One Foot Wrong Page 9

  Hot light poured out over me from one bright ball. I looked around at the white walls without windows and at the ceiling without cracks. There was no corner dark enough for a secret, no shadow to hide a flat pencil. There were no friends hanging down, there was not the smell of meat, no cupboard for cat, shoe and coat – just me in the middle on my green sheet bed. The river of blood flowed faster. I itched like Boot, across the back and in all the holes. Moses and the reeds sunk down in the fast-flowing river. The Pharaoh’s daughter didn’t find him in time. Nobody was here but me. I opened my mouth to call out so that my sound might be in the room too but all that came out were black feathers. I was choking on the feathers. They stuck in my throat. I coughed and the feathers flew in my face, catching in my nose and eyes. I threw myself at the door. The wall threw me back so I did it again, over and over. Two blue shoes came in. I held onto them. One gave me pills like Sack’s for the pain. After they had gone, the room turned into cloud. Jesus lived there; his chair was made of cloud and so was his dress and his hair. ‘Jesus?’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In eternity.’

  ‘Have you forsaken me?’ Jesus didn’t answer because he was asleep – I heard him snoring in the cloud chair.

  I made a picture of the face of the clock in the kitchen at One Cott Road and I tried to count the hands going round but the fingers on the hands going round grabbed hold of the numbers and threw them up in the air, changing the order so I couldn’t tell what was an hour and what was a day. Was it one night that passed, or six? Was it eighteen years or an hour? A blue shoes opened my door. ‘Up time,’ he said, and I followed him across the shining floors into a big room. He told me to sit on a chair made of shiny green with a lot of ladies, all of them backs against the wall. Some ladies were big, some small. They wore green suits, the pants the same as the top. It was the same thing I was wearing. Who had given me these clothes? Where was The Abridged Picture Bible and my shoes? Some of the ladies looked at me and some didn’t. None of them was Cat, Sack, Boot or my teacher. None of them had seen One Cott Road, or my grandmother or Mary. A small fire on the end of a white stick burned between the lips of every mouth in the room. The mouths sucked at the white sticks suck suck suck. I watched as smoke curled slowly up from all the nose-holes making one big grey smoke cloud near the ceiling. We sat and we sat and the cloud became bigger and harder to see through. Sometimes the ladies spoke little voices into the smoke, where friends you couldn’t see might live. One lady without any hair said, ‘Love my tits, don’t you, Don! Love my tits, don’t you, Don!’ She said it over and over to Don who lived in the cloud and then she laughed as if Don tickled her. Soon a blue shoes said, ‘Dining room for breakfast.’ We stood up, and walked into a room with long tables. Everybody sat around the table and I did too. The blue shoes wheeled in trays on a trolley that squeaked like mice. There were bowls of porridge on the trays and small piles of soft egg and a cup of tea in an orange cup.

  A lady with two hard points and a long zip in between said to me, ‘I am Nurse Clegg. Do as I say and we will get along.’ She poured pink water into all the teas. ‘Drink up, please.’

  I put the spoon into the egg, and then I put the egg in my mouth. It sat there in my mouth, warm and soft. It wouldn’t move. It didn’t want to go down the dark hole, away from the sound and the light. I tried to swallow but my throat pushed up, not down. The egg landed on the table beside my plate. Nobody saw. ‘Go down,’ I whispered, before I put the egg back into my mouth. It sat trembling behind my teeth.

  ‘Help me,’ cried the egg. My throat pushed up again and the egg landed on the floor. I got off my chair and went down there. I found the egg, still shaking.

  ‘Go down,’ I whispered before putting it back in my mouth. Somebody kicked me and something warm trickled down my neck. It was tea and egg. A lady the colour black said, ‘Eat mine too,’ and dropped her egg onto the floor beside me. I put more and more of the egg from the floor into my mouth where it sat trembling until a blue shoes put the tea to my lip and I drank.

  The black birds came back. Their beaks turned into needles; the needles pushed through the skin and touched the hard bone. I woke in a tangle of straps. Water dripped down from my eyes drip drip drip making puddles on the floor. It tickled as it fell. When I tried to smile I couldn’t move my mouth.

  What is it? I lifted my head high and looked. It was a box with little people inside doing tricks. ‘Television,’ said Nurse Clegg. ‘Watch it.’

  ‘Do the people locked inside the box ever leave?’ I asked a lady sucking her thumb.

  ‘Nup,’ she said.

  ‘Not fair is it love?’ said a lady knitting with no wool.

  The people inside the television moved and jumped and changed colour. I saw Jesus climb down off the cross. He told me to buy a silver chariot and drive it into a place with no trees or water. I saw dogs eating inside a white house with floors made of stone. I wanted to put what they were eating into my mouth. I saw a man with no clothes on. Water fell on his head and he sang, ‘Come along! Come along!’ but I knew not to, because of the boasting.

  I sat in the room that was mine trying to remember words to a prayer. And the day of the Lord – and the Lord’s day – like a thief in the night – the Lord’s day, like a thief – the day of the Lord – the Lord’s day, like a thief in the night – He will come – He will be – like a thief … I couldn’t close my mouth. Black birds flew in and made a nest of small sticks. I heard them caw caw caw. The sticks made tiny holes in the roof of my mouth. The black birds put their beaks in the holes and took small drinks of sticky red. The birds took up all the room in my mouth and then they pushed down into the deep places that you couldn’t put a finger on. They pecked at the fish swimming there – catching them by the tail, throwing them up in the air, watching them glitter in the light above the water, then swallowing them like pills.

  ‘Air time,’ said Nurse Clegg. Ladies made a line and Nurse Clegg said, ‘Out!’ We breathed the air in the black yard with high wire all around. Some ladies stood at the wire and held on – they wanted to breathe the air that came from the other side. The other side was green with trees and a road. I wondered if a snake of water flowed down there, and if there was a frog. Some ladies talked to the air as they walked; they waved their arms and called out to friends I couldn’t see. One said, ‘You’re a genius, Marty, a real genius!’ Another said, ‘It’s a picture of me and my lost love, don’t I look lovely?’ And one said, ‘You can’t poison me, not without a fight, you can’t!’

  I stood on the hard black ground as it spun in a circle around me. I got down on my knees and held on with my hands on the flat as it spun faster and faster underneath me. Porridge pushed up from my feet, past my throat, tongue and teeth until it sprayed out onto the hard black ground. With my hands in the hot wet I looked up to where God the Bird lived. When will you come? But God the Bird did not come to Renton; Renton was too far away.

  It was breakfast again. Nurse Clegg went around the teas and poured in the pink water. ‘Drink up,’ she said. Every time she leaned her two points went close to a waiting face. If you turned your face the points would poke you in the eye. Nobody turned. Nurse Clegg poured the pink water into my cup. I picked it up and put it to my mouth. The cup was touching my lips when I heard a soft voice. ‘You don’t have to drink it.’ I sat holding the cup to my lips. ‘You don’t have to drink it. You can switch it. Watch.’ I watched. The lady who spoke to me pushed her cup across to another lady sitting with her eyes closed as if she was already sleeping. Then she took the sleeping lady’s empty cup so that now it was hers. ‘See?’ she said. My cup was still touching my lips. The steam from the tea went up my nose. This tea was not the same as the tea I made for Sack in One Cott Road; the pink water made it like something you wash the floor with. The ladies at the long table all drank their teas. ‘You don’t have to drink it. It sends you straight to the Land of Nod with your eyes open,’ the la
dy said, looking at me. I looked back into the green eyes of Mary. She didn’t have a lip twisted up with a nose, but it was Mary.

  I put down the tea. ‘Mary,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mary.’

  ‘Who’s Mary?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Mary.’

  ‘I’m not Mary.’

  But she was. ‘Mary.’

  ‘I’m not Mary. I’m Norma K.’

  Her voice was the voice of Mary; it came from the mouth of Mary. ‘Mary.’

  ‘I’m not Mary, I’m Norma K. K is for Kyte, but you don’t fly it. It’s my name. K–Y–T–E, with Norma in front.’ She spelled it out the way my teacher did when I went to school. A–P–P–L–E. Apple. ‘Who’s Mary?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re Mary.’

  ‘You’re nuts. Don’t drink the tea unless you want to sleep all day with your eyes open.’

  Nurse Clegg said, ‘Time for the games room.’

  ‘Games room without the games.’ Mary-who-said-she-was-Norma smiled and winked. There was a dark gap on the side where her teeth were missing. I wanted to put my eye to the gap, see what secret was hiding in there. The points of Nurse Clegg were close to my face. ‘Drink up, please.’ Mary snorted and I drank the pink tea.

  A man in the television told us to dig the earth and watch for weeds. A weed is unwanted and takes over. You can’t stop it, even if that was your wish. The weed grows and grows unless you dig it out at its deepest part, at the part that joins it to the earth, at the root. If you dig it out at the root with your spade, pulling up the branches, some as fine as hairs, if you pull up every one, then the weed will die in your hand. If it dies in your hand then it lives some other life in an invisible land for dead things that doesn’t matter to you because you’ve never been there so you can’t make pictures of it because what would you put in those pictures? You don’t know anything about that land full with unwanted weeds, but if you leave even the finest hair of a root in the earth then the living weed will grow its plant back again and take over. You have to dig deep; you have to take it all. I watched Mary from across the room. She was looking for something, I didn’t know what. She turned her head from side to side, she tapped the seat and her legs jumped up and down. Did you see the frog, Mary? Did you make pictures of me even after the black bird bit the rope in half? Did the bastard hit you?

  Mary-who-said-she-was-Norma sat beside me at dinner. Nurse Clegg walked around us with dinners on a trolley. There were peas, mash and a sausage with brown. ‘Why are you always looking at me?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Mary,’ I said. Did the frog come? Did you ride on its back? As the hands turned slow circles around the face of the kitchen clock, when I bled flowers on the sheets and hung beside the company I kept, were you out riding on the back of the frog singing ‘Morning Has Broken’?

  Mary slammed her hand down onto mine. ‘I’m not Mary. I’m Norma K. K is for Kyte. If you don’t want the K, don’t have it, but I’m not Mary. I’m Norma. N-O-R-M-A.’

  ‘Mary.’

  ‘Norma.’ She pinched the skin of my arm. ‘Say Norma.’ Her mouth made the slow shape of Norma. ‘Say it, or I’ll pinch harder.’ If I said Norma, then where was Mary? ‘Say it!’ The pinch was going to take the skin off. ‘Say it!’

  ‘Norma.’

  Mary let go. ‘And never forget it.’ She looked down at the red star left behind on my arm. She touched it softly. ‘Sorry,’ she said. Mary was hidden inside Norma’s skin. It was my secret. I said Norma, but I found Mary. I ate peas, mash and sausage without sound because I wanted to hear the breath of Mary beside me in out in out.

  At night, in my black room with the square cut out of the door, I drew the hanging room. Light from a candle showed me my friends hanging down around me. I wanted to be closer to them but it was hard to be closer when I was hung like a coat by my arms. I tried talking to them, good morning good night good afternoon, but they stayed quiet. I drew the stairs leading up, the darkness on the walls and the eyes of Boot as he breathed faster and faster above me. I drew Sack on her knees, I drew Boot watching Hester at the woodpile, axe flying, up down up down. I drew the fires in Sack’s eyes, her fast shoes, one in my throat. I drew all this with my eyes closed because when I opened my eyes black birds came flapping peck peck peck. I covered my eyes with my hands but the birds came peck peck peck at the cracks between my fingers. I shouted ‘No!’ Then the birds flew into my open mouth. A pair of blue shoes came into the room and put a needle in my bone.

  I looked for the hanging room in Renton. ‘Where is under?’ I asked Nurse Clegg. Nurse Clegg didn’t stop to listen.

  ‘Up your bum,’ said the woman the colour black.

  ‘Why are you that colour?’ I asked her.

  ‘They shot me full of formaldehyde,’ she said, ‘so hot the needle melted and now I’m black.’ She laughed and I saw black inside. I drew the hanging room with my eyes closed and stayed there until it was time for the trays of food and the television again.

  Blue shoes took us along the halls to the bathrooms. It was a row of taps, no bath. Blue shoes did the scrubbing with the hard brush and the soap. Some ladies cried and said no, but I stood still as Lot’s wife as blue shoes ran the hard brush over my legs and back. I’d been washed before. Norma was under the tap beside me; she called to me through the water. ‘We’re in a forest and it’s raining on our heads.’

  ‘What is a forest?’

  ‘In a forest there’s only trees and nothing else. Maybe birds in the branches, and foxes, but that’s it. You and me would be the only people,’ she shouted above the noise of the scrubbing and ladies crying no. We stood in the rain. All around us were dark trees. A blue bird with a golden throat flew in and out of the branches and a fox popped her red head through a hole.

  The television was on. Some ladies watched, some slept and some talked to friends who lived in the cloud of smoke near the ceiling. One said, ‘No way, no way in hell.’ Another said, ‘In all my life I’ve never!’ Norma held out a white stick to me. ‘You want a fag?’ It wasn’t an orange. You couldn’t eat it. ‘Go on, take it.’ I looked at the white stick. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t smoke?’ I sat quiet. ‘Come on, I’ll show you. Put it in your mouth.’ Norma put a white stick into my mouth and one in hers. Then she struck a match against the box. Her cheek flickered gold. She put the flame to the white stick in my mouth. ‘Suck it so it lights.’ I sucked for Norma and the white stick glowed with a small fire. ‘Suck harder.’ Norma laughed. Was it the devil? I sucked harder and the smoke from the white stick curled its way down to where the fish swam in the dark and quiet water. It brought God’s peace to the places you couldn’t put a finger on.

  ‘You can let it out now.’ Norma smiled so that I saw the black gap in the side of her mouth. I let out the smoke and it burned and made me cough. Burning water filled my eyes. I sucked more. ‘You’re a fast learner,’ said Norma. She lit her own white stick and we sucked in the smoke together. I coughed and Norma nodded her head and said, ‘Good job, good job.’

  Boot taught me the time. It was his lesson. Small hand on one, big hand on twelve is one o’clock; small hand on two, big hand on twelve is two o’clock; small hand on three, big hand on twelve is three o’clock. That is time, said Boot. It ticks. He held the clock to my ear and I heard a cockroach marching in circles tick tick tick. I watched the clock on the wall at Renton. It was the same one as home. Time was ticking there too.

  ‘Airing Court, please,’ said Nurse Clegg. Her two points told us the way. Ladies walked in a line and out. ‘If you’re going to be sick again, Hester, go and stand near the wire at the back.’

  The Airing Court turned in circles beneath me. I walked slowly to the wire. I wanted to get on my knees and crawl but blue shoes said no. The circle turned faster. Egg and onion was on its way. I bent over. Egg and onion was coming. Feet stood in front of me. I followed the feet up to find they were the long legs of Norma. ‘Walk
with the same steps as me,’ she said.

  Egg and onion waited. ‘Come on.’ Norma held out her hand. She had a picture of a butterfly there, drawn with a green pencil. ‘Come on, slow coach!’ I took her hand. The butterfly fluttered against my palm. She pulled me so I stood straight. ‘Don’t you remember doing this at school?’ She pressed her foot against mine so one foot was two. ‘Imagine our feet are tied together. Now walk.’ We walked, slowly at first, then faster. One two, one two, counted Norma. ‘If there was a race we’d win!’ We walked around the edges of the Airing Court and the egg and onion stayed where it was.

  We stopped at the wire and held on with our fingers. ‘Look out there, Hester. Do you want to go out there?’ It was the green world, and the road leading away. ‘Well, do you?’

  After a long time of nobody talking, only the quiet green world outside the wire waving its leaves at us, I said, ‘I want to hear the frog sing the oldest song.’ A black bird flew over our heads. He was big with wings that gleamed.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘With Mary.’

  Norma put her hand on the wire. The sleeve of her green suit pulled up. There were small streets cut into her arms. Where did those streets lead? ‘Mary again,’ she said.

  ‘And my grandmother.’

  ‘I used to live out there. I did a lot of things. I drove a car and I cooked.’ I looked closer at Norma’s wrists and I saw that the streets led into towns with buildings and a school and roads that led to houses with paths that led to doors. Every house had windows to see through and the gardens in the front had hoses and red buckets and cats and small children singing. All the weeds had been dug out and there were flowers along all the paths, every one with a bright skirt for dancing. I wanted to make a visit. ‘My brother lives out there. He comes the first Monday of every month to see me.’