Sugarcoated (13 page)

Georgina was
massive
into Mind Mapping. Not for herself. She’d no need, since she was born with one of those cyborg
Total Recall
memories that hoovers every fact and figure and detail of the universe. Then regurgitates it word perfect. There’s a special word for that skill. Sounds like ‘idiotic’ though it’s not. That would be me. Shut my eyes once I’d poured my cereal and I wouldn’t recall whether I’d Sugar Puffs or Cheerios in my bowl.

That was why Georgina became so keen on me trying strategies that might muscle up my own remedial recall.

Mind Mapping’s an easy one, Clod
, she encouraged me during that final study leave before I bombed all my exams.
Sheet of paper. Scribble all your main facts. Few words as possible. Bet you’ll find things straighten out in your head better. No offence
.

Poor Georgina. She was so uptight I’d end up failing
all the exams I ended up failing, I told her Mind Mapping worked excellently. Liar! Big lazy me used the artist’s sketch pad she bought me, not for Mind Map essay planning, but for extravagant Cloddy doodling while I hummed.

Jotted random words. Song lyrics. In three weeks of study leave I mind mapped … er … let me get out my calculator … a total of zero about the Second World War or Romeo and Jools. I was more focussed on the important things in life:

What would Mum be making for dinner? (I’d plot fantasy menus.) Did I feel like a biscuit? (I’d Mind Map all the different varieties I liked, Abernethy to Yo-Yo.)

Reason I did no work? Well I couldn’t see the point of putting effort into something I absolutely knew I’d
never
use in the Big Bad World: Hitler’s rearmament strategy? The value of
x
when
y
is 7? What Willy Shakespeare said ten thousand years ago? Pah: Frigging relevant that tripe, eh?

But here was a weird thing: tonight, with Dave Griffen’s nightmare staining my fingertips sweaty
newsprint black, I don’t know … compiling a Mind Map of recent events didn’t seem so mind-numbing. How else could I sort my head before I phoned the police? Couldn’t exactly ring Australia and launch into details of my possible connection to a promising young science student who was fighting for his life. Mum and Dad had enough on their plate. Why give them long-distance panic? Why double it by telling them about a second guy
I’ve kinda got involved with, Mumsie?
Who I just so happened to have witnessed threatening this science student you know nothing about …

Eventually, all these details were plotted on a new page of my sketch book. Although, funnily enough, just before I started creating my Mind Map, it looked like I might not need to bother. Because I had a phone call.

Stefan?

My heart skipped a beat when I went to answer it. Not quite sure if that reaction was guilt or anticipation. I was in the middle of cutting his photograph from the celeb mag. Spacing it on the other side of a goofy doodle of me. This meant that on my mind map, I was sandwiched between my sweet-talking guy and poor
smiley Dave Griffen.

Stefan wasn’t the caller though, alas and alack.

‘Yo. We’ve mutual friends, I hear, Quinny. Starsky, Hutch and Big Marge the Curling Cop.’

Never one for
How are you?
timewasting, Uncle Super Mike cut to the chase over a choppy connection.

‘You’re part of my case, Marge tells me: Operation Marlin. Like that, Quinny? I thought that name up. Biggest fish I’ve ever gone after, whoever the crazy is behind your dad’s place. What a coincidence though, eh? You a witness in this carry-on. Small world. By the way, I think Marge likes you nearly as much as she fancies me! Thinks you’d make a great cop. Must be your big feet.’

Uncle Mike was never one for sweet-talk either. Could be why, at forty-five with all his own teeth, a fancy bungalow, and a Porsche, he’d never reeled in his Mrs Mike. Not that it seemed to bother him.

Oi Grace. Will you leave me be. There are far too many fish in the sea for me to hook a woman,
he’d shrug whenever Mum lamented his bachelor status.
Like
literally
too many fish in the sea: herring, salmon, pike. I’ve no time for a wife.

I loved him to bits.

‘Hey. Are you on your way here now? When? Soon?’

Scissors down, I shouted into Uncle Mike’s laugh. Ignoring the way the line hissed back at me, I kept talking. Having someone so solid and near to speak to made me realise how alone I was feeling. I didn’t want our conversation to stop.

‘Listen,’ I prayed Uncle Mike could still hear me. ‘There’s a guy here. Dave –’ I shouted, just as the line cleared totally of static.

‘Whhhhat? “A guy called Dave” is it, Quinny? About bloody time.’

Uncle Mike’s whistle of approval was so blasting I’d to hold the phone away from my ear. But I could still hear him chuckling. ‘And I get the picture, by the way. You’re in the middle of a candelit supper and you don’t want your old Uncle Mike marching in with a carryout curry and a six pack to spoil –’

‘It’s nothing like that,’ I interrupted Uncle Mike’s frankly ludicrous suggestion. Unfortunately his fantasy had used up the only part of our conversation where the phone reception was decent.

While I tried to put Uncle Mike straight – ‘See there’s this other guy … I sorta kinda know him … and he might have something to do with Dave. Dave’s been attacked, see. And I’m wondering should I tell the police or …’

‘ … a … up … you … What?’ Uncle Mike sounded as if he was punching an escape from inside a giant crisp packet full of cellophane gremlins.

‘Hello? Listen, I’ll just wait till you come. Tell
you
everything instead of the police here. I’d rather do that,’ I tried again.

‘Quinny, I can’t hear … word. Are … a blanket chewing Dave’s face off?’

The way Uncle Mike bellowed reminded me of an old-fashioned recording, volume diluted by distance and time.

‘Sorry. Listen, I’ll ring off … you first thing … Dave can have you all to himself tonight. And listen –’ Uncle Mike’s line cleared again. So did the kidology. ‘I don’t know if you can hear this, but Marge and the Weegie boys think they’ve pulled in one of those hammer bams from outside your dad’s shop. You OK
about doing an ID parade? I’ll be with you, Quinny, so don’t be worrying –’ Uncle Mike’s voice shrank. Faded. I just about heard him telling me he was going to try Australia. Find out the latest on baby Sean.

That’ll be an expensive waste of calltime, I thought, trying to reach Uncle Mike again. I used landline and mobile, but had no joy. In case he was doing the same to me I stayed close to the phone, ready to grab the receiver.

‘I’m going to tell Uncle Mike
everything
. See what he thinks about Stefan,’ I promised, my words cutting the silence of the kitchen. So I shivered. Looked over my shoulder, cocking my head and listening for that dreaded snap or creak or scritch and scratch from the other side of a wall that would send me screaming into the night in my bare feet like a wimpy size zero chick from a horror movie.

‘Candlelit supper. Aye right!’ Hunched over the kitchen table I hugged myself, wondering how I was going to get through another long night when I was already creeped out. That was why I ended up going back to my Mind Map. It was easier to concentrate on that than force myself upstairs to hunch in bug-eyed
terror over my books, hearing noises that weren’t. I stayed put, working harder than I’d done all year on the page in front of me.

Stefan

I began under the photo from the magazine. Then I added:

AKA Stephen
Mr Josef
Mr Joe

to the first name. ‘Why?’ I wondered aloud, and then wrote in tiny writing after I bracketed the three aliases, why does a guy need multiple identities? A pet name, yeah, like mine: Clod or a tag, maybe: Steve-o was normal.

But four different names? Stefan was Stefan to me, but had been:

Stephen to Lynne in Strut,
Mr Josef to Dave Griffen,
Mr Joe in the magazine.

I plotted all these links before writing:

Dave Griffen

plain and simple beneath the little snap from the evening paper. I drew an arrow, double-headed, from Dave Griffen to Mr Josef. Then connected Dave Griffen to me and wrote down everything I knew about him.

USEFUL FACTS:
DG thought I was a thief in Strut.
Sacked for that (see Stefan).
Threatened by Stefan.
Warned me to watch out for Stefan.
Gave me moby number.
Someone else answered when I phoned. (Man. Foreign??)
Angry. Heard background noises.
Someone getting beat up????
In coma now.

My USEFUL FACTS about Dave Griffen ran almost to the end of the page. Now it was Stefan’s turn to have a USEFUL FACTS dossier drawn up about him.

Likes Minstrels

I began, trying to be chronological about the information I listed:

Slight accent. (‘British Citizen on passport’ he told me)
Two mobile phones. Number dead.
Snake tattoo on left hand (and back – yuk!!!!)
Well-off: loads of credit cards. Sports car, jeepy car???
Student? Chemistry?? (Don’t know what uni – hasn’t
said)
Studying ‘compounds’.
Speaks foreign language: Not French.
Penthouse flat on Clydeside. Don’t think he stays
there though.
In business with dad & uncle – ‘compounds’ …

I’d listed so many ‘useful’ – if vague – facts about Stefan I had to scribble, in tinsy writing, up the side of the page to fit them in. I could hardly read the information in the bottom corner of Stefan’s column:

STRUT (where Dave G worked???) Buys a load of designer gear. Regular.

Turned all Tony Soprano with DG.

Scary side.

There was a bit more to add, of course: like Stefan’s Park and Bribe system and the furious foreign-language phone conversation he’d taken in Strut that had forced him to end our last date. Plus, I could also mention a certain wad of cash he’d given me before he zoomed out of my life …

My pen hovered over the squash of USEFUL FACTS about Stefan.
He doesn’t look nearly as sweet on paper as he does in the flesh
, I gulped. Probably the reason I decided not to bother squeezing in a line about Stefan’s showing up in the magazine. As Mr Joe. Too depressing, having a supposed-to-be boyfriend add up to something dodgy. The Mind Map wasn’t even supposed to
be
about Stefan. I only did it to straighten out what I knew about Dave Griffen.

‘You’ve done that. Bed now. School tomorrow,’ I whispered to myself, steeling my nerves. ‘Upstairs. Come on! You’re knackered.’

But have I ever been smart enough to take advice from anyone?

Especially a dumbo like myself.

An hour later I was still at the kitchen table, falsetto-humming through every Beatles song I knew to mask the noise of the empty house. I double-soundproofed by crunching my way through a family packet of Dorritos dipped in peanut butter, while I covered every white space left on my Mind Map with a cartoon.

Note to self: D’you need any formal Art qualifications to be a cartoonist?
That’s what I was pondering, promising to risk a careers session with Miss Camel-face Connolly and her toilet breath in the morning to find out.
If you don’t then maybe all these scenes I’ve been drawing can be part of my portfolio. They’re not half bad. Kinda Manga. Imagine me having a hidden talent?
I was thinking this
while I sketched in more fine detail to the best (in my humble opinion) piece of artwork on the page.

Better than my sketch of the hammer attack outside Dad’s shop (bloodied window, monobrowed assailant, hyper-dancing accomplice); or my impression of the smoochy booth in the restaurant where Stefan and I had gone on our first date (complete with Radec, the spherical waiter, and the swing combo time-travelled from a 1930s Chicago speakeasy). I sketched Stefan as I’d first seen him in the newsagent’s. My hottie on a stick: suede jacket, jeans, shy smile …

‘
Sweet-talking guy
,’ I hummed under my breath, Mum’s brilliant old Chiffon’s record playing in my head as I shaded in more tones to the thick flop of hair over his eyes:

‘
Talking sweet kind of lies
,’ I drew more definition to his grin. Dotted in his dimple.

‘Don’t you believe in him, if you do he’ll make you cry …

He’ll send you flowers and paint the town with another girl
…’

Admiring my completed Mind Map at arm’s length, I was singing aloud now.

‘Sweeter than sugar, kisses like wine …’

Into the eyes of my cartoon Stefan:

‘Staaaaaaay away from him
…

No, you’ll never win …’

I waggled my finger at the tiny drawing I’d made.

Feeling pretty damn chuffed when it was complete. Maybe all those years spent doodling over my jotters hadn’t been time wasting after all.

To Uncle Mike.
No hanky panky last night from your little
neecee.
Just this masterpiece.
Don’t worry, I’ll explain everyfing the
second I see ya!!
Lotsaluv
Claudia Warhol
Bonsoir.
Au revoir.

I scrawled in massive flourishy writing across the back of my Mind Map since there was no room left on the front.

Feeling very artistic indeed, I left my evening’s work propped between two bottles of Bud on the kitchen table so it would attract Uncle Super Mike’s attention as soon as he walked into the kitchen. Then I flounced artistically off upstairs to bed.

Wasn’t feeling so jittery any more. Was too tired. I’d lost track of all time working on my Mind Map. Couldn’t believe my radio alarm was reading the wee small hours already. I’d to double check with the speaking clock. ‘12.14 a.m.’ the fruity-voiced man on the end of the line assured me so pleasantly I snapped back down the receiver, ‘Easy for you to say, pal. You don’t have double maths first thing,’ before I put the phone down.

When it rang out immediately I had one of those insane notions that the speaking clock was live:
Bugger: have I just been rude to some old pensioner trapped in a call centre dishing out timechecks to earn the bread to pay his gas bill?

I practically apologised to Mr Speaking Clock.

But then a bored-sounding female voice brought me back to the real world.

‘Hello. Claudia Quinn, please.’

‘Speaking.’ I glanced at the time on my bedside alarm again. 12.16.

‘Who’s this?’
Calling at this hour.

Could it be Australia?
Something about baby Sean. Mum not up to giving me a message herself. Bad news.

‘Hello, Claudia,’ the voice on the end of the line didn’t sound Australian.

Nor did it answer my question. Just continued speaking. Kind of automatically. More automatically than the speaking clock man. Like she was reading from a script.

‘This is Sister Smith from Intensive Care. Western Infirmary. One of my patients is asking for you.’

‘A patient? For me?’ I said, but this Sister Smith cracked what sounded like a piece of chewing gum then talked on through me.

‘He says you’re his friend and he wants to see you. He’s very sick so can you come to the hospital, please?’

‘But I don’t know any … Have you phoned the right person? Who is this patient anyway?’

In the pause after my questions I could hear faint
music: female voices, pretty wild-sounding for nurses, if you asked me, out of synch with each other and out of tune with Tom Jones bellowing
It’s Not Unusual
.

‘Claudia, my patient’s waking out of a coma. Could you come to the hospital tonight?’ Sister Smith spoke quickly, raising her voice over the background noise. For a nurse she sounded more impatient than caring. Rude, actually, although I supposed working in Intensive Care taught you to cut to the chase in matters that matter. Still. I didn’t warm to her attitude.

‘So, you’ll come and visit now, Claudia?’

There was rustling on the line when Sister Smith was speaking this time. But not crisp leaves interference, like when I was speaking to Uncle Mike. The noises I heard from this call suggested the receiver was being moved about a fair bit. Maybe Sister Smith was multi-tasking: emptying a bedpan, or signalling instructions to another nurse:

Crash cart! Paddles. Stand clear. Charging
…

But the kind of slidey bumpy muffly rustles I could detect sounded more like the noises you get over the phone when two or more heads are sharing one
handset. That’s what I half-thought might be going on while I listened to Sister Smith and heard myself naming the only possible person I knew who was in hospital.

‘Is the patient Dave Griffen?’

There was nothing but slidey muffly rustles then. I was sure someone was wrestling with the receiver, putting a hand over the mouthpiece.

‘Hello?’ I raised my voice against whatever tussle was going on down the line.

‘Yup.’ When Sister Smith did speak again her voice was higher pitched. Her words swallowed and choky-sounding. Like she was smiling or excited or nodding her head, I thought, before I heard her clearing her throat.

‘Ahem. Just ask for Intensive Care. Someone’ll be looking out for you, don’t worry, Claudia,’ she said, her voice the sweetest and most friendly it had been throughout the call.