Cath Staincliffe - Witness

Carlton hunkered down, his great hand outstretched, cupped, rested like a cap on Milo’s curls. ‘Hey, lickle man.’

Cheryl’s throat closed. She wanted to slap him away. He waggled the child’s head a little.

‘Yah!’ Milo made some sort of greeting.

Carlton laughed, a guffaw that crackled in the air, sudden and loud. ‘Yah! I hear you, man. Fine soldier you make someday. Yes!’

Over my dead body, vowed Cheryl. She felt bile in her throat. Recalled Danny, his fist bumping Milo’s. She stretched her face to frame a smile for Carlton.

‘What’s Mama say?’ He turned from Milo to her, beamed up at her, his eyes fierce, dangerous.

Cheryl laughed as though the thought of Milo being one of his foot soldiers was the funniest thing on the planet. Laughed way too long, high and brittle, but dared not stop.

Carlton stood, nodded to her. ‘Don’t be a stranger, you hear me?’

She nodded. Was still nodding and grinning like some ventriloquist’s dummy as he strode away, his bulk rolling from hip to hip, his head swaying on his neck.

Cheryl imagined Milo grown, a gun under his bed, his arms engorged with muscles like Carlton’s. Milo shot up and bleeding. Herself, like Paulette, burying her boy.

In a corner of the park, while Milo clambered on and off the little play-boat structure, Cheryl punched in the number for the police. She listened to it ring once, then twice, then a voice came on the line. Cheryl didn’t speak, she listened to the voice, all the reassurances it gave, listened to the silence, watched Milo steer the captain’s wheel. Her jaw was rigid, her belly ached, her knees trembled, she was so frightened. Then she ended the call. Deleted the number, feeling shaky and sick, and her eyes hot with angry tears.

Zak

He’d done something to his wrist, well – not him but the lads who’d given him a kicking had. And it still wasn’t right. He’d waited a few weeks but if he tried to lift anything it gave way. The pain made it harder to sleep at night. There was a drop-in clinic near the precinct so he left Bess at the house one morning and went there. Early October and drizzle like fog that caught in his throat. Made his cough worse.

The nurse asked him to move it this way and that, pressed it and pinched it, told him he needed an X-ray, he should go to A &E. Zak said he would but could she strap it up for now or give him something for the pain? She put on an elasticated bandage and told him to try paracetamol – no more than eight in twenty-four hours. She said again he really needed an X-ray. It could be broken.

He didn’t bother with A &E, decided it could wait a while longer, might sort itself out. He wore the bandage though, he thought it might help when he was trying to raise some cash, make people more sympathetic. Didn’t work out like that: for all those that felt sorry for him there were another crowd who thought he’d been fighting. Like homeless and drunk and violent were all the same thing.

He did end up in A &E. Collapsed on Corporation Street with pneumonia and pleurisy. He was coughing and fighting for breath, his chest sucking, a stabbing pain behind his shoulder blade and his skin on fire, but he wouldn’t go in the ambulance without Bess.

They argued the toss with him, one of the paramedics going on about hygiene and risks and procedures. The other persuaded Zak to let him call a friend (Midge) who could take Bess to the PDSA, explain the situation. Zak didn’t like it but it was the best offer he was gonna get. They left Bess with a CSO who’d wait for Midge, and had the PDSA address.

It was all a bit hazy at the hospital, he kept nodding off like he was stoned but he hadn’t taken anything. He had one of those blue blankets with holes in, he liked the feel of that, and the way they were all treated the same, all the patients. Might have been bankers or beggars, it didn’t make no odds. They were all in pain, all needed help.

They took his blood and gave him loads of X-rays and told him he’d be in overnight at least and a doctor would see him in the morning. They rigged him up to an oxygen cylinder with a little gadget to put in his nose and started him on tablets.

There were three others in his ward room, two old fellas who slept a lot and a young bloke who only appeared for meals and at bedtime, pushing a drip. One of the nursing assistants told Zak the man had a thing going with a woman he’d met on admission. Kept nipping off to see her.

The doctor didn’t get to him till the next afternoon. She closed the curtains round his bed, giving them some privacy. ‘We’re treating the pneumonia and pleurisy with antibiotics and it’s likely to take a couple more days before your symptoms improve. You’ve also a fractured wrist which appears to have gone untreated.’

Zak shrugged. ‘Can you fix it?’

‘I think so. A plaster cast should sort you out – there doesn’t appear to be any infection there. You’re lucky. How did you break it?’

‘Slipped up.’ Zak thought of the beating he’d had. That cold, sick feeling.

‘You’ve not been treated here before so we don’t have access to your medical records but these older injuries…’

‘Car crash,’ Zak explained, his good fingers working, hard to keep still.

She waited a moment, he could see she had her doubts, but in the end she went along with it. ‘Nasty.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re homeless at present?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I can refer you to Manchester Housing, or one of the other agencies for help and advice.’

Zak dismissed the idea. ‘You’re all right.’

‘Sleeping rough isn’t going to do anything for your health.’

Zak squirmed. Waited for the lecture on smoking. Instead she asked if he was a drug user.

‘Nah.’

She didn’t believe him, went on, ‘Because there’s a very good rehab scheme we have links with.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Smoking cessation?’ She was almost smiling.

Zak laughed and it set him off coughing, the blade turning in his back.

She had one more try, ‘You’re twenty-two. Another ten years and it’ll all be that much harder. There is help available.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, meaning no.

She sighed and got up, tilted her head.

‘I’ll tell ’em you tried,’ he said, ‘on the customer satisfaction survey. Got my vote.’

Apart from fretting about Bess, Zak had a rare old time. A decent bed, hot food. He still sweated all night and the pain in his chest was worse, he was coughing up stuff the colour of rust, but even so. He didn’t mind the broken sleep, it was better than the dreams. One time Carlton had the gun, he was pointing it at Zak. And Zak was talking fast, babbling that Carlton had got the wrong person. Pleading with him. Sometimes it was a gun and sometimes it was a big knife going right through him. Then another time he was locked in the dark, struggling to get up, he couldn’t move, not his legs or his hand, nothing. He was buried. The dark was soil clogging his mouth, his nose and his lungs.

On the third night, Zak finished his tea – chicken casserole, potato croquettes and broccoli, lime jelly and sponge fingers with grapes – and went out for a smoke. He was off the oxygen. It took over ten minutes to walk through the maze to the smokers’ corner. Midge had sent him the PDSA number. After he’d lit up, he rang ’em again. Bess was fine. He thanked the woman and apologized for bothering her, promised to let her know soon as. Could be the day after tomorrow.

Turning to go in, Zak felt a glow, warm inside. Peculiar. In bed that night, while one of the old fellas snored and the other muttered at him to put a sock in it, Zak figured out what the feeling meant. Safe. In here, turning in for the night, waking up in the morning, there was no fear. Except for the dreams. He was safe.