Free My Life as a Man by Frederic Lindsay Page B

bad.’
    I was at the door, when he made another noise. I hesitated, having had enough, then went back one more time. I felt I owed him that, though it would have been hard to say what for. He whispered,
‘The wee guy was a madman. You should get the fuck away from here.’
    Going back along the corridor, I wondered if it was possible to beat family feeling into somebody. That wasn’t a nice thought; on the other hand, I’d never heard him be that human
before – not, at least, since the early days when he was putting on the style to court my mother.
    I went along past signs for X-ray and Physiotherapy and, under one for something called Oncology, realised I was being followed. Or thought I was. Or rather was sure and then not sure. A big
slouching man in a crumpled blue suit and a shirt without a tie; he was so close the first time I looked round (without warning, because it had come into my mind I should check and with the thought
it was done – ‘a word and a blow’, as the Irish guy said about his mother) I could see a sore inside his nostril where a hair had been pulled out. I convulsed into a walk and next
time I looked back he was further off and that for some reason seemed even more suspicious. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular now, but it did seem he was keeping in touch; near enough so
that I didn’t see me managing some clever way of shaking him off, even if I could have thought of one. Instead I stuck to the master plan. I went on walking.
    After all, hospitals are big places; you could walk for days, allowing for exhaustion and the need to eat. Toilets, they’ve got those, and come to think of it counters where you could buy
a pie or a scone and a cup of tea. Maybe after a couple of days when you passed the same nurse for the tenth time she might send for the police. Of course, it would be easier to spot weird stuff at
night; if I kept walking until night, spot a stranger then, ‘I see strangers!’ and they’d have you. Have him. He was still there. I could hardly see for sweat. Fear-sweat cold on
my back and the insides of my legs; you could keep your mind busy chattering in your head, but you couldn’t fool your body.
    By this time, I was moving so randomly I was on automatic pilot, and it crash-landed me halfway up a quiet stair. He came up after me, taking the steps three at a time. His fingers caught at my
sleeve, and I leaped away from him by half a yard. That wouldn’t work with the full grip on my arm that was coming next. Just then a door opened and a group of four in white coats came down
from the landing above. I stopped and turned all in the one movement, the ballet of the terrified idiot, and at once I was in the middle of the group and going past him. They didn’t squeeze
to the side; it was their hospital after all.
    ‘I wanted to ask you again about my mother,’ I said to the one on my left.
    His name was MacRae, we established on the way down, and if he was a doctor at all it was very lately. From something he said, though, I worked out what oncology meant and told him my mother had
made a miraculous recovery, being superstitious for her sake. He thought I was a lunatic, or maybe that was the way everybody looked to him after a night without sleep. He couldn’t work out
how to get rid of me, and the other three were too tired to care or thought it was funny. I almost turned into the canteen with them, but I’d a feeling I’d worn out my welcome.
    The short stretch between the canteen and the reception area was busy, and a public phone gave me an excuse to stay there. I bent my head to the dialling tone and spun numbers randomly. I
listened to the squeal for unobtainable and looked wistfully at the exit. In the car park out there Mrs Morton was waiting for me. She’d taken it for granted I’d want to see how Alec
was; and so it was her fault I was here at all.
    The man in the blue suit interrupted my line of sight. He picked up the phone one along from me