by Paul Kelly
A minister of religion came to the front of the coffin but I think that was the biggest surprise to me because when I looked up closer at this man’s face, I recognised him as Travis.
I could see Travis looking strangely at me and I saw that he was wearing a Roman Collar, but that confused me even more until he made the Sign of the Cross and took me to one side of the burial ground.
“Yes, I am Travis and I am converted,” he said. “I am now a Methodist minister of the church of God and I organize a club for young men to keep them off the streets and away from crime and street gangs. In other words I am an Apostle of grace and sin is no longer in my vocabulary. ”
I gasped as I started to understand what Travis was saying, but I could hardly believe what he had said. It seemed so ridiculous and so stupid that he would have this conversion when I remembered how he had been with me at the bank shootings and how it was only because he was absent on another occasion that Steve had to accompany me to the post office where old Mrs. Madden had died... and I asked him how I should address him now. Would it be Mr. Sir or Reverend and he had the gall to tell me that he was truly Reverend and that was how I should address him now as he continued to tell me that he and heaven were never to be separated and that he would have had Steve come to the funeral if he wished as already Steve had been dead for a long time, but the Reverend Travis had control as a minster of life and death.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I hope Travis didn’t hear my reply when he uttered his solemn AMEN and I farted as I whispered ‘BOLLOCKS ‘ into the air.
When the body was lowered into the ground, we all went our separate ways and I watched Travis as he left the cemetery and stepped into a Rolls Royce outside the cemetery gates. I had never believed in a God but now and again I had heard people quote from the bible and one of those quotes would not leave my mind as I made my way back to my humble job at the office where I didn’t even have a push bike. “It is easier to enter into the eye of a needle than for the rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
I wondered if Emily knew that one... and I wondered how the bloody hell Travis could control his conscience with all the activities of his past under the guidance of Angus and I had always regarded Travis as a good man... How wrong can one be? He now wanted to be called the Reverend... could that possibly be the Reverend Dick?
Emily seemed to be over indulgent in cleaning the house when I got home that evening and she told me that her brother Gerard who was a surgeon in a hospital in Paris was coming back to Scotland for a little holiday and he would like to have stayed with Emily and I rather than with his father Alfred. I was very happy with that, but I knew that he would have to stay in the spare room and we hadn’t used that room as a nursery yet for Alfie as we had planned to have it decorated especially for the little boy, but Emily agreed that Gerard would be best suited in that room, only there was only a cot in there and I asked Emily as it was Gerard and we knew what Gerard was, would it be a single or a double bed he would require for his visit and Emily gave me another one of her ‘old fashioned’ looks as she raised her eyes to the ceiling and smiled. I knew what that meant and I went out to order a double bed.
Meanwhile, I wondered if Gerard’s friend from the hospital knew of the planned little holiday, but there was no way I could find out and so I just had to wait to hear if there was any more news coming from Gerard and after a few days waiting, Gerard got through to us on the telephone. Yes, he would be in Glasgow the following Friday evening and it didn’t matter what type of bed we had... and that confused both Emily and I. Emily was not at all worried about her brother’s sexuality, but she knew that Gerard’s dad was concerned and that was the principal reason why Gerard had elected to stay with us for his break. I began to think that perhaps Gerard’s surgeon friend might have a place of his own or else they could have arranged to stay together in a hotel, but I put that out of my mind. It was none of my business and anyway, I liked Gerard and I knew he liked me.
It was at this time that I thought I should buy a little car and then I could have done so many other things in our lives, like taking Emily and Alfie to the park or on little runs into the country or even meeting Gerard at the airport, so after agreeing the costs with Emily we bought a little old Ford Fiesta... second hand of course and it cost me £2000 which meant I would have to work longer hours to make up my cash.
We met Gerard at the airport when he came in and there was a great roar of joy when Gerard met my little son Alfie coming from the car with his teddy, but Emily looked concerned as her brother did not look at all well and she gathered that this was his reason for a short holiday away from his work, but I wondered what his surgeon friend would think when he saw him, nevertheless Emily very kindly gave us all a lovely meal when Gerard came home and of course there was a great hullabaloo when Alfie showed Gerard his new room and told him in the best way he could with his ‘advanced’ sign language that this room was really his... and that he was happy to let his uncle Gerard use it, but only for a very short time.
The evening of the visit went off well and Emily very discreetly asked Gerard if he was well and the answer she received seemed to satisfy her, but she looked across the lounge at me and gave me a funny look as if she could not believe what her brother had told her and she felt sure that there was something amiss. I too felt there might well be something wrong as Emily had looked at me in a funny way, but it was not the ‘old fashioned’ look that I knew so well.
After we had eaten Emily suggested that Gerard might like to have a lie down in his room, but Gerard took out his mobile phone and walked out into the garden where we could hear him talking. After abut ten minutes, he came back into the lounge again and told us that he would be meeting Assim Khan, his friend the following day at the hospital and as they had quite a lot to talk about, they would have dinner out in a hotel and that would save Emily a little extra work.
Emily and I went to bed that night with a worry that everything was not alright with Gerard, but he had said he was O.K. and we had to leave it like that, but even little Alfie looked worried in his own little way as he wasn’t screaming as he usually did and he kept looking in at the room we had prepared for Gerard until we had got him bathed and into his little pyjama suit. Gerard seemed to sleep alright that evening and we heard no snoring or anything unusual, but Emily kept waking up and tossing around the bed so that I found it difficult to sleep myself and when she went down to the kitchen about three of clock in the morning to make herself a cup of tea, I really began to get worried. The last time that she had acted in this way was when she came home from hospital with Alfie and we were told to keep an eye on him as he could have been a lot better than he appeared, even if there was nothing serious to worry about. It was because Alfie was born sooner than we had expected that he had to have special care.
The following morning everything went fine at breakfast and we thought that Gerard had eaten well when Emily served him fried eggs and bacon and he ate the lot followed by two cups of coffee. He left the house looking well dressed in a different suit to the one in which we met him at the airport and Emily felt better than she had done and started to sing as she cleared the kitchen from the breakfast dishes.
Later that day when I had gone to work, Emily phoned me and she spoke very quietly into the phone.
“Darling... can you hear me Alright?” she asked and I told her I could hear her fine and then she went on. “Gerard has been back to the house this morning and his friend from the hospital came with him. They are eating out, but Gerard asked me if he and his friend could come back to us in the evening as they had a briefcase and something in it which had to be discussed.”
I was pleased to hear that and thought it would be fine for the two of them to come to a late dinner, but Emily told me they might be eating out, however, we welcomed the visit and hoped Alfie would behave himself and go to his bed earlier than usual, wh
ich was normally about 6.30 in the evening. We didn’t like Alfie to watch too much television, but he was beginning to talk now and the chatter could be nerve breaking, especially as he chatted non-stop as if he knew everything that was going on around him. It was a great delight to know that he could talk, but neighbours or friends did not have the same interest as we had and we realized that Alfie could be a bit more than loud... even when he was trying to be quiet... and worse when he thought he could sing... like a soprano of sorts.
Chapter Seventeen
Gerard and Assim came to the house together and Gerard was carrying a briefcase and Emily called out from the kitchen to let them know that as they had eaten out she was preparing something to drink. I could see Assim looking at Gerard when Emily was coming into the lounge with cups on a tray and Gerard explained that as Assim was Muslim, he only drank water... no tea; no coffee and certainly no alcohol. It was Gerard who started to speak just as Assim told us that he had brought Alfie some chocolate sweets but he had left them in the kitchen as he wasn’t sure if Emily allowed him to eat sweets or not. Emily thanked Assim and shook her head just as Gerard broke into the conversation again to tell us that as he and Assim had a lot to discuss regarding their professions and they thought it might be a good idea to do the work they had to do and alsso combine their time with a little holiday. It seemed that neither Gerard nor Assim had been on holiday for more than two years and they had decided spend a few days near Loch Lomond as Assim had always wanted to visit the Loch and to confirm to all his friends that the Loch Ness Monster did not exist. The journey north was taken the following day and at the same time, we had a visit from Freddie and when I arrived home from the office, I could see Freddie sitting comfortably in my favourite chair drinking a glass of my favourite whiskey and with Alfie perched happily on his knee.
I told him to sit where he was and hoped he was enjoying life as I glanced at the glass in his hand but he smiled and assured me that he had brought TWO bottle of the stuff with him as he knew I liked a drop of the ‘hard stuff’, but it was when he had settled down that he looked a little concerned and asked us if we had heard anything of Gerard and when Emily told him that her brother was staying with us for a little while but that he had only just left the house with his friend Assim to visit Loch Lomond for a few days but they would be back again soon and Freddie gulped his drink as he asked us if we thought Gerard might be ill or something. Emily was surprised at what Freddie had suggested but then she looked at me and told me how she had felt when she first saw Gerard coming from the plane at the airport and I remembered that she told me then that she was worried about Gerard as he looked rather pale.
“He is ill, Emily,” Freddie said immediately and Emily stood still at the kitchen door with a teacup in her hand and I thought she would drop the thing as I reached out to take it from her.
“What do you mean Ill?” she asked Freddie and Freddie told her that Gerard had kidney trouble and that was the reason why he had come back to Scotland from France because there was no match for him in Paris and he thought the best plan was to approach the family as they were all of the same blood group as far as he could understand and therefore there would be a better chance of getting a kidney match in Glasgow; the city where he and all the family had been born.
I immediately thought that perhaps Gerard had thought that his friend Assim might be a kidney match and that was the reason why they had gone away together to discuss this matter in private.
I could see Emily thinking much the same as I was, but what was to be done now. Should we tell the other brothers that Gerard needed a kidney and would they all get tested in the event that they could help? Would Adrian be able to do anything now that he had a wife and family and would Steven be able to do something now that he was very much in love with Celine and even Emily?. .. She was Gerard’s sister. Could a female help with her kidney and would it be the same kidney as that of a male. I didn’t know. I knew nothing about kidneys or hearts or lungs or bollocks or anything. I was a layman in that field, but I felt very sorry for Gerard and hoped everything would be alright for hm.
Freddie asked us when we thought Gerard and his friend would be back in Glasgow, but all we knew was that they wanted to see Loch Lomond and would be gone three or four days and Freddie told us that he was going to the hospital to be tested to see if he was a match and I felt sure that Freddie would willingly have given one of his kidneys if he was indeed a match, but then Emily thought she would have to get on to Adrian and Steven to see what they thought and she wanted that Dad should know nothing about this sad business with Gerard. He was such a brilliant young surgeon too and anything that stopped him doing that would be a great tragedy for himself and for many others and Emily told me that she too would have the test, but as far as Alfie was concerned he was far too young.
When Steven was told of the problem he immediately volunteered to go the hospital for a check-up and when he got there and saw Celine in the hospital canteen, she too offered to have the test and I thought that was very brave of her because although she loved Steven, she was not one of the immediate family... yet, but regretfully when it came to Adrian he absolutely refused to have anything to do with it saying that he had a wife and family to consider and he wanted nothing to do with any kidney problem or operation, but I remembered that Stella HAD been pregnant but she had lost the baby, so where was the ‘family’ that Adrian spoke about... or was Stella pregnant again?
Nothing was ever mentioned to Gerard’s father as he had been rather ill lately and Gerard thought it best to say nothing of his infirmity, but the surprise came from Gerard’s friend Assim as he too had volunteered to have the test, which I thought was quite remarkable because Assim was a Muslim and I wondered was a Muslim’s kidney acceptable to a lad born in Glasgow?
However, with all the efforts we put in to get someone who had a kidney to spare that would match the one that Gerard needed, we were totally left high and dry and it seemed that Gerard would have to wait for a very long time before we would be able to do anything. I was led to understand that someone at the hospital could check your blood to make sure you were a correct donor or not.
Gerard and Assim returned to Glasgow from the north where they had spent a few days in Inverness and from the way they spoke, I think Assim was very impressed with the area and the people that he met there. When they came to visit us again, Assim made a sign that he would like to talk to me quietly in the kitchen and Emily gave me the nod to make me realize that she understood and that I should do as Assim suggested as it seemed to be something to do with Gerard’s health and what she thought was true. Assim told me that he was very concerned for Gerard’s health and that he was going to have him admitted to a ward in the hospital as a patient and that he should have as much rest as possible and also that the operation on his kidney was becoming truly vital.
“But how can anyone know if they would be able to help by giving one of their own kidneys,” I asked and Assim told me that there was a doctor and a nurse at the hospital who were responsible for taking blood and they could always tell by the blood sample if the person could help give a kidney or not. This test was easy to take and was without risk of any kind.
The following day when I had had a bad night sleeping because of weird dreams, I told Emily that I wouldn’t need any breakfast as I would rather take a sandwich with me to the office and she made me up a nice little lunch pack which I stuck in my pocket before I drove off to the office in my little old Fiesta, but I had no intentions of going to the office. I drove off to the hospital and had my kidneys checked for blood with that special doctor who knew all about these things.
Later I could hear Assim telling a nurse that there were FIVE people waiting at the ‘kidney desk’ but that only TWO of them were eligible to give a kidney donation.
The first of those two eligible clients got as far as the operating theatre and then chickened out, leaving only the
other eligible person to assist Doctor Assim Khan and I watched Gerard being pushed into one theatre and I knew that the other theatre nearby was the one for the donor. I knew that the operation would be carried out by another surgeon and not Assim Khan as I understood he only did brain surgery and that he mainly worked in the theatre in the afternoons and evenings.
***
As I lay still in my bed in the Ward Seven, I knew that everything had gone according to plan and that Gerard had got my kidney. Emily had panicked when she phoned the office where I worked for the building company and was told that I had never been there that day and she phoned the police telling them that her husband was missing, before she phoned the hospital to enquire if I had been involved in a car accident... I know it was cruel of me not to tell her of my intentions that morning when I left home to go to the office, but I knew that as all the relatives had been refused a donor card, she would never have allowed me to go forward and offer my assistance to help her brother, but when she did arrive at Ward Seven, I could hardly breathe for the kisses and cuddles that she gave me and I knew then that everything was O.K.
Assim came into the ward and sat down beside my bed to thank me himself as he had been involved in my plan. He knew that time was running out for Gerard and he had done everything in his power to help him, but it was when they were in Loch Lomond that he realized just how necessary it was for Gerard to have the operation as soon as possible and the visit to Inverness was a last hope that someone there might be able to assist and when they came down from Inverness and came back to my house, I persuaded Assim to give me a chance to help. He was reluctant at first, especially when I asked him to keep it a secret from Emily and the rest of the family, but he broke down and cried when he told me that he would do anything to help Gerard and that he truly loved him, but he knew that we had TWO secrets between ourselves and Assim became another of my ‘special friends’ who I am sure was sent by Emily’s God to enrich my sad and buggered up old life.
