The Cairo Pulse

by B. B. Kindred

  The Cairo Pulse

  B. B. Kindred

  Copyright © 2017 B. B. Kindred

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Matador®

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  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.”

  C. G. Jung

  Contents

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Part Two

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Gabriel’s Notebook

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Part Three

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Acknowledgements

  Part One

  One

  A letter came from the Royal inviting me for a second brain scan. Up until that point I’d done quite well in the keeping calm department. On arrival at the office I lingered outside, caressing stone that had weathered a century’s onslaught, hoping its stoicism would rub off and have me feeling manly again. When Arlo and I first spotted the husk of an early Co-operative building in the Northern Quarter of Manchester, both of us knew what the other was thinking. Although the grid of Victorian warehouses that surrounded it advertised decay, the area hovered on the cusp of transformation into a business district. We were both thirty-five then, which was young in terms of starting our own architectural practice, but the prospect of having a chunk of local history as our HQ gave us the push we needed. Seven years on, we were doing more than okay, likewise the neighbourhood. Keeping that sturdy edifice in our possession had once seemed like the most important thing in the world. I got a lump in my throat, the first of many over the nine interminable days before my appointment. So much for stoicism then.

  Despite the impeccable August weather, by the time I’d ranted about the hospital parking fees and distance to the entrance, I was up to my neck in a lake of doom. All human life funnelled down a humming central artery until the multitude of uncertainty halted for signs and coloured lines, like dancers waiting to peel away from the formation. Weaving through the log jam and on to the scan suite reception area, I hunkered down in the overstuffed waiting room. Pastel pink walls were lined with plastic chairs that linked together which meant if one moved they all moved, a bugbear – and a presence that would never be recommended in any building I designed, no matter how tight the budget. It was just my luck to be sitting next to a little boy swinging his legs. I distracted myself by concentrating on the activity in the reception area island, staffed entirely by middle-aged women of similar spruce and sensible appearance. As they named, filed, sorted and organised with muted calm, the fact that it was just another day for them caused displeasure of magnitude. After a couple of minutes, I saw one of them point my way and whisper to the other, “That’s him.” What did she mean – That’s him?

  “Where’s your mum, kid?” I said to the leg-swinging boy. He was wearing an oversized puffer jacket that made him look like a balloon with two strings. He spoke with an eight-year old version of the Salford sneer, an essential accessory for the streets of Pendleton from where I suspected he came.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing, I just wondered.”

  “Gone for a fag. She said to scream my head off if anybody tries to kidnap me, so you’d better watch it, mister.”

  “Message received.” My tactic had paid off. The leg swinging had ceased.

  “Are you going to a wedding, mister?”

  “No, I’m not going to a wedding. Why would you think that?”

  “Gabriel Meredith?”

  “See you, kid, I’m off for a brain transplant.” Now I would never know. I shadowed the mysterious manila folder and its matronly bearer along the corridor. The ground floor of the hospital was bereft of windows; no doubt so none could be broken. A reasonable idea if you don’t factor in that the hospital experience is disturbing enough without the bonus of feeling like a lab rat in a maze. That would never be recommended in one of my buildings, either. The receptionist rapped on the door to the suite which once open, revealed a perky technician smothered in a white tunic. She glanced at the top of my head before speaking.

  “Mr Meredith, sorry to call you back, but you’ve got a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball. You’re going to die an undignified and painful death in a matter of weeks.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I said I’ll just take you through the instructions again.”

  I tried to listen to the re-run at first; no metal objects, try to keep still etcetera, but impatience overcame me.

  “Was anything wrong – the first time, I mean?”

  “A glitch.”

  “A glitch?”

  “The MRI malfunctioned, which is not unheard of.”

  “So, there was nothing to worry about?”

  “Well, I think it was quite worrying for the tech guys.”

  I remapped the room. There was a gold-coloured sweet wrapper under a white table in the corner. A gilded blot on an otherwise sanitised landscape. Glancing through the screen that separated computers from the business end, I discovered another technician squinting at the top of my head before the glazed eyes returned to the screen. It was a brain tumour, the worst one they’d ever seen. It was so big and unwieldy that they couldn’t believe it wasn’t sticking out of my skull. That’s why they had to do a second scan.

  As I lay on the shelf like a corpse waiting to be slotted into storage, the spectre of the sweet wrapper niggled through the blankness. My eyes were leaden; it had been another all-nighter. Jeff, my junior associate had messed up on an important detail, leaving a clumsy lump at the foot of apartment building plans which were due to be presented an hour or so hence. It was gone nine at night befo
re he’d been ready to confess, hair stuck to his plump, pinking face. I was tired upon tired, barely registering the sliding sensation as my head migrated towards the oversized grey doughnut, but stirred when the clacking heartbeat of the machine began its run. It sounded so ethereal: Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner, but ethereal it was not. I imagined slices of my brain appearing on a screen, the bizarre intimacy of others seeing a part of me that I’d never seen. I drifted further; in the seconds between waking and sleeping my mind would always delve for the mysterious point of origin, as if finding it would make all my troubles disappear. I knew it had started around seven months before, but struggled to pinpoint the exact moment I noticed it. At first it was like I couldn’t get this or that song out of my head, but the songs became relentless. I avoided the doctor as the whole thing was approximate to ‘I hear voices’, hatching visions of being carted away. My life turned into an exhausting radio tuner that crackled in and out of stations as I moved between places and people.

  It was after the yearly physical when Dr Fellowes disclosed I was in great shape that I burst into tears and spewed it all out like a proper idiot.

  *

  “Mr Meredith?”

  “Mr Meredith?”

  Reluctant eyes opened. I was about to spring into a sitting position when the perky technician put a hand on my chest.

  “You fell asleep, Gabriel, which is no mean feat with this racket. Just take your time now, we don’t want any banged heads, do we?”

  “Well, I suppose if you’re going to bang your head this is probably the best place, isn’t it?”

  She had a way of sticking her chin out when she smiled that made her look like Mr Punch. As she encouraged me into a sitting position, eyes straying towards the sweet-wrapper I was tempted to say, ‘That’s the way to do it’. She offered a wide-eyed look of encouragement, a hand that lingered on my arm, a chest pushed slightly forward. Women were often impressed by the suit and grooming that went with my territory, the job title, too, if they knew it and I guess being tall didn’t hurt. Still, whatever the evidence I was appealing on the outside, the inner geek would always put me in my place. There was no will to bite the bait; she was too young and I never did get the hang of casual sex. I offered my thanks, strange how we do that – offer thanks to those who are just doing their job. I backed out of the door, pretending to be oblivious to the come-on, but the incident may have put a momentary spring back in my step.

  It was on my return to the warren of pastel corridors that I noticed the woman staring at the top of my head. What was it with all these people? Once our eyes connected, the hubbub briefly diminished before she moved away and I found Jarvis Bentley engaged in an act of visual stalking as she sashayed down the antiseptic alley. Bentley was the younger brother of a fellow architect and junior doctor in neurology whose scurrying, wiry frame I’d previously witnessed, but avoided. Apart from a thirst to escape being the subject of gossip, if Bentley were anything like his brother he’d climb the greasy pole faster than a cat on acid, an unwelcome modus operandi, even on a good day. As he was dressed in civvies I presumed he was either on his way in or out and raced for the exit. It was then I heard the voice.

  “Hear my song, Gabriel.”

  Damn it.

  “Oh sorry, didn’t see you there, Jarvis. Did you just speak to me?”

  “No, no I didn’t.”

  “Oh. How are you – anyway?” He offered an elongated hand. Sweaty palms. I felt sorry for his patients.

  “I’m good, Gabriel, what are you doing here?”

  The cogs were turning in the manner of his breed. Despite my life’s achievements thus far, I never quite got the taste of his class out of my mouth.

  “Oh… How’s Lynden?”

  “He’s great, fine. How are you doing?”

  “There was a woman… there was a woman here a minute ago, mid-thirties – probably, various items of velvet and lace, chin length copper hair, red lipstick. I think she works here. Do you know her?”

  A melange of suspicion and curiosity was leaking. “Cairo. Cairo Shore. Finest knockers I’ve ever seen on a woman.”

  I forced myself to open the fist I was forming.

  “She doesn’t work here, strictly speaking. What do you want her for?”

  “Oh. She seemed familiar, but I don’t know the name.”

  “She’s a neuroscientist, quite the golden girl around here.”

  He had that hospital smell about him, which seemed strange when we were already in a hospital. A bleeper sounded. Bentley yanked the handset from his belt like a sharpshooter pulling a gun.

  “Got to go. Good to see you, Gabriel.” The air of entitlement created a breeze around him around as he charged down the corridor.

  Saved by the bell. Sparkling zig-zag lines slithered across my eyes, followed by a cold sweat. I hugged the wall until I reached a recessed waiting area and sat, fearful my discomfort would be observed by someone in a position to record it. An elderly woman directly opposite stared into middle-distance, hands dropped limply by her side, a partly shaved head sporting a prominent scar. I froze as her bulge-eyed focus veered towards me and she mouthed the words, ‘Hear my song, Gabriel’, before she reverted to the wall. I stood, barely able to breathe in the disinfected air as I switched my phone on, angling the screen to the corner of my eye, trying see through the zig-zags. There was a text from Jeff. ‘Where the hell are you?’

  Oh, bloody hell.

  Fortunately, the flickering faded. En route to the presentation, I wondered if the little boy assumed I was going to a wedding because it was the only time he’d seen anyone in a suit. When I was his age I’d have thought the same thing.

  Two

  On discovering that the inability to produce offspring rested on my side, I predicted the biological clock would propel Cathy towards richer seed. Frankly, I was grateful for a get out clause. We were never suited; I’d done that stupid thing so many men do and married a woman who seemed appropriate instead of one I really wanted. In the early days, after we’d made love I’d sit naked at the drawing board in the bedroom, occasionally looking around to watch her sleep, chestnut hair across the pillow, lithe body inviting through the sheet. Except her lithe body lost interest before we’d even celebrated our first anniversary. My marriage was a cautionary tale of the slippery slope. Nevertheless, when the news came that there was no brain tumour, the fact I had no one to share it with loomed large. I was an aquarium without fish. Post neurologist, shrink and six sessions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the notion of cure had become a slow fade out like the end of one of my obstinate songs. The condition was labelled ‘Auditory Hallucinations’ and I was freed, stamped with the impression that a man of my age and standing should bloody well get on with it, liberating resources for those of lesser income and greater need. I tried to bloody well get on with it, but nothing was ever the same. A grainy film had descended over the world in general and most of all, me.

  Sprinting for the car amidst the morning symphony of door clunks and sun-sprinkled windscreens, my clothes were damp and clingy after a hasty shower. Late for my meeting with Dave Cheetham, the developer on the Castlefield project, the lake of doom beckoned once more. I’d laboured in the city long enough to know what was under my feet when I strolled along a shiny, wet pavement or stumbled through an industrial wasteland to check out a potential site. The excavator hadn’t thrown up anything Bronze Age, evidence for which was thin on the ground and likely to cause months, if not years’ worth of delays, likewise a plague pit, spine chilling, but thankfully rare. In truth, I’d half-expected Roman ruins in that part of Manchester. Long before cradling the industrial revolution, it hosted a substantial fort designed to repel the Brigantine hordes.

  The project – an office complex, began smoothly enough; excavations for the foundations sunk to a depth of four metres, just shy of the red Bunter sandstone that underlay most of
Manchester. The piling that held back the walls of the pit had been completed ahead of schedule, topped off by the continuous capping beam bracing the massive hole. There was always a rush of anticipation at that stage; however humble or great the building, seeing it manifest makes you feel like God. Unfortunately, since the discovery, the excavator idled at one side of the pit as the swarm of archaeologists went about their snail’s pace business. The base level had been pegged and taped into a grid of squares peeled back with hand trowels, spoons and brushes. A section of rectangular stones had already been revealed, which were causing a ‘fortune in prelims’ according to the project manager. I’d arrived just as Cheetham had been informed about the potential length of delay, causing him to slam his chipped tea mug down. The overspill added another layer to a sticky, brown film on the Portakabin table. Cheetham’s features were pleasant enough, but he was small and scrawny and had to make up for it. Fearsome reputation notwithstanding, there was a quality behind the eyes that suggested he was a thesis short of a Masters. There are two kinds of self-made men – the ones who remember where they came from and never betray it, or the people they can help along the way. Then there are the ones who’ll do anything to forget where they came from and despise those they left behind and turn into calculating bastards. As I was the former and he the latter, the twain were never going to meet. After one particularly vicious exchange I’d asked him why he carried on offering me projects. “Because you’re good.” He’d said. “And you’re always on time and on budget. The rest is window dressing.”

  He looked me up and down as he took a last swig of surly tea.

  “We’re way off critical path, Meredith. I’m not made of money, you know. What are you going to do about it?”

  I tuned out halfway through the rant and surveyed the cabin, which smelt of diesel and dirty socks, the fashion for girly calendars usurped by Health and Safety notices. His eyes darted back and forth as he rambled, right hand rolling his left sleeve up and down. He cleared his throat every few seconds, drawing attention to the popping eyes. Like most architects, I’d learned to be philosophical about the role of developer’s whipping boy.