Page 9 of Cuts Like An Angel: Part 3

By the time he’d smashed the ice to pieces for it, he could think, and he could breathe.

He got himself calm enough to go back up the stairs. He went into that room and a veil of misery draped over him, coating his body and weighing him down. Even when he sat at his desk and cancelled out the screensaver, he could feel the phone in the desk drawer beside him, like a beacon calling for him to look at it.

He forced his hands onto the mouse and focused on the flyer on his screen. One minute became two, two became five. Fifteen minutes later and he hadn’t moved except to open the drawer and close it again before he checked the phone.

He put his head in his hands and rested on the desk. “I hate you so much.”

Breathing was about the only thing he was managing to do and even that was hard and fast. Carly had told him to do something he liked when his head got like this. Even if he had work. It didn’t matter. He had to calm his head down. It was either that or give in and run to the bathroom to let it all go.

The phone’s screen was dark when he took it out of the drawer a moment later. Fifteen calls and two text messages. He covered the screen with one hand so he couldn’t read the messages and then activated the do not disturb, function so the only call that would show on his screen would be Rosie. Next, he opened the phone to clear the messages without reading.

It had been a while since he’d been out on his bike. If he’d not been with Rosie, he’d have been on it a number of times. He loved autumn and winter. And it wasn’t that Rosie didn’t let him go out on it. She wasn’t yet used to the cold of England. Especially this time of year when the weather couldn’t make up its mind between icy blasts, rain and wind. The turning seasons made her American blood cold and it made him laugh the way she shivered at the slightest breeze.

Today it was just a little rain. Nothing to write home about. He had his leathers and helmet. They’d keep him dry and protected.

The flyer could wait a little longer. He rolled the bike out of the garage and onto the main road before fastening his helmet into place. He sat on the bike, feeling the comfort of it, the power that came with it. Him, the bike and the road. He turned on the engine, twisted the throttle and felt the bike rev under him, creating such peace in his body.

Bikes were always an escape from his mother. Push bikes to motorbikes. His go-to if he needed to get away and leave her alone for a while.

He kicked the bike into gear and took off.

For a while he just rode. Not thinking, not feeling. Just going with the road and himself, feeling the bike under him, watching the countryside roll by. The lanes twisted and houses were set back. Trees bowed in places. He had to take Rosie out here in the summer. He could drive her up, take a picnic and let her see it all. Maybe they could even camp a night in it all.

It was good in the winter, when the snow came and made everything glitter with frost, but it was good in the summer too, when the grass was green, and the trees were laden with leaves and fruit. If they hiked high enough, they could find the waterfalls. There were three of them. Maybe the last one would be a goal. It was a day’s hike to get to it, but so worth it in the end. He’d done it many times alone, when he was just wandering around, trying to find himself as much as anything,

He pulled his bike to a stop at the end of a long driveway that was flanked with grass on either side. Big gates boasted the name of the place. Hardacre Residential, and instead of kicking the bike into gear again and taking off, he found himself turning onto the drive and riding it all the way to the building marked reception and visitors.

The place was like something out of a fantasy novel, or even Dickens. All brick work and high windows. He slid his helmet off and rested it in front of him. This was the kind of building people dreamt of owning one day when they got rich or won the lottery, or whatever shit it was that people bothered about now. Although maybe they didn’t want it with all the old people walking around.

A woman with a walker shuffled across the covered porch. Not that it was really a porch, more of a covered garden with potted plants and raised flower beds. Benches lined the sides, but it was hard to ignore the adaptations to them for the elderly and infirm. The old woman smiled at him as he put his bike on its stand and headed towards the reception.

He’d been in a few care homes in his life. Especially when he’d been looking for a place for his mother when she busted her hip. They always had that smell to them. Like diarrhoea and cooked meat all brought together with a warmth and the hint of lemon where someone had tried to clean it up and mask the smell. But combined, all they did was make him want to retch. Such a stark difference to the smells outside—all wet trees and damp earth.

“Can I help you?” the woman behind a desk asked. She wore glasses and shoved them on the top of her head.

“Oh, I …” he glanced around him, taking in the signs. One read, if you’ve vomited in the last twenty-four hours, please inform a member of staff before entering. Another said, if you’re sick, think. Do you really need to visit today? He clutched the helmet in front of himself and stepped back.

“First time seeing one of these places?” The woman smiled, warming as she stood and came out from behind the desk.

“Yes. I … I … wasn’t really sure what to expect.”

She came to stand beside him and looked around as if she too was staring at everything for the first time. “A little daunting sometimes. Making the best decisions for a loved one. You’re looking for your…”

“Mother,” he said. “She’s in hospital just now. She had a stroke so we’re looking at options. My wife works, and I work from home, but it …”

“Sometimes they need a little bit more care. If you’re working from home, you need to work.”

“Right. She doesn’t have anything else though. Marbles all there.” He twirled his finger to demonstrate. The woman laughed.

“Is she bed bound because we …”

“No.” He explained about her strokes, missing out the part of what his mother believed and what she was.

“So, she’s mobile. That’s good.”

“Yeah. Not so good with stairs, though.”

The woman gave a soft chuckle. “Not many of them are.” She pointed to the stairs. “We have that covered. Is she on her own? We have double rooms if--”

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