gave Beede the once over. ‘Been takin’ the odd nip of embalmin’ fluid, have we?’ she enquired.
Beede smiled, weakly.
She leaned forward and peered down at his feet.
‘What’s up, Mum?’
Kelly leaned forward too, concerned.
‘Eh?’ Dina gazed up at her daughter, her eyes watering slightly with repressed hilarity. ‘I’m just tryin’a read what that tag says on his toe, kid…’
‘But he don’t work in the morgue, Mum,’ Kelly repeated, shrugging hopelessly, ‘he works in the laundry…’
‘Your mother seems a little confused,’ Beede murmured (plainly eager to paddle awhile himself in Dina’s metaphorical slip-stream). ‘Is she operating two rinses short of her spin cycle, perhaps?’
Kelly’s eyes bulged.
Dina’s mirth evaporated.
‘Oh yes? Oh really?’ she exclaimed, straightening her back, her voice taking on a sharp, fluting quality. ‘So you think it’s a real laugh, do ya? A real, fuckin’ hoot, eh? To rip the piss out of a poor woman who’s stuck in a wheelchair?’
Beede mulled this over for a second, frowning. ‘I’m not quite sure. Do you mean literally stuck?’
‘It was the biggest one we could find,’ Larry interjected (keen not to be found wanting in his capacity as Dina’s temporary carer).
Everybody turned to stare at him, Dina with a look of especial ferocity.
He removed his hands from the chair and patted his damp palms on to the front of his jumper, ‘I was only…’ he muttered.
Dina spun back around to face Kelly again. ‘Who is this man?’ she enquired imperiously.
‘I dunno. Who are you?’ Kelly asked.
‘Larry.’ Larry said, ‘I’ve come to visit my aunt.’
‘Then FUCK RIGHT OFF AN’ VISIT HER!’ Dina yelled.
Larry took a quick step back, then paused. ‘But I promised Matron that I’d return the…’ he pointed, limply, to Dina’s chair ‘…just as soon as we…’
Dina flew around and tried to swipe him with her stick.
Larry took yet another step back. ‘There’s no need for that…’ he tried to caution her. She swiped again, this time making contact with his right knee.
‘Ow.’
‘Now GET LOST, DICK!’
The chair tipped, quite alarmingly, to one side.
‘I think you might’ve developed a puncture,’ Larry said (not intending to provoke, but succeeding, nonetheless).
Dina lobbed her stick at him. She missed her target. Larry scarpered.
‘Okay,’ Dina turned back around, snapped her fingers at Beede, and pointed. ‘Go fetch.’
‘Pardon?’
Beede’s thermostat instantly clicked on to freeze (Kelly could almost hear his engine buzzing).
Dina immediately felt his chill (it was three-star), and pulled her coat tighter.
‘Well what else does the old fart get paid for?’ she grumbled, glancing over her shoulder (the stick had just been kicked out of the way by a very flustered expectant father). ‘Oi! D’you MIND?!’
‘Beede’s in charge of the laundry, Mum,’ Kelly gently explained. ‘He ain’t a porter.’
‘Okay,’ Dina smiled, grimly. ‘Well if he won’t fetch my stick for me, who will?’
She gazed up at Kelly, moist-eyed (like an over-bred Pekinese begging pork rind at dinner). Kelly (who’d been virtually weaned on this particular look) started to get up.
‘Just stay where you are,’ Beede barked, immediately setting off to retrieve the stick himself. Dina whistled, appreciatively, as he bent over, then cackled, explosively, as he straightened up.
‘I can’t believe I smashed my damn phone…’ Kelly tried valiantly to defuse the situation with a little light conversation, ‘if I’ve lost all my numbers I’ll go feral, I swear…’
‘Huh?’ Dina squinted up at her, boredly.
‘They reckon it’s a clean break…’ Kelly yammered on, breathlessly.
‘What is?’ Dina interrupted.
‘My leg.’
‘Oh.’ Dina sighed, expansively.
‘And the doc who took the x-ray said I’d be done in a few hours. So if the shop’s still open…’
‘Which shop?’
‘The phone shop.’
‘Good idea,’ Dina conceded. ‘An’ those brown shoes’ll be ready at the cobbler’s. You can grab ‘em while you’re at it. I got the slip here…’ She took her purse from the handbag on her lap and removed the slip from inside it.
Beede was now standing beside her, proffering her the stick.
‘Keep ya wig on!’ she cautioned him, handing the slip over to her daughter.
‘I could grab us some take-away,’ Kelly continued helpfully, ‘for supper. What d’ya fancy, Mum? Thai? Pizza?’
Beede proffered Dina her stick again. She took it this time, with a sultry look.
‘So you work here, then?’ she asked (pointedly ignoring Kelly).
‘I do.’
‘Good. So you can push me over to Outpatients, pronto.’
Beede frowned, confused. ‘But Kelly isn’t even in surgery, yet…’
‘I have an appointment, stupid,’ Dina informed him imperiously, casually inspecting her watch. ‘Blood test. Two-thirty…’
Beede glanced over at Kelly, his lips tightening (her face fell for moment, but then she rapidly rallied. The speed of the rallying – he felt – was almost the saddest part).
‘But of course you do,’ she murmured, scratching her head, ‘Tuesday. Two-thirty. I’d totally forgot…’
‘One of these fine days,’ Mrs Broad informed her, majestically, ‘you might actually appreciate that not every little thing on this fuckin’ planet revolves around you,
