Mo Hayder - Poppet

AJ IS IN that place again. The cave, its walls as smooth and warm and glowing as polished walnut. The hole is there too, slightly to his right. There’s a slender strand of something – gossamer, or spider silk maybe – reaching into the hole, almost as if it’s pointing the way. He is certain that if he tugs on the strand every miracle on earth will be revealed to him, all in one cosmic white blast. But this time, just as he’s about to grip the strand, the babble of infant laughter comes to him. He jerks round to the cave opening. Something is out there. A familiar pitter-patter of feet. A shadow crosses the ground.

He wakes, gulping in air. Breathing hard, his heart galloping, hands groping for something to hold on to.

‘Shit shit shit .’

‘AJ? You all right there, mate?’

He blinks. The Big Lurch and one of the nurses are staring at him from the other sofa. He opens his mouth, struggles up on his elbows and stares blankly at them. He’s in the nurses’ TV room. The digital clock on the wall says nine forty-five. The TV is on. A woman wearing nothing but thigh-high boots is gyrating her pelvis, throwing her long blonde hair around like a whip.

AJ groans and turns away into the damp-smelling sofa, his face in his hands. He shakes his head. He is so tired now it is beyond a joke. He wants to sleep but he can’t. He is going slowly, very slowly, mad. The lunatics are taking over the asylum, the system is feeding on its own young. He wishes he could wear a You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps T-shirt. Why is he stuck on this highway to hell of a career? There was a time he’d deluded himself he was going to change the world by caring for the patients, he even thought he was doing it to make Mum proud – make her believe her son was caring and thoughtful. Now he looks back at those rose-tinted days and thinks, without any humour, he should have gone to Specsavers.

He’s seen the worst of human nature in this profession. He’s seen guys who’ve stabbed random little kids to death in the high street, he’s nursed a woman (long dead now) who killed her disabled husband by pouring a kettle of boiling water over his head and leaving him in his wheelchair for three days until he died of the burns and the infection – AJ’s heart used to gallop every time he saw her holding a cup of coffee; she was only allowed that after ten years on the unit. Then there was the guy who’d hacked up, cooked and eaten his neighbour’s pony because it was ‘looking at him strange’. And the AIDS sufferer who put his used needles pointing upwards in the sandpit at the local children’s playground. And so it goes, on and on.

At some point he decided he didn’t want to know what someone was in the can for. He reckoned he’d nurse them better if he was none the wiser about the things they’d done. Technically, he’s supposed to know it all – the staff need to be aware of the offending history – but he’s found ways of learning only the bare minimum. He prefers it this way – his patients are to him like strangers in a pub or on a train – no illusions or preconceptions. There are simply some he likes and some he doesn’t, but he always tries to give them the same care.

‘You should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize,’ says Patience. ‘For that and for your work with trees.’

He doesn’t feel like a Nobel Prize winner. Anything but.

‘Right.’ Now he rolls his feet off the sofa. Tilts himself forward and sits for a moment, rubbing his face. There’s a strange, almost fishy smell in the room – maybe something they’ve been eating. ‘Right,’ he repeats. ‘I’m going to do a walk-through.’

No one acknowledges him. The woman on screen is, evidently, in the middle of a drawn-out orgasm. She is yelping and squealing and acting her heart out. Massaging her breasts. The Big Lurch and the other nurse are agog. AJ hopes he’s never fallen for a fake orgasm in his life. The odds are, he supposes, pretty high.

‘I said, I’m going to do a walk-through.’

Neither of the other two men break away from the screen. ‘ Hey! ’ Suddenly he’s irritated. ‘Hey. Look at me.’

Both of them turn, startled. The Big Lurch fumbles with the remote and clicks the TV off. Holds his hands up. ‘Sorry, AJ, my man. I’m sorry.’

‘OK – well, now I’ve got your attention, can I enquire what that fucking disgusting smell is? Have the bins been emptied? Has the washing-up been done? You aren’t being paid to sit around here all night.’

‘It’s the kettle – it fused.’

‘The kettle is fused? Then what do you do about it? Do you a) ignore it and watch more porn? b) ignore it, hope it will go away, and then watch more porn? or c) try and fix it?’

The Big Lurch gives a long sigh and gets up. ‘Don’t worry – I know the rest. If we can’t fix it, then we put in an order to Accounts. I even know the right forms.’

‘Great – that’s a result. Gold star, mate.’ He shakes his head resignedly. Puts his hands on his knees and pushes himself painfully to his feet. ‘Now I am going to walk the wards – actually work for a living.’

‘Jesus,’ murmurs the Big Lurch as AJ walks past him. ‘Who puffed sand up your backside?’

He ignores that comment, trudges out of the room, to the staircase, his mood getting progressively worse. He doesn’t want to be here; he’s tingly and amped, but at the same time he’s tired and he’s fed up with it all. He passes Zelda’s room – casts a quick glance in there. Everything is exactly as it was last night, paint roller still up against the wall. Plus ça change . That’s just the way things happen around here – at a snail’s pace.

He goes first to Monster Mother’s room and opens the observation hole – peers through. The room is quiet, she is asleep in bed. The curtains are closed and on her chair hangs a dark kimono-style dressing gown, the light reflecting off its fat folds. While it’s impossible to know if Monster Mother is skinless tonight, at least she is sleeping. He closes the hatch and goes quietly back down the corridor.

On Buttercup Ward something isn’t right. It’s just a small noise, a creak of a bed, a breathing pattern that’s fallen out of sync. He crosses the corridor to room 17 – Moses Jackson’s room – and turns the little spigot in the pane. He sees immediately this is where the noise is coming from.

Moses is sitting on his bunk, rocking himself to and fro, holding his head. He’s a completely different person from the arrogant one The Maude attacked. Ever since his ‘auto ennucleation’ he’s been nervous and self-effacing. He is so changed. Tonight he’s dressed in his vest and underpants and he hasn’t noticed AJ because he’s too caught up in his own internal battle. Batting his face, and screaming silently. Rocking and rocking.

AJ opens the door. ‘Moses. Moses, it’s me.’

Moses instantly stops moving. He freezes, lowers his arms.

‘Moses? It’s AJ. You OK, mate?’

He blinks with his one good eye. ‘AJ?’

‘I’m going to come in.’

‘Yes,’ he mumbles. ‘AJ, help me.’

AJ closes the door and comes into the room. On Buttercup Ward the colour theme is, unsurprisingly, yellow. Even in the dim light you can’t get away from the yellow – the curtains are yellow with grey diamonds and the floor is a sickly yellow linoleum flecked black. It is one of the rehabilitation wards reserved for patients who are considered to be less of a danger, and the rooms have some movable furniture. AJ goes and sits on the very edge of the bed. You’re not supposed to sit on the beds – it opens you up to all sorts of possibilities of abuse accusations. But Moses is shaking like a leaf.