James Smythe - The Machine

Back in the flat Vic is exactly where she had left him. He’s gone limp now, all the use of his muscles seemingly gone. She can tell as soon as she looks at him, and it almost makes the getting him up here – how easily he responded to her – like a dream.

Come on, she says. She puts her hands under his armpits and she tries to heave him along the floor towards the section of the open-plan room designated as a living room. It’s easy on the laminate floorboards, but the sofas sit across a large rug. It’s no longer its original colour. She can’t remember what the colour was, or even if it’s hers. Maybe it was always here, a part of the flat. She leaves Vic where he lies and pulls the sofas away from the rug, and then moves the things from the coffee table and carries that to the edge of the room.

Only a second, she says to Vic. As if he cares. She rolls the rug up, not doing the best job of it. When it’s in a flabby cone she pushes it against the far wall, towards the kitchen door. She pushes the sofas and table back, and then resumes her dragging of Vic. She thinks, he’s heavier than he used to be, and then she laughs at this: because when did she ever drag him?

She thinks about the man in his regiment who saved him, who dragged him away from the IED. He was a hero, taking the brunt. Trying to save the rest of them. Managing to save most of them. He dragged Vic away, to get him to medical help. Beth thinks about contacting him: they could compare notes. She keeps laughing at the idea as she pulls Vic’s body along. At the sofa she tries to heave him up, but she can barely do it. She climbs up onto the sofa and pulls. It’s a strain, and the sofa threatens to tip onto its back, but she manages it: his shoulders first, then his back – his head lolling the whole time, as if it were unable to support itself – and then his hips. From the floor she picks up his legs and swings them around, and it takes effort, but then he’s lying prone on the length of the sofa.

That fucking wheelchair, she says. She stands over him and looks down at his face, which has nothing to it. No expression, not even enough to call it expressionless. It’s like he’s dead, but the blood still pumps. In coma patients it’s said that the eyes can still be seen moving under the lids, proof that they’re dreaming. Vic’s got nothing. What do I do with you now? she asks.

Beth lays out everything she’ll need for him on the floor nearest the sofas. She’s decided that she needs to impose some order. She’s going to try scheduled and strictly adhered-to toilet trips, to prevent accidents. Apparently his bowel and bladder have kept their muscle memory: they’re relatively stable.

(He can hold it a few hours, was how the people in the home sold it to her. A few hours, and most of the time he’ll make it through the night.)

Still, she’s got adult diapers in case she needs them – better that, than clean the sofas and the floors, and she intends to make him sleep in them – and baby wipes. She’s got a changing mat, which has blue ducks printed along it. Again, the ignominy will be better than the alternative. She’s got rubber gloves and bleach and cleaning products, and she’s got the materials for a bed bath, in case she can’t get him in and out of the real thing: sponges, bucket-deep troughs for water, flannels and a scrubbing brush that’s marked SKINKIND but looks more like something she would use on the floors. She’s got pamphlets and leaflets that they gave her at the clinic, containing advice that seems like common sense – preventing bed sores, fungal infections – and telephone numbers to call if she needs help. One of the pamphlets is called YOU, YOUR PARTNER AND THE MACHINE. She flicks through it, and it’s full of pictures of loving couples where she cannot tell which one of them is vacant and which one is just doting. She’s got most of the food out as well, cans of spaghetti and beans and keep-fresh bread, and bundles of snacks, crisps and nuts and dried fruit. When Vic has a bad day, she doesn’t want to starve herself, or him. She doesn’t even know what he’ll eat, so she’s got Ready Brek as well. It’s too hot for porridge, she knows – it’s winter food, traditionally – but she’s seen them feed it to people who otherwise have trouble with eating solids in the movies. Food and bottles of water – lots of small ones, that she can keep close. The fridge is full of them. She’s got changes of clothes for him, already out and sorted: underwear in one pile, tracksuit bottoms in another, t-shirts in a third. She assumes that she won’t need anything else: there’s no chance of it getting cold in here. It takes her the rest of the day to make sure everything is in its own pile and accessible, and that she’s got enough of everything. She doesn’t know how Vic will react when she starts the process, so now, while he’s not a danger to anybody, she’s taking the chance to prepare herself.

Tablets. She notices that she needs to buy tablets: painkillers. Nothing insane, just ibuprofen, something like that. In case she needs them, in case Vic needs them. She checks on him, and he looks like he’s asleep. She can see his chest rise and fall. She doesn’t want to touch him. He might wake up. She gathers her purse and her keys, tucks them into her pockets, and then pulls the front door shut quietly behind her. With any luck she can be gone and back without him noticing.

(There’s a second when she imagines him waking up and having some sort of fit. They do that, she’s been told. She’s only seen one once, and it was terrifying: flailing and howling. She wonders what the neighbours will think: fat woman with all the daughters, holding a glass to the wall to better hear what manner of howling, exactly, and how to define it so that she can whinge about it loudly.)

She goes down the stairs and along the front, almost running, past the restaurants to the little Tesco. She can see that there’s a queue for the pharmacy, but it isn’t until she gets closer that she realizes it’s the boy in front of her, talking to the pharmacist. She can see the back of his shaven head: in thick puckered pink skin is the line of a tattoo running right across. It covers the width of his head: and the hair doesn’t grow on it, not even slightly. Not even fluff. She’s never noticed it before. She’s never been behind him before. She can hear his conversation with the man behind the counter.

What the fuck? he asks. That’s fucking real. The man behind the counter has got an ID between his fingers, and he’s examining it closely, but he doesn’t have to. Even from behind them Beth can see that the plastic is peeling, that it’s been tampered with. He can’t be older than fourteen. Maybe younger.

Sorry, says the shop assistant. You know the rules, I need to see ID.

This is ID. What the fuck else would you call this? The boy rubs his hands over his head, and then turns around. He glances at Beth. He nods, like he knows her. She knows who I am, she’ll tell you I’m not a fucking addict.

Beth’s gut lurches. She doesn’t know what she’ll say.

It’s not about somebody vouching for you, the assistant says. It’s about the ID. I’m sorry, but please move aside. He lays the ID flat on the table: Beth can see that the picture’s grainy, not even a sanctioned photo. Shoehorned in. There are customers waiting.

Fuck right off, the boy says. He picks up the card and waves it in the assistant’s face. Fucking real, you cunt. Suddenly, he sweeps his arm across the counter, and the stand of cough sweets, the charity collection box, the contraception/STD leaflets, all go flying across the floor in front of them. I don’t need this shit, the boy says. He looks at Beth again, and he kisses his teeth at her. From the front, this close up, he’s younger still. Twelve, maybe. Maybe younger. His hair is blond and his eyes are an almost yellow shade of green, and his teeth are ragged enough to need braces, but his skin hasn’t yet met acne, and there’s not even a hint of stubble across his top lip. There’s a threat in the way that he looks at her, but she can’t take it seriously. He’s still a child.