The Universe versus Alex Woods

by Extence, Gavin

  Mr Peterson growled.

  ‘No one thinks you’re insane,’ Dr Bedford continued, very calmly. ‘That’s not why you’re here. You know that. I’ve told you that. You’re here because you’re deemed to pose a significant risk to yourself if released.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right! To myself.’

  ‘Your actions have consequences for others too. I’m sure you realize that. It’s not just yourself you’d be hurting.’

  Dr Bedford glanced in my direction. I went a shade redder. Mr Peterson exploded.

  ‘Oh, great! That’s just fuckin’ wonderful! When all else fails, there’s always emotional blackmail! You think I should stay alive for other people? Spread the suffering around for as long as possible?’

  Dr Bedford waited for a count of five. ‘I think it would be better if I came back later. Try to get some rest.’

  Then he left.

  An oppressive silence dragged its feet for a few moments. Then Mr Peterson said:

  ‘Well, kid, since you’re still here, you might as well share your thoughts. What did you make of that?’

  The problem was my thoughts were unclear. Too many nerves had been hit. I struggled with what I might say for some time, and then shrugged ineffectually. ‘I don’t think you’re going to get out of here anytime soon,’ I said.

  Mr Peterson looked for a while like he was going to make a retort, but eventually he just nodded gloomily. We were both tired of fighting.

  PACT

  ‘“Yossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice. The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn’t quite jaundice. If it became jaundice they could treat it. If it didn’t become jaundice and went away they could discharge him. But this just being short of jaundice all the time confused them.”’

  I paused in my reading. ‘Is jaundice the one where you go yellow?’

  ‘That’s right. From the French jaune.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course . . . I didn’t know you spoke French.’

  ‘I’ve picked up a bit, here and there.’

  ‘In Vietnam? Vietnam used to be French, right?’

  ‘Kid, do you wanna just read the book? It’d be nice to at least get past the first page before visiting hours are through.’

  I nodded, cleared my throat and resumed.

  ‘“Each morning they came around, three brisk and serious men with efficient mouths and inefficient eyes, accompanied by Nurse Duckett, one of the ward nurses who didn’t like Yossarian. They read the chart at the foot of the bed and asked impatiently about the pain. They seemed irritated when he told them it was exactly the same.

  ‘“‘Still no movement?’ the full colonel dema—”’

  Mr Peterson held up his hand like he was trying to stop traffic. ‘Kid, please. Don’t try to do an American accent.’

  I folded the book with my index finger still inside, saving the page. ‘I thought the dialogue might sound a bit weird in British English.’

  ‘The whole thing sounds weird. I’ll just have to get used to it. It’s gonna be a whole lot easier than tryin’ to get used to that.’

  ‘It sounded okay in my head.’

  ‘It wasn’t okay. You couldn’t get away with an accent like that in Hicksville, Alabama.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Just read it clearly, in your normal voice. And speak up a bit. I don’t want to have to strain for every word.’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb the other patients,’ I confessed.

  ‘The other patients are already disturbed,’ Mr Peterson pointed out, much too loudly. ‘I don’t think a bit of light reading’s gonna do them any harm, do you?’

  I had to concede I did not. There were two other patients sharing Mr Peterson’s room and it seemed unlikely that either would be making complaints. The man opposite, who looked to be around the same age as Mr Peterson, was completely catatonic. He never even moved, let alone spoke. There was a woman who may have been his wife who visited him for half an hour each day, but neither she nor the doctors nor the nurses could elicit any sort of reaction from him, not even the slightest shift in the direction of his gaze, which was frozen on the window frame. He had feeding tubes down his throat and a catheter to drain his urine. I don’t know how or if he passed solids.

  The other man, in the next bed along, diagonally opposite Mr Peterson, looked to be around a hundred and fifty. He never said anything either, but this was because he was constantly scribbling away in a notepad – or, more likely, a succession of notepads. The rate at which he was writing, he must have been getting through at least one a day, though it was a mystery who was replenishing his supply. He never had visitors, so I suppose it must have been the nurses or the psychiatrists. They must have thought all this writing was therapeutic.

  ‘He must be rewriting War and Peace,’ Mr Peterson speculated. ‘You know: the extended edition.’

  I hadn’t read War and Peace, but I understood what Mr Peterson meant: War and Peace was extraordinarily long. This is what it was famous for. It was about twelve times longer than Slaughterhouse-Five and three and a bit times longer than Catch-22, which was also a classic, and the only book that Mr Peterson said he felt like hearing in his current state of mind.

  A few pages in, once I had stopped worrying about accents and had settled into my reading, I thought I understood what he was talking about. The first chapter of Catch-22 was not particularly complimentary when it came to the subject of medical staff, and this was another reason I felt quite self-conscious about the volume at which Mr Peterson expected me to read. He claimed that this was because his head felt ‘waterlogged’ – a symptom he attributed to the Prozac – but I had my growing suspicions that this was only part of the truth. I thought it might also be for the benefit of Nurse Holloway, who was currently carrying out various routine tasks in and around the room. I felt like I’d been drawn into some kind of petulant protest against his ongoing incarceration on psych.

  Still, if this was the case, Nurse Holloway wasn’t taking the bait – at least not at first. She went about her business in silence while I reluctantly narrated all those details about the inefficient doctors and unfeeling nurses. It was only when I got to the part where the Texan starts talking about the ‘niggers’ – ‘“They don’t allow niggers in here. They got a special place for niggers”’ – that she stopped what she was doing and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I reassured her, ‘it’s satirical.’

  ‘It’s more that it’s in character,’ Mr Peterson clarified.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I agreed, ‘but I’m forbidden from doing the accents, so it might not have been obvious.’

  ‘I don’t care what it’s in,’ Nurse Holloway said. ‘I hardly think it’s suitable on the ward.’

  ‘It’s highly suitable,’ Mr Peterson argued.

  ‘Not if it’s likely to offend or upset the other patients,’ Nurse Holloway retorted.

  ‘Who’s getting upset?’ Mr Peterson asked, pointing to the other inmates. ‘The Catatonic? Count Tolstoy over there?’

  The Catatonic didn’t move. Count Tolstoy continued to scribble. Nurse Holloway planted her hands on her hips and said: ‘I’m only asking for some consideration. Can you at least keep it down a little?’

  Mr Peterson shook his head. ‘No dice, I’m afraid. The Prozac seems to have screwed up my hearing.’

  ‘I’ll alert Dr Bedford as soon as I can.’

  ‘I don’t want to see Dr Bedford. There’s nothing Dr Bedford can do for me – nothing short of takin’ me off the damn things.’

  ‘I suppose I could censor any words that might be deemed inappropriate on the ward,’ I suggested. ‘You know: just say “the N-word”, “the S-word”, “SOB”, “MOFO”, et cetera.’

  ‘There aren’t any MOFOs,’ Mr Peterson said angrily. ‘It’s too early for that.’

  ‘It’s too early for any of this,’ Nurse Holloway said. ‘Please: a little consideration is all I’m as
king.’

  So I resumed Catch-22 in a loud British accent, now editing the swear words as I went along. Luckily, there weren’t too many, so it was only a mild irritation Mr Peterson had to bear – or possibly it wasn’t an irritation at all. He might have been vaguely amused. It was difficult to tell. He lay quite still, with his eyes closed, while I worked my way through chapter one. When I’d finished, he didn’t say anything, so, after a gulp of Diet Coke, I thought I might as well continue.

  It was only when I’d finished the third chapter that I broached the subject I’d been turning over at the back of my mind for some time. It was something Mr Peterson and I hadn’t discussed for a few days – at least since the visit from Dr Bedford. I think we’d been avoiding it because the semi-truce we’d fallen into was still very fragile. I, for one, was in no hurry to get into another argument. But now, having spent a straight half-hour reading aloud while Mr Peterson rested his eyes, I thought it unlikely I’d find a more opportune moment.

  ‘Mr Peterson,’ I began cautiously. Then I trailed off. I realized there wasn’t a good way to phrase what I wanted to say. I rehearsed several versions in my head, and then opted for blunt simplicity. ‘Mr Peterson, you really don’t seem very depressed to me. Not any more, anyway.’

  Mr Peterson snapped his eyes open. ‘I wasn’t depressed to begin with. I told you that.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Depressed was never the right word for what I was – or am. It’s just a label shoved on me by some shrink with too many qualifications and not enough common sense.’

  ‘But you are . . . well, you know. If they were to let you out tomorrow, I mean, you’d still . . .’

  Mr Peterson had had enough of this bumbling line of enquiry. ‘For God’s sake, just spit it out, kid!’

  ‘You still want to die!’ I blurted.

  Mr Peterson closed his eyes again. It took him some time to reply, and when he did, his voice wasn’t cold, exactly, but there was still a kind of edge to it, like he was trying to deal with two or three different impulses. ‘I don’t want to die, kid,’ he told me eventually. ‘No one wants to die. But you know where I’m heading a little down the line. My future’s already written. If I don’t want to face that, there’s only one way out.’

  I counted my breaths for a few moments, then said: ‘But your life’s not so bad at the moment. What I mean is, there are still things that you can enjoy. There’s still Catch-22. There’s still Schubert’s Symphony No.5 in B flat major. Your life isn’t so terrible yet, and it might not be for some time to come. You don’t know how long you might still have. It might be another two or three years.’

  ‘It might be,’ Mr Peterson acknowledged, then fell silent for a while. ‘You’re right. I have a life worth living at the moment, and I might still have a life worth living six months from now. Even a year from now. I don’t know. But what I do know is that sooner or later the balance is going to tip. Sooner or later, I’m gonna have a life I can no longer bear. And by that time, chances are there won’t be a damn thing I can do about it. I’ll be in some kind of hospice. I won’t be able to stand or speak, let alone take the necessary steps to end it all. That’s what’s unbearable.’

  ‘But what if it didn’t have to be like that?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘It is gonna be like that. That’s the point.’

  ‘I could look after you.’

  ‘No. You couldn’t.’

  ‘I could. I’ve—’

  ‘You couldn’t. It would be hell for both of us. No one’s gonna be able to look after me. Not the way you mean.’

  ‘But I want to. Honestly, I’ve thought this through. By then I won’t have to go to school; I mean, I can defer and—’

  ‘Kid, please. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about here. It’s not an option.’

  I waited and watched my breaths again, this time for a much longer count. I was determined to keep my voice steady.

  ‘There must be something I can say to change your mind,’ I said eventually.

  ‘There isn’t.’

  His voice was like iron. I knew we’d reached a standstill.

  ‘I think I’d better go now,’ I said. ‘I have one or two things I need to think about on my own. I can come back tomorrow, but I don’t know what’s going to happen after that. My mother wants me to go back to school on Monday.’

  ‘Your mother’s right: you should go back to school.’

  I shrugged. ‘I suppose I’ll still be able to come in for the evening visiting hours.’

  Mr Peterson looked as if he was going to say something to dissuade me, but after a while, his expression changed, and in the end, he just nodded.

  The following morning, I went to Ellie’s flat on the pretext that I should probably thank her for intervening on my behalf with Mr Peterson. Actually, this wasn’t entirely a pretext. I’d not seen her since that afternoon, and I did think that I should thank her. But more than this, I suppose, it was just that I needed someone else to talk to, and my options in this department were limited. Turning things over and over in isolation had led me to a certain point, but I knew that to get any further I’d have to voice some ideas aloud, just to see how they sounded. But I certainly didn’t go to Ellie expecting any kind of constructive input on her part. It was more that I’d hit a wall and needed someone to talk around the subject with – like when you come up against a problem that’s just immune to normal logic.

  Anyway, I think it was a little after eleven thirty when I knocked on the external door to the flat, which was round the back and up the metal fire-escape stairs. I’d figured that this was a reasonable hour to turn up at someone’s house on a Sunday, though, for me, this was mostly a matter of guesswork. Since I got up at six thirty every morning – school days and weekends – and my mother was something of a lark as well, I had only a limited idea of what might constitute normal weekend sleeping patterns. But, still, I thought that I’d erred on the extreme side of caution. Nevertheless, it took two rounds of knocking before Ellie answered the door, and when she did, it was evident that while she was awake (obviously), she wasn’t exactly ‘up’. She was wearing a black T-shirt and shorts that were almost briefs, and she was suffering from quite a severe case of bed-head. She’d obviously not had the chance or inclination to groom herself yet. I deduced from her angry panda eyes that her make-up was yesterday’s and she was not pleased to see me. I was instantly wrong-footed.

  ‘Fuck, Woods!’ Ellie groaned. ‘What time do you call this?’

  I looked at my watch, then realized it was almost certainly a rhetorical question. ‘I thought you’d be up,’ I apologized.

  ‘I don’t get up on Sundays.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just on my way to the hospital and—’

  ‘I can’t give you a lift. I don’t have the car. I’d have thought your super-size brain would’ve grasped that. If it’s with your mother, it can’t be with me.’

  ‘Yes, I realize that. That’s not what I meant. I’m getting the bus, but I thought first—’

  ‘Woods, for God’s sake! I’m freezing my arse off here!’

  ‘Yes, I can see that. Perhaps it’d be better if I came back some other—’

  ‘If you want to come in, come in.’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb you if you’re not up.’

  Before I’d got halfway through this sentence, Ellie was already heading back through the kitchen towards the living room. ‘You’ve already disturbed me, you moron. I’d hate for it to have been for nothing. Close the door behind you. It’s got to be about minus thirty out there.’

  It was November. I estimated the actual temperature to be around eight or nine degrees Celsius. But I didn’t think it was worth bringing this up. I came in, took off my shoes and closed the door.

  Although I’d been to the flat several times since Ellie had moved in, over a year ago, this must have been the first time I’d been there without my mo
ther, and under these new circumstances, it made quite a different impression on me. Most of the furnishings were the same, of course, but nevertheless, the general atmosphere had changed to a significant degree. Essentially, it had taken on many of the characteristics of its tenant. It was clean enough, but dark, and rather untidy in places. The curtains were closed, the washing-up was dangerously over-stacked, and there was underwear everywhere. As far as I could see, it was hanging on every radiator in every room, though Ellie assured me that this was not a permanent feature of the décor. It just happened to be ‘washing day’. But as you can probably imagine, it was still disconcerting from the visitor’s point of view. There was simply nowhere you could place your gaze without there being all this black bunting hovering in your peripheral vision.

  As for the other changes to the flat, the main one I noticed was that the box room now appeared to be a kind of walk-in wardrobe – though the term might be a little too grand, really. I suppose ‘boot closet’ would be nearer the mark.

  ‘You know, I used to live in that room,’ I told Ellie once we were sitting in the living room, amidst a landslide of CD cases and used coffee cups. ‘The box room, I mean. I lived there for a whole year.’

  Ellie wrinkled her nose. ‘Which room?’

  ‘The box room,’ I repeated, gesturing back through the door.

  ‘The cupboard?’

  ‘It used to be a study,’ I clarified. ‘Then it was my bedroom for a year when my mother and I were living here.’

  ‘Jesus, Woods! It’s a fucking cupboard!’

  ‘I was only eleven at the time, so it wasn’t that bad. My mother wasn’t too crazy about the idea, but we didn’t have much choice. That was when I couldn’t go to school. I couldn’t leave the house. My epilepsy was too severe.’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘Your life is like some kind of fucked-up fairy tale. You should write your biography. It’d be a hoot.’

  ‘Autobiography,’ I corrected.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A biography is when you write someone else’s story. When you write your own, it’s called an autobiography.’