The Folded Man (10 page)

Brian's been sitting here five minutes having told the smug receptionist his name. On account of sex they tell you it's all anonymous, but the blushing from all corners says more than a surname ever would, and anyway, you'll usually see half these people on the bus ride in.

They breeze about him in reception. People coming, going, big arguments between couples trying to keep it all so quiet. A lot of tears before noon. And all about, they're wondering how to tell the boyfriends and the partners; the girlfriends, the wives and the mistresses.

All accepting that if you put private things in other people's private places, you're accountable.

This tall lad springs from the double-doors, jolting the whole reception room. He nods to a few more behind Brian. He's a right one, this bloke is.

Haven't even got a name for what I've got! he shouts.

Shouting loud and proud in this place where they put Latin names to faces. Patients and outpatients.

A pretty nurse turns out. Brian, please, she says.

And through.

Dr Abbas is a heavy man with thin wrists. He wears a gold watch and has a tongue like gristle. He holds one knee over the other; taps a pen just behind his ear. He's reading notes off a tablet – pretending he's on with doctorly pursuits in this fully barren surgery.

Good morning, Brian, he says, glancing up the once.

Hello.

And how've we been?

Aye, all right. Not bad.

Well that's – ahh, one moment.

Brian's chair creaks.

Dr Abbas puts his pen down.

Right. Yes. Where were we? Oh, I like your new haircut.

Cheers.

So. I understand you saw Diane Thursday.

Yes.

Dr Abbas claps his hands. Pretends to look arsed. And you understand she won't be with the unit anymore?

Weather the storm – that's what Brian thinks.

Yes, he says.

Okay. Terrible circumstances actually. But it's not for me to comment. And, well, so you know, we're working out a contingency. It may be the case we don't visit you this Thursday. Will you have enough food?

Brian nods. Expect I'll manage. It's the beer I worry about.

Dr Abbas smiles and puts down his tablet. He pushes his glasses on. Stands to pull a good metre of sterile paper over his bed. For all the cuts and all the hassle, they've harped on enough to guarantee a clean backside.

Good, he says. Very good.

Now Dr Abbas invites Brian to sit up on the paper and the bed.

How've your legs been?

Brian moves close and lifts himself from the chair. Unsteady, unwieldy. A little indignant. Meat, not legs – and never forget it.

The same they've always been, says Brian. You look after your own.

Well, if you'd just remove your trousers and we can take a look.

Funny how you don't call these a trouser, Brian says.

Brian sits there with trousers pulled down to his ­ankles.

That'll do, Brian.

Dr Abbas begins to pick and prod. Gentle over new scabs and old scars. Tracing round the blotches. By the knee, Brian takes a sharp breath; has to stop short of a yelp.

You're picking at this too often, my friend. It is wor­sening. Are you moisturising? Are you using the cream we gave you?

Brian thinks, You don't have to moisturise scales. It's the sea they want. But let them grow you'll be crucified.

Brian nods. Brian is fine and upstanding. Brian says, Course I'm bloody moisturising.

Then we'd better think about admitting you again. At the very least to try phototherapy. We did say –

No.

You know you leave us
little choice when you choose to ignore your health. Your
condition causes complications as it is.

My condition's perfectly
natural, says Brian.

Dr Abbas frowns. He says something about
genetic screening. Gene therapy. Then, when he sees Brian's
face, he says, Of course. But Brian, you must understand
my concerns. You are a rarity, for certain. But you
are not untreatable. Not invincible –

I get by, though.

Well,
I'd like you to consider counselling again.

Brian laughs.
To tell me what? About my mother and her politics?
What a demic I am?

No. To help.

Don't
need it. All right for dark rooms, me. Feel a
right dick talking with folk you don't know from
Adam.

That's fine, Brian. I'm simply suggesting –

Well
don't. I don't need people telling me how
to deal with these wheels or otherwise.

Dr Abbas breathes
heavy. He says, I'd also like to take a
small blood sample.

Fine.

Dr Abbas leans away.

And if
and when we're done, you could urinate in this
cup, and cover it with this kitchen towel. Toilet's
through there, down that corridor. Third on the right.

Think
I'm riddled as well? says Brian. Think you'll
meet your next appointment if you send me off down
there doing that?

Dr Abbas chuckles. No, perhaps not. But
it's standard now. I have to update the central
records. Still, from the looks of that arm I'll
struggle to find a vein.

And Dr Abbas isn't wrong. He has to prick Brian four times till it comes. Plenty out, thick and good.

Oh look, the doctor says, a beam spreading across his chops. It's starting to bruise already.

 

There's something on the door step. A bloody gnome on first looks.

By the second, by the time he's closer, he sees it's a black dog wrapped in gold foil. Quick glances left and right like he's on telly being filmed for a hard-boiled detective show.

Closer again, it becomes Anubis in six inches – Anubis in wood, hand-painted, and strikingly done.

Brian leans and scoops, baffled. Weighs it – damn weighty for wood – and strokes the dog nose, the lines in the head-dress. Certainly he's meant to find it.

A look around. The empty street. The ash-grey road. A moment to figure; to think and connive.

Brian chucks Anubis in his lap, racks the locks and bowls inside – inside with the sweet smell of old weed and milk on the turn. Home to the stains and all those empty tins. The grooves in his lino and black lines over floors.

Then, he puts Anubis on the side near the bibles. Where crap like that always ends up. Wonders if it's a wind up; a warning or worse. All the while holding the statue's dead gaze, taking the time to pick his nose. See our Brian knows all about Anubis, the books he's read. Books he's read and notes he's made.

Anubis stares back, blanking all.

Pal, you're a paranoid man. You have cameras on your house – you know where to check.

So Brian kicks his monitor bank and flicks the telly on. Brian with a pen and a pad. In his chair, under that bulb.

This, this excites him and it freaks him out. The way mystery does a lot for imagination. This message in wood. And leastways it's something to qualify doing nothing. Let's play hard-boiled detective after all. Find a happy ending – his happy-ever-after. Something to help forget the day before. Something over Noah since Noah can bloody well wait.

And he's found half a jay in the glass ashtray. Enough to pique a sober morning.

Blazing up, leaning forward, winding back the dial that makes for fizzy screens and wonky lines. Looking for that light – the gate opening.

Some bastard did it. Some bastard's made the effort.

Ten minutes turns out nothing. Three hours scanned. Past early morning and on to night. Back again – and back again.

He sees himself lock and leave. Sees Kenneth up close and talking fast – Kenneth reversing down his drive and into the pig. The pig tracking backwards, bellowing diesel smoke.

Pause. Play. Rewind. The same scenes the right way round. The same scenes ten times over. The telly a dead noise in the background.

Brian blows smoke and pens his pad. Waits and waits. Then:

The gate. The wrought iron gate teased out. A fast shadow on the concrete.

Two eyes and a mouth wreathed in black. The back of a head. Three frames, chopped up and glaring.

He thinks it out. Feels his heart go, his belly gone heavy –

Going deeper into this, where the lights start winking out. The cold sweats starting, your vision purpling at the edges.

His stomach lurches.

So write it down,
then, you bloody idiot
–

Yorkshire bastards.

Yorkshire bastards who weren't coming in, but going out.

 

Time for Noah now, with the morning done. Dirty men in his dirty den – sick feelings getting stronger by turns. But the phone's still missing. The phone he threw. And the answerphone blinks sixteen; sixteen messages from then till now.

Brian. You have sixteen new messages.

He presses play and settles back from the bare mantle. His eyes wide.

Take a grip; take the hit. Sixteen bastard messages from then till now.

One
:

Wakey wakey, Brian. Shit's gone off. My Cherry's been had off. Bastard gone! Two lads in a tow truck wearing hi-vis, in two minutes. Un-fucking-believable. We need to talk about last night. Something – shit. Harry's on the other line. Call me back.

Two
:

Brian. Me again. Look – I pulled something out of his van. It's . . . it's incredible. You need to see it. Pick up, call me. Pulling a few favours with the car now. Try you again in five.

Three
:

Where are you? Answer the phone you bumbling fool. My car's been taxed by a bunch of gits in hi-vis jackets!

Four
:

Getting on for half past now. We're running out of time. I need –

Five
:

Answer your bloody phone, pal. Please. Don't have all morning and nor do you.

Six
:

Brian. Noah again. Got a job on this afternoon now, so we need to sort you out with a joe and get you over this way. Harry's got me painting canal bridges phos-pink for a pretty penny, so I'll need to be seeing you in the next hour –

Seven
:

The hell you playing at, son? Get in touch.

Eight
:

Fuck's sakes –

Nine
:

Brian? You there?

Ten
:

Brian. Things are changing already. You see it outside first, then right down to your pores. Give us a bell. Don't want to mither you like this all bloody day.

Eleven
:

Taking the piss, aren't you pal? Well here's a thing. You're on the wrong side of this fence. Everyone is. Garland too.

Twelve
:

Should've started worrying the fourth time you had me on this bastard machine. Shape up and ship out. Got it? Just ring when you get this.

Thirteen
:

Only me. Got your gear and cash here, fella. Grateful?

Fourteen
:

It only scares you at first, Brian. Only first time. Then you take it and hold it dear; hold it close and sniff it hard. I don't know what's happening but –

Fifteen
:

I said I'd tell you a story while we wait for you to pull that fat arse out of sleep. Well here's a story. Heard of Ascension Island, haven't you son? Maybe not. Military base, basically, though pretends not to be. Seen a lot of war; a lot of war and a lot of suits. Out on the way to the Antarctic circle and those kind of places. Anyway, when we garrisoned Ascension Island – us British I mean, the Navy, late 1700s or early 1800s or whenever that was. Well whenever it was, we took all these bloody ponies with us. Good for ferrying crap about, aren't they? Pulling this and that. But see when you've lit candles, you don't need the match anymore, so likewise when we've got our homes and our walls and our prisons built, we leave the buggers out in the cold. Just like that, pretty things out there with the flowers. So years go on like they do, and eventually, well, they go wild these ponies. But they don't change. Don't change 'cause when you've got a fondness for nice plants, you'll like a bit of posh garden. A pony's a pony, and a nice English garden out on an island in the Atlantic is still a nice little garden. So they piss off the locals, don't they. Munching away on flowers and shrubs. A man's garden is his moat, right? But instead of blasting their heads clean out like you'd think, the settlers got clever. Installed a ton of cattle grids. Big iron things that go red in three years, yeah, that'll work. And it did, actually. For a bit. Stopped 'em coming in. And yet, after a while, the plants start getting munched on and trampled again. Nobody can work it out. But the ­ponies know. They know. Put a cattle grid between a pony and his scran, he'll start to think. He'll start to plot. So they camp out, these locals. And they find out that these ponies, these clever bloody ponies, well they've learned to roll over cattle grids haven't they?

Sixteen
:

Are you sleeping, Brian? Dreaming of tin soldiers out there on the fields? You know, they bury you faster in hot countries.

Next news, the phone rings; sends Brian half a metre backwards.

Owing to his arm, Brian can't answer. Brian can't take his calls. Won't get up the stairlift in time to catch the other.

After the tone, please record your
message –

This happening right now. Noah on the blower after what sounds like a full night on the lash.

You
have a new message.