The Huts

I never was very good at geography. My specs were steamed up beneath my duffel coat hood and the rain bounced off them, so I was even less observant than usual. The man at the gatehouse addressed me as ‘sir,’ but his bored bureaucratic tone, and the way that he looked at me from beneath his peaked cap, showed what he really thought. I was to go right along, past the old hospital buildings, turn left and that was you there. You couldn't miss it. But I did. Somehow I ended back at what looked like office buildings. I hurried along in a new and different direction and started following a white coat that I saw in the distance. He turned into one of the new buildings.

As the sun came out, I knew that I was at The Huts. They were like modern school blocks, all new breezeblocks, clip on plastic pipes and well tended front lawn, whilst, all the other hospital buildings were the blackened stone of old fortresses that seemed to put them in permanent shadow. Some wards even had gargoyles clinging to the masonry, supporting the iron cast gutters. I was glad that I didn’t need to go there.

I was looking for Ailsa ward, but there were no signs and no one to ask. I felt nervous about asking, but even more nervous about being late on my first day. I dashed up the white concrete steps of the first of the Hospital Huts. It was still cold outside, but not inside. I felt sweat soaping down my armpits, making me itch and even more self-conscious that I’d be smelly. I took of my duffle coat, but then didn’t know what to do with it.

If I’d still been at school I’d have simply tied the arms of the duffle coat around my waist, and forgot about it, but I settled for putting it demurely over my arm. I’d a clean jumper and a white shirt and black tie and a pair of black trouser and black shoes. The official letter from the hospital had not told me to wear any of these things, but mum kitted me out as if I was going to some kind of funeral. All the euphoria about getting my first job had disappeared at the hospital gate and I felt as if I was going to throw up. There was a clock on the wall, which divided the wards on the right and left hand side. The minute hand seemed to have jammed on school time, hitting and bouncing back slightly to a continuous five past nine. I looked back at the way that I’d come and wondered if anyone would notice if I retraced my steps. The doors in front of me offered no chance of escape. They were thick fire doors with slit windows made of safety glass with wire through it to knit it together. Unbreakable. But someone had tried. It had a crack in it, a fracture, with a small dart hole. Out the corner of my eye I caught sight of someone on the pathway, outside the ward. I quickly chapped loudly on the window in case they asked me what I was doing.

I could see three women crowding around the entrance. They looked as if they were laughing,but were toothless, with mouths agape, as if they were goldfish on the other side of the glass. In my schoolboy fantasies I would have stepped boldly forward and ogled them. They were the first naked women I had ever seen. But I was even more tempted to about turn and run. They were like crones from some schoolbook I’d long discarded. I kept chapping and became bolder the longer I was ignored. I found six pence in my duffle coat pocket and used it to chap the window. The three female Buddha's, all breast, belly, buttocks and varicose veins were pushed roughly aside by a man with a large set of, what I could only take to be ward keys, intent on getting the correct one in the lock, on the other side of the door.

I took a step back from the door. I took him to be a nurse because of those keys, but he was about the same age as me. He also had on some kind of trendy denim, the kind that I wasn't allowed to wear; the kind that it would have been sacrilege to iron- shirt and jeans with gold gleaming buttons. He also had an afro kind of non hair cut, that was so cool, that was the word, cool, compared to my short back and sides. He had on some kind of brown moccasins, with tassels. He smiled as he pulled the door open as if he knew who I was. I smiled back. He pointed to a switch for a bell, at the side of the door, a big bakelite switch that was difficult to miss. He switched it on and off experimentally. I could hear the ringing inside.

'Come in', he laughed, 'I don't want any of them escaping'.

The way he said it I knew that he was kidding me on, but I didn't know what to say.

'I'm looking for Ailsa ward', I said too quickly, almost stuttering. I’d have just died if I stuttered then. The memory of those other times made my eyes fill up.

'Yeh, I know,' he said waving generally in the other direction as if it was too much trouble lifting his hands, showing me that he didn't have sweat patches on his shirt. I followed him inside and he locked the door, with one key, letting the others jangle on the same keyring, which was pretty cool.

'You're next door,' he said, with a smile, as if that explained everything, 'with Wullie the Pole. He'll keep you right. Just laugh at his jokes.'

He laughed again, but I was barely able to hear him. It was as if a farmyard had been tipped upside down and all the frightened animals poured into this one room. I expected that. What I didn't expect, what I hadn't prepared myself for, was a smell that made me want to turn around and head straight back out, even before I was in. I'd a weak stomach.

'Wullie the Pole doesn't do jokes,' he said, following my gaze to the ward across the corridor. He was toying with me, but I didn't know what to say or do.

There were what looked like derelict toilets inside the entrance to the ward. They had no doors, but they did have baths, all of which had a person in it. There were cubicles with people squatting and groaning, on the toilet pan. Others stood outside, waiting to go in. Although some were carrying towels, that were more like dish rags, the kind we used at home for cleaning tables, then put in the bin. Men and women stood, indifferent to their nakedness, or each other. One of the women was drying herself with a towel that was covered in shite.

'Hey Massie, put that fucking towel down. Put it in the wash basket. Put it in the basket. That's right. That's right. Over there. Don't make me come over there. Right, that's good. Now get back in the bath. The bath. Get back in. I'll get you a towel. In. Yes, get in. Good girl.'

'Fuckin hell man, it's always wild at this time.' The frown was gone. He was smiling again. 'Fag break, fucking hell do I need one, working in this dump'. He jangled the keys of out of his pocket and into the lock.

We were barely outside his ward before he had lit up. 'Want some snout?' he said, that was the word he used for fags, that was kinda cool.

'No thanks, nah,' I said, 'I don't smoke'.He almost choked breathing through his nose, as if I'd said something really funny.

'You don't smoke,' he repeated it, testing the neatness of what he was saying, by changing it about a bit: ‘Don’t’ smoke?’

'Everybody smokes,' he blew smoke into the air to emphasis his point. 'That's all you'll ever get from now on. Night and day’. He changed the tone of his voice talking like in a lower pitch, like some of the patients I’d heard: 'Geeza fag? Geeza fag? Geeza fag?'

'You're over there'. He nodded in the direction of the other door. 'Ring the bell.' He smiled again. 'And good luck wee man', he said. 'Wullie's all right, old school, he'll keep you right.'

The door to Ailsa ward was open practically before I'd even rung the bell, making me think that he'd been watching.

There were no formal introductions.

'Put this coat on,' the man I knew was Wullie the Pole said, handing me a brownish dust jacket, the old fashioned type, which a janitor would have worn at my old school. The kind that he was wearing.

'You don't want to get your good clothes dirty.'

He looked directly at me for the first time, as if he was weighing me up, as if he already knew me. I felt my face going red and once more felt the sweat running down my back. I quickly put the coat on and followed him into the toilets.

The main entrance to the toilet had a door on it, which shouldn't have surprised me, but did. All the toilet cubicles also had doors on them. They all stood ajar, as if someone had pushed them all to the same forty five degree angle. They had no locks. The toilets were clean. Normal even. There was no one in the baths.

The men stood in a line, as if they were waiting for a bus. There were no women. Some had bathrobes and slippers, some had green bath towels around there waists. I could have imagined them standing there reading a paper. None of them spoke or made a noise of any kind. They just stood. Waiting.

A grey haired man seemed to dart from nowhere, startling me, but no one else. He stopped and handed a mug and razor to the nurse, Wullie the Pole, in the same way that an altar boy would hand the priest the chalice. The line moved forward, a chain of men, with their necks extended and chin up, as if they were going to get their head loped. Wullie the Pole shaved the first man.

'You,' he said, 'Boy.' 'I'm very busy. Shave these men'. The men turned to me as he held out the razor. None of them moved.

Wullie the Pole handed me the razor and the pewter mug. I'd never shaved myself, never mind anyone else, but didn't know which was in worse condition, the razor or the mug. The top of the razor didn't screw down and flapped about from left to right. It was coated in hair, grease and skin. The way he had used it make it seem as if it was new, but now I could see it was as blunt as a pair of rusty hair scissors. The mug looked as if a car had run over it and everyone in the line had took turns hawking into it, from the pit of their stomachs.

I felt for the crease of the first man in lines skin, between his nose and mouth. Wullie the Pole was watching, and with one swoop he had the razor out of my hand. He moved the razor over the man's face effortlessly, but, for the first time I noticed red nicks, in the man's face, appearing were the razor had been. He dipped the razor into the mug and the next man moved forward.

'You shouldn't put your arm down, or pull the razor from the man's face until you're finished the cut', he said, handing me the razor and walking out of the toilets.

The first man moved forward. I put the razor to his cheek, but couldn't pull the rusty blade down his clean face. I went to the sink and rinsed the razor with hot water. Then I rinsed the cup. They all watched, but only the man with the grey hair, the acolyte spoke:

'That's not the way you do it', he said and went to take the razor from me.

I didn't know who he was, or what he did, but I knew that he was a patient. I pushed his hand away. 'No,' I said firmly.

The grey haired man left as quickly as he'd come in. The external door flapped shut and seemed to bring in extra oxygen. The men still stood in line, but it was no longer slide rule straight.

The first man in line took the razor from my hand and with four quick strokes he shaved a little bit that was on his chin. He put the razor under the hot tap and handed it to the next man. On and on it went. One after the other. I was saved.