Chapter 2.03
Susan sat at the side of the bed, knitting away and babbling on, while Roberta lay there like a flattened Smurf, in her fuzzy pyjamas – sky blue today, and covered in penguins.
Love her to bits, but by Christ commercial law was boring.
‘And the judgment clearly states that once you take out the interim payments allowed under clauses Eight-point-Two-point-Three and Eight-point-Two-point-Four, clauses Seven-point-Two-point-Two and Seven-point-Two-point-Three are the only things granting any allocation of income to the Special Limited Partners . . .’
Roberta removed the crunkly pillow from behind her own head and tried to smother herself with it.
Day 23 – Wednesday (17:40)
‘Throwing his weight about like a total snudgeweasel!’ Naomi stomped a squeaky foot.
She’d come dressed as her big sister today, even though Jasmine was a whole eight years older than her.
The pair of them, standing beside Roberta’s hospital bed with their matching long brown hair, jeans, and oversized trainers.
The only points of divergence were their heights and their T-shirts – both black, but where Jasmine’s featured a Mozart-as-an-Andy-Warhol-style-punk print, Naomi’s had more of a pink pirate-octopus vibe.
Neither of them seemed to have got the memo that the sophisticated woman-about-Aberdeen-Royal-Infirmary was wearing lime-green PJs, with lions and tigers on them this season.
Naomi dug into her pocket and produced a pound coin. ‘For the swear jar.’ Clicking it down on the table. ‘So I called him a cunt, and he went running to teacher, cos he’s just a cunty little cunt, and he shouldn’t push people over in the playground!’
Jasmine looked up from her phone. ‘Damn straight. Should’ve kicked him in the knackers too.’
‘Might’ve done.’ A grin. ‘But I played the my-mummy’s-nearly-dying-in-hospital card, so I didn’t even get detention!’
Nice to know all this having-your-head-caved-in-with-a-lump-of-metal had been good for something. But Roberta tapped the tabletop with a finger anyway. ‘That’s three quid you owe. Make with the extra two.’
‘Ghhhaaaaaa . . .’ Naomi slumped, arms dangling, head hanging back like a boneless teenager, even though she was only nine. ‘But Muuuuuu-um!’
‘Hey, I don’t make the rules.’
Which was a complete lie, but hey-ho.
Day 28 – Monday (03:56)
Every. Bloody. Thing. Hurt.
One hand on the bed frame, the other clutching her drip stand, Roberta limp-shuffled around the foot of the bed, in the dim nighttime glow of her room’s emergency-exit sign.
Each step was on broken glass.
Each movement driving rusty nails into her hip.
Each breath grating against her barbed-wire ribs.
And all of it topped off with the clattering, burning, throb of blood swirling around her battered brain.
The bathroom was only a couple of feet away, but it might as well have been miles. Through a minefield. That was on fire.
Finally, she made it to the toilet, pulled down her pink-piggy-PJ bottoms and thumped onto the seat.
Then sat there and cried.
Day 29 – Tuesday (10:05)
The nurse placed a cup of tea down on Roberta’s table, with a digestive biscuit tucked into the saucer.
‘You’re popular today: got a delivery.’ He was one of those hairy-little-terrier types, who looked as if he chased parked cars and combed his beard with a fork.
Would probably hump your leg and pee on the rug, if you took your eyes off him for thirty seconds.
Nurse Terrier went for the big reveal – whipping out a brown-paper parcel from behind his back. He held it out.
About the size of an expensive box of chocolates.
Which was the best news she’d had in ages.
Ho, ho, ho . . .
Roberta accepted the thing, ripping through the paper.
‘Yeah, they couriered it over and everything.’ He sniffed. ‘Surprised it got here, to be honest, and they didn’t just leave it in the neighbour’s hedge.’
It wasn’t chocolates.
It was some sort of wooden frame.
‘We ordered a case of wine three weeks ago and it turned up in next-door’s shed. Bugger had drunk most of it before we found out.’
She turned the thing over.
And stared.
Oh in the name of . . .
It was an oil painting.
A wee oil painting.
Of Graeme Wanking Anderson, carrying her out from the post-explosion dust cloud.
It didn’t look like either of them, but she’d seen that rotten, sodding photo often enough to recognise what the ‘artist’ had been aiming for.
‘I’m tempted to order a mixed case of dog-shite and turpentine. Let the bugger get his laughing gear around that.’
There was a note tucked in with it, typed on official House of Commons stationery:
Dear Mrs Roberta Steel,
I am sorry that I can not be there in person to visit you, but here is a little token of my esteem to let you know that I am thinking of you in this troubling time.
I hope you are feeling better, and that you get home soon.
Best wishes,
Graeme Anderson MP
About as warm and comforting as a bucket of day-old sick.
Wasn’t even signed.
The nurse sighed. ‘Anyway, better get back to it. You know what Matron’s like. I blame the hot flushes, myself.’ Wink. ‘I’ll try to get you a decent biscuit next time.’ And off he bustled.
Leaving her alone with this . . . monstrosity.
Because getting blown-up wasn’t bad enough.
Day 30 – Wednesday (14:15)
‘That’s great, you’re doing great.’ The physiotherapist’s hands were cold against her feet, pushing back gently as she gritted her teeth and shoved as hard as possible.
Which made sod-all difference.
Doing great, her sharny arse.
But then how could you trust any man who thought it was a good idea to shave off most of his hair and bleach the remaining tuft blond. Then head down to the tattoo parlour for a Thora Hird on one arm and a Joyce Grenfell on the other. He had too many teeth as well. And smelled of rubbing liniment.
‘OK, great. Now, knees together . . .’
She did, and he put his hands on either side, pressing lightly.
‘. . . and try to push them apart.’
Could barely move the sodding things.
Buggering hell.
This was not what passed for a sex life.
Day 31 – Thursday (10:45)
Tufty lounged in the visitor’s chair, crunching his way through another pinch of crisps. ‘. . . cos let’s face it, Beattie couldn’t detect stink if you trapped him in a lift with Biohazard Bob, after Biohazard’s binged on brussels-sprout vindaloo and extra-fizzy Guinness.’
The wee loon wasn’t in uniform this time, but a pair of cargo shorts, knock-off Converse trainers, and a vintage T-shirt for some stupid kids’ show – with ‘TIMMY and he was the one slamming it!
’ Holding the bag’s open end out to Roberta.
‘I just need him to fall down the stairs now, and I win a tenner on the office sweepie.’
Urgh . . .
Idiots. They gave her cases to idiots.
She dipped a hand into the bag and dug out a wodge of salt-and-vinegar crispiness. Munching on them, even though they were cheap and nasty. Getting crumbs down the front of her PJs, like greasy little snowflakes falling on the penguins. ‘Where’s my sodding phone?’
‘Number the First: you is not allowed no phone, on account of your massive cranial trauma and stuff. Number the Second: it was taken into evidence after we did get blowed-up. Number the Third: I had a look and it’s borked.
Must’ve got squashed in the boom.’ A shrug.
‘Look on the bright side: better it than us, right?’
‘Yeah, but you could get me one, couldn’t you.’ Not even bothering to keep the wheedle out of her voice. ‘Must have a spare handset knocking about you could stick a SIM in?’
‘I does refer you back to Number the First.’ Crunch, crunch, crunch. ‘No phones is no phones. Besides, Susan would kill me.’
‘Gaaahhh. . . .’ Sag. Droop. Groan. ‘But I’m bored!’
‘You know, when you has retired, you should totes come join our Wednesday game. We currently does has a Quest For The Dreaded Golden Dragon Of Glairmoch’s Acurrrrrrr-sed Treasure!’ Hamming it up, like the dick he was, before dropping back to normal. ‘We could use a new wizard.’
She snatched another wodge of crisps. ‘I’d rather be blown-up again.’ Stuffing them in.
Crunch, crunch, crunch . . .
Day 32 – Friday (14:15)
The physio kept one hand in the small of Roberta’s back, easing her forward as she limped and shuffled across the room, leaning heavily on a Zimmer frame, in her lion-and-tiger jammies.
Performing a tortoise-slow clunk-shuffle to the door and back.
‘That’s great, you’re doing great.’ Smiling at her. ‘Better to be slow and get there, than rush and end up on your arse . . .’
Day 33 – Saturday (11:35)
Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored . . .
Roberta sagged in bed, like a peely-wally starfish, hands and feet hanging over the mattress edge.
Only one thing for it.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
She huffed out a long breath.
Then reached over to the bedside cabinet and picked up the paperback novel lying there, next to Boris Johnson’s squeezy head: The Eternal Fall Of Gravity’s Children.
That she’d been reduced to this . . .
Pfff . . .
Might as well see if this J.M. Brewster could actually write, or if it was all woo-woo spaceships and aliens and whatnots.
She got halfway through the introduction, before slamming it shut again. ‘Buggering wank’s sake . . . I’m no’ a teenage boy!’
Then frisbeed it into the far corner.
Where it bounced off the cornice and onto the windowsill. Sliding to a halt against the glass.
Ten points, and the crowd goes wild.
Another big sigh.
Still bored.