Bebo

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	Chapter Nine
	Tuesday - 2:35 p.m. I hear the screaming and it jerks me out of my daze. A sudden icy jolt, like being in the shower when somebody turns on the hot tap in the kitchen. The screams are a new and horrible note in the familiar factory rhythm. A desperate shrieking, stabbed without warning between the gnashing machine and the jabbering radio. I pause, the red crate in my hands halfway to its destination on the stack behind me, blinking in horror like one who has been thrust into a sudden and monstrous light. I could feel my mouth form a prissy o of shock and time slowed down to a freeze frame crawl. At first nothing seems wrong. My heart jumps and my mind shudders but I can’t see the source of that awful sound. Then Malky, who has his back to me, is on his knees. His right arm is disappearing under the plate, his back bent in an agonised bow, and his left hand is beating, frenziedly, impotently, at the steel skin of the machine. Somewhere a million miles away I am aware of the red tray slipping from my fingers and crashing to the floor. The smooth flow of the machine slows down, convulses, becomes a series of crashing metallic grunts, like an animal chewing. Blood begins to spray, spattering Malky’s arm and sewing the front of his white boiler suit with crimson poppies. The rest of the line are backing away in horror. The G.FB. covers her face with blue gloved hands. I can see Annie mouthing the words, oh God, oh God, over and over again. I am aware that I am shouting. Shouting at all of them, at any of them. “TURN THE MACHINE OFF, TURN THE FUCKING MACHINE OFF!” I knock my stack of red trays flying and I am running, still shouting the words at the top of my lungs like a demon mantra. I run for the red stop button but Ian, who is nearer and has recovered some of his wits, gets there first. He hammers it with his clenched fist and the machine clanks to a halt. When you hit the stop button the machine goes through one last revolution. As it does this I see Malky’s hand disappear further under the plate. As it cuts out I can clearly hear an awful gristly tearing. As the veil of white noise from the machine is yanked away Malky’s screaming comes into clear and horrifying focus. “MYHANDMYHAND, IT’SGOTMYFUCKINGHAND, OHGODGETITOFF, HELPMEHELPME, PLEASEGODHELPME, GETITOFFGETITOFF, PLEASESOMEONEHELPME!” “Oh God, oh my God,” Davie shouts, almost sobs. “What do we do? What the fuck do we do?” They’re all looking at me. I feel a sudden surge of anger. How the fuck should I know? How the fuck? I grab Malky around the chest, locking my hands around his injured arm, partly to stop him pulling himself away from the machine, partly just because I don’t know what else to do. I drop to my knees and pull him, struggling against me. His free hand grips into the flesh of my shoulder with a strength which hurts, pain leaping from him to me like electric current, too powerful to be contained in his body alone. “Get help! Get a fucking ambulance, get the fire brigade!” I shout at the circle of white staring faces. A crowd is forming, people rushing from other parts of the factory to see what the commotion is. I can see Heart Attack Paddy trying to force a way through. I have to grip on to Malky’s injured arm with all of my strength to prevent him tearing it out of the machine. He tugs and tugs, I can feel the muscles in his upper arm jumping like wires. He is staring with manic, bulging eyes, along the length of his arm. Strings of spit join his lips, vibrating with the cadence of his shrieks. For the first time I turn my head to follow his gaze. “Oh holy Jesus,” I try to say, but it won’t come out. Nothing. And then it does and I can’t stop. “Oh holy Jesus, oh holy Jesus, oh holy Jesus, oh holy Jesus, oh holy Jesus!” I feel like I am losing my mind. Everything seems to brighten, to come into focus so sharp I want to scream, but at same time it sounds as if the world has had the volume turned right down. Everything is muffled as if by water. The only thing I can hear is my breathing ragged, rattling in my ears, expanding to fill the whole world. The steel front of the machine is shiny with blood, Malky’s blood, staining the front of the machine like a soiled bib. His hand, or what’s left of it, has been pulled under the plate, palm up, by the three middle fingers, into the machinery which drives it. Through a gap barely a centimetre wide. His thumb and pinkie are still trapped on the outside of the machine. His thumb sticks out at a broken angle, there is a tear at its base where the flesh has ripped under the pressure. The tendon is clearly visible. White among mashed purple muscle. There is a clear twelve inches between his thumb and his pinkie. It hangs at the end of a long corkscrew strip of skin and gristle. The sudden image which flashes in my mind is of the curly wood shavings left over from planing a bookshelf in my second year techie class. Blood is spraying. Onto my front, onto my face, into my mouth. I’m going to faint. I gag and bile rises in my throat. The world is grey and far away. I fall back onto my haunches, staring at the hand, transfixed. Free of my restraining grip, Malky gives an almighty yank and the grinning mouth at the base of his thumb opens by another half an inch. I bite down on my tongue and some of the greyness departs. I grab his arm again. Heart Attack Paddy and Greg, the factory first aider, are suddenly standing over me. Greg looks at Malky’s hand and the colour drains from his face. He backs off a few steps. “Fucking do something then!” I shout at him. He looks imploringly from me to Paddy. “They never fucking told us about this,” he says is a pleading whine. He takes a further step back, removing his helmet, looking on in horror. I look at the helmet in his shaking hands, at the green sticker with the white cross on the back of it. “The ambulence is coming.” Paddy says, but offers no help. He looks back over his shoulder. “Get an engineer up here,” he bellows. The ambulance is coming,” he repeats as if this makes everything all right. I realise, right at that second, that I am on my own. No one is going to do anything. “Malky!” I shout in his ear. “Malky look at me!” But he just stares at his hand. Whining is a high pitched hysterical voice. “My hand, my hand, my hand, my hand!” “Malky!” I shake him. No response, so I slap him. Slap him in the face, as hard as I can. He looks at me, eyes still bulging but with some recognition in them now. “Malky look at me!” He looks at me then tries to look back at his hand. I grab his face and point it back towards me. “Don’t look at it. Don’t look at it, look at me! Look at my eyes! “My hand,” he sobs. “I know, the ambulance is on its way, you’ll be all right. Just hold on.” I am lying to him of course. He won’t be all right. Won’t be all right ever again. He is gritting his teeth, groaning, breath coming in hard snorts through his nose. Two engineers in green boiler suits arrive and get to work with spanners, franticly trying to remove the side panels of the machine. I can hear sirens. Just as they get the second panel off two paramedics carrying a stretcher appear at a run, pushing their way through the crowd. “Ok,” one of them shouts. “Get everybody out of here, now!” This seems to galvanise Paddy into action at last. “All of you, through to the packing department! Go on, fucking move then!” I’m not going anywhere. Malky’s holding on so tight that even if I wanted to go they’d have to pry his fingers out of my shoulder with a crowbar. In the event they don’t ask me to. “What’s his name?” asks one of them. “Malky,” I say. “For god’s sake, give him something for the pain!” “In a second. We need to know what happened first. Malky can you hear me?” He nods miserably. “I need you to tell me what happened, Ok?” Out of the corner of my eye I see the other paramedic look into the side of the machine through the panel that the engineers have removed and wince. Malky looks up at the paramedic “I don’t fucking know!” he shouts spit flying from his lips, his voice thick from screaming. “I was wiping mix off the bottom of the plate and it sucked my hand in!” “Give him something!” I shout at the man. “For fuck sake!” He spreads his hands in a placatory gesture and produces a small plastic tube from the bag slung over his shoulder. He breaks the cap off to reveal a tiny needle. It looks like a small version of the adrenaline pen Mike’s brother used to keep in the fridge because he’s allergic to bee stings. The medic sticks it into his leg through his boiler suit. I can feel him stiffen then go limp. His eyes lose their focus, become glazed, and he starts to cry. Softly, like a little boy. I cradle his head against my shoulder. “S’alright, S’alright.” The paramedic, the one who winced, looks at me. “The plate caught his fingers,” he says, “and dragged them through this gap.” he points at the bottom of the gap which the plate slides in and out of. Which now contains the remains of Malky’s mangled hand. “They got caught up in this roller on the other side which drives the plate,” he continues. “Two of his fingers have been severed and the other one partially severed. What I really need is some ice.” “There’s a freezer through there,” I point. He nods and disappears. “Can’t you get him out?” I ask the other guy who has taken over keeping pressure on Malky’s arm. He shakes his head. “Not as simple as that. If we pull his hand back through that little gap we’ll almost certainly sever his finger and do even more damage to the hand. The fire brigade are gonna have to cut a hole in the front panel there.” “Where the fuck are they then?” “They’ll be here soon, just keep calm.” I am about to scream at him that I am fucking calm, when the first medic arrives back with a bag full of ice cubes. With his back to me he reaches for something inside the machine. When he turns back there are two fingers in the bag. They are still clad in blue latex. As I watch the ice begins to turn pink. I quickly look away. The fire brigade appear two minutes later, one of them is carrying what looks like a pair of industrial bolt cutters. They confer quickly with the medics then one of them takes up position at either side of the machine. One of the paramedics takes a big pad of white gauze from his bag and holds it ready under Malky’s hand. He nods to the firemen. With quick, practised movements he inserts the bolt cutters into the slit and brings the handles together twice. The blades bite easily through the steel, as if it were no tougher than play-dough. He hands to bolt cutters to the other fireman who does the same. Then with simultaneous movements they bend the metal down, and Malky is free. For a second, before the gauze closes around it, I see the awful mangled thing that comes out of the machine, and instantly wish I hadn’t. The Paramedics lift him onto the stretcher and quickly but carefully carry him out of the room, followed closely by the firemen, then the crowd, which is now no longer restrained in the packing department. No one even notices me sitting on the floor with my hands in my lap. I get shakily to my feet and look at the floor. There is a smeared magenta stain where I have been sitting. It slowly begins to drip down the drain. I stand there and look at it, feeling numb, feeling hollow, not sure how I’m supposed to feel. The gradual realisation that there is a noise, shakes me out of my trance. It is a noise that has been there in the background but only comes into focus with my acknowledgement of it. The radio. It is playing an oldie, House of the Rising Sun by The Animals. I turn it off, sliding the power switch with slippery fingers. Absolute quiet hangs over the factory. Battlefield quiet; the absence of sound after the guns have fallen silent. Motionless air which carries the memory of screams. I walk stiffly, ungainly, towards the exit, shadowed by bloody footsteps. The sun is out, pale and high, like a cataract in the watery blue. No one is around, the place is deserted. The only people I can see are shadows of reflections through the canteen window, looking at me with eyes shaded against the sun. I make for the smoking hut. I sit down in the empty hut amongst the lengthening afternoon light. I get my fag packet out and put a fag in my mouth, but my hands are shaking so badly I can’t light it. The world is taking on that horrible far away greyness again, my head feels like a balloon. People are in the smoking hut now. One of them, a venison butcher with a concerned, deeply lined face, says something to me. I just look at him blankly. He gently takes the fag out of my mouth and puts it on the table. He offers me one from his packet and I take it. He has to chase the tip with his lighter. I look down at my own packet and notice for the first time that it is sodden with blood. I sit smoking for a while. The venison butcher, Peter I think his name is, sits with me. Greg the first aider comes in and presses a cup of hot sweet tea into my hand then departs. There seems to be an enormous commotion going on outside. I drink the tea and smoke another fag but I am slowly overtaken by an overwhelming urge to be somewhere else. I get up, and shaking off Peter’s objections, make my way to the changing room. I strip off my bloodstained boiler suit and wash my hands and face in the toilets. After I am finished the water in the sink is pinkish and the bar of soap is streaked with red. I take my stuff from my locker and start walking quickly towards the car park. Someone shouts my name but I ignore them. I get into my car, turn the engine on, release the handbrake, and drive away. It’s a good hour’s drive into the city. The hospital blazes with light as I lock the car door and start across the dark car park. Hours have passed and night has fallen since I drove away from the factory. I looked in the mirror when I got home. I nearly didn’t recognise the white face with the haunted eyes that looked back at me, the hair on the right side of the head standing up in stiff dark spikes. I took my clothes off and put them in the washing machine on a hot wash. Then I ran a bath, as hot as I could stand it, and climbed in and scrubbed my skin until it was raw. My shoulder was stiffening up by the time I got out. Purple bruises growing under the skin, it hurt to lift my arm above shoulder height. The imprint of Malky’s fingers on my shoulder, to replace the imprint of Andy’s fingers, still fading on my neck. I didn’t know what to do, completely unable to decide what was normal. I turned on the TV, loaded up championship manager but both seemed alien and inappropriate. I wanted to talk to someone and at the same time I didn’t. There was no way I could describe what had happened. It felt as if my head would burst under the pressure of my whirling thoughts. I went for a long walk, right around town, and that helped a bit. It was beginning to get dark by the time I got back. I wandered aimlessly around the flat for a couple of hours, unable to settle, rattling around like the last pea in a can. I looked in the fridge from time to time but couldn’t eat. Eventually I pulled on my jacket, took my keys from my bedside table, and quietly let myself out of the door. I didn’t know what the point in my going was. Didn’t know what good I thought it would do. All I knew was I had to be moving, had to be doing something. Like I said, it’s a good hour’s drive into the city. Twenty-five miles of fast countryside then slowing down as you pass the big signs which say welcome to Aberdeen. Thirty miles an hour seems like crawling after the freedom of the open road. I chain smoke as I drive, L.A. Woman in the tape deck to blot out thoughts about what might lie at my journeys end. I cross the darkened car park and it begins to rain slightly. I know this is where they took him. The pishy little hospital in our town wouldn’t be able to treat the kind of injuries Malky had. This is the place, I’m sure of it. There are people standing at the foyer, in front of the automatic doors, smoking and keeping out of the rain. I get a glimpse of the faces as I pass. An old man in a dressing gown with a grey face. A middle aged man with glazed eyes and a deeply lined face. A young guy about my age, white face, eyes red rimmed with tears, staring into space with a broken expression. None of their postures speak of good news, hospitals rarely are. I make my way to the reception desk and ask where I might find Malky. The woman asks when he would have been brought in and consults a list. Ward eleven she tells me. Up the stairs four floors and it’s the door on your left. I thank her and hurry off. I climb the stairs, two at a time, my footfalls echoing against the bare walls of the stairwell. I pause at the door with the sign that reads Ward 11, and take a deep breath, trying to compose myself. The ward consists of a long corridor with glass panelled doors on both the right and left and an empty nurses station halfway along. It smells strongly of disinfectant and has a velvety hushed quality which hints that most of its occupants are asleep. I notice there are name tags on the doors. I begin to work my way along the left side, checking the hand written tags for Malky’s name. “Can I help?” says a voice. I look up, there’s a young nurse with curly blonde hair standing there. She’s frowning slightly, which I take to mean that I’m not exactly supposed to be here. “Um, yeah,” I say. “I’m looking for Malcolm Kelly. I was told he was on this ward.” “Are you family?” she asks doubtfully. “His parents have just left.” “No,” I say. “Not family.” “Well, I’m afraid then, that I can’t let you in too see him. He’s just come out of surgery, he’s still sedated.” “Look,” I say. “Just five minutes? Please? I was with him you see, when…” Her eyes soften a little. “Go on then,” she says. “But just five minutes mind and don’t disturb him.” “I won’t. Thank you.” “He’s in room five.” I pause with my hand on the door handle. “Is he Ok?” I ask. “I mean, you said he was in surgery. Does that mean they were able to save his fingers?” She looks distinctly uncomfortable. “I really shouldn’t be discussing this with you.” “Please.” She sighs and picks up a clip-board from the nurse’s station. “Malcolm Kelly?” “Yes.” “They were able to save his thumb and his little finger. Unfortunately his ring finger was too badly damaged and had to be amputated. His index and middle fingers were severed too near the knuckle to re-attach. I’m sorry.” “Yeah,” I say. “So am I.” The room is dark and warm. A little light seeps through the glass in the door and through the curtains, but still it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the change in light level. Malky is lying on his back, his eyes closed, face pale. His right arm is raised in a sling which hangs from a metal frame above his bed, his hand a ball of bandages. His breathing is the only noise in the room. I stand looking at him for a while, hands in pockets, not knowing exactly why I’d come. “Don’t worry,” I say to the darkness. “We’ll make sure the bastards don’t get away with this. I’ll make sure they get nailed to the fucking wall!” I stood for a further minute and then softly, I opened the door, and gently closing it behind me, left. I didn’t go to work the next day, although I was up on time. I got up, I ate my toast in the bath, and drank my tea. I did all the things I did every morning, but when it came to leaving the house, the final link in a well worn chain, I just couldn’t do it. It was thinking of the noise of the burger machine that did it. I just wasn’t ready to hear it yet. I couldn’t even picture it in my mind’s ear without hearing Malky screaming as well. So I made myself another cup of tea and watched the hands of the clock. They crawl slowly round. Six thirty, quarter to seven, seven o’clock, and I am officially late. I put my mug down beside the unused phone, and watch as dawn’s long fingers reach through the window and feel their way across the roof. Malky’s accident should never have happened. He shouldn’t have had to endanger himself in the course of his work because of faulty equipment. The more I think about it the angrier I get. That burger machine was an accident waiting to happen. There’s no way you should have been able to see the moving parts like that, let alone have to touch a moving piece of machinery because there’s mix leaking out from under it. There should have been safety guards on that machine. In fact, that machine should have been replaced long ago. Instead of investing in a new machine the company would rather work it’s staff half to death and put their safety in danger. That’s what really pisses me off. The fact that Malky lost three of his fingers because the company refused to invest a measly few grand in a new machine. After all, how much could a new burger machine cost? I’ll tell you something; I’d bet my life it would have cost less then those brand new Mercs all the management cunts got kited out with last year. Having a nice new fleet of company cars is more important to that fat cunt Benzie and his mates than the fact my friend lost his hand yesterday. But they’ve pushed it too far this time. The health and safety people will be swarming all over that place. When they take a look at that machine the company is completely fucked. And who knows what they’ll find if they start poking around. Other unsafe equipment, rotten meat, hygiene standards in a shit state. The health and safety and maybe the police will want to talk to me, being one of the eye witnesses, and I am going to make fucking sure they don’t wriggle out of this. Benzie’s will have to pay Malky a lot of compensation, and the health and safety will force them to get their factory sorted out, they might even close them down. This thought stops me in my tracks. This could lose me my job. Half of me, more than half if I’m honest, welcomes this prospect. You hate it but you don’t have the guts to quit, a voice in my head whispers. Would you really care if they closed it down? But what about all the other factory people, I think. Hundreds of people rely on that place for a living. Not just for a living, for an identity. What would happen to them if the factory closed down? I push this thought away and think about Malky instead. Dan appears in T-shirt and boxer shorts. He looks at me, pausing in the doorway on his way to the kitchen. “Not going into work today?” he sniffs. “No,” I reply. When I don’t volunteer a reason he disappears, and a few minutes later I hear the noise of the shower. Malky was so happy about getting out of that place. He was looking forward to starting that apprenticeship so much. I suppose that’s fucked now. What use is a one handed joiner? Not much, I think. His right hand too. I pick up my packet of fags with my left hand and try to manoeuvre a fag out of it. After dropping it several times I give up and have to use two hands. Malky has escaped the factory all right, but I doubt he’s glad about it. What will he do? I don’t know, but he has a lot of compensation money coming to him. Not that that makes things better. I don’t know what he will do now but one thing is for certain. The place won’t be the same without him. I doubt the place will ever be the same again. It is only just dawn as I arrive at work. The days are shortening as the time ticks its way towards winter. Soon I’ll only see an hours worth of light a day. Winter is the worst time to work in a factory. You arrive before daybreak and leave after sunset. A vampire living in a world of artificial light. Bright white in the factory and soft orange in the streetlights, badly lit pubs and disco lights become your reality, a world of perpetual darkness. We’ll start doing turkeys soon. The run up to Christmas. The season of goodwill to all men, except those who have to spend their days stuffing dead birds into plastic freezer bags. I fucking hate turkeys. Someone has cleaned my boots and helmet. They are sitting in a neat pile in front of my locker. I’m grateful for this because I think they were both still covered in blood, although I don’t remember what I did with them when I left. I don’t remember that much about immediately after the accident. My memories seem fuzzy and intangible, as if I’d dreamed the whole thing. And now, doing something as ordinary as going to get a boiler suit and hairnet from the laundry, I have a sudden attack of paranoia, like I imagined the whole thing. What brings me back to earth are the looks people are giving me as I re-enter the changing room, which has began to fill up in my absence. People are either casting sidelong glances in my direction, or looking at me as if I have two heads and asking me if I’m ALL RIGHT. I tell them yes, I’m FINE. And there was this silence as I walked in. A sudden breaking off of conversations and the hasty and embarrassed beginning of new ones. They were talking about me. I know they were. Heart Attack Paddy comes in as I’m putting my bag in my locker. He looks coldly at me. “Mr Henderson wants to see you in his office. Now.” People are beginning to queue for clock in as he leads me across to Heinrich’s office. He grasps the door handle and motions me in then follows. What the fuck is going on, I think. I stand in front of Heinrich’s desk and Paddy leans against the door, arms folded, cutting off my escape route. Heinrich looks at me from behind his desk. “And where were you yesterday?” His tone is controlled but you can hear the menace in it, like the ripples made by a submerged crocodile. “You were absent from work without explanation, and you did not phone in. Therefore you are receiving a written warning and being docked half a day’s pay.” I stand there gape-mouthed. This is bullshit. I look at Paddy. He is regarding me silently with hard bright eyes. Heinrich continues “The health and safety people were here yesterday regarding what happened on Tuesday, and your presence was required to make a statement. Do you realise that your failure to do so was a criminal offence?” He drops the official tone a little and lets his voice soften. “Fortunately for you we argued your case and they are willing to overlook it because they were able to get statements from the other members of the burger crew.” I look back at Paddy again and he holds my gaze, something like triumph in his eyes. You bastard, I think. You’re enjoying this. They’re leaning on me and you’re enjoying it because you lost your shit when the accident happened, and showed yourself for what you really are. A useless, power crazed sidekick, who couldn’t cope in a crisis. I turn back to Heinrich again. There’s something in his eyes that is completely absent from Paddy’s. Something like shame, something that says he doesn’t want to be doing this. “Now get out,” he says. “And don’t let it happen again.” I am raging inside as I clock in. I didn’t even say anything! The conversation revolves in my head, and on each revolution I think of new things I should have said. I notice that someone clocked me out on Tuesday. Tues-: PM. - 3:05. Clocked me out just after I had left, or even while I was sitting in the smoking hut trying to light a fag soaked in my friend’s blood. Clocked me out so I wouldn’t be paid for any time I hadn’t worked. I bet it was Paddy. I find that I am shaking. Instead of ebbing away, the anger is building and simmering, like pressure rising in a steam cooker. It is a nasty shock as I am walking through the factory to hear the burger machine start up, clattering away as usual. But nothing to the shock I get as I round the corner into the burger department. The machine is not actually in action. There is an engineer conducting a test run after having just fitted a shiny new front panel. His tools are scattered on the floor. The panel is not the only thing he has fitted. There is a stainless steel mesh box covering the plate and punch, covering all the moving parts. A safety guard. I walk over to Ian who is closest to me and grab him by the arm. “What the fuck’s all this,” I bawl in his ear over the din. He looks at me and I can see a measure of my own disgust reflected in his eyes. “Safety guard,” he shouts back. “They had it in the storeroom all the time. Just never bothered to fit it.” “When did they put it on?” “Tuesday, after we had cleaned down the machine after the accident.” He suddenly stops, as if has said something he shouldn’t have. “Ian, what did you say to the health and safety people?” He won’t meet my eyes. “I just told them what happened,” he says and turns away. The noise of the machine ceases. I look along the line. They are looking at their feet, at the clock, anywhere but at me. “Right, she’s ready to go,” says the engineer. “Batch One!” Davie, who has taken Malky’s place, shouts in his whiney voice. I begin to stack but I am not in the Zone. My mind is running and re-running words. Heinrich’s, Ian’s, over and over again, until something like understanding begins to dawn. I think the morning away until I decide that I need some answers. At morning break I sit in the canteen with an uneaten black pudding buttie and watch Davie. When he gets up to go to the toilet I follow him, but another guy follows him in there so I just turn on my heel and walk away. I go to the smoking hut, smoke two fags and hold The Record up in front of my face so no one talks to me. I’m not reading the paper, I’m thinking instead. I watch Davie again at lunch time but he doesn’t go to the toilet. Then again at afternoon break. The fifteen minutes are almost up and I’m thinking that I’m never going to get him alone when he stretches, drains the dregs from his Irn Bru bottle, and makes for the door. I give him a minute, then follow. There is no one else in the toilets, Davie is stood at the urinal. I stand behind him and wait until he has done himself up before I speak. “So what did you say to the health and safety Davie?” “What the fuck are you doing in here?” he bleats. He must see something in my face because he drops the outraged tone. “None of your business,” he snaps sulkily then adds. “If you’d bothered to turn up yesterday then you could have talked to them yourself.” “Well I wasn’t here, so you can fill me in, can’t you?” “Well you should have been, where were you, at home crying I suppose?" Suddenly, so suddenly I didn’t even know I was going to do it, I’ve grabbed him by the face, not the neck but the face, and forced him back across the sinks. He squeals with fright and I dig my fingers into his cheeks as hard as I can forcing his mouth open. “What did you tell them?” I ask him in the same tone as before. He wails and I release his face and grab his boiler suit with both hands keeping him pinned there. When he speaks his voice is reedy with fright. “I only told them what I was told to!” “And what was that?” “That the guards were on there before, and Malky was reaching round them to wipe the plate!” “Why Davie, what the fuck did Malky ever do to you?” “Please, they said they’d sack me. I can’t afford to lose this job. It’s only me and my Mum in the house, she depends on the money.” I let him go, suddenly realising what I am doing. I leave without looking back. I feel cold and sick, and angry, above all angry. I go back to the factory and start the late afternoon shift. I look at them, my fellow workers. The anger burning away like acid behind my face is not directed at them anymore. I know what they did and I can understand it. I doubt if any of them can afford to lose their jobs any more than Davie can. I know what happened and I can understand their part in it, but I can’t let it drop. Malky is my friend and I can’t just stand by and let him get fucked. Tonight after work I will go to see Malky and explain things to him. Then I will contact the health and safety people, and then the police. The drive to the hospital gives me time to think. To put things in order in my head. I will have to handle this carefully. I can’t just burst in there and start telling Malky what to do. First I’ll have to gauge what kind of state he’s in. Secondly I’ll have to find out if he’s spoken to the health and safety people, or anyone from the company, and if so what he said to them. I am on autopilot, so deep in thought, that I am pulling into the hospital car park before I have consciously realised that I am in the city. I make a stop in the gift shop in the hospital foyer but find that I am at a loss as to what to buy. I dither for ages. What the fuck do you bring someone in a situation like this? In the end I settle on a get well soon card and a bunch of grapes because they seemed vaguely appropriate. The hospital smell is much stronger that the last time I was here, maybe because it’s earlier in the day. Disinfectant, sick and dying people. I go through the door to the stairwell and begin to climb, becoming part of a procession of hurrying nurses and doctors. Up four flights of stairs, then turn left and onto ward eleven. Ward eleven is not deserted as before. It’s visiting hour and the place is fairly bustling. The blonde nurse from the other night is gone, replaced at the nurse’s station by two colleagues of the middle aged frumpy variety. I make my way to Malky’s room, the door of which is now open. Just as I get there a middle-aged couple come out. A big fair haired man with hands like shovels, and a small dark woman, hair at the temples shot with grey. “Oh hello,” says the woman in a tired voice. “Are you a friend of Malcolm's?” I knew even before the woman spoke that these were Malky’s parents. Malky is the spitting image of his mother in all respects but one. The fair hair which he obviously inherited from his father. “Yes,” I say and tell them my name. “Malcolm told us about you, you’re his friend from work aren’t you? He told us that you were there when… he told us you tried to help.” She looks as if she is on the verge of tears. His father puts one huge hand on my shoulder. “We want to thank you,” he says. “We want to thank you for trying to help our boy. It was a terrible thing that, but accidents happen, life has to go on. We never know what the good lord has in store for us, and for what purpose. Still though, at least he knows he’ll have a job waiting for him when he gets better, and that’s the main thing.” He pats me on the shoulder and gives me a strained smile. “We won’t keep you, we’ll let you go in now. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.” He put his arm around his wife and led her away along the corridor. So Malky’s going to get his apprenticeship after all. At least, that’s what it sounds like from what his dad said. My heart lightens a bit as I go in. I am really, really pleased for him. I take a deep breath and push open the door. The room is brightly lit. There are get well soon cards and a bottle of Lucozade on the bedside table, as well as two bunches of grapes. There is a TV affixed to the wall opposite the bed, softly babbling nonsense to itself. The air is warm and still. The curtains hang, drab and listless, either side of the window. Night presses its face against the glass like an interested spectator. Malky is lying limply stretched on the bed, in a T-shirt and trackie bottoms. His bandaged hand, no longer in the sling, is lying across his stomach. When he sees me he gives me a grin which tries for bravado but falls a few strained inches short. “Alright?” he says. “Not bad,” I reply. There are a few seconds of awkward silence, as have never entered our conversation before. “How’s the hand?” I ask and instantly regret approaching the subject in such a clumsy manner. He seems not to mind though. He looks down at it and holds the wad of bandages up for my inspection. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.” He looks away from his hand back at me. “They’re giving me antibiotics to stop any infection. Painkillers too. Still hurts through.” I nod. I bet it does. He carries on. “It’s weird though, the pain isn’t the worst thing. It’s a sort of dull pain, you know, like a sort of low-level tooth ache. No, it’s the itching, that’s the bad thing. It itches all the fucking time. The doctors keep telling me that it’s a good sign, it means the stump,” I notice with distress that he has difficulty saying the word. He pauses and takes a sip from the bottle of Lucozade on the bedside table. “It means the stump is healing. They said I should be happy it’s itching, they said if it wasn’t itching then I’d be in real trouble. I just keep saying, happy it’s itching, shows what the fuck you know.” He chuckles but it isn’t convincing. There are lines in his face that weren’t there when he came to work, laughing on Tuesday morning. His face looks like an old man’s. There are deep creases along the sides of his mouth and on his forehead. His skin looks waxy and yellow. I give him the card and the grapes. “Thanks,” he says. He seems to be highly amused when he sees the grapes, and for a moment the old Malky is back. “If I eat anymore of these I’m going to turn into a grape,” he laughs putting my bunch beside the two others. “I’ve already eaten one bunch today.” He holds up the knotty skeleton for me to see. He hasn’t mentioned anything about his apprenticeship, or the health and safety people. As if reading my mind, he looks at me out of the corner of his eye and says. “I had some visitors yesterday.” “Oh, yeah,” I say, wondering at the nasty sense of alarm beginning to crawl in the pit of my stomach. “Yeah,” he continues. “Jack Benzies and Heinrich and a couple of the other managers came to see me.” A long and uncomfortable silence hangs in the air. “They guaranteed me a job when I get better. They said that even thought the accident was my fault, they would take care of me. Give me a job for life, a better job, promoted to stockman in the despatch department, and a goodwill payment of twenty-thousand pounds.” I am speechless. Absolutely fucking dumbstruck. “But Malky,” I finally sputter. “The accident wasn’t your fault.” “Failure to observe safety guidelines. That’s what they said.” “Fuck sake! It’s a fucking stitch up, can’t you see that? They’re at fault and they’re trying to cover their own arses. Twenty thousand? That’s fucking bullshit! Go to the health and safety, you’ll get ten times that! At fucking least! Plus they’ll nail those fuckers for what they did to you, put the cunts out of business!” “Do you think I don’t know that?” He’s angry, the frustration and pain flash in his eyes. “Do you really think I hadn’t figured that out? But what the fuck else am I supposed to do? My apprenticeship is down the fucking pan! Don’t you get it? I’m a fucking cripple! Benzies will employ me because they have to, but no cunt else will. Ok, I take them to court and get a big payment, but what then? Sit around the house all day everyday, a fucking invalid? Watching TV, trying to do fucking jigsaws with my fucking shitty left hand?” There are tears in his eyes now and he’s shaking with anger. “At least this way I’ve got a job, at least this way I’m not useless, a spare part. And anyway you think I don’t want the bastards to be punished? But what Benzies said was probably true enough. I probably was ignoring safety guidelines.” “Malky, they had safety guards lying at the back of the storeroom, they just never bothered to put them on. I’ve seen them, they fitted them the day of your accident,” I plead. He just shrugs and looks away. When he speaks again all the anger is gone from his voice. All the fight has left him, broken resignation all that remains. “So what?” he says wearily. “If I go to the health and safety, yes, they might close the place down and I’d get my revenge, but what about everybody else? Everyone in the factory would lose their job. I can’t do it. I couldn’t live with myself.” After a while he rouses himself and looks back at me. “No, he says, I’m going to take the offer. I could use the twenty grand to put the deposit on a house.” He gives me a watery smile. The worst thing is of course, that he is right. We talk a while longer. He asks how everybody else on the line is getting on. “They’re fine,” I say. “Send their best wishes. They’ve got a card and they’re getting everybody to sign it. Having a whip round too.” I don’t know if this is actually the case, but I will make fucking sure it is when I get back. When I get up to leave he says. “You’ll come back and see me again won’t you?” “Course I will,” I say. “Course I will.” It is with a heavy heart that I walk back across the car park and unlock the door of my car. They’ve won, I think. All my anger is gone, like pus lanced from a boil. I just feel tired. They’ve got their heads off the chopping block, all for a measly twenty grand. They took Malky’s hand and tossed him a few scraps from the table to make up for it. They didn’t just take his hand though, they took his future, they took his life away. That wasn’t a deal they gave him. It was a life sentence. Malky will never escape from Benzies now. He will have enough money to put the deposit on a house close enough to the factory to get to work quickly everyday. With maybe enough left over to get himself a car to drive to and from the factory. The mortgage on his house, along with his hand, will mean that he can never leave. More locks, more bars on the cage. They’ve got him, body and soul for the rest of his life. The people on the line don’t want to fight them, Malky doesn’t want to fight them. It’s not my place to fight them, when it’ll fuck things up for Malky. It is not my place to go against his wishes, despite what I know to be right. They’ve got us, every one of us in an interlocking prison. They’ve won and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do about it. Two months pass and things stay, more or less, the same.
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