Page 18 of Cuts Like An Angel: Part 3

Chapter Nine

William

The new phone worked a treat and William programmed in the numbers for the estate agent and the residential home. He got rid of both business cards, ripping them and letting the wind take them away. Something to think about later, perhaps when Josh came back and when Rosie was out. She wouldn’t understand Josh’s need to move, or to put Maria away somewhere where she couldn’t get to them.

He stopped off at the supermarket and got Maria three packs of cigarettes. When he was little, when laws were laxer, he’d bought her cigarettes in singles. Going to the corner shop with a note and a ten pence coin. How times had changed. Three packs of cigarettes were the good part of a twenty-pound note now. He stopped outside the hospital next to the open bin, clutching the bag with her wanted goods. He could just dump them in there and go home again. Not see her.

He could … Josh would. Hell, Josh wouldn’t buy them in the first place, and if he did, he’d smoke them right in front of her and tell her she could get her own. In the end, he took them into the hospital along with a sandwich, and a couple of magazines she’d never appreciate.

She wasn’t in her bed when he got to her room, and a slight flutter in his chest hoped … hoped like he had many times before, that something had happened to her. God how many times had he wished to go home and find his mother dead? Not exactly the thoughts of a loving son, but there they were, raw and ripe in his head, just like now. But no, her shit was still on the small table and her dressing gown was gone. She’d be in the bathroom or something. He dumped the bag on her table, went to clean up the litter she had on there and stopped himself.

“Haven’t you cleaned up after her enough now?”

He clenched his fist, his legs suddenly made of iron and stuck ridged so he couldn’t move. Caught between the thoughts of Josh and the duties of William.

“Why do I try? Why?” He blew out a breath, and grabbed the bits of rubbish up, crushing them in his strong hands and tossing them into the bin. He even folded up the clothes she’d left strewn across the chair. Fucking hell, she did that at home and it drove him nuts. Could she just not tidy after herself?

“If you’re looking for you mother, she’s just getting a shower,” a woman said from the doorway—a porter he recognised.

“Will she be long?” He didn’t ask because he intended to wait. He asked because then he’d know how long he had to get out of there before she saw him and could get him with those vile words again.

“Probably about fifteen minutes. Would you like a tea while you wait? Coffee? There’s a machine on the …”

“No. I was just dropping off some things. She doesn’t even know I’m coming.” He patted the bag on the table. “I’ll leave this here. Tell her I dropped them off and I’ll see her when we come to collect her.”

“If you’re sure. You can wait. It’s no bother.”

It was a bother to him. It was a big bother. “No, I’ve got to pick my wife up from work. She’s just finished. So, I can’t stay anyway.”

The nurse smiled at him. “I’ll let her know. Thank you, Mr Carter.”

Now the problem was which bathroom was she in. He didn’t want to risk walking past and bumping into her as she came out. There’s no way she’d be fifteen minutes. The woman hated showers and baths, or anything that made her clean. She certainly hated having to have assisted baths. Part of him laughed at that thought. An echo in his mind that he didn’t vocalise.

He took his chance and went left. Of course, that was where she was, and the moment he could hear her complaints from behind the door, he put his head down and slipped out of there as fast as he could without looking like he was running away.

He was certain he didn’t stop until he got home again and put his bike into the garage. By the time he did that, he stopped himself, put his head in his hands and laughed. It’d been a long time since he’d run away from his mother. Of course, usually she had known he was running away because she was usually chasing after him, and that was perhaps why this was so funny.

He was still laughing when he got inside and answered the house phone that started ringing.

“Hello,” he said between breaths and fits. “Sorry.”

“I’m looking for Rosie. Is she there?”

“Rosie? No. She’s at work. Can I take a message?”

The voice was American. William wasn’t so good at placing the accents. The popular ones were easy, New York, Texas, but other than that, they just sounded American. This man was American, but with a hint of something, not Texan, but around there perhaps. “Can you tell her Peter called, please. I really need to talk to her. I think we got cut off earlier.”

“I will.”

“Much appreciated.”

William went to say goodbye to the man on the other end, but he’d hung up before William got the chance. “Bye then,” he said to the dial tone and put the phone back in its cradle. At least the call had calmed him somewhat. Or who knows, he might have been bordering on full hysteria by now.

William ignored the door to the front lounge as he went to the kitchen. Rosie would be home soon, she’d want dinner, and he’d said he was cooking. Not that he was sure what exactly. He’d not put much thought into any of it. He opened the fridge. Their choices were leftover pasta salad from yesterday, a pate, although William was sure they had no crackers to serve it on, and eggs. There was a piece of smoked fish. “Kedgeree,” he said to himself.

He was almost done with cooking it when Rosie came home. He soaked the eggs in cold water so he could peel them easier, and was shelling them as she came in.

“Hey, you,” he said when she came into the kitchen.

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