Inch Levels by Neil Hegarty Read Free Book Online Page A

these stories, we have to use our imaginations.
    Patrick lay still. Footsteps squeaked and crunched on rubber floors; a trolley wheeled along the corridor; a vast, humming cleaning machine swept past. This was the lesson he was taught, as a small boy: a lesson he was honour-bound to apply to his own life. He thought of Margaret, and Robert: of the living and the dead, of deeds done and not undone. He hadn’t applied the lesson, had he?
    No. He had done the opposite. He had erased a story. He had failed to honour the dead.
    He had wiped the slate clean.

4
    ‘And how is the patient today?’
    Sarah repeated the question – almost immediately. This was a favourite approach: she liked to see the other person’s mouth open and then close; the faint expression of shock in the face of this pressing, prodding rudeness. This sweet lady – who turns out to be not so sweet after all. ‘How is my son today?’
    My son, she thought. My son, my son. My son is dying: and there you stand, so sanctimonious. I’ve had enough of you, of the lot of you.
    No saying any of this, she knew. They’d swoop in. They’d take the opportunity to section me, probably, to cart me off to the nearest loony bin, in two seconds. Serve her right, they’d say; nothing but trouble, that one. How many times had she seen the contempt in their eyes? – many times, was the answer to that: contempt for this doll, causing trouble, asking questions.
    Well, she’d set them right on that one. Getting older, she might be. But feeble? – no, and with a tongue like the blade of an axe, if she chose to use it. She was no pushover: and the staff in this place knew it by now.
    But there was a flipside. Never show my feelings: that was Sarah’s number one rule. She knew how to keep her feelings in check, to keep them pushed down – even with her son lying dying right there, on the other side of the door. It was easily done: it really was very easy. A lifetime of experience in that particular art had made her an expert now in stamping down.
    And besides, age had made it easier. Because there was nobody to speak to: not for five, six years now, not since Cassie died. She had forgotten how to do it.
    ‘How is my son today?’
    Sarah watched the nurse’s mouth open again, she watched her lips move. She watched, as if from miles away, as the girl began to speak.
    *
    ‘And how is the patient today?’ she said. ‘How is my son today?’
    And the nurse paused for a moment. Warily, by this stage. Too many stings, by this stage. Fed-up, too, by this stage: for Mrs Jackson, this nice, upright lady in her fleecy wraps and her knitting needles and her fondness for pastel shades had a tongue on her, when she felt like showing it off. They had all felt sorry for her, to begin with: not very nice for the lady to see her son fading away like this, fading day by day: to sit and watch this, in silence for the most part. It was an inversion of the natural order of things: it called for sensitivity over and above what training demanded. It called for kid gloves.
    But a few tongue lashings and – worse, much worse – a few biting sarcasms, put paid to all that. A bit of a harridan, that one : so went the talk in the nurses’ room. A tartar ; and she can stand up for herself, that one . And so now the nurse paused before selecting the right word. The doctors, she thought, they can deal with the ins and outs of it.
    ‘As well as can be expected,’ the nurse said, ‘considering.’
    The fleecy lady seemed to – yes, to consider for a moment. She considered. The nurse waited. Her duties were stacked up like planes waiting to land, today as on every other day, but she waited. This lady had a quality: the nurse felt as though she was being held by a tightening leash.
    ‘Considering,’ Mrs Jackson said at last. ‘Considering – everything.’
    The nurse nodded.
    ‘Well,’ said Mrs Jackson, ‘that certainly clarifies matters for me, doesn’t it? That answers all the