twelve-noon-eight

In the early hours, a ghostly presence in a billowing black dress with sleeves gathered at the cuff, Sarah pushed heavy furniture aside and hoovered under her rug in the living room. She inspected her toilet for clutter, dust and mess and scoured sink and toilet pan with bleach. Her phone was out of charge. She was also out of charge, chocked up with flu-like symptoms and couldn’t stop weeping.

Dr Fleming, family doctor since she’d moved to Partick with the kids, a dapper and greying, elderly man, whom she also worked for – on and off – for the past ten, was upbeat when he fitted her in for a late appointment the next evening. She knew his schedule and appreciated he’d stayed late to see her, which she also knew he resented, but covered it over with his usual bumptious bluff manner and a paternal smile.

He told her nothing she didn’t already know, he couldn’t treat her for alcohol addiction, but at least he listened and referred her to the local council on alcohol for counselling and put her on Gartnavel’s waiting list for Henderson House, a residential unit, which if she lived long enough she’d get a bed by the time she was in her dotage about eight-five.

He got Libby, the newish receptionist, a dab hand with updating social media status, to sack her the next day by text message and suggested she seek further medical help with another General Practitioner as he felt it would be unprofessional of him dealing with her. She’d actually slumped into the side of the couch and laughed aloud for the first time in about a week at that. Wondered if there was a suitable emoji that could have been used, something like a gun firing and the bullet splatting and whizzing through her brain. At least that would be something to look forward to.

Dealing with things and registering unemployed, or actively seeking work, as it was now termed was an albatross of dead weight around her neck. She’d picked up the phone to report her change in circumstance, but couldn’t get through. She tried again a few times that morning, standing at the kitchen sink, looking out into grey skies.  Her thought turned to childish imaginings of running away, somewhere far and sunny, but a grating slow drum-beat in her head was gaining traction, picking up muster that there was really only one answer and she already knew what it was.   

She toddled through to the bathroom, turned on the hot water, and put in the last of the smelly stuff so she’d be clean and fresh. She picked through the warring congregations of medicines in the cabinet, trying to avoid looking at the rings under her eyes and her puffy face in the mirror, but there was the godsend of the fat underneath her chin looking thinner in the dappled light. Picking out a razor from the used ones she kept on standby and flicking at the blade with her fingertips, she tested its sharpness.

While the bath was running she started tidying the medical cabinet. Shutting it over and using a facecloth to clean the mirror. Picking up a packet of cotton buds with one in it and sticking it in the plastic bin underneath the sink. Finding the lid for a jar of Vaseline and screwing it on tight. Weighing an aerosol of Sure in her hand and finding it empty sticking it in the white plastic bin under the sink. She took the top of Channel No 5 body lotion and sniffed it. A bottle of encrusted calamine made her smile, it had been in the cabinet since the kids were young. Her tablets were a hotchpotch of different drugs for bad backs and sleeping problems she’d picked up over the years. Working in a medical practice made her aware how benzodiazepines worked and what the correct dosage was. The bathwater took a life time to fill.  

Hemmed in by memories, sitting stillborn on the couch in the living room, the heavy table had a glass of water on it and packets of tablets, when the door chapped.  

She wasn’t expecting anyone and it was still early, the surprise at seeing Paddy on the doorstep must have showed on her face.

‘Fuck sake,’ he said and grinned like a schoolboy at her reaction. ‘You seen a ghost and turned sharpish and checked there was nobody standing behind him on the landing and laughed.

‘I was just gonnae have a bath,’ she said.

‘Don’t let me stop you.’ Paddy waltzed past her into the lobby ‘I’ll stick the kettle on.’

She hurried through to the living room and gathered the tablets in her hand, hiding them behind her back as she darted into the toilet, flinging them back in the cabinet and turning off the bath water.

Paddy was fiddling with the radio on the windowsill, trying to get Radio 4, but he stopped what he was doing when he saw her standing in the doorway, blubbering tears.

He strode towards her and she allowed herself to be hugged and sniffled against his shirt and suit jacket.

‘It should be me greeting, no you,’ he patted the back of her arm. ‘I find out you’re a lessie. You go missing, don’t answer your phone and when I go to the meetings I kept expecting you to turn up, but it was only they other sour-faced cunts, all talking the same shite.’   

‘I’m not a lesbian,’ she pulled away from him, wiping her nose, sniffing and searching for a hanky.

She hurried through to the toilet to get toilet roll to dab her nose.

Paddy handed her a cup of tea, when she came back through. He leaned his bum against the sink, a cigarette in his mouth, a cup of tea beside him on the work surface. ‘Look, I don’t care if you’re a lessie or not, everybody misses you, I miss you. You need to get sober and get your arse back with us.’

‘It’s not as easy as that,’ she sipped at her tea.

‘It is.’ Paddy dipped into his inside pocket and pulled out scraps of writing paper. ‘I didn’t expect you to be in. I thought you’d be with that other…Anyway, I wrote you a letter.’

‘Oh, Paddy,’ she reached for the letter, but he playfully batted her hands away as she made a grab for it.

‘I’ve been a bit fragile myself,’ he snorted, ripping up the letter.  

‘What did you dae that for?’ She shook her head, watching the unread confetti fall to the floor. ‘You do something nice, then you do something nasty. You wouldn’t know what fragile is, even if you tripped over it.’

He rubbed at his damp forehead and shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t need a letter to tell you how it is.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I love you. That’s about the long and short of it.’  

‘Paddy, you’re a fucking idiot, but that’s the best thing anybody’s said to me in yonks.’

She flung herself at him and he put his arms around her and pecked at his lips. He moved his head backwards but tugged her in closer.

‘It’s alright,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to kiss me.’

She pulled away, looking into his deep-set eyes. ‘But what if I want to?’

‘Well, as I said, I’m a bit fragile. She’s booted me out and I’ve been living in the office, which doesnae bother me as much as it should. But you do know that she’s dying, don’t you? Terminal cancer. And I feel like a complete cunt.’