‘Eleanor?’ It was Raymond, of course.
‘Yes, this is she,’ I said, quite curtly. For goodness’ sake, who did he expect? He coughed extravagantly: filthy smoker.
‘Erm, right. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going in to see Sammy again today – wondered if you wanted to come with me?’
‘Why?’ I said.
He paused for quite a while – strange. It was hardly a difficult question.
‘Well … I phoned the hospital and he’s much better – he’s awake – and he’s been moved into the general medical ward. I thought … I suppose I thought it’d be nice if he met us, in case he had any questions about what happened to him.’
I wasn’t thinking very quickly and had no time to consider the ramifications. Before I quite knew what had happened, we had arranged to meet at the hospital that afternoon. I hung up and looked at the clock on the living room wall, above the fireplace (it’s one I got in the Red Cross shop: electric blue circular frame, Power Rangers; adds a kind of rakish joie de vivre to the living room, I’ve always thought). I had several hours until the rendezvous.
I decided to take my time getting ready, and looked cautiously at myself in the mirror while the shower warmed up. Could I ever become a musician’s muse, I wondered? What was a muse, anyway? I was familiar with the classical allusion, of course, but, in modern-day, practical terms, a muse seemed simply to be an attractive woman whom the artist wanted to sleep with.
I thought about all those paintings; voluptuous maidens reclining in curvaceous splendour, waif-like ballerinas with huge limpid eyes, drowned beauties in clinging white gowns surrounded by floating blossoms. I was neither curvaceous nor waif-like. I was normal-sized and normal-faced (on one side, anyway). Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways? When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome? Did they then read newspaper articles ridiculing those same handsome men if they gained weight or wore something unflattering?
These were, of course, rhetorical questions.
I looked at myself again. I was healthy and my body was strong. I had a brain that worked fine, and a voice, albeit an unmelodious one; smoke inhalation all those years ago had damaged my vocal cords irreparably. I had hair, ears, eyes and a mouth. I was a human woman, no more and no less.
Even the circus freak side of my face – my damaged half – was better than the alternative, which would have meant death by fire. I didn’t burn to ashes. I emerged from the flames like a little phoenix. I ran my fingers over the scar tissue, caressing the contours. I didn’t burn, Mummy, I thought. I walked through the fire and I lived.
There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they’re there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out. I hope.
9
RAYMOND WAS WAITING OUTSIDE the front door of the hospital. I saw him bend down to light the cigarette of a woman in a wheelchair – she’d brought her drip out with her, on wheels, so that she could destroy her health at the same time as taxpayers’ money was being used to try and restore it. Raymond chatted to her as she smoked, puffing away himself. He leaned forward and said something and the woman laughed, a harridan’s cackle that ended in a prolonged bout of coughing. I approached with caution, fearing the noxious cloud might envelop me to deleterious effect. He spotted me coming, stubbed out his cigarette then ambled towards me. He was wearing a pair of denim trousers which were slung unpleasantly low around his buttocks; when his back was turned I saw an unwelcome inch of underpant – a ghastly imperial purple – and white skin covered in freckles, reminding me of a giraffe’s hide.
‘Hiya, Eleanor,’ he said, rubbing his hands on the front of his thighs as though to clean them. ‘How’re you doing today?’
Horrifically, he leaned forward as though to embrace me. I stepped back, but not before I’d had a chance to smell the cigarette smoke and another odour, something unpleasantly chemical and pungent. I suspected it was an inexpensive brand of gentleman’s cologne.
‘Good afternoon, Raymond,’ I said. ‘Shall we go inside?’
We took the lift to Ward 7. Raymond recounted the events of the previous evening to me at tedious length; he and his friends had apparently ‘pulled a late one’, whatever that meant, completing a mission on Grand Theft Auto and then playing poker. I wasn’t sure why he was telling me this. I certainly hadn’t asked. He finally finished speaking and then enquired about my evening.
‘I conducted some research,’ I said, not wishing to sully the experience by recounting it to Raymond.
‘Look!’ I said. ‘Ward 7!’ Like a child or a small pet, he was easily distracted, and we took turns to use the alcohol hand rub before we went in. Safety first, although my poor ravaged skin had barely recovered from the previous dermatological onslaught.
Sammy was in the last bed nearest to the window, reading the Sunday Post. He glared at us over the top of his spectacles as we approached; his demeanour was not friendly. Raymond cleared his throat.
‘Hi there, Mr Thom,’ he said. ‘I’m Raymond, and this is Eleanor.’ I nodded at the old man. Raymond kept talking. ‘We, eh, we found you when you had your funny turn, and I went with you in the ambulance to hospital. We wanted to come by today and say hello, see how you were doing …’
I leaned forward and extended my hand. Sammy stared at it.
‘Eh?’ he said. ‘Who did you say you were?’ He looked quite perturbed, and not a little aggressive. Raymond started to explain again, but Sammy held up his hand, palm facing forward, to silence him. Given that he was wearing candy-striped pyjamas and his white hair was as fluffy and spiky as a baby pigeon’s, he nevertheless cut a surprisingly assertive figure.
‘Now hold on, wait a minute,’ he said, and leaned towards his bedside cabinet, grabbing something from the shelf. I took an involuntary step back – who knew what he might be about to pull out of there? He inserted something into his ear and fiddled about for a moment, a high-pitched squeal emitting from that side of his head. It stopped, and he smiled.
‘Right then,’ he said, ‘that’s better. Now the dog can see the rabbit, eh? So, what’s the story with you pair – church, is it? Or are you trying to rent me a telly again? I don’t want one, son – I’ve already told your pals. There’s no way I’m paying good money just to lie here and watch all that shite! Fatties doing ballroom dancing, grown men baking cakes, for the love of God!’
Raymond cleared his throat again and repeated his introduction, while I leaned forward and shook Sammy’s hand. His expression changed instantly and he beamed at us both.
‘Oh, so it was you pair, was it? I kept asking the nurses who it was that had saved my life – “Who brought me in?” I said. “How did I get here?” – but they couldn’t tell me. Have a seat, come on, sit down next to me and tell me all about yourselves. I can’t thank you enough for what you did, I really can’t.’ He nodded, and then his face became very serious. ‘All you hear these days is that everything’s going to hell in a handcart, how everybody’s a paedophile or a crook, and it’s not true. You forget that the world is full of ordinary decent people like yourselves, good Samaritans who’ll stop and help a soul in need. Just wait till the family meet you! They’ll be over the moon, so they will.’