school photos 20

I thought being locked up in the ward would be like being in the nick at Hall Street. Pacing two and a half steps one way, sharp turn, three the other, careful not to stand on your bed. I’d be too psyched up and not be able to sleep. The drugs they’d given me, two little white tablets with a sip of tepid water, knocked me out like a six-iron.  At first, in a woozy way, I thought I was in my bedroom at home and turned over in bed. Even when I looked up it was still murky enough to blur the edge of the solitary chair near the window, and the square of desk used for stubbing out fags and god knows what else, as if I was being prepped to sit some big exam about hospital life. The wind outside tapping the rain against the windowpane and the radiator oozing heat conspired to bring a glow of cosy warmth to my body and a feeling getting up from bed could be put off forever.  

My sheets were sticky and smelly as a shroud in a battlefield, but I pulled them up and around my ears. I must have knocked off again, because I’d a strange dream. A door opened further down the hall and ‘see you later’ was swallowed by it being shut over. Bare feet squelched a few short steps on the newly mopped floor and paused outside my room. A blink of light. She squeezed over the threshold and through the thin gap her body created and into my room. I knew who it was by the way she breathed.  She’d told me to wait for her. My whole life had been waiting for her—a flashing of neurons and dendrites, flushing across tender skin, tricking my blood, thickening my heart so everything focussed on the here and now of touch. A gibbous moon hung low bringing the outside in.  Pressing her bum cheeks against the sill, she lifted her flouncy nightie, her bare legs flung apart, skin gleaming like birch, fingering that damp cloud of hair, making herself groan.  Her fecundity filled the room like a bouquet of dying flowers pinned to the lapels of a corpse. I tried to jump out of bed, to move my legs, or shift my arm, but the only movement was my cock pulsing and straining in the bag of bones that was my body. But I had a sudden weird sense of playful delight. I giggled out loud at the absurdity of the situation, with the knowledge every breath, every action she took, was a bright messenger travelling from her head and hand to the top of my skull. The phut, slip and slap of hard working fingers on oleaginous skin built up into a crescendo of moaning, but when her hand brushed back the cowl of dark hair from her face, the little girl Lily grinned at me. ‘Fucked you, didn’t I.’ Her voice was high and shrill, but the red lipstick coated round her mouth was the same colour as Janine’s.

            Breakfast was porridge, Cornflakes or toast, served from behind a hatch in the kitchen. It was more difficult choosing a seat than what I wanted to eat. Most patients weren’t up yet. Those that were took a table that seated two, or even four, to themselves. With the piggy mess they made with smoking and eating it was easy to see why. I nipped in beside someone a bit older than me, but he looked harmless.  Immaculately turned-out. He wore denim shirt and jeans with the legs rolled up exposing pristine Nordock white trainers and white socks, the type no one would wear in real life. His hair was an early black Elvis wave across his brow, perfectly neat, but he foot-tapped a beat as he chewed and gummed toast, but it was T-Rex blaring out of the old-fashioned radiogram in the dayroom across the passageway. I dragged the sugar bowl from his side of the table to mine, which seemed to upset him. He made a break for it, knocking over a chair in the process.

            ‘Don’t mind George,’ shouted the woman behind the counter, ‘he doesn’t like his things moved about’.

            ‘Sorry,’ I replied.

            Her snaggle of hair nodded in acknowledgement. She stirred something with a metal spatula on one the trays No nonsense NHS black glasses that magnified the light blue of her eyes and the wrinkles surround them. The long lenses of her specs scrutinised me picking at my Cornflakes and offered the only piece of advice I’d gotten from staff since I’d arrived. ‘Janine doesn’t really do mornings. You got her on one of her good days.  She’s a mopey little piece—best avoided—most   afternoons.’ She scrunched up her nose and mouth making wrinkles stand atop other wrinkles. ‘I suppose she’s a night bug, swanning about to god know’s what hour.’ She sniffed. ‘Never get her in her own bed,’ she added, raising an eyebrow, clattering a pot lid off and shaking her head as if the contents disappointed her.

            I showed no sign that I’d heard her. I stacked my plate with the others at the hatch. Slopping the food I hadn’t eaten into a rectangular metal bin, on wheels, pushed tight against the wall. Despite what the grumpy granny had said I couldn’t help quickly turning when someone came into the dining room, but it was only an older man. By the smug look on grumpy granny’s face she’d caught me looking. Her plastic nametag said Nancy McMurty and the black font told me she was a SEN nurse. I figured she’d did her training with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. I didn’t want to pick a fight with her and sloped off to the safety of the dayroom.

            Everybody had their own favourite chair. I sat where Janine and me had sat yesterday, with a good view of the corridor. For some reason, the chatter and hubbub of other patients made me dozy. My head dropped onto my chest. Someone kicked my feet. I settled with a start, jerking upright in the chair. SEN McMurty handed me a glass of water. It was served lukewarm. She tapped two tablets from the bottle-lid out into my hand. Swallowing them down with another gulp of water I asked her, ‘Whit are they anyway?’  

            ‘Your Meds.’ She turned, nipping away to catch another patient sitting across from me with the same trick.  

             I must have missed lunch. When I opened my eyes the opening, or closing bars, of the theme music for Crown Court was on the telly, but I wasn’t hungry. My mouth was like an ash pit. Just really needed to pee and get a drink of something.  It was also a good excuse to do a circuit of the ward, but I returned to my seat without having seen her. I brought back my drawing pad and crayons. It was impossible drawing with them, but I started a rough sketch in purple of the woman with the scary hair across from me. But the way I kept tilting my head to take another gander at her frightened her away.  When I looked up Janine came waltzing into the ward. She wore a loose fitting man’s striped shirt and tan-coloured woman’s slacks. Her make-up was a tad heavy on the walnut stain, good for a certain type of fence. Not so good for my girlfriend. I held my hand up in acknowledgement. I was so glad to see her; the broadest grin cleaved my cheeks. She looked over, sneered as she hurried past without a backward glance. My mind raced.  I sat rocking looking straight ahead, like a cat watching a bird feeder. My drawings fell from my lap onto the floor, bounced, settled face-up, on the picture of the little girl I’d been neglecting, Lily.