Thunder in the Blood

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘He’s different,’ I said. ‘Something’s gone. Something’s missing.’

  Mark was nodding. ‘I know. I’ve thought about it a lot. If he was a radio, you’d do something about it. You’d give him a shake, tune him in properly.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a lousy reception area.’ I smiled. ‘Have you thought of that?’

  He said nothing for a moment or two. His patience, I knew, was wearing thin. Wesley had always pushed him to the limit and now was no different. Except the compensations had gone: the laughter, the energy, the mischief in the man. Mark sipped at his cappuccino.

  ‘They’ll discharge him sooner or later,’ he said quietly. ‘He won’t be here for ever.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He wants me to look after him. He can’t stand buddying. Strangers. Charity. All that.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  Mark looked away a moment. The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. He was quiet and kind and shy, not at all Wesley’s style, and the fact that he was HIV positive himself made the whole thing hideously complicated.

  ‘Could you cope?’ I said slowly. ‘Full time?’

  He glanced across at me, wall-eyed. ‘No,’ he said at last.

  I nodded, understanding the realities behind the muttered, one-word answer. The experience of everyday life in Victoria Ward had unnerved him, but the changes in Wesley had made it infinitely worse. Wesley had pitched his tent in the no man’s land between HIV and the last rites, and what Mark had seen so far had terrified him.

  ‘His brain’s going,’ he said, ‘I know it is. There’s stuff he can’t remember any more. Simple stuff. Places we’ve been. Things we’ve done. Music. Clubs. Even his mother’s second name. They passed on a message from her the other day. On the phone. He couldn’t work out who she was.’

  He looked at me. His eyes were moist.

  ‘But there are other times,’ I put my hand over his, ‘when he’s back on form.’

  ‘I know. I know.’ He shook his head, fumbling for a Kleenex. ‘Believe me, I know.’

  ‘So he might get better … mightn’t he?’

  ‘That’s not what they say.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The doctors. The consultant. The one with the limp.’

  ‘You’ve talked to him?’ He nodded. I’d bumped into the consultant a number of times. He was a small, thin Indian with a withered leg and a permanently doleful expression, not one of life’s optimists. ‘What does he say?’

  ‘He says he’s got abcesses on the brain. Scars. You can see them on the X-rays. He showed me. White marks, four or five of them, so…’ he shrugged, blowing his nose again, ‘I imagine that explains it.’

  ‘Are they permanent? These scars?’

  ‘Yes. So I’m told.’

  ‘No chance of getting better?’

  ‘Not short term.’

  ‘Long term?’

  Mark glanced up at me, a strange look on his face, at once despairing and reproachful. ‘There is no long term,’ he said softly. ‘That’s the whole fucking point.’

  I went home that afternoon, knowing exactly what I should do. Looking after Wesley would be a full-time occupation, no question, but two phone calls from the personnel department at Curzon House had already convinced me that time wouldn’t be a problem. MI5 was evidently confronting a major reorganization. Establishment costs were being slashed right across Whitehall. The woman in the personnel department had a word for it. She called it ‘downsizing’, and the way she used the word suggested that the loss of jobs – including mine – was simply a sensible piece of management reform.

  I, though, knew different. I’d listened to Stollmann. I’d heard the anger and the contempt in his voice. And I knew that the politicians, after decades of frustration, were finally in the saddle. Employees who didn’t toe the party line were out. MI5 had become simply another arm of Smith Square, an intelligence machine dedicated to buttressing the doubtful gains of thirteen troubled years.

  I arrived back at Fulham to find a letter on the mat. The letter confirmed that my employment with MI5 was being terminated, effective at once. There was a consolatory message from my Group Controller, a new appointee whom I’d never met, and a separate sheet of paper detailed the arrangements the service had made for my redundancy payments. This money would not, I was assured, be subject to tax.

  A few days later, back at Wesley’s bedside, I gave him the good news.

  ‘I’m a free woman,’ I said, ‘your future’s secure.’

  He eyed me from the bed without enthusiasm. Sometimes, like now, he was as alert as ever, the old Wesley.

  ‘What future’s that?’ he said.

  ‘Convalescence. When they let you out.’

  ‘What about Mark?’

  ‘Mark’s been offered a play,’ I lied, ‘in Glasgow.’

  Wesley said nothing, turning his face to the wall. He’d never been one for the normal rules of conversation – question, response – but since I’d come back from the States he’d developed a habit of lapsing into total silence. If he didn’t like what he heard, he simply ignored it. I leaned forward. The drugs he was taking gave his breath a sweet, slightly cheesy flavour.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ I told him. ‘It’ll be good. You’ll need someone around for a bit. Plus we can try and make sense of…’ I smiled, ‘you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The war. All that.’

  Wesley’s face turned towards me on the pillow. One yellow eye opened. ‘Yeah?’ he said.

  The morning before Wesley was due to leave hospital, late November, I arrived earlier than usual. The bus had fooled me by turning up on time and I had half an hour in hand. Because I was scrupulous about keeping to the visiting schedule we’d agreed, I waited downstairs, in the big entrance hall, sitting on a bench beside the staircase. I was still on the Guardian’s front page when someone stopped beside me. I glanced up. It was Derek Aldridge.

  ‘Long time,’ he said pleasantly, extending a hand, ‘no see.’

  We went outside, into the thin winter sunshine. Aldridge had called by on his way to an interview at the British Forces Broadcasting studios, half a mile north, across the Grand Union Canal. He needed to be there by eleven. We began to walk.

  ‘What do you think?’ I said. ‘How is he?’

  Aldridge said nothing for a moment, buttoning his coat. Only when we were climbing the steps to the canal bank did he answer my question.

  ‘Changed, hasn’t he?’ he said. ‘Changed a lot.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lost the sharpness. The edge.’

  I looked at him. ‘It’s called AIDS,’ I said, ‘you may have heard.’

  ‘I know, I know. It’s just…’ He paused.

  We were on the towpath now, beside the canal. There was a narrowboat moored beside the further bank. Smoke curled from a stove-pipe chimney near the bow. Aldridge was still frowning, still hunting for the right word.

  ‘Sad?’ I suggested.

  ‘Sure, sure, but something else, too.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t pin it down, can’t put my finger on it. He was always so… bloody stroppy. Even that seems to have gone. He’s just… flat. There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just a vacant space. I never thought I’d see it. Never. Not him. Not Wesley.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s as if he’s gone already. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said bleakly, ‘I do.’

  There was a long silence. Gulls swooped over a neat row of council refuse trucks parked opposite. Aldridge, after another look at his watch, seemed in no hurry to move on.

  ‘What’s the interview about?’ I said idly.

  Aldridge pulled a face. ‘The Saudis.’

  ‘What about the Saudis?’

  ‘There’s a big arms deal. You may have read about it. Al Yamamah. It’s huge. Really huge. We’ve delivered a couple of billion’s worth so far. There’s another ten billion to come.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There m
ay be a problem. Nobody really knows. The Saudis are making all the right noises, and we certainly did our bit in the Gulf, but the Americans have their noses in the trough, too.’ He paused. ‘These things are always trickier than they seem. As you may have gathered.’

  He looked down at me a moment, smiling, an invitation to share my tiny secrets, but I didn’t respond. Instead, I turned my back on the canal and leaned on the balustrade, looking across the road towards the hospital.

  ‘How are you and Extec?’ I said. ‘Friends again?’

  Aldridge nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Didn’t pull their advertising in the end? Make life hard for you?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ He smiled again. ‘Au contraire.’

  ‘Business as usual?’

  ‘Yes, plus some.’ The smile became a grin. ‘Rather encouraging, actually.’

  I hesitated a moment wondering whether to pursue it, then shrugged, deciding there was no point. The thing was history. What mattered now was Wesley.

  ‘Good,’ I said, offering him a bright smile of my own, ‘nice to hear someone’s making it.’

  Wesley left hospital a couple of days later. He wore the clothes he’d arrived in, newly laundered, and they enveloped his shrunken frame. I’d brought my car over from Fulham, and I helped him out of the door and across the pavement to the kerbside. I’d packed enough clothes of my own to last at least a week. I’d no idea when I’d be back.

  We drove south, across the river, out through Battersea and Wandsworth. The traffic on the A3 was light, the rush hour come and gone, and we were out of London within the hour. Just past the junction with the M25, Wesley spotted a sign by the roadside. It said ‘RHS Gardens, Wisley’. He nodded at it.

  ‘You mind?’ he said.

  I pulled the car off the road, following the signs, glad to have found a response at last. So far, he’d said virtually nothing, sitting beside me, the roll-up on the dashboard unlit, the huge eyes staring ahead, unblinking.

  We parked the car and began to walk. It was a lovely day again, but there was a cold wind from the east and I made Wesley wear my anorak. What should have looked absurd, didn’t. In fact, it fitted him rather well. We walked for maybe a quarter of a mile, very slowly, my arm through his. Then he sank on to one of the slatted wooden benches that line the path. His face was pale and sweaty and he was having trouble getting his breath, but he leaned away from me when I tried to zip up the anorak.

  We sat in silence for a minute or two, gazing around. The gardens were magnificent, no one else to be seen, the huge trees ablaze with autumn. Down the bottom of a slight hill, I could see ducks on water, the sunlight splintering as one of them took off. I turned to Wesley, pointing it out. Tears were pouring down his face.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Please, tell me.’

  ‘It’s nothing. Nothing.’

  ‘Wesley?’

  I reached across and touched his face. The flesh was ice cold. He didn’t move.

  ‘Favourite season, this,’ he said at last, ‘always was. Never understood why.’

  ‘Autumn?’

  ‘Yeah. Mists. Mellow fruitfulness. Decay…’ He sniffed. ‘Death.’ He looked at me. ‘That sound about right?’

  I smiled, trying to comfort him. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, ‘and so are you.’

  ‘Bullshit. I’m dying. There’s nothing beautiful about that. It’s dull as fuck.’

  ‘You’re not dull.’

  ‘No, but dying is. Believe me.’

  He lapsed into silence again. Then a squirrel hopped into sight, bobbing across the grass towards us. It stopped no more than a yard away, head up, tail arched, looking Wesley in the eye. Wesley studied it for a moment. Then he produced a coin from my anorak pocket and tossed it towards the squirrel. It was a new twenty-pence piece. It gleamed in the sunshine. The squirrel didn’t move.

  ‘It wants bread,’ I said, ‘something to eat. The idea is you feed it.’

  Wesley was still watching the squirrel. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. Finally, for the first time that morning, he mustered the beginnings of a grin. It spread across his face, bringing it to life.

  ‘Bollocks,’ he said quietly. ‘Bet the little fucker’s on the take.’

  When we got to Wesley’s flat, it had been redecorated. I stood in the lounge, astonished at the transformation. White walls. Sage for the skirting boards and the picture rails. Even a new pair of curtains, scarlet velvet lined in a glorious deep blue. Professional job. Tastefully done. I gazed round. It was even warm.

  ‘Who did all this,’ I said, ‘the tooth fairy?’

  Wesley smiled. Physically, the journey had wrecked him, but he seemed much more cheerful. ‘Aldridge fixed it up,’ he said. ‘The last couple of weeks. He dropped by this morning, too. Switched on the heating. First thing.’

  ‘Aldridge? Why?’

  ‘Conscience. Plus he was embarrassed to bring his women here. Appearances mean a lot to Derek. You probably noticed.’

  ‘So he got the decorators in?’

  ‘Yeah. Little surprise.’ He frowned, unsure about the final effect. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s nice. I’m amazed.’

  ‘So am I.’

  He walked across the room, very slowly, an old, old man. Then he sank into the armchair beside the fireplace. I looked round, knowing something was missing.

  ‘Where’s Scourge?’ I said. ‘The cat?’

  Wesley said nothing for a moment. When we’d flown to Dallas, he’d mentioned something about ‘arrangements’. I assumed, like me, that he’d put the animal into the local cattery. But now he shook his head.

  ‘He went,’ he said.

  ‘Went where?’

  ‘Away.’ His eyes revolved upwards. ‘The big duvet in the sky.’

  ‘You had him put down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  He looked at me for a moment. Then he smiled.

  ‘Get things ready,’ he said, ‘for little me.’

  Wesley was in bed by six o’clock. I made him as comfortable as I could and spent the rest of the evening in the living room, curled up on the floor under a blanket. Twice I tried to phone Raoul in Dallas, but both times he was out. By ten o’clock, I, too, was asleep.

  I awoke to total darkness, unsure for a moment where I was. It was stiflingly hot and I rolled over, fanning the blanket to get some air. Beneath the door was a thin strip of light. Going to bed in the tiny spare room, I’d switched off all the lights, I was sure of it. It was an old habit, acquired from my father. I frowned, up now on one elbow, aware of something else, notes, music, something familiar picked out on a piano with agonizing slowness. I listened hard, trying to recognize the piece, the right hand picking its way softly down the keyboard, falling chords with the left, an inexpressible sadness.

  I slipped out of bed. There was a piano next door, in the corner, away from the window. I’d never seen Wesley play it and we’d never discussed music at all, but if there was another way of expressing what he’d tried to say earlier, in the gardens at Wisley, then this was it. Rachmaninov. Second Piano Concerto. Wesley’s kind of music. One hundred per cent over the top.

  I opened the door, shrouded in a blanket, and tiptoed down the hall. The door to the living room was ajar an inch or two, enough for me to peer in. Wesley was sitting at the piano. He was wearing Mark’s silk dressing gown, three-quarter length, and he was playing without music. From time to time he stopped and recapitulated the theme, tugging it out, again and again, note-perfect. There was a candle stuck in a saucer on top of the piano and the guttering light played on the planes of his face, softening the harder angles, filling the deeper hollows. His eyes were closed and his head dipped and swayed with the music, and after a while I crept back to bed, knowing I’d trespassed.

  Next morning, I didn’t mention the incident. When Wesley asked me if I’d s
lept OK, I said yes. He seemed rested and a lot more peaceful. In the living room, when I went to tidy up, there was no evidence of the candle, except the smell.

  At ten o’clock, Wesley still in bed, I said I’d go out shopping. There was no food in the house and supplies of stuff like bleach and washing powder were pretty low. Wesley gave me directions for the nearest supermarket, and said he’d be up when I got back. He needed a bath. He felt much better. He’d even join me for a little light lunch. I took the car to the supermarket. I had a list of foods from the people at the hospital and I supplemented it with lots of the other stuff we always recommended at Charlie’s. By twelve o’clock, I was back outside the flat, unloading the cardboard boxes from the boot.

  I knew something was wrong the moment I got to the side door. I could hear the sound of water falling. It seemed to be coming from the downstairs flat. I peered in through the nearest window, but the curtains were pulled. I fumbled for my keys, opening the door to Wesley’s flat. Upstairs, the bathroom door was open. I looked inside. The bath was full of water, both taps still on. Wesley was lying full-length, his feet towards the taps, only his nose above the surface. I bent towards him, thinking the worst, understanding now about the Rachmaninov, his requiem, his personal goodbye. I reached down, my hands under his armpits, and hauled him upright. Water spilled out of his mouth. I patted him hard on the back, the way you do it to a baby after a feed, and he began to choke. After a while, no more water came out. One eye opened. He was very drowsy. He looked at me, uncomprehending.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said.

  I began to say something foolish, a mixture of anger and relief, but I thought better of it. I turned off the taps and pulled out the plug, helping him upright. There was water everywhere. It had spilled across the lino and poured down between the floorboards. I could still hear it falling into the flat beneath and there was a smell, too, something acrid, something electrical. Wesley was hanging on to me now, groaning. He said he wanted to be sick and I bent him over the lavatory bowl, forcing his mouth open, inserting my index finger, trying to remember just how many tablets they’d given him at the hospital dispensary to take away. Some of them, if you took enough, would kill you. No question.