The Shock of the Fall (Special edition) (10 page)

Today it’s warm because I’ve had the Calor Gas fire on. I don’t usually bother, but I did today because it’s Thursday, which means Nanny Noo has been to visit me. To be honest, I didn’t want her to come because I was worried she might slip on the ice. There has been so much snow lately, more than I’ve ever seen, and where it is starting to melt away, the crisp white has turned to a dirty slush.

I don’t own a phone, so first thing this morning I threw some stuff in a carrier bag for The Pig, put on my coat and set off to the public payphone at the end of the street. I dialled Nanny Noo’s number.

‘4960216.’ That’s how my granddad answers the telephone. He answers by telling you what you have just dialled. It’s pointless.

‘Granddad, it’s Matthew.’

‘Hello?’ My granddad has bad hearing, so you have to speak loudly on the phone to him.

‘IT’S MATTHEW.’

‘Matthew, your nan’s on her way.’

‘I didn’t want her to come, because of the ice.’

‘I told her not to go because of the ice, but she’s stubborn.’

‘Okay Granddad. Bye.’

‘Hello?’

‘BYE GRANDDAD.’

‘Your nanny’s on her way. She just left.’

I didn’t go straight back. I walked to the mini market and bought two potatoes and a can of Carlsberg Special Brew.

I don’t know if you’ve been to Bristol, but if you have then you might know that triangle of grass and broken glass where Jamaica Street joins Cheltenham Road – just along from the homeless hostel and The Massage Parlour where they charge for full sex even if you only want cuddles and breast feeding. There are usually a few homeless people hanging about, killing time. I like The Pig most.

That’s an unkind name, but it’s what he calls himself. He does look like a pig too. His nostrils are turned up in a snout, and he has piggy little eyes behind thick dirty lenses. He even snorts. To be honest, he plays it up a bit.

We never really met, so much as kept bumping into each other. Each morning when I walk to the Day Centre, and each afternoon when I come back home, he’s always there. I wouldn’t usually make a special point of seeing him, but last night I kept imagining being homeless in this weather. It’s easier to sleep with problems if you know you’re going to do something about them. So I decided this morning I’d take him a couple of jumpers and a flask of Chicken & Mushroom Cup-a-Soup.

‘Okay Lad?’ He always calls me Lad. I think he probably can’t remember my name. We’re not close friends, we just sit together sometimes.

‘Alright, The Pig. Cold innit?’

I opened my Special Brew. The Pig is an alcoholic, so I feel a bit guilty when I drink with him. He shook his Big Issue at a woman wearing fluffy snow boots. She smiled politely, and crossed the road.

He doesn’t actually sell the Big Issue. He waves one around from time to time to get attention, and if someone wants to buy it he asks if they could give him money instead. I keep meaning to get him the latest copy. The other week this guy with ginger dreadlocks and a duffel coat lectured him for giving legitimate vendors a bad name. He actually stopped in the street just to tell him off. Then he offered about eight pence in coppers, and bounced across the street to a bar. I suppose he had a point. But he was still a wanker.

I gulped back the last of my can. It doesn’t taste too nice; it’s more a functional drink.

‘You forgot your bag, Lad.’

‘No. That’s for you.’

He opened the flask, sniffing the soup like a pig after truffles. He might have been hoping for something stronger.

As I cut back through the empty garages and up the footpath, Nanny Noo was rounding the corner in her car. She waved in that sudden nervous way people do when they aren’t expecting to see you, or if they’re afraid to take their hand off the steering wheel. I waited for her to park, and helped her out.

‘I didn’t want you to come, because of the ice.’

‘Nonsense. Help me with these bags.’

She is very generous. I told you that. And whenever she visits she brings me some food for our lunch, and extra for me to have in the week, and a bottle or two of fizzy pop. That’s what she calls it. Fizzy pop.

‘That one too,’ she said, pointing at a cream-coloured plastic case with a brown handle.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s heavy. Can you manage it?’

‘Yes. What’s in it?’

‘Wait and see.’

The lift is out-of-order. It’s always out-of-order, and even when it isn’t there’s usually another reason you might not want your Nanny Noo to use it, like if someone has taken a piss in the corner, or graffitied something cruel about you. I’ve lived here more than two years now, since I was seventeen, and I’m not sure Nanny has ever once used the lift. I worry about her falling on the stairs though, so I walked up behind her. She calls me a gentleman.

‘Look at this mess.’

‘Sorry Nanny. I meant to clean up.’

Seventeen was still young to leave home, I know that. And I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to move out on my own, but I wasn’t on my own, not at the beginning. I should talk about that in a bit.

In the kitchen we placed the bags of food out on the counter. ‘I already bought potatoes,’ I offered. ‘I thought I’d make us jacket potatoes.’

I was feeling light-headed from the drink, and I hoped it would be a short visit. I can be selfish like that.

‘Good boy. But no. You’ll starve. I’ll make us a pasta bake.’

With Nanny Noo it is best not to protest too much. She can be very stubborn. So I loitered around and helped her slice vegetables. The good thing with Nanny Noo is that she doesn’t talk much, and she doesn’t ask many questions.

‘Have you seen your mum recently?’

Except that one, she did ask that one. I didn’t answer her though. Nanny Noo smiled and put her hand on mine. ‘You’re a good boy Matthew, we just worry about you.’

‘Who does?’

‘I do. And your mum, and your father. But they might worry less if you saw them more often.’ She squeezed my fingers, and I thought about how her hand is a lot like my mum’s; cold, with papery flesh.

‘How’s Granddad?’ I asked

‘Getting old, Matthew. We’re both getting old.’

I hope she never dies.

So we ate pasta bake. I sat on the wooden chair and she sat on the armchair with the busy floral pattern and the soft cushions. She ran her fingernails over the blistered part on the arm where I sometimes put out cigarettes, and she started to form a thought about how I needed to be more careful. Then she looked at what’s left of my Special Project – the remaining jars and tubes that I can’t ever seem to bring myself to throw away, even after so long. She started to form a thought about that too, but then what she actually said was, ‘It’s nice to see you, Matthew.’

‘Thanks. I’ll clean up next time.’

She smiled and rubbed her hands together, saying, ‘Do you want your present then?’

‘You got me something?’

I’d left the plastic case in the hall so went to get it, and placed it on the carpet in front of Nanny Noo. ‘Open it up then,’ she said.

‘What is it?’

‘Well, open it and see. You push those clips at the side.’

I suppose it’s an unusual gift to buy someone these days, but Nanny saw it in a charity shop and she thought of me. ‘For your writing,’ she said.

It was probably the Special Brew, but I felt so happy I could have cried.

‘Well, it isn’t a computer,’ she said. ‘I know that. But these are what we used to type on when I was your age, and they were good enough. There’s a bit of a knack to it. If you tap more than one key at a time those arms tend to get jammed, and there isn’t a delete, but, well, I thought it might be useful for writing your stories.’

It’s hard to know what to say sometimes, when someone does something so nice. It’s hard to know where to look.

We took our dishes through to the kitchen and I started the washing up, and Nanny Noo took her secret pack of menthol cigarettes out of the drawer. I’m the only person in the family who knows that she smokes, and she only smokes with me. I’m not saying that to show off because it’s a stupid thing to show off about. But it does make me feel important, somehow. I can’t explain it.

She blew smoke out of the window and said, ‘Horrid day, isn’t it?’

‘No. It’s a good day,’ I answered, washing a smudge of ink from my thumb. ‘It’s a really good day.’

She didn’t stay much longer. We walked down the stairwell, with her arm through mine. Then before she climbed into her car she kissed me twice; once on the forehead, once on the cheek. I smoked another cigarette by the big yellow bins, and watched one of my neighbours kick his dog.

Anyway, I just thought I should say where I live. It isn’t perfect, but it’s home, and now that I have a typewriter, I’m not leaving any time soon.

Matthew Homes

Flat 607

Terrence House

Kingsdown

Bristol

Friday 5th Feb ’10

Dear Matthew,

I popped by to check if everything is okay. You disappeared from Hope Road very suddenly on Wednesday, and we didn’t see you today either? I’ll be on duty until 5 p.m, but will keep my work mobile with me this evening too, so when you get this give me a call if you can on 07700 900934 (I’ve put 50p in the envelope because I know you don’t always have change for the phone).

All the best,

Denise Lovell

Care Co-ordinator

Brunel CMHT – Bristol

SHE DIDN’T MENTION THE NEEDLE. You’ll notice she didn’t mention that. Popping by to check if everything is okay? Yeah, right. And if I did answer the door it would be, Oh whilst I’m here Matt we might as well give you your injection too.

No thanks.

Not today Denise Lovell. I’m busy telling my story, thank you.

She stayed at the door for ages too. Standing there, knocking, standing there, knock knock knock. It must have been ten minutes at least, with me being careful not to make a sound, before she finally gave up and pushed the note through the letter box.

I need to be careful though. I am a mentally unwell man, and things have gone wrong for me before.

It was Jacob Greening’s idea that we should leave home after Year 11, and rent a place together. Our own flat, he said. It’ll be wicked. I thought so too. It was so easy to imagine the two of us together, forever.

Am I rushing?

The first thing we had to do was get jobs, which wasn’t difficult because we didn’t mind what we did. He found his at a 24-Hour Kebab House. Then I had my interview for care assistant work at a home for the elderly. The manager asked if I had any experience of care work, and I said that I did because I helped to look after a disabled person, so I knew about bedsores and Sudocrem and hoists and mouth care and bed baths and commodes and catheters and slide sheets and Fortisips and that kind of thing, and that I enjoyed it.

The manager smiled, and asked if I was happy to work night shifts.

Yes.

It’s enough to drive you crazy, Mum said. It’s like talking to a brick wall, she said. She went on and on about A Levels, about college. About how well I did in my GCSEs even though I didn’t try, even though I refused to quit smoking that BLOODY STUFF.

She talked about my potential.

I’ve never understood what is so special about achieving potential. In the care home I got to learn about the different residents. I knew more about them than they did. Each resident had a folder that was kept in a locked drawer beside their bed. In the front, stuck with Sellotape to the inside cover was a short note, written by the resident. Except it wasn’t really written by them because half of them were too demented to know what a pen was. It was just made to look as if they had written it, to make it more personal.

It might say,

HELLO, my name is Sylvia Stevens. I prefer to be called Mrs Stevens please. I used to work as a secretary and I am very proud of my five beautiful grandchildren. I need to have my food cut up for me but I prefer to eat it by myself so please be patient if this takes me a while. At night-time I like to listen to Radio 4. This helps me sleep.

Or it might say,

HELLO, my name is Terry Archibald. You can call me Terry. I was a merchant seaman and historian. I even wrote a history book which you can find in the manager’s office. Please be careful with it because there are not many copies left. I get confused sometimes, and can hit out if I feel threatened so please keep talking to me to keep me calm when you are doing my personal care. My wife visits on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Or it might say,

HELLO, my name is William Roberts. Most people call me Bill. I have committed several horrendous sex crimes against young girls, including both of my daughters, for which I have never been brought to justice. Please liquidize my food and feed it to me. I am allowed a small beaker of Stout near bedtime.