Harvest (53 page)

“
Where do you want to go
today?”

“
Go?”

Peter had moments of vagueness
because of his dementia. “Yes, where would you like to go; what
would you like to do.”

“
Where are all the
children?”

Any other time it might have
been just a random statement from a misconnection in his
disorganized brain, but his observation was chillingly appropriate.
“I don’t know. That’s what a lot of parents round here have been
asking themselves lately.” She frowned at the drama of what she
said; she was meant to take him out and give him a good time, not
depress the poor bastard. “Probably got bored with the common and
they are off playing somewhere else.” Probably playing somewhere
safer than the shadow of a building where kids go missing. “Where
would you like to go? What would you like to do?”

“
I am
sorry, are we friends? Are we courting?
No…
No… I am married.” He started, and seemed to
suddenly become conscious of being in the wheelchair. He studied
his hands, tracing the prominent veins that clung to the bones
beneath his paper thin skin with a quivering finger. “No. I am old.
Old and married. And you’re my nurse.”

“
Come on then. What’s my
name?”

“
Zoe.”

“
Ooh! Showing off now
today, Mr Sinclair.” She patted him affectionately on the shoulder
of his tweed jacket with her spare hand. “I woke up the other
morning and I couldn’t remember my own name – I think you just
recovered quicker than I did.”

“
Hung-over?” he
scoffed.

She laughed. “You guessed it.”
She liked him. He was polite, and didn’t treat her like a Red Coat
that should be entertaining him every second of their little
jaunts. He was often quite content to watch the world go by from a
café, and only talk when something came to him, or when he slipped
into confusion. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t make the effort,
she might be worlds apart from girls he might have known when he
was her age, but he didn’t criticize. He always seemed to accept
her the way she was, whether she cursed, lit up a fag or talked
about a mental night out, there was no nod of disgrace or tut of
disapproval which she would have gotten from her grandparents.
Grandparents she didn’t bother with anymore.

“
Girls drink too much
these days,” he observed.

“
Yup. Everyone does too
much of everything these days.” She stopped the wheelchair and
pushed the breaks on. She fished her packet of cigarettes out of
her bag and walked in front of him to talk with him.

“
I expect you are right.”
He watched her light up. “I think Eadie had a hang over the other
morning.”

Her eyes widened. “No! Mrs
Sinclair?” In her exclamation she missed her mouth and her
cigarette fell. It bounced off her Nurses dress in an angry display
of orange embers before it hit the floor.

He broke into a wheezing Muttley
guffaw. “She made a sherry trifle and then we had a few glasses
when dinner was finished.”

“
I didn’t know she had it
in her.” Zoe giggled. With her chin on her collar bone she looked
down her front and brushed the grey ash marks from her chest. She
wondered whether she would be knocking back vodka shots when her
tits dropped (even the pierced one) and her face shrivelled. She
could imagine herself up the over- sixties club smoking a joint
with her blue rinse and playing poker with the girls. Except most
of her mates would probably be like the Sinclair’s; at home with
each other, while she would be living on her own with her vibrating
friend in one bedside drawer for the lonely nights and a stash of
Viagra in another drawer for when she got lucky.

“
Your parents must
worry.”

She glanced up before getting
back to her clean up; “Don’t all parents?” Dad didn’t say much, but
mum rang regularly, asking when her next visit would be, cautiously
asking what she had been up to, but not really wanting the worry of
knowing.

“
Yes.” He went quiet and
still.

She patted her dress back into
place against her body. “Right. Shall we go through the market and
walk along the canal for a bit? We can double back and grab
something to eat in the market.”

“
You have perfect
breasts.”

She blurted a laugh. “What did
you just say?”

“
I am not sure…” He stared
through her with his jaw trembling. “Don’t tell my mum.”

“
Your mum? I think it’s
your wife you need to worry about.”

“
Yes… Yes. My wife.” He
was back with her, he looked her in the eye vacantly. “Why do I
need to worry about my wife? Is she okay?”

She squeezed his shoulder
on her way back round behind his chair. “She is fine, and you don’t
need to worry about anything. I just didn’t know you had it in you
either.” Everyone had thoughts they wouldn’t want broadcasted, she
wouldn’t embarrass him by dwelling on them. Besides, her
breasts
were
perfect. She
laughed to herself. They had their fans. “So you up for the
market?”

“
Yes that sounds nice,
Zoe.”

In dementia the ability of the
brain amazed her with how it could rewrite time and transport its
owner to different places and the different phases or stages of
development of who they were. Shame it was so painful for the
relative when the person became lost in their time travels within
their own lives. Mr Sinclair wasn’t lost yet though. She was
grateful for that – and in that moment she realized she was getting
attached to the old bugger. She would swap shifts with someone
before she had to deal with him losing his way. She walked him
forwards along the path. The caretaker was ahead of them to the
side of the path tending to a large sit down mower.

“
What have you been up to
then?” Mr Sinclair called over his shoulder.

“
I have been out with the
girls – went clubbing the other night.” In her memory the night was
a blur of flashing colourful lights and thumping dance sounds,
visits to the bar and giggling wickedly. The rest of the night was
narrated to her by her mates the next day and the bloke she woke up
next to. “It was good fun.”

“
You have an emotionally
demanding job; its good that you get to let your hair down and
relax.”

“
Yeah.” It was. She had
invested her time, money and effort in her nurse training and she
worked hard – A&E didn’t allow for slackers.

“
Have you met any nice
men?”

The man she woke up next to was
called Simon, she knew him. They had woken up together enough times
to be at ease with sharing the morning after and not making any
plans to see each other. It was just a casual thing. They might see
each other out and about, and spend the evening mucking about,
talking, having a laugh and getting slaughtered, then going home
together at the end of their night for some safe fun. She might
enjoy sex, but she lived to enjoy life, and she didn’t want an
S.T.I or B.A.B.Y to spoil that. She had a few good friends that she
could trust like that. “Yeah I have met a few… Nothing
serious.”

“
Don’t worry – someone
will snap you up.”

She wasn’t worried. If it was
anyone but Mr Sinclair the reassurance would irritate her – why
should she worry if no bloke took the bait? She was happy enough
being single. “Doubt there’s anyone worthy enough.” She couldn’t
imagine anyone would be worth sacrificing the fun and friendships
she had for something serious and life changing like a
relationship. “Maybe I am happy being single.”

“
You don’t want to settle
down with someone at the moment.”

“
It sounds weird, and I
might change my mind when I hit thirty or forty and the scene isn’t
so forgiving, but I don’t think I want to settle down at all.” She
slowed his chair to a stop and popped the break on as she
remembered her craving for nicotine and to replace the cigarette
she had dropped.

“
You don’t want children
then?”

“
No. Not at all. Never
even used to play with baby dolls when I was a child.”

“
How do your parents feel
about that?”

She pursed her lips on her
cigarette and stood poised with her lighter at its end. She sniffed
and wrinkled her nose against a noxious odour of petrol, and
decided against striking the flint of her lighter. The caretaker
was besides her filling the large mower with fuel. “I think my
sister is making up for that, she’s two years younger than me and
has one kid already and another on the way…” The caretaker had
stopped what he was doing and was staring at her. She smiled around
the cigarette in a communication of “What the fuck are you staring
at?”. His stare didn’t break and he didn’t smile back. Freak. She
walked on with the unlit cigarette between her lips, the smell of
petrol, her potential flame and her earlier clumsiness with a
cigarette, and his stare, putting her off loitering and lighting up
so close to the mower and the caretaker.

“
Are you a
lesbian?”

The cigarette bobbed as she
laughed. “No I am not!”

He laughed with her. “You
shouldn’t be offended. There’s is nothing wrong with being
homosexual in your generation.”

“
Jeez.
You sound just like my mates. No I am not gay, and I am not going
to have a flat full of cats or become a vegan hippy. I am a card
carrying straight girl who can barely keep a houseplant let alone
look after a pet, and I love a bit of meat.” If she was having this
conversation with her mates the word ‘meat’ would be substituted
with ‘cock’.
An image of the petrol can
appeared in her mind.
She puzzled at it and then
dismissed it. “I have plans to get a place with some
friends.”

“
Don’t they want to settle
down either?”

“
They are enjoying
themselves like me, but yeah they do want to. They said that when
they meet fella’s they will move out and rent their rooms out.
There’s always a demand for nursing accommodation, and I will be
there to keep an eye on the place and be the live-in-landlady.”
Happy she had put some distance between her lighter and the fuel,
she stopped. The caretaker had gone, leaving the can of petrol
beside the mower, she scanned the common but couldn’t see where he
was.

Zoe applied the flame to
the cigarette and sucked its heat into the tobacco. Her mind dwelt
on the image of the petrol can. She didn’t understand why she would
give it any more thought. It was a safe distance away from Mr
Sinclair and herself.
Why was she
worried?
She wrinkled her brow at her self-questioning.
Okay, she admitted to herself, she may have been overcautious
earlier; there wasn’t much chance of her lighter being the cause of
a fire but she had a healthy respect for danger – she enjoyed life
too much.
Fire was dangerous.
She blew out a puff of smoke and carried on walking Mr
Sinclair in the direction of the heart of Camden.

The petrol can.

Zoe frowned. Maybe the petrol
can was like when she was on a course about mental health and
obsessive thinking; the lecturer used her in an example of how hard
it is to control thoughts, she asked Zoe to think about pink
elephants for thirty seconds, then to think about anything but pink
elephants for thirty seconds. In that second set of thirty seconds
she couldn’t shake pink elephants; they were in her memories all
over the place, having dinner with her and her family when she was
a teenager, in the bedroom of her flat with her and Paul Maguire –
the best sex she had ever had, pink elephants mooching around the
dance floor in some of the more memorable nights out she had at
that time. The more you try to think about something else the more
you think about the thing your trying to avoid.

Petrol can.

The petrol can danced into her
head on the back of a pink elephant. She laughed and shrugged it
off.

Zoe held the lighter before her
and thumbed the striking wheel. It rubbed, but there was no spark.
She pursed her lips on her cigarette. Scratch. No flame. Mr
Sinclair blustered, shivered and coughed. She pressed her thumb
down on the lighter. “What the bloody hell did you do that for? I’m
soaked!” Zoe frowned at the shock and anger in his voice, and
averted her gaze from the quivering flame of her lighter and found
that Mr Sinclair was squirming in his wheelchair in an attempt to
twist his body round so he could look at her. His grey hair was no
longer neatly combed, but dark, wet and plastered to his head.
There was a strong smell coming from him. Her eyes crossed to the
end of the cigarette protruding from her mouth. It was already lit.
She had lit it earlier.

Petrol.

An orange light flared, cramming
itself into her eyes, blotting out her vision. She screwed her eyes
tightly shut, not against the light but against the wall of heat
that slammed into her. Her eyebrows tightened as they singed, the
fine ends of her fringe vaporised, her body became awash with sweat
that evaporated as quickly as it emerged from her pores. She
staggered away, reeling from the heat. Mr Sinclair screamed and
thrashed from within a quivering field of fierce yellowy orange
light that tore around him twisting into great forks that stabbed
at the tail of a great black snake of cloud pouring itself into the
sky.

Zoe stared at the lighter
clutched in her hand.

She saw the petrol can lying
discarded on its side a few feet from them.