Jessie Keane - Lawless

All was pristine in the lounge and the bedroom. He didn’t think to check the wardrobes because he felt panicky just being inside Vittore’s territory. In the kitchen, everything looked much as it should. But he stood there, surveying the room, thinking There’s something’s different about the place. What is it?

And another thing. Lingering below the chemical tang of fresh paint, as he stood there in the kitchen he smelled something else, something that made him put a hand to his nose, pull a disgusted face.

‘ Che puzzo! ’ he burst out. The smell.

It was like chicken left in a rubbish bin for too long, like something decaying, something rotting.

He recoiled, feeling faintly sick, and hurried back out into the lounge, through there to the door, and he was afraid now, he was very afraid indeed, because he was thinking, Vittore’s going to come home and find me in here . And if that happened, he didn’t know what would become of him.

Trembling, Fabio stepped out into the – mercifully empty – hall, turned the key and removed it, hurried over to Mama’s kitchen and with a shaking hand hung the thing on the hook on the horseshoe. When that was done he leaned over the sink, poured water, gulped it down.

It was only then that he realized what was different in Vittore’s kitchen.

The cellar door had been bricked up.

‘Then I opened the Leicester store. By the mid-sixties I did a deal directly with the manufacturers. I went against the Wholesale Textile Association, cut out the middle men,’ said Ruby, feeling as if she wanted to slump her head onto Kit’s bed and sleep.

They’d told her that they were decreasing the level of Kit’s tranquilizers now, but he looked just the same. He looked dead, but he was still breathing. So she sat there, talking and talking, saying anything that came into her head, her eyes gritty and red-raw, her voice fading sometimes to a hoarse whisper.

It didn’t seem possible, not after all this time. But what was time? How much time had he spent here, in this strange black desert where his only companion was the howling, freezing wind that whipped at his flesh and bones, chilling him to the marrow? There were no stars above him, no cities around him, there was nothing. Just endless night and that strange whispering cacophony of voices that had now become one voice, saying his name, saying, Don’t leave me, don’t go. Slowly, oh so slowly, it couldn’t be possible, could it? Was the black really starting to fade to grey? Or had he been looking at it for so long (and God alone knew how long) that his eyes were playing tricks on him?

Ruby’s head was drooping. It was soporifically hot in intensive care, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. It was late, she’d been here for days, and now all she wanted was to sleep. She was exhausted from all this talking, from looking at Kit so hopefully, praying for a sign, however small, that he was coming back to her. She had run out of words, out of hope, out of strength. She was…

A hand grabbed her shoulder, shook it.

Ruby started awake from a half-doze, looking around, realizing that she had almost fallen asleep.

‘What?’ She dragged a hand through her hair, and gazed up at Corinne, the little blonde nurse.

‘Look,’ said Corinne, nodding to Kit.

Ruby looked. Nothing had changed. She felt crushing disappointment.

‘Look at his eyes,’ said Corinne.

Ruby looked. Kit’s eyes were still closed, no change there. Except… well, something had changed. Just a little. Beneath the closed lids, Kit’s eyes were flicking back and forth, like someone dreaming. This was different. She glanced at Corinne, then back at Kit. His eyes were closed, but yes, they were moving.

‘Is he…?’ asked Ruby.

‘He’s beginning to come round,’ said Corinne.

‘Come round,’ said a voice that floated past in the teeth of the gale. The greyness was lifting, and with it came a vague discomfort, but this was better than the blackness, the icy blast of the wind that numbed his flesh and clawed at his skin. This was better than the tunnel, too, even if there had been that enticing light at the end of it. He wasn’t ready to go there, not yet. Or at least he didn’t think so.

‘Is he…?’ asked another voice.

Female voices.

They gave him no comfort, females. Deserted him, abandoned him, caused him pain.

Now he felt it, in his heart, in his chest.

Ruby

Bianca

Ah no, Gilda, he couldn’t think about her. Too much pain.

Oh Jesus, it hurt.

‘What’s the matter with him, is he all right?’ asked Ruby.

Kit was twisting in the bed now, as if fighting restraints; his eyes, beneath their closed lids, were flicking back and forth frantically, and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

‘It’s something he has to go through,’ said Corinne reassuringly. ‘This is a good sign. Wait outside now, if you would. We’ve things to do.’

What things?

Ruby stumbled to her feet.

‘Outside,’ said Corinne, and Ruby went, dazed and distressed, into the waiting room where Fats loitered, watching everyone with suspicious eyes. Ruby took refuge in the women’s toilets, where she could be alone and cry her heart out in peace.

Fats was waiting for his replacement but the guy was late, silly bastard. Bladder bursting, he had to give in at last and respond to a call of nature. He strode off down the corridor, past the nurse’s station, past the endless wards. He got to the men’s toilets, hurriedly relieved himself, washed his hands. Then he made his way back as fast as he could.

There was a squat man with scarred, pockmarked red cheeks and black hair standing at the nurse’s station, asking about his nephew Kit Miller. Fats knew that Kit had only two uncles, and one of them was long dead. The other was out at Chigwell, almost too old and infirm to walk, let alone make hospital visits. This bloke looked all wrong. He was too young. Too Latin. And he had a face like a pizza. He looked like someone had played join-the-dots on his face with a lit cigarette.

Tensing, Fats walked straight on past the man and dived into one of the sidewards. Instead of beds and bleeping monitors and hospital equipment it was full of decorators’ gear, and the window was open wide to get rid of the smell of fresh paint. Fats stood there peering through the crack in the door, waiting.

Soon, the man came past, limping slightly. So much the better.

Fats stepped out quietly behind him, glanced around to check that he was unobserved, and kicked the man hard in the back of the knee. His weight took him down. Fats clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle a yell. Then he dragged him backward, off-balance, into the side ward and let the door swing closed behind them.

‘Kit Miller might have an uncle, but you ain’t it,’ snarled Fats, running the man across the room to the window.

‘ NO! ’ the man tried to yell through the hand gagging his mouth, his legs scrabbling uselessly as Fats got him over the edge of the windowsill. For a moment he swung like a pendulum, then his weight and a hefty push took him over and out. A thin cry escaped him; then he was gone. When he hit the ground far below, he barely made a sound.

It was awful, a suicide like that. Not that it was the first time such a thing had happened within the hospital grounds, but still, it was shocking. Poor man jumping to his death, how low would you have to feel, to do that to yourself?

Corinne and a couple of the other ICU nurses heard about it within the hour.

‘It’s terrible. So sad,’ said Corinne, on her coffee break.