Take the Next Road on Your left (12)

“Adeona” said Tudor “Let me introduce you. This is Charlie; but of course you’ve already met”
Adeona looked mildly curious at the officer uncomprehending his seemingly infinite fund of Wildesque wit.
“I’m the driver who hit you” I interceded, cheating one of this highly underrated police comedy team of his termes conseillés.
“Driver?” barked Windsor, miffed at my sacrilegious intervention. “We should all drive like that eh Bob?”
“Certainly would diminish our responsibility to the public at large”
“Less of them to worry about”
“Keep them off the streets and the pavements”
They were making me nauseous; I turned to the girl
“I’m sorry. It was so quick. I really didn’t see you until…”
She lifted up her arm and placed her hand over both of mine and smiled with both her eyes and mouth.
“Soft” whispered Tudor but she heard him and decapitated his arrogance with those electric irises.
If her gesture to me intended ‘forget it’ that last glare to the CID fraternity hollered ‘leave us alone’ and they motioned to leave but not without a farewell performance.
“I’ve got to make a call. Come on Bob. Let’s leave them to talk”
“Maybe they’ll hit it off”
“Doubt it. She must be uninsurable”
The door swung to; it felt like rubbing a dock leaf on a nettle rash.
Adeona wiped her hand across her forehead. I laughed in response. That was a first for today. Then that awkward pause that always sits there like the bloody Berlin Wall between perfect strangers until one elucidates the first banality erected itself between the chair and Adeona’s bed. The problem here, though, was that in the cliché stakes there was only the one favourite.
“Were you born like that?” Oh my God did I really say that? I had certainly avoided any small chat; I had moved straight to lesson 3 from the Guide to Tact and Decorum by Vlad the Impaler. My cheeks could have roasted chestnuts. Adeona giggled silently.
How could she answer you fool, I censured myself. She can’t talk and you can’t sign. She pointed to the top drawer of the dresser. I found a pad and a ball point and gave it to her. She scribbled and then showed me what she’d written.
Can’t speak since accident
“Shit”
She wrote again
Not serious. Shock they say. Will come back
“Jeez – thank fuck for that. Oh sorry”
I’d swear too but I don’t know how to spell fuck
Good god, good-looking and funny. A glow materialised around my body like those frozen school kids on the Ready Brek advertisements.
I pointed at her head and mouthed the words “What about this?”
Are you dumb too? Ha Ha Small cuts Concussion
I was waiting for that awkward pause, that fat silence that sits alongside you like an enforced debutante, but it never came. As a conversationalist, even losing her voice failed to stop Adeona.
Over the best part of an hour she unveiled her life story. She wrote that she was an only child but both her parents were dead. Her mother had a heart attack in her early forties and dropped dead on the garden path outside their house. Adeona found her when she arrived home from school. She knew she was dead but cradled her mother’s head in her arms and sung her a lullaby, she said, to send her on her way.
She buried this traumatic experience for the sake of her father who simply couldn’t cope with her loss. He hadn’t any friends to speak of and went into severe decline. Adeona looked after him during her GCSE years and did well enough to gain a university place here in this city, which she would’ve declined if her father hadn’t given up his spirit the preceding summer.
She was left the house, which she rented to help with the costs of her degree, English and Greek Literature, but never returned home during semesters. There was little left for her too. Most of her school friends had dispersed themselves across the country as well. She liked the town and took on part-time evening jobs on campus to give her some extra cash.
It was only when she became involved with the University theatre group that an attraction for the stage grew on her. At first she shifted landscapes, pulled curtain cords and ushered the patrons to and from their seats.
Then one night she was asked to shout out a line offstage. The director hearing her voice interviewed her the following week for a small part. He told her that her diction was “wonderfully” precise and her tone “exceptionally” colourful and wouldn’t be desisted from her lack of acting experience.
The first night she was nervous but not unduly so. Her role, in a play written by the ‘director’, appeared twice in each act. She was a ‘sounding board’ from which the main characters were to throw at her parts of their own character and would then rebound back with her answers and alter them permanently.
She made a silent giggle recalling this. She knew full well the fatuous concept she was part of but she enjoyed it nonetheless. She progressed until the final play before she graduated where she played Varya in “The Cherry Orchard.” She had been fine learning her lines and in dress rehearsals but on opening night after Lopakhin leaves her at the end of Act 4, instead of sobbing she found herself wailing uncontrollably and was accused of overacting. All that had happened, she told me, was that two years of inhibited sorrow had suddenly found an outlet.
After her degree she wandered into banking but continued to act in local productions and even auditioned for several West End parts with no success although she did get some voice over work.
Must have been my flawless diction and colourful tones she wrote and correspondingly mimed the words, but not before there was a slight hesitation and her mouth made a peculiar shape almost like a stutterer when they have to imagine the word in order to pronounce it. I wanted to take the pad off her then and there so she would have to try to make me understand every word so I could wonder at another of charming mannerisms.
Her life story over and a ream of paper later I realised that the last hour was practically the longest I’d ever been quiet, even placid no less, without being asleep. She put her arms down along her two sides as if to say – your turn.
What could I tell her? What could I discuss with her that wasn’t involved in making money? I needed time - time to generate a more personable side to me that was beyond the hard sell.
“When can you get out?” I blurted.
Complicated. Police need me. Moving to private hospital tomorrow. More secure
Of course, I’d forgotten. She’s under police guard. “Did you see the robbery?”
Yes.
Her pretty face corkscrewed with anxiety. I wanted to drop the subject. The prospect of seeing her again diminished but Adeona hadn’t finished.
I’m not supposed to tell you this. I saw one of the robbers. I’d been out to lunch and was just returning. He was coming out after the robbery with two others but he’d removed his woollen mask. We bumped into each other. He dropped his gun. The other two jumped into a car and one of them shouted to the other “Shoot her” He drew it down on me but it jammed. I ran as fast as I could straight into you.
My jaw sagged like it had dropped anchor. She noticed. There wasn’t anyway I wanted involved in this. I’d had enough for the one day. Unable to disguise my lack of machismo I exacerbated things by pretending to care.
“Have you given them a description?”
Adeona put the pad down. Who the fuck did she think I was - a knight on a white charger? I wanted to tell her that I just sold insurance but in her case Turner was right. I couldn’t help her. Then she picked up the paper again but her demeanour was solemn.
Not yet. The doctor told them. Maybe tomorrow
I’ll be home tomorrow. I’ve made my statement. I felt the urge to leave like a fist that had grabbed my collar and was yanking me from the ward, but I attempted to undo the loss of my dignity by becoming a gentleman.
“Can I get you anything before I go?”
Unhappy but graciously unwilling to rebuff my offer she made a final entry.
I need to pee
Bollocks I said to myself as I beamed dishonestly toward Adeona. “Of course; where’s the pan?”
She put her hand to her mouth as her cheeks expanded with unexpressed mirth. She looked at the portable urinal and commenced her own variation on the semaphore system which seemed to indicate that she had trouble going on it. Then she manufactured a walking motion with her fingers. I flushed again. At least I knew she could walk now.
I peeled back the sheets. She touched her left thigh. Deadleg she mimed. Awkwardly we grappled with each other until I could extract her from the bed as comfortable as was possible and then hook my right arm and shoulder around her back to support her left side while she took all the weight on her right foot. Then we stumbled our way out of the ward like the gallant losers in a three-legged race.
There was still no sign of Turner. Who the fuck was in charge of this shambles - Tom and Jerry? If anything kicked off what did they think I could do?
“Which way?” I asked trying not to sound too strained. She was deceptively heavy yet looked so sleight and I wondered if they’d put lead in her cast. She nodded right. As we cobbled along I could hear my two best police mates chatting noisily in a room up ahead in the first room on the right in the adjacent corridor.
“Do we have to go past them?”
Adeona shook her head and urged me further down the corridor. We idled past the room but I could see a gap in the door that the two policemen were stretched out, drinking coffee. They didn’t notice us. Beyond here the corridor was dark and the wards were empty. They’d obviously sectioned off the wing for security; perhaps a reason why it was so lax elsewhere. A door came up on our left and Adeona edged me toward it. It was a store cupboard.
I looked at her with muted exasperation but she shrugged her shoulders as if somebody had deliberately exchanged the lavatory in a clandestine building project. She mouthed sorry and angled her eyes backwards. It looked as if we were going to have to pass the caffeine sentinels after all.
We disturbed them; that was a given. Adeona stumbled into the wall and out they came, armed, as if to rebel an invasion from North Korea. I’d never seen a revolver in real life and I leapt back twisting my right ankle and letting go of Adeona. Windsor snatched her up before she fell, but Tudor, although closer to me, let me hit the deck.
“You stupid bastard – what the fuck were you doing?”
Tudor towered over me. For a moment I thought he was going to force his foot down on my ankle. “More appropriately, what the fuck were you doing?”
“She needed the loo” I answered, drawing my foot and temptation away from him.
Windsor, who was propping Adeona up with his huge right bicep, wagged the index finger of his left hand at her. “You were told, young woman, not to leave the ward”
“How can we protect you if you don’t do as we say” Tudor’s words seemed fraudulent, as if he’d like to have seen her abducted.
“Back to bed” ordered DCI Windsor like an overfed and spring-less Zebedee and slung her over his shoulder.
“She has concussion; be careful” I cried.
“I didn’t give her it” he said and ambled back to the ward effortlessly, as though he had no more than a tea bag on his shoulder.
“We’d better get you seen to” said Tudor “There’s a spare bed in there”
He pointed to the ward next to Adeona’s.
“I’m struggling here Colin” I wasn’t the most pain tolerant of men but I would rather have crawled to the bed than ask for his assistance but I was going nowhere without him.
“I’ll make you a wager. You can call me Colin when you can sell me insurance. Okay Charlie?” But at least he helped me up and then called to his partner. “Tom, have you finished putting Goldilocks to bed?”
“Yep – bedpan and all”
Poor Adeona; Windsor was the complete antithesis of a bedside manner.
“Nip over to the other wing and fetch a nurse”
“There’s one here” I said
“Where?” replied Tudor incredulously “No-one’s allowed on this wing except DCI Windsor, myself and PC Turner”
. “She was here about ten minutes ago. Unless Turner’s bleached his uniform”
“Turner’s patrolling the lift area. He’s been there since we came up”
“What about the stairwell?”
“We’re watching that”
“A screen” I said in mock admiration
“Exactly” said Windsor
“Well we’re secure then” I served my first sarcastic ace of this overlong game.
“It’s too soon anyway”
“You shouldn’t be second guessing desperate men”
“That’s what I get paid to do”
“How many did you arrest?”
“We’ll have them all by Friday”
“You didn’t get any? Then they’re sure to come”
“Not tonight”
“These were professionals” Windsor interrupted, “They don’t take chances”
“Like robbing banks in broad bloody daylight” Hey, I was getting solid at this.
“They close at five don’t they?” Tudor snarled in back-up.
“The money’s still there isn’t it? They collect all day”
“Well that’s a lot less risky isn’t it Colin?”
“Especially if they’re using nitro glycerine with the state of the art dampener Tom”
“There’s always that new pneumatic drill with that new silencer Colin”
“Maybe they could just ask the manager to leave the door open Tom?”
I wasn’t equipped to beat them; they probably had sarcastic dreams.
“Besides they’re probably still counting the money” Windsor said.
Tudor shot him an angry glance as if he’d elucidated just a little too much information.
They both left the ward, Windsor turned left toward the stairwell while Tudor walked to the lifts.
I leant back on the bed and gazed at the balloon forming above my right foot. That stupid gun happy prat; I bet that was the first time he’s had his hands on a revolver in fucking years and he’s taken me off the road for at least two weeks. That’s a lot of compensation with what I earn, I thought; then again they’d never pay out, not with Butch and Sundance here. Even now I bet Tudor’s fabricating a fable to rival Aesop; a nice neat narrative in which to lose the truth.
I wondered if either of them would actually fetch help or rather leave me in pain. I waggled it persistently in a futile gesture to find some angle that relieved the agony. Then I heard a clatter next door. Something had hit the floor. “The bastards are here!”
I have to admit I’m not the bravest of men but I grabbed a flower vase sitting next to me and sprang from the bed like Nijinsky limping as rapidly as a wounded hare would do and burst into Adeona’s ward.
“Try me you cowards” I cried, on one foot, brandishing the vase, as the other slipped beneath me on the spilled contents of the bedpan Windsor had left Adeona sitting on. My head hit the floor hard but I remained conscious enough to glimpse the nurse, Tudor had called to assist me, run in with an elastic bandage for my right ankle.
“You’re going to need another” I grimaced and passed out.