Inseparable Bond (12 page)

A male nurse
entered the room; he looked dumfounded at Banks, shaking his head
in disbelief as he went over and sat on a tapestry armchair to
enrol the new guy.

A strong smell
of cheap perfume drifted across the room as Graham Banks was
generously spraying Dorothy and Elizabeth with his new purchase.
John felt nauseous and went over to open the door, which led to the
garden.

John spent
many evenings sitting with them all after the evening meal, where
he found the conversations gave him an education and what it was
like to be ‘different’ in this society. He would listen and watch
for hours and realise he had been walking around most of his life
with his eyes shut and he felt alienated from the rest of them in
the system.

The silence
was broken by a rain of coins bouncing and wheeling in all
directions on the wooden floor, Graham Banks had dropped his
handbag from his knee. Dorothy and Elizabeth crawled around the
room to retrieve the money.

The noise had
disturbed old Tommy who had been sleeping. ‘Shut the fuck up, you
fucking muff eaters,’ he shouted. The male nurse went over to Tommy
to escort him out of the room. John immediately left; he had seen
many similar unpleasant episodes between that group, which usually
turned violent.

Being relieved
of his hard earned wages earlier in the day, John was penniless and
stayed in his room until 5pm, when the evening meal was served.

He switched
his small television on and reached into the bottom drawer of his
dressing table to retrieve the panties, which were well buried
under his socks and vests. He lay on his bed with the panties over
his face listening to Richard and Judy on the television. At 5pm he
went down for his evening meal. The dining room was full with the
exception of old Tommy who had been taken to his room and
sedated.

At John’s
table were Dorothy, Harold and the new resident who had arrived
that afternoon. ‘Hello,’ said John, ‘have you settled in all right?
I’m John Bell,’ as he pulled out his chair.

‘I’m Gary,’ he
replied, as he continued eating his soup. Harold or Dorothy did not
speak to him; they gave the occasional disapproving look as Gary
nervously looked around the dining room as his chin was virtually
resting in his soup.

Norman Ledbury
shuffled over to the table and reached for the bottle of brown
sauce. Dorothy kept a firm hold of the bottle, which resulted in a
scuffle knocking over the sugar bowl in the process. He returned to
his table defeated, mumbling as he shuffled back. Gary seemed
unperturbed at the intrusion and continued eating throughout.

Norman was a
strange little man. He had a table on his own in the corner. He was
on constant watch by the staff day and night as he had a tendency
to approach anyone in the house, drop his trousers, show his penis
before it was erect and force them to work it up. John had been
confronted by him when he was first admitted and recalled the
strange looking piece of anatomy, stuck on the front of him,
seeming not really to fit anywhere and set out of place with its
severe bend to the left, seeming very ill-planned and most
abnormal.

Elizabeth was
frantically pushing the trolley as she slammed the pile of plates
at each table she passed, adding to the clatter and chatter of the
residents.

‘Have you been
showing around Gary?’ John asked, as he turned to face him.

‘Not really,
I’ve been to my room, number 5 they’ve given me, it’s small but
alright and I won’t be in this place for long,’ he answered, with
another glance around the room.

‘You’re next
door to me then, just give me a knock if you want anything,’ John
said.

‘I might just
do that, thanks John,’ he replied as he got up and left the dining
room.

John went out
to the front of the house and sat on the wall watching the traffic
disappear down the hill on the still wet and steaming road after a
day of rain. The slate grey, heavy clouds which had dominated the
town were moving west and the late afternoon sun appeared to push
the clouds towards the horizon.

The
consistency of the rain had cleaned the roads and driveway. The
large tree dominating the car park was lapping up the last few
drops of rainwater. It was a peaceful evening, like the lull after
the storm as John sat thinking long and hard about Jennifer and a
life away from the hostel behind him.

He heard the
front door close and looked behind him, it was Gary. He idly walked
over to John and leaned against the wall. ‘So what happens around
here then?’ he asked him as he neatly rolled the tobacco in a
cigarette paper.

‘Not a lot
really, I’ve got a job at the station so that takes up my days, the
nights can get a bit boring,’ he replied.

Gary climbed
on the wall to sit alongside John, ‘I’m out of here the first
chance I get, I’m not staying here with that lot of losers in
there,’ he said as he looked over his shoulder at the hostel.

‘Not that easy
mate,’ John said. ‘They keep a tight rein here and they bang you
back inside at the first opportunity.’

‘Fuck that,
I’ve done my time, I want out and no bastards going to stop me,’
Gary said, with a stern expression as he flicked his half smoked
cigarette butt on the footpath.

John looked at
him and noticed a bruise on his right temple. ‘How did you get
that?’ he asked as he pointed to his head.

‘The bastard
screws held my arms up and used my head as a fucking punch bag the
day they brought me here,’ he replied, as his face wavered and
receded. John concentrated on his face, his square-jaw barred by a
single straight brow, his two close-set brown eyes starred glassily
at the water running into the drain.

His rested his
elbows on his knees as he picked the dirt from underneath his
immaculately manicured fingernails. ‘

‘Who’s the
young guy then?’ he turned to John and asked.

‘Which guy is
that?’ John replied.

‘The spunky
one with the big package in the trackies,’ Gary asked.

‘Oh that’s
Peter Scott, Scotty we call him, why do you ask?’ replied John, as
he turned to Gary who wore a grin on his stubble face.

‘No reason,
he’s just a sexy little bastard that’s all,’ Gary replied, as he
jumped off the wall, brushing his trousers.

‘Right John,
I’m off back in, catch up with you later,’ he said, as he briskly
walked back to the house.

John turned to
watch him leave, wondering the extent of violence that lurked
behind his respectable face.

Old Tommy
approached the drive wearing a dirty old cardigan with the buttons
done up wrong, fawn trousers and a bow tie. Tommy always wore a bow
tie on the odd occasion he left the hostel, he felt it gave him a
touch of distinction. Sylvia was trotting behind him in an attempt
to catch up.

There was
something undeniably attractive about her gaiety and the way in
which she threw back her head when laughing, but her activities had
recklessness about them, which was not proper for the lady she
thought she was.

They had
obviously been drinking in the Cow and Calf on the corner although
it was considered out of bounds for the residents, but everyone
went there.

She was
dressed in sky blue trousers, a short velvet jacket and white
trainers with black ankle socks. ‘Hi, John,’ she said, as she
brushed passed him, panting heavily.

John jumped
off the wall and went back to the house. Most of the residents were
sitting around in the television room, Gary was playing a game of
snooker with young Peter Scott. Dorothy was sitting at the table in
the corner painting eyeliner on Graham Bank’s eyebrows as he wore
the same pink floral dress.

The quietness
of the room was disturbed by raised voices coming from the
corridor. Tommy and Sylvia were having an argument and shouting at
each other, not quite loudly enough for the words to be
distinguishable, but obviously through the effects of drink.

John went to
his bedroom, watched television for a short while and climbed into
his bed.

He slept
badly, and was wakened in the middle of the night by a piercing,
awful scream. He sat up in bed quivering, but the sound was not
repeated. He decided that someone must have been having a nightmare
and he went back to sleep.

He lay in bed
watching the thin grey early morning light come through his
curtains. There were unfamiliar sounds coming from the corridor. He
walked over to the window in his slightly dazed state and opened
the curtains. In the car park he saw two police cars and half a
dozen officers standing around.

He quickly
dressed and opened his bedroom door, slightly trembling. In the
dimly lit corridor, a man and a woman police officer were briefly
visible at one end and at the other end, a large man with his head
down so John could not see his face but his square bulky figure
made him realise it was the warden talking to a group of men in
smart suits flanked by three uniformed policemen.

He entered the
dining room, which was unusually quiet. Dorothy was sitting at the
table crying as Elizabeth consoled her. The others were sitting
quietly, being watched by a reinforced group of unfamiliar nurses
who stood around the room with their backs against the walls.
‘What’s happened?’ John asked Dorothy, as he pulled his chair out
to sit down. She remained crying, shaking her head in her
hands.

Elizabeth
looked at John with wide eyes and said, ‘Tommy’s killed
Sylvia.’

He sat back in
his chair and looked around the room, soon realising by the shocked
expressions on the faces on the other residents that it was no
joke.

No words were
spoken as thoughts flooded John’s mind of the quarrel he had heard
between Tommy and Sylvia when they had returned from the pub, and
the scream which had woken him, was probably Sylvia’s death
cry.

He toyed with
the idea of telling the warden what he had heard, but quickly
decided against it, due to the possible repercussions.

It transpired
that Tommy had forced his way into Sylvia’s room and strangled her
while she slept. He had been taken away to the psychiatric hospital
where he would remain for the rest of his life. Sylvia’s body
remained in her room waiting for the coroner to arrive with a
forensic team.

Due to Tommy’s
admission, no questions were asked of the others and they all
continued their daily routine, but under the supervision of the
extra security.

John was
working the afternoon shift at the hotel that day. He took his
usual walk down the hill, avoiding the grocer’s shop in view of his
previous day’s experience.

He went
straight to his pair of deep sinks and delved into the pile of
greasy cooking pans which had been left for him. He stared out of
the large, dirty kitchen window, his mind firmly on the recent
happenings back at the hostel, of poor Sylvia with her lonely life
and traumatic death.

He finished
his shift at 8 o’clock. To avoid going back to the hostel early, he
thought he would visit the travelling fun fair which he had noticed
being erected on wasteland opposite the grocer’s shop which he had
passed on his way to work.

He approached
the bright lights with the sounds of machinery getting louder as he
approached, along with the strong smell of burgers and onions. The
fair was quiet with only a few teenagers trudging through the mud
after the previous day’s heavy rain.

He watched
three youths on the firing range, they made the elementary mistake
of aiming along the barrel but the targets would probably be
weighted or reinforced and the odds always on the side of the
showman.

The fair
stretched along with riverbank. There was a stiff breeze making
some of the wooden structures creak. He wore his black trousers and
lumberjack shirt and trainers, which were now covered in mud.

He moved from
the shooting range to another stall, where a middle-aged couple
tried to attach hoops to the prizes on a carousel.

John stood at
the door of a white caravan next to the shooting range. A sign
outside read ‘Palmist your fortune foretold’.

‘Come in love
and close the curtain,’ the Gypsy woman instructed. He saw a nail
on the side of the door held the beaded curtains back. He loosened
it and closed the curtain behind him. The room was dark apart from
the flickering lights from the half a dozen candles scattered
around. The surfaces had been draped with lengths of cheap black
cloth with patterns of the sun and moon embroidered onto them. He
nodded and smiled as he took a seat opposite her.

She was
middle-aged, her face lined and rouged, with scarlet lipstick which
made her mouth look too large and moist. She wore black muslin over
her head with a gold band keeping it in place. Her costume looked
authentic enough; black lace, red silk, with astrological signs
sewn into the arms. On the table sat a large crystal ball covered
with a white handkerchief. Her red fingernail tapped against a
tarot card deck.

‘What is your
name?’ she asked.

‘I’m John,’ he
replied, as he stared into her eyes as they twinkled in the
candlelight.

She gazed at
the crystal ball. ‘There’s a lot you do not know, John and that’s
why you have come here,’ she said. She took his hand and turned it
over to reveal his palm. John straightened in his chair as her
fingers stroked his knuckles. She looked down at his palm and
frowned a little in concentration.

‘You’re a
visitor, aren’t you?’ she asked, as she retained her eyes being
transfixed on his palm.

‘Yes,’ John
replied, as he studied his palm with her, as though trying to read
its foreign words.

‘Mmm,’ she
began running the tip of one finger down the well defined lines
which criss-crossed his palm. Looking at her face, he noticed it
seemed softer that it had when he first entered the caravan. He
felt slight pressure as she squeezed his hand.