sketches

the devil & dr smedley

~ jim clayton ~ 3 Comments

I hadn’t thought of Dr Smedley for ten years or more. But when Kath got back from a weekend catching-up with old school friends, and told me all the gossip, including how Alice was coping as a busy GP with an equally busy family life, it made me think about how medics tend to fall into two camps: those that like people, and those that don’t.
‘I mean – why would you go to all that trouble training to be a doctor if you didn’t like people?’ she said. ‘It’d be like setting up as a window cleaner if you were scared of heights.’
‘Or a vet if you were allergic to cats’
‘Or an accountant if you didn’t like numbers’
‘Or a traffic warden. I mean – why would anybody be a traffic warden?’
The thing was, Alice was a complete shoe-in for doctor. Not only was she smart, with that deep and natural intelligence that radiates warmth, but she was kind and funny and empathetic, a winning combination that would make you want to bind yourself to her practice with an unbreakable silver rope.

So in the same way as talking about God almost inevitably leads you on to talking about the devil, I had to mention Dr Smedley.

The best you could say about Dr Smedley was that he washed his hands. I think he was probably knowledgeable, too, of course – you would hope so, anyway, because if he’d made up his qualifications, there really would have been no excuse for having him in-post.

Dr Smedley was a legend. Rude to patients. Rude to staff. Irritable. Impulsive. Aggressive. He was tall and thin with a predatory stoop, like a praying mantis with a set of patient notes, ready to bite your head off for any infringement, real or otherwise. He wore large glasses that gave him better peripheral vision and made it impossible either to sneak up on him or escape undetected.

I only knew him through my role as an EMT with the ambulance service, so I had limited exposure. Still, I had numerous encounters. The worst was when I dropped off a drunk with a head injury to his department.

What happened was, the main hospital was on divert. This meant that only serious emergencies could go there; everything else had to be bussed up country to the next available A and E. Dr Smedley’s A and E. We’d fished a drunk out of a hedge in a park on the northern edge of the city. He was covered in blood from a cut to his head, and had to go to hospital to make sure that his slurred speech and bizarre behaviour was the vodka and not something more sinister. I was the attendant, riding with him in the back of the ambulance. He was already a mess, thrashing around in filthy clothes, wanting to take his penis out and urinate on the floor and so on. When we got to hospital we put him on a trolley and wheeled him through. The nurses were deeply unimpressed, but they understood about the divert and the head injury, so they signed the paperwork and we went back out to the truck to clean up.

A few minutes later, Dr Smedley came striding out.
‘Just what the HELL do you think you’re playing at?’
‘Is this about that drunk head injury we brought in?’
‘Yes, it’s about that drunk head injury. What were you thinking, man?’
‘Ah. Yes.’
‘So what d’you propose to do about it?’
‘Well the other hospital was on divert…’
‘I’m not interested in your pathetic excuses. Get him out of here!’
‘We’ll be happy to take him off your hands and release him back into the wild, but you’ll have to sign a letter to say you take responsibility.’
‘Oh this is absurd!’
‘He’s got a head injury.’
‘He’s drunk!’
‘With a head injury.’
Dr Smedley gave me a sharp and violent look like he was gauging the striking distance, and I couldn’t help leaning back.
‘I’m going to report you,’ he said. ‘This doesn’t end here.’ And he walked off.
Luckily, one of the nurses had come outside for a fag. She waited until Dr Smedley had crashed his way through the A and E doors, then came over to console me.
‘He’s only raging because the geezer got his cock out and started pissing on the floor,’ she said, blowing smoke off to the side and shrugging, like this was just another working day. ‘Anyway – at least you get to drive off. I’ve got another two hours of this shit.’

tangled

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Fitting a convene over Geoffrey’s penis is like trying to roll a condom on the snout of some retiring and wildly hairy creature. I’ve used the hair guard – essentially a piece of gauze with a hole in the middle – but still, his wiry pubes get tangled in the sticky gel of the convene, and the whole thing’s a tragic mess.
‘I felt that,’ says Geoffrey.
‘Sorry.’
‘You’re doing your best. Thanks for trying.’
‘You’re welcome’
I give up on this one, unpack another, and have a re-think.

The simple jobs always turn out to be the worst.
You couldn’t just swing by Geoffrey’s and sort his convene out?
I haven’t much experience, but working for a community health team means being prepared to turn your hand to most things, including ninety-year old penises.

‘One more go,’ I tell him.
‘Righto.’

The builders next door have their radio on full-blast. Kissin’ in the back row of the movies on a Saturday night with you…

I’d spent ten minutes at the hospital reading through the instructions that come with the convene. It seemed pretty straightforward, and I’d set out with every hope of success. Although, of course, I had it in mind that probably the real world experience of rolling on a convene might not tally exactly with the neatly labelled illustrations in the pamphlet.

Geoffrey lives at the very top of a narrow block of flats. He hasn’t been out for three years, spending all his time sitting in a riser-recliner with a view out over the city, one carer first thing in the morning to make sure he has some food and water, at least. Geoffrey has steadfastly refused any increase in care, and certainly has the mental capacity to make these decisions, even though anyone could see it’s not in his best interests. He’s doubly incontinent now, and really needs more regular pad changes. Still – he doesn’t want to spend the money, and he understands the consequences of his actions. And to be fair, he seems pretty happy. I’ve cleaned him up already, fetched him tea, and according to his very specific instructions, two slices of ham and four chocolate biscuits, all on the same plate.

‘What did you do before you retired?’ I say, as he eats a biscuit and watches me down below, wrestling with the convene, getting as tangled up in the coarse thicket of his pubes as the prince in the brambles round Sleeping Beauty’s castle (and, by the way, I’d like to put it on record, I think I’d have way more chance of success putting a convene on that).
‘Insurance!’ says Geoffrey, reaching for his tea. ‘Everyone needs insurance!’
‘That’s true. It’s an interesting business…’ although to be honest, I can’t think of a single thing to say on the subject.
Geoffrey comes to my rescue.
‘I was in the war,’ he says.
‘Navy?’
‘Army!’
‘What was that like?’
He shrugs.
‘Oh. You know,’ he says. ‘People try to shoot you. But what can you do?’

achoo

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

We’re a while on the porch waiting for Henry to come to the door.
‘He obviously likes a fag’ says Tom, nodding at the evidence: a miniature red fire bucket filled with stubs by a simple metal chair. ‘Still. Nice to have a hobby that gets you out. Shall I ring again, d’you think?’
As if in reply, Henry calls out from somewhere deep in the house Just coming, so we wait a while longer.
‘My hayfever’s bad today!’ says Tom, rubbing his eyes. ‘I took a Piriton, but the trouble is, it completely wipes me out.’
‘What about the non-drowsy stuff?’
He shakes his head.
‘Doesn’t touch it,’ he says. ‘No – I need the big guns. And then I end up looking like him…!’
He nods to a nightmarish plastic figurine by the side of the front door, a pixie (I’d guess), clothes made from flowers, flowerpot hat, holding a watering can, smiling vacantly.

Suddenly we see the shape of Henry coalescing behind the frosted glass, lurching from side to side as he harrumphs and curses his way down the hall. Eventually he’s near enough to reach out a hand, there’s a deal more swearing as he fumbles with the lock, and the door opens.
‘Sorry about the delay, fellas,’ he says, struggling with his words as much as his legs. ‘Only the wife’s left me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Henry.’
‘No, no. I mean shopping. Come in.’
He turns round with some difficulty in the narrow hall, and then starts the long journey back to the bedroom.
‘I understand you’ve been having some trouble with your electric bed?’ says Tom as we follow him inside.
‘You can say that again,’ he says. ‘I tripped over the control panel and pulled the wire out.’
‘When did that happen?’
‘I don’t know. A year ago?’
‘A year?’
Henry shrugs.
‘I’m useless these days and there was no-one else. Here – I don’t suppose you want to buy a bed, d’you?’

The bed’s the first thing we look at. It’s something the family have bought privately – a simple divan affair with the head and foot end operated by buttons. I lift the bed up (it’s not heavy), whilst Tom lies on his back like a mechanic and wriggles underneath.
‘This is where I tickle you,’ says Henry to me.
‘No! No tickling!’ says Tom. ‘Ah-ha! I see the problem…’
He pushes home the disconnected cable, crawls out again, I lower the bed, he presses the control panel. The head end whirrs and rises.
‘You did it!’ says Henry.
‘I can’t believe you’ve been without it for a whole year!’
‘It’s amazing what you can do with pillows.’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ says Tom. ‘Hold on… I’m going to sneeze.. aah… aaaah…. aaaaaaaah…. No. Sorry. False alarm.’
‘I’m disappointed,’ says Henry.
‘Aaaaaaacccccchhhhhhooooo!’
It’s astonishingly loud, like we’ve just been buzzed by a fighter jet.
‘Good God in Heaven!’ says Henry. ‘I’m glad I was holding onto something.’

bogie the ghost dog

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It doesn’t matter how many times I visit Canterbury Court, I always get lost.

Outside by the keysafes there’s a gravestone to a dog incorporated into the wall. Bogie – Most faithful of animals. Died 1905. I wonder if one of the keysafes is for Bogie, because I’m certain that most faithful of ghosts would be able to take me straight to Beatrice’s flat.

The problem is, Canterbury Court fundamentally and demonstrably does not make sense. It has mezzanine anomalies called -1 or +2. It has one main staircase leading up to the first mezzanine, then other, smaller stairways leading off from that, in ways so random you’d have to think, in the event of fire, the idea was confuse the flames not confine them. I can only imagine it was put together by a team of architects who were at war with each other, or possibly one architect having an existential crisis. Either way, Canterbury Court is a living nightmare to navigate.

A postman passes me on one of the landings. He looks haggard, a marine veteran of the labyrinth, gripping his bag with a thousand-yard stare, marching with a death or glory kind of vigour towards the lift. He must surely know the way to flat fourteen, so I stop him to ask. He pulls the ear buds out of his ear (I think he’s listening to a self-development app: You are a confident and generous human being, afraid of no-one and nothing … ). He frowns, then nods dismissively to the far end of the corridor. ‘Take the stairs’ he says, then screwing the buds back into place, he crosses himself, turns and throws himself into the lift as the doors slide shut.

On the next floor the numbers pass in illogical sequence, like one of those intelligence tests where the answer could be anything from 27 to a chicken on a bike. But luckily enough – before I run out of water and die – I find myself standing outside Beatrice’s door. I knock quickly, in case the magic ends and the door changes again. Beatrice answers. I go inside.

I’m sure if Bogie the ghost dog had been leading the way, he’d collapse down in a grateful heap in front of Lovejoy. (It’s always Lovejoy when I come to see Beatrice – which sounds like a particularly cruel kind of Purgatory, but there’s actually a perfectly rational explanation: Beatrice always has her Tinzaparin injection this time of the morning). Or maybe with one howl of anguish, when he realised what it was he was watching, Bogie would jump up and throw himself through the window. Even if he did stay, though, he wouldn’t be able to help me over the next hurdle. Finding Beatrice is a cinch compared to understanding Beatrice.

The stroke Beatrice suffered a few years ago has affected her speech. That, coupled with a strong Norfolk accent and the fact that Beatrice only has one, large tooth displayed as flagrantly in the middle of her mouth as Bogie’s headstone in the wall outside – all this means that I find it almost impossible to understand what she tries to tell me. It doesn’t help that Beatrice gets irritated with me, too, and speaks more quickly, so that in the end I’m desperately using every sense I have to divine what it is she wants. Mostly I’ll just ask her to speak a little more slowly, or write down what it is she wants. But today for some reason I steam ahead and try to understand by letting the sounds wash over me and the sense filter down by weight.

Beatrice shakes a handful of opened letters at me.
‘You want me to file them?’
– – – – – – – – (shakes the bundle)
‘You want me to throw them away?’
– – – – – – – – (shakes the bundle harder)
‘You want me to recycle them?’
– – – – – – – – (holds the bundle forwards / pulls the bundle back / shakes the bundle)
‘You want me to check the letters to make sure there’s nothing important in them, and THEN recycle them?’
(big sigh / shakes head / hands me the bundle)
‘Okay then.’
I look through the letters. The first one has a marmalade sandwich in it.
‘What do you want me to do with this, Beatrice?’
She raises her eyebrows.

portia and the cricket

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Portia. Sounds like Porsche – appropriate, actually, because she works so quickly. She’s stylish, too, with a bright, economic kind of aesthetic that perfectly complements her therapist’s uniform: henna-red hair cut in an angular bob; red nails, and a pair of round sunglasses in a turtle green frame.
‘Are you’s okay, eJim? Wha’s the matter? You seems a bit flat.’
‘Yeah – I’m okay, thanks Portia. This patient we’re going to – it’s difficult. And when I got back to the office to speak to one of the lead nurses, everyone was so stressy and snippy. It didn’t help that manager was wandering around with her notepad, giving me the evil eye.’
‘I’m sure she was too a-busy thinking about her looshus ass to worry about poor little Jimminy Cricket’
‘Yeah’

It’s fantastic that Portia’s agreed to come with me for this follow-up visit. It’s such a depressing case of self-neglect, I feel in need of psychic protection. The patient had cried when I spoke to him quite firmly about what it might mean to his health if he continued to refuse help, slumped on his chair by the window, the room so rank, run-down and malodorous, it felt like I’d been pitched blue-gloves first into an ante-room in Hell.

And of course, Portia is as dynamic and effective as ever. It’s a pleasure to watch her, effortlessly moving through the place, as refreshing and galvanising as the breeze through that window she opened so discreetly. The patient opens to her, too, irresistibly drawn – as everyone is – by her frank and life-affirming demeanour.
‘There you go my lovely!’ she says, shaking his hand. ‘Is a pleshur to meet you. Take care, and we see you soon, okay? Okay!’
And we’re out of there.

Back in the car, she turns to look at me.
‘Feeling not so flat now?’ she says.
‘Yeah! Thanks for helping me out.’
‘Of course!’ she says, then resting an elbow out of the car window, drops her round sunglasses down and gives me a big, lipsticky smile. ‘So come on, Jimminy Cricket! Less’ go!’

ralph’s owl

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Ralph reminds me of that paleolithic fertility statue, the Venus of Willendorf, updated for the modern age, with trackie bottoms, steel-rimmed glasses and a wild beard.
‘I just want to be left alone’ he says.
‘I’m sorry you feel like that,’ I say, squatting down near to him, mostly because I don’t want to intimidate him by standing tall, but also because there’s nowhere clean to sit. ‘We’re worried about you. That’s all.’
‘I just …. don’t appreciate … all this fuss.’
I can understand why he feels exposed. Whilst he was away in hospital a deep clean team stripped the place. I hadn’t seen what it was like before, but a trainer they missed is a giveaway. I found it when I moved the coffee table to make room for his zimmer. The trainer is caked in brown matter, a ghastly combination of dust, dirt and accumulated awfulness, the inside of the shoe spilling over with ropes of web so thick even a spider would shake its head and walk on.
‘You can always say no,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to have any of this.’
‘I just wish … I could say … what I want… to say.’
‘Take your time.’
I leave lots of room for him to try, but he’s too distressed to speak. He sits there gripping the arms of the chair, taking anguished gasps of air, puffing his toothless cheeks in and out and rolling his lips.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It’s okay.’
I can’t even make Ralph a cup of tea. All he has in his cupboard are cupasoups and instant porridge sachets; the only things in his fridge, a couple of pens of insulin. There’s a scattering of medication strips on the windowsill, which make me question the accuracy of the ‘competent to take meds independently’ description on his discharge summary. In fact, I’d have to question much of what’s on that paper. Ralph lives up a flight of stairs (the paper said basement); he has a keysafe, because he couldn’t possibly answer the door (the paper said no keysafe), his phone number is carefully transcribed (he hasn’t got a phone). You’d hardly think it was the same patient at all.
‘Who does your shopping?’ I ask him, looking around.
‘Alfred. He helps out now and again.’
‘That’s good! D’you mind if I give him a call?’
‘I don’t have his number.’
‘Do you know where he lives?’
‘He’s not far’
‘If you give me the address I could pop round.’
‘I don’t know where he lives. I don’t even know his last name. All these questions…’

It’s a difficult assessment. The thought of anyone living like this is depressing, especially someone with Ralph’s limited mobility, sitting for hours and hours in a dilapidated armchair by the window, his skin breaking down, his only company the radio or the hum of the flies circling impatiently overhead. Ralph could be a poster boy for the Self Neglectful.

One of the most difficult things to accept in community health is the business of mental capacity. Essentially, so long as you understand the consequences of your actions, you’re perfectly at liberty to live however you like, whether or not it’s bad for your health. A free climber is perfectly free to jump up on El Capitan with nothing but a bag of chalk and the strength in their fingers between them and certain death; similarly, Ralph is free to live in this filthy flat with one crapped-up trainer and nothing in the fridge and no-one to see him, and he has every right not be pestered by nurses and therapists and social workers.
‘Maybe you could write a list of the things you want to say,’ I tell him. ‘You could take a while, and have a good think, and put it all in two columns – what I want, and what I don’t want.’
‘Just… I don’t…. oh’
‘It’s okay. There’s a lot going on at the moment. The deep clean must have been stressful.’

They’ve left one thing on the walls, though: a crude, blockish, primary coloured tapestry of an owl, staring out of its grimy frame with an outraged expression. Tucked into the frame is a polaroid of something that looks like a glass owl on a mantelpiece, but the picture’s so faded I can’t be sure.
‘I like your owl,’ I say. ‘How long have you had that?’
‘Thirty year,’ he says. ‘My wife did it. By numbers.’

angus the demon

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Angus, the focus of all this Scottie dog memorabilia, is lying on his tummy on a Scottie dog patterned rug. I’m relieved that he IS a Scottie dog, otherwise everything surrounding him – the Scottie dog toy in the white plastic alcove hung with fairy lights; the hundreds of Scottie dog pictures hanging on the walls, some as hyper-colourised 3D versions, where the eyes open and the tongue lolls out as you pass; the Scottie dog tea-towels neatly draped on a rail; the Scottie dog biscuit tin, the Scottie dog cushions, the Scottie dog puzzle half-completed on the table, with (ominously) only the eyes to complete – well, if you walked into a flat like this and found a doberman, you’d probably lose your mind.
‘Don’t go near him,’ says Jean. ‘He bites.’
‘He’s so sweet,’ I say.
‘Only when he’s sleeping,’ says Melanie, Jean’s daughter. ‘He bites me, too.’
‘Oh.’
‘I wonder what he dreams about?’ says Jean, yawning.
‘Biting,’ says Melanie.
I go to put my things down. Angus looks up. He’s so old, his fur has a rubbed, slightly greasy look.
‘Fifteen’ says Jean, anticipating my question.
‘Wow! Fifteen! Well!’ I say – then after a pause, where I can’t actually bring myself to say that he looks good for fifteen, I manage instead: ‘We’ve got a dog.’
‘Oh yeah? What sort?’
‘A lurcher.’
‘How old?’
‘I think she’s about ten.’
‘Ah!’ says Jean. ‘Long-legged dogs don’t live nearly so long.’
‘No. I’ve heard that.’
Angus may have lifted his head, but that’s as much as he’s prepared to do.
‘Angus! GET over here!’ says Melanie.
‘Oh – he’s alright’ I say. Too late. Melanie has already pushed herself clear of the sofa. She reaches down to scoop him up, and immediately his eyes spring open, revealing two black buttons of insanity. He bares his teeth, as thin and brown and horribly curved as the teeth on a deep sea angler fish, and he begins paddling furiously with his paws to turn and tear a lump out of her arm. It’s a horrifying spectacle, like watching someone pick up a scatter cushion and finding it transformed into a demon.
‘Oh no you don’t, you little bastard’ says Melanie, expertly wrestling Angus into a non-biteable position, and then sinking back onto the sofa with him, where she smothers the dog into submission. Eventually he taps out with a paw, Melanie cautiously relaxes her hold, and Angus sits there huffing and gasping and catching his breath, all the while watching me with an expression of the purest hatred.
‘Good boy,’ says Jean.

next stop market street

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All I’ve done is asked Ken to stand up for me. I’ve asked him as gently as possible, making it clear that I need to see for myself exactly what he can and can’t do.
‘Righto’ says Ken, and gets himself ready.
‘I’m not staying here to watch this,’ says his son, Barry. ‘I can’t be doing with all of this.’ And swiping his coat from the back of a chair, he slams out of the room. Barry’s wife, Jean, is equally tense.
‘I’ve told you. He can’t stand. If he could stand, he wouldn’t ‘a pissed himself in the chair. ‘Scuse my language. They’ve sent him home too early. He should never’ve been let out like this. They just don’t give a damn. All they care about is the beds and kicking people out. They don’t give no thought for anybody else.’
Meanwhile, I’ve put Ken’s zimmer frame in front of him and stood to the side, just in case he needs a hand.
‘Okay, then. Right, then,’ says Ken, and stands up.
‘Of course he does it for you,’ she says. ‘He’ll do it for a uniform. But how’s he supposed to manage when there’s no-one here? We’re supposed to be going away on holiday tomorrow. How’s he going to cope then?’
Whilst Jean is talking I’ve discreetly checked the seat of the chair, which doesn’t appear to be damp in any way.
‘Well that’s the next step,’ I tell her. ‘That’s what we need to find out.’
I rest a hand on Ken’s shoulder. ‘How do you feel about a trip to the bathroom?’
‘Oh, yes!’ says Ken. ‘Fine. I’ll give it a go, like. Y’know – I used to be a tram driver before the war. Next stop market street! Hold on very tight…’
‘Just concentrate on what you’re doing,’ says Jean.
‘Righto,’ says Ken.
He starts walking with the frame in the direction of the bathroom. He looks pretty steady, so I go ahead and clear some bags and things out of the way. He makes it there in good time, manages to turn round safely, lower himself onto the toilet, and get himself back up again.
‘That’s great!’ I say. ‘There are a few bits and pieces of equipment that’ll make it even easier, but I think you’re pretty good.’
‘You think so?’ he says. ‘Because I don’t want to be a bother to anyone.’
‘It’s no bother. Come on. Let’s get you back to your chair.’
Whilst I’m helping him back there, Barry comes back in, followed by a waft of smoke.
‘He’s only gone and got him to walk,’ says Jean.
‘Have you?’ says Barry. ‘Who the hell are you? Jesus Christ?’
‘Me? No. I’m his more talented brother.’

jean in black

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Stephen is telling me about the dream he had last night. He’s sitting in his chair looking left towards the windows with his eyes tightly shut, his bony fingers laced in his lap, one long leg crossed over the other, the foot gently bouncing up and down, as if he’s judging the weight of the slipper hanging from the toes.
‘I’ve been having these vivid dreams,’ he says. ‘They’re so real it takes me a while to wake up from them. I wondered if it might be the medication.’
‘Possibly. What kind of dreams?’
‘Last night I was floating in a warm, deep sea. And there were all these people splashing about around me, laughing and shouting. Some I knew, some I didn’t. And then I started to sink, down and down and down, not drowning exactly, but not happy about it either. And no-one tried to help me or seemed all that bothered, and everything was getting far away. It was such an odd, lonely feeling. I can’t say it was a nightmare, exactly, but I didn’t like it all that much. And when I woke up, I found I’d … had an accident.’
He opens his eyes at that point and twists his mouth into a one-sided smile, cartoon-like, superficial. I can’t help thinking he’s spent his whole life practising it.
‘The last time I wet the bed must have been seventy years ago, so you can imagine how surprised I was. Still,’ he says, his slipper falling to the floor,’ I’ve put something on the mattress tonight, in case I have the sea dream again.’
I pick his slipper up and hang it back on his foot.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Now – what else do you need to know?’
We go over his medical history, medications, recent admission to hospital.
‘And of course, no sooner have I come out than Jean goes in. We’re like those funny little people on a weather clock.’
‘So why has Jean gone to hospital?’
‘Didn’t they tell you?’ he says, closing his eyes and turning his face to the window again. ‘I fell on her. She was helping me down the stairs and I lost my balance. Broke her arm in three places. And then they found other things wrong with her, too, in that way they have. So all in all it’s been a bit of a disaster.’

* * *

Later on, when I’ve finished all the tests and I’m writing them up, Stephen asks me where I live.
‘Oh really?’ he says. ‘Well it’s a shame Jean isn’t here, because I think I’m right in saying that’s where her grandfather came from. He was a policeman – oh! I’m talking years ago, before the war. I remember her telling me about him. He used to ride around on a motorcycle, like he owned the place. And everyone hated him and his dreadful moustache, which is why they had him killed.’
‘Killed? Really?’
‘Apparently. And they all showed up at the funeral, lining the streets with their heads bowed and their hands in front of them, and all of them thinking the same thing. Glad to be shot of him.’
‘I’ll have to look into that.’
‘It was a long time ago. The old police station’s flats now, apparently. Called Peelers, I think. Funnily enough, that’s where I met Jean. At a funeral. She’s not my first wife. My first wife died unexpectedly.’
Stephen suddenly opens his eyes and stares straight at me.
‘It wasn’t her funeral we met at,’ he says. ‘I don’t want you getting the wrong idea.’
‘No, no,’ I tell him. ‘I didn’t think it could’ve been.’
‘Good,’ he says. ‘Because I know how it sounds.’
He finds another cartoon smile, then resumes his blind inspection of the window.
‘Yes. Jean looked wonderful in black. She was a shorthand typist, down from Scotland. We got chatting over the cold meat selection, and then shared a cab back to mine. And do you know what I tell people?’
‘No? What do you tell them?’
‘I tell them it was the only one-night stand I ever had, and so far it’s lasted ten years.’

aggie’s gift

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Aggie looks like the police photo of a ruined children’s clown finally busted for drugs. All she needs is a handheld name board and number. To the side. Full profile. Washed out, no make-up, hair still out in banded clumps. Dark brown eyes screwed up against the flash. Heavy lower lip rolling out from ill-fitting, tobacco stained dentures.

‘I went up that eye hospital,’ she says. ‘The doctor there, he turns round to me and he says I need an injection. What for, I says. Well, he says, you got that much pressure building up, if you don’t have it done soon your eye’ll pop out. Oh, I says. Yes, he says. I’ll make you an appointment. Well – if you’re that worried you think my eyeball’s gonna explode, why don’t you give me the injection now? I’m here, aren’t I? Oh, he says. Alright. So then he gets out this needle and he jabs me in the eye. Not just once, mind. Four times. Four times! It’s no wonder you give people a bit of a run-up, I says. It might be a little sore he says. Sore? He might as well have scooped my eye out and jumped on it. Anyway, I was on my way back into the waiting room when I saw this little old woman sitting on her own, looking pretty cheesed off. So I went over to her and I give her an orange. Honestly – she was so pleased. It was like I’d given her the world. I said to her, I said It’s just an orange, love. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure someone’ll do the same for me when I’m sitting there as old and hopeless as you.’