Alex Gray - Five ways to kill a man

The back of the houses faced a sloping hillside that had once been divided into allotments but was now overgrown with winter grass and banks of bramble bushes. A path ran all the way along, behind the high fences, leading away from the estate and petering out at the entrance to an electricity substation. The edges on each side were littered with empty bottles and polystyrene containers, the detritus from the take-aways a short walk across the fields. I thought about the people who had been there, smoking dope perhaps, seeking a bit of seclusion away from prying eyes. There was a track of sorts trodden into the winter earth, showing a short cut from the houses to the back of the local shops.

As I looked across the darkened patch of grass I realised that it could provide me with an escape route.

All I needed now was another victim.

There was no pain. And she supposed that she ought to feel grateful for that. But it was hard to reconcile herself to the absence of any feeling down one whole side of her body. Today the physiotherapist was coming to take her out of bed. To try to make her walk again, she’d told her cheerfully.

‘We’ll have you up and about in no time at all, Mrs Finlay,’ the girl had said. Alice had attempted a lopsided smile, glad that someone was addressing her by her full title and not in that patronising tone she’d come to hate when they called her Alice dear. Oh, dear God, she thought, eyes welling with sudden tears. What was she thinking? Shouldn’t she be grateful for what kindness they were showing her instead of worrying about wee things like that? But this ward was so full of old geriatric women, so different from any of her own lady friends back at the Seniors club. A sudden rush of self pity filled her and Alice gripped the bedclothes in both fists, momentarily overwhelmed by feelings of fear and loneliness.

So now it was all a question of waiting. Alice Finlay was becoming quite good at waiting. Waiting for a bedpan to arrive when she thought that her bladder would burst and flood the sheets beneath her; waiting for the doctor on his rounds; and waiting for visiting time to see Maggie’s face again. Oh, such heaven to see Maggie! Though once, when she’d been asleep, the bell for visiting had rung and she’d only had a few minutes with her precious daughter. Haltingly, she’d made Maggie promise to wake her up if such a thing ever happened again. After that visit she’d wept tears of frustration and disappointment into her pillow.

Alice Finlay looked up at the ceiling, noting the patches of flaking paint and a dull grey corner that might have been spiders’ webs. It wasn’t much to look at. But the alternative was to ask to be heaved up on a bank of pillows and then risk being engaged in conversation with one of the other patients. And that was something Alice dreaded. One old dear, her white hair fluffed round a thin, slack-jowled face, had stared at her for a long minute yesterday before shuffling up the ward to wherever she was going: the day room, perhaps? Alice had been slightly unnerved by the woman. She’d seemed to look at her with a vacancy in her expression that made Alice shiver. It was as if a dead person had been looking out of those pale blue eyes.

She closed her own eyes and began to drift away in her mind, conjuring up memories. There was something Maggie had always been fond of quoting from Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’; something about being on a bed and using your imagination to remember times past. That was what she would do now. Maybe her body was beginning to let her down, but there was nothing wrong with her mind.

She conjured up the cold spring day long ago when Mother had taken her to Pettigrew and Stephens. That was the preferred department store for ladies who had wanted quality in those days and little Alice had trotted along by her mother’s side as they’d made their way up Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street. They may have taken a tram, but that was one memory that eluded her for the moment. She could remember the rumble of trams on their shiny metal rails. And hadn’t they all had fun a few years back at the Glasgow Garden Festival? Alice yawned, suddenly aware of the frozen side of her face. Not the Garden Festival. Think about Pettigrew’s. Why had they gone there? Alice squeezed her eyes tight as if that would bring back the images she sought.

It must have been for some treat, surely. Why else had she been taken to Pettigrew’s? A sudden memory came back to her. She could see a little green boat with the Owl and the Pussycat painted near the bow. The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. Had she been inside it? She thought so, remembering the sensation of motion, rocking back and forward, back and forward. Had there been other children? That was something she couldn’t visualise. But Mother had been there and Alice could see her now, wearing her brown full-skirted coat with the fur collar that made her look so glamorous. And the hat: a small felt hat with feathers on the side, blue and bronze feathers from some exotic bird that Alice had never seen. She rocked in the little wooden boat, feeling her soft ringlets brush against her cheeks.

Alice froze. Her hair! She’d gone there to have her lovely hair cut off! Suddenly a feeling of panic arose in the old woman’s chest as the memory became more vivid. The play toys in that small ante room had been no more than a ruse to lull her into a false sense of security and once she had known what lay beyond the frosted glass doors, Alice had felt the same stomach churning sensation that had seized her whenever she’d been taken to the dentist’s.

One hand crept up to her head and Alice Finlay felt the wisps of hair and the skull beneath. She was an old woman now, sick in this hospital bed. Her four-year-old self vanished into the distant past, gone forever.

‘Mrs Finlay?’ A voice made Alice open her eyes. A young woman in a white tunic stood by her bedside, a kindly smile on her face. ‘It’s Hazel, your physiotherapist,’ the girl told her, smoothing her pillow gently. ‘I’m going to see if you can get out of bed this morning. Make a wee bit of progress, eh?’ The smile reached the girl’s eyes and Alice felt her own face respond. The girl seemed a friendly sort, not intimidating like the doctors could be. She was dressed quite casually as well, a short-sleeved tunic over navy slacks and big trainers. Hazel had a soft voice, not a Glasgow accent, more as if she were from one of the Gaelic-speaking islands, like that nice young man who worked in the police with her son-in-law.

‘Do-do-do…’ Alice wanted to ask her if she came from Stornoway, but the words stuck at the front of her mouth and she closed her lips in a thin line, terrified at the sound. It was like hearing some imbecile. Oh, God! What if she was like that other old woman? The one with the weak, staring eyes.

‘Shush, now. No trying to talk. The speech therapist will give me what for if I let you make even a peep!’ The girl gave a conspiratorial grin and Alice felt her body relax. It was all right not to speak, then.

Her voice sometimes let her down completely without any warning. Why did that happen? Alice had the sensation of her mind clearing as she considered this. Was it the rush of emotion that stifled her voice’s ability to make coherent sounds? Perhaps. She swallowed hard, hoping that the errant vocal chords would appreciate some fresh saliva and begin to work properly again.

‘Now, let’s see what you can do.’ The young girl was reaching under her pillow, easing her up into a sitting position.

Alice Finlay let herself be manoeuvred by the firm hands, aware that she was as helpless to resist now as she had been as a little child all those years ago in that department store.