‘Your friend is very ill, Ms Andressen. I’m certain it’s Covid but we’ll need confirmation. The lab we’re using has an eight-hour turnaround. By midnight, we’ll know for sure. You have questions for me?’
I ask about the nurses. First, he says, a technician will call to instal specialized bedside equipment. This is someone he evidently uses regularly, and he’ll also be handling the oxygen supply. Mr H, he says, will need constant monitoring and changes of position if he’s to be spared the ventilator. These, alas, are hard to acquire, and only H’s own immune system will keep him out of hospital, so the challenge now is to give him a fighting chance.
A fighting chance. It’s a phrase that H would normally love and I make a mental note to try and remember it.
‘And the nurses?’ I ask again.
‘They’ll be with you shortly. The first shift will last until midnight. These people are highly skilled and most of them are foreign but they all speak good English. They’ll bring their own food but you might like to supply them with drinks. Make sure everything is disinfected all the time.’ A crinkle around his eyes suggests a smile. ‘Please.’
I nod. Malo’s right. This man is seriously impressive. He’s polite, organized, and – unlike me – appears to be completely unflustered. So efficient, I think, so reassuring. A quarter of a million pounds? A bargain.
At the door of the flat, still in his PPE, Mr Wu gives me a private phone number and invites me to call night or day if I need to. He lives locally and can be with me within ten minutes. In the meantime, with another courtly little bow, he tells me not to worry. Covid’s only interest lies in multiplication, the most primitive of urges, and we’re to hope that H’s immune system will see it off.
With that parting shot, he disappears downstairs. From the living-room window, I watch him cross the road and pause beside his car to take off the PPE. Moments later, still gowned and masked, I’m back beside H.
Mr Wu, it seems, has perked him up a little. A limp wave of his hand invites me to sit on the bed. His other hand masks yet another bout of coughing and he takes a moment to catch his breath. Then he shakes his head, a seeming gesture of despair.
‘What’s the matter?’ I’m alarmed.
His tongue flicks out, moistening his lips. Then he manages to force a smile.
‘Some Scummer taking a look at that swab of mine? Hard to credit, eh?’
He’s talking about the Southampton laboratory where the swabs have gone. I reach for his hand. It’s damp to my touch. For the first time, it’s occurred to me that all this might be my fault, that I had a brief passing tussle with the virus those few days I was ill, and that I infected H the first time I shared the flat with him. This is a horrible thought. True or not, it makes me feel worse than guilty.
I gaze down at him for a moment. His eyes have closed but when I give his hand a little squeeze, a smile ghosts across his face. Then he starts coughing again, turning his head away.
‘It’s going to be fine,’ I whisper. ‘We’ll all get through this.’
TEN
From that day onwards, Thursday 2 April, our lives cease to be our own. Mr Wu decides not to wait for the swab test to confirm Covid, and within half an hour of his departure, a new-looking minibus delivers a bevy of nurses on to the pavement outside the flat. Two of them, both women, are Polish. The third announces himself as Sri Lankan.
Like Mr Wu, they quietly take charge while Malo and I lurk helplessly on the edges of this new world which seems, almost magically, to have appeared from nowhere. The older of the two Polish women, Ela, must once have been very beautiful and the sight of her face, still striking, at H’s bedside sparks a definite reaction. She conducts a brief examination of H’s bottom sheet, which is dark with sweat, and shakes her head. The nurses have brought armfuls of fresh bed linen, and with the help of the Sri Lankan, she gives H an all-over wash before getting rid of the dirty sheet.
The Sri Lankan, whose name is Sunil, is a slight, gentle man with an enchanting smile. He’s young, still in his twenties, and he has the most beautiful hands I think I’ve ever seen: long, slender fingers, perfectly shaped nails, and a single silver ring on his left thumb. Slight he may be, but his physical strength is astonishing. I’m still in full PPE and offer to help with H, but he won’t hear of it.
‘Ways and means, Ms Andressen.’ His English is excellent. ‘Life is all technique, quoi?’
‘You speak French?’
‘Un peu, oui.’
He rolls H over and begins to wash his bottom. The third nurse, meanwhile, is clearing a space beside the bed. Her name is Marysia, and she senses my curiosity.
‘We need room for the machinery, Ms Andressen, and for the oxygen. Many leads. Many switches. Then we can keep your friend here safe.’
Safe.
I believe them all. I believe Mr Wu, and now the small army of assistants – so competent, so undramatic – he’s put together. As a demonstration of the sheer power of private medicine, or perhaps money, this can’t fail to impress. H is in good hands. We can ask for no more.
The oxygen and the array of bedside equipment arrive soon afterwards. I’m trying, without success, to get through to Wesley Kane, and I abandon the call to watch Malo lending the guy a hand to carry the heavier items up six flights of stairs. They’re both wearing full PPE, their faces bathed in sweat behind the plastic visors, and when I query the need for nine big cylinders of oxygen, the technician in charge tells me they always plan for emergencies.
‘Most patients need around ten litres a minute,’ he says. ‘One of these cylinders contains three thousand four hundred and fifty-five litres. That’s nearly six hours of constant use. Getting hold of this stuff is already a problem. What happens if we run out?’
Good point, I think. While the technician stacks the big cylinders in a corner of the front room, I turn away and try Wesley Kane again. This time he picks up.
‘You,’ he says.
‘Me,’ I agree.
Wesley and I go back a while. He’s in his early forties, like me, but looks a lot younger. An old flame of H’s once described him as ‘sex on legs’, a tribute to all those hours he puts in at the gym, and I know that many women find him irresistible. He’s half-white, half-Jamaican, and his wild Afro and knowing smile have opened many doors, but there was always another side to Mr Kane that won H’s attention from the moment they met.
The truth, sadly, is that Wesley Kane is a sadist, a psychopath. He loves hurting people, either to punish them or extract information, and over the years, H has used him for both. This complicity has disturbed me greatly from time to time, but Wesley can be surprisingly good company – warm and companionable – and he’s always looked after me.
Now, on the phone, he’s suggesting a meet.
‘Where?’ I ask at once.
‘Not here. Not in the state you’re in.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Infected. Carrying. A mate of mine got it the week before last. You should see the state of him. Believe me, you’ll do anything to keep this fucker at arm’s length.’
I find myself nodding at the phone. H, I think. Prostrate next door, newly washed, coughing his life away.
‘Where, then? And when?’
Wesley has a think. When he suggests the end of South Parade Pier, I assume he’s joking.
‘You don’t know the pier? It’s on legs. It sticks out into the sea. Even in the dark, you can’t miss it. Eleven o’clock, at the very end. I’m the guy in the black tracksuit. Mr Invisible.’
Night falls. We don’t live in a dossy old borrowed flat anymore but a busy hospital ward. Mr Wu’s nurses track back and forth, unpacking extension leads, helping the tech guy with his equipment, asking me whether we mind them using the fridge to store their juice (we don’t). Malo, suddenly without a role, has retreated to the comforts of mass shootouts and gang rape, thanks to GTA, while I collapse on the sofa to enjoy my now-daily date with the Portsmouth News.
The stories
on offer are as beguiling as ever. How to sanitize your bank cards with neat vodka. A Pompey window cleaner running 417 laps of his shared private driveway to raise money for the NHS. This news agenda offers a very distinctive take on what Boris Johnson is now calling ‘our national emergency’ and my jaw drops yet again as Doorway Discos sweep the city and a seventy-three-year-old retiree is jailed for assaulting his partner.
It’s at this point that I realize that I really am starting to warm to the rough old community that has so suddenly taken me hostage. Academics call this reaction ‘Stockholm syndrome’, and in the light of the Google description – ‘feelings of trust or affection felt in many cases of kidnapping or hostage-taking by a victim towards a captor’ – it sounds pretty apt. Pompey, I’m beginning to realize, is a seriously quirky proposition, and if I need proof then I need look no further than our precious jigsaw.
Despite a life at stake, and medics everywhere, it’s still down there on the carpet, untouched, sacrosanct, a moment of history awaiting completion. The nurses and the tech guy step carefully around it. Malo hunts half-heartedly for a particular piece when GTA starts to pall. But nobody dares tidy it all up and give ourselves a bit more space. Should this duty fall to me? Should I be the one to break this weird spell and put Lord Nelson back in his box? The answer, emphatically, is no. Already these fragments of a long-ago spilling of Pompey blood have acquired the status of an icon. Next, we’ll be pausing beside it to cross ourselves, but for now I must shed my PPE and meet Wesley Kane.
He’s waiting, as promised, at the end of South Parade Pier. Normally, you’d never find me alone at night in circumstances like these but I have enormous faith in Wesley’s ability to keep me intact, and if I feel any real threat it comes from the weather. Despite wall-to-wall sunshine all day, it’s bitterly cold now and already I’m regretting my choice of a light anorak.
At first, alone on the wooden planking, I think Wesley has – for once – stood me up, but then I sense a movement in the darkness. With it comes the faintest intake of breath, the tell-tale sign of physical exercise, and finally a figure appears. Wesley wasn’t kidding about the black tracksuit, but for a moment I’m baffled by whatever else he’s wearing. At first glance it looks like some kind of harness, thick stitched webbing that trails down to the two daubs of white that are his Nikes.
‘Resistance exercise bands,’ he explains. ‘Twenty-nine quid a shot on Amazon.’
These, it turns out, have taken up the slack after closure of the city’s gyms. Think big elastic bands. You hook one end to something solid, in this case a cast-iron bench, and then lunge into the darkness. Uninvited, Wesley shows me how, ever careful to keep his distance. I get the theory, but I tell him he needs more practice on the moves. Does it work? I take his word for it. Is it a good look for someone as vain as Wesley? Sadly not.
He sheds the harness and nods at the railings that fence the end of the pier.
‘Two metres?’ We’re strolling across.
‘Three,’ he grunts.
Being out here in the open appears to be important. Wesley, I suspect, has thought one move ahead for most of his life and even now, under lockdown, with not a living soul around, the usual rules apply. The world is always listening, he once told me. Keep your eyes peeled. And be very careful what you say. Wesley, sadly, has been in lockdown all his life.
‘This is about H?’ I’m starting to shiver.
‘Yeah. He’s near skint. Has he told you that?’
‘No, but Malo did.’
‘He knows? The boy?’
‘I think he’s picked up a clue or two. He’s brighter than you might think.’
Wesley says nothing. He’s always regarded Malo as a spoiled brat and has never bothered to look harder.
‘You talked to him today?’ I ask. ‘H?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘A quarter of a million quid for the meds and the care? Am I right?’
‘You are. Assuming he survives.’
‘That bad?’
‘That bad.’
Wesley nods, but says nothing. Across the Solent I can see the lights of a town. A couple of days ago, when he was a different man, H told me it was Ryde, on the Isle of Wight.’
‘H always has little projects on the go.’ Wesley at last breaks the silence. ‘He calls them prospects. Way back in the day, he was exactly the same. That’s how all this shit kicked off.’
‘Shit?’
‘Gear. The marching powder. Money. Bent Filth like Fat Dave. Flixcombe. Credit to H, he was never wrong. He’d come up with some name or other, a contact or a phone number in Aruba, and we’d all be looking the fucking place up, wondering what he was on about and where the fuck it was, but do you know something? Whatever he did, whatever happened, he was always on the money.’ He nods, emphatic, almost sombre. ‘And it usually happened quick, too, because these things always do. Talk big enough sums, put the noughts in the right place, and you’d be amazed what goes down. H was a legend that way. He never thought small. He never lost his nerve, not once. And that’s why we all ended up with a quid or two in our pockets.’
A quid or two. Watching Wesley roll himself a thin doobie, I’m wondering whether he was on the trip to Disneyland.
‘And now?’ I ask. ‘Are we talking another prospect? Or is that something I’ve imagined?’
‘No, you’re right. It’s the old dance, isn’t it? Motive, first. Need, greed, whatever.’
‘Desperation?’ I suggest. ‘The man’s dying in front of our eyes.’
‘OK, that’ll do nicely. He suddenly has to lay hands on a lot of money otherwise he’ll end up with the rest of the world in ICU. And judging from what he told me about Fat Dave, that ain’t gonna happen.’
‘It won’t,’ I confirm. ‘I was there. I saw the Skype conversation. Cynthia was trying to say goodbye. Part of Dave didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but the rest did. H got it. We both got it. And Cynthia got it too, poor woman. This virus is cruel, Wes. It’s unforgiving. It doesn’t care who it kills or how they die, just as long as there’s another victim waiting in line. H gets that, as well, and it scares him. Not an easy thing to do.’
Wesley nods, conceding the point, just a hint of respect.
‘H wants back in the game,’ he says softly. ‘He says he’s got a rainy-day fund, money he’s never touched, dosh he’s been saving for a time like this.’
‘How much?’
‘A hundred and fifty grand. Enough to make an investment or two. H has been out of the loop for a long time now. He’s got Flixcombe, you, the boy. He doesn’t need Aruba and all that grief. Or at least he didn’t.’
‘And now?’
‘Now’s different. You’re right, he thinks he’s dying. And that’s a serious proposition.’
I lean out over the rail, numb with cold now, staring down at the blackness of the water swirling around the rusting piles that hold the pier up. My lovely dead friend Pavel would hijack this metaphor at once: generations of instant fun that make piers what they are – slot machines, games arcades, cut-price bars, greasy burgers – all condemned to a slow death by sheer neglect. The country, Pavel would point out, has also run out of money. And so everything, including H, is heading for collapse.
Maybe, I think. But maybe not. I look up again, leaning back from the rail, meeting Wesley’s gaze.
‘You’ve got a job for me,’ I say tonelessly. ‘I can tell.’
‘H has got a job for you.’
‘You want me to go and talk to somebody?’
‘You’re right. We do.’
‘Does he have a name? This guy?’
‘She. She has a name. Her real name is unpronounceable. H couldn’t get his tongue around it, and neither can I.’
‘So, what do you call her?’
‘She answers to Shanti. She runs a restaurant in Gunwharf – or used to until last week. I talked to her earlier this evening. She’s expecting a call.’
‘F
rom?’
‘You.’
To his credit, Wesley has devoted a bit of thought to this date of ours. He knew I’d rise to H’s bait, and now we need to toast this new adventure of ours. He bends to his man sack and produces two bottles. At least one is wine.
‘Why two?’
‘Guess.’
‘I’m that infectious?’
‘Of course you fucking are. That’s part of your charm. H always said you were irresistible, and he’s right.’
‘That was one night,’ I protest. ‘And I was blind drunk.’
‘Makes no difference. Here …’
He produces a corkscrew and attends to the wine. I hear the soft pop of the cork, and then he’s offering it to me at arm’s length. I try and squint at the label but it’s hard reading in the dark.
‘It’s a Gran Reserva,’ Wesley says. ‘From 1982. H insisted I took advice.’
I’m impressed. 1982 was a matchless year for Rioja. A hundred pounds at least. Probably more.
‘And does a girl get a glass, as well?’
‘Afraid not. I forgot.’ He makes a playful little gesture with the bottle.
‘Are you propositioning me?’
‘Yeah? Is that the come-on?’
‘Absolutely not. For one thing, exercise freaks bore me to death. For another, H would kill us both.’
‘He might not be around.’
‘He will, Wesley. And it’s our job to make that happen. OK? We understand each other?’ I’m trying very hard to be stern and I think it’s working because Wes, sensibly, decides to tell me a little more about Shanti.
‘She’s a piece of work,’ he says. ‘She’s a big woman, huge bum on her. Dave Munroe would have creamed himself.’
‘And?’
‘She was partnered to some guy in London before she came down here. They fell out over fuck knows what, but she scored a decent settlement and bought the restaurant out of the proceeds.’
Intermission Page 9
