Instead, he cleaned the hospital.
He mopped floors, sprayed sinks, sprayed bleach around toilets, kept trundling up and down, shoulders hunched, feet shuffling the slow-motion shuffle of someone with nowhere to go, nothing to do, just going through the motions. It was a natural walk for him, he found, and comforting to a weary brain.
There were very few doctors, and only a couple of nurses on shift. The hospital was owned by a company which was owned by a company which was…
However that old song went. Somewhere at the top of the pile there was the Company. On the TV, Philip Arnslade faced the camera. The volume was muted, but subtitles took their best shot at an accurate rendition, lighting up his words in cyan on a black background.
The Company
Abused its responsibility
Government forced to
Reconsider its relationship with
Revoking contracts to
A few minutes later Simon Fardell’s face appeared.
The stoppages
Hospitals
Banks
Schools
Buses
Trains
Supermarkets
Farms
Food
Water
…all the government’s fault. If they seize our assets let’s see who folds first let’s see who’s really…
The TV station was owned by a company which was owned by a company which was…
And at midnight it too went offline, when the video techs realised they weren’t going to get their salary for the week, and they had to get to the shops before the last of the petrol and food went.
At 2.17 a.m. the man guarding the door to Helen’s room in a hospital in Greenwich fell asleep, and Theo let himself in.
The light through the half-open blinds on the window was a pink-orange reflection of street light. A car passed below, the sweep of its beams running like a clock hand across the ceiling. Fresh yellow flowers were beginning to droop a little in murky water by the bed. A flask of water was empty on a tray, a bowl of stewed pears had not been touched, the custard solidifying to yellow concrete.
Helen lay, one arm stretched by her side, the stub of the other arm wrapped in pristine white bandage. An accordion of blue plastic and clear tubes rose and fell by her side, supplementing the progress of her lungs, the end of the machine plugged into a careful incision in her trachea. Her face was rounded, purple-brown; she wore surgical socks beneath the blue blankets, her toes peeping out the end. A sac of clear fluid was nearly empty on its hook by her head, the line running into a needle hidden somewhere beneath her loose green robe.
Theo leaned his mop against the wall, pulled up a huge padded beige armchair covered with plastic that stuck to skin and held the white tidemarks of previous sweaty inhabitants. The pump by her bed inhaled, clicked to full, exhaled in a long whoosh. Her chest rose, fell. At the foot of her bed yellow fluid drip-drip-dripped out of a tube into a plastic litre-jar, nearly full, of faintly bloodied amber liquid. Theo watched her.
The packaging said that this was a revolution in a box, and it didn’t lie! I really know what it means to make a difference now! *****
Lucy has a new bunk mate, after Moira became too thin to work and was taken away for reassessment. Hanna doesn’t know who her mum is. By day she tells Lucy that she’s a stupid slag and even the men wouldn’t bother to rape her. By night they lie together, holding each other tight, sharing warmth against the winter, and never speak of these things, and are silent, and it’s okay to be afraid.
Blessed is her name, blessed are her hands upon the water blessed is the mother who gives life to the child blessed is the moonlight through the bars blessed are the whisperers of the hidden truths blessed are those who stood before the fire blessed is the heat of the ash blessed is
Neila said, “Navigating the Trent to the Ouse requires a licence. It’s tidal where it meets the Humber, there’s a two-day transit on the lock it’s…”
Theo sat in the cabin of the Hector as she put his hand on the deck of cards and said, “Ask a question.”
“I don’t know what to ask.”
“Think of something that matters. Think of Lucy.”
A flicker of a frown, anger almost, which went as quickly as it had come. He closed his eyes, hand below hers, and let out a breath, and held the tarot pack tightly.
They waited
He cut the cards
dealt the top nine.
She turned them over.
He studied the arrangement on the table. “What does it mean?” he asked at last.
“Nothing,” she replied, heart leaping, tears of relief and gratitude pricking the corners of her eyes. “Nothing at all.”
Stood.
Went to the locker above the sink.
Opened it.
Removed the gun from inside, still wrapped in the same plastic bag it had been when Corn gave it to Theo in Nottingham. Said, “I was going to throw it overboard. I wanted to. I was so angry with you I was so angry. But I think…”
Put it in his hand.
“I think this is maybe where you get off.”
Theo sat by Helen’s bed, and Dani was there too, and so was the real Theo Miller, the one who died, and it seemed to Theo that the past was just a present-tense thing that happened in his mind as he thought about it, not real at all, and that the future could only really be experienced in the present too and thus probably wasn’t real enough to worry about and that…
That he was very tired and that
Dani forgive me Dani forgive me I don’t know any way to I will always be there is no forgetting there is no forgiving I just stood there I didn’t listen I didn’t think forgive me forgive me there was there isn’t I shall never
Theo stopped praying when he realised that he was talking out loud, and looked down at the floor, and wondered if anyone had heard him, and when he looked up again, one of Helen’s eyes was open and fixed on him.
For a moment they sat together, watching each other.
Helen blinked, slow, once, twice, waiting.
Twitched, with her one good hand, tried to move it, couldn’t.
Twitched again.
Made a sound.
Uh—uh—huh.
The sound broke away against nothing.
Theo flapped, muttered, what do you… what can I…
Felt useless and dumb.
Rummaged in the bedside table. Found a piece of paper, a pen.
Put it carefully under Helen’s hand, balanced on the back of a dustpan.
She took an age to write, and every second was an eternity, and it was over in a moment.
END
Theo folded the piece of paper over.
Put it in his pocket. Pulled another piece of paper from the pad. Put it under her hand. Her one good eye narrowed, and again she wrote.
END
Theo sat back in the armchair, and stared at the ceiling.
Realised he hated hospitals.
Hadn’t known that until this moment.
At his feet the bottle of amber fluid was full, beginning to back up into the drain. No one came to change it. A pair of bellows inhaled, clicked, exhaled, and so did Helen.
He thought he should say something profound.
Thought he should find words that mattered.
Nothing came to mind.
He reached over, and unplugged the tube that ran into Helen’s throat. Air whistled from the plastic. Her body rose, sank.
She didn’t die.
For a while she lay there, and gasped.
Gasped, eye wide, fixed on him, blinking.
Gasped.
Wheezed.
Shuddered.
Gasped.