by Stephen Fry
Martin came out into the sunlight, blinking. He approached Ned with a smile.
‘You waiting for Babe, I suppose?’
‘Of course,’ replied Ned.
‘You wait long time then. Babe had some heart attack last night. Babe is in his bed dying right now.’
Ned sprang to his feet and grabbed Martin by the coat.
‘Hey, Thomas! You let go. You want to be strapped up in punishment cell?’
‘Take me to him!’ Ned yelled. ‘Take me to him right now.’
‘I don’t take you to nobody,’ Martin sneered. ‘Who you think you are? You don’t tell me orders. I tell you orders.’
Ned let go of Martin’s collar and started to smoothe it down placatingly. ‘Please, Martin,’ he said. ‘Try to understand. Babe is everything to me. He is my father, my brother and my only friend. We are like . . . we are like you and Henrik.’ Ned gestured towards where a young newly-arrived Swede was sat trembling and hugging his knees in a basket-chair at the other end of the room. ‘You and Henrik, how close you are. How wonderful it is. It is the same with Babe and me. You understand don’t you? You do understand. I know Dr Mallo would understand. He would want me to be with Babe now, I am sure of it.’
Martin’s eyes narrowed and then dropped. ‘I let you see Babe, you don’t go talking bad things about me to Dr Mallo?’
‘Never, Martin. Never would I say bad things about you to Dr Mallo. You are my friend, Martin. My good friend.’
Ned allowed Martin to lead him to the hospital wing. It took him past Mallo’s office and into a corridor down which he had never been before.
Babe was the only patient in the small four-bed ward. Lying on his back with a tube up his nose, he seemed shrunken and old. Ned knelt by his bed and looked at the face he loved so deeply.
‘Babe,’ he whispered, ‘Babe, it’s Thomas.’
‘I come back half an hour,’ said Martin, closing and locking the door. ‘You go then. Not see Babe again.’
Ned could see the thick orbs of Babe’s eyeballs rolling under the loosened skin of his eyelids.
‘Ned?’ The name came out in a whispered breath.
Ned took a hand. ‘It’s me,’ he said, tears starting to roll down his face. ‘Babe, you can’t leave me. You mustn’t leave me. Please . . . please . . . I’ll go mad. I know I’ll go mad.’ His voice cracked and he gave a huge sob. ‘Babe! Oh Christ, Babe! I will kill myself if you go. I swear to Christ I will.’
Babe pushed out his blackened tongue and passed it over dry and flaking lips. ‘I am dying,’ he said. ‘They will pack me in a box in the room next to this. I heard them talking when I woke up an hour ago. They will seal me in a crate and take me to the mainland where I will be certified dead, nailed into a coffin and sent home. They will burn me in England.’
‘Please don’t talk like this,’ the tears were dropping from Ned’s face onto the bedsheets.
‘We have half an hour, no more,’ whispered Babe, ‘so you must listen to me. In sixty-nine I was preparing to leave England. They caught me before I could leave and they brought me here, but they never guessed what I had been up to.’
‘Babe, please! You’re working yourself up . . .’
‘If you don’t listen,’ Babe took Ned’s hand and gripped it hard, ‘I shall die here and now!’ he hissed. ‘Be silent for once and listen. They took me before I could escape. But I had taken money. I knew the account numbers, dozens of them. I remembered them all. I funnelled and finagled them, united them all into one grand account. Here, take it, take it!’
Babe opened the hand that had been grasping Ned’s. A small fold of paper was clipped between his fingers. ‘Take it. There is money there, perhaps after thirty years it is more than you can spend. The Cotter Bank, Geneva. When they found out that it was missing they came here to question me. I had hidden its trail and they were mad with rage. “Where is it? What have you done with it?” I had been here no more than a month, but Mallo had passed that month jolting my brain with electricity and filling me with drugs. The violence of my behaviour had given him no choice. I had known they would come you see, and I wanted to be ready. When they arrived, I dribbled, I giggled, I simpered, I slobbered and I wept. You would have been proud of me, Ned. I was the maddest of the mad. A ruin of a noble mind. They went away cursing, in the belief that they had destroyed the sanity of the only man that knew where all that money lay. I’d love to know how they explained it to their Minister. Now, read that piece of paper, learn it and destroy it. The Cotter Bank, Geneva. All the money will be yours when you leave here.’
‘Why do you think I want money?’ Ned’s tears still flowed in an endless stream. ‘I don’t want money, I want you! If you die, I will die. You know I will never leave this place.’
‘You will leave this place!’ cried Babe with terrible urgency. ‘You will leave in a coffin. Listen to me. There is a metal spoon by my bed, take it now. Take it!’
Ned, weeping at this inconsequential madness, took the spoon.
‘Hide it on you, no not there. Not in a damned pocket! Suppose Martin searches you?’
‘Where?’ Ned looked down at Babe in bewilderment.
‘Your anus, man! Push it deep in your anus. I don’t care if it bleeds.’
‘Oh Babe . . .’
‘Do it, do it now or I swear by almighty Christ that I’ll die cursing you. There! I don’t care if it makes you scream. I don’t care if you bleed like a pig, push it up, push it up! Now, can you stand? Can you sit? Good, good, you’ll do.’
Babe leant back down on the pillow and slowed his breath. ‘Now then,’ he said at last. ‘Now then, Ned. You’ve got the piece of paper. Look at it. The Cotter Bank, Geneva. I dared not write that down. See on the paper. There’s a number, a password phrase and a counter phrase. Learn them. Repeat them to me . . . good, and again. Again . . . once more. Now swallow the paper. Chew it and swallow. Repeat the number . . . the passwords . . . the address again.’
‘Why are you doing this, Babe? You’re frightening me.’
‘I owe you the money. Backgammon. You’re a devil at the game. Not much more now, lad. Cast your mind back to last winter. The week before Christmas. The day we talked together about Philippa Blackrow. I had been drawing a circuit diagram for you, do you remember? You kept it, like I told you?’
‘It’s in my room, I suppose. With all my other papers. Why?’
‘It’s Thursday. Paul is on night duty. You get on all right with Paul. Hold him in conversation, ask him about football as he closes you in. You’ll need your wits to time it. Use the teaspoon to catch the lock. There’s so much for you to do. You’ll need all your strength. I’ll go on the morning boat to the mainland. Christ, what’s that I can hear?’
A key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. Martin beckoned to Ned.
‘You come with me now. Leave Babe, come with me.’
‘You said half an hour!’
‘The doctor, he comes to look at Babe. You come.’
Ned threw himself down on the bed, his tear-sodden face soaking Babe’s beard.
‘Goodbye, my boy. You have already saved my life. My mind will live forever in yours. Build great things in my memory and to my memory. We have loved each other. For my sake now, stop your howling. Go quietly and pass this last day in remembering. Remember everything. You take my love and memory with you for ever.’
‘Come now! Now!’ Martin strode to the bed and pulled Ned roughly away. ‘Against the wall. I search you. Many bad things in the hospital ward.’
From the doorway, Ned cast one last look back into the room as Martin pushed him against the wall.
Babe’s eyes were closed tight. All his concentration now was being spent on forcing his heart to beat faster and faster until it might burst in his chest.
*
An hour after lunch, Martin came to the sun-room with the news that Babe had died.
Ned, sitting alone at the chessboard, nodded. ‘Was he in pain?’
�
��No pain,’ Martin’s voice was quiet and almost reverential. ‘Very peaceful. He has quick heart attack once more and was dead fast. Dr Mallo say there was nothing nobody could do,’ he added, with a hint of defensiveness. ‘Not in any hospital in the world.’
‘Would you mind,’ Ned asked quietly, ‘if I spent the rest of the day in my room? I would like to think and . . . and to pray.’
‘Okay, I take you there.’
They walked in silence to Ned’s room. Martin looked around at the piles of books and papers leaning up against the walls. ‘Babe, he teached you many things, yes?’
‘Yes, Martin. Many things.’
‘Some books in my language here, but you are not speaking.’
‘A little, I can read a little, but not speak very well,’ Ned replied, in halting Swedish.
‘Yes. Your accent is bad. Maybe, now Babe gone, we are better friends,’ said Martin. ‘You teach English, I teach Swedish. You teach music and the mathematics to me also.’
‘That would be nice,’ said Ned. ‘I would like that.’
‘I leave school early. I run from home where my father was beating me. The more you teach, the better friends.’
‘All right.’
‘It’s not necessary you have to be nice with me,’ Martin said, looking awkwardly at the floor. ‘I understand this. Sometimes, I am bad. I have bad feelings in my heart. You must have me in your prayers now.’
‘Of course,’ Ned felt unwanted tears falling down his cheeks again.
‘Okay, Thomas,’ said Martin. ‘I leave now.’
It took almost half an hour for Ned to find the circuit diagram that Babe had drawn and two hours for him to be sure that he had memorised and understood it properly.
Paul came on duty at suppertime and Ned practised without the teaspoon by engaging Paul in brief conversation just as he was pulling the door closed.
‘Oh by the way,’ he said, holding the door by the handle on the inside and talking through the gap. ‘Before you lock up. You couldn’t do me a favour could you? In return for me teaching you the nicknames of all the British football clubs. Just a small thing.’
‘Favour?’ Paul looked worried.
‘You wouldn’t have a piece of chewing gum, would you?’
Paul grinned. ‘Maybe at suppertime. I’ll see.’
‘Thanks. Are Trondheim playing today?’
‘Sure they are playing today.’
‘Good luck then,’ said Ned cheerfully, pushing the door closed himself. ‘See you later.’
At nine o’clock Paul came in once more with a mug of hot chocolate and some pills.
‘What’s this?’ Ned was alarmed. ‘I’m not on medication.’
‘Dr Mallo is worried that you are upset about Babe,’ Paul explained. ‘They are not strong. Just to help you sleep.’
‘Okay then,’ said Ned cheerfully, slapping them to his mouth and swallowing. ‘Very thoughtful of the good doctor.’
‘And here is some chewing gum for you.’
Ned took the stick of gum and beamed. ‘Hollywood, how glamorous! Paul, you’re a hero.’
‘Good night, Thomas. Have a good sleep.’
‘Oh tell me though,’ said Ned, stopping Paul from closing the door again. ‘How did Trondheim do?’
Ned held the spoon in his right hand, which he held casually against the side of the door. He leaned harder and harder, with only a gap of an inch through which he could talk to Paul, the handle of the spoon pressing against the sprung lock.
‘Three goals to one? A great victory for you,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll see you in the morning perhaps. Goodnight.’
With one last push, Ned closed the door. The spoon handle projected into the room from the gap between the door and the jamb. As Paul’s footsteps died away down the corridor, Ned pulled at the door, which gave. The spoon was holding back the lock spring. Almost sobbing with relief, Ned returned to his desk, spat out the sleeping pills and for the last time unfolded Babe’s circuit diagram.
At what he judged to be a time somewhere between half past two and three in the morning, he went to his door and pulled it open. The spoon dropped to the floor with a metallic clatter and, cursing himself as the sound rang around the corridor, Ned stooped to pick it up.
No sound came from any part of the building as he walked past the empty sun-room, chewing on his Hollywood gum. Only the clicking of the bones in his bare feet and toes disturbed the huge vacuum of silence that hung over the building like a shroud.
When he reached the door to Mallo’s office, he listened for a minute before entering. Once inside, he switched on the desk light and looked around, blinking at the sudden glare. The curtains were drawn, but there would be a line of light showing under the door. He knew there was very little time to lose. He went straight to a wooden box on the wall, opened it and took out a key. An impulse made him take out another, smaller key and try it in the lock of the small grey filing cabinet against the opposite wall. The key fitted and Ned searched quickly about the rest of the office until he found a plastic shopping bag into which he pushed sheaf after sheaf of papers and files. Tying the top of the carrier bag in a tight knot, he took out the chewing gum, swallowed the small key, popped the gum back in his mouth, switched off the desk light and crept back out into the corridor.
As he approached the staff quarters, rhythmically chewing on his gum, he pressed the carrier bag under his arm hard against his body to diminish the rustle it made as he walked. He could hear music playing and saw an oblong fall of light in the passageway ahead. The room where Paul would be sitting had a window that looked over the passageway through which Ned had to pass. He crept slowly towards it and had just dropped to his knees ready to crawl along the floor under the line of view when the door opened and Paul walked out. Ned’s heart jumped and his whole body froze. The carrier bag crackled, sounding in Ned’s ears like a truck running over a thousand plastic egg-cartons.
Paul crossed straight over into the room opposite without looking in Ned’s direction. The vigorous splash of a stream of urine tumbling into a lavatory bowl echoed around the corridor and trembling with relief, Ned rose and walked forward. As he passed the door he gave a quick glance to his left and saw Paul standing legs apart, his back to the corridor, shaking off and humming the Ode to Joy. He wore a tee-shirt and jeans and the unprecedented sight of such ordinary clothes awoke feelings of great excitement in Ned. They seemed to assure him that the outside world was real and within reach.
He rounded the corner and leant against the wall. The night was cool, but still he could feel trickles of cold sweat running from his temples onto the back of his neck. He stopped chewing and listened, his mouth open. He heard the sound of a flush, footsteps crossing the corridor and a door closing. Spearmint saliva was dribbling from his open mouth. He sucked it in and started to chew again.
On the wall opposite him he saw the winking green light of the alarm-box. Tip-toeing across, he examined it close up, mentally laying Babe’s diagram of the control-box over the real thing. The circuit that controlled the hospital corridor was designated as Zone 4. Ned took the key he had taken from Mallo’s office and tried to fit it into the master lock. It slipped out of the lock and for one heart-stopping moment he thought he might have swallowed the wrong key. He tried again and this time it slipped in easily. With a gulp of relief, he gave it a half turn to the right. The winking green light became a winking red light. Holding his breath, he flicked up the fourth in a row of dipswitches that ran the length of the control-box and moved the key another quarter turn to the right. He held it there for a second then switched it twice to the left, returning it to its original location. As the key passed from three o’clock on its way to the home position, the whole unit gave a quick blaring bleep of such intensity that Ned almost yelled in fright. Backing into the doorway opposite he waited, eyes fixed on the lights of the control-box. The green light was flashing again, but there was a new red light next to it which winked four times in succession, paus
ed then winked four times again, revealing to anyone who knew the system that Zone 4 had been by-passed. No doors opened or closed in the staff room around the corner and no alteration came in the volume of the music emerging from Paul’s radio. Only in Ned’s ears had the bleep blasted like a cavalry bugle sounding in hell. Approaching the alarm-box once more, Ned gently pulled out the key. The lights flashed as before but all was quiet. He pulled a tiny wad of gum from his mouth and pressed it over the winking red beam, tamping it firmly so that no light leaked out from the sides. He stepped back to look.
It worried him that whoever disabled the alarm in the morning would spot the little plug of chewing gum. If they noticed it after switching off the alarm it might mean nothing, but if they removed the gum while the system was still active, the four flashes of light would tell them everything they needed to know and all hell would break loose. Ned pressed against the lump of gum with the end of the key, working it flat until he felt that it was flush with the surface of the control-box. By the small green glow that offered the only light to work by, Ned pressed and sculpted until he believed that the gum had become as good as invisible.
Satisfied finally that everything appeared normal, he put the key in his mouth and moved silently towards the doors that led to the hospital wing.
Babe was dead and he, Ned, had not felt more alive for over twenty years. The blood was singing in his ears, his heart thumped and banged in his chest like a slapping belt-driven engine and every nerve in his body vibrated with power and energy. No matter what happened to him now he knew he could never regret the return of so much intense excitement. If Dr Mallo and all the staff were to leap out from the next doorway, if Rolf were to pin him to the wall and dislocate his shoulders again and all privileges, books and papers were taken away for ever, if he were made to subsist on nothing from now on but a regime of chlorpromazine and electric shocks, still it would have been worth it just to have experienced this short burst of true living.
