by David Evered
‘Oh, leave it, Ann, for God’s sake, and get to bed.’
‘I don’t know how you can talk so calmly about going to bed.’
‘Ann, I’m far from calm, but what else can we do? And for God’s sake, try and be a little more tolerant of people’s frailties. Not everyone can meet your impossibly high standards.’
‘How can I? That’s a fine thing to say after all the trouble that man has caused. Why can’t he be a little more tolerant and allow us some domestic privacy to live our lives the way we want to live them, or do we have to be tolerant whatever people do?’
‘Don’t be silly – all I’m suggesting is that you just show a little understanding.’
‘So I’m at fault for not being sufficiently understanding. You’re just too soft and wishy-washy, Peter,’ Ann almost shouted.
Peter sat on one side of the bed and Ann on the other gazing down at the carpet. ‘Look,’ he said finally and much more quietly. ‘It’s very late and we aren’t getting anywhere. We’re not going to solve anything tonight and there is nothing for us personally to solve anyhow. I’m going to bed.’ He walked round the bed and took Ann’s arm gently but she shook him off.
‘You go to bed if you want to, but I couldn’t sleep and I think that there is something for us to solve personally. I shall probably go into the spare room.’
‘You can’t, Jenny’s in there.’
‘Well, there are two beds in there.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly.’
‘Stop calling me silly and leave me alone!’
Peter tried to put his arms around his wife but she remained angry and aggressive. She got up and announced that she was going to make some tea. Peter followed her but finally, defeated by her coldness and passivity, made his way to bed. She followed after a short time. He was conscious of her rigid posture, facing away and lying tensely on the further edge of the bed.
5
Ten days later Peter and Ann were alone in the flat. Jenny had returned to Newcastle to await the outcome of her interviews. Ann, uncomfortable (but only a little uncomfortable) about the hard line she had taken the previous week over the episode with Andrew, became the self-appointed sympathiser, guide and supporter of Sue. Her position was made more secure by Sue’s frequent apologies for Andrew’s behaviour. She organised expeditions for essential shopping, insisted that Sue join them for meals in the evenings and arranged for mutual friends to accompany her to the hospital at visiting times. Sue, who might have been expected to find much of this irksome, accepted the role of recipient of these good works with unusual passivity. She said little of her visits to Andrew beyond transmitting the apparently uncomplicated details of his medical progress. Ann went to the hospital with Sue on one or two occasions but elected to sit and read in the visitors’ waiting room. The single visit she had made to Andrew had not been a success. She reported that he had been neither penitent nor unrepentant over the episode in the flat. It had simply not been mentioned and they speculated whether this was because he considered it singularly unimportant or that his memory of that evening was uncertain. In either case, Ann felt that Sue had been at fault in failing to reprove her husband and insisting that he apologise.
Peter had few opportunities to speak privately to Sue that week and his enquiries about Andrew’s progress were answered with little detail. He suggested diffidently that he might visit Andrew the following day, a proposal greeted with rather more enthusiasm than he had expected. It was arranged that he should meet Sue and Ann at the hospital the following evening after work and then accompany them back to the flat. Sue suggested he should have some time alone with Andrew at the start of the visiting hour while she and Ann remained in the waiting area.
‘So, you’ve been permitted to visit the sick or perhaps you are just confirming that the sinning Andrew Hepscott is suffering due punishment meted out by a just God,’ Andrew said as Peter sat down at the bedside. He then said rather more contritely, ‘I really am very sorry for all the disturbance that I caused and I gather that I made a bit of a mess.’
‘Oh, not too bad.’
‘I did try to apologise to Ann but I didn’t find it easy. I couldn’t find the right words, so I desisted after a short time. Perhaps she’ll be happy that retribution came and commendably quickly.’
‘I don’t think she looks at it like that.’
‘Perhaps not, but I’m grateful for the support that she is giving Sue.’
‘That’s no problem.’
‘And how are you?’ he said laughing. ‘Back securely in your rut once more?’
‘I guess so.’
‘I can remember some of the things that I said that night; most of it was pompous and pretentious rubbish.’
Peter laughed. ‘Those were precisely the words Ann used.’
‘Well, she was largely right. You should congratulate her on her perspicacity and me on my insight now that I am no longer in my cups.’
‘I’m not certain whether you are laughing at yourself or at Ann!’
‘Probably both,’ he paused and looked directly at Peter. ‘But it wasn’t all pompous nonsense. Somewhere in there was a nugget of truth struggling to escape through my inebriated lips.’
‘You’re being pompous again!’
‘Yes, perhaps. But there’s a dilemma here; to deliver truths simply often results in them being dismissed as trite or naive or, if stated in a way that you refer to as pompous, they can be disregarded as pretentious.’
‘Now you’re laughing at me – and perhaps at yourself.’
‘And you’re trying to dismiss all that I’ve said because it makes you feel uncomfortable. Truth often is uncomfortable.’
‘Now you are trying to make me rise. Andrew, you are absolutely bloody incorrigible. This is all part of a front. You have accepted your own position as a part of the great British middle-class but you neither feel entirely at home there nor do you have the drive and initiative to enable you to get out. Your trendy, lefty talk is simply part of an act to portray yourself as something you’re not. You preach at the rest of us but it’s all a matter of “do as I say and not as I do” – or in your case fail to do. You are simply no different from the rest of us.’
‘Don’t be so perceptive, you bugger. You’re deflating me and I shall develop complications.’
‘What complications could you possibly develop? I understand that the various bits of your leg have been secured in place with high tensile steel screws. It’s also in traction and encased in a plaster which seems to have the consistency of armoured plate.’
‘You are not even allowing me to wallow in what little sympathy I’m receiving.’
‘Why should you?’
‘I know – retribution again.’
The remainder of the visiting period passed and Peter was joined by Sue for the final few minutes. They left and joined Ann who had remained in the room reserved for visitors. Peter stood aside for them to leave and then paused to allow another woman to enter. He didn’t pay much attention to the figure passing in the doorway and was startled when she stopped and said very quietly, ‘Well, well – and we never did arrange to meet in London!’ The gently mocking voice made him look down.
‘Sally – I never expected to bump into you again. What are you doing here?’
‘Visiting, as I assume you are but I think you’ll have to go – your presence is required.’
Ann had stepped back to see what was delaying Peter. ‘Oh, Ann, this is er’ (old friend, new acquaintance, Peter wondered) ‘Sally Dunham.’
‘Oh, it’s nice to meet you but you must excuse us. We must see our friend home. Her husband has had an accident.’
‘Yes, of course. I must be getting on too. Bye, Peter.’
‘Goodbye, Sally.’
‘And who was that?’ asked Ann as they walked over to the car.
‘Just som
eone I met briefly socially. It was a strange coincidence meeting her again like that.’
They drove home and, after the meal, Peter walked Sue down the stairs back to her flat.
‘Well, who was that woman?’ Ann asked again when he returned.
‘Who was who?’
‘You know perfectly well. The woman you bumped into at the hospital.’
‘She’s a woman called Sally Dunham and she’s a journalist.’
‘Where did you meet her? ‘
Peter hesitated. ‘It must have been at a drinks party or at some reception,’ he said uncertainly.
‘I have no recollection of meeting her.’
‘You must have been talking to other people at the time or it may even have been a work-related affair which didn’t involve you.’
‘Whose party was it? – you never mentioned it.’
‘I really don’t remember and it never seemed sufficiently important to mention.’
‘Well, it seemed to be a very intimate exchange.’
‘Ann, you’re imagining things. It was scarcely intimate. It was a narrow doorway and we exchanged two sentences commenting on the coincidence of meeting in such a place.’
‘Well, it seems a very odd sort of coincidence to me.’
Peter shrugged his shoulders in acquiescence. The coincidence was certainly remarkable but the opportunity to explain the circumstances, if not the detail, of the previous meeting had now been irretrievably lost. He was ashamed at his duplicity but reflected that the possibility of ever reporting that first meeting in a plausible manner had always been remote. This new and totally fortuitous encounter suggested a number of interesting and disturbing possibilities central to each of which was further acquaintance. The highlights of that day on the Northumbrian coast remained clearly imprinted on Peter’s memory but, like a photographic vignette, the peripheral events had become diffused and indistinct. His recollections would have remained permanently thus, or more probably would have become even less distinct, if the encounter that evening had not thrown them all into sharp relief once more. Any further association could only be contrived. Peter knew this could be no more than a fantasy that would fade with time.
* * *
The doorbell rang late that evening. It was 11.30pm. Ann and Peter looked at each other as it rang continuously and stridently. Peter crossed the room and went to the front door. Ann heard it being opened but still the bell rang.
‘What is it, has the bell stuck?’ asked Ann.
Peter looked out. Sue was standing outside leaning against the bell. She was holding her head in both her hands. ‘For God’s sake, what is it, Sue?’ He went forward and gently pulled her fully upright. In the sudden silence she gasped and sobbed and then leant against him. Peter put his arms around her as the sobs continued irregularly and with frightening force.
‘What’s going on?’ Ann asked from close behind.
‘I don’t know. Help me to bring her inside.’ Slowly the three moved into the lounge as Sue continued to cling to Peter. ‘What’s happened, Sue?’ He whispered urgently into her ear, ‘What is it?’
Slowly between her sobs she said, ‘They rang, they just rang from the hospital. It’s Andrew – something dreadful has happened – not long after we left.’
‘But what, Sue – he seemed so well?’
‘I know, but they explained. They said it could all happen quite suddenly and out of the blue. A clot of blood from his legs went to his lungs and it’s all over.’ They gazed at Sue in disbelief.
‘Surely, that can’t be right? He was his normal provocative self when we left.’
‘Oh, Sue, love.’ Ann went across and put her arms around the sobbing figure. Peter left the room and instinctually went to the kitchen to make some tea. He returned and poured mugs for each of them. They sat rigidly, silently, privately apart.
Sue started to talk again, flatly and almost inaudibly. ‘They explained it all. They said it can happen to people who are otherwise quite well. It happens to people who are in bed with illnesses or after accidents, especially after operations on their legs. They lie quite still in bed and the blood clots in their legs. Then suddenly it just goes to their lungs and sometimes, if it’s a big clot, there is nothing they can do about it. I just sat in the flat. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t move and all this because I didn’t help him when I should have known that he needed it.’
‘He broke his leg in an accident. You weren’t responsible for that.’
‘I think I was.’
‘No, Peter’s right. It was an accident. I can’t believe it either.’
‘Neither can I. It’s not real. He was his normal self. I can’t go back to that flat again.’
‘No, of course not, you must spend the night here.’
‘I don’t want to sleep.’
‘Perhaps you should try. Peter will ring the doctor.’
The presence of the doctor, who provided a sedative and reinforced the suggestion that she stay the night in the flat, offered some relief. She was the partner of the doctor who had helped on the night of the accident and she confirmed that there were occasions when such tragedies occurred and that they could not be predicted.
6
The immediate drama was over. The three surviving witnesses to each stage of its development and its unexpected and sad end retreated into behaviours which were personal, private and automatic. The passage of time appeared suspended during the days that followed and quotidian activities were performed reflexly and unthinkingly. The personal devastation for Sue contrasted strikingly with the relative public insignificance of such everyday events as had culminated in Andrew’s death. The polished professional sympathy she encountered did nothing to allay her grief or assuage her sense of guilt as she was supported through the rituals and observances demanded by law and prescribed by convention. The days between the death and the cremation assumed an air of unreality. She was suddenly lost, remote and incapable of making decisions and would only return to her flat when accompanied by Ann who would stay the night with her. She agreed passively to all suggestions for the cremation and the management of Andrew’s affairs. Ann automatically re-adopted the role of mentor, guide and friend. She accompanied Sue to the hospital to complete the melancholy task of collecting Andrew’s personal effects, presented impersonally in a polythene bag incongruously labelled “hospital property”. She was standing close to Sue when they learned that there was to be an autopsy and an inquest as he had died indirectly as a result of an accident.
Peter was cast without a role other than as a witness to the accident and, through Ann as an intermediary, an informal legal adviser. A verdict of accidental death was returned and neither blame nor opprobrium was attached to the cab driver. Peter continued to go to work each day but, apart from the time spent with his clients, he was unable to settle to work systematically. He spent much of the following week leaving his office at quiet times and wandering aimlessly around the streets. He found himself excluded from the mutually dependent roles which Sue and his wife had adopted. He reflected endlessly on the sequence of events, major and minor, which had ultimately led to Andrew’s death. It seemed that the words and sentiments he had expressed in that drunken oration had acquired an additional dimension. He found he could no longer simply dismiss them as pompous, whimsical or jejune. For Peter, death and distance had invested those judgements with a force and significance which had not been there originally. He was conscious of the irrationality of his reaction. The practical reasons for disregarding such challenging statements were overwhelming. Nevertheless, he remained unsettled by the apparently unceasing routine and uniformity of his life. It seemed very likely that when the anti-climactic days following the inquest and cremation were over, Peter and Ann would be little touched by the event in the longer term. Each would slowly drift back into the regular routine of their lives.
Three days after the cremation, Peter and Ann were having a meal with Sue in her flat. It had been arranged that Ann would spend a further two nights there. Later that evening as Peter was returning to their flat he heard the telephone ringing as he climbed the stairs. He hurried in to find Jenny on the line, distraught and unhappy. Her father had deteriorated during the previous day and the hospital had suggested it would be wise to send for Ann if she wished to see her father once more.
Ann looked tired and distressed when Peter relayed the message but was dissuaded from trying to catch the overnight sleeper. He accompanied her in a taxi to King’s Cross the next morning and promised to follow at the weekend. The day was warm and, knowing he had no fixed appointments for that morning, he decided to walk to his office in Westminster. He set off along the Euston Road but soon turned off to escape the noise and fumes of the traffic. He ambled generally southwards and westwards through the quieter streets and squares of Bloomsbury. He took no notice of his precise route so it was with a shock that he came to a tall red brick building which he recognized as the hospital where Andrew had died. He walked on a little further south, perturbed and unhappy, and finally reached a garden square where he sat on a bench in the sun. The warm, humid day closed in on him as he re-ran the events of the previous six weeks in his mind. He was shortly joined by another man on the bench and, without thinking, he moved a little further along although there was more than adequate space between them.
‘It’s alright, my friend,’ said the newcomer. ‘People who dress like this don’t always have lice and I’ve had a shower today.’
Peter looked at the figure to his right. It was a man in his late twenties, with a goatee beard and long hair gathered in a ponytail. He was dressed in a faded T-shirt, denims and trainers with a silver ankh hung around his neck on a fine leather thong.
‘I’m sorry,’ Peter said awkwardly and looked away, unwilling to engage further in conversation.
‘It’s alright – but you look real down.’
