A Little Rain (20 page)

Heather looks me in the eye.  I look back and she
keeps staring.  I don’t blink.  She moves towards me.  I’m not expecting
anything so it’s lovely when she hugs me.  She smells heady and warm like
incense, maybe sandalwood.  It’s just impossible to hold back.  I just cry more,
though I try not to make a noise as my chin bounces gently on her shoulder.  I
try to hold my lips tight together but still taste salt in my mouth.  I don’t
want to draw in any more prying eyes.  I’m comforted more when I hear from a
distance the familiar roar of Rob’s car engine.  I hear it louder as he draws
up close to the kerb next to me and this makes me feel a little better.  I
gently pull back from Heather and she lets me go.  I smile at her.  I can’t
help it.  She’s looking so softly, so caringly at me.  Her kind eyes are full
of hearts, so reassuring.

“It will be ok,” she says.  “When you get back, if you
need anything, just call me.”

“Ok, I will. Thank you.” I say quickly, now the pain
is coursing fiercely up to the top of my leg.  Rob has got out of the car to
help me hobble into the front seat.  I get in, thinking I would probably be
more comfy stretched out in the back but it’s too late now, the car’s moving.  I
wave goodbye to Heather and almost stick my fingers up at the other people
stopped still staring, but I don’t instead I squeal in pain again as the
pulsating agony in my toes flares making me double up.  I put my head down in
the foot well.  It smells like rubber.  I can see muddy footprints and bits of
grit.

“Breathe deep.  Try to think of something else. We’ll
be there soon,” Rob says.  Him being next to me helps me hold it together and helps
me stay sane.  Otherwise I think I probably would have lost it completely.  I
stop crying now and it now takes a lot of concentration to hold back the tears
and keep quiet.  When Rob speaks again he says, “Be brave, hold it in your
heart,” and it’s all I need to keep me still and silent, for now.

There’s a fair amount of traffic on the road at this
time of day.  It takes longer than it should to get to the hospital but instead
of moaning, “Are we there yet?”  I just practice my deep breathing and try to
separate myself from the pain.  I concentrate hard, really hard.  When we do
eventually get there, Rob stops by the entrance and helps me out of the car.  He
drives off to park.  I stand still and continue with my breathing and counting.
 Breathe in deep, one, two, three, four.  Breathe out slow, two, two, three,
four.  I don’t know how many minutes go by as I stare at the beige slab of
concrete I stand on.  By the time Rob comes back he is pulling a porter’s
chair.  My pain is now a dull persisting throb, like maybe there’s a pile of
bricks on my foot.  I take the seat gratefully and it feels like some of the
bricks have been taken off.  Pride won’t make me walk.  My foot feels like it’s
in the process of dying.  I don’t want to kill it off completely by walking the
last few steps.  He pulls me along in the chair with squeaky wheels.  For few seconds
I feel like a princess on a portable throne but the further we go down the
corridor, it gets darker and there is no more natural light.  I can hear the
wheels rolling on the lino and the sound of Rob’s rubber soles sticking to the
floor with each step.

We check in at the high desk and things look bleak.  It
is very busy.  There are a lot of people having accidents and emergencies right
now it seems.  There are young children crying, sitting on the laps of their
anxious mums.  Some people are just sitting looking ok to me.  I wonder what is
wrong with them.  Then, there are some where it is obvious.  There are people
with bloodied noses, split lips, cuts and bruises.  I just can’t help but
stare.  Rob tells me to shut my mouth at one point, and pushes my jaw closed
with his hand, but there are a lot of people to stare at and a lot that stare
back with dismal indifference.  This is definitely not a cheery place.  I think
I would prefer the company of the dead in a morgue.  Rob sees a single seat at
the end of a row and so I stay in the chair.  He pushes me in front of him and I
prop my bad foot up on his knee.

At the Reception desk they say I will be waiting for two
hours at least, a nurse will come to see me first and take details, but as my
injury is not life threatening and my war wounds invisible, I am not a priority.
 I am quite disappointed it has not even drawn blood but at least the pain has now
settled slightly.  It is more like a slow unrelenting pulse.  The bricks are
still there and I would definitely still call it pain, but maybe a bloke would
call it unbearable agony, like a man-flu is to the common cold.

While we sit and wait there’s not a lot to do, so we
do what we do best and talk.  This is unexpected.  He opens up a little.  Instead
of picking up a magazine or falling asleep he starts talking about the weekend out
of the blue.  He says how awful he felt Friday and how he put on a brave face,
and how Saturday had been even worse for him, seeing Marcia.  He says they’re
not getting back together.  I press him for more detail but he does not answer.
 It seems a lot has happened.  But it’s all been about me since Friday.  I
haven’t stopped to think about Rob and I now feel bad.  Really bad.  And
whatever it is that’s bothering him now, he won’t tell me.  I want to know it
all, but Rob is not forthcoming.  It’s a game of twenty questions.  I ask, “Are
you ok?”  He shrugs. “Did you see Ruby on Saturday?  At all?”

“No. She was with Mrs. D.”

“What about Sunday?”

“No, I was with you.”

“After I left?”

“I saw Marcia again.”

“Why?”

“Just to talk, and I wanted to try and see Ruby.”

“Did you see her?”

“She was in bed.”

“At her Nan’s?”

“Yes.”

“What’s going on with Marcia?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re hiding something from me.  I know it.”  He
doesn’t even bother with a response.  I feel like I’m at the bottom of a hill
again standing by a giant boulder.  We just sit in silence for a while.  “Please
tell me what’s going on Rob, I’m so confused.  You’re not getting back with
Marcia are you?”

“No.”

“Then tell me what’s wrong?  What’s happening?”  He
just shrugs.  We sit silent for a while more.

He sighs, “I think we should just concentrate on
getting your foot better first, hadn’t we?”

“Yes.  I suppose so.  But, please tell me what’s going
on.  I can’t take much more...”  I can tell he’s tired now of my relentless asking,
but I just want to know.  It’s obvious that underneath it all he’s in pieces.  He
looks fine on the surface, if a little bruised.  His lip is cut ever so
slightly and a little bloodied from fighting earlier but Benny was a more of a mess.
 There was a lot more blood on him.  Cut eye.  Mashed hands.  Bloodied nose.   He’s
the one who should be in A&E.  In fact, I’m half expecting to hear his name
called out and see him spring up from a seat somewhere, with cap on, hood up.

Rob breaks the silence.  “So, what’s up with you?”  I
might as well tell the truth now.  We’ve come this far.

“I can’t stop thinking about Benny.”  He hardly
flinches, just raises his eyebrows slightly and blinks a few times.  I detect
the slightest hint of another shrug.

“Tell me it’s over!” he says almost laughing.  I’m
glad he can see the funny side.  It could be a whole lot worse.

“Yes it’s over.  Of course it is.  It has to be now.   It
was already.  It has to be after this.  After he hit you.”

“Funny how he has to hit me for you to realise.”

“What?”  I say a bit hurt.

“Well, you’ve put up with it before now.”

“Yeah, but…”

“So why did you?”  I can’t answer.  I can’t even say
because I loved him because I don’t think I did.  I don’t know what it feels
like to be in love.  It’s a damn good question and I can’t find an answer.

I speak honestly.  “Coz I’m stupid, maybe.”

“I wouldn’t say that, you’re not dumb.  You’re just
too young to know better.”

“Yeah but with you around, I should know better.”

“I’m no example to follow,” he says, obviously not a
picture of happiness himself.

“Not by choice.” I say.

“I chose to be with Marcia and having Ruby was never a
mistake.  My choice to have a baby with Marcia was a mistake.”

“But if it wasn’t for Marcia, there wouldn’t be Ruby.”

“True…”

“Well, when she grows up, then she’ll get to know the
truth and she’ll be more independent.  You’ll get to see more and more of her,
and of course she’ll want to see you.”

“I could be waiting a long time.  I shouldn’t have to
wait.”

“No, you shouldn’t, but we don’t always get what we
want.”

“No, we don’t.  You’re right.  No matter how hard you
try, how easy your try to make things be, something will screw it up.”  It’s
not often me and Rob gets deep like this but of course, I don’t like hearing
the sad and ugly truth.  Until Ruby is old enough to make her own choices, this
could go on for years.  I also worry what the Diaz family might do or say in
the meantime to poison Ruby against him.  It breaks my heart to see Rob’s being
broken.  I hope the future won’t be that bleak, but who knows what’s around the
corner.  I don’t like to think of the future.  I just hope and will pray things
get better and not get any worse. 

I get a bad feeling again deep within, nothing to do
with pain, just a sudden unstoppable feeling of impending doom, like the world
is closing in on me.  It does not help that there are no windows in the airless
waiting room.  I feel sticky on the red vinyl seat.  We are on the lower ground
floor at the end of a maze of tunnels.  I feel like a coal miner trapped deep underground
whose light has gone out with no sense of place or direction.  It does not help
to dwell on the weekend just past.  It hasn’t been a bunch of daisies for me
either.  The Saturday night fiasco to start.  Rob hasn’t seen Ruby all weekend.
 Then the fight with Benny, the flat is wrecked and now we’ve both ended up in
hospital.  I feel so bad and guilty.  I cannot wait to get back home to start clearing
up all that mess in the flat.  Get my cleaning kit out again, pink rubber
gloves on, blue bucket in hand, hot water, disinfectant, yellow sponge and
start to get to work.  That should be the last thing on my mind but right now
I’m not able to keep my thoughts still, I never am.  My mind is jumping all
over the place, a little locked box of Mexican jumping beans.

I feel guiltier still as thoughts of Etienne keep
popping into my head.  His pure beauty and the fun we had followed by his hasty
exit.  After all this, I hope I will see him again.  Then I think of Heather.  What
must she think?  Talk about neighbours from hell.  I wonder if she will even speak
to us again.  I am optimistic she will.  She made that offer just before we
drove off.  I hope it was genuine.  Everyone has it in them to lie.  I’m not
naïve.  I think I could spot a liar from a mile off, takes one to know one.  I
could maybe ask her to come round and help me tidy up the flat when I get back.
 I hope that won’t be asking too much.

As I’m thinking about all this I notice Rob has gone
quiet.  Real quiet.  He’s not the liveliest or most excitable man, not by a
long way, but at least he was making some noises before.  Now he’s not saying
anything.  I look at him and he is staring into space, unfocused and distant.  He’s
not looking at anything, like a screen has gone up in front of him.  The switch
is off.  My foot suddenly starts to hurt badly again and I can’t think of
anything else to say except OWWW!  Rob does not react, not even to say ‘Are you
ok?’ or rub my shoulder or turn to look at me.  He doesn’t even move.  I know not
to expect any sympathy now.

In his own way, he makes me brave and makes me face my
pain.  It’s not his.  It’s no one else’s. “
Nothing like pain to make you
brave.
”  I remember he once said when my finger got trapped in the shed door
for about five seconds, when we were kids.  He’s right.  Pain makes you or
breaks you.  It’s not going to stop me.  I manage to find the strength to stand
up and hop the short distance to the desk.  “Excuse me.  How long please?” I
ask politely, my voice wobbles a little.  We’ve been waiting about an hour and
a half.  My whole body has started to ache and feels stiff and bent like a wire
coat hanger.

The receptionist says, “Shouldn’t be too long now.”  Rob
stays silent as before when I am back.  While we wait, I watch a horizontal sleeping
trampy looking man directly opposite me.  I can smell him from here.  He reeks
of booze and possibly the worst body odour I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. 
He looks like he could roll off the seat any second.  Unexpectedly he then
wakes up and vomits on the floor with a god-awful retching noise.  It splashes
and spreads out over the floor, a symphony of brown and yellow mucous.  The
smell is incredible, like rotten fruits and alcohol, curry, fish and cheese. 
It makes me heave.  I have to pull my hoodie up over my mouth.  Rob doesn’t
even flinch.  A technician wearing a white plastic apron soon comes over with a
yellow wet floor sign and a cleaning trolley and gets to work, not phased at
all, like this has happened a million times before.

Eventually my name gets called and a nurse comes over
and says that I must have an x-ray before seeing the doctor.  I have to wait
again, in another place around a corner.  When I am soon called in, I get with
difficulty on to a cold, padded hydraulic couch.  It’s very uncomfortable trying
to keep still like I’m told to.  I have to hold a heavy apron of lead over my
belly, in case I am pregnant, they say.  I cannot even begin to consider
whether or not it might be a possibility.  It makes a futuristic buzzing noise
as they zap my foot with radiation.  Rob wheels me back to the waiting room and
now I have to wait again to see the doctor.  The sleeping man has gone and
thankfully so has the smell.