Young Man, I Think You're Dying

by Joan Fleming

  But there was, too, a great deal that he did not tell his father: W. Sledge and The Wotchas, for instance, had been expurgated entirely. But if there was anything amiss his father, whose powers of observation had been, possibly, sharpened by his condition, would be sure to ask if any-thing was wrong. He would notice if Joe was starting a cold, had lipstick on his face, smelt of drink, had been in a fight. Similarly if there was any particular elation about him his father would not fail to notice and make some kind of comment. He wasn’t inquisitive but he had this very natural desire to participate in the lives of his family.

  So when the lift stopped at the twenty-first floor Joe did not get out but sent it sliding up to the next floor, which was the top and far from being a delightful flat roof from which one could survey London from end to end, it was cluttered up with all kinds of utility objects, such as water tanks and sheds covering the vital parts of the lift machinery. Further-more, none of the inhabitants were allowed up there. On the other hand, there was no satisfactory way of stopping them, someone would have been killed in the attempt to climb to the top if there hadn’t been reasonable access.

  All the same, amazingly few people seemed to want to use the roof top and Joe had a corner where he kept an upturned apple box on which he could sit and meditate on the mutability of mundane affairs, or merely pick his teeth. This was the sort of time when it was essential to be alone, to assess his situation and decide what he was going to do about it.

  He could shout and rant and talk incessantly about freedom and the bloody awfulness of adults with his friends; in his spare time he could revolutionise, tear down road signs, have a go at taking pot, wreck telephone boxes, help others to steal, kick policemen during riots, allow himself to look extremely dirty and untidy, have sex all over the place, but it was a drag. It came easier, in actual dreary truth, to be good and behave decently, as he did at work and in the flat which was his home. Though he never formulated the idea there is no doubt that he looked forward to full adulthood when he could behave well without the scorn of his friends pouring on him.

  So now he squatted on the apple box in the faint drizzle and thought about the implication of tonight’s misadventure. He had no illusions about the loyalty of W. Sledge. If indeed he had killed his Kensington old lady, Joe was going to be implicated as deeply as Sledge himself.

  He wondered about Queen’s Evidence, he’d heard of it but had no idea of the implications other than … perhaps he could go to the police and tell them about the night’s event and he would not be charged with anything.

  But somehow that wasn’t on the carpet. For some reason or other, he couldn’t do it, not out of loyalty to W. Sledge but … well, he just couldn’t do it. Nevertheless, he resolved to bring the subject round somehow, to crime and so on, and get some sort of opinion from his boss, except that Silas would fix him with that awful beady look and say: “What have you been up to, then?”

  Having lived so long with someone who was a physical wreck had heightened his own physical sensitivity and he could have screamed with actual pain at the thought of W. Sledge laying in to a frail old lady.

  It was April and not actually cold but damp, that strange fog which so often hung over the river whilst a wind whined round the flats, meant that the fog horns mooed rhythmically and this mysterious mooing caused some of the flat-dwellers to demand accommodation elsewhere. “It’ll drive me potty!” they would complain, and the kind council would move them to a safe little semi-detached with a tiny plot elsewhere. Others did not notice the sound at all.

  To Joe it was something which he had always known, ever since he could remember, the fog and the wind and the fog horns were part of his home life and up on the roof, where he chose to go and sit alone so often, there was the same unearthly quality about the atmosphere that might be sought in the wide open spaces, on some marshy north-country moor or some exposed East Anglian sea-flats with the wild birds’ harsh monotonous cry. Though he would never have understood it, up here from the world’s slow stain he was, for the moment, secure. Inevitably, after a time, he felt better, refreshed, mindless, he just wanted to stay there; “out of this world,” he often called it, at a pinch.

  Big Ben gave off one great big deep reverberating note: other bells throughout the City agreed.

  And after a long time … another … so it was half past one and still he did not want to go in. His father was a very light sleeper and would always shout: “That you, son? G’Night.” Never any questions as to where he had been or why he was late in. Never. Dear old Dad.

  W. Sledge’s ex-home with his parents was on the eighth floor south entrance, and his home with his mistress was on the seventeenth north entrance not facing the river and with a different entrance from those on the river side. The entrances to the individual flats were all on the outside so that every flat had a combined entrance and private balcony on the wall of which they could lean when they wished and look out at the monstrous growth of London below and all around. Not that many of them did, but enthusiastic observers on the south side would claim that at sunset on a clear evening they could see one of Brighton’s piers.

  The architectural inspiration of an outside entrance to each flat served the useful purpose of causing every tenant to keep their own front entrance clean in the same way that they would brush their own front steps and pathway, and the maintenance men were strict in seeing that this was done. Unfortunately, in spite of the high standard of living, there were those amongst the ninety-two families who still preferred to use the lifts rather than their own lavatories. This was an immense annoyance to Joe’s mother, who was proud of her habitation in every other way. “It’s folk who come in out of the street,” she would declare about once a week, hating the idea that any of her neighbours would so demean themselves and let the community down.

  Joe began to feel better, the old familiar mooing, the soft wet wind, the soothing mist were having their effect, his heart slowed down to normal, his brain lay down and slept, he began to feel sleepy. He wanted to fall off the apple box and lie all night where he was.

  It looked as though somebody else was doing just that, a few yards away. He rubbed his face, stretched, yawned. It was like Sledge to dash away in the car, not come in and go up to bed in his own flat. He had to dispose immediately of the goods he had stolen and had no doubt told the receiver exactly when he would be arriving. Maybe he was back home and in bed with his lovely mistress by now.

  Maybe, Joe thought, he had imagined it all. Maybe he had been half expecting something to go wrong with Sledge’s chosen career, he had been too successful for too long.

  It was his nerves … maybe: he often complained of his nerves, did Sledge. Joe thought he saw someone asleep across there, in the shelter of a lift shed too. Slipping he must be, slipping. Getting old. Expecting trouble all the time, anticipating trouble … like his poor Mum did.

  He stood up and stretched again. He could do with a toffee or two, he thought pleasurably of a tin of sweets in his kitchen. He climbed over a line of pipes, being careful not to touch them because he knew how dirty they were. He went over to what he had thought was a sleeping person and it was, indeed, a sleeping person. He leaned closer. A girl, no less! Coloured? Yes, she had a big black smudge on her cheek. She was not black, though. She was wrapped in a striped black and white fun-fur coat and had long, long twiggy kind of legs. A wide black belt drew in the waist of the coat, making her look like some enormous damaged wasp in the half-light.

  He pushed her with his foot and she sat up instantly, knowing at once where she was, and possibly who and why. She sat cross-legged, very self-contained, and said: “Who the hell are you?” And lo! Her voice was by no means the familiar cockney but something classy like his boss Silas.

  Joe looked at her with the interest of a doctor who knew all the conditions and all the symptoms of those conditions. What was her trouble? Pregnant? An imminent baby? Doped? A junky waiting for the chemists to open? A north-country or Irish girl come to
the metropolis to take up a career of prostitution? Whatever caused her to settle down to sleep on the roof of Fiery Beacon was not good or innocent and that was for sure. He stepped back a little and continued to stare at her thoughtfully.

  “Well?” she said defiantly, “I’ll bet you’ve no more right up here than I have. So you needn’t look so cocky.”

  Cocky! The cheek of it, it was his place, his very own pad, since he was ten he had come up on the roof for a quiet think, there had never been anybody to share it with him. Sometimes he had seen workmen up here and had hidden from them, but this exact spot where he lugged the apple box, years ago, was private.

  “Eff off,” he exclaimed automatically.

  “You eff off!” she screamed, “disturbing my lovely peace!”

  He was aghast. He stepped nearer in order to see her better but she snatched the comers of the collar of her coat and clutched them round her like some frightened Victorian miss.

  “It’s not your bloody roof …” she started.

  “S … sh! You’ll wake someone.”

  “If you don’t look out,” she hissed, “I’ll kick you over; if you fell down there there wouldn’t be a piece of you left bigger’n a matchbox!”

  “Why, you bloodthirsty little …” he couldn’t help smiling.

  “Get out, get out of my sight,” she snarled between clenched teeth and she shook her head violently so that the short hair flew out all round in the pattern of a mop being shaken out of a window.

  “Now look,” he said reasonably.

  “Get out, get out, get out!” She stood up as though preparing to attack him and in her wild and woolly coat she looked bigger than the biggest possible wasp, a wasp more like some crumpled and injured sea bird, crash-landed on the roof of Fiery Beacon on its way up the Thames, screaming with fright and pain.

  He hadn’t laughed for ages, because young people are not amused. Unless it is nervous laughter or mocking laughter. But something about her made him giggle richly and irrepressibly.

  “Oh ho ho!” he laughed, and as an anti-climax he brought out a grubby handkerchief and wiped his eyes, saying at the same time: “You tickle me!” not meaning it literally.

  “I will tickle you in a minute,” she said threateningly. “Do go away.”

  But he could no more go away than a fly could un-gum itself from a flypaper.

  He sat down, leaning on one elbow, he half lay and brought out a toothpick, as a countryman would pick up a piece of straw, and rooted about amongst his teeth, an action denoting constructive thought.

  “This is a night and a half!” he observed, thinking out loud, making remarks unconnected one to another. She squatted cross-legged again, her face on a level with his. “There is fairies at the bottom of my garden this bloody night,” he declared. “You don’t look real,” he remarked, “perhaps I’ve died and you’re not real but a spook.”

  “Nothing is real up here,” she said, “how could it be? It’s out of this world.”

  “That’s just what I always say: out of this world!”

  “One step in the wrong direction and you are out of this world.”

  “Um. In pieces no bigger than a matchbox!” he quoted, smiling at her, but she did not return the smile and looked away hurriedly. “But seriously,” he went on, “I’ve come up here since I was a kid, it is my place, honest.”

  “Do you live here, then?”

  “Yes, down below.” He thumped his foot on the asphalt. “My Dad’s lying just down below there, waiting for me to come in, shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Why don’t you go, then?”

  He frowned. “I got somethin’ on my mind, see?”

  “Haven’t we all!” she said sadly.

  “Why don’t you come down home,” he suggested. “My Dad is a cripple, can’t move; there’s three bedrooms, my Mum’s away; you could sleep in her bed, if you like, just for one night,” he added in the kind of language Silas used and something like his accent: “our guest!”

  She said nothing.

  “It’s better’n sleeping up here. I tried it once, it was in the summer, too. But cor! It got cold towards morning, I’ve never known anything so cold, shiverin’ I was. Thought I’d catch me death.”

  No response.

  “Look, my Dad won’t even know you’re there if you keep quiet and don’t screech like a seagull.”

  Silence.

  “I could make you a cuppa hot Nescaff, eh? How about it?”

  He had evidently touched a soft spot. She stood up, then staggered slightly, holding herself still by placing her hand on the side of the shed.

  “Promise I’ll sleep alone?”

  He nodded, regretful.

  “And can I have some cheese and bread?”

  He nodded, then seeing how wobbly she was, he put his arm round her and they descended.

  Big Ben boomed twice, the city bells sounded too, again confirming the big one’s statement.

  A guest. So she slept alone, and in the morning he came in carrying a cup of tea, with the contents splashing into the saucer, and put it down on the night table. Keeping her eyes squeezed shut and holding the bedclothes tightly up to her chin she said nothing, pretending to be asleep.

  He went across to the door and shut it but staying inside, and sure enough she opened her eyes, though not relaxing her hold on the sheet. He asked no questions, knowing that a bombardment of questions was something one endured from the older generation. But that did not mean there were not very many questions to which he did not want to know the answer, such as, where was her “gear,” that is her hand-bag, etcetera. An adult would have asked who she was, why she had been up to the roof, why she carried nothing, where she came from …?

  They exchanged, in whispers, semi-serious remarks about the comfort of the bed, the strong sweet tea, and one another. Her coat lay on the floor at the foot of the bed like a large dead dog, the inevitable black polo-necked jersey, the fragmentary skirt, a pink bra and panties lay around, too.

  “I think I should warn you,” he murmured, “that some-where between nine and half past a coupla women come in to do for Dad. They’ve got their own key.”

  “Do you mean to say he can’t move at all?”

  “Hardly. But he’s all there, mind, so keep your voice down, otherwise he’ll wonder. It’s fantastic, what he takes in when his body’s like, well, as lifeless as that coat there. I’m just taking him a cuppa …”

  “Do you have to feed him?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “He can move his hands a bit …” he demonstrated the pathetic walking of the fingers towards the object the hand required, “he can pick up his drinking cup and get his head down to it; he slops it over but it’s better to let him have a go on his own, they’ve told us. One day he won’t be able to move at all and that will be it.”

  She stared at him thoughtfully. “How awful.”

  “It’s something you get used to; he’s marvellous, really; he’s happy. They wash him and deal with him and lift him into his chair and wheel him into the living-room and he sits there all day, thinking. He won’t have a telly, can you beat it? He has the steam radio, though, and listens to the news and that; he knows more about things in general than most folk, does my Dad.”

  “So you love him?” she whispered.

  “Oh no!” he protested, “not that!” and shuffled his feet about restlessly. “I’m not that soppy, but what I mean to say is: you’d best clear out before these females come, it’s eight now so there’s no immediate hurry.”

  Emerging very slightly from the bedclothes she put forth a skinny arm and took a sip of the tea, made a face then whispered: “I’m looking for a bloke.”

  She would be.

  “In this block?”

  “Um.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Young or old?”

  “Young.”

  “Phew … I reckon you’ve got a job. There’s ninety-odd families in Fiery Bea
con; nearly all of them has kids, some of them has grown-up kids who’ve left home, married, gone away … others have school kids, and others have babies, toddlers you’ll see playing around all day long, up and down the stairs, when it’s wet, they’re a regular nuisance! You’ll never find him, never, not if you don’t know his name.”

  Her lips disappeared, she looked plain for the moment. “I’ll find him if it means calling at every flat in the block. I’ve got to.”

  Just as I thought, he thought, pregnant. Pathetic. Some folk didn’t know how to look after themselves.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she chuckled. “You look just like a shocked old vicar, it’s written all over your face. Oh, grow up! Sorry, I didn’t mean to be nasty, you’ve been so kind. Now, buzz off, I’ve got to get up and get cracking. If you’d kindly give me a bit of bread and jam or something before I go … oh, I’m not leaving the district, I might even have to come back this evening, after my day’s work combing this block of flats with a small toothcomb.”

  “Why not take a short cut and ask the police to help?”

  “That’s a silly idea.”

  He agreed that it was and an expedient of which he would be the last to avail himself, Queen’s Evidence or not, when it came to the crunch. Not that he respected any individual policeman, they were no better than anyone else, it was the great force behind them, the data, the sheer efficient machinery that frightened.

  “The police!” she hissed scornfully, and using the expression she had instantly caught from him she invited him to eff off, which he did, feeling that he had not made a success of his visit.

  The tea in the pot on the kitchen table had cooled off considerably because he had omitted to use the tea-cosy which his mother always carefully put over the pot. He brought the kettle to the boil again and filled the teapot, then poured out the hot weak tea into his father’s drinking cup and carried it in.

  One had to walk with care across to the bed; all the ingenuity of well-wishers to make the cripple’s life easier had been given a trial, so that the room bore a strong resemblance to something constructed by Emmett. The bed was encased in a metal framework similar to a four-poster which carried any gadget which any amateur inventor had thought up, surrounding the one splendid benefit, a sling on pulleys by which one could raise the inert patient a foot or two above and re-make the bed.