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Down on the shop floor, a mood hangs in the air. The Christmas holidays have done nothing to lift morale, only to leave limbs and brains clogged from overindulgence and torpor. Left for so long to fend for themselves, the plants are now wilting for first-aid. New stock gasps to be unloaded from lorries so that it can again drink in the daylight. Empty shelves cry out to be refilled. Piles of gaudy New Year sales placards shriek to be swung gaily from girders. But the staff drift about – blind and deaf to it all, ashen-faced, as though wading through gravy and brandy butter. The handful of customers, wandering aimlessly from plant to plant, look equally washed-out, doubtless for much the same reason. Whether they’re too bored to wait for the sales to begin or too stupid Daniel has no idea. Even the leaves and flowers are drained of colour under the bleak, sunless sky. And the rollercoaster ride of the past two days has left Daniel the greyest of all. Over the course of the morning, the knot in his guts has steadily tightened itself around his insides – his kidneys, his groin, his back – tugging harder each time his memory throws up more of that dream. The plastic tubing, black with Alex’s blood, jumps him from a Hoselock garden-watering kit. As he pushes through the swing doors to the staff toilets he’s suddenly stepping into the clinical white of the ICU. At lunch time, in a bid for exorcism, he goes through the palaver once more of ringing the hospital. Inevitably, much of his precious break is spent waiting to get through. And so shocking are the accompanying flashes of Gulnaz pounding away over his brother’s torso that Daniel completely fails to notice when at last someone answers. The hospital nearly puts the phone down on him. Of course it’s all for nothing anyway. The patient’s condition hasn’t changed, they’re none the wiser as to why, or who he might be, and any DNA results are still a long way off.
Five thirty takes forever and a day to arrive, but eventually the store closes and his employers let him go. Daniel’s grey has darkened with the sky. By the time the car is locked away in his garage and Sedgefield Court lobby has presented its latest obstacle course of bikes, boxes and boots, the tensions and frustrations in his body have built almost to breaking point. And it’s while furiously untangling his trouser cuffs from a bicycle pedal by the stairs that the phone in his flat rings again.
The caller has hung up before he can answer, but this time he dials 1471 before anyone else has a chance to ring. It’s a local code, but the number isn’t familiar. ‘To return the call, press three. There is normally a charge for this service,’ a polite voice says. He considers, but stops and slams down the phone. It isn’t the money; it’s his state of mind. Fucking, fucking nuisance callers, day in and day out. And if someone genuinely needs to get in touch they can bloody well ring again.
The caller has turned his mood from grey to black. The knot inside him cramps his whole body. Finally the signals are recognised for what they are, leaving him in no doubt as to the appropriate remedial action. Bathroom before kitchen. As his fingers begin their work, he finally welcomes in the scene that has been gnawing away at his subconscious all day; the look she gave him with her tunic parted, her breasts moving freely, the shadow of her groin over Alex’s hips. But for whatever reason, each time the image brings him to the brink something kills the moment.
Isn’t she sexy enough? Is it the thought of lover-boy Prentice? No, only that even in his fantasy Gulnaz is reluctant to play the game. One minute a saviour, the next a siren, rudely tossed between saintly virgin and sex goddess; she castigates him for taking such a shallow view of her, for making no effort to see into the real woman. He might argue that he’s been somewhat preoccupied with other things, but for the first time now, his right hand slowly losing the debate, he does begin to wonder what she might really be about, what the deal is with this Middle-Eastern thirty-something nurse who pries into everyone else’s business; what back story might lie behind that unreadable, foreign face.
Probably he will never know. He isn’t even sure he cares that much. He may never see her again, at least not in the way he’d done in the past two days. Perhaps he should let her go. Well, maybe he will, but – what the hell. No harm in letting them share this one last moment together…
After a tough day, Daniel is as likely to hit the Millwrights for pie, chips and beer as he is to mess about fixing something in the kitchen. But three nights in a row now he’s got himself smashed, serious binge drinking by anyone’s standards. Inspired in part by the uncommonly clean state of his flat, and able finally to focus on the demands of his stomach, he decides that tonight he should give his liver a break, cook a decent meal, and spend the rest of the evening in with his cat.
After throwing together a quick spaghetti and retrieving a lager from the cupboard, he cosies down in front of the TV next to the creature sprawled immodestly over the couch. Becoming aware of the company, Scoff utters a sigh of pleasure, setting off a yawn that almost cleaves his little face in two. Daniel stares into the fleshy black and pink cave. The poor old sod, ragbag of matted fur and arthritis – hearing knackered, eyesight buggered and kidneys shot through, turned by old age and ill health from a live-wire feeding machine into the world’s most sedentary and fussiest epicure. More of Daniel’s time and thought now goes into preparing food for Scoff than goes into preparing his own. The name may once have signified the animal’s sheer gluttony, but these days it rings truer to his ridicule of anything and everything cat food manufacturers can dream up. For Scoff, heaven is a warm room, a sturdy knee and a mouth reeking of lovingly prepared boiled fish. He’s lucky ever to get all three, with his master so often being out late, but tonight at least it’s to be just the two of them. Paradise. With those funny dancing shapes on the brown box in the corner.
“Right, pollock-breath.” Daniel circles his plate one last time with the bread. “Your turn now. Tonight’s going to be a meal to remember.”
Back in the kitchen, he chisels five white fish fillets from the ice box and heats a large pan of water. As the surface slowly turns to froth, he stirs and stabs, breaking the flesh into ever smaller pieces. One-time Dracula-mouth Scoff is now all but toothless, only a few baby incisors and a solitary fang hang on in there. Fish broth prepared, Daniel carefully pours the mixture into a Tupperware container, opens two tins of ‘Prescription Diet’ cat food and folds it in. When was it, six months ago? The vet had given Scoff three weeks at best. ‘It’s their kidneys, I’m afraid’, he’d said. ‘When they get to that age’. If the bastard had had his way, Scoff would have received the jab to end all jabs there and then. Euthanasia was apparently legit on animals, as and when they became a bit of a burden. Pity the same didn’t apply to people. But Daniel had held out for his cat, stumped up the cash for the steroid booster and brought him home with a crate of special low phosphorous food. Unfortunately, Scoff liked his rich meaty chunks in gravy. Try telling a cat his lifestyle is killing him. For that matter, try telling a person. In pure desperation, Daniel had called in at the vets and was told by an altogether nicer young lady that a little white fish or chicken would do no harm. But here was this mountain of prohibitively expensive cat food stacked up on the shelf. By way of concession, Scoff had grudgingly tolerated a fifty-fifty mix. Only after he’d ordered a second batch did it occur to Daniel that the cat food was by far the more expensive half of the equation.
Leave it to cool for half an hour, et voila: gourmet cod and cat food bouillabaisse, ready to serve. Enough for four to five days. Every third day or so Scoff would throw the whole lot up on the bedroom carpet and spend a few hours feeling very sorry for himself, but he’d always rally in time for the next meal. A little like Daniel really.
But not from today. From now on, strictly no more binge drinking.
Sitting at the kitchen table, watching as those hind legs deftly manoeuvre for the next mouthful, the tail aquiver with pleasure, Daniel begins to calculate how much of his life has been spent looking after others. 1984, it all began, when he was sent back to Devon from his gran’s. It must have been early in the year because se
condary school hadn’t started until some months later. His mum died in April 1995. Just over eleven years he’d been her skivvy. Scoff appeared on the scene eight years ago, but only in the last two have there been any serious health problems. So, eleven plus two – thirteen years all in, out of a total of thirty three. He quickly scribbles the sums on the back of an envelope. About 0.4. Two fifths of his life as a bloody carer. Near enough half.
And Gulnaz was a carer – by choice! Something he simply couldn’t fathom. A job’s a job, but old people’s homes? Incontinence? Alzheimer’s? Bath time? Bedpans and commodes? At least she could walk away from it at the end of the day. God help anyone saddled with something like that full-time. A scene forms in his mind of a park on a Sunday afternoon, a pathway encircling a lake filled with ducks. Happy families mill about, mothers rocking their prams, fathers crouching by the water’s edge, tossing stale bread in among the anarchy of birds, children jumping up and down with glee when their adopted duck catches a strategically directed morsel. Then all heads turning, all but the children’s quizzing voices falling silent, heads turning quickly back, as down the winding path comes a twisted figure in a wheelchair, half buried under blankets, head cocked in a vacant stare. A condemned relative pushes from behind, repeatedly stooping to wipe away the drool, issuing pointless instructions and words of comfort, while inwardly resenting every second of every minute that passes.
Rocked by a sudden shiver of fear, Daniel recalls the coma victim lying prostrate in Intensive Care. His mind returns to the lakeside and sneaks another glance at the faces of cripple and helper. The terrible twins. The brothers grim. Oh Christ, let that never be Alex and him.