| Can't
Walk Away
by Jo Baker
‘What’s wrong with that man Mummy?’ asked Jess.
‘Shush,’ I tried to distract her with the gazelles, but her
attention kept looping back to the man in the wheelchair. His nurse pushed
him closer to the barrier. It was hard not to stare, although I tried
to be more discreet than a six-year old.
His haircut was shabby and he gawped at the gazelles with slack mouthed
wonder. His jumper showed a countryside scene collaged from patterned
fabric. The kind that, on Marty, had looked radical yet endearing, but
on the wheelchair man just looked pathetic.
The thought of Marty gave me a twinge as usual, but I tried to stop the
rush of regrets.
Geoff had been the one to tell me about the fatal car crash. But Geoff,
being his usual critical self, had revelled in telling me about the huge
amount of alcohol in Marty’s system. I didn’t have permission
to grieve for someone as irresponsible as that. But it didn’t stop
the emptiness of knowing my ex-boyfriend had been wiped out of existence.
‘Why’s he dribbling Mummy?’
I pulled Jess further away, then crouched and whispered: ‘His body
doesn’t work properly.’
‘Is he going to die?’
‘How should I know?’ The questions made me uncomfortable.
I ought to be able to deal with this. ‘Maybe he’ll live to
be a hundred.’
‘And stay just the same?’
‘Look Jess, I really don’t know. What do you want me to do?
Go and ask him?’ I regretted the comment even before Jess replied.
‘That’s a good idea.’
‘No. It’s nothing to do with us.’
‘I’m just being friendly.’
‘It’s not always good to be too friendly. He probably doesn’t
really understand what’s going on. I expect he’s happy enough.
Just leave him be. Let’s go and look at the penguins.’
Once safely away with the penguins I couldn’t relax. Jess’s
attitude was so simplistic. I didn’t want to weigh her down with
society’s polite blinkers, but I didn’t know how else to handle
it. We watched the penguins being fed. Jess screeched with excitement
every time one gobbled down a fish with an arch of its neck and beak to
the sky. When they all finished they flapped and shuffled, then slipped
into the water one after another like rice pouring into a pan. We watched
as they were transformed into torpedoes speeding through the water.
Jess ran ahead to the leopard enclosure. When I caught up she was standing
on the ledge with her face pressed up against the glass.
‘I can’t see anything.’
The sheet of glass didn’t seem substantial enough to keep her safe
from the lunge of a leopard, but I resisted the urge to pull her back.
Shading the reflections from the glass with my hand I peered into the
lifeless arena. ‘Let’s go up to the top - see if we can spot
the leopard.’
Jess ran ahead, her feet pounding up the wooden walkway. Then I saw it;
slouching along underneath in the shadows.
‘Hey Jess. I can see it.’
She ran back, but the leopard had already walked away.
‘Where?’
I spoke close to her ear, ‘I think he’s hiding.’
‘That’s mean,’ Jess said in a loud, six-year-old whisper.
I said nothing, but felt like an intruder snooping at windows without
curtains.
Then there it was pacing the perimeter of the cage, paws padding purposefully,
disguising the strength and speed hinted at by muscular shoulders. The
long tail was held low.
‘He’s so cute. I wish I could stroke him.’
‘No you don’t. Leopards are dangerous. Look at the cage so
it can’t get out.’ Jess followed my gaze up to the leopard’s
wire-gridded sky. ‘He looks trapped.’
The leopard stopped pacing and stared as if it had understood our words.
Jess took a tiny step back.
‘He looks cross.’
The leopard started prowling again and we watched him do a few more circuits
until Jess grew bored.
I looked back once. He was still staring after us. Perhaps visitors were
a welcome distraction from the bars of its cage.
‘Ice cream time Mummy, you promised,’ said Jess, pointing
at the ice cream hut by the monkeys.
There was a queue and the man in the wheelchair and his nurse were in
it, one family from the back.
I tried to steer Jess away to avoid more embarrassing questions.
‘Let’s try somewhere else the queue’s too long.’
‘I can be patient.’ She stood with her hands by her sides,
looking angelic. I couldn’t say no to that.
I tried to keep Jess amused with the zoo map and brochure. ‘What
shall we see next?’
The nurse was saying the same kind of thing to the man in the wheelchair.
I watched through the screen of my fringe. Would he answer?
Suddenly the man in a wheelchair was rocking and honking. Jess watched
openly. People in the queue looked, hurriedly looked away, and then sneaked
glances back. Much like I was doing. There was something embarrassingly
indiscreet about his behaviour, and ours, but the nurse was unconcerned.
‘Giraffes? Rock cats?...’ she tried each of the animals with
unshakable patience. How did she do it? I got frustrated with Jess for
taking too long deciphering words in her reading books.
The family between us and the man in the wheelchair left the queue, muttering
that it was taking too long. But I could feel their embarrassment leaking
out in little glances towards the man thrashing around in his wheelchair.
I watched the nurse lean closer, stroke his shoulders and speak softly
in his ear. The thrashing ceased, but he made hideous grunting sounds
and stabbing gestures.
‘Come along Martin, calm down.’
Martin? Marty? No, it was coincidence and impossible. But all the same,
I tried to shave off the non-style hair into a Marty bald-cut. I tried
to visualise the features alive with disgust, or amusement. Could my Marty
really be trapped in a helpless body? Geoff had told me he was dead. But
my sneaking mistrust of Geoff collapsed into disbelief. Was this another
lie? Had Marty died in that car crash?
The nurse wheeled him out of the queue, closer to the monkeys and suddenly
it was our turn. I’d lost my appetite for ice cream, but bought
one for Jess. We sat on the grass behind the hut, out of sight. I scrolled
down to Geoff’s number on my mobile and called him.
‘For God’s sake Kat, you’re not still thinking about
that selfish loser are you? For the last time, your precious Marty was
wiped out in a car crash.’
‘Wiped out? You do mean dead?’
‘Not around for you to obsess over.’
‘But not really physically dead?’
‘As good as.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Brain wiped, brain damaged. The Marty you knew gone.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘No, I just let you believe what was easier.’
‘Easier for who? You? You never could stand the competition.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, someone like that is hardly competition.
Anyway, why now? Why bring it all up again?’
‘He’s here, sitting outside the monkey cage.’
‘He’s not…you’re not…’
‘Sod off Geoff.’
‘Don’t say bad words to Daddy.’ Jess looked at me briefly,
with adult disapproval, before turning her attention back to her ice cream.
She licked methodically around the cone, her hair sticking in the white
ice cream smeared across her cheek. I left it. Would Marty’s nurse
wipe ice cream from his face?
Cold certainty settled in my stomach. It had to be Marty. But was there
any of my Marty left? And was the woman just a nurse or his girlfriend
or wife? I felt a deep stab of failure. I didn’t think I could have
stuck by him after the accident.
Ice cream dripped down Jess’s chin onto the neck of her pink T-shirt.
Caring for Jess was so short term and simple. My commitment as a mother
was suddenly inadequate. I dabbed at her face as she protested and squirmed.
Marty grunted and gestured with greater emphasis as we passed. I grabbed
Jess’s hand to pull her away, suddenly paranoid he was gesturing
at me.
‘Excuse me.’ The words chilled me to a standstill.
‘You’re hurting,’ said Jess. I forced my fingers to
unwind and turned to the voice. Every degree of movement pulsed with pathetic
excuses.
The nurse’s eyes fluttered from him to me. A smile flickered at
her mouth, but she pressed her lips together.
‘I think… I think he recognises you.’ The unshakable
nurse had turned into a lip biting, hesitant woman.
I looked at the woman for help.
‘He understands more than you think. Just talk to him.’
We were talking about him as if he didn’t exist. Marty wouldn’t
have let me get away with that. ‘Don’t walk away Kat,’
the old Marty had said every time I avoided a tricky situation. He’d
never taken the easy way out - walking past beggars, slamming the door
in the face of Jehovah’s Witnesses or blanking drunks. ‘People
are always people if you look hard enough.’
Geoff never saw it like that. He didn’t challenge me. Life with
him was easy; irritatingly easy. He never bothered to dig beyond first
assumptions. Geoff was a practised beggar-dodger who closed his eyes to
difficult people. Suddenly it was vital to be the person Marty’d
wanted me to be.
‘Marty?’ I said the name, fighting the urge to let my gaze
slip from his face. I hated my awkwardness. I hated Geoff.
An excited grunt and more head thrashing. His phrase - ‘If you look
hard enough’ - went round and round in my head like a meditation
chant. I crouched beside the chair and put my hand on its institutional,
vinyl-covered arm.
‘Geoff told me you were dead. And the worst thing is he almost believed
it.’
I prised my fingers from the safety of the solar heated vinyl and touched
his hand.
Marty became still; watching me like a caged leopard.
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