Curtain Call

by Graham Hurley

  Mitch wants to know whether I could bear to pay Sayid a visit.

  ‘What would be the point?’

  ‘He liked you. He liked you a lot. Apparently a voice at the bedside can make all the difference.’

  ‘You mean he might come round? Wake up?’

  ‘It’s possible. It’s unlikely but he might. Would you mind?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  We fix a time. He says early evening would be good. Sayid is in Critical Care. The very phrase makes me shudder. We agree to meet downstairs in the main reception area at half past six. He’ll walk me up. I ask whether he’ll be with me at Sayid’s bedside.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘One visitor at a time. House rules.’

  I get down to Brixton with half an hour to spare. Hospitals seem to have become part of my life recently. First me. Then H. Now Sayid. I step in through the main entrance. The waiting area is crowded, visitors everywhere, but I find myself a chair by the water cooler. I’m deep in a book by Stefan Zweig just now and in less than a paragraph or two I’m back in the dying days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

  ‘Beware of Pity?’

  It’s Mitch. I look up, startled. He knows the book well, loves it, along with most of everything else Zweig wrote.

  ‘You know his story? What happened at the end?’

  To my shame I don’t. Mitch squats clumsily beside me. He seems calmer, even rested. Zweig and his wife fled the Nazis, he says, and made a new life in Brazil.

  ‘They were Jews?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Home safe, then.’

  ‘Hardly. They had a suicide pact. Died of barbiturate poisoning. Took their own lives. 1942.’

  He delivers this news without any explanation, any hint of why they’d chosen such a death after surviving the attentions of the Nazis, and I’m still trying to work it out minutes later when we emerge from the lift and make our way to the Critical Care unit.

  Mitch pauses at the entrance and points inside.

  ‘Second to last bed on the left,’ he says. ‘They get a bit edgy if you stay too long.’

  I nod. Even from here the atmosphere in the unit is sepulchral, a heavy silence punctuated by the whirring of what seems like a million machines. I’ve no plans to stay a moment longer than I have to. A couple of minutes of one-way conversation, of trying to penetrate the darkness of Sayid’s swollen brain, and then an honourable retreat.

  A nurse steps across from the nest of desks in the middle of the unit and asks my name. Mitch has already warned her to expect me and she leads me down the line of beds until we’re looking at Sayid.

  ‘How is he?’ It’s an instinctive question, almost a reflex.

  ‘Not too bright, I’m afraid. He’s ticking along. I don’t think we’re going to lose him. It’s really a question of what’s left if and when he comes round.’

  What’s left? I swallow hard. We’re standing at the bedside. There’s nothing of the handsome, playful Sayid I recognize. His face, the colour of ripe watermelon, has ballooned. Blood has crusted around his mouth and nose. God knows what they did to the rest of him but everything else is hidden beneath some kind of cage that has tented the single sheet. He’s breathing with the aid of a tube inserted into his throat. Another feeds him nutrients. A catheter drips urine into a bottle beside the bed.

  What’s left? Yuck. This lovely man escaped the nightmare that was his home city and fled to what he judged to be the safety of what we still call civilization. Now this.

  ‘Mitch wants me to have a word or two,’ I tell the nurse. ‘He thinks it might be useful.’

  ‘By all means. Help yourself.’

  I wait for her to go back to the nursing station before I draw up a chair and position myself beside the wreckage of Sayid’s face. I’ve done countless acting exercises in my time, little games we play to explore this dramatic possibility or that, but I’ve never tried anything like this. Just what do I say? Just how might I trigger a memory or two?

  ‘Aleppo,’ I say very softly, then break the word down. ‘Al–epp–oh.’

  Nothing. I try again. Same city. Same birthright. Same nest of memories. Intently, I watch what I can see of his face. Not a flicker. His eyelids are closed. His thin chest rises and falls beneath the fold of sheet.

  ‘Syria.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Daeesh.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Islamic State.’

  Nada.

  Then I remember the Greek island where he and members of his extended family paused in their journey towards mainland Europe.

  ‘Lesvos,’ I say. Still nothing.

  I’m concentrating very hard now, alert for the faintest sign of recognition and I haven’t heard the nurse returning to Sayid’s bedside.

  ‘Try using your name,’ she says. ‘Pretend you’re introducing yourself.’

  Good advice.

  ‘It’s Enora,’ I whisper. ‘Enora Andressen. We met in the Italian restaurant. You had an orange juice. We went back to Mitch’s place.’ I pause. I’m wondering quite how far to take this. Then I have a brainwave.

  ‘Enora. Enora Andressen,’ I repeat. ‘Cassini.’

  The nurse is laughing softly. Like everyone else in the world she’s seen the pictures on the TV. Saturn. Those amazing rings. The tiny twinkling dot that is planet Earth. And little Cassini.

  ‘He made us a cake,’ I tell her. ‘It was beautiful. A work of art. Tasted even better.’

  ‘Again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Again.’ She’s looking hard at Sayid.

  ‘OK.’ I lean forward, my mouth to Sayid’s bloodied ear. ‘Cassini,’ I say. ‘Cassini.’

  ‘There.’ It’s the nurse.’ She’s definitely seen something. ‘Say it again.’

  ‘Cassini.’

  ‘And again.’

  ‘Cassini.’

  Now I see it too. The merest flicker of an eyelid, something so brief, so fleeting, that you’d have to work in a place like this to recognize it.

  ‘You think he heard that?’

  ‘I do. Try again.’

  I lift my head a moment and look down the ward. Mitch is still at the entrance, still watching our every move.

  ‘Cassini.’ I’m back with Sayid. For a second, maybe less, one eye flicks open. There’s no sign of recognition, or understanding, and try as I might I can’t trigger any sustained reaction. ‘Cassini,’ I whisper. Cassini, Cassini. But nothing happens.

  It doesn’t matter. The nurse is already on the phone to one of the doctors. Mr Abdulrahman is showing signs of consciousness.

  I linger a moment at Sayid’s bedside and then bend quickly and plant a kiss on what used to be his face. His flesh feels warmer than I’d expected. I only know one word of Arabic but it feels all too fitting.

  ‘Inshallah,’ I murmur. And leave.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Mitch and I find ourselves in a cafe-bar in the middle of Brixton, a five-minute walk from the hospital. It’s small, and quietly intimate, and on a Tuesday evening we are, by far, the oldest people in the room. I’d shared the good news about Sayid the moment we left the ward but so far Mitch hasn’t said much. He seems neither pleased nor relieved, a reaction I find, to say the least, troubling. Only when we’ve split the first carafe of red wine is he ready to talk.

  ‘All this is my doing,’ he says. ‘My fault.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Sayid. What happened.’

  I nod. This is hard to deny and I’ve no intention of letting him off the hook, not least because I’m equally to blame. No H, no snooping around Flixcombe Manor, no covert meetings in a Salisbury pub, and Sayid would still be pulling on his Nikes, still heading out into the half-darkness of Blackheath. Life is rarely fair. I’ve known that for a while. But why the wrath of H should descend on someone as blameless and lovely as Sayid is beyond me. Except that he matters a great deal to Mitch and that, in turn, has put this lover of his in the firing line.

  I’m toying
with my wine glass. Overpriced Rioja is doing absolutely nothing for me.

  ‘H came round to my place this morning,’ I tell Mitch. ‘He’s been in town since yesterday.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise.’

  ‘You think he did it?’

  ‘Not personally, no. That’s never been his style. He gets on the phone, calls in a favour or two. He’ll have known my name from the Finisterra website. After that the script writes itself. All he needs is my address and someone keeping an eye on the house to join up all the dots.’

  ‘Have you seen anyone?’

  ‘No, but then I’ve been away a lot lately. And in any case I haven’t been looking.’

  ‘You never anticipated something like this?’

  ‘No, not this extreme, not this clever. No.’

  ‘Clever?’

  ‘Getting to me through Sayid. People like Prentice know which buttons to press. That hurts. Believe me.’

  This is a deeply strange thing to say, all the more bizarre because Mitch seems oblivious to its implications. Sayid, his lover, his best friend, has nearly died. Yet the real damage, Mitch is suggesting, lies closer to home.

  ‘So was it worth it?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘So will you stop now? Call a halt?’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘The book. Maybe another article. Bothering the world with all this Brexit shit. You told me recently the people in the shadows have the real power … and guess what?’

  ‘I’m right.’

  ‘Exactly. So might now be the time to admit it? To close the file? To move on?’

  ‘Why on earth would I ever do that?’ He looks genuinely shocked.

  ‘Because it nearly got Sayid killed and even now he may end up a vegetable. Life support for the rest of his days? A bed in some godforsaken nursing home? Faces he’ll never recognize at his bedside? Every meal spoon-fed? Is that really worth saving democracy or whatever else you’ve got planned?’

  Mitch is staring at me. This is the last conversation he needs.

  ‘It’s what he would have wanted,’ he says.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because we used to discuss everything together. I never came out of an interview or a session on the internet without sharing it with him. We were in lockstep. Total agreement.’

  Mitch’s use of the past tense is beginning to upset me. He clearly regards Sayid as dead already.

  ‘What if he starts to get better? What if he needs lots of support, lots of looking after, lots of making things right again?’

  ‘Then I’ll be there for him.’

  ‘But you don’t think it’s likely?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not a brain surgeon.’

  ‘But do you really want him to get better?’

  My question is beyond hurtful but I’m getting really angry now. So far there hasn’t been the slightest hint that Sayid’s recovery might be more important than the fucking cause. Mitch is giving obsession a bad name.

  I press him again but he won’t respond, won’t answer my question. His glass is empty. He signals the woman behind the bar for another carafe. Then he’s back with me.

  ‘Finding Sayid on the embankment was the worst moment of my life,’ he says slowly. ‘You’d only understand that if you were me, if you had a relationship that close. The moment I saw him – saw him properly – I knew what I’d done. Putting him in harm’s way. Making him a target like that. Do I regret it? Of course I do. Does it make me feel like shit inside? Yeah, just a bit. But is there any part of me that’s tempted to chuck it all in? No. And you know why? Because those evil bastards will have won.’ He pauses. Looks away. Shakes his head. Then he’s back in my face. ‘Edmund Burke? Ever heard of him?’

  I shake my head. Never.

  ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. That’s me, my creed. That’s what I believe in. That’s what made me phone you in the first place. You have to do something. Backing down isn’t an option. And you know something else? If Sayid was here he’d be the first to agree.’

  The woman behind the bar has arrived with a new carafe. Mitch spares her a glance and then pushes his chair back and gets to his feet.

  ‘Second thoughts.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’ve had enough.’

  The moment I get home I hit Google. The wealth of information on Edmund Burke doesn’t help me at all. Rebellion in the American colonies. The impeachment of Warren Hastings. The iniquities of the French Revolution. The sanctity of property rights. But there, towards the end, is Mitch’s quote again. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

  This is heavy stuff. I’ve had a glimpse or two of what might be H’s default setting, and it chilled me to the bone, but evil is a very big word and has some uncomfortable implications. If H belongs in this box, does that make Malo – H’s precious M – the spawn of evil? And if it does, what should I be doing about it?

  The short answer is that I’ve no idea. I toy with phoning H, with asking for a little honesty. Did you really order the attack on Sayid? Were you there when it happened? Are you aware of the state of the man as we speak? And if so do you really think that Mitch’s wretched article could ever justify that kind of savagery?

  A conversation like this is probably overdue, but however hard I try I can’t for a moment imagine H bothering me with the truth. He’s already made it clear that this is strictly business. It might, regrettably, have been over the top but it should never intrude into what he’s now delighted to call family life. That’s me. And Malo. And his gangster dad.

  Around eight, I’m starting to drive myself crazy. I seem to be bound hand and foot in a situation way beyond my control. I feel totally helpless. Compared to this, another brain tumour might come as a merciful relief. I chase the questions around and around – about Mitch, about Sayid, about H, about M – until there’s nowhere left to go. I need a wiser soul to tell me what to do.

  Evelyn is watching television when I tap at her door. I apologize for the intrusion. Some other time, I say. Maybe tomorrow.

  She takes one look at my face, reaches for the remote, and invites me in. The television goes off. I take a seat and say yes to a glass of Sauvignon blanc. Evelyn offers a cautious toast to good times, whatever that might mean, and asks me what’s wrong. I tell her everything. If she’s shocked it doesn’t show. Just getting the right facts in the right order makes me feel slightly better. I’m probably kidding myself but I sense the return of some kind of control.

  Evelyn wants to know how she can help. It’s a reasonable question.

  ‘Advice, maybe?’ I suggest.

  She nods. I have options, she says. I can do my best to support Mitch. I can share visits to the hospital, try and relieve the pressure he must be under. At the same time, I can have it out with H, demand an explanation for the attack on Sayid.

  I tell her I know this won’t work. But even if it did, and he admitted it, then what?

  ‘You go to the police.’

  ‘And Malo?’

  ‘Malo will do whatever Malo does. If his dad gets arrested I’m assuming the lad will come back here.’

  ‘I doubt that. The two of them are really close. Malo’s the age when you’re not thinking straight. It won’t matter what his dad’s done, Malo will stick by him.’

  ‘Sweet.’

  ‘But that’s not the end of it. Malo will know why his dad’s been arrested because his dad will tell him. I can hear it now. That mum of yours grassed me up. That will matter to Malo. I’ll be lucky to see him again.’

  Evelyn nods, sips her wine. I may have a point, she seems to think. In this sorry mess, motherhood trumps everything.

  She asks again about Sayid. Exactly how bad is he?

  I’ve already described the injuries. True, there’s been just a flicker of consciousness, a brief flaring of the candle that was once Sayid. But the prognosis would still seem to be grim.

  ‘Y
ou think he might die?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nods again, glances at my glass, reaches for the bottle.

  ‘So you think H must have had something to do with it and, on the evidence, you might be right. I’m assuming he has ways and means of ordering the beating. He doesn’t have to do it himself. Let’s imagine these people had killed Sayid in the first place. That’s murder. What would you have done then?’

  I’m staring at her. Oddly enough, in the chaos of the last couple of days, this is one scene I haven’t played in my head. Sayid lying dead on the railway embankment. What then?

  ‘The police,’ I say slowly. ‘In the end they’d probably come for me anyway so I wouldn’t have an option.’

  Evelyn is pouring more wine. I sense this part of the conversation has run its course. Then comes another toast.

  ‘Here’s to better times,’ she says. ‘For now I suggest you wait and see.’

  Good advice. Sayid, mercifully, doesn’t die. On the contrary, he begins to recover. I go to the hospital daily, always contacting Mitch to make sure our visits don’t coincide. Mitch is pleasant enough on the phone, and readily accedes to the arrangement, but there’s an unspoken acceptance on both our parts that what’s happened to Sayid has come between us.

  Try as I might, I can’t forgive Mitch for not putting all his baggage aside. Crusaders, I want to tell him, belong on a horse. They wear fancy armour and head for Jerusalem and look no further than the tips of their bloody lances. Human beings, on the other hand, put friends and lovers first. This is a conversation we don’t have, not yet, and every time I arrive at the hospital, I’m truly glad that Mitch won’t be there.

  Sayid leaves Critical Care after the third day. His injuries have turned out to be less serious than doctors at first feared. He’s fully conscious now, and his various tubes have been withdrawn. His jaw is wired up, and he’ll need the attentions of a dental surgeon before too long, but the hideous swelling that deformed his lovely face is fast subsiding. We’re able to communicate by a series of grunts and gargles, nods and shakes of his head, and tiny squeezes of my hand. To my delight there seems to be no evidence of permanent brain damage and as the days pass, the light returns to his eyes. When his consultant judges that the time is right, two detectives spend an hour at his bedside but they leave the hospital no wiser about the thugs who put him there. Of the beating that left him on the embankment, he has no recollection.