Hungry Paul woke with the feeling of being fastened to his bed by Velcro. His body ached with a painful stiffness that stretched up and down his spine and into his thighs and calves. At the previous evening’s judo class, they had put the gentle beginners’ exercises behind them early and moved on to the business end of the training, practising various hip tosses and shoulder throws. Hungry Paul had been paired off with a man who was built like a wheelie bin, had cauliflower ears and who wore tape on his fingers, like Michael Jackson. He was called Lazlo and he didn’t speak any English, not that he left much room for small talk when he was tossing Hungry Paul around like a chef handling pizza dough. It was unclear whether the sensei had confused Hungry Paul with someone else, or just wanted to discourage him from ever coming back again, but it was clearly a monumental mismatch. Even when Lazlo stood still without putting up any defence, Hungry Paul could barely lift one of his legs off the mat, ending up with his arms and legs clamped around him like a randy corgi.
The evening had already started badly when Hungry Paul picked up what would become a black eye, not from combat, but from the stacked mats that were stored on a high shelf and fell off onto his face when he tried to pull them down. He then got a telling off because he hadn’t cut his toenails and scratched the sensei’s shin while he was demonstrating the moves they were supposed to practice. After seeing him get ragdolled all evening by Lazlo, the sensei came over and told Hungry Paul that he was improving but that he needed to fix his mind-set, pointing to the tea stains on Hungry Paul’s gi as evidence.
Hungry Paul came home and went straight to bed for twelve hours, too stiff and tired to shower or brush his teeth. His body lay frozen the next morning as Helen knocked on his door to remind him about going to the hospital to do some volunteering that morning. He tried to shout out that it might be more appropriate to visit A&E as a patient, but even his tongue felt broken. Eventually, he managed to manoeuvre out of bed and make his way gingerly to the bathroom, walking like a stiff slow-motion cowboy.
His entreaties to his mother over breakfast were batted away. Helen, who never approved of the whole martial arts idea anyway, wasn’t going to allow judo-related excuses to become admissible.
‘Come on, you said yourself that charity has to involve a bit of sacrifice,’ said Helen, ‘You can’t just back out when it doesn’t suit you. The one thing about helping vulnerable people is that it’s a bigger deal when you let them down. You’ve already missed one visit, so no buts, let’s get going.’
‘Your mother’s right,’ added Peter, ‘and if you stay here you’ll have to help me empty the attic and haul loads of junk to the dump. Not a nice task for an aching body—I should know!’
Hungry Paul gave up. He knew tough love when he saw it.
‘Okay, but go easy on me. No lifting old ladies or moving beds around. My body is on strike today.’
‘To be honest, I’m not keen on these judo lessons,’ said Helen, ‘You’re going to have a nice shiner for your Chamber of Commerce prize-giving on Saturday. You’ll look like a thug in the photos.’
‘What photos?’ asked Hungry Paul. ‘They didn’t say anything about photos.’
‘Oh they’re bound to have the local paper there or some newsletter for the Chamber. Don’t worry about it. You should be proud of yourself that you’ve been shortlisted. We’re certainly proud of you, aren’t we Peter?’
‘I think it’s great. I just thought it was a bit of fun, but you did really well to get to the last three. What was your entry?’ asked Peter.
‘You’ll have to wait until the prize-giving. It’s supposed to be a big reveal. I mightn’t even win. I hope there isn’t too much fuss,’ worried Hungry Paul.
‘Just enjoy it. It’s not often you get to go to this sort of thing. We’ll all be there to support you.’ Peter was trying to stop Hungry Paul projecting forward and worrying about one of his least favourite things: a hullabaloo.
‘Anyway, we had better be going. See you later, love.’ Helen kissed Peter on the forehead, bald heads in general getting more kisses than the hairy kind, which is some small comfort.
When they arrived at the hospital, Helen made a suggestion. ‘Why don’t we split up this time? We want to make sure everybody gets a visit and we don’t want to crowd the patients.’
Hungry Paul’s shoulders dropped. His conversation game was a bit off and he wasn’t sure he would be able to fill an hour with his usual repertoire of comments about the weather and questions about the standard of food at the hospital.
As they entered the ward, the lady in the first bed shouted ‘Religious bitch—mind your own business,’ at Helen, again confusing her with the visiting Minister of the Eucharist.
‘Why don’t you help that lady?’ suggested Helen, guiding Hungry Paul with a gentle push to his lower back.
Before he had the chance to answer, Helen was straightening the pillows of the lady in the middle bed, who was asleep, surrounded by fresh flowers and homemade get well cards. Helen then moved on to Barbara, who still hadn’t been sent home.
‘Hello again Helen. How nice to see you,’ said Barbara, ‘I’m afraid my scan wasn’t clear so I have to stay in for more tests. I hope it’s nothing untoward, not that they give you any clues. I’m bored silly with crosswords, so I’m glad to have someone to talk to. These two aren’t up to much,’ she said, pointing with her thumb to the other patients.
And with that, Helen and Barbara entered into what Peter called ‘nattering’: a seamless narrative of personal stories, asides and value judgements, delivered in a point/counterpoint style, with each woman taking her turn on the mic with a seamlessness known only to middle-aged women and gangsta rappers. Hungry Paul was left standing at the first bed with his coat on and his options limited. He tried to gain eye contact with the swearing woman in the first bed but she just stared straight ahead.
‘Do you mind if I take a seat, love?’ he asked, instantly regretting the ‘love’ bit as a misjudged imitation of his mother that sounded weird coming from a man.
He got no answer.
He pulled the chair aside and sat down, feeling rusty and sore. It was nice to be still and quiet. His mother and Barbara provided a pattering background noise that was easy to zone out from, but otherwise the wards were quiet. No nurses dashing around, no TVs blaring and no patients swearing or crying or asking confused questions. He sat there calmly, simply sharing the moment with the woman. Her chart showed that her name was Mrs Hawthorn. Mrs Olivia Hawthorn. Hungry Paul was good at this: just sitting, not fidgeting, not thinking particularly, and simply listening to the room. He never minded time. It neither dragged nor slipped away for him. He always felt in time. Just here, just being around. There was a gentle breeze blowing through the room and a faint smell of today’s dinner, which was gravy-like and indeterminate. He just sat there without small talk or prompts; nothing to get the relationship going, but no bum notes either.
After about twenty minutes, Mrs Hawthorn reached over and, without altering her straight-ahead gaze, took his hand. She gave it a barely perceptible squeeze. He accepted her hand gently, without trying to catch her eye or check her motive. Her skin was soft and thin. They held hands like that for the remaining forty minutes: silently and in comfort. When time was up and Helen came over, Mrs Hawthorn was fast asleep, still holding Hungry Paul’s hand in restful silence.
‘You two got on well by the looks of things. How did you win her over? She only gives me abuse,’ said Helen as they walked to the car park.
‘I didn’t do anything. Nothing at all,’ answered Hungry Paul, who tended not to overthink these things.
When they got home, Hungry Paul rang Leonard at work. They had arranged to play Monopoly that night, but Hungry Paul was still stiff and tired and wanted to suggest a more straightforward game like Connect 4 or Battleship.
‘Hello my old pal. What’s on your mind? Looking forward to the prize-giving I bet,’ answered Leonard in a chirpy voice.
‘My goodness, you’re in good form. Unfortunately I am somewhat in recovery mode. I wanted to ask a favour, actually. I had a rough judo session last night and am a little bit less than my best so I was wondering if we could play something easier than Monopoly tonight—I was thinking Connect 4 maybe? I don’t like to change plans at the last minute, but it’s just that judo is tricky until you get the hang of it.’
‘Oh, I see. Hmmm, this is awkward, you see—’
‘If it’s a problem, then I don’t mind changing back to Monopoly,’ interrupted Hungry Paul, ‘I wouldn’t want to let you down.’
‘Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that, well, I meant to ring you about this. You see, I’m supposed to meet Shelley tonight, and I forgot that I had double-booked myself a—’
‘Oh, I see. Well, that’s different. So maybe it’s b—’
‘I mean, I’m really sorry and I hate to let you down, it’s all my mistake, but it’s just that Shelley doesn’t always find it easy to arrange a night out because of Patrick, bec—’
‘Who is Patrick?’ asked Hungry Paul.
‘Oh that’s her son, he’s about s—’
‘A son! Oh, I never knew that. My goodness, you are jumping in at the deep end… eh, but I’m sure it’s all very straightforward. So I guess we’ll just have to do it another night instead maybe?’
‘Any night you like. And thanks for understanding. As you well know, I’m not often in this situation and I would really like it to work out so if you didn’t mind maybe we could meet tomorrow instead?’
‘Oh wait, I think tomorrow is booked,’ lied Hungry Paul, a little hurt, ‘so maybe I’ll just see you at the prize-giving on Saturday, if you’re still free that is?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it. I’ll be rooting for you. And next time, you get to pick which game we play. No arguments from me.’
After Hungry Paul had hung up, he gave the stubble on his chin a contemplative rub. His initial disappointment about the evening’s play soon receded, as the wider import of the conversation took its place. Undoubtedly Leonard, to his credit, had started making his long-overdue ‘one small step for man.’ He had the Roman book that he was writing on the side, and now a girlfriend. The girlfriend had a son, who could become Leonard’s kid if it all worked out. Imagine that. Even though Hungry Paul was happy for his friend, he couldn’t help but notice that things seemed to be moving on without him. This hit him with an unexpected heaviness. He started putting it all together. Grace would be married soon and would probably start a family. His parents were all but retired and kept talking about taking some big trip and specifically, some big trip without him. Judo had turned out harder than he had expected. His job at the Post Office—such as it was—would eventually be taken over by drones or robots. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t spend the rest of his life feeding birds and holding Mrs Hawthorn’s hand. And he certainly could not play board games every night by himself. Most games were four-player and it was already a compromise to play with just himself and Leonard.
Hungry Paul stretched out on the couch and felt his own limits. His body was just big enough to fit between the two arm rests. Lining everything up together—Leonard, Grace, his parents, and his own circumstances—he recognised a familiar pattern. Connect 4. Game Over.