“Tom?” she begged from the doorway. “Tom, I’m worried about you.”
Slowly he rolled over to look at her. It was as if he could hardly be bothered even to do that much. His face was black with uncut beard.
Oh no, a small, rational, still sexy part of her mind thought to itself, I couldn’t fancy him any more. I mean, I’m not choosy, but he’s bloody awful.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
Elsie hurried out and, all the while, she was cursing Craig for not being there. If Craig was there and they had a car, they could bundle Tom inside, smother his protests, and get him to casualty. Surely that’s what normal people did? Of course, she thought, we can’t do that. Instead, we have to have a terrible emergency. Tom has to die, or end up back in the loony bin.
She went outside and made a decision.
Elsie went straight to the most reliable person she knew. Fran lived opposite her, across the kids’ play park. She was having tea on Christmas Eve with her husband Frank and her four kids.
“He’s doing it again, Fran,” Elsie heard herself saying, in one breathless rush.
“Oh, he’s not, is he?” Fran was the same age as Elsie. She knew everyone’s business and kept it to herself. “On Christmas Eve, too! That’s awful.” Then she snapped into action. “Frank, look after the bairns. I’m off over the way to see what I can do.”
Frank had a can of lager halfway to his mouth. “But it’s Christmas-time! The Santa van will be coming round in half an hour! We have to take the kids out to see Santa!”
Round the pine table the kids started to make a fuss, worried about missing Santa when he came in his van to their street. Fran silenced them with a look.
“I’ll be back well before Santa comes. Now, Elsie, let’s see how your Tom’s doing.”
Frank gave his can a sceptical slurp as the women left. He’s got a point, Fran thought, following Elsie across the park, I do let myself get too involved. She shuddered at the thought of what she might see when she reached Elsie’s house.
All she saw, though, was a dirty old bloke lying in bed, too miserable to talk or acknowledge her. They stood at the foot of the bed.
“He used to look so dignified,” Elsie said. “Didn’t he?”
“Ay, he did,” Fran said. She’d always thought Tom had a shifty look about him, but she wasn’t about to say.
“He’d hate it if he thought we were looking at him like this.”
She’s talking like he’s dead, Fran thought, fascinated. Then she saw that, to Elsie, he was as good as dead. She had written him off, not in a callous or underhanded way, but as if some pressing circumstance had made their love or enjoyment of each other impossible now.
Elsie said, “We’ll have to phone and they’ll take him away again, won’t they?”
Fran nodded. “I reckon so.”
“I thought he’d be all right this time. We both did. We banked on it at one point. But look at him!”
“Do you want me to phone?”
“I worry that they notch it up. Like, three times caught and then you’re out. Like rounders or cricket. Do you think they’ll keep him in for good?’
“Don’t worry about that now,” Fran said. “We’ll just get the doctor in first.”
“Will they come out at Christmas?”
“We can try.” Fran was heading back into the hallway, glad to be away from the smell of unwashed body.
“I want them to say he’s no good,” Elsie was saying fiercely to herself. “Really, I want them to keep him in for good.” She looked at his face and realise that he might have heard her.
While Fran looked in the phone-messages book for the number she’d had to phone the previous year, she heard Elsie shouting out, “Where’s Craig? Where’s our Craig?”
The GP arrived just after the council Santa came round in his van to see everyone from Phoenix Court. Fran dashed out for two minutes to be with Frank and the bairns as the council Santa passed round Swizzel lollies. Across the road, at the Forsyths’ house, there was dance music blasting out, and Fran would have put money on it that Craig was over there. When Santa left she said she had to get back to Elsie, and would Frank put the bairns to bed?
He pulled a face. “It’s like when daft Nesta vanished, all over again,’ he said, his voice going high in anger. “You always get too involved.” Fran tutted at him, kissed the bairns, and went back to see Elsie.
The doctor was there, a dapper per little man in a dark suit, a sprig of mistletoe in his lapel and a twist of tinsel around the handle of his leather bag. In the kitchen he was insisting that Elsie stay at home and drink sugary tea. “Come and visit your husband on Boxing Day,” he said coaxingly, “and try to have a merry Christmas.”
Fran said, “I’m a neighbour.” The doctor looked up and nodded at her.
“He’s my common-law husband,’ said Elsie sulkily.
“Yes,” said the GP as he straightened up. “Well.” Then he headed out to the paramedics’ van which, now that Fran stared through the window after him, had Tom under red blankets in the back. He looked strapped down. Blokes in overalls were looking down at him and closing the back doors. Then they were all gone.
“Do you want to stop with us the night?” Fran asked Elsie. Around them the house seemed dark and cold. The decorations Elsie had
