Beth lays out everything she’ll need for him on the floor nearest the sofas. She’s decided that she needs to impose some order. She’s going to try scheduled and strictly adhered-to toilet trips, to prevent accidents. Apparently his bowel and bladder have kept their muscle memory: they’re relatively stable.
(He can hold it a few hours, was how the people in the home sold it to her. A few hours, and most of the time he’ll make it through the night.)
Still, she’s got adult diapers in case she needs them – better that, than clean the sofas and the floors, and she intends to make him sleep in them – and baby wipes. She’s got a changing mat, which has blue ducks printed along it. Again, the ignominy will be better than the alternative. She’s got rubber gloves and bleach and cleaning products, and she’s got the materials for a bed bath, in case she can’t get him in and out of the real thing: sponges, bucket-deep troughs for water, flannels and a scrubbing brush that’s marked SKINKIND but looks more like something she would use on the floors. She’s got pamphlets and leaflets that they gave her at the clinic, containing advice that seems like common sense – preventing bed sores, fungal infections – and telephone numbers to call if she needs help. One of the pamphlets is called YOU, YOUR PARTNER AND THE MACHINE. She flicks through it, and it’s full of pictures of loving couples where she cannot tell which one of them is vacant and which one is just doting. She’s got most of the food out as well, cans of spaghetti and beans and keep-fresh bread, and bundles of snacks, crisps and nuts and dried fruit. When Vic has a bad day, she doesn’t want to starve herself, or him. She doesn’t even know what he’ll eat, so she’s got Ready Brek as well. It’s too hot for porridge, she knows – it’s winter food, traditionally – but she’s seen them feed it to people who otherwise have trouble with eating solids in the movies. Food and bottles of water – lots of small ones, that she can keep close. The fridge is full of them. She’s got changes of clothes for him, already out and sorted: underwear in one pile, tracksuit bottoms in another, t-shirts in a third. She assumes that she won’t need anything else: there’s no chance of it getting cold in here. It takes her the rest of the day to make sure everything is in its own pile and accessible, and that she’s got enough of everything. She doesn’t know how Vic will react when she starts the process, so now, while he’s not a danger to anybody, she’s taking the chance to prepare herself.
Tablets. She notices that she needs to buy tablets: painkillers. Nothing insane, just ibuprofen, something like that. In case she needs them, in case Vic needs them. She checks on him, and he looks like he’s asleep. She can see his chest rise and fall. She doesn’t want to touch him. He might wake up. She gathers her purse and her keys, tucks them into her pockets, and then pulls the front door shut quietly behind her. With any luck she can be gone and back without him noticing.
(There’s a second when she imagines him waking up and having some sort of fit. They do that, she’s been told. She’s only seen one once, and it was terrifying: flailing and howling. She wonders what the neighbours will think: fat woman with all the daughters, holding a glass to the wall to better hear what manner of howling, exactly, and how to define it so that she can whinge about it loudly.)
She goes down the stairs and along the front, almost running, past the restaurants to the little Tesco. She can see that there’s a queue for the pharmacy, but it isn’t until she gets closer that she realizes it’s the boy in front of her, talking to the pharmacist. She can see the back of his shaven head: in thick puckered pink skin is the line of a tattoo running right across. It covers the width of his head: and the hair doesn’t grow on it, not even slightly. Not even fluff. She’s never noticed it before. She’s never been behind him before. She can hear his conversation with the man behind the counter.
What the fuck? he asks. That’s fucking real. The man behind the counter has got an ID between his fingers, and he’s examining it closely, but he doesn’t have to. Even from behind them Beth can see that the plastic is peeling, that it’s been tampered with. He can’t be older than fourteen. Maybe younger.
Sorry, says the shop assistant. You know the rules, I need to see ID.
This is ID. What the fuck else would you call this? The boy rubs his hands over his head, and then turns around. He glances at Beth. He nods, like he knows her. She knows who I am, she’ll tell you I’m not a fucking addict.
Beth’s gut lurches. She doesn’t know what she’ll say.
It’s not about somebody vouching for you, the assistant says. It’s about the ID. I’m sorry, but please move aside. He lays the ID flat on the table: Beth can see that the picture’s grainy, not even a sanctioned photo. Shoehorned in. There are customers waiting.
Fuck right off, the boy says. He picks up the card and waves it in the assistant’s face. Fucking real, you cunt. Suddenly, he sweeps his arm across the counter, and the stand of cough sweets, the charity collection box, the contraception/STD leaflets, all go flying across the floor in front of them. I don’t need this shit, the boy says. He looks at Beth again, and he kisses his teeth at her. From the front, this close up, he’s younger still. Twelve, maybe. Maybe younger. His hair is blond and his eyes are an almost yellow shade of green, and his teeth are ragged enough to need braces, but his skin hasn’t yet met acne, and there’s not even a hint of stubble across his top lip. There’s a threat in the way that he looks at her, but she can’t take it seriously. He’s still a child.
He marches off towards the door, past the security guard – the boy turns, faces the guard, holds his arms outstretched as he walks past, all pomp that he’s seen in some television show about worse places than this – and then out of the shop. The assistant comes round to the front. He falls to his knees in the weariest, most protracted way, which says, I’ve done this too many times.
This place, he says. He doesn’t know Beth, or who she is. He’s assuming she’ll agree. She squats down and helps him with the leaflets. She scoops them up and puts them on the side.
I’ve seen him around, she says.
Yeah, he tries it every few weeks.
What’s he trying to buy?
Diazepam. He says it’s for his dad.
They don’t need a prescription for it?
Not since last year. Just ID. He tilts his head back and breathes in. Right. What can I get you?
Ibuprofen, Beth says. A few packets.
He takes the own-brand down from the shelf and lines them up. Three?
Yeah, that should do.
Anything else?
You say I can buy diazepam now?
He sighs. One pack per customer, and you have to have ID. It gets logged.
Okay, Beth says, pulling the ID card from her purse. It’s just in case.
Yeah, useful to keep them in the cupboard, he says. She isn’t sure if he’s joking or not. She waits as he runs it through, then pays for it with cash – she’s got a lot in her wallet, to pay for takeaways or whatever when she’s knee-deep in rebuilding Vic – and the assistant acts like she’s not there, suddenly. She’s not sure that she cares.
Back along the path, and she reads the instructions as she walks. Where most medicines are vague and loose, this is insistent. NO MORE THAN FOUR PER DAY. The instructions carry provisos and warnings that the makers of the product are not responsible, etc., etc. TAKE WITH WATER AND FOOD. Beth wonders how good Vic is at eating. She wonders if he’ll recognize his surroundings, and if that will have an effect. Maybe he’ll reject all this: the flat, Beth, the food and the Machine. Maybe he’ll rally against it. She stands at the top of the steps. She didn’t need the pills, not really. She looks at the door, her front door, and she puts her hands on the wall of the stairwell.
Come on, she says. The woman with all the children is looking at her from her window. Beth wonders if she saw Vic. She’s perpetually spying on everything. What would she think he was? She’d make assumptions. Have they ever even said a word to each other? Beth can’t remember. She stands and stares at the building: anything to keep her from having to go back into the flat straight away. When she’s in there she has to start, and once she’s started she can’t leave until this is done. However long it takes, marathon or sprint, she tells herself.
Come on. She walks to her front door – the curtains of the neighbour twitch back to their resting place – and she stands there, as if she’s forgotten her keys. She listens for any sound he might be making inside. There’s nothing. She puts her hands on the lock, turns the key, opens the door and goes in – just as warm as outside, even with the fans. She shuts the door. She locks it behind her. She might as well.