‘Harry, I don’t want to hear that again.’
‘But, Pa. Everyone calls it a loony bin.’
He’d stalled it. Always was crap at parking, even before, you know. That’s why we’d gone in Doctors Only. There wasn’t a space big enough in Visitors.
‘Name everyone.’
He started the engine. Let go the handbrake. Blinked into the mirror. We jerked backwards, Pa muscling the steering wheel one way then the other.
‘Kylie Kelly.’
‘Since when did you care what that silly girl thought?’
‘Since Mo’s been in the … here, Pa.’
He poked round with the gear stick, we edged forwards, he softened his voice a bit.
‘Harry, honey, it’s a special psychiatric unit and there’s no shame in that.’
Oh, yeah, brilliant. That’s what I’d tell them.
He yanked at the handbrake, shoved the gear stick about.
‘Nutters, Pa,’
Crrrrunch went the gears.
‘I’m warning you, Harry.’
‘I was only saying, that’s another thing they say.’
‘They should know better.’ He found reverse, seemed to be doing all right.
‘Sickos.’
The car jerked back, there was a soft, crumpling sound. Pa said, ‘Shit!’
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he said when we got out and saw what we’d hit.
It was one of mine and Otis’s favourite new models, actually, a silver Porsche 96°Cabriolet convertible. Did a hundred and fifty-six miles an hour.
Pa screwed up his face like he was trying to copy the crumpled, crinkled mess we’d made of it. He should have got mad at me, seemed too tired to bother. I noticed his eyebrows. They’d gone completely grey.
‘No-one seen us. We could scarper.’
‘Saw us, not seen us, Harry.’ He got out his notebook, scribbled a note, tore it off, stuck it under the wiper. Then he said in that sarky way he had lately, ‘Bet he didn’t get that on his NHS salary.’
I sat on my hand for a bit, rubbed my nose, nice and casual, check that pee stink wasn’t me.
Pa took a magazine from the rack.
‘These places always smell this way, honey.’
It wasn’t just the stink. In that room behind the screen, the Wreck Room they called it, sad-faced people sat round in creepy armchairs watching Bob the Builder on the telly. Down the corridor, an old lady clanked her Zimmer frame towards us. Had on the kind of party dress that ladies wore in olden days, grey frizzy hair and bright red lipstick. She’d done her Zimmer frame up with Tinsel.
‘That Biscuit is Too Big to Fit on This Plate,’ said a panicky voice from the Wreck Room.
A calm lady said, ‘Now, don’t be silly, Charlie, it’s only custard creams.’
That Zimmer lady got closer to us, scraping her frame against the wall.
‘I Must Insist,’ wailed the biscuit man. ‘Can’t You See? Are You Completely Mad? It Will Not Fit I Tell You.’
‘Pa. Were they like this before they came here?’
He looked up from his magazine – it was called Practical Caravan – he put his finger to his white dry lips and whispered, ‘Later, Harry.’
The calm lady said, ‘There, Charlie. Like I told you. One custard cream. No problem.’
The Zimmer lady crashed her frame against the waiting room doorway. It wouldn’t fit, it was obvious.
‘It Will Not Fit,’ wailed the biscuit man. ‘That Plate Will Never Fit On This Table. Take It Away. Or I Will Call the Authorities.’
‘Charlie, love, we are the authorities. Now, come on, you’re upsetting Alphonse.’
‘I’m Not Upset. I’m Not Upset.’
My lips twitched.
I never knew Pa was so interested in caravans.
The Zimmer lady backed up a bit, got steady, then threw herself at the doorway.
Someone turned up the telly. We got a blast of ‘Bob the builder. Can we fix it? Bob the builder. Yes we can!’
I clenched my teeth and started running through my all-time favourite Spurs team.
I’d got to substitutes before a black lady with a bunch of keys clipped to her jeans ran up and helped the Zimmer lady do a turn.
‘Tea-time now, Louise. You like your tea, love.’
They’d best not talk to Mo like that. She’d give them what for.
Out of nowhere, a beardy nutcase dashed in, grabbed Pa’s hand and yanked him to his feet. He had on cords, a woolly jumper with a pen stuck in it, a tartan Swatch watch and a permanent stuck-on grin. I looked about me for the panic button.
Pa said, ‘Harry, this is Dr Fartyson.’ That’s what it sounded like. ‘He’s been looking after Mo.’
I nearly choked.
‘Harry!’ said Dr Fartyson. ‘We meet at last!’
He pumped my arm. It really hurt.
‘Don’t be nervous, Harry. I’m here to help.’
He took us down corridor after corridor, narrower every time, past people I couldn’t tell were doctors, visitors or nutters. Outside one door he stopped and knocked. He threw the door open and sang out,
‘Mo-oh! Visit-ors!’
As if she was the kind of person you could burst in on like a moron.
Tan, teeth and big lips grinned up at us til Mo put down Hello magazine. A weak smile touched her lips, white, dry, papery like Pa’s. On her wrist she had a small pink plaster. I expect that’s where they had to stick the drip in.
I went to kiss her. She smelled of hospital. Pa kissed her too, a peck. When he put his hand on top of hers I heard the sound of sugar paper rubbed against itself.
I could have told her about the Venn diagrams, about how we had to choose a coloured sash and stand in groups and get drawn round, and Peter and Terry got in the same group like always now, and I got in no group at all. And we had to think of examples of what to ‘describe’ with a Venn diagram. And Adrian Mahoney said, people who like Chelsea, Miss, and people who like Arsenal, and My Sissay said, people who had brothers and people who had sisters, and Brian Smith said, Yeah, Miss, and people with no brothers and sisters could stand on the outside, there, Miss, and his finger landed just where I was standing, and there was a kind of group holding of breath like the world had stopped for a minute, and the whole entire class got a simultaneous attack of embarrassment, and Kylie Kelly looked at me and chewed her tongue and scratched her impetigo, because even she got it, even she understood that that’s where I was now, and didn’t everyone know it, that’s where I was more than ever now my mum had stole a baby, on the outside.
Pa said, ‘Your mother’s asking you a question.’
I said, ‘I get to go to the pizza party Tuesday, Mo,’ which wasn’t true.
‘Good man,’ she said.
Pa said, ‘How’s the medication?’
She said, ‘My mouth feels dry all the time.’
‘Splendid!’ said Dr Fartyson, backing off towards the door. ‘We’ll soon have her up and about in the Wreck Room.’
‘She’s not a wreck!’ I would have said only I didn’t want to make things worse for her.
Dr Fartyson flashed that stupid grin, chucked me under the chin like I was five and said,
‘My first name’s Bob. You know what that means, don’t you, Harry?’
I had no idea.
‘Can we fix her? Yes we can!’
I could have puked.
Mo and Pa had one of those deadly boring grown-up chats about people in the square and at the surgery, and who was moving jobs or moving house and other stuff that helped fill up the long, grey gap before we were allowed to go home.
Pa needed a pee on the way out. I waited by the nurses’ station so I’d be safe from nutters, watched Dr Fartyson getting steamed up on the phone.
‘I am not having a good day, Samantha, thank you very much. Some cretin’s pranged my fucking Porsche.’
That annoying grin had completely vanished from his face.