Love Story 21

Da groaned and leaned on me as he lowered himself to the floor and shut his eyes.

‘Don’t die, Da,’ I wailed as he sucked in each breath in and blew it out with a gasping sound.

I looked for something to help clean up the blood from his nose and mouth. The back wall was fungal brown with damp. Cold seeping into my bones. The stink of sewerage rose from drains covered with wire mesh that ran under the brickwork. A modern Shanks lavatory white and unwieldy as a visiting relative sat in the corner. No toilet roll. Not even the shiny stuff they sometimes stuck in the toilets at our school. A wedged concrete platform beside it, off the floor to place your mat, but we hadn’t been issued with one or a blanket.  

I took off my jacket and raised Da’s head and let it plop back down onto it. His grey eyes studied me as I wiped at his mouth and nose with the end of my jumper bunched as the fist.

‘Sorry,’ he gurgled. ‘I think I’ve got a couple of broken ribs, or something.’

‘It wasnae your fault,’ I said. In a more upbeat tone, one that Mum would have used, ‘Just lie and try and get a good rest.’

‘Fat chance,’ he said. A pink bubble plinked as it came out of a nostril as he tried to laugh. He shut his eyes again. Locked in his own private hell. The kind Wormwood had warned me about.

I banged on the door and screamed for the ‘Turnkey,’ as other prisoners had done. Stood on tiptoes and squinted through the spyhole to see if there was a change in greyness that showed movement in the corridor outside. I took off my shoe and banged it on the door.

‘Shut-the-fuck up,’ I heard a half-cut voice shout from a few cells along. ‘I’m trying to get some shut eye. And yer fucking fucking me up.’

I let my hand fall to my side and my shoe to the floor. Putting it back on my foot to help keep warm. I was shivering. Da was too, but whether it was from the pain or the cold, I wasn’t sure.

I leaned against the wall, slid down it and sobbed at his feet.

‘C’mere,’ he said, opening his eyes. Turning his head, he winced, gritting his teeth.

I slid across and cradled his head in my arms. He let out a gasp and a shriek, which I knew was from the pain. I stared at his face. We weren’t a touchy-feely family. I couldn’t remember the last time Da had held me or even touched me. The edge of my thumb smoothed out his bushy eyebrows and my fingers traced over his broken nose and sunken cheeks.

‘Proud of yeh,’ he said, lifting my hand. Placing it on his chest and over his heart. He tried to kiss my fingers but couldn’t raise his head far enough and it flopped down again onto my jacket. ‘Don’t yeh forget that whate’er happens.’

I rocked to and fro holding onto him for warmth and comfort. Must have dozed off. I was back in the machine-shop in hell and Wormwood had grown to his full height. However high I tilted my neck he was higher. Only part of his furry toe was in my face. He was gearing up to sing his soul song. I knew if I heard it I’d never be able to leave hell.

My neck rolled to the side. I spluttered as my eyes opened and I jerked awake. Da’s eyes remained closed and I knew he was unconscious. I shook him by the shoulders but his head and body were limp.

‘Da,’ I shrieked and gulped back tears. ‘Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,’ I cried, my face crumpling.

Letting out a scream, I tore at the cell door as if trying to gouge a hole in it. I couldn’t remember what I was howling to god or the devil or whoever else was listening. But the sense of urgency was picked up by the other in their cells. They started beating their doors too until it reverberated like war drums and guards came running with keys.

I slumped down, limp. The turnkey was standing there. Sandy hair swept back, and his head cocked to the side as he looked at me. ‘Whit’s the matter?’

‘My Da,’ I said. ‘I think he’s deid.’

‘One less Spam roll,’ he laughed. Then his face fell when he got a better look. He left the cell door open, his boots clattering along the corridor as he went in search of a phone.

They came in tag teams. The turnkey leading the way in case they got lost. The station manager had come down from his office on high. A tall, thin man, his tie loose and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He told me who he was, but I couldn’t remember his name only his official title. When the turnkey tried removing me from the cell, I attacked him, but he easily held me off. The station manager growled. ‘Just let him stay. Haven’t you clowns done enough fucking damage for one day?’

Dr Fleming came swinging his brown leather bag. He was used to civilians stepping aside. But the station manager’s bitten fingernails hooked on his arm as the doctor angled his body to get past him.

‘See tae the boy first.’ He pointed at me. ‘He’s bleeding.’  

‘It’s no my blood,’ I piped up.

‘Suffering Jesus,’ the station manager’s voice went low as he looked over at my da. ‘That’s aw I need.’

Dr Fleming opened his bag and pulled out his stethoscope, which he hooked around his neck on his good shirt and left dangling over his blue silk tie. He was portly and the exertion of kneeling made his face go reddish. He picked up my da’s left arm and held it up above his head and let it drop. It banged against the gritty floor, making me jump. Galvanised, he stuck the stethoscope against my da’s chest, nudging the crucifix to the side. His lips puckered and squeezed his eyes into slits as if looking at something far away. I held my breath as he listened. Letting out a gasp, when he shook his head.

He rubbed at his eyes and snorted. One last trick, he rooted through his bag. I saw the flash of a circular mirror; he cupped with a feint in his right hand and held it over my da’s mouth and nose. Angling his head to check. The results were conclusive. Another nod.  

Sweat creased his forehead when he stood up. ‘Lots of paperwork,’ he declared.