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They’ve put Peghead on a ward on the fourth floor just down from Maternity. I might have cracked a joke about that if his wife wasn’t sat at his bedside and I didn’t know they’d tried for years and hadn’t been able to have kids. Now that they’re past the mid-life mark, I wonder if it’s something they still talk about, and whether being here, with newborns at the other end of the corridor, feels like another one of life’s sick jokes.
I kiss Mary on the cheek and tell her not to get up on my account when she rises from the bedside chair, but she insists, says the place is too stuffy and she’ll be glad of the break. She taps Peghead on the back of the hand and tells him she’ll go to the cafeteria downstairs for a coffee, then promises, at his insistence, to fetch him something sweet and loaded with calories, and maybe a magazine from the shop.
After she’s gone, I sit in the plastic chair she vacated, and assume by its warmth that she’s been here a while.
‘I love my wife, Fuller.’
‘Don’t doubt it, Don,’ I say, surprised that these should be his first words to me, and wondering if his stint in here has led to some serious life contemplation. I’ve heard that too much time away from the job can do that to a copper.
‘But she’s the worst fucking liar this side of the Severn Bridge,’ he adds.
‘She is?’
‘Coffee, my arse.’ He shuffles himself upright against the pillows, fists pressing into the mattress to give him leverage. ‘Fag break’s what she really means.’
‘I didn’t know Mary was a smoker.’
‘You’re not meant to. Neither am I.’
‘You don’t approve?’
‘Couldn’t give a shit.’ He shoots me a pointed look, as if I’ve accused him of defrauding the Queen. And while I like to think I’m pretty sharp on most occasions, I’m struggling a bit now.
‘So why hide it?’ I ask.
He snorts a laugh, rests one hand over the other on top of the folded sheet around his waist. ‘That’ll be the Catholic in her. It’s not me, per se, she’s hiding it from. It’s her bloody self. She can’t live with the guilt.’
‘Jesus,’ I say, without thinking, then mumble an apology in case Peghead’s of the same denomination as his wife.
‘Once again, my dear colleague, I couldn’t give a shit.’
He doesn’t look too bad, all things considered. Aside, that is, from the bandage wrapped around his upper left arm and the grey shadows under his eyes, which I would guess has more to do with being stuck here in a bed that’s not his own, than anything else. The pursed lips and weary blink he gives me suggest the same.
‘Still got you on remand then, fella?’ I say.
‘Thought you’d come to break me out of here,’ he mouths, gaze flitting round the room to be sure no one’s listening. But the three beds opposite are occupied with visitors, and a blue curtain separates us from his roommates on the other side of it.
‘Now, now, Peg. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t ensure you were getting the treatment you needed?’
‘The best kind. Treatment, my left bollock. Waste of a sodding bed. I keep telling them that. Waste of expensive tests that all come back clear, and a waste of these poor nurses’ time and energy when they’re already stretched.’
‘Pull the other one. Bet you’re a breath of fresh air for them, they can’t wait to start their next shift.’
My colleague glares at me with his chin dipped to his chest, and if nothing else, I can see he’s not lost his appetite since he’s been in here. If anything, he might have put on an extra couple of pounds around the jowls.
‘Seriously though, mate. What’s the prognosis?’
Peghead draws in a sigh that pulls his head upright, and folds his arms on top of the bedsheet. ‘You want the medical one or the personal one?’
‘There’s more than one?’
‘Indeed there is. But one is strictly off the record. Confidential.’
‘Okay?’ I say, not sure I want to get tangled up in Don ‘Peghead’ Edwards’ personal affairs, particularly the non public knowledge ones.
‘The medical prognosis, by the good staff of City Hospital, is thus far I am as fit as a butcher’s dog. Well, aside from the out of sync ticker, which a jump start put right, and the extra poundage, but that’s ‘cause I’ve been stuck here on my arse for the past week.’
‘So there’s nothing wrong with you?’
‘Well...’ He draws out the word, batting his hand through the air, discarding the bits he’s not telling me. ‘Nothing that popping some pills won’t put right.’
‘No death sentence, then?’
‘Nope. Sorry to disappoint, Fuller. Much as I appreciate your visit and all that, but we don’t need to say our last goodbyes just yet. Hence my eagerness to be gone from here, and back to the arms of my beautiful filthy liar of a chain-smoking wife, our two Labradors, my sixty-inch flatscreen, brand new La-Z-Boy, and the WRU Challenge Cup, which is hotting up right about now, as I understand it from my acquaintance over the way.’
He nods his head, looking across the room to an old fella in the bed opposite who’s sipping orange juice through a straw that his visitor, presumed wife, holds to his lips.
‘Came in to have his tonsils out,’ Peghead says, and I look back to see if he’s serious. ‘Ninety-two.’
‘Shitting hell. Might they not have just left them in at this point?’
My colleague shrugs. ‘Could have another ten years or more going for him yet. Be a shame to have a couple of bollocks knocking around in your throat the entire time.’
‘Suppose.’
‘Course, you know what his secret is, don’t you?’
I’m looking over at the old man trying to figure it out, when Peghead says, ‘Twenty years his junior.’
The woman at his bedside puts the empty glass on the side table and wipes at his mouth with a tissue. The tissue bunched in her hand goes into her coat pocket, and her husband eases his head to the pillow. A perfect, wordless synchrony.
‘That’s where we went wrong, Fuller,’ Peghead says, with a level of wistfulness I’m not used to from him. His gaze is across the room, but his mind somewhere else.
‘Thought you loved your lying, chain-smoking wife, Peg?’
‘I do,’ he says, with a humph that snaps him out of his trance. ‘That’s the fucking problem.’
I chuckle as I lean back in the seat and cross my arms. ‘Well, it’s good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour, mate.’
He humphs again at my sarcasm. ‘I have lost something though.’
‘Yeah? What’s that?’
‘My mojo.’
The way he looks at me – half-cautious, half-challenging – tells me the mojo he’s referring to is not of the intimate kind. He nods to confirm that what I’m thinking is right.
‘Soon as I’m out of here, I’ll be drawing up the letter.’
‘Bullshit. You’ve got years left in you yet.’
‘That I have. And I’d like to keep them, thank you very much.’
I drop my folded arms and lean forward to rest my elbows on my knees. ‘You’re not serious, mate?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Good question.
He drops his right shoulder further down the pillow to draw closer, and fixes me with a hard glare. ‘He could have fucking killed us, Steve.’
‘Like hell. We had it covered.’
‘Did we? How’s that slice to the head you took?’
I’m not liking this Peghead much. The one trying to force his point.
‘It’s just a scratch.’
‘Yeah, alright,’ he says, straightening up again. ‘You got lucky. We both did. You damn well know it too. People get killed, Fuller. Officers get killed. We’re not invincible. We’re flesh and blood, same as any other. And for what? To be someone else’s hero after we’re dead? The ultimate martyrdom?’
‘Boucher was a one-off—’
‘Boucher was a fucking warning, is what he was. To me, anyway. A wake-up call.’
‘So that’s it? Your training, the years behind you, the hard work, your future?’
‘This is to insure my future.’
‘Your career, then.’
‘Who gives a fuck about career?’
‘A surprising amount of people.’
‘Then they’re as dumb as I always suspected.’
Our voices have risen. I glance around the ward, but it’s only the couple opposite who are looking our way. They drop their heads and turn to one another to pretend otherwise.
‘Well, each to his own,’ Peghead says, pushing out the bedsheet creases with his palm. ‘This feels right for me, that’s all.’
I could argue that it’s the fright he had, or the medication, or the time spent alone thinking, or maybe pressure from Mary, but he’s right. Each to his own. I’m not the one who’ll be able to talk him out of it, and who am I to even try? What if Boucher had clipped an artery? Mary might have been choosing her husband’s casket now instead of what chocolate bar he likes best.
‘What will you do instead?’ I ask.
His lips press together before they thin into an attempt at a smile.
‘World’s my oyster,’ he says, with a gleam in his eye that to my mind looks more like fear than anticipation. The way you look when the rug’s just millimetres away from being pulled out from under your feet. It’s a disappointing answer too. If he knows what he’ll do, he’s not saying, but I’m inclined to think he hasn’t thought that far ahead yet.
I hold out my palm, propping my elbow on the edge of the mattress. He grasps it, his hand hot, or mine is.
‘Whatever you decide, Peg, I wish you all the best. I mean that, mate.’
‘I know you do, Fuller. You’re a good ‘un, I always said that.’
‘But we’ll miss you. No doubt about it.’
‘You’ll be a man down, that’s all. Until you can recruit some other sucker, anyway.’
I’m on my feet, but Peghead’s still got my hand clamped in his. He tugs me a little closer like he’s not done yet, there’s more to say. Which is around about the time I feel that pounding in my heart that makes me want to get away from here, away from him. I paste on the smile and hope he’ll make it quick.
‘Could have been you lying here, Steve. Ange feeding you juice through a straw. Think on that. That’s all I’m saying, mate. Think on that.’
Outside in the forecourt, as I rush to the multi-storey where I left the car, sweat gluing the t-shirt to my back and every nerve ending firing in all the pores of my skin, I see Mary. She’s sitting under the pagoda, her bag gripped tight in one hand on her lap, and in the other a cigarette is propped between her fingers. We both stare at one another, unsure who’s catching who up to no good. It’s only when she drops the cigarette to the floor, where she grounds it out under the sole of her shoe, that I turn and hurry on to the pedestrian crossing, neither of us saying anything.
*
I can’t remember much of the drive home from the hospital, only that I haven’t stopped thinking of the old couple on the ward, Peghead’s words of advice, the sense of sad finality about it all that made me wish I hadn’t bothered with the trip out there to see him. When I pull up outside the house, I’m certain I won’t be visiting again.
Taking my phone from the side pocket, I use my sleeve to brush away tiny slivers of glass from the cracked screen. Not too much damage, at least, just one long crack down one side. Ange’s car is in the driveway, and a glance to Dan’s room tells me he’s up, his curtains pushed back and window open. It’s only just gone two, but it feels like it should be five o’clock.
A strong smell of perfume hangs in the hallway and Ange’s bag is on the side table. I drop my keys into the drawer and go first into the kitchen to fill the kettle, then into the sitting room where she’s perched on the edge of the sofa applying lipstick with one hand while holding up her compact with the other.
‘Alright?’ I say, when I receive only a cursory glance.
She snaps the compact shut. ‘I’m going out with Lisa for a few hours. That okay?’
‘Course.’ I drop into the armchair opposite her. ‘You don’t have to ask, Ange.’
‘Just checking, that’s all.’ She gets up, crossing the room to put the bag in the sideboard drawer. ‘Been somewhere nice?’
‘Not really. Went to see Don.’
‘You were up early.’
In the kitchen the kettle clicks as it finishes boiling. She doesn’t ask how Don is.
‘Couldn’t sleep.’
She pushes the drawer closed with her hip.
‘Where are you two off, then?’ I ask, before she leaves the room.
She stops and turns. She looks good. Green fitted blouse, white trousers, sandals, her hair hooked behind her ears but falling soft and clean and natural around her shoulders. She’s made up her eyes to bring out their colour and match the blouse, but when they come my way, they’re guarded in a way that suggests I don’t live up to what they hoped to see.
‘Cardiff. Lisa says there’s a new bistro opened up on St Mary’s Street we should try. Bit of shopping too, that sort of thing.’ The sort of thing you’d hate, she doesn’t say. ‘She asked where you were. Freddie was trying to get hold of you.’
‘Yeah.’ I sit forward in the chair, looking to my palm and the scuffed skin, spots of dried blood. ‘I messaged him.’
‘Right.’ Her sandals peel over the laminate floor.
‘Actually, Ange, before I forget. I’ll be out tomorrow.’
She pulls her top lip into her mouth, waiting for me to explain.
‘Could be most of the day, but I’ll try to be as quick as I can.’
Her hand clutches the edge of the door, her nails tapping against the wood. ‘Well that’s a shame. I thought we could have gone out. The three of us.’
‘Gone out where?’
‘Anywhere, Steve.’
I sigh, knead at my right hand with the thumb of my left. ‘Shit. I can’t get out of it. I’m sorry.’
‘If you could tell Dan that, then. I told him to keep tomorrow free.’
She disappears out into the hall, leaving only the scent of her perfume and the weight of her disappointment behind.
‘Ange,’ I call.
‘What?’ she calls back.
‘It’s work. I’ve got to be there.’
‘Well if it’s work...’ she mutters, but not so quiet that I don’t catch it, nor subtle enough for the sarcasm to not cut right through me. I get up from the chair and yank open the door, taking her by surprise so her eyes flash up to mine.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
She huffs a laugh. ‘What’s wrong with me? What kind of fucking job has you working on a Sunday when your shift doesn’t start till Tuesday?’
I didn’t tell her what day my shift starts, I only told her it was next week. Which means Freddie’s been talking again.
‘So now it’s my fucking job? Didn’t hear you complaining about it when you wanted me to go for promotion.’
She stares at me as if she doesn’t even know where to start. But there’s something else too, like maybe it’s not worth the effort.
‘What’s got into you lately, Steve?’ she says, quieter than a moment ago, putting me on the back foot.
‘Nothing’s got into me. Just found my fucking voice, Ange.’
I stride down the hall to the kitchen, slamming the door behind me. A second later, she does the same with the front door. And for a while after, her question replays in my head, and all I can think of is why I said nothing, when what I really meant was everything.
