Andrew J. Kingston

1980

North Sea

 

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Last time McGrahey was in, he coughed so hard he had to put his hand up to make sure his left ear didn’t fall off. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. Certainly, it – the ear - wobbled in a way that suggested it was about to fall off, or that it was having trouble hanging on.

 

McGrahey’s red blotch rattle and the spare room in his clothing both indicated poor health, though at the exact nano-second his ear looked as if it was about to detach itself from its mooring, his reactions snapped in. He clapped the side of his head, hard, then sat back as if nothing had happened, staring at the cup in front of him. It reminded me of nature documentaries and lizards slupping flies from the air around them. McGrahey had looked tense and forbidding. A couple of minutes passed, then his chair scraped. I didn’t see him leave, and all that remained of him was an empty cigarette packet.

 

“That was old McGrahey,” Sarah told me when she came on shift, in a snatch of conversation between clanking teacups, heavy plates of farty vegetables and whizzing slips, fish slices, squeaking soles, toasties, kitchen porters and filthy flashing tea towels.

 

“And you’re telling me his ear fell off?”

 

“That’s what it looked like,” I replied. “It didn’t actually fall off, but, well. It was close.”

 

My voice was swallowed by the roar of the ‘wash-up’ gnashing and shrieking into a new cycle behind me, and a waiter expertly swishing a teetering pile of plates down in front of us.

 

********

 

The early shift disappeared into the early afternoon. On the day McGrahey’s ear nearly fell off, Sarah brandished a dishcloth at the exhausted members of the departing team, relieved at their imminent release from work, smoking and talking about that evening’s or the previous evening’s football.

 

“He worked for years in a light vessel. Courtbank Number Two, off the north east coast. A boat moored in the middle of nowhere, occasionally setting off deafening, sea-shaking sirens when ships got close. Not a job I’d want.”

 

“Sorry?” I asked.

 

“McGrahey,” Sarah replied. “And you wouldn’t want the job either,” she said, working her dishcloth and looking up from the worktop.

 

“Courtbank Number Two’s notorious, slap bang in the middle of vicious currents, and in a really bad area for fog.”

 

She straightened up before setting to again, buffing and re-scattering crumbs, disturbing but never quite removing traces of sticky plates and grey-brown tea stains.

 

“The siren’s so loud, everything on the vessel is either thrown off or ends up like a knickerbocker shake. The crew’s changed every two weeks or so. No one can stand it for any longer than that.”

 

********

 

McGrahey’s back, up towards the front of the café, staring over a newspaper, sipping scalding tea, wearing a huge Pudsey Bear bandage and looking in even worse shape than he did yesterday. His mouth fizzes white stains in the corners, and he’d wobbled while taking his tea to his table.

 

He’s the only one in. There’s just him and me, in this vast, unpretentious dining room. Acting purely on a whim, I walk over to his table. I take him looking up as a sign of encouragement, and sit down.

 

“Nice day,” I say.

 

McGrahey seizes up. His cup hovers above his saucer as if he’s waiting for judgement or an instruction to continue. I wish I hadn’t bothered him, but it’s too late.

 

“Hope the tea’s ok,” I say.

 

“If it’s not, let me know. If you want me to put an extra tea bag in. It’s no problem.”

 

McGrahey looks up, momentarily distracted, before evidently dismissing me and settling back over his paper, reading and making small, jerky, fast movements.

 

“Lovely out,” I try again.

 

He starts coughing. It’s not as bad as yesterday, but nonetheless, he convulses, twitches and shakes. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve, and it seems like he’s caught breath, but then he starts over again, hacking and shaking and turning a livid purple.

 

I try to spare us both further embarrassment by looking onto the table directly between us, but the un-bandaged side of his face is a roiling, bursting scarlet. His coughing is furious, as if he’s winding himself up to try and banish all coughs; as if he’s trying to use his life’s quota, here and now, and get it all over and done with. The occasional false stops only serve to feed the cough and give it more energy.

 

Just as it finally seems he’s being let off the hook, there’s a tentative silence, which hangs, until there’s a horrendous popping, slurpy noise, and whatever he’s eating lands on the table with a soft, sick sounding ‘thud’.

 

I stare down and realise; McGrahey didn’t order any food. What I’m looking at – what’s just fallen on to the table immediately in front of him - isn’t a piece of his dinner, but his nose, stark, bristly and slightly rubbery.

 

McGrahey starts coughing again, and even as I’m trying to decide how I can help, his nose is joined by an ear. I look up at the frightening, hilarious face opposite. The bandage slips to show a livid red distortion, but even so, McGrahey looks me in the eye, embarrassed and apologetic. It’s as if he’s looking to escape and wondering whether or not to take his bits and pieces with him. He tries to raise his hand to cover his mouth, but one by one, in fairly quick succession, his fingers swell, just for a second, then fall off. The ring finger makes an especially sharp clatter and bounces when it hits the table.

 

There’s a mess on the table, but I’m not concerned, just aghast and horrified. Without looking anywhere else, McGrahey takes a deep breath, picks up his right hand fingers with his left, and puts them, and his nose and ear, into a bag.

 

“Good day,” he says after gulping the rest of his tea.

 

His chair pushes back. There a few dusty marks and some dry skin on the table. The air smells wonderfully clear through the door as it swings closed.