Pills

The woman took the kettle from its stand and filled it. The shiny chrome tap from IKEA, the shiny steel sink from B&Q, she gazed through the window at a world she could not feel. Her mind did not connect.

She lowered her eyes to the tap head and saw the water in the kettle rushing up, seemingly magnified, like a torrent. Calmly she turned off the flow of water, her hand stretching away from her.

She replaced the kettle on its stand and flicked the switch. The small brown plastic bottle stood next to the cup. She picked it up and unclicked the cap.

The pale green and turquoise capsules tumbled from the bottle mouth into her waiting palm, so slowly and gently and then so suddenly still. She tipped them into her mouth and held them carefully under her tongue, so as not to taste them.

Over by the fridge was a bottle of Evian. The kitchen was not huge but it seemed to take an age to reach it. She unscrewed the cap and took three or four slugs, washing the capsules down.

The water in the kettle began to simmer, making that hissing noise like static on the radio. She looked through the window again, at her car parked in the street.

Suddenly she was in the hall, putting her coat on, pulling her hat onto her head. She wrapped her scarf round her neck and pulled her car keys from the hook. They sat in her hand, where the pills had been moments before. She gazed down at them and tried to remember.

Something wasn’t right, but her thinking was too dull. Her mind had been sublet.

She must have stood there for some minutes. The kettle had boiled and begun to cool when the clatter of the free newspaper coming through the door woke her.

She looked at the keys in her hand, then moved her eyes around the periphery of her vision. She was in the hall with her coat and hat on, her scarf wound round her neck.

Slowly she placed the keys back on the hook and removed her coat, hat and scarf. She went back into the kitchen and flicked the switch on the kettle again.

She saw the brown plastic bottle with its cap removed on the side next to the cup. She touched the rim of the bottle mouth with one finger and tried to remember.

The kettle clicked off. Her face was wet. She poured the boiling water from the kettle into the cup, watching as the brownness of the tea bled into the water, gradually staining it completely. She looked at the bottle again. Her mind was too dull.

She pulled a teaspoon from the cutlery drainer (steel, cylindrical, from IKEA) and stirred the teabag around the cup. She brought milk from the fridge, noting that the Evian bottle did not have its cap on.

She made her tea, watching the open-mouthed pill bottle as she did so. She wished she could remember.

A banging on the window made her jump. It was her neighbour from across the way. She waved and smiled at her from the outside looking in, then pointed towards the front door.

She walked through to the hall and opened the door.

“Hello, love!” her neighbour said.

“Hello,” she replied, a little dully.

Her neighbour proffered a parcel.

“Here. The postman delivered this to ours, but it’s for you.”

She took the package and stared down at it.

“Thanks.”

“That’s all right, love. Anyway, I’d best be off.”

She looked up. Carole. That was the woman’s name. Carole.

“Thanks, Carole,” she said.

“Okay, love, bye!”

Her neighbour was already heading down the path as she spoke. Carole. She was glad that she had remembered her name.

She closed the door and placed the parcel on the arm of the settee just inside the living room.

She went back into the kitchen and saw the cup of tea, steaming on the side. The brown plastic pill bottle was open beside it. She picked it up and shook out two of the pale green and turquoise capsules. She swallowed them down with a mouthful of hot tea which burned her gullet. She turned round and saw the open Evian bottle. She took a few mouthfuls straight from the bottle to cool her angered throat, and felt better for it.

She looked through from the kitchen to the dining room and the french windows. A squirrel was sitting on the fence watching her, frozen. She looked away briefly, thinking of something else, trying to remember, and when she looked back, the squirrel had gone.

She picked up her cup of tea and saw that the pill bottle was uncapped. She put her cup down again, her hand stretching away from her. She took the pill bottle and replaced the cap, then looked at it, trying to remember. Her mind would not connect.

She took her cup of tea and went towards the living room. She saw the package on the arm of the settee and picked it up. It had a central Manchester postmark. She stared at it for a few moments, taking occasional drinks of her tea. There was something in her mind. Some memory. A slow blooming of red and orange and yellow. A blooming that was not flowers. A slow blooming and then blackness.

She took the parcel into the living room and placed it carefully on the coffee table. If John were here he would know what it meant. She drank some tea.

The pills were slowing her mind, she knew that. They were dulling something, some memory. The doctor asked her how she was feeling and then wrote out another prescription. More pills. More pale green and turquoise capsules to stop her feeling life. She felt like she had fallen into a deep hole. Nothing touched her, her mind would not connect. She wished she knew what mattered.

John was gone. She could not remember where. They had been shopping in Manchester. Only to Market Street, the Arndale, M&S. If John would come back, she knew things would make sense again. And she could stop taking those pills.

She looked at the package. It wasn’t very big. About 30 by 20 by 10 centimetres. Wrapped in brown paper, different coloured stamps across the top right corner, a central Manchester postmark.

She could not remember if she had ordered anything recently. At 32, she had the feeling, she ought to be able to do better than this.

She finished her tea. It was 3 o’clock. She put her empty cup in the kitchen and went into the hall. She took her coat from the rack and shrugged it on. Again she wrapped her scarf round her neck and pulled her hat on, then took her car keys from the hook.

She drove. She was on the A34, Kingsway. She passed the familiar turning at the lights onto School Lane, that led over to Northenden. She and John had lived in Northenden when they first married. She wished he would come home. They could go back there, it would all be all right again.

A car horn sounded and she swerved back onto her side of the road. Her mind was dull. She had the feeling that she should not really be driving. The houses, big semi-detached Didsbury houses, where she had always wanted to live, flashed by on either side of her.

The parcel was on the passenger seat. She did not remember bringing it out of the house with her. She tried not to think of the red and orange and yellow blooms that filled part of her memory.

She was at the lights near the multiplex. She turned right and into the Tesco car park. The pills weren’t doing her any good, she was sure, but she was scared to stop taking them. She didn’t want to remember.

She remembered that she and John had met in Dublin. Had slept together in a room that smelled of cigarettes. She had heard a car alarm going off in the street as he slept beside her, his hair curling into his neck, his fist curled against the pillow.

She remembered that he had come back to Manchester with her, and they had married soon after. They bought a terraced house on Chapel Road, hidden away at the back of Northenden. She remembered them driving round the area for a day, checking out every street until they found the house they wanted. She remembered John telling her it was important to live somewhere with good motorway access and not too far from the airport. He travelled a lot with his job.

She remembered these things because they were safe memories. Anything after that shopping trip into Manchester, though, she could not remember. Just that she had gone into the Corn Exchange, which John hated with its junkshop mentality, and he had gone back to the car. He was going to pick her up on Cross Street. But he never did. She had not seen him again.

She remembered the blooms of red and orange and yellow.

She was in the Tesco café now. Somehow she must have parked and made her way into the store. She had her hands round a cup of tea and was watching the shoppers through the window, collecting their trolleys and making their way to the store entrance. Thursday was obviously pensioner day at East Didsbury Tesco. She drank her tea.

She took a basket with her into the store and wandered up and down the aisles. She knew she must have come for something, but she could not remember what. She passed the fish counter twice, with its display of gaping mouths and glassy eyes. The shelf-stackers milled around, smart in their uniform of blue checked shirt and dark trousers.

Her basket was empty and she decided to leave. She drove calmly onto the M60 and home.

Her forgotten package lay unnoticed under the Tesco café table, where it detonated at 6.15 p.m. The café had closed for the evening, but the destruction of the store was complete.

She watched the story on the news. Her mind would not connect, but she knew that she had been there only hours earlier. She shook two pale green and turquoise capsules from the brown plastic bottle, to help submerge the memory of the red and orange and yellow blossoms.

She wished she could find what mattered.

© J R Hargreaves 2002