CHAPTER 37
The hospital had that smell they always had, and walls that colour that seemed to suggest the Health Service had bought a paint factory in 1946 and never changed the mix. The ambulance boys wheeled me in, Susie walking beside me in her own collection of blankets, and as they did something to the wheelchair thing that turned it into a sort of bed she reached out and squeezed my hand. There was some conversation between the boys and a nurse that went straight off into initials and numbers, but the girl was efficient. She was a darkie from somewhere in Africa, going by her accent, but she had a nice smile and sorted us both out a cup of tea before ushering Susie out of the bay the crew had left me in.

“Right, Jerry—“

“Gerald or Mister Barker, lass. Never, ever Jerry, if you please”

“I am sorry. Can I ask, is it a problem with the name?”

“Happen Jerry were the one trying to kill me”

I saw her start, and realised I had put my foot in it. “No, lass, not now. Jerry were what we called Germans in war. Not a name I like, you see”

Trying to kill me, indeed, but I must have killed any number of them. What an awful world we’ve made.

“Look, nurse---“

“Mercy. Call me Mercy”

“Mercy. Thank you. As I said, I’m Gerald. Do you know where my friend is, young lady, came in with me?”

“Lady? There was a---“

“A young lady, aye. Tall girl. Name of Susie. Pulled me out of river, like, when I fell in”

There was a little twitch in her face, but she found her smile again. “I’ll see where he is. Now, just going to put this into your ear”

“What for?”

“Taking your temperature, Gerald. Better than the old glass and mercury things”

She did a few more things that I would have expected a doctor to do, and an hour later a real doctor, a young woman, came in to say hello for five minutes to tell me I was basically in good health, but, but, and I would have to stay in for the night just to be sure.

“I’m looking for my friend, Doctor. Tall girl”

Mercy twitched again. “I think he went down to the café, Doctor Sykes”

The doctor sighed. “Could we have a little word, Nurse Adebayo?”

They slipped out through the curtains and while I could hear whispering, some of it quite terse, I couldn’t make out the words. A few seconds later, Doctor Sykes was back. “Did you want to see her, Mr Barker?”

The decision made itself. “Aye, please. Happen she’ll need door key to get in”

“OK, then. Mercy will bring her round to you. Where are your keys?”

“In trouser pocket, or they were before I fell in river”

She dug into the big plastic bag the oarsmen had shoved my clothes into and quickly produced my key ring.

“Ta, Doctor”

“Mr Barker?”

“Aye”

“How well do you know this person?”

“She saved my life, Doctor. That’s all I really need to know”

She came over to my little bed and started a few checks on my eyes with a torch, then sighed. “It’s your call, Mr Barker. You seem to be fully alert now, no impairment, despite what I suspect was a serious attack on a gin bottle. I will go and find her for you”

Ten minutes later, Susie was by my bed, dressed in those blue overall things that surgeons wear. She caught my gaze,

“Well, mine are all soaked for some reason. What do you need?”

I held out the bunch of keys. “I’m in Park Crescent, near race course. Number 16”

“And?”

“I’m staying in here tonight, so you’ll need to get house opened up. There’s a washing machine and drier in scullery by back door. If you can get my trousers out of that bag—ta”

As I had already suspected, all of my new-fangled plastic was ruined, signatures washed away by the river along with the gin that had clouded my mind. “Here, take cash, Susie, cards are u/s”

“What? You ess?”

“Unserviceable. Wrecked. Soaked. Take cash, get some food and get something hot into you. You can pick me up tomorrow with some clean clothes”

“An awful lot of assumptions there, Gerald”

I sighed. “No, lass, just making my mind up to do right thing at right time for second time in my life”

Oh, Tricia, love, how I missed you just then, for that had been the only thing in my life I had ever done right first time, and at right time. Susie saw my tears start, but said nothing, simply wiping them away with the edge of my sheet.

“Till tomorrow, then, Gerald”

I slept a little that night, but not well, for each time I dropped off I would see Philip’s head explode, or watch a German bleeding to death in snow, or hear the AP round strike, Susie was there after breakfast, though, dark circles under her eyes telling of her own lack of sleep despite the clean clothes she had obviously gone home for.

“That settee of yours is a bit short, Gerald”

“You should have used the bed, lass!”

“Didn’t feel right, like, not with… Gerald, she were right pretty. Photo on mantle. I couldn’t just, you know”

“Well, we’ll have to sort out room, get bed in”

“Gerald—“

“Where are you living now?”

“Flat in Knavesmire, not far from you, but…”

“But not a nice one, I’ll wager. Work?”

That one word seemed to be the one that broke her, and I managed to get a hand to hers and somehow pulled her down so I could cuddle her to me as she wept, great tearing sobs that went on for ages, her right hand clenching onto my blankets rather than me, for which I was grateful. I remembered that grip. Eventually, she found her balance again. I looked down at the top of her head.

“That bad? Let me guess. Bit like that bloody nurse, aye? People who can’t see past the outside of stuff?”

A deep, deep sigh. “Aye, stuff is the right word. Or ‘things’, that were the usual word. Things like me. No, they got rid of me at last place, department store. Too many questions from the customers. Moved me to the stock room for a while, but then there were all sorts of shit from the women about the bogs, about perverts and kiddy fiddlers, all that rubbish. They had to let me go, they said”

“Surely there’s laws, lass?”

She looked up and managed a smile. “You keep calling me that, Gerald. Trying to get it set in your mind, make it a habit?”

“Aye, sort of. I’m not that old I can’t be a bit adaptable”

“Aye. Well, no, there aren’t laws, not like that, not for me. If I were a woman, like, then yes, there would be laws”

“And you’re not a woman?”

“Not in law. Birth certificate says boy, and that’s set in stone. Can’t change history, they say. But yes, I am a fucking woman, just can’t get that across to folk, because folk don’t want to bloody well change”

The anger was bringing her back to herself, and she suddenly grabbed a corner of my sheet and blew her nose.

“What? You’re getting up now, pal. Doctor is on her rounds now. I’ve got enough cash for a taxi, and there’s some clean clothes for you in carrier bag. Brought your slippers rather than shoes. Ah, here’s the doc. See you in a minute”

To my surprise, it was the same Doctor Sykes that had been working the night before.

“You still on duty, Doctor?”

I got a very tired lift of an eyebrow, a quick check over and some advice about limiting my swimming to the council pool in future before I was allowed to dress and join Susie in the waiting area. She made a quick call on the dedicated taxi phone, and shortly after that we were in the back of a car and on the way home.

“Do you drive, lass?”

“Got a licence, but never had a car. Not of my own, anyway. Why?”

“What else can you do?”

“Stack shelves is what I did”

“No school certificates?”

“Gerald, I trained as a book keeper, aye? Just wasn’t kept on when I started, well, you know”

She shook her head, anger rising again. “All the unemployables end up in one of two places, Gerald, either catering or retail, that’s what they call it, and the only way to make more than pennies is by tips, and that wasn’t open to me. Me, a waitress? They’d have lost all their custom”

“Aye, but if you’ve got the qualifications—“

A glare. “It’s called prejudice Gerald, or bigotry, or just fucking hatred. They can do what they like to me—I have no rights!”

We turned into my street just then, and she simmered as she paid the driver, who left us with a cheery “Ta, gents!”

She turned to me. “See? Even in a bloody skirt I get it! Oh, sod it, come on. I got some bacon and bread cakes in, we’ll have a snack before I get off”

I laughed, and took the key off her to open what was going to be our front door.

“What’s funny?”

“Oh, Susie, lass, I was always the slow one, had to have nose pushed into something before I could see it. Just makes me laugh to see someone else with same problem. Look, this is simple. Do you know who I am?”

“Gerald Barker. War hero, as far as I am bloody concerned”

I let that one sit unanswered. “No, Susie, do you know what I do?”

“I assumed you were a pensioner”

“No, lass. I have my own business, out by Acaster. Dobbs and Barker, the narrowboat and cruiser place”

“Oh…”

“So no, I don’t live on my pension. Look, I will have to have some sort of reference, for sake of propriety, and, well, just to be sure”

“Are you offering me a job?”

“Oh for god’s sake, aye, and a place to live. You not remember what we said last night?”

There were shadows behind her eyes, and I realised there were demons there. “You’ve had it bad, haven’t you, lass?”

In the end, the furniture shop not only delivered but sent two young men to carry and build the bed in the second bedroom. I ignored their sniggers, and then drove her out to the big supermarket after clearing her tiny, horrible little room of a surprisingly small quantity of possessions, a lot of which seemed to end up in my—our—bathroom cabinet. We had cake with our tea, and I looked over to the mantelpiece as we ate.

Tricia was smiling. I knew I had done something right.