Angela hardly left the intensive care unit for a day and a night. She sat at Gregory’s bedside and watched him breathe. His face behind the oxygen mask was the colour of blue Stilton.
Each time she moved forward to speak his name or to stroke his bristly hair she was reminded, by the slight pressure against her thigh, of the two cartridge paper notes she had found and stuffed into her trouser pocket. She’d unpinned the one addressed to her from the front of his suit jacket. The other, to his solicitor, she had discovered on the kitchen table propped against a half-empty bottle of Tia Maria.
Since he had been pulled from the car Gregory had not spoken or opened his eyes in response to loud sounds or bright lights. A doctor had jabbed a sterile needle into the soft flesh under his heel but he had not moved his foot.
The hospital chaplain was on his rounds. He approached Gregory’s bedside and asked Angela if she would like to join him in a short prayer for her husband’s recovery. It would have seemed discourteous to refuse so she closed her eyes and the chaplain said in a voice hardly louder than a whisper: “Lord, we pray that your servant, Geoffrey will recover and take his place once more in your most blessed world. Amen.”
Angela said, “Amen.” She was too polite to point out that the Chaplain had called Gregory by the wrong name.
After he had moved on to the next bedside she got up stiffly and went to meet Christopher.
♦
Christopher had called in to see Storme and was astonished and delighted to see that she was sitting up holding a bright pink teddy bear. He hung over the high-sided metal cot and stroked her cheek. He longed to pick her up, but she was still tethered by wires and tubes. Somebody had brushed her hair and gathered it high on her head in an elasticated hair band covered in white satin cord. Her cheeks were flushed pink and he thought that she looked at him with shy recognition. She turned the bear upside down and pulled at a loop on the bear’s foot where the washing instructions were printed.
Staff Nurse Fox stood in the doorway waiting to give Storme her medication. Christopher asked, “What will happen to her, when she’s better?”
“She’ll go to foster parents,” she said.
“Good,” said Christopher. He kissed his own fingers and touched Storme’s head with them and said, “Goodbye, chick.” He knew that Staff Nurse Fox was impatient for him to leave.
♦
Crackle ran through the quiet Sunday streets of the city centre in a denim shirt and jeans. He’d sold his leather jacket the night before for twenty pounds. The money had bought him a tiny piece of crack which he’d taken in the public toilet outside the bus station. He needed to take more but none of the dealers would give him credit or even let him over the doorstep. He’d rung other crackheads, but nobody wanted to know him. He’d tried to talk to Tamara on the phone, but Ken had put the phone down on him after saying that if he came to the house or tried to contact Tamara the police would be called. He’d been up all night without sleep, having the door slammed in his face. But he knew that Ken drank in the Man at Rest every Sunday dinnertime without fail, and he stopped running and went into a phone box outside the Town Hall and rang Ken’s number. Tamara answered at once, and though she’d sworn on her dad’s Bible that she would put the phone down immediately without speaking if Crackle rang, she found that she couldn’t do it. He sounded desperate. He told her that he was in his shirt-sleeves, he needed a coat, food and drink and crack money. To cheer him up Tamara told him that she was pregnant. She said, “Dad wanted to pay me to have an abortion, but I said, ‘No’.” There was silence on the other end of the phone, but she knew he was still there, she could hear him breathing.
“Meet me at Veronica’s, Tam,” he said. “This baby’s been sent for a purpose.” Crackle left the phone box and stood for a while watching a gang of council workers construct the Christmas tableaux in the square. This year’s theme was Peter Pan. As he watched, a cut-out Captain Hook was hauled up to the prow of a plywood pirate ship and fastened into place with strong bolts. He walked out of the square, past the row of cherry trees, whose branches were festooned with small twinkling lights.
He passed the Pizza Hut, where a prosperous-looking black family were eating at a table in the window. He took a tortuous detour to avoid passing the Man at Rest and eventually came in sight of the prison and the hospital, and, just beyond them Veronica’s, where salvation lay. He could tell it was open; there was a folding sign on the pavement which said, Beef⁄Lamb⁄Pork⁄4 Veg⁄Pie⁄Ice-Cream⁄£2.39!!!
A double-decker bus went by and Tamara shouted, “Crack!” from an upstairs window. He ran towards the bus stop to meet her. She jumped off the bus before it had come to a stop, and ran along the snow-flaked pavement with her arms outstretched. The wind pressed the long black dress against her thighs and outlined her pregnant belly. The word ‘love’ came into his mind, but the words he said to her were to do with the more urgent need he had, which was to stop the craving in his body. He was in agony.
“Did you bring some money, Tam?”
“No, I only had the bus fare,” she said. She had searched the house before she left, but Ken had taken every penny out with him; even the little jug on the kitchen shelf in which he saved his twenty-pence pieces was empty.
Crackle let go of her and kicked at a metal litter bin.
“I’ve brought the book,” she said to his back. She took the child benefit book out of her bag and he snatched it out of her hand and walked away from her, his round shoulders hunched against the cold. She followed him into Veronica’s. It was busy for once and they had to wait for a table to be cleared of gravy-stained plates. Eventually, after a young girl smeared a grey cloth over a table for four, they sat down. Crackle couldn’t keep his body completely still. His brain was figuring, working out. Who would buy the benefit book? It was worth seventy pounds. If he asked for fifty, would he get it? No, he’d ask for thirty. He would need to start phoning soon. Tamara pretended to read the menu written above the serving hatch. She wanted to talk to him about the letter, and the new baby and Storme, but she was afraid that if she did he would explode. She felt like one of those bomb disposal men she’d seen on the television. One false move and she would be destroyed.
♦
Christopher met Angela at the main entrance to the hospital. She greeted the dog first, then straightened up and took her cigarettes and lighter out of her bag.
“How is he, then?” he said, stroking her shoulder.
“No change.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She was having difficulty in lighting her cigarette. He took it from her and put it between his lips, lit it and handed it back to her. They walked across the road to Veronica’s. Angela was upset as they passed the window to see that Tamara and Crackle were inside, sitting opposite the only two vacant seats at a table for four. She said, “Let’s go somewhere else, Chris,” but he had already opened the door for her and was waiting for her to go in.
“Do you mind?” said Christopher, nodding towards the empty chairs. Crackle shook his head and Christopher and Angela sat down. Tamara bent down and patted the dog’s back. Angela said, to break the tension, “How’s your little girl?”
“She’s been took by the Social Services,” she said, looking down at the dog, “but I’m going to have another baby. I’m six and a half months, I only just found out.”
“Congratulations,” said Angela, automatically. She felt Christopher stiffen beside her. The dog got to its feet and Christopher shouted, “Sit!” so loudly that other people in the café turned to look at him, their faces bulging with food. The dog turned around three times, then sat down at Christopher’s feet.
Christopher said, “I’ll buy that baby you’ve got inside you.”
He looked at Angela and she looked back at him and nodded.
Crackle said, “How much?”
“He ain’t serious, Crack,” said Tamara.
“Yes I am,” said Christopher, quietly.
“So, how much?” said Crackle. He wriggled in his chair.
Angela took her cigarettes out and pulled one out of the packet and lit it and inhaled, hungrily.
Tamara clutched at her belly as though guarding the child inside. Angela’s cigarette smoke drifted across to her and she waved it away. Christopher took a wad of £50 notes from the inside pocket of his jacket, and peeled some away, and laid them on the table.
Tamara said, “I want to keep the baby, Crackle.”
“No you don’t, Tam,” said Crackle. “You’re no fucking good at it. You ain’t a proper mother. I know what a proper mother is.”
Angela thought, I won’t be any good at it either, I won’t be able to love somebody else’s baby. She stared at the money on the table, hoping that Crackle would push it back to Christopher, but he picked it up and counted it.
“Two hundred and fifty quid,” he scoffed. “That ain’t enough.”
“You’ll get that every week until the baby’s born, and on that day, you’ll get three thousand pounds, and we’ll; never see either of you again.” |
Tamara looked at Angela hard-faced and said, “I am a proper mother, and when this baby’s grown up, it’ll know and it’ll come looking for me, just like Storme will.”