‘I bet Mum would love to see you get a boob job,’ I say. ‘Because she absolutely loved your tattoo, didn’t she? What did she call it? A slag tag?’
‘Cranky old bitch,’ says Laura. ‘Just repeating some phrase from her church group. I bet she dined out for a month on that story. The prodigal daughter.’
‘I think she might want to get you exorcised.’
‘Do you know what they did in the nineteenth century?’ Mal dabs the ash off his fag, and speaks out the smoke. ‘When they were wearing corsets, anyway, they had these two ribs removed, here—’ and he grabs Laura by the wrist and lifts her arm, and chops his hand at her lower two ribs ‘—down here, they had them taken out so they could make the corset thinner.’
‘Ahh — Mal!’
‘And they’d lace these corsets so tight that all their organs would get pushed up into their chests.’
‘Is that true?’
‘So, you know, I don’t see the problem if you want to upgrade a couple of wasp stings into a pair of lovely funbags.’
There’s a momentary process in Laura’s eyes, before she bursts into unconvincing peals of laughter.
I think she’s thinking — What a funny guy.
I think she’s thinking — He’s lucky I’m so fine with how I am, to say something so daring.
But I know he knows.
He knows she’s not so fine with how she is. He totally knows.
The rubber tyres squeak as I am trundled along the shiny corridor by Kelvin. Nice of him to come and visit me. Ah, man, why did I let them persuade me into a wheelchair? Is this humiliating? I could walk this, easily. But I’ve always enjoyed being a passenger. It’s nice being pushed. The changing perspectives wiping themselves across my eyes. Vague shift of air in low draughts, subtly swirling temperatures, mixing with billowing acoustics as the rooms pass on by.
Could pleasures get any simpler?
‘I bet you’re sick of being asked this,’ says Kelvin from behind me, ‘but if there’s anything I can do, you will tell me, won’t you? Practical stuff or anything else. Anything.’
‘Thanks. I’m good. I’m all right. Better now I’m in here.’
‘You only have to ask.’
‘Yeah, cheers.’
‘Out the main entrance, is it?’
‘Suppose.’
The automatic doors trundle open and there’s the first thrill of unconditioned air on my knees and thighs. It envelops me completely as we push on through, lingers around my nostrils and lips, cradling my head, my neck, riffling my hair. We emerge into the open, and the brightness makes me squint. Magical nature. Makes me feel so dead and dusty and plastic. I’m an indoor animal. I don’t belong out in the wilds like this. Uncontrolled, unregulated nature, coming to get me and whisk me away.
We roll down a paved slope, the chair now gently percussive over the regular gaps between the slabs. Soothing pulse. I close my eyes to the brightness. Sun warm on my eyelids. Natural warmth.
The tyres of the wheelchair crackling consistently through microscopic grit. I register every grain, fresh and high-definition. My hearing has been calibrated for too long by the beeps of machinery, acoustics of plaster and glass, jangling fridge, throb of corrupt blood in my ears. The wind opens up the distance, wakens the trees, the leaves wash briefly and recede. It’s beautiful. It’s overwhelming. I want to inhale it all, breathe it, take it all in. But I can’t. I can’t draw deep. I manage only a pant.
We turn a tight little bend on the slope and pass through an archway into the hospice garden. And it’s beautiful too. Grand lawn with paths ribboning its low banks and gentle inclines. High wall all around. Old-looking wall, soft blushing pink bricks, crumbly pointing. Tailored, tamed nature.
The sun chooses this moment to radiate through to me, through me. It feels like — it feels like life. I can sense my corrupt blood bubbling and basking beneath the surface. All these things remind me of you: you and me in our favourite place up at the top of the valley, gazing down.
‘Beautiful,’ I say out loud to myself. Out loud to you. ‘Beautiful.’
‘Yeah,’ says Kelv, the only ears to hear.
Rolling peacefully forward, we pass the flowerbeds, all these carefully chosen specimens. Amazing, amazing, that these delicate petals have unfurled from the earth, vivid sunlit colours, calling out to nature, calling the humans to come, come and cultivate.
‘Look at that,’ I say. ‘Still got their verbena. They’re lucky.’
‘Yeah?’
‘They were all wiped out the last couple of years. Hard frost. Must be the wall keeping them sheltered.’
‘Right.’
‘And alliums,’ I tut, fondly.
Of course it’s you I imagine I’m talking to, not Kelvin. It’s you I can sense pointing at the seed heads, looking over at me, your eyes delighted at the collection of bobbing heads. You speak a sentence to me, all blurred enthusiastic tones, and I can hear you say –
Huuuge!
— and you grin and turn away.
‘There are roses, and there are non-roses,’ says Kelvin. ‘I only see non-roses.’
‘The big globey flowerheads, there. They’re alliums. And, look, there’s scabius. Bees land on it, get the nectar, and it sends them to sleep. All zoned out.’
‘Oh yeah, look. Stoned.’
‘Yeah.’
I’ve bleeped ten thousand little packets of allium bulbs through the till at the garden centre in the late summer sales. Plant early autumn. I wonder how many of the ones I’ve sold are reaching out to this warm sun, dappled across the region’s back gardens? I wonder if I sold these ones here? That could be my life’s achievement. Maybe I’d settle for that.
We resume our journey, and round a corner of gentle wispy grasses that bow and flutter in the soft breeze. The sun urges warmth on to my knees as it burns through the thin cloud.
Given time, you and I would have had a garden. We would have had a little plot, and we would have taken such good care of it. We’d have had a clump of scabius to please the bees, and wispy grasses lining a pond.
Given time.
I remember all the times you tried to get me to apply for the garden design course. All those reminders to get my CV into shape.
I can see you now, pulling on your coat, gathering up your keys, pointing at your desk, saying, ‘It’s all there in that bundle of papers. Three courses you could apply for. The deadline’s in July, so you’ve got time.’
I don’t know why I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Too soon, too soon. July was an age away. And how is anyone supposed to get enthusiastic about scratching their CV together? A piddling few GCSEs. A couple of A levels. Who would ever want me?
‘Just have a look through them,’ you said. ‘You totally know your stuff. Come on, one small change is all it takes. If you fill in this one piece of paper now, you’ll thank yourself as you cherry-pick the best jobs and sip champagne through the summer.’
It was a good fantasy.
Kelvin and I crest the top of a low rise, follow a gentle curve and roll down the other side, and arrive alongside a bench. Kelvin heaves the chair into a stable position, and settles on the seat beside me. We exchange a brief look, a brief smile, before gazing at the garden, letting the silence set in with the sun. Kelvin takes off his glasses and begins to clean them with his T-shirt.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in to see you before now,’ he says, lifting and huff-huffing on the lens. ‘I thought you might want to get your bearings for the first few days. How was the move from your flat?’
‘It’s all wrapped up, there’s people here who’re going to get it all cleared out when the time comes.’