school photos 24

Hunted, running in my dreams, disorientated, scanning left and right; my eyes flickered open focussing on the scabby seat and desk at the window. Outside the rain lashed down, making the morning darker and difficult to tell what time it was. Cat rubbing my face, to help me waken up, and pawing the sheets I searched for the warmth of Janine, but only a cold space existed where she’d been. The murmur of the ward reached me through the shut door. I needed to pee so quickly pulled on a pair of  sniffy-smelling Y-fronts, denims and a V-shaped blue T-shirt shaped like an upside down sack. I’d need to get some clothes from home or I’d be wearing Janine’s print dress, or cast offs from the wash bin and my other near-relations, The Adam’s family on the ward.  

            I conditioned myself not to expect Janine to appear for breakfast or even lunch. The idea of us meeting later brought a hard-on and hurried my feet toward the toilet stalls. After breakfast I shot a couple of games of pool in the games room against Derek. His bristle of hair was silver-grey and hung unevenly around the heavy square features of his face. He wasn’t much interested in conversation; answering direct question like what was he in for, with a grunt, fidgety feet and dark eyes that roamed over the room searching for an answer or an escape. The room itself was bare of such clues. Patients and nurses passing could look through the top half of glass of the wood panelling, but the games room only had one game and it involved a rickety six foot pool table. The green baize was marked and scored, some of the pool balls were missing and the one cue had a curved bow Robin Hood would have been proud of. No chalk for the tip made every shot an adventure. It also had a tendency to run balls down the left hand side off the bulk cushion into the bag if they were played with a soft enough weight. Derek used this to his advantage for the first of several games.

            The care assistant I’d seen the day before peeked in through the glass in the corridor and stood for a few minutes watching us play. He looked as bored as a statue in a public park. I glanced up, after missing an easy spot-ball. He was standing inside the games room, his hand still on the door handle, as if undecided. ‘I’ll go on next. Play the winner.’ He let go of the handle, stood inside the room, watching and listening to the faux-ivory click of ball on ball.

            I lost again. A sneaky black down the left-hand side bag. Derek’s eyes flicked momentarily towards mine, an acknowledgement that the game was over and he’d won again. I leaned against the door, far enough out of the way so the players circling the table weren’t jabbing the spear of the cue backwards into you as they played their shots. The new challenger used his big hands as a triangle to rack the balls.  ‘Right Derek,’ he said, ‘you’re in for a good whopping.’ The care assistant played well and  shook Derek’s hand when he beat him.

‘Ah’m Jocky.’ He nodding towards me, a rough acknowledgement that he was playing me next. He set the balls up for the game against me, and before cueing off, came round the table and shook my hand, as if it was a real match tournament.  

‘Ah’m John.’ I shook his outstretched hand. His handshake was brief but strong, as if he was crushing a clam.

He nodded at this and belly laughed. Like Derek he didn’t say much. We played to lunch time and I still hadn’t won a game. I think Jocky and me both lost interest at the same time when we rubbernecked at Janine’s pink-spotted blouse parading past us in the corridor. Her hair was tied tightly back, giving her a severe look, but she’d her full war-face of makeup on which added glamour. I bolted from behind the door in the games room and caught up with her sitting in the dayroom in one of the chairs we took as our own.

‘Missed you.’ I crashed down in the seat next to her.

Her eyes flickered sideways towards were I was sitting, but she didn’t speak, continued to look straight ahead her, smoke wafting toward me.

‘Ah did what you said.’

‘What?’ Her voice was as flat as a Monday morning.

Leaning across I whispered in her cockleshell ear. ‘Ah palmed those pills they’ve gave me.’    

‘What pills?’ She frowned and with a shake of her head perked up a bit. ‘What did you do with them?’

I sneaked a look left and right, waited until Jocky had passed out of sight and taken a seat with the other patients behind us, before I made my move. I fed my hand into the right hand pocket of my denims and edged up a bit of white toilet roll. Her eyes drifted down then back up at my face, her expression locked into neutral.

‘You’ve stole some bog roll?’ she asked.

‘Nah,’ I spluttered. ‘It those tablets they gave me at breakfast time.’

‘Give me them here.’

I checked again that nobody was watching, curled my wrist and slipped the rag of paper into her hand. She unpicked them from the paper and popped both in her mouth. Her chin tilted up, stretching her thin neck, as she swallowed.

‘Jesus.’ My voice bubbled up in shock and admiration. ‘Ah thought you were goin’ to gie them to somebody.’

‘I did. My head’s pickled.’ She stubbed her fag out on the low table top, letting the dout fall onto the floor. ‘I just need some time off from myself.’

‘But you said you wanted to go out. Go for a walk or something.’

‘That was yesterday.’ Her head turned and she looked at me like a stranger. ‘Haven’t you got things to do?’ She shut her eyes.    

She wore a denim skirt with a wide flair and slit that made it seem like she was wearing trousers. ‘Whit’s the matter?’ I patted her knee through the denim. Her breathing was regular, as if she was feigning sleep. I worked my hand up and under the slit, feeling the skin on her thigh.

Her eyes opened and her head turned slowly. ‘Is that all you want? Well fuck-off and go and have a fucking wank then.’ She whipped her knee away, my knuckles banging against the arm of the seat.

Dim Denny feet shuffled over to where we were sat. He’d a peculiar walk, one leg longer shorter than the other, compensated by the black iron of a built up shoe. He bent over and picked up the dout, slipping it into a side pocket of his dress trouser and scuttled off in a wayward diagonal across the dayroom.

Her words were sharp as a knife. I didn’t have the armoury of her cutting ways of how to talk in that way to people. I pushed down on the arms of the chair and stumbled up to my feet and followed Dim Denny out of the day room. I turned back to get a look at her. Jocky had slipped into the seat I’d vacated.  

Hands folded behind my head, I lay on top of my bed in my room and, even though it was stupid, let maudlin tears run down my cheeks. I wanted to go home. Then a thought, like a kind of panic made me sit up. The little girl. The little girl would be stranded. She’d been depending on me, as a bridge, to get her wherever it was she needed to go. The last few days I’d completely forgotten about her. Maybe that’s what the drugs did, I thought, make you forget about everything but yourself.