took me a minute to get it. “You put the bike on the raft?”
He nodded and lit another cigarette. “I put the bike on the raft and chained my leg to the wheel. That way we’d both go down together—”
“Sounds like a cry for help to me,” I said firmly.
“Don’t be negative.”
“I’m not being negative. Oh look, there’s a man and a bike on a raft. Looks like they’re floating out to sea—Did it not cross your mind that someone might try their hand at a rescue?”
“It was four o’clock in the morning. I’d have been home and dry—or more to the point, wet—but for this wee lad running away from home.” He was staring at me as he spoke, with that blank owl gaze that told nothing. “He takes one look, sets down his red plastic suitcase, and scuttles off to raise the alarm—”
“You could have jumped in right away,” I said stubbornly. “You didn’t have to wait around.”
“I got the tides wrong. It wasn’t deep enough to drown.”
He was serious. I wanted to laugh, but I stopped myself. Either the story was true or it wasn’t. Either way, he was mad. I wasn’t prepared for his question.
“And you?” he asked.
“Me?”
“There’s no one else in the room, is there?”
“I had a miscarriage,” I said. “Then something else happened. And after it happened I couldn’t stop crying.”
A raised eyebrow and that look again.
“It’s true,” I said. (Why was I sounding defensive?)
“There’s more.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“Yes, there is.”
“I see things that don’t happen. Sometimes they happen, but not always. And not till a good while after.”
Then I told about walking down the street and seeing the bomb going sailing over the security fence and onto the roof of the bar. How I was somehow inside the bar at the same time as being outside, watching. And then about seeing Jacko Brennan being blown to smithereens.
“And I’m screaming and screaming,” I said. “And people are coming running and they’re taking me to the hospital and I’m losing Barbara Allen, which is what I call the baby.” I could hear my voice, and it was going high and shaky. He held out his cigarettes, and I took one and he lit it and I saw that my hand was shaking as well as my voice.
“Only it didn’t happen,” I said. “I mean, Jacko dying didn’t happen. Losing Barbara Allen happened alright. But six months later Jacko died, and it was all the way I saw.” He waited. I took a long drag at the cigarette and went on. “It was evening. I was ironing, and the window was open and I heard the blast and I knew exactly where it came from and I knew that Jacko was dead. But this time I didn’t see a thing. I went on ironing. But the shaking started in my hands, and it went up my arms and wouldn’t stop. I sat down and waited for Robbie. Robbie came in, and he said it was true; there’d been a bomb and Jacko was dead, but that was all hours and hours ago. Funny, wasn’t it? Jacko, dead like that? And why hadn’t I turned the light on, why was I shaking?
“That’s all he said. He never once mentioned me seeing it all six months before it ever happened. Maybe he didn’t want to think about that or maybe he saw the state I was in and he didn’t want to make things worse…But he took me over to the hospital, and they gave me sedatives. They said it was shock. The next day I started this crying-thing, and it wouldn’t stop.”
“Who’s this Jacko Brennan?”
“No one special. I only knew him to nod to, say hello—”
“That’s not mad, it’s clairvoyant.”
“There’s no such thing, stupid. People who see things are mad.”
“You’re mad if you think that. You should be in Purdysburn.”
“I am in Purdysburn, and so are you.” I glared at him. “Anyway, what’s so great about what you did? What’s so great about trying to drown yourself?”
He looked back at me, unblinking. For a moment I wanted to kill him; then I started to laugh and I couldn’t stop. I laughed, and I laughed and when I came up for air, he was looking at me still, his expression completely unchanged.
“That’s more like it,” he said.
After that I had company. Michael and me, a twosome. It was June, and the trees in the grounds were green and thick in the summer night. The dayrooms were all on the ground floor, and it wasn’t a heavy-duty part of the hospital, most of the windows weren’t locked. After dark people flitted about like moths. The staff must have known, but nothing was said. Perhaps they were sorry for us; or perhaps it kept us quiet, and they didn’t care. I’d climb with Michael through a window of the empty dining hall, and we’d walk about under the trees and lie on our backs spotting stars through the darker darkness of leaves. We told each other stories, sometimes from books, sometimes incidents that had happened in the past. It was lovely, so it was. Words spoken into the night. Small, soft words, far off and glimmery like the summer stars. Sometimes we climbed into the trees and sat in the forks of their branches, swinging our heels. I was better at climbing than he was, more agile, more sure-footed; I’d join my hands into a stirrup to give him a start then I’d scramble up behind him.
After the first week I asked Michael if he fancied having sex with me, but he turned me down.
“Sorry,” he said. “Nothing doing.”
“Why not? Are you gay?”
He gave me his sniffy look. “I don’t fancy you,” he said. “Besides, I’m married.”
“What’s that got to do with it? Anyway, I don’t believe you.”
“That I’m married? Or that I don’t fancy you?”
“Both,” I said. “I don’t think you’re married. I think you fancy me but you can’t get it up.” (It was wonderful, that hospital. All your inhibitions went sailing off down the river.)
“Correct,” he said. “On both counts. It’s the drugs. Why don’t you try Catriona?”
“Do I look like a dyke?”
“Silly girl—ugly word. Catriona’s so beautiful. Those red lipstick circles she draws on her cheeks. I’d try for her myself if I was able.”
“Is she a dyke?”
“Who knows? She might feel like giving it a go if you asked her nicely. Lots of people have a bit of both.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I certainly don’t.” I was shocked. Besides, I was afraid of Catriona, though I didn’t say that to Michael. She saw blood coming out of the taps, which was worse than seeing people being blown to bits.
