Curtain Call

by Graham Hurley

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Always.’

  He directs me to a handful of websites. One of them is the Guardian, another the New Statesman. A third, the most interesting, is a web-based digest of investigative journalism that calls itself Finisterra.

  ‘It’s Latin,’ he explains. ‘Posh. It means the end of the world.’

  ‘Light reading? Something to keep the kids amused?’

  He smiles. We’ve met just three times, the first a near-death experience, but we seem to have already developed that unvoiced kinship that can happen between two strangers who share the same sense of humour. In my drowsier moments I wonder whether it bears any comparison to my early days with Berndt, but I know already that this is something utterly – and thankfully – different. We’re older. We’ve knocked around a bit. We’ve left footprints in the sand. Not that I know the first thing about this man, except that he makes me laugh.

  ‘Tell me where you live.’ It’s early evening, rain streaming down the window, the hiss of rush-hour traffic from five floors below.

  ‘Hither Green,’ he says.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘South of the river. A Tesco Express and a couple of decent pubs. Old working-class London plus young couples on the make. You’re getting the picture?’

  ‘Alone? Married? Kids? The whole shtick?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Just me and a Syrian guy from Aleppo. He’s a refugee but he’s got leave to remain.’

  I nod. I badly want to dip into the websites this man’s tallied for me but I like his company, too. Tough call.

  ‘You want me to take a walk? Find a coffee?’ He’s nodding at the iPad. ‘Then come back?’

  I gaze up at him and nod. This man reads my mind. Remarkable.

  I start with the Guardian. Mitch Culligan turns out to be an occasional contributor to the Opinion page. A couple of his pieces deal with the aftermath of the election. They’re punchy, beautifully written, closely argued, full of attitude. His pre-election tour of the kingdom, as I already know, filled him with a bewilderment verging on despair. Now, to everyone’s astonishment, Corbyn has pricked the Tory bubble and the electoral future, just for a month or two, looks a great deal sunnier. Brexit, in Mitch’s book, remains a huge own goal but the kids are at last on the march and Jezza has given them some sense of destination.

  I find myself nodding. I met Corbyn once at a college in North London where I was doing an acting workshop. He struck me as sincere and companionable in ways I’ve never associated with politicians. He was also, like Mitch, a bit of a film buff.

  I scroll through the rest of the Guardian pieces, then sample an offering or two from the New Statesman. By now, Mitch’s preoccupations are very clear. He detests, in no particular order, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Margaret Thatcher, Liam Fox, fiscal favours to public schools, the rotting corpse of UKIP, and the whole swamp of corporate greed. He suspects Theresa May is no great brain and he’d very much like to ride to work on a re-nationalized railway. He also thinks, joy of joys, that the Tory party is about to implode, and that a judicious poke or two might reveal the blackness of its soul. ‘Expose these people for who they really are,’ he writes, ‘and they’ll be out of power for a generation.’

  I’ve found the investigative website by the time he returns. He must have been gone at least an hour. Some coffee.

  ‘I had to make a couple of calls,’ he grunts. ‘Most days it would have been twice as long.’

  I take this as a compliment. Then I mention Finisterra. This website, as I understand it, is Mitch’s little allotment, the place where he can plant whatever thoughts he wants and share them with a wider world. Fair?

  ‘Completely. Allotment is right. I take all this produce to market and wait for takers. That’s the magic of the internet. You can kid yourself you’ve put the mainstream media out of business until you take a proper look at the traffic figures.’

  ‘So why the Black Death?’

  ‘You mean the piece on Boccaccio? The Decameron? The week the plague came to Florence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because no one else would take it.’

  ‘I understand that. I’m asking you why you wrote it in the first place.’

  ‘Easy. It’s the stats. One in two of the population died. Not just Florence, everywhere.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Everywhere. Do the sums. The Black Death gave you a fifty per cent chance of making it through to the weekend.’

  These are odds I can relate to, thanks to my neurosurgeon. His playful introduction to the Grim Reaper still rankles, though more recently he appears to have saved my life.

  ‘You’ve studied this stuff?’

  ‘I have. I know it makes me a sad old git but maybe you should put it down to perspective. Grief’s an easy sell these days. Why? Because there’s serious money in other people’s pain. Some lunatic goes bonkers on Westminster Bridge and the whole country – the whole fucking planet – wrings its hands. This is heavy stuff. Wrong time, wrong place. But we need to get a grip because these are buttons the bad guys know exactly how to press.’

  ‘You think we should just ignore it?’

  ‘I think you should log on again,’ he nods at the iPad, ‘and read about the Black fucking Death.’

  This conversation is getting nowhere but I have the sneakiest feeling that Mitch is right. Living with Berndt’s fevered imagination bothered me for years. He wrote like an angel and knew exactly how to tighten a plot until the audience was gasping for air. These are genuine talents but like everyone else in the marketplace he was aware that movies and books and everything else we call entertainment had to get blacker and blacker. Cannibalism. Animal rape. Multiple sex with Siamese twins. Anything to keep the cheques rolling in. I shudder to think about the impact on kids, and on Malo in particular. Serious money in other people’s pain? Too right.

  Mitch is delving in his day sack. Out comes the sweetest umbrella, powder blue, plus the cable to charge my iPad. Apparently the rain’s in for the evening and Mitch has to make an event in deepest Camden. The four-way debate will be exploring the proposition of something called the Deep State. When I ask who’s on the panel, he gives me names. One’s a Labour MP. One’s a rebel cleric. Another guy is a Venezuelan academic I’ve never heard of.

  ‘That’s three,’ I say. ‘Who else?’

  ‘Me.’

  Ouch.

  Instinctively I reach out for him but he backs away. Then, just in time to delay his departure a little longer, I remember the name on the file in the cafe.

  ‘What’s Cassini?’

  He looks at me a moment, then checks his watch before nodding down at the iPad.

  ‘Google Death Dive,’ he says. ‘And wish me luck.’

  Cassini turns out to be an inter-planetary space probe launched to investigate the rings of Saturn. It’s done most of its business and just now it’s barely weeks away from a final plunge towards the planet’s surface. With the batteries all but dead this last act may reveal just a little more about Saturn’s secrets before its atmosphere burns it alive. Hence the term ‘Death Dive’.

  Death dive? I’m trying to connect the dots here. Mitch is a campaigning journalist with a national reputation. He has talent, motivation, a squillion media contacts and thus a sizeable audience. People read his stuff, probably lots of people, and so they should. But what has any of this got to do with little me? I circle the question all evening, a bit like the poor space probe, getting no closer to an answer. Mitch has made no promises to come back to the hospital and in any case I may be discharged within days. Is this the last I’ll see of him? Or might there one day be a chance to get a proper look at his mysterious Cassini file?

  Next morning they get me into a wheelchair and take me several floors down to see my neurosurgeon again. This turns out to be the office where we first met, but by this time we’ve become old friends. He takes me through the operation a
nd shows me scans and surgical images the way you might share holiday snaps. The tumour, it seems, was a glioblastoma, malignant, aggressive, difficult to get at. Pressing on my optic nerve, it was responsible for my headaches and my wonky eye. Untreated, it would undoubtedly – in time – have killed me.

  ‘You got it all out?’

  ‘We think so. We can’t be absolutely certain but the chances are good.’

  ‘So it won’t come back?’

  ‘It may. We never say “never”. We’ll be scanning you every three months to check.’

  ‘And if it does? Come back?’

  ‘Then we may have to pay it another visit.’ A thin smile. ‘The Reaper shouldn’t have it all his own way.’

  Under the circumstances, I later reflect, the comment is as close as I’m going to get to an apology. When I told the Reaper story to my mum she was horrified. It was my stepfather who had a private word with the hospital management and I imagine they did the rest. Either way, I’m genuinely grateful for everything this man and his team have been able to do for me.

  ‘You saved my life,’ I tell him. ‘At least for now.’

  Back home, I find three more Jiffy bags awaiting me. My stepfather has gone back to Brittany but my mum has truly made herself at home. My appetite for her very distinctive take on onion soup has returned with a vengeance and I’m even able to help her out with a decent bottle of Sauvignon.

  Two of the Jiffy bags have come from my agent. Both contain scripts and both are duds. Of the French-Canadian project there’s so far no news though these things take forever to develop so I’m far from disappointed. In any case, the last couple of weeks seem to have loosened my career’s grip on me. Things I once viewed as important – an evil review, for instance – have joined the rest of the background static in my life. No longer will my precious future be threatened by a critic’s crap judgement or a casting director’s inexplicable failure to see me as the obvious choice for the female lead. No, from now on – just like everyone else on the planet – I’m simply a billion cells in loose formation, any one of which could turn rogue at any moment.

  This realization, to my surprise, comes as a bit of a relief. All told, I’ve done OK. I’ve been in some quality films. I’ve won some devoted fans. I’ve made more money than I ever dreamed possible. I might even get to live with my precious boy again. Not bad. Not bad at all.

  One evening, late-ish, I try to explain some of this to my mum but, like most French women of her generation, she’s fiercely proud of what I’ve achieved and refuses to accept it might be over. In time, she tells me, I’ll get back to my old self, maybe put on a bit of weight, start looking for new roles to conquer. I nod, and agree, mainly to keep her sweet but later, after she’s finally retired to the spare bedroom, I stand by the window in the lounge, staring up at the night sky.

  Thanks to the street lights and all the other pollution there’s very little to see but I know that out there, way beyond the creamy blob of the moon, a tiny little morsel of high-tech is readying itself for its final curtain call. I’ve read the websites. I’m word perfect on the script. One last fizz of data transmission. One last fuel burn. And then the plunge into oblivion.

  I hang on to the thought for a moment and then remember the third Jiffy bag. I’ve a feeling it might have come from Mitch and the moment I open it I know I’m right. He’s sent me a framed shot of Saturn from the Hubble telescope. The image is truly beautiful, the huge blue planet girdled in mystery. I hold it at arm’s length, and then return to the window.

  Poor Cassini.

  THREE

  Two days later, it’s Mum who takes the call.

  ‘Malo,’ she mouths, bending to the phone.

  My angel child is at Stockholm airport. His flight is due to take off in half an hour. By mid-afternoon, he should be in Heathrow. Any chance of a lift?

  ‘Ask him which terminal.’

  My mother gives me the phone. I put the question myself. Malo says he hasn’t a clue. He sounds sleepy.

  ‘Give me the flight number,’ I tell him. ‘It’ll be on the ticket.’

  There’s a long silence. My pulse quickens. For a moment or two I think I’ve lost him. Finally he gives me the flight number. Then he’s gone.

  The last time I saw Malo was more than a year ago. Berndt had moved out after a particularly vicious row. He’d come at me with an empty bottle of vodka he’d smashed on the edge of a kitchen work surface and after I’d locked myself in the loo, I called the police. Malo stayed in contact with his father after the exclusion order and disappeared within the month. No farewell hug. No note of explanation. No forwarding address. Not even a hint that Berndt’s credit card had bought him a ticket to Sweden. At the time, it had been hard to forgive either of them. Now, though, I’m telling myself that Malo is my best chance to rescue something from the ashes of the past couple of years.

  At the airport, my mum is the first to spot him among the tide of incoming passengers.

  ‘Malo!’ she shouts in her throaty Breton twang. I follow her pointing finger, her madly waving hand. The same mop of black curly hair. The same adolescent slouch. The same ripped jeans. But something has happened to his face. The hollows are deeper, more sculpted. He’s started shaving in earnest. To my slight surprise, I’m looking at a man.

  My mum, like me, has always been a sucker for the sudden warmth of Malo’s smile.

  ‘Tout va bien, mon petit?’

  Malo accepts her hug and assures her he’s fine. His voice is deeper, his French perfect. So far, he hasn’t even looked at me.

  The stream of incoming passengers is thinning. Malo stoops to retrieve his bag. Soft red leather. Not cheap. Like his father, my son has always travelled light.

  ‘Why Einstein?’ I’m gazing at the image on his T-shirt.

  Malo ignores the question. He can’t take his eyes off the neat line of stitches across my shaved head.

  ‘Some kind of accident?’

  ‘In a way, yes.’

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  I resist the urge to kiss him, to tell him how wonderful and unexpected it is to see him again, how the best news always takes you by surprise. Instead, I tell myself that this is a scene best played long. Life has moved on, his and mine. We need to take our time.

  On the way back into London I insist that Malo sits up front with my mum. She’s always been a natural with Malo, ignoring his reticence, filling his silences with a blizzard of news from home. This is a knack I’ve never been able to master, not least because to me gabbling is always a sign of nerves, but by the time we’re back home I realize that nothing has changed. My son is as gorgeous, and opaque, and impenetrable as ever. Except when there’s something he needs in a hurry.

  It’s late evening. Before retiring, my mum has broken the news that she’s off back to Brittany the day after next. I’ve told Malo about the operation, and the various tests to come, and it’s clearly Mum’s expectation that her grandson will take over as my guardian and nurse. This responsibility Malo appears to be ready to shoulder. With one proviso.

  ‘I’ve got a friend, Mum. From Stockholm.’

  ‘He? She?’

  ‘She. We could share the spare bedroom after Gran’s gone, yeah?’

  Her name, he tells me, is Eva. She’s just graduated from university with a degree in psychiatry. She speaks perfect English. Better still, she has a driving licence. Perfect for running me around.

  He presents the proposition with a yawn, and wanders into the kitchen to make himself a coffee. My agreement is evidently a given, a technique I suspect he’s picked up from his father. Irked, I call him back.

  ‘How old is Eva?’

  ‘Twenty-six.’

  ‘And how long might she be here?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Weeks? Longer?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Loads of stuff. You’ll like her. She’s cute.’

  ‘Cute’ i
s a word I don’t recall Malo using before. New, as well, is his invitation to join him in a spliff or two. The coffee abandoned, he produces a bag of loose tobacco, a box of papers, and a cube of resin untidily wrapped in silver foil.

  ‘You brought that through customs?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re crazy. These days they lock people up for less.’

  He shrugs, doesn’t react. I watch him rolling the joint. He does it quickly, deftly. For the first time in days my head is beginning to throb.

  ‘If you really want to smoke you’ll have to do it outside, preferably on the pavement.’ I nod towards the door.

  ‘It’s raining.’

  ‘I don’t care. The choice is yours. I hate smoking. You know that.’

  He studies me for a long moment and I sense something in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. My precious son is full of rage.

  ‘Tell me about this thing with your father.’ I reach for the spliff and put it carefully to one side.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything. What happened between you. Why you decided to leave. What drove you out.’

  He gives me that same look but this time the inference is clear. This is none of my business. I try again, same questions, different phrasing, and this time – briefly – I spark a response.

  ‘The man’s a dickhead,’ he says. ‘But I guess you’d know that already.’

  I want to know more about the dickhead, about Eva, about his year and a bit in Stockholm, but Malo is already on his feet. He picks up the spliff and heads for the door. Moments later, he’s gone.

  It must be twenty minutes before the phone rings. Thinking it might be Malo locked out in the rain, I’m already heading for the panel in the hall that houses the entry phone.

  ‘Enora? That you?’

  It’s Mitch Culligan. Before I get a chance to say anything he’s apologizing for the lateness of the hour. He’s been tied up with a bunch of Marxists who don’t know how to end a sentence. He’d have phoned earlier but he couldn’t find a way of putting the conversation out of its misery.

  ‘That bad?’ Despite myself, I’m laughing.