Lady Bag (4 page)

Chapter
6

Hospitalised

A
man said, ‘Ma’am, can you hear me? Can you stand? Ma’am?’

Strong arms lifted me and swathed me in warm fluffy towelling.

‘Gram?’ I said.

‘Concussion,’ the voice said. ‘Watch out, her head’s bleeding. What about the other one?’

A woman said, ‘Resuscitation failed. I called it in.’

‘Cops?’

‘On their way. What a bleeding mess, eh?’

‘And such a posh little neighbourhood—just goes to show—no one’s safe.’

My eyelids weighed a ton. My fingers felt like walnuts. I smelled of jasmine. The man smelled of cigarettes and disinfectant. The towelling…

The woman said, ‘Can you hear us, love? What’s your name?’

The towelling smelled of aftershave and cologne.

‘Gram,’ I said. ‘The Devil.’

‘What did she say?’

‘You won’t get much sense out of a mouth like that till the swelling goes down.’

‘Icepack?’

‘I know the cops said wait, but I really think we should load this one up and go.’

‘Think of the traffic on the Brompton Road. It could be half an hour before we get there. She needs to be in Emergency.’

‘We’re taking you to hospital, dear,’ the woman said loudly. ‘You’ll be more comfortable there.’

‘Ow,’ I said, ‘ow, ow, ow.’

‘Take it easy,’ she said. ‘It’s all very well—these bijoux mews houses, but you try getting a sodding full-length gurney down the narrow stairs without getting stuck or doing yourself an injury.’

I felt cold air on my aching face and smelled London’s pollution. ‘My bags,’ I cried. ‘Electra!’

‘What’s she saying?’

‘I think she wants her handbag,’ the woman said.

The man stroked my hand and said, ‘Don’t worry; the police’ll make sure your house is secure. No need to worry about the electricity.’

Gently, the woman put a bag on my chest. It was a Louis Whatsisname handbag.

‘Not that one,’ I said.

‘Don’t thank me,’ she said. ‘I’m just doing my job.’

I woke up from a dream about a trespassing woman who poured a foul perfume all around my house, on my clothes and on me. The perfume was sanitary and carbolic—the stuff you put down drains. The woman was unstoppable and treated my house as if it belonged to her; like she treated my man, my Gram, as if he was hers.

I woke in a rage of frustration and fright. I could smell blood as well as Draino—it was clogging my mouth and my nose. Worst of all, ringing in my ears, was the memory of someone saying the cops were coming.

The cops don’t like me. They wake me up to push me off benches and doorsteps. They accuse me of begging. They call me a vagrant. They try to persuade doctors to put me in the Nut Factory.

I wanted to get up but I was in bed and someone had tied me down.

A nurse came along and said, ‘What’s all the fuss about, Mrs Munrow, or can I call you Natalie?’

I tried to tell her, but my mouth was sewn up like a big fat purse. I struggled to sit up.

‘Wait,’ she said, and loosened the sheet. ‘Maybe they were afraid you’d fall out. I imagine you’re a bit disoriented. People often are when they’ve been admitted unconscious. Do you want the loo? A drink?’

I nodded eagerly. But my head fell off and rolled under the bed. The nurse didn’t notice. She said. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to drink through a straw for a few days.’

‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘Just get me a drink.’ But it sounded like, ‘Inerf ferf frink.’

She put a straw between my blobby lips and I drank Draino, blood and… water. ‘A proper drink,’ I cried. ‘Affroffer frink.’

‘There, there,’ she said. ‘I know it hurts, but you’ll soon get used to it. When the swelling goes down and the stitches come out you’ll be as good new.’ She disappeared for a few seconds and I realised I could only see out of one eye.

‘Fneuf?’

‘Your bag’s in the bedside cabinet and your robe’s on the chair. Try not to talk, Natalie. You’ll need your energy. The police wanted to interview you last night but Dr Dat said they’d have to wait till this afternoon at least. I’m going off shift now. Bye-bye.’

I was completely wankered—I’d lost all my stuff and the buggerizing cops were coming. I didn’t understand. Who the fuck was Natalie Munrow? Sure as sugar she wasn’t in my bed.

And then, as I lay there getting used to all my new aches and pains, it came to me: Natalie Munrow wasn’t in
my
bed, but maybe I was in hers.

A tiny old lady appeared at my side. She wore a frilly pink dressing-gown and said, ‘That Suzette’s so bleedin’ lazy—of course you’ll want the bleedin’ toilet—you’ve been asleep for nine hours. Come on, I’ll show you.’

It was agony. Knives stabbed my head, my back, my sides. I was walking on pins and needles. I said, ‘Ow-ow-ow.’ It was the only thing I could say that came out the way I meant it.

‘I know, I know,’ the tiny lady said. ‘Gawd’s tooth, some bugger really played knickety-knack-paddy-whack with you, dint they? I heard them nurses saying your whole house was covered in blood, and where you wasn’t covered in blood you was covered in bruises. There you are now. I’d have a wash too, while I was at it. They dint clean you up too good. I’m lucky me daughter comes in every day. I’d be dead ten times over if I left it to them lazy cows.’

The bathroom was all white but it smelled of blood and Draino like everything else. Then I looked in the mirror and at first I didn’t recognise what I saw. My hair was all stuck together with dried blood. The stitches on my lips were like black pits filled with it. My nostrils were stuffed with it too. I couldn’t open my mouth but I could taste blood on my tongue and down my throat. My jaw and one eye were so lumpy I looked like the Elephant Man.

I wanted to stand under the shower but I was wearing one of those hospital gowns that fasten at the back and I couldn’t reach because my shoulders and arms tore off when I tried. I did what I could in the basin but I couldn’t touch my own face. It hurt too much.

The little old bird was hovering outside the bathroom door when I got out. ‘Tweet tweet,’ she said. ‘Locking up’s too good for the likes of them. They should be strung up from the nearest lamp-post where you can watch ’em choke. And what they done to your poor friend… all for a few trinkets. I blame the drugs.’

‘Pherf?’

‘Oh my Gawd’s wrinkly billibow, dint they tell you? Battered to death—face like mashed beetroot. You was ever so lucky.’

I crawled into my white bed that smelled of blood and ironing and closed the only eye that opened. I was ever so lucky.

‘Fag?’ the little old bird sang. ‘If you can get a straw in your gob you can manage a smoke.’

A man said, ‘Back to bed, Mrs Barnes. You should be ashamed—leading new patients astray. I’ll tell your daughter.’

I cranked my eye open again just in time to see the old bird flutter away.

‘Dr Dat.’ The man in the white coat sat down next to the bed. There was marmalade on his tie and butter on his breath. Soft fingers closed over my wrist. ‘You won’t be able to say much, so nod or shake your head. Okay?’

I nodded and my skull crushed my brain.

‘First of all, don’t worry about brain damage or bleeding. We gave you a CT scan last night. You have a hairline fracture and some nasty gashes but nothing serious. I’m afraid we had to cut off some of your hair to suture your scalp. That couldn’t be avoided. You have three broken ribs on the left side. Several broken teeth too, but nothing a good cosmetic dentist can’t cope with. Obviously there are multiple contusions and abrasions and I bet you think we’ve been stingy with the painkillers.’

I nodded more cautiously.

‘We have to be careful what we give someone who’s slipping in and out of consciousness but we’ll try to improve on that.’

‘Phow?’

‘Yes, very soon. And we’ve phoned your brother in York. His number was in your mobile phone in your handbag, OK? He should be here after lunch.’

‘Pho phit!’

‘I thought you’d be pleased. I’m hoping he’ll be present when the police return. Now I must be off. I’ll send a nurse along with the analgesic. Get some rest.’

‘Oh phugger,’ I moaned to his retreating back.

The crap I was swimming in was getting deeper and skankier by the minute. Someone was dead. Everyone seemed to think I was Natalie Munrow who was maybe Gram’s girlfriend and the owner of the house with the yellow door. Her brother was coming and he’d dob me in as soon as he saw me. My head hurt like a bursting boil. I’d lost Electra. I’d lost my bedroll, all my gear and at least twenty pounds I’d had hidden in my clothes. The cops were on their way.

My good eye stung with tears and my bad one ached like a broken leg.

Tiny Mrs Barnes perched on the end of my bed. ‘Cheep-cheep,’ she said. ‘Lend us some gelt for the phone? My Margi’ll pay you back when she comes.’

And
I had a roommate on the cadge.

‘You got a handbag stuffed full of goodies. I heard that lazy cow Suzette saying.’

‘Phugh foff.’

‘You’re a pal,’ she trilled and bobbed out of sight, reappearing seconds later with the Louis Whatsisname handbag with all the buckles and pockets. It looked heavy. I held out my hands. ‘Orright if I help myself?’ she said, ignoring me.

‘Pho!’ I shouted, stretching and tearing my shoulders out of their sockets. ‘Ow-ow-ow.’

‘Mrs Barnes!’ Big arms appeared and wrestled my handbag out of the old bird’s claws. ‘Why you tormenting this fine lady? Ain’t she got enough torment already? You go back to your own bed now.’

The mountainous nurse drew curtains round my bed. ‘I’ll be hiding this nice bag under your pillow.’ She pulled me this way and that as if I was a baby who weighed no more than an armful, and when she settled me back down I could feel the pillows fluffed up on top of the handbag.

She handed me a plastic beaker full of green Draino and told me to rinse and spit. So I rinsed with green and spat out mucky brown. ‘Ow-ow-ow.’

‘They sure messed you up good,’ she muttered and advanced on me with a syringe.

Just one tiny scratch and I dived deep down into soft black pillows and arms where there was no pain, no loss and no fear.

Chapter
7

I Become Natalie

‘K
nock, knock.’

I struggled through layers of loft insulation just in time to see a fair curly head poke through the curtains.

‘Natalie?’ she said. ‘I know I’m supposed to wait for your brother, but I just got a call and I have to attend.’ A skinny woman in uniform came through the curtains.

Uniform. Dark blue uniform. A cop.

‘Pho phug!’

‘I’m supposed to return your house keys to you and have a chat.’

‘Phan fout?’

‘You know, about what happened… and your friend—so sorry about that—but I can see you’re not up to much conversation. So I’ll leave your keys and come back in a couple of hours.’

A handful of jingly-jangly metal dropped close to my fingers. I tried to thank her but my blubberous lips got in the way.

‘I’m PC Cole, by the way, Sally Cole, victim support officer. Here whether you need me or not, and all that malarkey.’ She pressed a square of cardboard into my hand and turned away.

Tall, fair-haired and no arse whatsoever. I was never more pleased to see anyone leave in my life. Cops hate me when they know it’s me. Good job they don’t hate Natalie Thingy… Muldrow… Bloodrow. I closed my eye. Cops don’t hate you if you’ve got house keys.

My eye jerked open again. My brother was coming. He would hate me and make the cops take my keys away.

There was a white towelling robe on the chair next to the bed. I put it on. I put my keys in my pocket and wrapped my arms tightly round my Louis Whatsit handbag as I staggered to the bathroom.

It didn’t hurt quite so much this time. I was still walking on glass, but I wasn’t treading as heavily. In fact, I was sort of floating.

Out of habit I put the spare toilet roll in my pocket before leaving.

Birdie Barnes was lying on her back on top of her bed, snoring. She was going to steal all my coin. So I stole her slippers. They were too small by nearly six inches so my heels dragged on the floor. Which is exactly what you’d expect from an enemy like her—something small and inconsiderate.

But I had to have slippers. People notice bare feet. They can see vagrancy, poverty, madness and martyrdom when they look at ten naked toes. Bare feet carry tortured refugees across scalding deserts, and no one wants to be reminded.

My mother used to say, ‘If your hair and shoes are clean, no one cares what’s in between.’ Like a lot of things my mother said it turned out to be bollocks, but even so she didn’t deserve to die of shame knowing her daughter was in chokey.

I drifted down a corridor or two, floated down some stairs and followed a tragic flock of slow bathrobes to a canteen. I was going home.

All the smokers huddled outside the main entrance coughing their lungs up. What a way to treat sick smokers! It’s a police plot. And when all the smokers are dead they’ll turn on the eaters and drinkers. Then hospital entrances will be surrounded by fat drunks.

My brother smelled of blood and Draino but not of tobacco. He got out of a cab, pushed his way through the smokers and went into the hospital to look for me. He didn’t recognise me.

‘Tee-hee, ow-ow,’ I said.

I stole his cab.

‘Harrison Mews,’ I said. But the driver said, ‘Huh?’ So I searched in my bag till I found an ivory case with my business cards in it. After that he called me ma’am and started to drive. Cradled, rocked and on the move at last, I went to sleep.

‘Harrison Mews. Wake up, ma’am. Oy, shake a leg, we’re here.’

‘It’s the one with the yellow door. Phwon fiff phellowfor.’ I pointed. ‘Ow.’

‘I’ll have to reverse out.’

‘Phellowfor.’

‘I can’t turn round,’ he grumbled.

Rain was pouring down. Pools of water glistened between the cobbles. Heavy-headed wisteria drooped. Electra’s coat would be sodden. She hates getting wet. She shivers.

Tutting and sighing, the man drove his cab to the yellow door. ‘Uh-oh,’ he said, ‘police tape. I don’t think you’re supposed to go in there.’

I gave him a twenty pound note because I suddenly had lots of them, and he shut up. He even got out to help me with the keys after he’d watched me drop them twice. It’s amazing how much people want to help you when you’ve got lots of twenty pound notes and a house with a yellow door. But he wasn’t my friend. His eyes tore little strips of skin off my face so I didn’t invite him in for a drink.

Draino and blood waited behind the front door. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before. Maybe it wasn’t there before. Maybe the cops smeared the maple floor with blood and smashed the telly. Don’t ask me why—they hate me.

But they forgot to steal the wine. That’s because they’re stupid. There was wine, a corkscrew and a glass in the kitchen. I opened the bottle and ignored the glass. But I couldn’t get my lips round the neck of the bottle and I couldn’t find a straw. When I poured the wine into what was left of my mouth it stung like a swarm of bees, so I staggered upstairs for a lie-down. I wasn’t feeling too clever.

I lay down on a big soft bed and covered myself with a crimson duvet. I closed my eyes. Just for a moment… just for a…

Light squirmed in through the curtains. The clock on the table said eleven-thirty. I stared at it. Eleven-thirty a.m. I did the arithmetic—I must’ve slept for over twenty hours. Or maybe it was for twenty days. I got up and went to the bathroom.

I’d been standing in the shower for five minutes before I realised that half my hair was shaved off, that I had fifteen stitches in my scalp and they were all screaming at me for putting shampoo on them. I wrapped myself gently in a towel and looked in the mirror. There were four stitches in my upper lip, seven on my cheekbone and five over my right eye. I was black, blue, angry red and sick yellow all over. I looked like one of Dr Frankenstein’s failed experiments—before he finally got it right and created a monster.

I went back to the bedroom and sat on the bed. Memories, like coloured beads, began to hit me in no particular order. A bottle of red wine. A boot hurtling into my face. A voice saying, ‘Sorry about your friend.’ An old lady trying to steal my handbag. Electra running away. An ambulance. A cop-lady. Cops. Oh shit—my brother.

A massive headache smashed my skull like a train. I had to find my stuff and move on. I knew it wasn’t
my
brother I needed to avoid, but the brother of whoever lived in the house with the yellow door. Because he would know I wasn’t her. But he would be
like
my real brother—full to the brim with blame and contempt.

I had to collect my stuff and find Electra. But the cops had stolen my things. My backpack, all my spare clothes, spare change, my bedroll and dog food were gone.

I couldn’t go out on the streets in a towelling dressing gown and slippers six sizes too small. If I couldn’t go out on the streets I’d be chucked in chokey and I’d never find Electra.

I began to shake so I went back down to the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. I thought my mouth was less swollen but I still couldn’t get it to fit round the neck of a bottle without tearing stitches. The shakes turned into rattles. The rattles are to the shakes what earthquakes are to vibrations. The shakes are amateurs.

But I am a survivor, a woman who can solve nearly as many problems as she creates. I was in a kitchen, after all, and most problems surrender to kitchen utensils.

I found a turkey baster. Turkey baster, my old friend, I thought, and sucked up red wine which I then squirted into my mouth.

When I had enough of the red inside me to control the shakes I went upstairs to the bathroom. I wasn’t expecting to find anything better than aspirin in the cabinet so I was surprised to find a stash of moggies, zopiclone, fluoxetine and co-codamol. It was all stuff I could use, and if I couldn’t use it I could sell it.

Sometimes I have this feeling right in the dead centre of my chest. It’s like a tumour growing inside and I think that if I could puncture my chest, cut a hole exactly the right size, all the darkness and evil would come rushing out leaving me light and airy and free. I know to the last millimetre where I’d make the hole. I can put my finger right on the spot. Sometimes it seems almost ready to explode. Sometimes I think it will implode and suck me in like a black hole.

Moggies and zops are good for that sort of hurt because they’re sleepers, but co-codamol can’t touch it. Unfortunately now was a bad time to have a sleep. But fluoxetine is an anti-depressant—a cheaper form of Prozac. It wouldn’t act immediately and in the short term it might make me a little crazy. But I was willing to take the risk. I took one two-tone capsule and squirted it down with red wine. Then I took a tab or three of co-codamol to give the aspirin a helping hand.

One day, when there’s no wine or pills left, I’ll have to take a skewer to that spot in the dead centre of my chest. But not today—there’s too much evil on the maple floor already.