Angel 63 (going home)

A nurse held the door open for the consultant and Angel smiled up at her. The nurse’s fresh face made the tiled room seem less stuffy, less antiseptic with the patina of hospital bleach, more homely. Her auburn hair was pulled tight in a glossy ponytail, her nails short and clean and her uniform just out of the wrapper.

The consultant was fidgety, a busy man in a hurry. Angel didn’t mind. She just waited for him to tell her which ward Lisa was in so she could visit her. She’d never been away from her mum and would be looking for her.  

He stood just inside the door. His polka-dotted red bow tie presented him as a fun person. This was offset by scratchy suit jacket, Chinos, and shiny brogues. He had one of those slightly out-of-kilter faces and Angel could never imagine him being young. Rusty-coloured hair swept like stunted, zig-zagging, traffic-cones across a bald patch the size of the M8 motorway. His dark eyes flickered in the direction of Church standing in prison uniform at the window and his forehead furrowed. She was holding Adam against her hip and pointing at the sky and the car park and mouthing, ‘Birdy, birdy’.

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you…’ he addressed Angel and introduced himself as a Mr McVeigh.

She stared at him half smiling and nodding now and again, when he paused, and to show that she was listening as he explained how her world had crumbled and Lisa had died in carefully modulated tones.

‘No physiological reason why you can’t have other children….’ He finished talking with an upbeat note, ‘Keep your chin up’.

He was already turning on his heels to go when Church halted him with a muttered query.

‘Can I speak to you outside, in the corridor?’ Church lowered Adam to the floor and he crawled towards Angel. She swooped down and picked him up, pressing her face to his face and kissing his brightened cheeks.

Mr McVeigh looked at Church and glanced sideways at the nurse as if for an explanation. He sucked in his cheeks, a strangulated noise emerging from the back of his throat before he barked, ‘Who are you, again?’

Church stepped around Angel’s chair, towards him. ‘I work in the prison service and…’

He held up a hand to stop her from speaking and looked over the top of her head. ‘Contact my office and speak to my secretary.’

The young nurse held the door open and he scooted out the door. She scurried behind him the door shutting and the room settling to before and after.

Angel turned to Church to say something and her mouth hung open. She realised she was wearing the wrong shoes, she had on slippers and was still in her jim-jams. Her left arm ached and her back was sore from clutching Adam.

‘Say Lisa,’ she said into Adam’s hair. She drew out the word, repeating it again and again, ‘Lee-a-s-s-a…’

Then laughed. ‘Say belly-belly.’ That was a game Lisa liked to play, showing her stomach and proudly patting the rounded curve and sticky-out belly button. ‘Belly-belly.’ She was such a wee grubber. ‘Belly-belly.’ Giggling when mummy mirrored her action and showed her belly. Laughing and giggling, when she grabbed her and hugged her, making a game of belly-belly. Adam joined in, but he didn’t really understand. ‘Belly-belly.’ Not in the way, Lisa did, the backward and forward momentum, the tickling and playing and the touching and toing-and-froing of life.   

‘We need to get back,’ Church rested a hand on Angel’s shoulder. ‘Adam’ll be getting hungry. And his nappy needs changed,’ she reminded her he was stinking and had been for a while. ‘We’ll find a nurse and get a nappy to change him before we go?’

‘Whit about Lisa?’ Angel cocked her head as if listening. ‘Won’t she need changed?’

‘The nurses will see to it.’ Church drifted towards the door as she spoke. ‘They helped bring her into the world, remember?’

‘Yeh, that’s right,’ Angel got up, her legs felt wobbly and weak. Adam squirmed in her lap and cried.

‘You want me to take Adam?’ Church held out her arms.

Adam looked at her and uttered, ‘Nah,’ quite clearly.

They chuckled quietly together. Church led the way to the Accident and Emergency block and through the doors outside to where a taxi was waiting with its engine running. The wind was picking up and blew a strand of hair into the corner of Angel’s mouth. She pulled it away, while carrying Adam.

The driver wasn’t chatty, he gunned the cab and headed towards the M9. Church looked knackered and slumped in the back seat.  Adam fell asleep on Angel’s chest, his rhythmic breathing in tune with the passing world outside.  He needed changed and she could smell the stale sweat from his skin and realised she also needed a shower or bath. She locked her hands through his and breathed him in as the cab began to slow. As they passed McDonalds, going towards the ring-roads, Angel felt a flicker of hunger.

All around them buses, cars and lorries slowed with them. A motorbike weaved through the traffic as horns beeped. Up ahead a workman in hardhat and yellow high-viz vest held a pole with a red, Stop sign.

Angel laughed. She remembered Pizza Face telling her that was one of the first jobs he got. Directing traffic. He’d said it was a good way to figure a world in which everyone, in their own little metal bubble, spat venom at you. Hated you with a vengeance.   

The driver’s neck muscles were straining as if he was lifting heavy weights as he let go of the handbrake and inched forward and stopped. Inched forward and stopped.

‘He still sleeping?’ asked Church, nodding at Adam.

‘Aye, he’s sound.’ Angel rubbed at his shoulder.

‘Lazy bastards,’ grunted the driver coming to a stop, willing the pole to turn the other way and turn green for Go. ‘They were at this for about six weeks the last time and now they’re back at it.’  

Angel kissed the smooth skin on the back of Adam’s neck. Then stroked and crooned over the miraculous way his hair was so soft yet spiked and swirled near the crown. She wondered why the taxi driver was in such a hurry. He got paid the same rate for sitting in traffic, more in fact, than getting them back to Corton Vale quickly. The driver glanced at them in the mirror. She reached for the door handle.

‘Whit you doing?’ Church made a grab for her arm.

Adam jerked away and started screaming.

‘I’m going back to get Lisa. She’ll be wondering…’

The driver turned his head and looked at Church. ‘It’s alright, the doors locked.’

‘Just settle down,’ he spoke to Angel, as if talking to a child. ‘Won’t be long now.’

Up ahead the man turned the pole and it was green for Go. The taxi driver gunned the engine and they picked up speed.