Short Fiction

No Peas

Today has been quiet. Wednesday lunchtimes are never exactly busy but today it’s dead.

The staff from the local offices stopped coming here during their lunch hour years ago. The service is too slow and the food is not worth the wait.

There are only five pensioners dining today. Two old women are complaining about their neighbour’s loud music. A married couple on a day trip have run out of topics so they sit in silence, inspecting a map.

The waiter brings an old man, sitting alone, the lunch special. He stares down at his plate for a few seconds and then, as the waiter starts to walk away, opens his mouth.

‘These are peas.’

‘Yes.’

‘These are peas.’

‘Yes?’

They are peas. He did not order peas; he does not want them; he is the customer. Get rid of the peas!

‘I didn’t order peas. I don’t like them. I specifically said I didn’t want peas when I ordered but you’ve brought them anyway. I don’t want them.’

The waiter does not respond.

‘They make the plate look funny. I don’t like looking at green. I feel like a rabbit; I feel daft. I want a nice bit of fish, some chips, bit of salt, vinegar. I don’t want peas. Can you?’

This was part of his training. Be helpful. Be polite. Be friendly. Get rid of the peas!

‘Can I…?’

‘Can you? I didn’t order peas. Can you?’

This is not an unreasonable request. The waiter could easily disappear to the kitchen, remove the peas and return with the rest of this gentleman’s lunch still warm. With a carefully worded apology, he may still get a tip.

 ‘I’m sorry. I can’t’

‘You can’t?’

Get rid of the peas!

‘I don’t want to make a fuss, lad.’

‘No – but you are, sir. You’re making a terrible fuss. If you really wanted to not make a fuss, you’d just eat the peas. Oh well, they’ve brought me peas. I didn’t want them but they’re good for me and I don’t want to make a fuss. They’re only peas.’

‘I want to see the manager.’

‘I can’t do that, sir. It would make an awful fuss. You don’t want that’

Cardiff House

‘Where to, mate?’

‘Cardiff House. It’s – um – top of Flint Street. Behind the big Tesco’s. Thank you.’

The driver nods, without showing a hint of recognition.

 ‘Flint Street. Behind the big Tesco’s’ – stupid directions. There’s a Tesco on every street nowadays. There must be ten Flint Streets in this area, each of them half an hour in different directions from the hospital. Didn’t even say which village. They could be going almost anywhere. Is it rude to check he knows the way?

There is no need for Gary to check. The driver knows which Flint Street he meant. He picked up a couple from #23 on that street two weeks ago and drove them to the airport. They were a sweet couple: very jolly despite it being three in the morning. The driver noticed the supermarket then. It’s one that’s the size of jail and sells TVs and fridges.

The driver knows exactly where he’s heading.

The driver has two daughters by two different mothers; one is twenty-four and the other is six. He has seen his wife die, like Gary, but Gary couldn’t know this. He doesn’t want to talk to the driver so he’ll never know it.

It’s almost understandable: the driver’s story would not help Gary in his present state. If he heard how the driver had lost his first wife to cancer, he would feel jealous. No one is allowed to grieve except him and his son.

He is too fragile to hear how the driver’s eldest daughter used to thank God every night for bringing her stepmother to their family. (The driver does not know that his daughter still does this. Her stepmum makes her dad as happy as her mum ever did.)

Gary can’t imagine replacing his wife. He would hate Adam if he allowed anyone to replace his mother.

The driver knows not to try and talk to this one. A man being picked up alone from a hospital does not want questions.

Airports are different – you have to ask, it would be rude not to. Where have you been? What was it like? Hot? There’s a script.

People all dressed up must want to be asked too. What’s the event? Wine tastings at golf courses, bar mitzvahs in the posh suburbs: those people love talking about themselves. This guy is from that world too, from a world where houses have names rather than numbers. He’s posh, that’s certain, but he looks like the poorest sod in the world. First, he has not shaved in days. He looks scruffy, and tired too, almost like he works for his money. Second, no one’s come to collect him. He can’t have many friends. The driver decides that he must have been a patient. A visitor would be better groomed. You don’t visit a hospital looking that ill: it makes whoever you’re visiting feel worse.

He was a patient. Let him be.

Gary has not asked for the driver’s name so I am not going to give it to you. This is not his story.

Gary does not want to know his name or anything else about him. This silent taxi ride is hard enough; having to talk to a stranger would make it unbearable.

When he glances at the extra seats opposite him, the seats that flap down, attached to the partition, he remembers Anna. They remind him how she always had to face the right way in taxis, buses and trains. She was not a difficult woman – often selfless without being saintly – but she said that she had to face forwards.

She made Gary’s ninety-year-old grandmother swap seats with her on a train once. His mother was livid. Even though Anna had given her such a beautiful grand-child, and even though Anna had been dead for three months, Mrs. Kelly had never quite forgiven her for that ugly incident on the train from Bristol.

Gary can hear it: ‘I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult. She’s an old woman. Gareth, say something!’ Everyone in the carriage sat and stared; not one offered a valuable, front-facing seat.

He should have reserved seats: all of them facing the right way. It would have taken two minutes, if that. Gran said she didn’t care; it was four years ago; and Gran’s dead now; but Gary has been told so many times how rude it was of Anna that he still feels guilty for not booking those tickets in advance.

He knows that this is a trivial thing to regret. Gary should not let the past distract him; he should focus on what he’s going to tell his son.

It had been hard enough explaining to him about Anna’s death. Adam was only six when she died, and still is, so Gary felt obliged to tell him that ‘Mummy’s gone to Heaven’. He cried, of course, but the word ‘Heaven’ made it easier for both of them. Adam was made to list all the things that Anna would get to do in Heaven. This Heaven that Adam invented – full of luxury, love and play – was so tempting that Adam said he wanted to die too and stay with Mummy in heaven. Gary then had to explain to his son that he should never wish for that.

So how should Gary explain his recent hospital trip to his son? That he wanted to see Mummy too? Only he had not merely wished for it; he had done something about it.

The taxi is moving as smoothly and safely as traffic permits but Gary feels sick from the journey.  He swears when the driver has to brake sharply for some students leaping in front of cars. The driver sees him cursing. It was their fault, not his. Is he supposed to run them over?

The driver is a little offended and grumbles to himself. He is a tolerant man: he would forgive Gary if he knew more.

Gary manages to offend someone almost daily; the driver can be added to the list. All hurtful thoughts are vocalised. Family members, colleagues and neighbours try to be sympathetic and not take his insults too personally.

Last month, when a female police officer called his late wife ‘Anya’ by mistake, he swore at her repeatedly and erratically, turning ‘the c word’ into both an adjective and part of an instruction.

‘Quit your job, lose some weight and fix your head!’ She remained calm.

His mother was another recent victim. Gary accused her of not caring, of being happy almost, that Anna had died. His mother is a Christian woman. How could she be happy that such a thing had happened?

She cared enough to pray that Anna would be forgiven for conceiving a child out of wedlock, cursing, blaspheming and failing to set a good and moral example to her son. She cared enough to ask God if Anna could be permitted to enter His kingdom. A person who does not care about another would not want to spend eternity in the same place as them. Of course she cares.

Even I do not know whether his mother’s prayers were successful. My knowledge has limits.

I know that what happened two days ago was not Gary’s first attempt. I also know that Gary had shared an office with Anna at his first job and that they had shared stories of their unhappiness and how they had expressed it.

Obviously they did not discuss suicide in the canteen or at their desks. Co-worker, did you ever try and top yourself? Yes, co-worker, though it was more a cry for help than a legitimate attempt.

This would be absurd. You can see that.

They had been dating for a few months when Anna made a comment about sadness to Gary in her kitchen.

‘Everyone assumes because you smile and you try to get on with people that you’re a happy person; that you’ve always been happy. I’ve not. I don’t want to look miserable all the time so people can see that.’

A bottle of cheap wine each had left them relaxed and willing to share so talk of sadness led to talk of suicide.

Anna’s self-harming as a teen went unnoticed. The cuts were shallow and rare:  she cut the wrong parts. She wore long-sleeved jumpers, a mild inconvenience on hot days, and the scars were covered. The world thought that she must have been very warm dressed like that but no one realised she was unhappy.

Gary’s first attempt, aged seventeen, took him to the hospital but no further. He swallowed a dozen painkillers before losing courage, telling his mother, and being promptly escorted by her to the hospital. She felt no sympathy when he was ordered to drink liquid charcoal or after he had been reduced to tears by the psychiatrist’s questions. ‘Does your father touch you?’ That was the one that did it. His father never had but being asked was still painful. The doctor’s questions felt like molestation to Gary. When that angry bearded doctor asked about his childhood, his bowel movements, his loneliness, his masturbation habits, Gary was stripped, prodded, grabbed and raped.

At least the nurses were kinder to him this time. They called him ‘love’ and they did not sigh at him like those other nurses ten years ago. One wiped vomit from his forehead and tidied his hair this morning. She must have felt sorry for him.

The interview with the psychiatrist was easier too. He assumed that this was a first attempt. Nothing on file. ‘Widower – reaction,’ the notes read. The attempt was just a slip. This qualified man was unaware that Gary hoards, and has twice now consumed, packs of Paracetamol tablets whenever he suffers a trauma.

The doctor had some doubts about the patient’s ability to look after a young child. The child could discover the father after a successful attempt:  a possible trauma. But depriving the child (even temporarily) of a second parent in less than a year posed other, long-term risks to its mental health.

‘There is an uncle if this happens again.’

When he wrote up his notes on Gary late last night, the psychiatrist deemed that uncle ‘a potential substitute carer.’ He is the one minding Adam now; he said it was inappropriate for a child to accompany his suicidal father to A&E. He was the one who asked his neighbour to drive Gary, then clutching a mop bucket, to the hospital.

He arranges everything. He found the church for Anna’s funeral, picked the flowers, cut the sandwiches. Gary would not be surprised if he discovered that his brother had already sent his neighbour an artsy thank you card and a bunch of flowers. (I know he has not. Not yet, anyway.)

As the taxi passes the local high school, Gary is reminded that he does not have much time left. He needs to choose his words now; his brother will not organise this for him. He has spent thirty-odd hours in a hospital, waiting for something; he should have prepared his script then.

Adam is at an age where he needs to know everything. Gary will at least need to say where he has been. If he says he’s been to the hospital, he’ll have to say why. He could say he’s been somewhere else but if he lies, for now, his lies will have to be convincing. Questions will follow.

Is it better to get it over and done with? To explain to a young boy that having a child is not reason enough to want to stay alive? Another hurtful thought – he cannot say that.

He nervously, unconsciously moves his fingers to his nose and mouth. It’s usually comforting but today his fingertips still carry the smell of vomit. He flings them away from his body and his left hand painfully, and loudly, meets the window.

The driver glances at his passenger in his interior mirror. He’s trying to damage the cab. It’s not six yet and he’s been at a hospital; he can’t be drunk. You’d know.

So even the sober ones can’t be trusted in this world. If he does anything like that again, the driver will say something.

The vehicle turns onto Flint Street. As Gary desperately thinks through possible explanations, he shuts his eyes and rubs the skin around his temples. This rubbing quickly becomes scratching. Gary now looks like someone you would avoid sitting near on a train.

He is making the driver nervous. He thinks that Gary is a drug addict. He must be. Drug addicts are always scratching – it’s from the withdrawal symptoms.

That is why he has been to the hospital and that is why he has come back on his own. His family have disowned them; they will only speak to him again once he’s clean. That’s what’s happened.

The driver is relieved when Cardiff House appears. The criminal pays (£11.30; no tip) and, after struggling slightly with the door, steps out of the cab. Thank God that’s over.

Tim Russell