GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2023/24

BENJAMIN WAL

‘Maintenance’

WHILE HE WAS BEING STICKERED UP FOR THE ECG, Leslie tried to remember the last time he had been inside a hospital. There was a backlog of unaired complaints. Where to start? He felt like death. Sleep was impossible. Headaches were a daily event, and not only in the mornings. His bones squeaked and chafed. Abdominal cramps prevented him from eating anything that gave even the slightest pleasure – he was living off butterless jacket potatoes with tinned tuna. He was worried about his poo, which sometimes appeared too pale, sometimes too dark. Unspeakable terror took hold of him at odd moments: driving his car; changing a lightbulb; sitting in the barber’s chair (the hostile buzz of the clippers, loud as a chainsaw). He was mystified by things he used to enjoy. Sex, when he could remember to think about it, had all the appeal of bungee jumping, or going to the theatre.

‘I might need to shave part of your chest, I’m afraid,’ said the nurse, turning away from Leslie and running a tap. He came back with something that looked like a bandage, but with a flannel-like texture, and dabbed at two places on Leslie’s chest, saying, ‘Sorry, cold.’ The razor was a yellow Bic, fresh out of the packet. Leslie’s belly rose and fell. He was sure he had Parkinson’s. There was a constant dull pain in his right shoulder and both of his hands expressed a tremor. When he lit a cigarette it took him a moment to steady his thumb on the lighter. His doctor had asked about the smoking and the drinking. And Leslie had answered with enough honesty not to feel like a liar; he approached the truth and circled its perimeter. Five or six fags a day. Couple of beers after work, few more on Saturdays. Close enough.

But his blood was playing up. He wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with it. A routine test led to a more general health check. And his heart rate, which settled on just over 100 beats per minute, triggered the ECG. His heart was too fast and his blood was too – what? Slow? Thick? Thin? One of his cousins had died in her forties of leukaemia. And he had heard not too long ago about Steve Stiles, an old school mate, who at a similar age died of a clot in his brain. Your own blood going bad on you, like milk turning sour.

‘All right, you’re done,’ said the nurse, unpeeling the sticky pads from Leslie’s chest and arms and ankles. The sensation was benign, gently ticklish. He thought about asking if the machine, which looked old enough to receive faxes, had noticed anything.

‘Where are you off to next?’ said the nurse.

Leslie put on his t-shirt, patted down his hair and checked his hospital letter. ‘Ultrasound. Half an hour from now.’

‘They won’t see you at reception until ten minutes before your appointment. Best to wait in the corridor.’

Outside the consulting room there were no chairs. To his left was another corridor, busy with rolling trolleys and beeping doctors. Leslie went the other way, through some doors, and found a single empty chair among a row of patients. He sat with a quiet gasp, a newly acquired habit.

Would now be a good time to call Sarah? No, that would be too grand, too much like an announcement. And she hated to talk on the phone. He thumbed out a message and deleted it. Then he tried again, with fewer words – deleted that. The last time he had been inside a hospital, he now realised, must’ve been when she was born, eighteen, no, nineteen years ago. He remembered her writhing, incapable arms, soft bones squirming, and the look of pure shock on her face. And Katie, staunch and severe in the aftermath, sitting up in bed and fixing him in her gaze with fresh authority. He hadn’t just been demoted – he expected that – but sacked, dumped, forgotten.

Sarah how are you keeping? Good I hope. I’m in hospital. No big thing. Be good to see you. Don’t worry about me.

He deleted the last sentence and rephrased it.

Nothing to worry about.

Still not right. He deleted everything but the first question and sent it before he could reconsider.

‘Peter’s here again.’

It was a nurse, talking to someone in the office nearest to Leslie. There was a murmur in response, quick and irritated, and the nurse clicked back down the corridor. She returned at less than half the speed, followed by a large man wearing big wide shoes. He walked like an astronaut, bobbing and slowly turning, with low-slung trousers, a bunched-up jumper and, gaping between them, a nude roll of fat folding into itself at the navel. He held a plastic bag to his chest and said, ‘Wheelchair.’

‘We don’t have one for you.’

‘Wheelchair!’

‘Here,’ said Leslie, standing.

‘Sit down, Peter. The nice man has given up his seat for you.’

Leslie stood against the wall. He was glad not to be on that uncomfortable chair. His prostate. The doctors, with their tight gloves and permanent frowns, hadn’t got round to that yet. Several times a night he walked to the bathroom, looked at the black window, his white reflection, and pissed weakly into the toilet. The boredom of it. Flushing this often was a waste of water. The serenity. It portioned his sleepless nights, gave him a reason to move.

Usually, once he was back in bed, whatever was bothering him before he got up had completely left his mind. His memory was slipping. Short-term is the first to go. Even the oldest, most demented cases could be lured out of oblivion by an old tune from their younger days. For him it would be something horrible, like Adam Ant, Kim Wilde. Bad Manners if he’s lucky. He thought of his brain dissolving like a sugar cube in water.

‘Can I have some oxygen please?’

‘A doctor will be out to see you, Peter.’

‘Some oxygen please?’

The nurse went into the office and closed the door. Peter’s breath buzzed and fluttered in the broad cavern of his chest. He was bald, butch, teary-eyed, babyish, ageless.

‘They won’t help me,’ he said, not to Leslie but to the general audience of quiet souls looking everywhere but in his direction. ‘They’ll send me away.’

‘What time’s your appointment?’ Immediately Leslie regretted saying it. Peter rolled his head towards him, suddenly bright and confiding.

‘Wait forever for an appointment. Came from A and E. It’s my lungs, full of fluid. What do they do about it?’

Thick mucus rising in the chest, drowning you from the inside. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease had been on Leslie’s mind lately. His local pub was full of victims; they were champion coughers, couldn’t laugh or down the dregs of a pint without barking and hacking. But his breathing, Leslie’s breathing, was fine, if he didn’t think about it.

‘So I thought I’d just come over,’ continued Peter. ‘Called a cab ‘cause no point trying for an ambulance. I’ve tried for an ambulance. They won’t come out. So I have to come here. I’ll drop dead before they lift a finger.’

Leslie looked at his phone and saw a message. Sarah. No – his message had failed to deliver. Patchy signal.

‘That one who brought me in,’ Peter went on, ‘she doesn’t care. She sees me and what does she say? You again.’

Sarah’s hair would be different now. She’d be bigger. She had told him she didn’t want to go to university, didn’t want the debt, so she would be working, he hoped. Or maybe she’d changed her mind. Women change their minds. And she was, definitionally, a woman, though the last time he saw her – four years ago, was it? – he had struggled to comprehend her age, as though it were merely a thin overlay, a semi-transparent curtain draped across her real age, which in his imagination, his most recurrent memories, was seven, always seven. On holiday in Cyprus he had taken her on a water slide, held her in his lap and skimmed down the tall blue slide into the blue water. She loved to swim. Her hair never had a chance to dry. Those two weeks in Cyprus, when she was seven and he was, he thought, a spent vessel, in a marriage that pained him, with a wife who hated him – those two weeks stretched and grew more elastic with time, so that now, looking down at his phone in the hospital’s glowing corridor, they seemed to encompass all he had known of family life.

A middle-aged woman, previously unnoticed at the end of the row, came off her chair and twisted on her back as if with a mad itch. Someone said, ‘Seizure’, and the corridor was loud with fuss. Upstaged, Peter sat quiet and sullen while two nurses and a doctor crowded round and tried to hold still the woman’s juddering shoulders. She had a resigned look on her face and Leslie thought there must be a steady core inside her, a spot of clarity, persisting through the violence. They put her in a sitting position against the wall. She wasn’t that old. Leslie had moved closer, as if about to be called upon. But he quickly became embarrassed by the way he was standing, the futile readiness of his stance, and when the doctor asked them all to make room he took it as his cue to leave.

The ultrasound department was upstairs, past the X-rays and PET scans. He was fifteen minutes early – too early – but when he gave his name at reception he was told to take a seat. No one else was waiting. He got a plastic cup of water from the machine and drank it. The two women at reception talked about their children. One of them had grandchildren. He chewed the rim of the plastic cup. Sarah was sensible and would let him know if anything like that had happened. He’d be a good grandad. The cup ripped in his jaw, newly sharp against his lips. He still had his own teeth.

A young woman in white, hair in a bun, mascara eyes behind teacherly glasses, called him into the ultrasound room. He saw with a pleasant jolt that she had tattoos on her arms and the back of her neck. The room was dark like a boudoir. For the second time that day he removed his shirt in company. He was more uneasy now, in front of a woman. The low light wasn’t much of a defence. Gravity was all over him, making everything sag. He knew if he looked down he’d want to run screaming from the room.

‘Lie on your side, away from me. That’s great. Shuffle a bit closer. There. I’m going to put some gel on you, but it’s nice and warm.’

She had her right arm over his side, just above the hip, and the wand in her hand pushed against his breast. The slick slipperiness of it across his skin was gorgeous – he almost wanted to laugh, or cheer. Her left hand, out of view, did something at the computer.

‘You might hear some weird noises. That’ll be your heart.’

‘You’re like my daughter. I mean the hair. A bit older. She doesn’t have any tattoos, I don’t think.’

‘Maybe they’re well hidden.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. Now he laughed. He could smell the perfume on her inner arm. The bone of her elbow rolled against the top of his pelvis, before sinking into the pudge of his belly. A strange, distorted thumping filled the room.

‘There it is,’ she said.

‘How does it sound?’

‘Normal.’

‘To me it sounds too slow.’

‘It’s not too slow. What’s your daughter’s name?’

‘Sarah. Will she have the same problems as me?’

‘What problems?’

‘Whatever they are, I don’t know. Do you have kids?’

‘No. Wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘You’d be good.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘At being a mother. I feel safe.’

‘It’s my job.’

The wand moved to his ribs. It was almost painful; he wanted to swipe it away.

‘How does it look?’ he said.

‘Fine. But you’ll need to wait a day or two for the results. How old is your daughter?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Is she at university?’

‘Nah. Not her thing. She’s still at home.’

‘I still live at home. Not ideal, is it?’

‘Yeah. No.’

‘Do you get on?’

‘Yeah. Why wouldn’t we? I mean we have our… you know.’

The wand moved back to his breast. He could have fallen asleep beneath her arm. How many years since he’d been this close to a woman?

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘maybe you could offer some advice. These days I don’t know what to say to her. I think she’s unhappy with me.’

‘Why?’

‘I missed a lot of chances. I’ve been too focused on other things. And it’s hard. Girls, young women, these days. I’ve lost my talent for it, you know?’

‘Sorry,’ she said, against the sonic background of his chunkily booming heart. ‘I really need to concentrate.’

‘Sorry, I know. Sorry.’

It was serious. She had seen something. The wand moved and stopped, moved and stopped. She lifted her arm and he was suddenly cold. He waited for the bad news, but when she spoke it was only to say, ‘All done’, handing him a wad of blue tissue to wipe the gel from his chest. He couldn’t quite get it all off; his t-shirt adhered to his skin.

‘I’ll wait to hear, then?’ he said.

She made a vague affirmative sound, not taking her eyes from the computer.

Leslie bought tea from an on-site Costa and sat on one of the green plastic chairs by the chemist. He found Sarah’s number on his phone and flexed his thumb above it. In his other hand the tea burned his palm. The tea was too hot to sip, and he didn’t want it anyway. Patients joined the queue for the chemist. Legs shuffled past his knees and he had to keep moving his feet inwards, the tops of his shoes touching. It was only when he felt the glare of someone looking down at him, perhaps seeing his thumb locked in position, that he pressed the green dial icon and put the phone to his ear.

‘They don’t want me.’

It was Peter, looming on wobbly legs.

‘Sorry, mate,’ said Leslie. ‘Just on the phone.’ It rang and rang.

‘Wouldn’t give me the time of day. There they are saying I should go home, that I was working myself up. No beds, they said. No beds for you. Okay, then what about transport? But it was no to that an’ all. Gotta call myself a taxi. Taxi here, taxi back. Made of money, am I?’

Leslie kept his head down. The phone stopped ringing and he was invited to press 1 to leave a message. He pressed it but didn’t say anything, just waited in the quiet fizz of the phone line. Peter moved closer.

‘Couldn’t call me a cab could yer?’

‘Sorry, I’m just…’

‘My phone’s out of battery.’

Leslie watched Peter’s trousers, sagging on his legs. There was a smell.

‘Where do you live?’ said Leslie.

‘Eh? You can just drop me off by the er, the Tesco on Hartwell Road.’

‘The cab will drop you off, you mean.’

‘Yeah. I just thought if you’re driving anyway.’ He coughed. ‘But doesn’t matter. Tesco at Hartwell Road.’

Leslie ended the call – and then realised he should first have deleted the voice message.

‘All right, it’s on my way,’ said Leslie. ‘Let’s get a move on.’

‘No cab?’

‘I’ll take you.’

‘You parked on this side of the hospital?’

‘Yes.’

‘We have to leave now?’

‘Yes. You’re welcome, by the way.’

‘Long trek to the car, is it?’

‘No. Do you want… grab hold of my arm.’

Slowly they exited Outpatients, Peter’s hand on Leslie’s bicep. Peter stopped at the kerb, made a fuss of it, putting out his foot and then drawing it back.

‘Come on,’ said Leslie. ‘Nice and easy.’

With a grunt Peter planted one foot over the kerb, then the other. Only a few steps to go. Leslie worried about the stink, the closeness of it in the car. He’d keep the windows open.

Again, Peter stopped, tutting.

‘Nearly there, mate,’ said Leslie, turning to look. ‘Oh no, no, don’t.’

Peter’s trousers had fallen down to his knees and he was bending to reach for them. ‘No, let me. Hang on.’ Leslie squatted by the big brown thighs, the mottled grey boxers, and pulled at the trousers. It was his dad, who in his last days hated to be dressed by Leslie, telling him to fuck off and leave him to it even while using his hand to balance on his son’s shoulder. ‘Stand up straight, so I can… no, Peter, don’t try to help, stand up straight, so I can…’ There were people around, watching. It was his two-year-old daughter in the supermarket, kicking the shorts off her legs and farting in his face. Leslie got the trousers up over Peter’s knees and shifted his hands so they wouldn’t touch the front or back of the boxers. He stood and moved behind Peter and brought the trousers to his hips. They were like pyjama bottoms, the trousers. Baggy and stained and ancient. The waistband had been pulled out of shape. Heavy as he was, Peter used to be heavier.

‘Tie them properly at the front,’ said Leslie. He was suddenly hot, breathless. The squatting had been a bad idea. ‘Do what you can. Come on, get you in the car.’

Installed in the front passenger seat, Peter tugged uselessly at his seatbelt. ‘Let me,’ said Leslie. ‘Breath out. There. Tight squeeze.’

Peter was sweating, magnifying the stink.

‘God, you are… how could you just let your trousers fall like that? I wanted to die out there.’

‘It’s uncomfortable, this belt.’

‘Well you haven’t a choice, have you.’

‘Too tight.’

‘Course it is,’ said Leslie. He was angry and wanted a fag. ‘You’re a great lump of a thing. Can you believe it – we both stood out there and no one came to help. Where were the nurses?’

‘Hartwell Road please, driver.’

‘Yeah, I heard you. Honestly, the way you were carrying on in there.’

‘Hard times.’

‘You don’t need to tell me, hard times.’

They were out on the main road, past the flats, the pubs, the new builds.

‘You understand you’re making it worse for everyone else? You’re overwhelming the, the infrastructure. Ill people, actually ill people, can’t be seen in a timely fashion because people like you clog up the system.’

‘I’m a sick man, fella.’

‘You said, yeah. But you don’t look after yourself.’

‘They tell me to lose two stone, I lose two stone.’

‘Try four. Try six. Hang on.’

His phone had sprung into life on the dashboard, chirping at siren volume. Sarah. He poked at the phone and answered.

‘Hi. Sarah.’

‘Dad. What’s wrong?’ Her voice came through loud, filling the car.

‘Now’s not the best time, actually,’ said Leslie.

‘You rang me ten minutes ago.’

‘I’m just in the car.’

She breathed into the phone, already at the end of her patience.

‘I’m giving someone a lift, love,’ he said, gently. ‘You’re on speaker.’

‘Peter,’ said Peter. ‘Nice to meet you, Sarah.’

‘How are you, anyway?’ said Leslie.

‘I’m fine. I just… I haven’t heard from you in months, so.’

‘I’ve just been at the hospital.’

‘Yeah? Well?’

‘What?’

‘What you at the hospital for?’

‘Just a few tests.’

‘But everything’s okay?’

‘Yeah. Yeah. Some trouble with my heart.’

‘Your heart?’

‘It’s not confirmed. They’ll be in touch.’

‘Oh. I hope it’s nothing.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

‘What are your symptoms?’

‘Where to start?’ he laughed.

‘I’ve had it all,’ said Peter, eyes on the phone. ‘Trust me. And your old man, he’s fine. He was carrying me over a kerb earlier!’

‘Sorry,’ said Sarah, ‘you’re Peter?’

‘He’s Peter,’ said Leslie. ‘And he’s not a doctor.’

‘I’m his passenger.’

‘It’s been a delight,’ said Leslie.

‘Dad, we need to talk. I mean properly.’

‘I know, I know. I’ll call you later.’

‘But will you? Because we need to talk about money.’

‘Do we? Or is that what your mum wants to talk about?’

‘Dad.’

‘No, really. It’s her isn’t it. Great timing on her part. Why don’t you tell her my heart’s failing? I could drop dead and she’d be shoving her hands in my pockets.’

‘Dad, you said it was nothing.’

‘Well how am I supposed to know that? Maybe it’s not nothing.’

‘Looks fit as a fiddle to me,’ said Peter.

‘Every time,’ said Sarah.

‘What was that?’ said Leslie.

‘Every fucking time you do this, Dad. Why?’

There was a rancid taste on his tongue, a rising heat. It was that familiar, suffocating feeling of not having a response that wouldn’t lead to somewhere worse.

‘That’s not how you speak to your father,’ he said, helplessly. ‘Okay, I’ve got to go now.’

‘Is your mother there?’

‘Why, what would you say to her?’

‘I’ll call you later.’

‘No, don’t, please.’

‘We can start this again. I’ll call you.’

She was gone. Leslie opened the driver-side window and the wind gushed in. He made an effort not to look at Peter.

‘I’ve got two boys,’ said Peter, after a long silence.

‘Why aren’t they here to pull up your shit-stained trousers?’

‘One, he’s in Dubai. Sunshine every day.’

Leslie felt the question pressing down on him: ‘And the other?’

‘His mum, she takes care of him. He’s backward.’

‘Backward, is he? That’s the diagnosis?’

‘How old’s Sarah, then?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘A grown woman.’

‘Is that grown? I dunno.’ Leslie could feel the sticky gel on his chest when he turned the wheel. ‘All about the money. Her mum’s poisoned her mind. Nothing but money.’

‘The Tesco is just up here.’

‘I can see it.’ He took a few seconds to master his impatience. ‘Tell me where you live and I’ll drop you there.’

‘It’s a hassle for you.’

‘I’ve come this far.’

‘Turn here, next left. No, not this one.’

Leslie reversed out of a cul-de-sac. ‘This next one?’

‘Yeah. Green door. If I didn’t have kids I’d be fine. I’d be doing cartwheels. It’s the kids, the stress. That’s what does it.’

‘Here?’

‘The green door, yes.’

‘You need a hand?’

The car stopped. Peter undid his belt. ‘Just give me a minute, fella.’

‘Yeah,’ said Leslie, filling the silence. ‘That’s what does it. I had an ultrasound, on my heart. They reckon it’s a… well, they didn’t say. But her face. Bad news.’

‘It’s all bad news, ennit,’ said Peter, laughing.

‘Do you need a hand getting out?’

‘Nah. I’ll be all right.’ Peter opened his door and looked out into the road. ‘Thank you, driver.’

‘Do you live alone?’

‘I do. Watch out, they’re buggers about parking here. Can’t stop on this road.’

‘Shift your arse, then.’

‘I am, I am. Ha! Thank you, driver.’

Leslie was out and round to Peter’s side of the car before Peter could stand.

‘Don’t mind me,’ said Peter. ‘Off you go.’

‘Pull your trousers up to your belly button,’ said Leslie. They linked arms and walked to the front door.

‘She seems lovely,’ said Peter, fiddling with a set of keys.

‘Yeah. Sarah? She can be. I don’t think you heard the best of her.’

‘Make sure to call her, won’t you. She’ll answer. Eventually.’ He cracked out another one-syllable laugh.

‘Eventually, yeah.’

‘While you’re here,’ said Peter, pushing open the door. ‘My crocuses, if you wouldn’t mind. I struggle to water ‘em lately.’

‘I need to be off, really. And the parking.’

‘Won’t take a minute. It’s just out the back. The can is by the side door.’

‘I’ll get a ticket, you said.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll stand here, stand guard.’

‘I better not,’ said Leslie, but he was already over the threshold, wiping his shoes on the mat, unexpectedly pleased to be invited into someone’s house. It was a straight line to the kitchen. On the way he glanced into the living room. Small TV, small sofa, patterned wallpaper fading to white. The place was well kept, though the bin in the kitchen hadn’t been changed lately. There appeared to be nothing except a microwave to cook with, and a gap where an oven should have been. The watering can by the back door was in good condition and as he filled it at the tap he realised he hadn’t tended to his own garden in months, and then only to mow the lawn. If he owned a watering can it was hidden somewhere, probably the loft, and he couldn’t picture it. His memory was shot, all right. But, stepping into the garden, he felt okay, even good, almost capable. The weather was dull but not cold. He knew nothing of flowers, and watered the entire patch of yellow, purple and white along the fence. The garden was modest but tidy. How did Peter manage it?

Leslie took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. A door opened behind him. Not Peter but his neighbour, an elderly woman in slippers, already talking to him from her doorstep.

‘Oh, I thought you were Peter,’ she said.

‘Ah, no,’ said Leslie, stung by her mistake. ‘I’m just his gardener.’

‘Are you? I could do with a gardener. State of mine. No, don’t look! I can’t bear it. He said he was going to hospital today.’

‘That’s where I saw him,’ said Leslie, thumbing the fags back into his pocket. ‘Are you his carer?’

‘No, no. As I said, I’m—’

‘He suffers with his legs. So do I, mind. Do you know his son?’

‘No. I’ve only just met him. Peter.’

‘Have you? Well you can do my gardening any time.’

‘I’m good at pouring water on things, but that’s about it.’

‘I’ve got his milk, tell him. He keeps forgetting.’

‘Will do. I best get in now. I’m parked out the front.’

‘Those bastards’ll have you for that, round here.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘Gestapo, what I call ‘em.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘I’ll see you then,’ said the woman, shutting the door on his wave.

He wanted to stay out a minute longer. There was water left in the can. He used it on a row of potted plants by the kitchen window. It was too late for them; the water gathered and stalled on the powdery, resistant soil. He should have told her he was sorry. Even if he didn’t feel it then, the feeling would come – as it did now, like cold fluid passing under the skin.

There were midges over his head, frantic spots in his vision when he looked up. Through the window, beyond his reflection, he could make out Peter keeping his balance at the front door, true to his word.

BENJAMIN WAL is a short story writer and playwright living in Northampton, England.