A to Z of You and Me

by James Hannah

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been in to see you before now,” he says, lifting and huff-huffing the left lens. “I thought you might want to get your bearings for the first few days. How was the move from your apartment?”

  “It’s all wrapped up. There’s people here who’re going to get it all cleared out when the time comes.”

  “I could do that for you. You only had to ask.”

  “No, no, it’s all fine. St. Leonard’s gets the proceeds, and that’s what I want. I think they’ve done enough for the family to get a few quid out of me.”

  “Was your dad here then?”

  “Yeah, yeah. At the end.”

  He replaces his glasses, using his middle finger to push their bridge precisely up to the bridge of his nose.

  “Cancer, you know—they all end up here. I’m lucky they’d have me, kidney patient. But the place was going, so—you know.”

  Kelvin sits silent a moment, and I’m sure I detect a choked air from him. I don’t want to look, in case…in case I have to do anything.

  “Well,” he says with a great sniff and a sigh, “whatever you need me to do, just let me know. If there’s anything not taken care of. Getting your effects in order, like.”

  I smile at him.

  We sit and watch as a maroon work van crawls along the driveway at the required five miles an hour. NRG Electrical painted on the side in yellow. I can hear the pneumatics in its suspension as it creeps over the too-high speed bumps. They are here about the security light, no doubt. I could talk about that with Kelvin, steer clear of tricky subjects. I could tell him about that. But I feel too heavy on the inside.

  “I…I saw Laura yesterday,” says Kelvin, his voice a little husky.

  “Oh yeah?” I say, naturally.

  “Yeah. She’s thinking of you. She asked me to send you her love. She’s really concerned, obviously. Concerned that you’re all right.”

  “All right.”

  “She told me she’d been wondering about coming over to make sure you’re settled in. But, you know, she doesn’t want to upset you.”

  The van disappears off behind the wall.

  I can sense Kelvin fortifying himself.

  “OK, I’m just going to say this. I know it’s not something you want to talk about, but it needs talking about, right?”

  “Go on.” I know what’s coming.

  “Well, how long is it since she’s been in touch? Five years?”

  “Seven.”

  “Seven years. And it’s pretty obvious why that is, I reckon.”

  “Is it?”

  “Oh, come on, mate.”

  “I want to know. Why does she think she hasn’t been in touch?”

  “Well, I think she’s scared to. I think she thinks that you won’t want to hear from her.”

  “I see.”

  “But the thing is, she really does want to come and see you.”

  “Right.”

  “So—would you be up for that?”

  I shrug.

  Now he doesn’t know what to do. Kelvin’s never known what to do. I could keep him dangling all day.

  You’d be telling me to choose to be nice. Be nice. You’re right, I know. This is not a sport. I should probably give him something to go on. God knows what, though.

  “Why does she want to see me?”

  He exhales a quiet little laugh. “Because you’re her brother, I imagine, and because you’re in a hospice, and she’s worried…she’s worried she’s going to lose you without—”

  “Without what?”

  “Well, without—”

  “Having eased her conscience?”

  “If you like.”

  I laugh. “Tell her not to worry about it. Tell her it’s fine.”

  Kelvin falls quiet a moment as he thinks through this solution.

  “I…I don’t think that’s going to be enough, mate.”

  “Listen, Kelv, isn’t it enough that I have to forget about everything just to make her feel better? I mean, she hasn’t even got the guts to come here herself, has she? She’s sent you, hasn’t she? Do you think that’s good enough? Do you think I should see her?”

  “I think you should see her, yes.”

  “Look, when it really mattered to me, when she should have chosen to stick by me, she didn’t, did she?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Her instinct was to stick with Mal. So that’s that. And if she wants to know if that’s fine, then fine, that’s fine. I accept that she did that. You can tell her she doesn’t have to worry about it anymore. She did it, and there it is. But don’t pretend she didn’t.”

  “There’s more to it than that, mate.”

  “What more? The last time I saw her was seven years ago, and that was only because it was Mum’s funeral. That’s a lot of time to show there’s more to it than that. Sometimes these things are simple. You don’t need to make it more complicated.”

  Kelvin sighs a deep and defeated sigh.

  “It’s just… It’s breaking people up. Even now. It’s breaking Laura up; it’s breaking Mal’s mum and dad up. And yeah, you know, it’s breaking Mal up as well. And you’re the one who can sort all that out. If you can find your way to just talk to her. You know it’s not a normal situation.”

  “It’s not me that made it not normal, Kelv. Ask anyone you like. What he did—”

  “No one’s ignoring what he did. No one. But if you can just talk to her, it would help.”

  I do my best to draw in a deep breath.

  “I don’t know why you’re running around after her, Kelv.”

  “I’m not,” he says.

  “She’ll have you wrapped around her little finger if you’re not careful.”

  “All I’m doing is saying what needs to be said, OK?”

  “Listen,” I say. “I don’t have a problem with you. You know this isn’t easy to talk about.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Totally. But you wouldn’t want me to lie to you, would you? I can tell you this stuff. You know I’m straight with you.”

  “To be honest, mate, I think I’d prefer it if you lied.”

  • • •

  Fuck, fuck. This is bad. This is getting bad.

  I can’t. I can’t breathe. I—

  I can’t…make my chest go out enough. I can’t breathe in enough.

  Chest

  Breathe in, chest out. Breathe out, chest in.

  Come on, now. Keep it calm, keep it easy.

  Chest goes out. Chest goes in.

  And now it’s me, conscious, as I breathe.

  Out in out in outinoutin…

  My pounding heart.

  I just want to—just want to heave a sigh.

  Is it too much to ask? To heave a great and heavy sigh?

  Mini, now. Mini, mini, mini breaths.

  Is it—is it bad enough to—?

  To push the button? Call Sheila in?

  No visitors. I should have no visitors. All just fucking complication.

  You’d think, wouldn’t you, that all this shit would stop at some point. You’d think that there would be a point when the fucking past would leave you alone.

  I don’t have to forgive anyone anything anymore.

  This is me.

  I can’t believe they thought it would be OK. I can’t believe Kelvin thought it would be fine to swan in here and ask me if I’d meet up with her. What does he know about it? He knows nothing. He’s just trying to get in Laura’s knickers like he always did, and he never will.

  They don’t know me at all, do they? They don’t know me at all. I could tell, the way Kelvin was saying it. None of them understand what I’ve been through. Every day I’ve had to live with this. Every day. Ten years. Putting my life back together. Losing Mum too, dealing
with all that on my own. Fucking dialysis three times a week. That’s something, isn’t it, calling a dialysis machine your best friend, old buddy.

  No one can just waltz up and suddenly fix all that. And it’s not me they want to fix, is it? It’s not me they care about. It’s themselves.

  Creatinine

  That’s it—if I’m going to do a real A to Z, then I’ll need to include all the things I’ve got but I don’t even know about. The things I never paid attention to in biology at school.

  That must mean pretty much everything in my entire body.

  My body is not my own. I don’t understand it.

  I don’t know how the fucking thing works.

  When Dr. Sood turned around and started talking to me about creatinine levels and dialysis and—

  I didn’t know what a dialysis machine was. I mean, I’d collected for a dialysis machine they had an appeal for on some children’s TV show. Probably 1984. I got it into my head that a dialysis machine had flashing lights and numbers, but I think I was mixing up the dialysis machine with the totalizer they had on the show. Every time they reached a new landmark, a whole load of bulbs would light up, and the number would get higher.

  My dialysis machine was dreary off-white. Perhaps I was given exactly the one I collected for, thirty years before. It looked like it was made in 1984.

  What’s the shelf life of a dialysis machine? How many different people’s blood had chugged through mine? Now mine was chugging through, and it was cleaning out the creatinine.

  I think it was, anyway.

  Cleaning out all the bad, the buildups.

  I imagined it like the buildups of acid in my calves when I’d been running around.

  Ahhh—ah, my God. There it is.

  I nearly made myself cry.

  I haven’t cried for—

  There are some things that you can’t… They’re unexpected. I haven’t thought about this for years. One of the clearest memories I have of my dad.

  Acid cramps in the calves.

  That’s it:

  Calves

  I’m lying, crying on the floor in the lounge of our house, on that horrible old white-and-brown swirly carpet. I’m on my back, and my dad has a hold of my leg, and he’s kneading the calf between his thumbs and rubbing it gently with his palm.

  Up, down, up.

  Rub it better, little man. They’re just growing pains.

  The agony of it. The worst ache I’d felt to date. And I could not get away from it. It was inside me, and I didn’t know what was causing it.

  It’ll pass, don’t worry. It’ll pass.

  I never wanted him to let go.

  I kept the crying up for as long as I could, but I think he could tell when the pain had subsided. But he didn’t send me away. He patted the sofa beside him, and I hopped up.

  • • •

  Ha; ha; ha.

  Fucking hell, this is…this is my heart. Is this my heart? A heart attack? No, chest pains.

  What if it was?

  Push the button?

  She should have sided with me, Laura.

  Fucking—I was the one she should have supported. Her own brother.

  She made her choice.

  Trying to have it both ways now.

  No.

  Fuck, fuck, this is it. Fuck.

  Push the button. Where’s the button?

  There. Did that push?

  Did that click?

  There. I set that buzzer off down the hall. I think that’s what I did, with the button. Too late to go back now. Can’t unpush.

  How many die of politeness?

  C… C… Corpse.

  Body. My body.

  No.

  “Hello, you all right?”

  Sheila.

  “I’m… I can’t…”

  “Trouble breathing? OK, wait a minute. I’ll be back in a tick, OK?”

  She knows. It was the right thing to do. Push the button. Not making a fuss.

  “Here we go.” She wheels an oxygen canister before her and carries a mask. Serious shit. Big deal, big deal. “OK, I’m just going to get you to sit up more here. And then we can get you some oxygen.”

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t talk, now. Let’s get you sitting up. Right, now, if you hold this mask. I’m just going to—”

  Small olive-skinned hands fumble with knobs on the canister.

  “OK, I think that’s… Can you just give me that?” She takes the mask back off me and looks at it. “No, it’s… This is the one that’s been playing up a bit.” She fumbles more. “Sorry, sorry, wait a minute. I’ll go fetch Jef to give us a hand.”

  She walks out briskly, comes back to deactivate my buzzer, then walks out briskly.

  No panic, now, no. She’s on the case. Sheila’s on the case. Trained and able.

  Come on, come on.

  Your hand in mine, mine in yours. Tight, tight.

  Enthusiastic you.

  Yeah, you can do it.

  I can do it.

  Of course you can.

  Of course I can.

  This is going to happen.

  Sheila again, trailed by Jef.

  “…it’s been playing up, and I think it’s to do with the valve at the top. Because it’s not been right since—”

  They fuss and meddle with it a bit, alternately taking the mask and trying it at their own noses.

  Sheila looks down at me. “Sorry about this. How are you doing? Can’t clear your lungs properly?” I shake my head. “It’s all right. I’ll get the other one if we can’t… Oh, wait, oh, there we go.”

  Jef passes me the mask. Triangle of rubbery plastic over my nose and mouth.

  “There now,” says Sheila. “Hold that to your face, OK? Don’t worry, it’ll pass, it’ll pass. I want you to concentrate on getting your breathing down, to slow down, so it’s more comfortable, OK? Breathe normally there, don’t try any great gulps, and just take in the oxygen. It’s going to help you.”

  Jef gives me a small smile and leaves.

  “There we go,” says Sheila. “Keep it on your nose and mouth, all right? You need to make sure you’ve got a good bit of oxygen going into your system.”

  Through the door, I hear the woman in the next room has started up her groans again.

  Uhhh.

  “Oh, hello,” says Sheila. “Old Faithful’s started up again.” She smiles at me.

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” I say. “Causing all this bother.”

  “You’re all right,” she says, thrusting her hands into her tunic pockets and balancing absently on one foot like a young girl. “I’ve got to earn my wages somehow, haven’t I? OK, I’m just going to look in on her now. Keep that mask on until you’re feeling better. I’ve reset your buzzer, but press it again if you want anything, OK? Don’t hesitate. That’s what it’s there for.”

  Come on now, baby.

  What have you got to say to me?

  What would you say?

  Think calm. Get yourself into a good state of mind, and it’ll come. Easy.

  Easy. Ease.

  D

  Diaphragm

  “Right, well, if you’re going to persist in showing the capabilities of juniors, I’d better treat you like juniors. Who can spell diaphragm for me?”

  Mr. Miller stands at the front of the class in his weird blue blazer with its six gold buttons and those ever-present musty trousers.

  “What sort of blazer’s that?” mutters Mal to me and Kelvin. “It’s like it’s from the nineteenth century or something. Who does he think he is? King Dickface the Turd?”

  Kelvin and I crease up laughing. Dickface the Turd.

  “Kelvin!” says Miller. “Well done. You’ve just volunteered to spell it out on the boa
rd. Come up here.”

  Kelvin reluctantly leaves his lab stool with a wooden creak and shuffles up to the front.

  I look at Mal and do an eye roll. “What is it about Kelvin that makes him Miller’s whipping boy?”

  “OK,” says Miller, handing him the chalk. “Off you go. Oh, and I forgot to mention. Anyone who gets it wrong gets a detention.”

  A prickle of suppressed outrage crosses the class.

  “Kelvin?”

  Already resigned to his fate, Kelvin fumbles the chalk, drops it, picks it up, and then tries to hold it like a pencil.

  D.

  Miller places the eraser on the board next to Kelvin’s tremulous and malformed letter D. Kelvin looks up at him, questioningly. “Carry on,” says Miller. “It’s going very well so far.”

  Chuckles from around the room.

  I.

  “Excellent!” Miller cries sarcastically.

  A. Kelvin pauses, and Miller’s head shifts fractionally, sensing the kill.

  R.

  “Nope!” Miller whips the board eraser across Kelvin’s efforts, knocking his hand away and flicking the chalk across the room into a table of girls.

  “Detention for Kelvin, and the chalk’s landed with you. Up you come.” He points a knobby finger at one of the girls. She gathers up the chalk and tries to brush its mark off her sweater, before replacing Kelvin beside Miller.

  Kelvin dumps himself back on his stool beside me.

  D, she writes.

  “Good—”

  Y.

  Miller pauses awhile before mugging around to the rest of the class. Then he wipes her away and picks the chalk up himself.

  “D, I, A, PEEEEE, H, R, A, GEEEEE, M. Anyone who gets that wrong after I’ve spelled it out so plainly will deserve the detention they get, OK?”

  Spirits broken, we mumble our assent.

  “Right, now, as you’ll hopefully remember from last year, the diaphragm is a membrane, just here in your chest, and when you breathe, you are using your muscles to pull on that diaphragm, and in pulling, it draws the air in through your nose and throat and into your lungs, which enables you to breathe.” Miller scrawls breathe tetchily out onto the blackboard and underlines the final e about eight times. “Now, that is exactly what you can’t do…” He picks up the large book that has been sitting on the bench in front of him all this while. “Can’t do…” He struggles to find the page, and an adventurous few begin to giggle. “If your lungs look like this.”