A Happy Reunion

Norbert

19

A Happy Reunion

I’ve been given a room on the top floor of the Nurse’s Home, which doesn’t sit well with my vertigo, and it’s cramped, which doesn’t sit well with my claustrophobia. There’s a single bed, a washstand, a chair and a wardrobe containing drawers. A nightstand with a bedside lamp is one of two redeeming features. The other is that the window overlooks a central courtyard surrounded on all four sides. I can look down at night and see into hundreds of lighted windows, many with open curtains. So far I’ve seen eight nurses in nighties, five in brassieres and four topless, but only two of those were female. One loolybell letch lasted for fifteen seconds. I smuggled out the binoculars on my last visit to Brundy.

The reception from Auntie was frosty both weekends. She stayed out shopping much longer than usual, which gave me ample time to search for and acquire all the banking information I needed. Nunky and I went for long walks both Sundays. We didn’t eat a single family meal together. Nunky said that since Botcher John fixed the lock on his bedroom door, Auntie shuts him in most evenings. Not that he minds. He has his books, his music, his eggcups and a chamber pot.

I made the appointment with Mr Carr-Parker for a morning when I was on late shift (we have two in Haematology, from 8am to 4pm and from 2pm to 10pm) and handed over the material he’d requested. He said I would hear something within a fortnight.

The top floor of the Nurse’s Home has a communal kitchen and bathroom. Auntie never taught me to cook proper food and Nunky made all my breakfasts, so feeding myself is a bit of a problem. I’ve settled for eating cheap microwave “meals for one” from the PennyStretcher Thoroughbred range, but whittling the choice down to my favourites (or at best the ones I don’t have an allergic reaction to) is proving difficult. Why I am suddenly having reactions to food which, according to the packaging, contains 100% Eastern European beef is a mystery, as I have never been allergic to cattle, only horses.

Being a martyr to colds and infections, I spend a lot of my time cleaning both kitchen and bathroom and have therefore bumped into most of the other residents. They are mostly quite amiable, offering helpful advice like “You missed a bit” whilst I’m cleaning the worktops. Nurses, they tell me, are not allowed to wash dirty pots in case they pass on infections to the patients, so I help out when I can. The proper cleaners don’t seem to mind.

The water for the houses on our road in Brundy was rationed due to global warming, so Auntie only let me and Nunky bathe once a fortnight. Those rules don’t appear to apply in Macarbrough, so as soon as I’ve finished in the kitchen I have a bath, assuming the room is free. Whilst I’m soaking, I cannot help but think about the naked nurses who’ve used the tub perhaps only minutes earlier. I close my eyes and imagine sharing the water with a sexy nurse, lathering her big loolybells with my loofah. If I was doing it for real, I would call it a soapy tit toss. (I would never dare pleasure myself in the bath at home, in case Auntie has one of those semen detection sprays they use on CSI. She has a cupboard full of squirty products.) It fascinates me that sometimes the jism floats and sometimes it sinks. I am thinking of researching and writing it up for a dissertation: “The effects of multiple medications on the buoyancy of love custard.” It could win the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physics. I don’t mind which.

Gurgling water pipes keep me awake at night, which doesn’t sit well with my insomnia. And it gets unbearably hot (I’m prone to heat rash).

I need absolute quiet to sleep. The tick of a clock in the darkness drives me crazy. My mind focuses on the monotonous sound and won’t let go. Same with the dawn chorus in summer. (I absolutely hate birds. It’s one of eighteen phobias I have so far identified. If loolybells were on the list, I would have drunk cyanide or thrown myself off Termination Bridge years ago.) Anyway, back to birds. I cannot stand all that fluttering and flapping. I couldn’t sit in a room with a budgie or a parrot, even in a cage. And the sight of a dead bird makes me shiver. A sparrow once hit the windscreen of Auntie’s Micra. She flicked the switch and the wiper dragged its carcass across the screen, trapping a leg and dragging it back, smearing feathers and gore all over the window. I was sick, and sick again when she made me flick it off with a stick. I was also sick when she made me clean up both lots of sick.

Things are also going badly at work, particularly with GT after his prank backfired. He is constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to mess up, which I frequently do. The automated analyzer, the Oracle system, just about everything is new to me and it’s a lot to take in all at once. I borrowed the standard operating procedures and equipment manuals and spent every evening in my room (in-between cleaning, eating, bathing, ogling and masturbating) reading and learning. In less than a fortnight I was up to speed with all the procedures and equipment, much to his annoyance.

Yesterday he ordered me to clean the outside windows. I nearly boiled over. ‘We’re on the … whatever floor E is. I am not dangling on a ledge for anyone.’ (Fear of heights is my third most severe phobia, behind squirrels and creamy green shampoo, which reminds me of the first time I discovered festering foreskin cheese due to only bathing once a fortnight. I was convinced I had penile gangrene.)

He pulled a pile of windowed envelopes from behind his back. ‘I didn’t mean outside, you silly piece of squirrel shit.’ Everyone laughed.

This afternoon, we are sitting side by side at the authorization bench, the only two in the lab at the time.

He turns to me and smiles. ‘I’ve seen you eyeing up my harem, especially Isabel (the redhead) and Dora Mae (the blonde).’

He doesn’t look or sound angry, so I assume this is man talk, what lusty red-blooded mates talk about whilst quaffing ale and watching the other sort play cricket. I stop what I’m doing. ‘They are both very beautiful. Dora Mae has a translucent beauty that shines through every pore of her unblemished skin. Her features are so delicate and perfect, like expensive porcelain, and her hair is the colour of ripe wheat.’

(Since that first inflammatory meeting with the two sirens, I have conducted several scientific experiments in an attempt to understand the inexplicable feeling of jealousy when GT caressed them both. Having studied the girls independently and from various angles whilst not wearing lab coats, like bending over from in front and behind, I find that Dora Mae, though pleasing on the eye, has no effect on bendy bunny and pulse rate, nor does she appear in my thoughts and dreams. Looking at Isabel, on the other hand, sends all my vital signs haywire, and I can’t stop thinking about her, day or night, in or out of the bath. It must be real proper love, because it’s a completely new experience. Not only has she got big buzzies, she is flawless in every other detail, and she almost always dresses like a tart – mostly like a treacle tart in orange, yellow or brown, but occasionally like a Belgian Bun in a tight white jumper and red beret.)

Not wishing to reveal these feelings to GT, I merely say: ‘Isabel, on the other hand, has angel curves and loolybells to die for.’

He leers. ‘I gave her cunnilingus last night.’

‘You own an Irish Sea ferry?’

He laughs. ‘I bet the only thing you’ve ever licked is a stamp. What I mean is, I visited her wetland.’

‘She owns a Nature Reserve?’

He gets angry. ‘I know why you’re here, but get this straight. The senior post is mine; it’s a done deal. You are minionshit and whilstever I work here minionshit you will remain. Got it?’

See, I was right.

‘The job will go to the most suitable and deserving candidate. I believe that’s how it works.’

‘You’re deformed and totally lacking in charisma. Nobody likes you. Even the grannytickling lift hates you.’

Before I can reply, Warnetires-Skidmore bustles into the lab.

‘There’s some nutty bloke outside reception with a suitcase, demanding to see his babby.’

‘Tickle our Lord!’

*

He takes me in his arms. ‘Mi babby, mi babby, Nunky’s missed his babby.’

‘I miss you too, Nunky.’ I guide him into the stairwell for privacy. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘You know that big beefy security guard at the hospital?’

‘Gideon?’

‘Him. Yes. He comes home with Auntie most evenings. At first I thought he’d come to arrest me for sleepwalking because there are handcuffs on his belt, but evidently he’s helping Auntie put up some shelves.’

‘Why didn’t she ask Botcher John?’ I think about it. ‘Of course, if he put them up they’d soon fall down.’

‘I think they already have.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’ve been hard at it for over a week. I can hear them through the wall grunting with the effort. He might have a big hammer, mi babby, I’ve seen it, but it’s made of rubber. No good at all for putting up shelves. And Auntie, as usual, is never satisfied, demanding he does it over and over again and with more lubrication. Plus she’s having great difficulty reaching a climax, probably because it’s on the top shelf.’

‘These shelves are in Auntie’s bedroom?’

‘Yes. Hopefully she’s building a library to store all my books. But because the house is now a building site and I don’t have a hard hat, I’ve been told to leave. It’s all proper, mi babby. Gideon showed me the Health and Safety manual.’

‘How long will this go on for? Until the job is finished?’

‘No. Forever.’

‘She’s kicked you out? Permanently?’

‘If permanently is the same as forever, then yes. Can I stay with you, mi babby, until my library is ready?’

‘You couldn’t swing a cat in my room.’

‘Brilliant. I haven’t brought one.’

‘As luck would have it, I am on-call for the first time tonight and there is a bedroom in the labs. You can use my room in the Nurse’s Home.’

‘Thank you, mi babby. I promise I won’t wee in the bed.’

‘As I’m off tomorrow, we’ll go to Brundy and try to sort this mess out.’

‘Nunky doesn’t want to go home. Nunky wants to live here with his babby. We’ll rent a house together and I will make your breakfasts and wash your lab coats.’

‘Auntie still controls our finances, remember. I’m still waiting to hear from your friend.’

Nunky pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his inside pocket and hands it to me. ‘This came in the post yesterday, addressed to Auntie. After she’d finished kicking me, she threw it in the bin.’

It is typed on Norfolk & Good letter headed paper. I read it with a beating heart.

‘Nunky, we now have sole access to our bank accounts and savings accounts. It’s a fortune. We are rich.’

‘I understand what it says, mi babby. I’ve eaten fifteen bananas.’ (Someone on the telly box once referred to them as brain food.) ‘I told you we could rent a house.’

‘We can buy the Grand Hotel.’

‘Nunky doesn’t want to make that many breakfasts, mi babby.’

‘It’s just a figure of speech. We can’t really afford to buy a hotel, but as you say, we can rent somewhere nice.’

‘Remember, mi babby, it absolutely must have a bus stop outside the front window.’

‘I’m not likely to forget something as important as that, am I Nunky?’

He rubs his hands. ‘Nunky happy.’

I place a hand on his shoulder. ‘Somewhere, deep inside, suffocating beneath all the drugs, babby is probably happy too.’

I escort Nunky to the Nurse’s Home and sneak him into my room, having first shown him where to find the bathroom and kitchen.

‘They’re very clean, aren’t they? Considering so many people use them. What happens if someone sees me?’

‘Tell them the truth, that you are my uncle and that you have come for a brief visit. Lots of the nurses have brief visits from their uncles when they are off duty. It happens all the time. Some of them have got lots of uncles who care about them and visit regularly, but only long enough to see if they are all right and to give them some extra money.’

On the way back I consider checking to see if I have had a letter, but decide against it. I have a pigeonhole on the ground floor, a rather old fashioned and stupid way of delivering mail if you ask me. As I am terrified of birds, I’ve been nowhere near.

As soon as I get back to work, I waste no time in trying to make an appointment with social services. They ask an awful lot of personal questions, take down a load of information and say they will phone me back. If Nunky and I are to live together, we are going to need all the help we can get in finding suitable housing and social care.

I wonder if I will still be allowed to bathe in the Nurse’s Home.