A Peculiar Collection



  A Peculiar Collection

  By

  Lisa C Hinsley

  PUBLISHED BY:

  A Peculiar Collection

  Copyright © 2010 by Lisa C Hinsley

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Also by Lisa C Hinsley

  Novels:

  Plague

  The Ultimate Choice

  Blue Smoke and Madness

  Coombe’s Wood

  Autobiography:

  Coping (Part 1)

  A Peculiar Collection

  Lisa C Hinsley

  Being John

  The jug at the bottom of the opposite bed is nearly full again. The nurse finally notices when the liquid inside is a centimeter from the top. She clamps the tube, replaces the jug with an empty one, and then releases the flow. Creamy red fluid starts dripping again. It looks like someone mixed his blood with double cream.

  The nurse is back, and walking our way.

  “Hello John, how are you doing?” she asks my father.

  My mouth drops a little, and I boggle at my mum. John? Who’s John?

  “I’m fine thank-you. Just waiting for the doc.” My dad pulls his dressing gown tighter. “Is it okay that my family are still here?”

  Visiting hours ended half an hour ago. We’re in the corner and have been sitting quietly, trying not to be noticed.

  “Don’t worry about it. Let me know if you want anything else, John.” She walks off in her comfortable shoes, eying the jug as she goes. It’ll be full again in ten minutes. I’ve been timing it.

  “John?” I ask.

  My son, Tom, glances up from his book. I don’t think he’s reading, as he’s not turned a page yet. He looks back down, and pretends not to be listening.

  My mum looks sheepish. “We didn’t want to bother them, when they got it wrong.”

  “But he’s Michael, not John!” There’s a wipe-clean board above Dad’s head, which reads ‘John Hinsley’. Everyone knows him by his middle name, but apparently not the doctors.

  No one can think of much to say. We’re all in our own silent worlds, probably thinking similar things.

  Is Dad going to die?

  It’s the Friday before Christmas, and we’re waiting for the results of his operation to remove an Extremely Rare Cancer. Apparently he’s being studied with excitement within the medical profession. I’m so happy for them. This is my dad, and he’s supposed to live to one-hundred and two. I told him so. He has to outlive his grandmother by a year, and my grandmother by two.

  The doctor’s come along and taken my father and mother into a consulting room. Tom and I are sheparded into a day room. It’s supposed to be for patients use only, and visiting hours ended over an hour ago, and the nurses are being so nice I feel like slapping one of them and screaming, “Why aren’t you bloody kicking us out!”

  I sit in a plastic covered padded chair, and try and read a magazine that’s over a year old. I leaf through in record speed; get to about the middle, where tales of the general publics’ woes are confessed for up to two-hundred pounds an article. I throw it back down on the coffee table and flick on the telly.

  I watch Eastenders, but I’m not listening. Tom’s sitting next to me, silent, still on the same page. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought him along. I figured he’s thirteen, and old enough to understand about his grandfather being poorly. But the doctor’s supposed to give us good news, and there’s this swirling sensation in the bottom of my stomach that keeps making my blood thicken. It’s the only way I can describe it. Like all my fluids have been mixed with corn starch, and my whole body is slowing and stiffening. I don’t want them to come back in. Not with bad news.

  They’re gone for ages. I’ve stopped watching the telly. I’m eavesdropping on another couple. She’s in after hours as well, visiting. They’re talking about the man with the creamy blood dripping from a tube. Apparently he’s very ill. I didn’t need them to tell me that. I didn’t see him move once, even when his wife came in and sat mumbling at his bedside. My dad’s full of energy. You wouldn’t know he’s sick. It’s not fair.

  Mum and Dad came back in. Mum’s eyes are red, and Dad is the color of ash. I go to her first, while Tom looks up with enormous green eyes. Mum’s crying, and won’t let go of me. Through my own tears, I stare at Dad. He’s just standing there, hands deep in the pockets of his dressing gown, slippers on his feet, and a far away look. Then I have it. The most inappropriate thought possible. I imagine a Barbershop Quartet dancing into the room, with their funny sidestepping, hat-flicking routine. They’re all humming, each at a different octave. Then they break into song, right beside my dad. “Congratulations, congratulations, your dad’s got cancer, a really quite rare cancer…” I decide that none of this is real, reach for my dad, and we all hug and cry. I want him to be Mike again.

  Note: Dad was operated on a second time a week after Christmas. They managed to remove all of his Extremely Rare Cancer, and although the doctor still seems excited to see him, Mike-John has no longer got cancer. Roll on five years.

  Wanted, Companion

  Consciousness came slowly to Joel. Someone had turned on a tap during the night, and filled his head with pain. A slight smirk passed by his lips. That would be the lager. Or possibly the whiskey. But most likely a mix of two. He was never going to listen to Smithy again. A pounding beat crashed against his temples.

  “Jesus Christ.” He rolled out of bed, and staggered across the hall to the shared bathroom. For a few moments he stared in the mirror, pulling at the grey bags under his eyes and scratching his stubble. He reached for his toothbrush. Yesterday’s muck needed scrubbing out of his mouth.

  Yesterday was Guy Fawkes Night. He remembered getting kicked out of the fireworks display at Pangbourne Primary School. He and Smithy had gone straight to the petrol station and filled their pockets with cans of beer before buying the whiskey. The hard stuff was kept under lock and key. They’d laid down in the field behind the school, and watched the fireworks from there. The night started to get a bit hazy from then. At some point, he remembered chucking up in Sulham Brook. Then, in a moment of lucidity, he’d looked up. Yellow flashes of meteors were scratching the sky.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Just a minute.” Joel lifted the lid to the toilet, and pulled down the front of his pajamas.

  “Hurry up, would you. You’ve been in there bloody ages.” Dafydd. He was Welsh and impatient.

  “Give us a minute, mate.” Joel finished up and flushed the toilet. He grabbed his toothbrush from beside the sink and unlocked the door.

  “You took your time in there, didn’t you?” Dafydd squeezed past. “I’m fit to bursting here.”

  Joel shrugged and returned to his room. Dressing was quick – pick yesterday’s clothes off the floor, shake them, put them back on. He grabbed his satchel full of Big Issue magazines and left.

  For breakfast he visited the Bent Spoon Café, found at the end of Dailey Road. He’d picked up a copy of the Reading Chronicle on the way and spread the newspaper out across the tabletop to scan the headlines. Some kid had blown himself up with fi
reworks during the night. Joel shivered, and slurped at his tea. He flicked through the pages quickly, slowing as he reached the personal ads. Maybe someone would be advertising to him. Wanted, reformed thief for security checks. Or: Ex-con needed for school visits. Maybe: Expert lock-picker essential for widespread mischief. He let out a small laugh, and took another sip of tea.

  A notice in amongst the requests for gsoh’s, tall, slim, blonde, busty, good looking, wealthy, open partners, playmates, something caught his eye.

  Wanted. Young male companion

  required for older man.

  That was all, with a phone number below.

  “Hmm.” Joel ripped the ad from the paper and shoved it in the top pocket of his jacket.

  “Hungry this morning, love?” asked Sue as she put a plate on the table.

  “Had a corker of a night, yesterday.”

  “Ah.” She put her hands on her hips. “Greasy hangover cure, is it?”

  “How’d you guess?” He dipped a piece of toast in the baked beans, and scooped some scrambled eggs onto his fork.

  Sue laughed. “You’re the only person I know who can stomach that kind of food on a dodgy tummy.”

  Joel ate, his mind never far from the advert he’d ripped out of The Chronicle. During his time in prison, he’d been a bitch to this big guy named Ralph. He could cope with that, get a little cash in his pocket. The last