Welcome To Wherever You Are (5 page)

‘Don’t start,’ she snapped, in no mood for a lecture. She swept her sopping wet hair from her face and glanced into the mirror at a graze on her cheek. ‘Do we have any antiseptic?’

‘Nic, we’re a hospital. We bleed antiseptic.’

Nicole was searching a desk drawer for the first aid kit when a surly matron walked in.

‘Late again, Nurse Grainger?’ she asked rhetorically, and gripped Nicole’s face to examine her injury. ‘Get a move on and cover this up. Your patients don’t need to see the results of your drunken nights out.’

Before Nicole could protest, Matron had stomped back out of the room to make someone else’s life miserable.

‘How’s Mrs Baker?’ Nicole asked, powdering her cheek with foundation.

‘She’s had a rough night,’ Eric replied. ‘She’s been asking Nurse Ryan if you’re on shift today.’

Nicole moved into the nurses’ station, shuffled the clipboards around on the desk until she found Mrs Baker’s charts, and headed towards a private room.

*

By the time the cancer had reached Helen Baker’s bones, she knew it was unlikely she would see her seventieth birthday.

In the space of eight months, she had shrunk from a sturdy, strong-willed woman with a love of travel to a thin, frail, grey-skinned old person waiting to take one last journey. Mrs Baker could have easily afforded to end her days in a private hospital, but she knew from her late husband’s experience just how quiet and soulless such places could be. And without a family to visit her, the hustle and bustle of an NHS hospital made her feel less alone.

After a night where sleep was disrupted by pain and her loss of bladder control, Mrs Baker struggled to keep her eyes open and drifted off to sleep moments before Nicole entered her room. She pulled up a seat and sat by her side, holding her hand.

‘Bridget?’ mumbled Mrs Baker, vaguely aware she had company.

‘No, Mrs Baker, it’s Nicole. How are you feeling today?’

‘I can’t really feel much because of the morphine. I’ve asked, but they won’t tell me what will happen next.’

‘I don’t think they can, I’m afraid. It’s now just a case of managing the pain rather than trying to find the cause of it.’

Mrs Baker nodded and slowly opened her bloodshot eyes. ‘Do you have time for my usual?’ she smiled.

Nicole turned her head towards the door for any sign of Matron, then reached into the bedside table drawer and pulled out a lipstick before applying it to Mrs Baker’s lips.

‘That’s better,’ smiled Mrs Baker. ‘A girl’s got to look her best even when she’s feeling her worst. Did Bridget come while I was asleep?’

‘Um, I’m not sure; I’ve just started my shift . . .’

‘You can tell me the truth.’

Nicole hesitated before answering. ‘No, I don’t think she did. But you’ve told me how busy she is.’

‘Yes, it must be hard juggling Pilates classes with nannies for grandchildren I never see. I have a daughter who married for social standing and a son I haven’t seen in a decade after his father died and he tried to put me in a home and steal my money. I did well, didn’t I?’

Nicole wasn’t sure how to respond, but before she had the opportunity to, a stern voice behind her made them both jump. ‘Nurse Grainger, may I have a word please?’

Mrs Baker squeezed Nicole’s hand in anticipation of what was to come and Nicole followed Matron into the corridor. The only thing to separate Matron from the nursing characters Hattie Jacques portrayed in the Carry On films was her modern-day uniform, thought Nicole. During working hours, Matron discouraged fraternisation between staff and patients. Her old-school approach bore little relationship with modern nursing methods.

‘May I remind you – once again – there are more patients in this ward than Mrs bloody Baker,’ Matron snapped. ‘Just because her husband was on the trust board so she gets her own room does not mean she can expect preferential treatment over everyone else. Do I make myself clear?’

Nicole swallowed hard. ‘Yes, Matron.’

‘Now start your rounds and visit this woman in your own time or you’ll be on report – again.’

Nicole followed her out of the office. And if Matron had turned around a second earlier, she’d have seen Nicol
e
giving her the finge
r
behind her back.

TODAY

‘A nurse, eh?’ began Tommy, his eyes lighting up. ‘Does that mean you get to wear one of those sexy uniforms?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ sighed Nicole. ‘We all skip around in high heels, fishnet tights and miniskirts with our shirts buttoned so you can see our bras, and every now and again we’ll pull a stethoscope out from between our boobs.’

Tommy was instantly embarrassed by the immaturity of his question, but amused by her response.

‘How long are you in LA for?’ Nicole asked, changing the subject.

‘As long as it takes to figure out what I want to do with my life.’

‘And what do you want to do, Tommy? You know, in an ideal world.’

‘Right now? I’ll give you three guesses,’ he replied with a flirty smile.

‘I know what I want, too,’ whispered Nicole, and smiled, pulling Tommy’s bandaged hand closer to her chest. He felt his heart beat faster and he swallowed hard.

‘And what’s that?’

‘I . . . want . . . another beer. Now be a good boy and go get me one.’

In the ten minutes Nicole and Tommy had spent in the kitchen, they’d failed to realise they were not alone until a gentle snoring caught their attention. They turned together to see Joe, sitting on a stool in the corner of the room and slumped fast asleep across a work surface next to two large steaming pots. Tommy examined the pots’ contents – one contained an almost solid, rust-coloured mass of sauce, and the other was crammed with charred spaghetti and no water.

‘Joe, wake up!’ yelled Tommy.

Joe’s eyes shot open and he was clearly unsure of his surroundings.

‘Mate, you’ve cremated the pasta. There’s a room full of hungry people waiting for this.’

‘Sorry, just . . . busy . . . forgot.’

Tommy helped Joe back to his dormitory, removed Joe’s baseball cap and put him to bed. As he left, he was startled by Ruth’s presence, sitting on the top of a bunk bed and viewing something on her iPad. One headphone was plugged into her ear and the other dangled by her shoulder.

‘Hello,’ Tommy began, and Ruth gave an awkward, tight-lipped smile. ‘It’s Ruth, right? I checked you in. I’ve not seen you about much.’

Ruth continued smiling but didn’t reply.

‘Aren’t you coming downstairs to the party? There’s free beer.’

Ruth shook her head.

‘Not much of a drinker?’

Ruth shook her head again.

‘Or talker?’

By the time Ruth plucked the teeth whitening trays from her mouth, Tommy had given up on the conversation and left her with the sounds of the party a floor below to keep her company.

‘Wanting . . . needing . . . waiting . . . for you, to justify my love . . .’ came Madonna’s breathy vocals over the trip hop drum loop as the song’s heavy bass boomed from the speakers above the stage.

The punters watched in silence as the dancer began her slow, sensual decent down the pole and towards the rubber matted floor. She held on with a baseball-style grip, swung her outside leg into a hook and picked up her inside leg, which followed suit. She threw her head and shoulders back to accentuate her breasts, and pouted. Despite the track being older than her, she knew every word and every beat off by heart as she’d danced to it twice per shift for the last four months.

Before Savannah stumbled into a career as an exotic dancer, she had a preconceived notion strip clubs were sleazy dives patronised by paunchy, middle-aged men, like she’d seen depicted in cable TV shows like
The Sopranos
. But both the décor and the clientele of Santa Monica’s Pink Pussycat Club changed her mind.

Open twenty-four hours a day, and a ten-minute cab ride from Venice Beach, the spacious lounge area housed two stages and two poles on either side of the room, with a bar to separate them. Wipe-clean leather armchairs and Chesterfield-style sofas surrounded the stages, and there were lamps with purple shades balanced on dark, wooden tables. Smaller corner booths were roped off and reserved for VIP guests or parties who spent their dollars freely.

Savannah had no desire to work at that strip club, or any strip club for that matter. But compared to the first place she’d danced at days after arriving in the city of angels, this was like a palace and offered her the security she needed. She could also bank up to $500 on a busy night – more than Dunkin’ Donuts or Wendy’s paid in a week.

But in order to do the job, Savannah had imposed upon herself a moral code. Totally nude dances, private backstage lap dances and dating the clientele were all strict no-nos. They were sure-fire ways of doubling her daily income, and while she didn’t judge the other girls who took that route, she feared losing even more of herself than she had already. So no matter how much money was thrown on the table or slipped into her bra, she would not budge. The furthest she would stretch to were topless dances and peep show performances, involving her surrounded by customers in private booths pleasuring themselves behind two-way mirrors.

As ‘Justify My Love’ gradually faded out, she scooped up her tips and made her way back towards the changing room where she stared into an illuminated mirror. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead and underarms, removed her smoky eye make-up with a damp tissue, then reached into her handbag for her mascara, and found an embossed business card Tommy had given her two days earlier.

‘Some bloke came in here looking for you earlier,’ he’d informed her. ‘He didn’t give me a name, but he was an intimidating bastard. Had two big guys with him. He gave me his card but I didn’t tell him you lived here.’

Savannah had forced herself to sound calm as she took the card then raced up the stairs and into her room. Inside, she’d shut and locked the door, made for the bathroom and vomited into the toilet bowl.

The card contained only a number she didn’t recognise, but that worried her. She knew being afraid of the unknown was worse than being afraid of the expected, so she took her phone from her handbag, changed the settings so her number remained anonymous, and nervously dialled.

SEVEN MONTHS EARLIER – MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA

‘Be gone devil! With the spirit of Jesus in me, I am ordering you to leave this child’s body and make her clean again.’

The audience was transfixed by Reverend Devereaux in anticipation of the miracle they had queued much of the morning to witness. With the exception of scattered ‘amens’ yelled by pockets of onlookers, the only voices to be heard through the arena speakers were those belonging to the Reverend and his male assistants, muttering their approval at what was to come.

The Reverend allowed the tension to build gradually before he cupped the chin of the child who stood trembling before him. He placed the palm of his other hand on her forehead and clasped it so tightly it left the impression of his gold sovereign ring in her ochre skin.

‘Speak child . . . speak!’ he yelled. The temperature from the bulbs in the lighting rig above made sweat trickle down his forehead and drip from the microphone fastened from cheek to ear.

‘Speak to me! Speak to your people! Speak to us all!’

The girl’s head continued to quiver as he gripped her face.

‘Tell everyone how Jesus has saved you!’ he bellowed.

‘Je . . . Je . . . Je . . .’ she began. She looked into the Reverend’s narrowed eyes, and then finally parted her lips.

‘Jesus has saved me,’ she blurted out.

‘Louder!’ he repeated, specks of saliva landing on her cheek. ‘Say it louder!’

‘Jesus has saved me,’ she repeated, her voice rising to a more confident yell, ‘Jesus has saved me!’

The audience rose to its feet, applauding and roaring its approval as the fifteen-strong brass band on the lowest tier of the stage launched into ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’

Reverend Devereaux had already left the girl to his assistant’s devices. The assistant hurried her from the stage and into the wings and away from the audience before her stammer returned. They’d learned from mistakes made years earlier about how quickly ‘miracles’ wore off once adrenaline levels subsided.

Reverend Devereaux took to the centre of his stage, outstretched his arms like he was attached to an invisible crucifix and nodded to the audience. Indoor fireworks exploded behind him as the encouraging noises continued, before he waited patiently for the crowd to quieten. The television cameras focused close enough to capture the broken capillary veins scattered across his cheeks and nose, beaming his image across the amphitheatre on a huge screen.

‘Today,’ he began in hushed tones, ‘Jesus made a crippled woman walk again; he aided a boy born without eardrums to hear for the first time in his life and he removed cataracts from the eyes of a blind grandmother. This is what happens when – not if – you allow the power of Jesus into your life. And for the benefit of our friends at home, just think what you could accomplish if you let Him into your life too. You can do that, right now, by picking up your telephone and calling the number at the bottom of your screen. It doesn’t matter how much you donate, but the more you can afford, the more people we can help. Galatians 6:10 said, ‘Let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of Faith.’ Thank you, my friends, and may God’s love be with you.’