2008 - The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce

by Paul Torday

  A sponge was applied to my face, dabbing at a crust of what felt like dried blood, which appeared to have grown on it.

  “Yes, Mr Wilberforce, that’s right.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the A & E department at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. You had a fall.”

  I didn’t want to be in a hospital. I wanted to be at home, being looked after by my own doctor. The trouble was, I couldn’t remember who he was: his name was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t get the word out, I couldn’t remember exactly what it was—as if I wanted to say ‘Pimlico’ but could only think of Pershore.

  “Is there anyone we ought to contact to tell them you’re here?” asked the voice, coming into view for the first time. It was a young Indian doctor.

  “Francis Black,” I told him.

  There was someone else in the room, sitting behind me, gently sponging my face. Now she spoke. “Can you remember his phone number, dear?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Then I remembered Francis had died of cancer three years ago. “I’m sorry, he’s dead, anyway.”

  “We found you at an address in Mayfair. Can you remember how you got there? Can you remember where you live?”

  “I live in Bogota.”

  Why in God’s name had I said that?

  The Indian doctor said, “In Bogota? In Colombia? You’re a long way from home then.”

  The two voices conferred above my head, and one of them said something about ‘concussion’ and ‘retrograde amnesia’.

  “Don’t worry just now, dear,” said the woman’s voice. “You’re still a bit muzzy from your fall, aren’t you? We’ll take you to a nice quiet room on your own and you can get some sleep, and then we might do some tests and try to find out what went wrong with you.”

  I was wheeled out of the theatre on the gurney and along a corridor. Gentle hands lifted me into a bed, and then I fell asleep.

  When I awoke, I saw that a drip had been attached to my hand, once again, and another plaster near my elbow suggested someone had been helping themselves to my blood. I stared around the room, which was painted a restful green colour, and wondered how I had got here. I had been shopping, hadn’t I? A nurse came into the room holding a clipboard, and looked at me with a rather severe expression.

  “And how are we feeling?” she asked.

  “About the same as ever,” I told her. She glanced at a clipboard and said, “Do you feel well enough to answer a few questions, Mr Wilberforce?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “We checked your blood pressure and did a blood sample when you were admitted. Your cholesterol was raised and the sample indicated a high level of alcohol in your blood. Had you been drinking recently?”

  “Only in moderation.”

  The nurse looked at her clipboard again. “That isn’t consistent with your blood-sample level. How many units of alcohol do you drink in a week?”

  I could not remember what a unit was, and said so.

  “A glass of wine is about one and a half units.”

  “Oh.” I have always been quick with numbers. When I was growing up, counting in my head or calculating prime numbers had been one of my greatest pleasures. That was how I had once become a very good software developer and programmer. I worked it out in my head and said, “I suppose I drink around 2.60 units a week. Unless I go out. Then I might drink a bit more than that. But I don’t go out very often.”

  The nurse put down her clipboard on my bed and stared at me. “You mean twenty-six, surely?”

  “Well, if you assume the average glass holds 125 millilitres and a bottle of wine is 750 millilitres, then you can get five glasses from every bottle. If each glass is 1.5, that’s 7.5 units per bottle, and if I drink five bottles a day then that’s 260 units per week, you see. I’m sorry if my arithmetic’s gone wrong somewhere. My brain is still not working properly.”

  I could see the nurse doing some mental arithmetic of her own, as her lips moved silently. She said, “You’re a very sick man, Mr Wilberforce. I don’t know that there’s any point in any further questions.” She left me alone.

  I began to wonder whether I could not discharge myself and get a taxi home. The only snag was, I could not remember where home was. I could remember some details of what it looked like. I could, for example, remember my bedroom ceiling. I was fairly convinced that my home was in London, too, rather than Bogota. When I had been in Bogota, I had stayed in a hotel the name of which also escaped me for the moment. Someone else came into the bedroom, and at first I assumed it was a doctor, because he was holding a large board in front of him of the kind used by opticians for sight tests, so that all I could see was the hands gripping the board, which obscured the doctor’s face and most of his body. More tests. I hoped this was not going to go on all afternoon.

  “Can you read the letters?” asked my visitor, in a hoarse whisper, and with the words came an exhalation of something mouldy, something rotten. But the voice sounded familiar. It reminded me of Francis.

  “How nice of you to look in on me. How did you know I was in here?”

  But my visitor made no acknowledgement of my greeting. He simply repeated, “Can you read the letters?”

  I looked at the board. It read:

  TNMWWTTW

  TNMWWTTW

  TNMWWTTW

  TNMWWTTW

  TNMWWTTW

  TNMWWTTW

  “Can you read the letters, Wilberforce?” whispered my visitor. His fingers, holding the board, were long and very bony, and the fingernails were uncared for, almost talons.

  “Yes, I can,” I said shortly, holding my breath. Whoever he was, the smell of body odour was sweet and corrupt.

  “Then tell me what they say?”

  “Ten Naughty Mice Went Walking Towards The Wensley-dale,” I told him. There! I knew it was a mnemonic. I knew it would come back to me. But what was it a mnemonic for?

  A movement distracted me and I turned from my visitor and his sight-test board to see someone else, this time definitely a doctor, come into the room. When I turned back to look at the sight-test board to see if it would give me any further clues it, and the person holding it, had gone. So had that foul smell, thank God.

  The doctor came up to me and asked how I was.

  “Feeling better,” I said. “I’d quite like to go home soon.”

  “Oh, I think we’d better keep you in overnight, just to see how things go. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d just like to check your vision is OK.”

  “What, again? Someone’s just been giving me a sight test. I could read all the letters.”

  “Someone? I’m the only doctor on this ward this evening. Do you mean a nurse?”

  “Ten Naughty Mice Went Walking Towards The Wensley-dale,” I said proudly. “I could read all the letters, even the ones right at the bottom of the board.”

  “What sight board are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t you see him? He must still have been in the room when you came in just now.”

  The young doctor ran his hand through his hair, and then said, “I’m afraid you must be mistaken, Mr Wilberforce. There’s no other doctor on duty on this ward tonight, there was no one in the room when I came in, and there could have been no one, because the ward cannot be entered except by people who have the code number for the key pad. The main door is kept locked at all times. It may be you are experiencing some slight after-effects from your concussion, you know. Let me shine this torch into the back of your eyes for a minute.”

  He looked into my eyes, then made a dissatisfied noise and left without any further explanation. Time passed and I lay in my bed halfway between waking and sleeping, my face beginning to hurt quite a lot as whatever painkillers I had been given wore off. At odd intervals in the middle of the night I was awakened by a nurse coming in wheeling a trolley offering treats such as spaghetti hoops and jam sponge in custard. Despite the fact that I had not eaten for so long I could not bring myself to ta
ke anything, and sent them away. How long was it since I had had a glass of wine? I lay on my bed and tried to remember all the wines produced in the Bordeaux region of Pessac-Leognan and Graves. In the darkness I murmured to myself: “Haut-Brion. La Mission Haut-Brion. Carbonnieux. Smith-Haute-Lafitte, Château Chasse de Frites…and…and Malartic-Lagraviere…and…and…Haut-Brion—no, I’ve done that one…and Pape Clement, of course…and…”

  As I tried to remember other names, my body became damp with perspiration, and my arms and legs twitched restlessly. I had some Château Carbonnieux in Half Moon Street. Half Moon Street! That was where I lived. I could not at present say what number it was, but the door was painted a dark blue. Now I had remembered where I lived, why should I not check myself out and get a taxi to take me home? There must be some money in my pockets. Hadn’t I intended to go shopping?

  I rang the night bell, and after a few moments the night-duty sister put her head around the door and said, “Is everything all right? Can I get you something?”

  “I want to go home,” I told her.

  “At four in the morning? I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Mr Wilberforce. Much better you stay here until the day doctor has been in and had a look at you and we find out a bit more about what’s wrong with you.”

  “I know what’s wrong with me,” I told her. “I’ve got my own doctor.”

  “Who’s that, dear?”

  I tried to remember, and this time the name came. “Colin Holman—Dr Colin Holman. I’ve an appointment with him. What day is it today?”

  “It’s very early on Monday morning.”

  “Then I must go home,” I told her. “My appointment is later today. I must go home. It’s very important.”

  “And what does he say is wrong with you, dear?” asked the night sister.

  “He thinks I’m dying of too much drink,” I told her, “although I only drink wine, and then always the same amount, of very good quality Bordeaux. I never drink spirits, of course, and I never drink excessively.”

  Two hours later I had managed to make them bring me my clothes, found my money and my flat keys, signed several forms to allow the hospital to release me, and managed to find a taxi to take me home.

  The taxi driver looked in the driving mirror when I climbed into the back of the cab. “Blimey, you’ve been in the wars, mate,” he said cheerfully.

  I caught a brief glimpse of my face which was livid purple on the side I had fallen down on, with bandages taped over where I had cut myself. “I’ve been in Bogota,” I told him.

  “Really? Must be rough over there, then,” he said.

  I sat in my kitchen at home, relieved beyond measure to be back within my own four walls. I still felt distinctly unwell, and very empty, but somehow another trip to the shop, which would be open by now, did not appeal just at present. Perhaps I could ask Colin to get in a few things when he came to see me later in the day.

  Meanwhile, it had been a very long time since I had drunk a glass of wine. With, I admit, trembling hands I found the last bottle of Château Carbonnieux and opened it. An alcoholic, which I am not and never have been, would not have sat and let it breathe for half an hour, and let it come up towards room temperature. He would not have poured it lovingly into the large bowl of a tasting glass, to ensure the bouquet could develop properly. Nor would he have checked the glass first for any mustiness. So often a musty glass can destroy the taste of the wine in it. I could smell nothing on the glass, although a smell of mould did seem to linger about the house. I decided I ought to see about getting someone in to open the windows.

  An alcoholic would not have rolled the purple liquid gently around in the glass, to capture the aroma of the wine, and then taken a single sip, allowing the complex chemicals of the wine to release themselves upon his tongue. He would not have made the effort to characterise the tastes from the wine in the approved wine taster’s vocabulary: sweet black cherries, toasty oak in the background.

  The day passed pleasantly enough in this manner. I still felt odd—a thundery feeling in my blood as if somewhere not far away a storm was brewing. I put that down to the trauma of having fallen over and, worse still, having spent nearly two days in hospital. I was looking forward to seeing Colin, though not particularly because I wanted to hear what he had to say. It would be the usual stuff, and perhaps more about this odd Werner’s condition. No, Colin could be very boring when he got on to all that medical stuff, though I suppose, as he was a doctor, I couldn’t really expect anything more. The truth was, I felt lonely. Looking at those photographs of Catherine and Ed before I had gone out shopping, I had suddenly remembered how nice it had been to have friends. It had been, in fact, wonderful to have friends. That had been really the only period of my life when I had ever had any.

  I thought about those days when I still lived in the North of England, before circumstances had made me sever my links (except for the wine) with all that part of my life. I remembered the exciting, heady days when I had been building up my company: at first in the spare room of my dismal flat; then in some rented space in the corner of an old warehouse; finally in the glass-and-marble palace it had occupied when I sold it. I had no friends then, apart from my business partner Andy. I needed none. I had no time for a social life. I was, if nothing else, content in those days.

  I thought about the months and years of my friendship with Francis, of the people I had met through him: Ed Simmonds, Eck Chetwode-Talbot, Annabel Gazebee, and Catherine. I know I was really happy then.

  I was still happy now, wasn’t I? Only I was happy in a different way from before. My life had been changed by what had happened coming south from Caerlyon. I knew I was happy: it just felt different from what I had thought of as happiness before. I was a little lonely sometimes, too. It would have been nice to be able, on occasions, to talk about my wine to people who really understood. From time to time I came across a wine waiter who showed some awareness of the depth of my knowledge and experience, but on the whole, these days, drinking wine had become a solitary occupation. It was a pity Colin was not more interested. Perhaps if I offered to leave my wine to him he might become more enthusiastic. I wondered what he would say if I told him I’d put him in my will.

  The thought put a smile on my face. I looked at my watch, which was scratched on the face but still seemed to be working. Colin would be here soon.

  I thought I heard the door bell ring and went through to let him in. There was no one there. I put the catch up so that it would not slam shut on me, and stepped into the street to look for him.

  The evening was damp with rain and the headlights of passing cars gleamed in the wet black pavements. I had just got into El Dorado airport in Bogota on the Avianca flight from Medellin.

  FIVE

  I had just flown into El Dorado airport in Bogota, on the Avianca flight from Medellin. From there I had taken a taxi uptown, asking the driver to take me to the Hotel Bogota Plaza. Then, some instinct made me decide not to take the taxi all the way to the front of the hotel. Instead I asked the driver to drop me off at the corner of the Avenida 100 and Calle 2.7, by the big Toyota dealership. I paid off the driver and took my travelling bag from the back seat. The air was damp and thin, and spitting with a fine rain. I stood by the side of Avenida 100 for a moment, but no other taxis stopped in the vicinity. I didn’t think the person who was following me used taxis.

  As I walked along Calle 17, towards the side street that would lead me to the back entrance of my hotel, my eye was caught by a flashing neon sign, one of the animated kind where a computer programs thousands of different miniature bulbs to switch on and off, creating changing patterns and colours. It showed an Indian boy raising a brightly coloured bottle of Coca-Cola to his lips, followed by the slogan ‘Dis-frute Coca-Cola’, which scrolled across the screen.

  Then the image vanished and letters started moving endlessly across the screen from left to right: TNMWWTTW…TNMWWTTW…TNMWWTTW…My bag in my hand, the fine, warm drizzle moisten
ing my face like tears, I stared up at the sign, trying to recall its meaning.

  Then I smiled to myself. TNMWWTTW…Ten Naughty Mice Went Walking Towards The Wensleydale…That was it, that was the mnemonic I had been having such difficulty recalling. I remember someone asking me in a hoarse voice to read it to him.

  TNMWWTTW…The Night My Wife Went Through The Windscreen.

  This was terrific. I could remember everything. The warm rain ran down my cheeks and I savoured its salt taste. The night my wife went through the windscreen. The night Catherine died in that car crash. Knowing I would try and forget and bury the memory for ever, I had tagged it with a mnemonic and archived it somewhere in the back of my brain. It is so rewarding when, one’s memory having become a little rusty in certain regions of one’s life, some mysterious lubricant starts it working again.

  The night that Catherine had died: I remembered it very well now, standing there halfway down Calle 2.7, in uptown Bogota. I remembered the flashing blue lights, the chirruping of the police and paramedic radios, the clatter of the air ambulance settling down on to the grass beside the road, before starting its fruitless journey carrying Catherine, already dying or dead, to the hospital. I remembered lying on a stretcher in the rain, with a policeman rousing me, asking questions. It had been raining that night too, just like this night, half a world away, feeling bruised and shaken but somehow unhurt, watching Catherine’s body being loaded on its stretcher into the helicopter, and thinking, “Thank God it wasn’t me.”

  My right arm was beginning to ache from holding the bag. I shifted it to my left arm and walked on.

  Then I saw a manhole cover in front of me start to rotate. It was pushed aside from beneath and, after a pause, two street children climbed out and looked about them. They were clothed in rags and very dirty. One of them saw me and turned as if poised for flight, but then they must have decided I was not dangerous, for they advanced on me, speaking their incomprehensible patois of Indian and Spanish in wheedling voices. They wanted money, of course, and so I put my bag down and reached into my coat pocket for some small-denomination notes or change.