Inch Levels

by Neil Hegarty

  Oh, Patrick, they’d murmur, he’s a laugh, so he is. A right laugh. Backing off. Glad to shed him and his moods, glad to leave him behind.

  Discomfiting people. He’d a lifetime of practice at it.

  *

  ‘At what, Patrick?’ said the nurse. She paused, turned towards the bed. He opened his eyes.

  ‘What was that?’ A thin, whistling voice: this fella was only thirty-odd, she’d glanced at his notes; but he had an old man’s voice.

  ‘Practice, you said.’ The nurse – was it another nurse, this time? She was poised to go, but something – a native compassion, perhaps, overriding the time-management skills drummed into her during training – something caused her to pause for a second. She said, ‘At what?’

  He looked – not at her, but at the flat, white ceiling. He was perfectly aware today, she thought, for a dry smile was curling the corner of his mouth. ‘God knows, Nurse,’ he said quite clearly. ‘God only knows.’

  And she left, smiling a little too. He’s a character, so he is. His eyes were closed once more: when she turned at the door and glanced back, though, only one eye was closed, and the other peeped for a second in her direction. Then it too closed. He’d probably been a decent-looking man, once. She left the room.

  3

  ‘Perhaps you could keep a journal,’ Margaret said.

  Unthinkingly: and he made certain that she regretted rapidly the comment.

  ‘And what would I write?’ he said. She opened her mouth to reply, and he said, ‘Or should I say, what would I leave out?’

  Instead of replying, Margaret stood up abruptly, went to the window. ‘And thank goodness for windows,’ he pursued, ‘to look out of. They fill awkward gaps just wonderfully, I find. I had Robert looking out of the windows the other day too, did he mention?’

  This was one of his good days.

  ‘He did, actually.’

  ‘So, come on then. A journal. What would I write in it? What would it be called? The Unfortunate History of Patrick Jackson, and of his Family; or, A Decision Made?’ He eyed her over the blue coverlet. ‘But perhaps that’s a bit too eighteenth-century, a bit too wordy. What about going for something a bit more pithy? What about, let’s see, what about,’ he paused, ‘Crossroads? Or The Snare? Or, wait, what about Judgment Day?’

  ‘Stop it,’ Margaret said in a low voice. She was still looking out of the window.

  ‘I like Judgment Day,’ he said – but now the fire was leaving his belly; and he sank into his pillows.

  And in fact, he had considered beginning a journal of some kind. Just once, when his dreams had cut in once too often and rattled his nerves like the lid on a saucepan. Might his mind, his dreams, be short-circuited in some way? Might he wrestle some control out of this situation? But he had always been reluctant to keep any written record, any account of myself. Really, Patrick? – so the conversation had gone once, at Wednesday night history club, the meandering conversation moving around to diaries. Haven’t you a diary, tucked away somewhere? Well now, I’d’ve thought you’d be just the type. Your books, your papers, your pen flying across the page. That was a missed opportunity, wasn’t it?

  Oh, shut up, you gaggle of geese. I’ve never kept a journal, I said. Can’t you just listen? – he had wanted to say.

  What had he said instead? He couldn’t remember.

  There was too much to put down. Or perhaps there was not enough of substance. Perhaps ‘not enough’ was more like it. Not enough that he would want actually to see the light of day.

  Too much, and not enough.

  And besides, what would he be writing about? The inside of his head, really – and the inside of his head was just not that attractive a prospect, with its blood vessels pulsating, and grey matter shining a little, its cords and muscles and veins. And some of what these blood vessels and grey matter and cords and muscles and veins had produced over the years was not that attractive.

  He stuck instead to his history lessons, sandwiched between the bells. There were enough words there to satisfy anyone.

  ‘They were able to move me yesterday,’ he told Margaret now. He could not apologise to her – he never apologised, to anyone – but there were other ways of building bridges. This was the Jackson way of doing things: and she responded now.

  ‘Oh yes?’ She swung from the window.

  ‘For a couple of minutes: they got me up and brought me over to the window. One of those carers, or orderlies, or whatever they call themselves.’

  ‘Auxiliaries?’

  ‘Some harsh-looking thing, anyway, with cigarette smoke on her breath. God knows where they find them. She probably had her Benson & Hedges stuck in her pocket. But she was built like a sumo wrestler, which was exactly what I needed.’

  Margaret smiled.

  ‘And she kind of hoisted me up and walked me over to the window.’

  In fact he made a point of asking the nurses and other staff their names: ‘Now,’ he said, ‘which one are you?’ – pretending to care, joshing. They liked a little joshing, the nurses, so long as one didn’t cross a line. It was a polite thing to do; and it kept on their good sides.

  ‘I’m Sam,’ this one had said. A young – well, a youngish – nurse. Sam? But a country accent, and mild; no chance yet, he supposed, to build up her rhino skin. And hefty, though not at all built like a sumo wrestler: that, he conceded to himself, was a mean thing to say. ‘Upsy daisy now, Patrick, and we’ll take you over to the window. You like that, they tell me.’

  Upsy daisy indeed, Sam, he thought: talking to me as though I was five years old.

  ‘Oh yes, I like that,’ he told her. Feigning meekness to Sam, who – sweet or not – could make his (remaining) life difficult if she wanted. He allowed Sam to take him over to the window – shuffle, shuffle, he thought, like an old man – and there was the view: down across the grassy grounds, across the hills and ridges, across to the school. And there, trotting in pairs and feral gangs down the school drive, he saw his former charges themselves, black blazers flapping and ties askew or doffed altogether; and the school, never-changing, with its blasted green copper belfry.

  ‘They tell me,’ said Sam, ‘you taught over there.’ Part of their training, he supposed, to encourage their terminal charges to chatter, to do whatever was necessary to stop their brains and mouths from seizing up. ‘Can’t have been for very long though.’ The age of him: not even forty. Not close. ‘How long was it, exactly, now?’

  Be quiet, Patrick wanted to say, and take your elbow out of my ribs. Go off and put a protective pad on your elbow and come back, and then I might talk to you. And stop patronising me, my dear country cousin. Get along back to your barn.

  Though at least Sam didn’t say dear. Upsy daisy now, dear: roll over a little and if you’re finished, I’ll give you a wipe.

  ‘Oh, six years or so, Sam,’ he said instead. ‘Felt like longer, though, sometimes. Sam – now, is that Samantha?’

  And in fact he really did want to know. Who was to blame for this crime of nomenclature? Did she have especially wicked parents?

  Sam nodded – though she didn’t fill him in on her parents. ‘That’s right,’ she said cheerily – how he was coming to hate that ghastly cheeriness – and smiled. ‘Though really, I prefer Sam. Samantha is just too much, you know?’

  Patrick knew, certainly.

  The parents, then: blame the parents. Poor Sam. He nodded and concentrated on the view. If he ignored the green copper belfry, then there was a good deal to take in. The roofs of the school and over the roofs a ridge of hill, and then another one, more blue this time, and blue sky too. The river invisible in its deep valley. Sam tweetled on for a while and Patrick let her take his weight – not much of a weight nowadays, he thought, a sparrow’s weight, though a few kilos extra would be no sweat to our Sam – and let the windowsill take his weight too, and just looked out. Blue hills and blue sky: he focused very carefully and the school and the belfry – he vanished it. He saw the skyline and
the sky, and that was good enough.

  For a few moments. Though, reality always grabbed one’s heel, in the end. Grabbed it and gives it a good bite.

  *

  ‘How is he today?’

  ‘He seems bright enough, I think. Though too weak to get out of bed.’

  The matron shook her head. ‘And so young. So young. A shame. And they go downhill so fast.’

  ‘He’s a gentleman,’ Sam offered, tentatively. She added, dishonestly, ‘Always polite and always grateful.’ She noted the slicing frown mark appear between the matron’s brows: was she, Sam, rejecting democracy? Expressing a preference for one patient over another? This was completely unacceptable. Sam recanted hastily. ‘So they tell me.’

  The matron appeared to reconsider: the cleft on her forehead was smoothed away. ‘So they tell me too,’ she conceded. ‘I imagine he’ll go quietly, when the time comes.’ She clipped away along the corridor: Sam peeped again through the glass; she looked for a moment at the figure in the bed and then she bustled away too.

  *

  ‘I hear,’ Margaret said now, tentatively, ‘that you told Robert not to call in again.’

  ‘That’s right.’ And to close the conversation down, ‘and of course you don’t blame me.’ She hardly could, could she?

  She shook her head, turned to the window. ‘No, I don’t blame you.’ A pause, then, ‘And what about the girls?’

  Patrick managed a laugh at that. ‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘Not the place for them. And they make too much noise, your two. Though, children these days always make too much noise. I blame the parents,’ he said, ‘don’t you?’

  And watched her flinch again.

  Yes, he thought as the door closed behind the nurse: yes, blame the parents. He thought of his mother, due to visit later, of his long-dead father. Blame them both, he thought: let the blame take the strain. He thought of the sketchy canvas forming in his mind: the lines, the colours, the shapes of characters roughed, sketched in. He thought: do I even have a starring role in my own life? Or have other characters, with a twitch of their buttocks, shoved me right out of the frame? And what a lot of them there are, now I think about it, what a lot of other people, shuffling and pushing their way upstage. My mother, of course, and my father. Cassie. Margaret and Robert: and their two girls – who, yes, had caused so much noise. A few others knocking around.

  And a final vignette appearance, to round things off. He’d done his research, he knew the roles.

  That should do the trick.

  An ordinary life. He imagined what they might say when they went through his belongings, his papers, his tidy filing cabinet: Sam, possibly, in the first instance, charged with clearing out this very room – and now he imagined Sam tapping her chewed nurse’s Biro on her strong white, countrywoman’s teeth, taking the chance to discover a secret or two.

  Well, Sam: this one’s for you.

  No, on second thoughts: go away, Sam. There isn’t anything for you in my papers, in my will. I’m not telling you about my will, the recipients of my largesse – it won’t be you: you came along too late. Go back to work, Sam, he thought. Go back to doing what you’re good at: at sticking chilly thermometers into people’s bums.

  The truth was that he knew what he was doing. His mind was taking stock, it was putting a shape to things, it was working against the clock. What was he doing, then, holding it at arm’s length? Absolving himself of responsibility, was that it?

  Well – yes: that was exactly it. Absolving himself of responsibility: that was exactly what he was doing. He was a dab hand, after all, at this, was he not? And now he must inch back, he must break this habit of mind. There was so little time left. There was so much at stake.

  He was a good teacher. I am a good teacher, he had told himself – many times over the years, as he sought to put some value on this life that he seemed so pointlessly to be living: a damn good teacher of English and history. It was all he had, all he could point to with a glimmering of pride and self-esteem. It was never enough, the credit would never outweigh the debit, but it was something to clutch. And so now his mind worked as any good teacher’s mind worked: by adding a little context. Context is all, he used to say to his spotty, high-smelling students, even as he averted his gaze from their oily hair and oily skin and blackhead-pocked noses.

  I should go for it, he thought as he lay in his bed. I should go for it, I should grasp at the chance to find shapes in my life. I should not write a journal, but instead create a wonderful hanging: bright, he thought, with coloured thread. And what else? Glittering with rhinestones stitched into the fabric in green and blue and deep and mysterious ruby red: the Bayeux Tapestry de nos jours.

  Not pretentious, he thought: not at all.

  And then to fill in the context. To people this wonderful hanging. He imagined Margaret, excellent in so many ways. Not quite at the centre, though near enough; a backdrop, he thought, of fragrant bay and bright, white lilac.

  Lilac turns so quickly, after all: come the end of May and it fades and blackens.

  And Robert, shadowed, half-disguised behind the bough or a tree or other piece of artistic greenery. Medieval Robert. Ivy creeps at his feet; it clambers up his leg, parasitic, pregnant with menace, filled with poison.

  A ghost hovers at his shoulder – though, he thought, how to portray a ghost?

  And now Patrick imagined his mother, shadowing Robert, wrapped in pastel pinks and blues: the perfect disguise. My mother, he thought, who comes calling later today. Who comes calling two or three times a week. Who called two days ago, or three, and crunched grape pips at the end of my bed. Who comes… and perhaps, he thought now, perhaps she too has an eye on my will: I wonder what secret means she thinks I have, as she sits at the end of my bed, eating my grapes and crunching the pips.

  ‘Why don’t you buy seedless?’ he asked, two days ago, or three.

  Sarah shrugged a little. ‘Special offer on black ones, in Long’s this morning,’ she said. ‘Do you want one? – I washed them, and everything.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Peel it for you if you like.’

  He thought: witty Ma.

  He thought: it’s like being in Wormwood Scrubs, at such a time. It would be better to wipe these people from the story. To unpick the threads – but unpick, snip just one thread, and history would fall apart. He knew this too. He knew this was impossible: he hadn’t the luxury of time.

  So little time – to make sense, to create a pattern, to tell some sort of truth. To get, he thought, my ducks in a row.

  He thought about Margaret. He fended her off, he looked forward to her visits: this was their relationship, now. His week pivoted on these visits, in spite of himself. Well, and that’s about right, he thought: my life had pivoted on that one, single relationship. On choices made and deals done and connections forged and severed – and Margaret near the centre of it all.

  ‘Why him?’ he’d said to Margaret – in London, on Hampstead Heath, years ago now: the words floating into his mind now almost visibly, letter by pulsating letter by uncomprehending question, exclamation marks. ‘Why him? I mean, look at him!’ And Margaret turned and looked at Robert, at his lean frame silhouetted on the ridge of Parliament Hill.

  ‘Why not him?’ And after a pause, ‘I’m not going to get anyone else, am I?’ And another pause. ‘Our dear mother has seen to that, hasn’t she?’

  That was the context: that was where it all began. Neither Sam nor anyone else – in a few weeks, in a month’s time, whenever it was – would find these sentences, these words buried in some corner of his effects.

  So: what about the context, the background? – So he would ask these students, from time to time: the more promising, less cloddish students. What about all of that?

  ‘What, sir?’ they would say, shaking out their greasy hair, little motes of dandruff and ear scurf catching in the light. ‘What do you mean, sir?’ Sometimes, if Patrick was in a patient frame of mind, he would give them a li
ttle lecture: sometimes, this little lecture would work quite well, paid out evenly, steadily, he discoursing on all those other histories, the ones that never made it into the history books, the silenced, stifled voices whose stories are lost for ever; and they listening – yes, sometimes actually listening, taking it all in until the bell clanged above their heads.

  Yes, sometimes it worked out nicely.

  Of course, he thought now, such discourses should always have worked out nicely. How, in theory, could they fail to work out nicely, such an idea in such a city, in such a country as this, where certain histories see the light of day and some do not? Where history is a sort of football, kicked around from morning to night? This kind of history should be bread and butter to the whole lot of us. It should be devoured with gusto. So Patrick thought.

  But there it is: he knew that sometimes students – not only students – were lumpen, cloddish. One might as well save one’s breath: so he had said, in conversations innumerable in the staff room over the scant few years of his employment. But now, here was his story: and what an irony it would be if he now set out to press the delete button. Honour the living and the dead, he thought: and the dead most of all.

  He knew where it all came from: this interest in the living and the dead. It came from his father – who would turn in his grave if he knew how selectively Patrick had applied it to his own life. It came from his father. Patrick could even pin it down to a time and a place. He could remember the season, the weather, the view, the clothes, the car the family had at the time.

  On the beach at Kinnagoe, on a sea- and salt-smelling Donegal day in 1960 or thereabouts, Patrick aged six and Margaret eight, and the sand warm under his bare feet and the ocean green and blue and ice-cold, and a picnic waiting.

  As precise as that.

  Have your swim first, said his father, and then we’ll have our picnic.

  Patrick ran into the water: the ice of the Donegal sea, the cold of it; no wonder he remembered that day so well. He swam and then he was towelled dry, his father calming down after his anger, his shock, enveloping his son in their great big red towel. Margaret was second with the towel: it was damp by then – but no complaints from her; she was quiet, abashed, aware that something had happened, that a moment had been witnessed. That something significant had just taken place. Young as they were, they both felt it.