CHAPTER 6
We dropped Pete off, slightly squiffy, at the British Legion home who were currently caring for him, and I was talked into a lift back to mine on the basis that my bike currently had no wheels attached. There was silence in the car for a while, until Sharon spoke.

“John, you did well there. That must be one of the first human things I have seen you do without written instructions”

Dave snorted. “You can still fine tune it, you know. You could start by avoiding words like ‘cripple’, and using people’s names. Do you realise that you only ever referred to Abigail with the tits once by name, and every other time she was just ‘the student’?”

“Do tell more, David” Sharon purred in a rather controlled way.

“Nothing really to tell, love, just some chesty bird trying to boost her marks by offering young John here her body, and it went right past him!

“No John, I am serious. You have to look at your vocabulary. You teach this stuff, for God’s sake”

He paused. “Put it this way. Context rules, and the interpersonal function is partially served by the choice of lexis and register. That better?”

They dropped me off at mother’s, and the day having already been so odd I was half expecting to find a nightdress on the bed.

After the weekend, I had another meeting with the doctor.

No. Dave had told me I needed to change that. Doctor Oliver. Mary Oliver. Remember that. People, not things, not processes.

We went back to 1985 again.

“John, I have your records here, so I already know quite a bit, but I need you to tell me, not the other way round. It doesn’t work that way. What happened?”

“My father died.”

“How?”

“He was a drinker, and that led to diabetes. I believe he had some sort of accident with his insulin”

“How do you know?”

“My mother sent me with a cup of tea that morning. They had separate rooms.”

“Go on”

“He was cold, and I pulled a blanket over him, and he didn’t move”

“And?”

“And I saw he had the needle he used stuck in him, and the syringe part had snapped off, and he had bled onto the sheets and he still had his hand around the barrel”

“John…John…”

“What?”

“You have been staring into space for thirty seconds.”

“Oh, sorry, doctor. Mary.”

She gave me a very, very sharp look at that. That was one thing I did spot.

“Why did you go to hospital that week, John?”

“I really don’t remember. I was often there”

She paused. “Tell me about this week so far, John”

That took quite a while. She made copious notes, and I caught a wry smile, quickly effaced, when I spoke about learning to be human.

“Was Pete a school friend?”

“I didn’t really have friends. I don’t make friends”

“He sought you out”

“Yes, but he is broken up very badly. I think he just needs someone outside the round of hospitals and care home, and he is older than the other freshers. There is no natural connection there, he has a different context to them.”

“How do you feel about him?”

“Flattered, I suppose, that he chose me, Dave and Sharon to confide in”

“How did you feel after hearing his story?”

That threw me. How did I feel exactly? I tried to measure my words, treat it as a textual analysis.

“I realised I have had it easier than many, but at the same time I realised I am actually a cripple in my own way. Sharon in particular said some very, very sharp words to me last night, and I am trying to find a way to reshape my life to become more fluid. That is what I lack. I cannot bend, flow; I must have structure and boundaries or I cannot properly connect with things around me”

“John, that is the first time I have ever heard you express your problems as you see them. Do you feel like this because Sharon spoke to you, or because Jane left you, or because of Pete, or is there anything else?

“All of that, I suppose, but mainly Pete. I like to make things run smoothly, reset the patterns and functions so that they work. I like to make my bikes as perfect as I can, all pressures just so, gears slick, everything lubricated and clean.

“Pete is broken. Fixing people is not a skill I have, but if I approach it logically, surely I can learn?”

“People are like mirrors, John. You can fix them so they work, up to a point, but you can always see the cracks. Are you ready for the effects such a project might have on you?”

I couldn’t answer that one as I had no idea. Mary--–I am really trying, here---abruptly changed track.

“Are you still dressing now you are at your mother’s?”

“Er, yes.”

“In front of your mother?”

“No, but I think she would like me to”

“Would you dress in front of your mother?”

“Possibly”

“Would you do so before colleagues?”

“No”

“Friends?”

I started to make my usual protest, and she cut me off.

“What are Dave and Sharon if not friends? Pete?”

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That evening, I took another ride up to Hedge End, to see exactly what the place they had given Pete was like, arriving about seven o’clock. It was almost a self-contained settlement, clearly built with disability in mind, which said an awful lot about the people the Legion cared for. His flat was well laid out, with wider doors than normal, lowered work surfaces, handrails by the bath and toilet, and alarm cords in each room. Pete himself was clearly on the edge of being drunk. I made a decision. I was getting more experienced with that.

“Curry. No arguments. My shout.”

It took a while to wrestle him into his coat and…shoe. That one struck me very hard. I ended up with him sort of draped on me as I unfolded the chair and dropped him onto the seat. It was easier after that, rolling down the footpath to the village centre where I had seen a couple of Indians. I tossed a mental coin to choose, and then realised that one had steps. Choice made.

I was impressed. The waiters fussed around, moving tables and chairs to allow us in and ignoring the fact that Pete was slumped slightly and slurring his words. In hindsight, I suppose he fitted all their internal schemata of the brain-damaged invalid, and I had to dissuade one of them from tying his napkin as a bib.

“What beer they got, John?”

“No.”

I ordered us two large Cokes, as at least I could be certain he drank that stuff, and we had the full popadom and pickles set up followed by a rather pleasant thali. I tried my best to follow Sharon’s lead, repeating to myself that there was no need, no need at all, to impart information in conversation.

Pete rabbited on about people I could hardly remember, but I made the right noses, I believe, and then he began tales of his REME life. There was a hiatus when he got to Lefty, but somehow I managed to turn us down a different street, and we ended upon safer ground, for me, discussing Genette and the Russians. I was back in my comfort zone, and Pete had sobered up a lot, and it was becoming apparent even to me that I was actually having fun, a very odd concept.

No, not ‘fun’ as a concept, but ‘unstructured fun’, no programme, no pattern. We ate, we talked, he laughed, I felt better.

I pushed him back to the shelter, laughing all the way, and helped him to bed.

I don’t want to talk about the scars. He hugged me before I left. As I wheeled my bike out of the gates, the guard, caretaker, attendant, Martin his name badge said, stopped me. Martin stopped me.

“You did well there, sir. Thank you. We need more people like you to come in and break them out of it. It feeds on itself, you know, like a snake eating its tail.”

He paused.

“If it’s not too much, how is it you know Staff Hall?”

“We were at school together, years and years ago”

“Well, sir-“

“John. John Evans”

“Well, John, call round here anytime. We have social evenings in house, and a new face is always welcome.”

“Thank you Martin. Good night”

As I rode off to the station I remembered Mary’s last few questions, about who I would dress in front of, and a memory surfaced.

Pete. I had dressed in front of Pete.