He looked confused. She patted his hand, deciding to put it a bit more simply. ‘You don’t need to take your meds. Nobody checks. Nobody’s interested. Just hide them and if you’re pushed stick them beneath your tongue.’

‘Whit will I do with them after?’    

‘Give them to me. I love Tranks, but I’m not that keen on Largactil. Doesn’t matter. I’ll give them to somebody.’ She shooed him away. ‘Now that’s settled. Go brush your teeth.’

Watching his broad back and plodding step, she took another drag of her cigarette. There was stiffness around her mouth. The fag dropped from her fingers, the lit end bouncing on the floor.  She opened her mouth to yell, to call him back, but her body was shaking all over and she couldn’t get  breathe down and into her lungs. It was as if she had a pin-cushion in her throat. Suffocating. The blackened eyes of the little girl in the picture seemed to be looked up at her and she was smiling.