my brother’s astonishment, I became a ballroom champion the following year.’
At least Clive thought he had been. The concept seemed to leave him as soon as he’d said the words. It was hard to think about the beginning knowing that it had come to an end.
‘I’ve really had it being sat here.’ Something took over Clive and he yanked off the wires that were caging him to his chair and the bed space. They were even making him use a commode so they didn’t have to unplug his attachments. Once he was up, he knew it was time to dance again, to let the years flitter away, his feet skipping out the foxtrot. Strictly Come Dancing had nothing on him.
‘Are you sure you should be doing that?’ Keisha stood, clearing the way.
‘This is just the warm-up.’
The bedside monitor bleeped loudly when the recordings flatlined. Clive ignored it as his feet completed a circuit of the four-bedded room, the old dear over the way giving him a round of applause.
‘Would you like to dance?’ Clive asked his young visitor. He wasn’t sure what he was up to. It was as if he was hoping to capture the past. A moment he’d lost, but was now there in his grasp.
‘I need to go,’ Keisha said and, as quickly as possible, she left the ward, only peering back briefly with two fingers pressed against her neck.
7
Keisha
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Babum. Babum.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Three days later and I still haven’t been able to clear the sounds of the monitors from my head. It’s like when you peer at the sun and it leaves the trace of a shadow in your vision, even when you’ve stopped looking in that direction.
If the beeping wasn’t enough to remind me of the event, the pickled onion repeating on me is making sure of it.
I’m glad it’s lunchtime and thankfully when I reach Tess’s café there isn’t a date waiting for me. I’m fed up with experiments. I want my life in boxes that no one can mess with.
‘Number forty and forty-one are booked in,’ Tess says, as soon as I arrive. She’s always more excited by my love life than her own. ‘Are you okay? You’re never late.’
My lunch is on the table waiting. I always have the same meal on the same days and as soon as Tess sussed onto this, she started prepping them for my arrival. She prides herself on having the correct order and a flat white waiting for me. It’s another of those things that pleases me greatly and seeing today’s vegetarian chilli with white rice brings me comfort.
‘It’s been a bit of a day or two,’ I say, easing myself in the chair with a great sigh.
‘What has Lucy broken now?’
It was true that most of my stories of exasperation involve my best friend. The last thing being when she managed to snap a ruler when she was drawing a straight line. It didn’t even seem possible.
‘Not Lucy. A patient.’ I take a gulp of the flat white. It’s the lukewarm temperature that I love and the caffeine gives me the fortification that I require. I may not have many vices, but my lunchtime coffee is one.
‘You tell me off if I call them patients. Don’t you always tell me they’re subjects or participants?’
‘Fair point.’
Tess is an astute listener. She is always taking in more than I give her credit for. I’ve never worked out if it’s a skill she’s been born with or if it comes from years of running the café. After a failed sandwich-van business, which was more down to the failing relationship with her ex-girlfriend, Tess went on to set up this café. I think my first visit was within a week of it opening. Since then she’s added approximately (and it’s only an approximate because she adds to it weekly, sneaking in more when I’m not looking) two hundred and eight unicorns. I sometimes get the impression they make up for losing who she has always said was the love of her life.
‘I had to visit this chap at the hospital, so he is a patient. If they managed to get him back to his bed, that is.’
‘What do you mean?’
Beeeeeeeeeeeee… The never-ending sound pops into my thoughts again. I drink more coffee and plan to start chewing in the hope that it will quieten the noise, even if it is only in my imagination.
‘He was a bit… well, “eccentric” is the best word I have to describe what went on.’