Sometimes I think it would be nice to have an animal. A cat, you know. Some company. But you’re not allowed animals in the block. I can understand why, of course. There are quite a few people here. If everyone had an animal, what on earth would it be like? A zoo, probably. Whipsnade Zoo!
I don’t do so bad, though. I don’t bother with the idiot box much. I have all these books, you see. When I was working, I don’t think I ever read. Too busy travelling around, keeping the business afloat. To the Outer Hebrides, on one occasion. Sounds like a long way – and it was – but it was worth it. I think. Now, the furthest I manage is from the bedroom to the kitchen. Although sometimes, if the weather’s nice like today, I’ll drag these sorry old bones out into the front garden. There’s a little bench there, under the roses. I’ll take a book and sit there, and read, or just watch the world go by.

The odd cat.

What happened was, I tore my leg on a nail. Briony looked at it and she said I’d better go to the doctor’s and get it checked, because it was starting to look a bit angry. When I eventually got an appointment – not with my doctor – I can never get an appointment with my doctor – it’s like getting an appointment with the queen – well, this doctor he said yes, he said he thought perhaps it was infected, and he wrote me out a prescription for some antibiotics. Something cillin. Amoxy, floxy, doxy, something. I told him I was allergic to one of them, one of the cillins. Years ago. I can’t even remember what it was for. But he said don’t worry, we’ve got plenty, let’s try you on this one and see how we go. I took two, and then this afternoon I had a banana. Now, the thing is, just afterwards I started to feel all tingly and scratchy all over, and I had this rash come up under my arm. It’s dreadful. I just can’t stop scratching! Anyway, my question to you is – d’you think I’m allergic to bananas?

There is a TV at the foot of the bed, a black and white western playing at full volume: Jimmy Stewart, galloping across a desert plain towards some mountains, one hand on the reins, one hand holding his Winchester out to the side as a counterbalance.

I’ve driven out here with the same amount of haste. Connie, the nurse, had called to say she needed help with a difficult catheterisation. I’m new to the job and need the practice, although in this case, because it’s  complicated, I’m only here to help manipulate the patient.

‘Would you mind if we turned the TV down, Jay?’
‘No. That’s fine.’

Jimmy hauls the horse up in a cloud of dust, throws his leg over and takes cover behind some rocks. Just as well. The baddie hiding in the boulders higher up stands up and takes a shot; Pee-oww! Jimmy ducks down, levers a shell into the chamber, adjusts his hat.

Jay is a bariatric patient who can only be lifted with a gantry hoist. Her legs are extraordinary, as massively sculpted as any of the sandstone formations in the film. Connie stands there with the catheter in her hand, considering her options. I stand ready on the opposite side of the bed, awaiting instructions.

Jimmy picks up a pebble, tosses it out to the side. The baddie shoots: Pee-oww! I half expect to see rock chips cahooning off Jay’s knee. He draws a bead on the baddie and fires back. It’s like he’s sheltering between Jay’s legs and the baddie’s somewhere up in the pillows.

‘If you could just hold her labia open… a little more… hmm.’
Visualising the urethral opening is easy enough on a diagram or an average patient, but Jay is neither, every aspect of her anatomy transformed by her condition.
‘Okay… relax. We’ll have a re-think.’

Jimmy stands up. Waves to the baddie, who cautiously emerges from behind the pillows.
‘Jes’ a minute, there! Now – hol’ on’ says Jimmy. ‘Why don’ we jes’ help these good people, now? Wha-wha-I say wha d’ya say?’
The baddie lowers his rifle.
Jimmy puts his down, resting it against the side of the bed, and then comes to stand next to me. He smells of dust, sweat, horse, cordite.
‘Now how can I help, pardner?’
Connie tells us where to lay our hands. Together we roll Jay onto her side. Connie ducks down and goes in from the rear. I glance up at the Baddie. He’s leaning back against his rock, now, gently fanning himself with his hat. His gold tooth smiles as he nods at me. He doesn’t look too bad. I wonder what he’s done to piss Jimmy Stewart off.
‘There we are! In!’ says Connie, happy with the urine that’s leaking out of the catheter tube into the blue tray. She gently inflates the balloon with the syringe, and when everything’s set, we carefully lower Jay down again.
‘Thank you, gentlemen!’ says Connie.
Jimmy touches the brim of his hat.
‘Pleasure, ma’am.’
But then his smile fades as he turns his head and sees the baddie lounging around at the head-end.
The baddie freezes.
They both make a dive for cover.
Jimmy Stewart has his Winchester in his hand and squeezes off a shot, but the baddie has just managed to roll to the side behind a table of medical supplies. The bullet snicks harmlessly through a pack of swabs.

‘All done!’ says Connie. ‘Drama over.’

Magda is nothing if not emphatic.
‘Fucking hell! Would it kill them to indicate sometime? How you supposed to know what they going to do at roundabout? I’m not kidding. What do they think I am? Fucking mind-reader?’
She drives on.
‘My father was traffic cop. He made it a big thing to learn. He say to me “It doesn’t matter if it’s one, two, three o’clock in morning and no-one on road for miles. You make manoeuvre, you indicate. Because this way it becomes automatic habit, and you do it whenever you drive, without thinking.’
She’s forced to give way to an on-coming car.
‘Jesus fucking bastard! Sorry – I know is bad to swear. But please! Who teach these people to drive? Fucking clown?’

Later on, we’re drinking coffee in a service station.
‘How old are you?’ she says, giving me a sideways look, then twisting the lid off her cup and blowing across the top.
‘Fifty-two.’
‘Fifty-two? Jesus Christ! You could be my father!’
I shrug.
‘You don’t look fifty-two,’ she says, biting the end off a croissant and chewing vigorously. ‘What you do before this job?’
‘Well – I was ten years in the ambulance. Before that I was teaching English in a secondary school for a couple of years. Before that I was temping. Different companies, some for a couple of years. I worked for a publishing house in London. A warehouse, office jobs, a couple of bars. I went to university and did English and Drama there.’ I shrug, helplessly. ‘That kind of thing. You know.’
I want to tell her I tried acting for a while, but I imagine it would just add to the generally dispiriting account of my career to date, so I leave it out and sip my coffee instead.
‘You travel?’ she says.
‘No. Not really. I wanted to.’
‘No travel?  What about drugs? You do drugs?’
‘Some. Not much.’
‘Hm,’ she says, finishing the croissant, smacking her hands clean and taking up her coffee again.
‘You telling me, not much.’

The silence in the old house is as palpable as the damp in that corner. Every wall and alcove is occupied with antique dolls, ceramic cats, books, pictures, musical scores – the hectic clutter of it all only emphasising the profound stillness. Marjorie is sitting in the living room in a high-backed, plush-rubbed chair, tucked to the side of the room’s main window. Light pours in from the street outside. She sits with her back to the wall, facing into the room. On the opposite side to her, in a prominent position amongst the bric-a-brac, is a portrait of Marjorie as a young girl. She may be seventy years older, but the smile is the same: an irregular triangle lain on its long side, like she’s wincing, breathing and passing comment all at the same time.

‘I can’t cook because I can’t stand for long.

I can’t remember the last time I had meat. It’s the basting, you see. I can’t stand to baste.

I was up the hospital with my foot the other week. The doctor arranged transport. Well, I say transport. It was more like a cattle run. I missed my appointment, of course, but they slotted me in. And then I was waiting three and a half hours for a ride back. Three and a half hours! I’ll never do it again. A woman whose husband still drives said she’d give me a lift back. But this person came running out and said “If you get in that car you’ll be struck off the list and never have transport again!” So there you are. That was that. But I will not be repeating the experience. I’ll have them come to me.

I’ve been off my food lately. I don’t really fancy much. A bit of salad or some fruit. A bowl of porridge – that’s my mainstay. They did arrange for meals on wheels to come round. But the carer at the time took off the lid and it was some kind of fish in a green sauce. I quite liked the look of it, but she said “No way you’re having that” , and she tossed the whole lot in the bin. So there you are. That was that. My one and only meal on a wheel.

The agency? No, they don’t come any more. They left a price list, you see, and when I rang up and queried the hours and the cost and so forth, she said “Well that’s what we do” and hung up. Amazing, really! I do have a girl who comes in to help with the shopping. Lovely thing. Blond, rushes about. She crashes through the door with a rucksack on her back and a shopping bag in either hand and I feel embarrassed to ask her to do anything else. She’s half dead as it is, poor thing.

Ever since the foot I’ve struggled to get out as much. I used to go to that place, you know, by the station. I used to sing songs from the musical hall and so on, although I took requests. I did something from The Phantom of the Opera, which went down well. But then my foot happened and now I’m stuck here all on my own and there you are. That was that.

Do you know of anyone who could come by for half an hour or so? This isn’t a friendly street. I’ve lived in this house fifty years, but these days I wouldn’t know who was right or left. Fifty years! Look at that postcard, no – the one by the jug. That’s what the street was like when it was first built. This house, then Jock’s on the corner, then the pub, then cows, fields and the sea. Now look at it. But there you are.

Just half an hour. I get a bit tired of my own company, d’you know?

You could tell them I have things here. Lovely garden. Board games of every description. Somewhere. Anyway – see what you think.’

‘Take ten minutes to grab a coffee and stretch your legs,’ the catheter nurse said. ‘Go outside, get some air. When you come back we’ll be set for the practical.’
There was a big queue for the coffee. I noticed a door leading outside into a small square garden. I went through the door, walked over to a bench on the far side, and sat down.
The sides of the square were formed by two stories of dark-glassed offices connected by a continuous walkway. Now and then someone came out of one office, hurried along the walkway with a folder of stuff, and disappeared into another office. Other than that, you wouldn’t know anyone was there at all. In the centre of the square was a large, circular fountain, with chlorinated water piping out of the top in five thin streams. There were no fish in the pond – not even any debris. The sun shone down on the surface of the pool making it seem like liquid blue glass. Around the pond were a selection of thick-leaved, drought-resistant bushes, and a simple grey path.
It was unnerving sitting there, nothing to do, no book to read, no shade against the sun. I couldn’t get over the feeling I was being watched from behind any of those glass windows. I felt the urge to check my phone, not because it needed checking, but because it would give me a reason for sitting there.
The fountain wasn’t helping. Maybe if it had been planted up with stuff, some life in there, I would’ve felt more relaxed. As it was, I stood up again, hoping that whoever was watching would think I’d forgotten something.
I walked back towards the door.
A woman was coming out. She’d brought a jug of water with her, and knelt down to fill two ceramic dishes beneath one of the bushes.
‘Are they for the birds?’ I said, holding the door.
‘Yes.’
I wanted to say something else, but it took me too long to think about it and the moment passed, so I went in.
It was only when I was back in the training room  that I thought about the birds again.
Why wouldn’t they drink from the fountain?
Maybe it was difficult for them to perch on the side? And anyway, that water probably had all kinds of chemicals in it to keep the fountain clean.
I imagined her watching the birds through a dark window, specifically coming outside to put water out.
‘Refreshed?’ said the catheter nurse. ‘Let’s crack on.’

The way it’s worked out, I’ve had to take an early lunch break. I’m more than happy with that, though. It was an early start and I haven’t had anything since breakfast. Even if I wasn’t hungry I’d want to get outside. The sun has come out and the wind eased off. There’s a wild garden opposite the hospital cafe in the mental health annexe. I can’t think of anything better right now than to sit on a bench seat under a tree with a cup of coffee and half an hour to read.
The cafe is empty, only one other person, a briskly-laundered manager, tapping on his laptop, taking large bites of his sandwich so abstractedly he’s in danger of eating his Blackberry instead. I go over to the counter, chose a filled baguette and a packet of crisps, then slide straight up to the till to pay.
The woman serving has the look of someone who’s suffered a great deal. Her features are drawn and pale, her fingers raw, her gray hair stranding out of a blue-net hat.
‘Can I get a cup of coffee as well, please?’
She leans forward and whispers: ‘It’s self-service, I’m afraid. You’re supposed to help yourself.’ She nods back in the direction I came.
‘Oh – don’t worry then. I tell you what. I’ll have a can of coke instead. Easier to carry, anyway.’
She smiles at me, fiddles with her hair, then starts ringing up the stuff.
But then suddenly she stops, reaches over and picks up my library book. Frankenstein.
She looks at the cover, turns it over, reads the blurb, then looks at me.
‘I remember this,’ she says. ‘Years ago. We read it. For A Level.’
‘I’m really enjoying it,’ I tell her. ‘I mean – some of it’s a bit dull, but it’s amazingly atmospheric and very creepy in parts.’
She hands it back.
‘It’s amazing to think that Mary Shelley was only about twenty when she wrote it,’ I say as she finishes totting up my lunch.
‘Was she?’
‘I think so.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ she says, tapping the little display that shows how much I owe: four pounds thirty-eight. I poke around in my wallet for the change, then give up and hand over a tenner. She takes it, holds it up to the light, then rests it on the top of the till whilst she slides the change out.
‘All I remember is how sad I was for the monster,’ she says, dumping the change in my hand then slamming the drawer shut. ‘There you go! Enjoy your lunch!’

A young couple in the seats behind me

‘God! This train is sooo  S L O W. It’s stopping at every stop.’
‘It said it was the express.’
‘Well – it shouldn’t have.’’
‘It won’t take long, Cas. We’re almost there.’
‘Why’d we get this one?’
‘I don’t think it’s that slow. Look at all that shit. It’s flying past.’
‘Jesus Christ, I’ve never been on such a slow train. And this chair’s digging my back.’
‘Do you know what? I had a look in first class, and the only thing I can see any different is they have cloths to put your head on.’
‘I wouldn’t pay extra for that. To go a bit faster, may be. Look at the trees. I can see them growing.’
‘Not every train’s a rocket, Cas.’
‘A normal speed train’d be nice.’
‘Hey – look! I sent this txt, yeah? Instead of saying you do it came out do you. It looked like I was saying I wanted to do her.’
‘Predictive text. You’ve got to watch it. You want to say one thing and you end up saying something sooowrong.’
‘Predictive text. I love it!’
‘Predictably crap.’
‘I want to do you. Classic.’
‘Fucking hell, this train.’