The A to Z of You and Me

H

Hair

ONE THING THAT stays with me about Mum’s last weeks is how simply getting her hair washed and done would make her perk up no end. So heartening to see. Now I know how she feels. Jackie sorted me out with fresh pillowcases this morning, and now my hair feels shamefully greasy in contrast. My scalp’s itchy, and I’m sure I must be leaving a stain on the starchy linen. I can’t remember the last time I gave it a proper wash with shampoo. But I can’t just ask for a hairdresser to come in and do it, can I? I’d feel like one of the old ladies.

My whole life I’ve been trying to avoid having embarrassing hair. I always thought I could avoid being like those old pictures of my dad from before I was born where he had the ’tache and the burners with tinted thick-framed glasses and his receding hairline. I would honestly think to myself: how could anyone ever get caught out like that? I would never, ever make that mistake.

And there have been moments in my life when, if I say so myself, I have got it absolutely right. I remember a time, sitting in the car on the way to school, looking in the rear-view mirror, and I’d got my curtain hairdo absolutely perfect — it was exactly the right length, with precisely the right curve to the curtains, just clean enough, but not so clean as to be fluffy, with maybe a couple of artfully stray strands of hair breaking the line to say, Hey, I didn’t have to work too hard at this. It was one of the few occasions I’ve prayed in the utmost seriousness to God: Please, please let this perfect hairstyle be perfect for ever so Helen Worthington will have no choice but to love me for ever.

There it is again: all I’ve ever wanted to do is just look my best, and stay that way for ever. If God existed, I’d be a forty-year-old man with a fourteen-year-old’s curtains.

And then there was Mal. Mal, of course, the new kid at school, fresh blood, fresh meat, fresh hair. Long on top and shaved underneath at the time. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d seen. So I started growing out my curtains almost straight away.

I vaguely knew even then it was kind of a crushy thing to do. But it happens all the time, doesn’t it? Every generation of young lads herds through the same town-centre streets, aping each other’s hairdos, just like my dad did, I suppose.

I’m sitting on the floor of Laura’s flat, watching Mal play the PlayStation in his dressing gown, and my head is being licked coldly sideways by Laura’s rhythmical brushstrokes.

I can’t believe I’m going ahead and dyeing my hair. This isn’t me. This isn’t the sort of thing I do. It’s sort of brilliant, sort of scary. God, I’m such a child, even at twenty-two. Such a child.

Mal’s sitting there with his hair already brushed and cooking.

‘Hold still, for God’s sake,’ says Laura.

‘It hurts.’

‘Oh, give it a rest,’ she says. ‘This is what women have to put up with all the time. Hold still. It’s supposed to be even all over.’

‘Have you ever done this before?’ I ask Mal, trying to keep the fizz out of my voice. ‘Does it ever go wrong?’

‘How wrong can it go? If you think of some of the kids at school who used to do it.’

I’m a bit pissed.

Is Mal pissed? Sitting there in front on the TV, game controller in hand, he doesn’t seem pissed. He doesn’t seem bothered at all.

Laura’s definitely completely pissed. But she’s the only one who knows how to do this, so hopefully she’ll keep it together. The front room now stinks of the bleach or ammonia or whatever it is she’s slathered on our scalps.

‘Right, that’s you done,’ she says, and stumbles off out of the room and into the bathroom.

I say: ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this.’ As it comes out of my mouth it feels like the sort of thing Kelvin would say. Squealingly naïve.

Mal’s game crashes to a conclusion, and he hands me the control.

‘Ahh, it’s good. You should try anything once.’

‘Dyeing hair — it’s something other people do.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Yeah. It feels like there are too many parts of my brain saying, I’m going to look like a real dick.’

‘Who cares if you do? It’ll grow out in a fortnight. No one should ever worry about looking like a dick for a fortnight.’

I edge my character along a narrow ridge and hop into the go-kart for the trip down the hill.

‘I’m not like that though,’ I say. ‘I never ever say I want to do this, so I’m going to go ahead and do it, and I don’t care what anyone thinks. You’ve got that, I haven’t.’

‘Yes you have, you moron. You absolutely have. You and me, we’re pretty much the same dude,’ says Mal. ‘We both get things done, maybe just using our different special powers.’

‘I don’t. I never do.’

My cart rattles over rough ground, but I’m quick enough with the joystick to get past the tricky bit that normally sends me flying.

‘Yeah, man, that was one of the first things that I noticed about you, when you— you remember when Mr Miller found that pack of my cigarettes?’

‘Oh God, yeah.’

‘I just could not believe you’d take the hit for that. And I thought, man, he doesn’t even know me. I’d better stick around with this lad, he really doesn’t give a shit, you know? He can really go there.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Anyone who can — fucking—’ he ducks instinctively as my kart passes under the low branches ‘—use their dead dad just to get one over on their Science teacher, well, they’re someone who doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks, aren’t they? Someone who’s prepared to go there. You’re a Machiavellian type, I reckon.’

I’ve heard the words he’s said, but I’m only slowly piecing them together in my mind to make sense of them.

Feels sort of — nice? — to be thought so shrewd.

My go-kart pings off the edge of the cliff and drops into the abyss.

I hand him the control. ‘Is your head a bit hot?’

‘A bit. That’s probably normal.’

‘Where’s Laura?’

A graphic retch and cough leaks out from the bathroom, followed by a protracted series of spits.

‘I think she went for a little lie-down.’

A whole hour later, with my head stinging, she’s blearily washing the bleach out, and my dreams of a platinum-blond cut like the Russian Action Man thunder into the bath with it.

Orange yellow at the back, bright yellow at the front. And dark patches all around the back top where she hadn’t brushed it in properly.

It’ll grow out in a fortnight, it’ll grow out in a fortnight.

Something wakes me again now. I look up from my pillow and it’s still dark. Sheila hasn’t been in, I don’t think.

As I concentrate on the rectangle of light beyond the foot of my bed, I can hear a low regular noise. Old Faithful’s breathing has changed. Maybe they’ve switched her medication again. The kazoo sound is still there, but it’s like she’s gently huffing through it, a more thoughtful sound. A peaceful sound. I prefer it to what she was doing before.

I am lost in a world of regular hums, distant beeping, the periodic reheating of the coffee machine in the corridor, and that steady kazoo. I don’t know how long it has been. Is Amber wandering around out there? No sign.

Knuckles knock-knock on wood. Rap through the static atmosphere. I glance up at my doorway, but there’s no one. A moment later I hear a murmur next door, and a murmur in response. The tones of a woman’s voice, Sheila’s voice, hushed, and the lower tones of a man. Mr Old Faithful.

Slight metallic clink of a chair leg, and something knocks against the thin partition between my room and hers. It makes me start, makes my heart briefly beat a little faster. For a while there’s a sense of movement out there in the corridor. Diligent attendants move to and fro, and now a nurse passes my doorway.

Sheila pads past too and glances in at me.

I’ve no idea whether she can see if I’m awake. Maybe she’s trying to read my eyes in the darkness. See if there’s a glint off an eyeball. I narrow my eyes, narrow the chances. I don’t want her to see that I’m awake. I don’t know why. I don’t want to encroach on this. Don’t want to be a witness. All I feel is the rhythmic thrum of my heartbeat between the sheets. Can she see me breathing? Sheila drops her look and moves on. Still the kazoo keeps time, though it’s gained an edge of intensity.

There’s a lot of pacing going on out there. No one’s staying anywhere for long.

Slow figures drift past my doorway, closing in on Old Faithful.

Slow spirits.

Come to take her away.

Tender noises from next door.

Gentle huff. Pause.

Gentle huff from Old Faithful. Periodically pausing.

Her own heart, slowing.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here for this.

Hands

Yes, there again, my dad’s hands, kneading and rubbing my calf to work out the cramp.

Or walking to school with Laura–

‘Mum said you had to hold my hand over the road.’

‘Hold your own hand,’ she says, callously.

Oh. I’m on my own.

I don’t know why, but I flush hot and feel empty in my tummy, and a surge of hot tears boils up. I try to fight them back, I do. I don’t want her to think I’m getting in the way. I know she doesn’t want to because she wants to look good in front of Danny Refoy and his mates. But Mum said. This is what she said we had to do.

The thunder in her glare as she snatches up my hand and drags me across the road.

You took my hand for the first time after our second date — our first proper date after your Easter trip back to the Lakes — walking away from the Blue Plate Café.

I looked down at you, questioningly.

‘What?’ you said, holding up my hand. ‘You weren’t using it, were you?’

‘No, no, be my guest.’

All that anxiety about whether it had gone well, about whether we might kiss — gone. I kissed you on to your bus back to your digs.

I didn’t want to let go, once you’d set the seal.

I waited too. While the engine idled and the driver checked his watch, I waited, and when he finally hissed the door shut and pulled away, I waved you out of sight.

Then I floated off into town to meet Mal.

Was this love?

It felt like love.

The kazoo next door pauses, stays paused. One more murmur from beyond: ‘Do you think that’s it?’

And the kazoo begins again.

No more murmur. It was not it.

Hands, hands.

Your hand in mine.

My hand in yours.

Our hands.

So lovely, so simple to be able to take ownership of someone’s hand.

Palms pulsing together.

‘Have you noticed,’ I say, ‘you’re normally the one who says “I love you” first? Then I say it.’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘I never think the second means as much.’

‘So I’m winning, would you say?’

‘It doesn’t mean I’m not thinking it. I always feel a bit defeated when I have to follow up with “I love you too”. It’s like the sequel to a film: I Love You and I Love You Too. You know the second one’s always going to be a predictable reworking of the first.’

You laugh. ‘Well,’ you say, ‘it’s just like this noise that drops out of my mouth. Sometimes I think it’s down to things as simple as luh-luh being nice to say. You say luh-luh, and it feels nice with your tongue and it creates a resonance in your head that feels nice. Nice vibration. And that’s got to be a good thing.’

‘Bluh blah bloo.’

‘Yeah! Exactly that. Bluh blah bloo.’

‘Bluh blah bloo too.’

And the kazoo pauses once more.

Silence.

Soft breathing of the fans of the machines fills in the emptiness.

And that’s it.

No more from Old Faithful.

And still no more.

And still.

Heart still.

I hear a strangled sniff, a man’s voice. Mr Old Faithful.

Newborn widower.

The coffee machine rasps into life once more, works up through its steady crescendo of warming the water, reaches its peak and ceases.

And Amber. Amber must be out there too.

Mumless.

Muttering now from next door. Mr Old Faithful, I think, and Sheila. Sheila’s tones sound kind and concise. A nurse I’ve not seen before emerges, and then Sheila herself appears, leading Mr Old Faithful and Amber too. None of them looks in, but they walk past my doorway and troop into a room across the corridor. Its door clicks rudely shut.

It’s just me out here now.

Me and Old Faithful, on either side of the partition.

The lately living and the due-to-be-dead.

I’m here.

I’m still here.

I’m still awake.

I’m thinking nothing.

What is there to think?

The latch sounds again, and the door draws open. Sheila passes my doorway and disappears into Old Faithful’s room once more.

She speaks, softly but clearly, and I can make out her words. ‘Hello, lovey,’ she says. ‘I’m going to take your wedding ring now, OK? Just going to give it to your husband for safe-keeping. I’ll be as gentle as I can.’

There is no response.

’Til death us do part.

There it is.

Love ends at death.

Does it?

Heart

‘Why do you think people link love to their hearts?’ I say.

You look up at me in the orange streetlight, push your hair inaccurately back from your face with your mitten. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Or, like, why is your head supposed to be so sensible?’

‘Mm. I don’t know. Come on, let’s tie a few of these to the bike rack.’

I reach into the bag and try once again through my gloves to untangle one of the crochet hearts.

You’ve plunged into the activity as usual, mittens off and gleeful. I don’t know how you do it. How can you stay so buoyant when it’s so insanely cold?

I’ve got to say, it’s only reluctantly that I draw my gloves off too, and immediately I can’t feel my fingers. I take up the heart and begin to tie its two specially loosened threads around the nearest part of the bike rack. By the time I’ve finished one, you’ve tied on five, and we both step back and admire our handiwork.

‘They are having an impact, aren’t they?’ you say, anxiously.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘They look great.’

They do, they do. I thrust my hands rapidly back into my gloves.

‘I was worried they’d be a bit small and look a bit random, but they’re just right. They look like they’ve been thought about.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come on, let’s finish this off and head over to the churchyard. Almost halfway done.’

Almost half? I look down into the jute bag, which now holds about thirty crochet hearts. My own heart sinks. It’s as much as I can do to prevent a childish whimper escaping my throat.

Come on, come on. I want a new response. I just — I need a response that’s going to help you finish this.

‘Hey, come on,’ I hear myself saying. ‘Let’s go over to King’s Walk. There’s a tree on the corner that looks out over the whole town. Let’s hang a bunch in the branches, I think they’ll look great.’

There. I’ve launched those ambitious words into the air between us to convince myself as much as you. The hug you give me as we set off is return enough.

‘Hey,’ you say, ‘then we could go back and have pancakes for breakfast, couldn’t we? I’ll make you pancakes for being my amazing helper.’

‘With bacon and maple syrup?’

As we make our way along King’s Walk, the sun splits the horizon, and strikes the landscape through with a clean clear light.

Come on now, come on, I wouldn’t be seeing this view on any other day. It’s almost worth the cold, and there is satisfaction to be had from hard work. It’s not all lying back and letting it all come to you, like so many bacon-and-maple-syrup pancakes.

‘You OK, gorgeous boy?’ you ask, linking your arm in mine.

‘Yeah,’ I say, trying to walk less like a frozen robot. And yeah, I am.

You look at me fondly, and say, ‘This is all a terrible waste of time and effort, you do know that, don’t you?’

‘You reckon?’

‘I don’t know why you tolerate me. It’s sixteen below zero.’

‘Is it? I hadn’t noticed.’

You laugh. ‘And you’re tying hearts to trees and lampposts to please a whole lot of people you’ve never met.’

‘Well, I think, if I ignore the cold and the earliness, it’s — probably what I’d choose to be doing? If I had the imagination.’

‘Ah, you do! I’d never thought of putting anything up on King’s Walk. I think it’s a tremendous idea. Very creative.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. And I love how kind you are about it, and really patient with my silly ideas. I don’t know too many men who’d put up with that.’

So simple, to nudge me with a little appreciation, but I can actually feel my heart growing warmer as you say this. Even at sixteen below zero. It’s my mini furnace. Yes, yes, yes: it’s agonizingly cold. And yes, yes, I’d much, much rather be in bed.

But I’d much, much, much rather you had someone to do this with.

And I’ll be pleased it was me.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘what else was I going to do with these redundant early hours? More meaningless sleep? Come on.’

God, I’m so easily manipulated.

We’ve stopped where the path curves back on itself as the town drops away spectacularly into the valley, and the river wriggles off into the distance. The usual breath of traffic has yet to start up, and so far only one or two chimney pots are beginning to spill their early morning smoke. I hand you the jute bag and launch myself at the lowest bough of the target tree, hoist myself up on to it.

‘Careful!’ you call. ‘It’ll be frosty.’

‘I used to do this all the time when I was a kid.’ I successfully cover up my mild surprise at how much effort it takes to get me up there today. It’s been a few years. ‘Pass me up a bunch.’

You pass me up ten hearts, and I bite off my gloves before starting to tie them among the twigs.

‘Lovely,’ you say, directing me from place to place. ‘They’re going to look amazing here.’

‘Here you go,’ I say, and I inchworm my way along the next bough up, which stretches out over the speared iron railings and hangs over the section where the land tumbles away down to the road below. ‘I’ll put one here, and no one will know how on earth it got so far out over the road.’

‘Careful,’ you say. ‘If you kill yourself over a yarnbomb, I’m going to feel bad.’

Just as I find myself a prime spot for tying, I recognize my fingertips starting to tingle, and I realize my limbs have drained of all energy. I’m feeling properly wobbly. Insulin wobbly.

Hypo time. Shit.

I take a quick glance back along the distance I’ve travelled, make a quick calculation about how to get back, but — not easy. I’d better just— the uncertainty in my body is transferred into the bough, which I’m sure is shivering beneath me. My mind flits through its tick-boxes, and of course: early morning, no breakfast. I look down at you and smile confidently, but your look of concern is not diluted.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yep, yeah,’ I say. I could black out here. I need to get back. If I blacked out I’d drop like a stone and tumble down to the road fifty feet below. I edge back a bit, with the pretence of looking for a better place. Edge back, edge back.

My fingertips are fumbling the fraying thread as I try to tie a simple bow, and it keeps misbehaving — if there’s any … thing that makes me believe in a God it’s the way … fucking inanimate objects … behave when you really — real — what?

There’s a sudden deep thick silence, and gravity shifts and sweeps around me, until I’m punched solidly in the lower-third back of my body, with a hump and crackle from the pavement, and all I know is my head is in the gutter with all the leaf mould and bird shit and dried-up Friday-night piss, probably.

And there’s you, looking down on me.

‘Oh my God, are you all right?’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say, scrambling to my feet and trying to ride out the dizziness.

‘Stop, sit down a bit. You really banged your arm. Come and sit on this bench.’

I consent to sit.

‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘my fingers froze and I lost my grip.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ you say, mortified. ‘Have you got any pain? How’s your arm?’

‘Fine, fine. No damage done. Look,’ I say, pointing up at the tree. ‘Looks good?’

‘It looks fantastic,’ you say, squeezing my arm and inadvertently hurting it. ‘In the morning everyone in town’s going to see these little hearts dangling all over the place, and think, What kind of mad person would be bothered to put those out there?’ You look at my face for the laugh, but you can see something’s wrong. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘Yeah, yeah. I just need some food.’

‘Let’s be getting back. I’ve got some biscuits in my pocket here. Have a couple of those.’

‘What are you doing carrying biscuits around with you?’ I say, tearing into the packet.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I imagined I’d probably need them one day. Come on then, let’s go home and get those pancakes sorted.’

We stroll arm in aching arm back along King’s Walk as the town is flushed through with the onset of morning, and my heart is pounding, and I’m resisting the dizziness with all my might.

I only have to get back to yours. That’s not far, down into the valley and over the bridge, but then uphill and into the terraces.

But no, no. Not too far.

What’s—? What’s the time?

It’s light. Afternoon light.

They must have left me to sleep through the day.

I was awake all night.

I look up and I’m surprised to see, crackling at the doorway to my room, loaded with blowsy colourful flowers, Amber.

‘Oh, hello!’

‘Hiya.’ She gives me a weary smile. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Amber, I’m so sorry.’

‘She went last night.’

‘Come in, come in.’

‘We’ve just come to collect a few of her things. Hospital bag and nightie, slippers. We’re going to take them home and — I don’t know, wash them or something.’

She looks up at me and smiles.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m — I’m doing OK at the moment, thanks. It’s a relief mostly, I think. She’s — she did so well. I’m so proud of her.’

I nod, smile.

She looks down in her lap, and seems to see what she’s carrying. ‘I brought you some flowers.’

‘Ah man, how have you found time to do that?’

‘I wanted to go and have a look at some flowers for Mum, and I thought you’d like some to brighten up your day.’

‘Ah wow, they’re lovely.’ She hands me the wrap of about twenty stems. ‘Man, just amazing. Ranunculus, absolutely my favourite — how did you know?’

‘You said you used to work at the garden centre up by the junction.’

‘Are these from there?’ I turn the tag over and see the familiar old logo.

‘I went out there this morning and mentioned you, and they said they thought you’d like these best.’

I’m stunned.

‘I know you don’t want many visitors, so you can’t get many flowers or anything. So I wanted to let you know I’ve been thinking about you, and I’m really — like — really thankful to you. And all the people you used to work with are thinking of you as well.’

I catch my breath, rattle, and there’s nothing else I can say.

What can I say?

She is golden.

‘Twenty-two years I worked there,’ I say.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she says. ‘It seemed like — it seemed like a thing to do.’

‘Just — thank you.’

She gathers up the flowers and sets about arranging them neatly in my water jug. I watch her, amused. Not sure Sheila’s going to like the smattering of rebellion.

‘What?’ says Amber, turning and seeing my look. ‘I’m improvising.’

‘You go for it.’

While she finishes her little act of vandalism, I straighten myself in the bed and try to slap my face into some kind of being. With permission, Amber rinses her fingertips in the bathroom and flicks the excess on to the floor on her way back to the visitors’ chair.

‘I–I wanted to tell you,’ she says, ‘I didn’t exactly go to the garden centre just to get flowers.’

‘No?’

‘Not at first. I wanted to — I wanted to see if I could find her.’ She gestures at my blanket. ‘Your girlfriend, who crocheted your blanket. You spoke so warmly about her, and you seemed so much in love, I wanted — I wanted to see if I could get you to see her again.’

I feel absolutely still. Absolutely calm.

‘I asked the man there if he knew her, and where I might find her. He told me. She — she died, didn’t she?’

Silence.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘She did.’ I look down at my blanket, settle a couple of the stitches.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to know and then pretend I didn’t.’

‘No. I wouldn’t want you to.’

She looks up at me and smiles. ‘I cried in front of the man.’

A warm ache rises through my chest as I picture it.

‘Oh, Amber, I’m — I’m really sorry. I should have told you.’

‘No,’ she says, ‘no, no — I shouldn’t have — it was a dumb thing to try and do.’

I shake my head slowly. ‘A lovely thing.’

‘It just made me feel so sad for you.’ She sniffs. ‘I’m sorry, that’s probably not what you want to hear, is it? It’s just — everything’s really on the surface for me at the moment.’ She half-laughs.

‘It is sad. The saddest.’

‘When — when did she die?’

‘Ten years ago, now.’

‘What happened?’

And there it is again. I might have asked the same question before I learned all the questions you’re never supposed to ask.

What’s that in your throat?

My chest swells again as the question washes over me like a sluice of icy water.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude.’

‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I—’

‘It seems so unfair. From the way you were talking about her — everything — she seemed like — she seemed incredibly special.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, absently cupping my arm through the blanket.

‘I don’t know if I could ever be that special to anyone.’

‘Oh, you will.’

She laughs quietly to herself, evidently weighing up her invisible options. ‘I don’t think I’d know where to begin.’

‘Just be. Just be yourself.’

She looks down at her knees, and I feel like I know exactly what she’s thinking.

‘There are people around, people who make you feel energetic,’ I say. ‘And there are people who are just—’ I reach around for the right amount of contempt ‘—they suck the fun out of everything. They’re fun-suckholes.’

‘Yeah,’ she smiles, looking up.

‘Well, you give energy. Look at you. You’re going through the worst you’ll ever go through now, and you’re still being creative. That’s life.’

Amber purses her lips and looks to the floor.

‘Surround yourself with as many people like that as you can — that’s what I think. Energy-givers. Life-livers. People who make you feel most like yourself.’

‘That was how my mum used to be, before she got ill. Really playful, creative, really fun.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m worried,’ she says, looking up at me now with tears in her eyes, ‘that I’m only going to remember the little frail woman in that big bed and — that’s not my mum at all. That’s not how I want to remember her.’

I set down my mask, and look into her tearful eyes.

‘Give it time,’ I say. ‘I promise it will change.’

‘Knock-knock …’

A sing-songy voice. A kind voice.

Who’s—?

‘Are you awake?’

Mm?

Sheila. Her face looking down at me now. Look at her mascara. Thick. A bit much today.

‘Hello, lovey,’ she says gently. ‘You awake, are you?’

‘Mm?’

‘I’m sorry to wake you, but there’s someone who wants to say hello, and I wondered if you wanted to see her.’

Amber? Is it Amber back?

‘What day is it?’

‘Still Saturday.’

‘What’s the time?’

‘Half-past eleven.’

I take a moment to clear my throat, try to pull my thoughts into some sort of order. Sheila has drawn away and is talking softly out in the corridor. There’s a mutter and a shuffle.

‘Say to come in,’ I say. ‘Let her in.’

And so she appears in the doorway: Laura.

She’s heavily fortified with make-up, like a caricature of what I remember from all those years ago. It’s a mask to meet me with. But the wrinkles and folds still encroach like bindweed, around her eyes and neck. Everything she’s been resisting over the years. Age creeps up on all of us.

‘Hiya,’ she says, before her mask creases and she crumples into tears.

Ah shit.

‘Aw, come now,’ says Sheila, plucking up a tissue and hurrying over to her. ‘Come on, let’s get you a chair, eh?’ She reaches for a plastic seat from the corridor and Laura allows herself to be settled at the end of the bed.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Laura, slowly pulling herself together, ‘I swore I wouldn’t cry.’

‘There’s no shame in crying,’ says Sheila. ‘We all cry, don’t we? Everybody cries.’

‘Yeah,’ blinks Laura, little girl, trying to be brave. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says again, finally able to focus on me, and then: ‘Hello.’

‘Hello.’

She has only fleetingly met my gaze; she’s spending a lot of time looking around on the floor, checking, checking her sitting position, checking the leg of the chair isn’t nudging the skirting board, checking behind her for — for whatever.

‘Now, you’ve got your coffee,’ says Sheila. ‘How about you?’ she says, looking over at me. ‘Can I get you anything? How’s your water?’

I shake my head — nothing for me. No water. No visitors. I said no visitors.

‘All right,’ says Sheila, retreating. ‘Make yourself at home, and I’ll see you later.’

She exits the room and shuts the door quietly behind her.

Alone together. The shock of her being here at all has quickly given way to — to what? I don’t know. I’m casting around to feel something, but I wonder if I feel nothing.

‘So, how are you?’ says Laura, finally looking at me properly and frowning.

‘Never better,’ I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t, as she begins to cry again.

‘I’m sorry, Ivo, I’m sorry, I just — I was so worried about coming here, but seeing you there like that, in your bed, I feel so stupid about all the years we’ve let slip.’

There it is, the last time Laura and I saw each other, a perfunctory goodbye in the car park of the Yew Tree as the tyres of other mourners’ cars tugged at the gravel around us. Job done, Mum safely in the soil. All organized by me, down to the buffet. Seven years. A lifetime ago.

‘It’s such a waste, you know? Don’t you think what a waste of time all this has been?’

And now I’m the one who can’t meet her gaze. You see, face to face I can’t back up what I’ve said so often in my mind. This is bigger than both of us, so should we just give each other up? Abandon hope? ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘A real waste.’

She hops out of her seat, and comes over and gives me a strong, deep hug. I’m not sure I want it, but I let it happen, and somewhere deep, deep in there, beneath the make-up and jangle of the great gesture, there’s warmth, there’s goodness.

‘I’m so glad,’ she says, releasing me from her grasp and sinking back into her seat. ‘I’m so glad I came. I was scared to come. I knew you wouldn’t want to see me. But I thought, Sod it, you know, whatever’s gone on, whatever rights and wrongs, you’re my brother, and I’m your sister, and that should mean something.’

‘I’m — yeah. I’m glad you came too,’ I say, with a dilute smile.

‘I wasn’t going to come, but Kelvin — he said we should both act like adults, so I agreed to come with him.’

‘Oh yeah? Is he here?’

‘He’s parking the car. I think he’s going to wait a few minutes to see if we start tearing each other’s hair out.’

‘No, well that was never going to happen, was it?’

‘No, I’ve just had mine done, so—’ She dabs at the edges of her hair, and I sort of do a little singular snort laugh. Funny. She’s funny. And how easily we fall back on those years of practice about how we slot together. The rhythms of a person, they become ingrained. These are the Laura patterns I’ve known all my life. It feels — it does, it feels nice, all this. It feels like me and Laura. Feels like home.

‘I got you some grapes,’ she says reaching down and drawing out a brown paper bag. ‘Sorry, it looks a bit feeble now. I would have got you something else, but—’

‘Fine, it’s fine,’ I say. ‘What do you buy for the man who has … you know.’

Her face tightens into a frown. ‘Kidney failure?’

I look at her and let go another laugh, and break out into a gurgling cough. ‘That’s not quite what I meant.’

She sits and watches me while I cough, and I think she might be a bit shocked.

‘What would Mum say if she could see us now, eh?’ I say.

‘She’d say, Shoes up, bags up, coats up.’ The old clarion call of Mum as she came in the front door to find we’d wrecked the house on our return from school.

‘You sound just like her, you know.’

‘Oh, don’t. Mal always used to say—’

My face must drop, because she stops suddenly and looks me directly in the eye, her mouth still open, like gasping.

‘I don’t want to talk about Mal,’ I say, flatly. I reach across to unhook the oxygen mask from the top of the oxygen canister — its elastic straps come free at the second attempt. I lay it by me, more for something to do than because I’m short of breath.

‘Look, Ivo, I’ve wanted to talk to you about everything since mum’s funeral,’ she says, working two fingers at her temple and closing her eyes. ‘I thought it might bring us together, I really meant to talk with you, but you never—’

She croaks as she reaches out for words, but none come.

‘You’re my sister,’ I say. The words emerge ultra quiet. ‘It is supposed to mean something. You weren’t there. For me.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘You went with him. The one time I needed you to stand by me and support me, you made your choice. You disappeared off with him.’

‘I wanted to support you, I did. But I had to make a choice.’

‘You weren’t there for Mum either, when she needed you.’

‘I couldn’t do it. There was no way,’ she says, with real desperation. ‘You and her were always close, but I didn’t have that with her. She hated me some days.’

‘She never hated you.’

‘Some days.’

I look away. I don’t know what I remember from those days.

My heart is pounding. It’s pounding, pounding. All the meaning of the last decade and more hangs in the air between us, undivined.

‘There were years — six years he was in prison. I was on my own,’ she says. ‘You wouldn’t see me, would you? You wouldn’t see anyone.’

‘I saw Mum.’

‘Mum was scared to talk to you about anything that might upset you. She thought she’d push you away. But the few times I talked to her, she just said she wanted us all to be together again.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ I know, I know.

‘But it didn’t happen, did it? She never got to see that happen. And that’s not all my fault.’

A great burning swell of acid regret rises now. I’m so sorry, Mum. I could have tried harder. I should have done better.

The tension breaks and we sit there in silence a while. After everything, I don’t want to blame her for stuff that’s not her fault.

‘I’m not blameless,’ I say, quietly. ‘I never claimed I was blameless.’

‘No, nor me,’ she says. ‘Poor Mum.’

‘Poor Mum.’

And so very easily Laura tips once more into tears. Thick, wet silence, and there’s nothing I can do. I’m just going to have to let the arc rise, rise, and slowly crest and descend, slowly slowly descend again until she comes back to earth.

‘Er — hello.’

I look up at the doorway, and there he is. Kelvin himself.

‘Oh, hello,’ mumbles Laura, working at her nostril with a tissue. ‘Come in.’

Kelvin glances over at me. I look away. He shuffles a metre or so inside the door, technically in. Look at him, loving the job of chauffeuring Laura around. Designed to be a lackey for her. In the hope that maybe one day she’ll fall into his arms.

‘So how are we doing?’ he says with a falsely light air.

‘We’re — talking,’ says Laura. ‘When I can stop bursting into tears.’

Kelvin roots around in his wax-jacket pocket for a clean tissue. ‘Here you go.’

Laura takes it — sense of some intimacy between them? I don’t know. What do I know? It’s been ten years. None of my business.

‘Have you asked him?’ Kelvin says to Laura.

She shakes her head.

‘What?’ I say.

‘I brought her here for a reason, mate. I know you didn’t want to see her, and I’ll take the blame for that. But there’s a reason.’

‘A few of us — well, we’ve been supporting Mal, these last few years,’ says Laura. She looks up at the ceiling and exhales again with the effort of everything. ‘Giving him help and support through prison. We did a lot of visiting, helped prepare him for coming home. But he’s struggled. He has struggled.’

Kelvin nods, sagely.

‘He’s got himself a bit of a habit — drugs, you know. Impossible to avoid in prison, they’re everywhere. So he leans heavily on me and his dad and mum. He can’t really hold down a job yet. But we try to understand, and we can put up with all that. And—’ she smiles now, with some kind of pride ‘—it’s working. It’s definitely working, because he’s been starting to get himself sorted, and — well, there’s been some real hope for him. But—’ she looks down at her knees, and stops mid-flow.

‘There’s the thing with you, Ivo,’ says Kelvin.

‘It’s there, every day,’ says Laura. ‘It’s a big knot.’

‘All he wants to do,’ says Kelvin, ‘is have the chance of setting the record straight.’

Laura leans forward and puts a hand on my bedcover. I feel the vibration. ‘Just to have five minutes of your time. You were like the brother he never had. He really used to look up to you. He still does.’

I ignore the obvious clichés and bullshit; it’s as much as I can do to hold in a laugh. We fall to an awkward silence, but no: I don’t want to let it settle in.

‘I can’t see him,’ I say.

Their heads both do the same: lift to some kind of internal music. Some pre-agreed strategy.

‘I can’t, I can’t do that. I can’t see him.’

Kelvin contemplates me a moment, and draws in a great and steadying breath. ‘Listen, mate,’ he says, ‘I know you don’t want to hear it, but he’s up to the eyeballs in regret. He knows he’s done wrong, and he’s full of remorse about it. And he’s — he’s got no way of getting rid of it.’

I turn away. Look out of the window. Look at the magnolia tree.

Laura peers up at me nervously. One of her eyelids sticks shut briefly. ‘You wouldn’t even have to say anything. You could maybe let him say what he has to say, and he’ll go.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’

‘Please — five minutes, I swear that’s all it would need. Please just give him five minutes of your time.’

I draw myself up, and cough at the effort, but I need to get up the presence to combat this. Finally, finally, something inside me breaks. ‘When is it, right, when is it that this will just fucking leave me alone?’

Silence.

The two of them, there, looking at me.

‘When is it, that you can say, now, here, that what happened was wrong? What happened was wrong, and there’s no going back?’

‘Mal’s gone missing,’ says Laura.

Silence.

Kelvin stares pointedly at the floor.

‘Missing?’

‘He’s been gone over a week. Ten days.’

‘We’ve had a word with the Missing Persons people,’ says Kelvin in a low voice. ‘We’re supposed to try to think of a way to solve as many of the problems he was having as possible. Hopefully let him see that home is worth valuing, and he’s not coming back to the same unchanged mess.’

I look down at my hands, colourless and cold. I begin to rub them firmly together to give them life.

‘And all of it, the whole lot of it, points to you. The situation with you. We want to arrange some contact between you, if that’s agreeable to you, and if—’

‘We think he might try to come here,’ says Laura. ‘He knows he needs to — to sort things out while he’s still got time. While you have time.’

‘Here? He doesn’t know where I am.’

‘He does,’ says Laura, in a small voice. ‘I told him. Before he left.’

‘But—’

Surely, surely they wouldn’t let someone in here if I didn’t want to see them? But they let Laura in, didn’t they? My heart begins to thunder in my chest and all the strength sweeps out of my limbs. Surely this is a place of rest. ‘Get Sheila,’ I say. ‘Tell Sheila I won’t see him in here.’

‘Please, just—’

‘Get Sheila.’

Sheila returns to my room in a flap.

‘Have they gone?’ I ask.

‘Yes, yes, they’ve gone.’

‘No visitors.’

‘I’m so sorry, I thought you knew it was your sister. I thought you were a bit more open to seeing people, because you said let her in.’

‘I thought it was— No, no. No visitors.’

‘I’m sorry, that was my mistake.’ She looks shocked. ‘Who is this person, anyway? The one you don’t want to see?’

‘It’s her boyfriend. He wants to see me. But I don’t want to see him, all right?’

‘Right — well, we do ask everyone to check in at reception, so—’

‘Is there anything more you can do? Security-wise?’

‘OK,’ she says, retrieving a sizeable set of keys from her uniform pocket, ‘here’s what we’ll do.’ Calming voice. Professional voice. ‘Before anything else we’re going to take a while and calm it down and see if we can take it one step at a time, is that OK?’

There’s a familiar tone. That’s a you tone. A keep-it-in-perspective tone. She’s saying come on, come on, don’t let the paranoia leak into everything.

‘We’re all of a dither here, aren’t we, so if it’s OK with you, I want to spend some time on this.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, first things first, I’m going to get you a bit of something to calm you down a touch, all right? Take the edge off.’

‘No — you’re not listening—’

‘I am, lovey. I’m hearing every word you say. And I just want to take the edge off so we can talk about things calmly, and do the right thing, first time.’

Her eyes stay fixed on me as her head gently nods up and down.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘OK.’

‘I’ll be back in five. Max.’

She leaves the room, picking through her keys for the meds cupboard.

I lie down on the bed, on my side, foetal. Need to focus, focus. Press my head down firmly to feel something. Man, punched deep in the pillow, it honestly actually pounds. Every pulse a hammer blow, each blow muting my hearing, recovering enough in time to be muted again. My heart connected to my head. It’s pressure, isn’t it? It’s making me scrunch my eyes up tight — tight, like tight — and that stops the pound-pound, by making it one long pound for a few moments. It’s my heart, it’s the pulses pulsing, pulsepound, and it will not stop. It’s my heart beating the blood around me, and it just will not stop. I want a stop.

I’ve got my fists up tight, clutching the bedsheets around my jaw. Beneath the sheets, the agitation. It’s all rest; restless rest. My feet shifting in the sheets, right forward, left back; left forward, right back. My only relief, to offset the hell in my head: marching through the linen like a slumbering footsoldier. Now that’s the only sound, the soft shiff, shiff, and the occasional zip of a toenail scratching against the cotton.

It’s the morphine. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why Mal’s going to come here, it’s a fucking bursting bank of clinical morphine, diamorphine. I’m not joking, I’m not joking, that’s the only outcome. He’s got Kelvin and Laura wrapped round his little finger, and they think he wants to be forgiven. He doesn’t want to be forgiven, he–

And the pain and realization shoots down my neck, and penetrates deep into my back, so deep as to come out the front into my chest, like getting kicked in the kidneys, jars out the breastbone, and blooms up through my chest, tight. Nausea blooms and churns within.

The door sucks shut in the corridor, and I look up at my doorway with a start.

It’s Sheila, finally.

‘OK,’ she says, ‘I’ve got a sedative here, just to get us back on an even keel.’

I sit up and look at her, and she must read my mind.

‘Do you trust me?’ she says.

I nod.

She hands me a pill and a beaker of water, and I take it.

‘Now,’ she says, sitting down on the visitors’ chair, ‘are you able to tell me a little bit about this?’

‘About what?’

‘About the visitor you don’t want to see? It helps if I know what I’m looking for.’

‘It’s a man. His name’s Malachy.’

‘And why does he want to see you?’

‘We used to be friends. He’s been seeing my sister.’

‘OK.’

‘But he’s dangerous. He’s properly bad news. He’s not long out of prison. So, what you were saying about the store full of drugs and needles …?’

She starts to show the right amount of unease. I’m getting through to her, and it’s beginning to encroach on her responsibilities. ‘OK, well, that’s helpful for me to know, at least.’

‘He could do this. I’m sure that’s what he’s after, and I think he’s going to try and come and get me.’

I know how this sounds.

Her face softens in exactly the way I hoped it wouldn’t.

‘He’s going to think I put him in prison. He’s going to wonder why I didn’t fight to keep him out—’

‘Listen,’ she says, sitting lightly on the arm of the visitors’ chair, ‘I’ll look into this, and I’ll make sure we do everything we need to do to keep you feeling safe and secure.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, looking up at her.

‘But I know what you’re like, Ivo. You’re the type of person who’s got this worry-shaped hole in the middle of your head. And it doesn’t matter what’s going on, it doesn’t matter what I do to make things better, you’re going to fill it with whatever’s in front of you at the time. You’re not the first to do this, and I dare say you won’t be the last. So do yourself a favour and keep yourself occupied, all right? It’ll help, I promise.’