I am lost in a world of regular hums, distant beeping, the periodic reheating of the coffee machine in the corridor, and that steady kazoo. I don’t know how long it has been. Is Amber wandering around out there? No sign.
Knuckles knock-knock on wood. Rap through the static atmosphere. I glance up at my doorway, but there’s no one. A moment later I hear a murmur next door, and a murmur in response. The tones of a woman’s voice, Sheila’s voice, hushed, and the lower tones of a man. Mr Old Faithful.
Slight metallic clink of a chair leg, and something knocks against the thin partition between my room and hers. It makes me start, makes my heart briefly beat a little faster. For a while there’s a sense of movement out there in the corridor. Diligent attendants move to and fro, and now a nurse passes my doorway.
Sheila pads past too and glances in at me.
I’ve no idea whether she can see if I’m awake. Maybe she’s trying to read my eyes in the darkness. See if there’s a glint off an eyeball. I narrow my eyes, narrow the chances. I don’t want her to see that I’m awake. I don’t know why. I don’t want to encroach on this. Don’t want to be a witness. All I feel is the rhythmic thrum of my heartbeat between the sheets. Can she see me breathing? Sheila drops her look and moves on. Still the kazoo keeps time, though it’s gained an edge of intensity.
There’s a lot of pacing going on out there. No one’s staying anywhere for long.
Slow figures drift past my doorway, closing in on Old Faithful.
Slow spirits.
Come to take her away.
Tender noises from next door.
Gentle huff. Pause.
Gentle huff from Old Faithful. Periodically pausing.
Her own heart, slowing.
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here for this.
Hands
Yes, there again, my dad’s hands, kneading and rubbing my calf to work out the cramp.
Or walking to school with Laura–
‘Mum said you had to hold my hand over the road.’
‘Hold your own hand,’ she says, callously.
Oh. I’m on my own.
I don’t know why, but I flush hot and feel empty in my tummy, and a surge of hot tears boils up. I try to fight them back, I do. I don’t want her to think I’m getting in the way. I know she doesn’t want to because she wants to look good in front of Danny Refoy and his mates. But Mum said. This is what she said we had to do.
The thunder in her glare as she snatches up my hand and drags me across the road.
You took my hand for the first time after our second date — our first proper date after your Easter trip back to the Lakes — walking away from the Blue Plate Café.
I looked down at you, questioningly.
‘What?’ you said, holding up my hand. ‘You weren’t using it, were you?’
‘No, no, be my guest.’
All that anxiety about whether it had gone well, about whether we might kiss — gone. I kissed you on to your bus back to your digs.
I didn’t want to let go, once you’d set the seal.
I waited too. While the engine idled and the driver checked his watch, I waited, and when he finally hissed the door shut and pulled away, I waved you out of sight.
Then I floated off into town to meet Mal.
Was this love?
It felt like love.
The kazoo next door pauses, stays paused. One more murmur from beyond: ‘Do you think that’s it?’
And the kazoo begins again.
No more murmur. It was not it.
Hands, hands.
Your hand in mine.
My hand in yours.
Our hands.
So lovely, so simple to be able to take ownership of someone’s hand.
Palms pulsing together.
‘Have you noticed,’ I say, ‘you’re normally the one who says “I love you” first? Then I say it.’
‘I hadn’t noticed.’
‘I never think the second means as much.’
‘So I’m winning, would you say?’
‘It doesn’t mean I’m not thinking it. I always feel a bit defeated when I have to follow up with “I love you too”. It’s like the sequel to a film: I Love You and I Love You Too. You know the second one’s always going to be a predictable reworking of the first.’
You laugh. ‘Well,’ you say, ‘it’s just like this noise that drops out of my mouth. Sometimes I think it’s down to things as simple as luh-luh being nice to say. You say luh-luh, and it feels nice with your tongue and it creates a resonance in your head that feels nice. Nice vibration. And that’s got to be a good thing.’
‘Bluh blah bloo.’
‘Yeah! Exactly that. Bluh blah bloo.’
‘Bluh blah bloo too.’
And the kazoo pauses once more.
Silence.
Soft breathing of the fans of the machines fills in the emptiness.
And that’s it.
No more from Old Faithful.
And still no more.
And still.
Heart still.
I hear a strangled sniff, a man’s voice. Mr Old Faithful.
Newborn widower.
The coffee machine rasps into life once more, works up through its steady crescendo of warming the water, reaches its peak and ceases.
And Amber. Amber must be out there too.
Mumless.
Muttering now from next door. Mr Old Faithful, I think, and Sheila. Sheila’s tones sound kind and concise. A nurse I’ve not seen before emerges, and then Sheila herself appears, leading Mr Old Faithful and Amber too. None of them looks in, but they walk past my doorway and troop into a room across the corridor. Its door clicks rudely shut.
It’s just me out here now.
Me and Old Faithful, on either side of the partition.
The lately living and the due-to-be-dead.
I’m here.
I’m still here.
I’m still awake.
I’m thinking nothing.
What is there to think?
The latch sounds again, and the door draws open. Sheila passes my doorway and disappears into Old Faithful’s room once more.
She speaks, softly but clearly, and I can make out her words. ‘Hello, lovey,’ she says. ‘I’m going to take your wedding ring now, OK? Just going to give it to your husband for safe-keeping. I’ll be as gentle as I can.’
There is no response.
’Til death us do part.
There it is.
Love ends at death.
Does it?
Heart
‘Why do you think people link love to their hearts?’ I say.
You look up at me in the orange streetlight, push your hair inaccurately back from your face with your mitten. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Or, like, why is your head supposed to be so sensible?’
‘Mm. I don’t know. Come on, let’s tie a few of these to the bike rack.’
I reach into the bag and try once again through my gloves to untangle one of the crochet hearts.
You’ve plunged into the activity as usual, mittens off and gleeful. I don’t know how you do it. How can you stay so buoyant when it’s so insanely cold?
I’ve got to say, it’s only reluctantly that I draw my gloves off too, and immediately I can’t feel my fingers. I take up the heart and begin to tie its two specially loosened threads around the nearest part of the bike rack. By the time I’ve finished one, you’ve tied on five, and we both step back and admire our handiwork.
‘They are having an impact, aren’t they?’ you say, anxiously.