James Hannah: The A to Z of You and Me

I like Sheila. Everyone does. She’s got that way about her — bright and sparky. But I like her hardness. She’s a bit brusque, not fluffy. Mischievous, I’d say, when she wants to be. And it’s as if she’s got twenty-six hours in the day. Always unhurried in her conversations with me or Jef or Jackie the relief nurse. And I’ve seen it: people light up when they see her.

She checks my drinking water’s fresh, making contact with everything, fully and firmly — one palm now flat against the reeded side of the water-jug, the other patting the white plastic lid, her chunky gold rings rapping out her reassurance that it’s secure.

There’s something more deliberate about her as she carries out her ritual hardware-bothering this morning. I can sense it. She seems to want to stick around. Is she sizing me up? She thinks there’s something the matter.

I’m having none of it. I fix my eyes on the wall opposite. I could look out of the window. I could look at the magnolia tree; the robin has returned. But I’ll look at the wall. The wall that has seen it all. I’m staring it out. It’s staring me back.

It’s winning.

It pretty much always wins.

Sheila’s moved on to the towels, using the entire front of her body to assist in the folding of a new clean one, stroking it liberally with her hands, before dropping it in half and bringing it round into a quarter. She gives it a final stroke and pat for good measure as she slips it neatly into the space beneath my bedside cabinet.

I wonder when was this hospice opened. It looks like the 1990s going by the precision brickwork with 45-degree corners, bricks looking less like stone, more like solidified Ready Brek, every course the exact same colour, laid as if by a computer, not a brickie. And green plasticky-looking metal girders with friendly curves.

So that’s a quarter of a century this wall has watched people on their deathbeds. A quarter of a century of hysteria and tears and pain and misery.

I shouldn’t be here.

I don’t want to be here.

I’ve been here almost a week and — nothing. No better, no worse. Are they disappointed or something? Such an effort to get here in the first place.

What was it — Dr Sood said they’d sort out my symptoms, and then maybe they’d let me home for a bit if things got better. But he could say that whenever, couldn’t he? Even if I found myself coffined up and rolling along the conveyor belt to the furnace, old Dr Sood could say, ‘We’ll let you out if you start to show signs of improvement.’

I’m not ill enough for this. I don’t feel like I should be waited on by these people, using up their time when they should be tending to properly dying patients. Mopping up all these charity donations by the old biddies and the shattered and bereaved.

‘Are you comfortable, there?’ asks Sheila, finally bringing her fussing to a conclusion. I nod automatically. ‘Well, you let me know if there’s anything you need, OK? Or let Jackie know when she comes in.’

‘Mm.’

‘You all right?’

‘Mm.’

She weighs me up with a look, her jet-black eyes just as intent and penetrating as my mum’s used to be, but with many more smile lines sunnying them up at the edges. ‘Don’t you want the telly on?’

‘No. Thanks.’

‘You sure? You won’t get bored?’

I do a smile. ‘I’ll look at the wall.’

‘Oh yeah? Look you in the eye, does it?’

I nod. ‘It’s seen a lot of us.’

‘Oh, I dare say it’d have a tale or two to tell.’

‘Mm.’

‘But there’s a lot of wrong things people would presume about these walls. They’ve seen a lot of love and pleasure, you know.’ She gives me a gentle smile. ‘How are you doing upstairs?’ She taps her temple. ‘Staying sane? I’m still a bit worried about you, you know. I don’t want you going bananas on me, all right?’

‘I’m not going bananas.’

‘How’s your game going?’

‘What game?’

Of course I know what game she means. I just want to pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about. ‘You remember I told you about that game the other day? The A to Z? Keep the old brain cells ticking over a bit. So what you could do is try to think of a part of your body, all right? A part of your body for each letter of the alphabet—’

I nod — yes, yes — I want her to know I remember now.

‘—and what you do—’

Yes, yes.

‘—is tell a little story about each part.’

‘I’ve done one. I started doing it, actually. Today.’

‘Oh yeah? See, well, that’s trying, isn’t it? How far have you got?’

‘A.’

She laughs. ‘Well, it’s good to take your time over it.’

‘Adam’s apple.’

‘Oh, great, I’ve had a few people say Adam’s apple when I get them to have a go at this.’

‘Do women have Adam’s apples?’

‘Yeah! Yeah, I think so.’

‘I thought they didn’t.’

‘It’s the larynx, isn’t it? They don’t have the sticking-out bit so much, because they’re smaller than men’s. It’s why they have the high voices.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yeah.’ She lifts her chin thoughtfully, and circles her forefinger on her throat. ‘Larynx. Anyway, you’re not a woman, are you, so don’t be so picky.’

‘The vicar when I was little said it was the apple sticking in Adam’s throat. Adam out of Adam and Eve.’

‘D’you know, I’ve never once thought of it like that, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? How funny. Well, that means you’ve already got a story then, haven’t you? Sometimes I think we should collect everyone’s little stories about their Adam’s apples. We could put them up on the wall in the day room.’

‘What do you do when you get to X? Or Q?’

‘Well, that’s where you’ve got to get your thinking cap on, isn’t it? You’ve got to be a bit creative.’

What would I do for Q?

Oh, there it is. It’s my sister Laura, isn’t it, taking the mick out of me, just to look good in front of her new best friend Becca.

Doesn’t he know what a quim is? Aw, bless—

Becca’s tongue pushing between her pristine white teeth, hissing with laughter, leaning in to Laura and bonding against me.

We aren’t born with all the information we’re supposed to magically know.

Becca’s hissing laugh echoes down the years.

I’m Queen Quim!

Nope. Enough. Snuff it out.

I look up at Sheila.

‘You could end up with an alphabet of all the rude bits,’ I say.

‘Well, you have to have rules. You’ve got to use the right name for a body part, or near enough, like. No slang. No rude words.’

‘Yes, but “larynx” would never have turned up the story about “Adam’s apple”, would it?’

‘No, true,’ she says, thoughtfully. ‘But rules are there to be bent, aren’t they? It’s only a game.’

Anus

Anus , I write.

I straighten the photocopied handout on the school desk in front of me, and adjust my grip on my fountain pen. A potent blob of black ink spreads across my knuckle, working into the tiny lines and creases of my skin and cuticle. I wipe it on my trousers.

Black trousers, black ink, no worries.

There are two outlines of human bodies on the class handout, with straight lines pointing to various parts.

‘And I’ll stop you after ten minutes,’ says Mr Miller, perching his wiry frame on the stool at the front of the lab, making the crotch of his musty trousers runkle up in a cat’s whisker shape. ‘And use the proper names please.’

I draw my own connecting line from the word ‘anus’ to the relevant area of the male silhouette. I don’t know what’s made me do it. There’s no undoing it. It’s in pen. But a real, slightly frightening sense of freedom is swelling in my belly. Maybe now is the time to say it: Mr Miller, you, me and Biology, we were never meant to be. Let’s call it quits, eh?