by Sarah Bourne
‘What I meant was, I’d rather come and hang around with you than go home, if you want me to.’
‘Yeah, I’d like that.’ Tim’s smile reappeared. ‘I’d like it a lot.’
‘See you soon then. Don’t go anywhere.’
Tim paced. He couldn’t keep still. Alice was coming to see him. He hoped they kept Brian long enough so he was still there when she arrived. What if they discharged him and Brian wanted to go straight home? He couldn’t let him go on his own, but he could hardly take Alice with him.
The woman and her son looked at him and the mother’s brow creased. Tim realised he was probably annoying them with his ceaseless pacing but he couldn’t stop. The Indian family was called and they rose and disappeared into another room. Everyone watched them go and then looked at the clock ticking away on the wall above the rack which held useful leaflets about AA, NA, MS, PND, MND, SLAA. You name it, there were letters to obscure what it actually was.
The crisp-eating guy raised his eyebrows and said something to the older man who shrugged and looked back at the TV. A teenager came in and went to the reception window where a frazzled-looking clerk took his details and told him to wait. He was holding his arm above his head. It was wrapped in a tea towel but blood was seeping through it. Tim remembered his trip to hospital when his dad had stomped on his hand – he’d had the same tea towel, held his hand above his head in the same way – and suddenly he wanted to leave. His hand started throbbing at the memory of it. He wanted to see Alice, but not in this place. He’d forgotten how much he hated hospitals; the pain he saw on people’s faces, the smell of fear and antiseptic, the overlit drab rooms.
He told the receptionist he’d be waiting outside for any news of Brian and exited through automatic doors. He took a deep breath and looked across the car park to Uxbridge Road. Alice would be coming from that direction. He imagined her walking towards him while he watched, her coat flying open revealing the clothes hugging the curves of her body. He saw himself taking her in his arms and pulling her towards him, breathing in the sweet floral smell of her perfume, looking into her eyes, leaning down to kiss her.
‘Your friend is awake and asking for you,’ said a voice behind him. Tim swung round to see the nurse who had taken Brian away hugging herself in the cool evening air.
‘Thanks,’ he said and took a last look towards the road before following her back into the hospital.
Brian was sitting in bed in a curtained cubicle. A drip stand held two bags of fluid that were flowing into Brian’s arm through clear tubes. His eyes were red-rimmed and unfocused and Tim wondered if they’d pumped his stomach yet, or if they even still did that. He remembered his father had once had to have it done, not long after his mother had left and alcohol had been his constant companion. Tim had called 999 when he’d come home from school and when they arrived, heard the ambulance men talk to each other about pumping his stomach. Tim had had an image of a pump handle like the one he’d seen on an old Western, a woman in a long dress, a shawl around her shoulders, pumping water from a standpipe.
‘Hey, man, how you doing?’ He grabbed a plastic chair and pulled it closer.
‘Sorry – sorry I did this to you. You’re a good friend,’ Brian slurred without looking at him.
‘It’s okay. You’ll be fine.’ Tim hoped he was right. ‘Want me to get you anything?’
‘Nah. They’re going to keep me in overnight, they said. Coz of what happened and all.’
‘Have you – I mean, do you – are you thinking about it, the jumper?’
Brian looked into the distance. ‘Trying not to, but it’s hard. I keep seeing her eyes boring into me and then she wasn’t there anymore… you know.’
‘Yeah. I know, man. Might be a good idea, staying in for the night,’ said Tim. ‘Have people around in case you feel like talking.’
‘Yeah.’
They lapsed into silence. Brian closed his eyes. Tim looked around wondering how far away Alice was, when she’d be there, if she was really coming.
He watched the busyness of the emergency department through a gap in the curtains, pulled out his notebook and started sketching as he listened to the sounds and the rhythm of the hospital. The staff wrote notes, chatted to each other, spoke on the phone, tended to patients. He felt dislocated from reality.
Tim assessed his drawing. A nurse leaning against the desk reading case notes. It wasn’t finished but he liked the image he’d created. A moment of calm in a busy emergency department.
And he thought again about Alice and what it might be like to kiss her. She was sinuous, sensuous… ordacious? He wondered how it was spelt so he got his phone out to check it. Audacious. Lively, unrestrained, uninhibited. That was her. But she was also intelligent, ambitious, soft and gentle, holding a nugget of fear and shame close to her centre. He hadn’t known her long but he was sure he was right. She was all those things and more.
His phone vibrated in his hand – he’d had to turn off the sound when he came in to sit with Brian.
‘Tim – I’m here, where are you?’
‘Alice! I’m with Brian in A and E.’
Brian opened an eye and looked at him. Tim smiled at him and spoke into the phone.
‘Go to the waiting area and I’ll come out.’
‘Off you go, mate, I’m fine. See you soon. And, Tim – thanks again,’ said Brian.
Tim squeezed his arm. ‘See ya, mate. Call me, okay?’
As he walked down the corridor he felt the adrenaline rush through his body. She’d come all the way to this place to see him, to spend more time with him. The confidence he’d felt after a few drinks had evaporated with the alcohol in his bloodstream and he didn’t know what to say to her. He rehearsed lines on his way back to the waiting room but they all sounded cheesy.
She had her back to him, looking at the TV. He called her name and she spun round, her face lighting up and making his heart skip a beat, just like they said it did in books when you saw the one you loved.
‘Shit, you’re beautiful,’ he heard himself say and she laughed and came and put her arms around him. He hoped the people in the waiting room saw this gorgeous woman was there for him and then he lost himself in her perfume, the touch of her skin, the softness of her lips.
4
Ray
Ray couldn’t concentrate on the newspaper. He rarely read them these days, but not being a regular commuter, it had seemed like the thing to do at the station. Buy a paper to read on the train. It was almost a conditioned response. Maybe it was all that kept print media going, all those sheep who did the same thing, day in, day out, not because it was desired, but because they didn’t think. He preferred to get his information from the BBC news when he got in from work, opened a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, poured a glass for himself and Russell and sipped his wine as he prepared a plate of cheese and crackers.
Russell always got in a few minutes after him. They’d kiss hello, Russell would move through the flat like a tornado, throwing his briefcase into a corner in the bedroom, opening windows, peeling off suit and tie, pulling on jeans and T-shirt. It was funny, thought Ray, how he didn’t feel like he was home until Russell had cluttered the place up and flopped down in front of the TV in his loose-limbed way, remote in hand. Only then did Ray feel like he could breathe properly, that his world had taken its proper shape. In spite of Russell’s untidiness and his inability to talk about his feelings, Ray loved him completely and still couldn’t believe Russell, ten years younger than him and a hundred times better-looking, loved him back.
He stared at the headlines. It was all about the EU referendum. Remain or leave. Ray was firmly in the Remain camp. Britain was no longer the centre of an empire with markets hungry for its goods and resources in colonies around the world to plunder. They needed the EU even if it meant more rules and regulations than you could poke a stick at and the sense, sometimes, that the whole thing was like a juggernaut with a slightly defective gearbox.
The train lurched a
nd came to an abrupt stop with a screeching of locked wheels. Ray grasped hold of the window ledge, pressed his feet into the floor and held his breath. They came to a halt amidst newspapers littering the floor and eyebrows being raised but no one said a thing. All eyes turned towards the windows as if the answer to the question no one had voiced would appear on the grimy glass.
Ray, who had somehow held on to it, put his paper down on his lap and wiped his hands on his hanky. He folded it carefully and put it back in his pocket, took out his glasses case and the special little cloth and cleaned his glasses which he had recently had to start wearing. It made him feel old, needing glasses, but Russell had helped him choose the frames – heavy and dark – and said he thought Ray looked distinguished and sexy, had even asked him to wear them when they made love.
He fiddled with his ring, rolling it round and round on his finger. The ring Russell had given him last winter as a token of his commitment. It was a silver Claddagh ring, two hands holding a heart. Ray had given Russell a plain gold band inscribed on the inside with Ray <3 Russell. It was a bit corny but it was all that would fit. Ray had actually wanted to write that Russell was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he hoped they would grow old together.
A click and a scratchy sound preceded a tinny voice. ‘We are sorry for the delay which is due to unforeseen circumstances. At this time we cannot say how long it will be. We will keep you posted. Sorry for any inconvenience.’
The woman sitting across the aisle from him looked at the man opposite her. ‘Body on the line, I suspect. Wonder how long we’ll be stuck here?’
The man to whom the comment was addressed looked at her but made no comment.
‘Poor bugger,’ she added, too late.
The man still offered no response and the woman shrugged and got back to her book.
Ray’s heart was beating fast. A body – really? His first thought was that it was so early. He’d always imagined people desperate enough to kill themselves would wait until later in the day. After dark even, when things can sometimes look worse than they are. The lonely time when you imagine everyone else is at home with a partner or their family, tucking in to a home-cooked meal instead of something picked up from M&S on the way home and heated in the microwave, eaten alone with too many glasses of wine. His next thought was that it might make him late for his doctor’s appointment. He was about to look at his watch when he bit his lip and let his hand fall back into his lap. What a callous thing to think, he chided himself. If it was a body (he shuddered at the idea), it was the desperate act of a person grappling with their demons. Someone who could no longer see a way out of their predicament, no path back to the light. He wasn’t a religious person but he found himself, in the absence of anything more useful to do, repeating the Lord’s Prayer to himself. It was the only thing he could remember from Sunday school all those years ago apart from the hardness of the pew under his non-existent buttocks and the sting of a ruler across the wrist when he was caught daydreaming.
He noticed he was feeling tight in the chest and closed his eyes. He recognised the signs of stress. He lived with it almost constantly these days. Right now he was unsure if he was more upset for the jumper or himself.
His doctor had said the cancer was discrete and there was no point in doing more than watching and waiting but Ray wasn’t happy with that. He had nightmares about being engulfed by alien beings, amorphous, ugly, voracious. It didn’t take Freud to work out what they were about. He was scared. Who wouldn’t be? So he was on his way to Harley Street for a second opinion.
He had asked around at work, men he thought might know about these things, who were of a certain age, and Michael Montague from Compliance had given him the name of this doctor.
‘He’s the man to go to for these things,’ Michael had said. These things being prostate cancer. He couldn’t even bring himself to say it.
‘How do you know?’ Ray had asked. He wanted the source, wanted to make sure it wasn’t his wife’s hairdresser who had mentioned him, or a friend who had since died from his cancer.
‘Remember Anthony Ballard? He had it, went to see this chap, now he’s right as rain. Fighting fit. Plays eighteen holes of golf twice a week and can still beat me at tennis.’
Ray noted that Michael still couldn’t bring himself to say the C word, or even the name of the urologist he was recommending. He’d written the name and number down as if not saying them aloud offered some magic protection from being affected. Infected.
‘Great, thanks,’ Ray had said, and entered the name and number into his phone before throwing the piece of paper in the bin.
‘Don’t mention it. Let me know how you go. See you on the golf course,’ said Michael.
That’d be right. Let me know if you get better but not if you don’t. Ray didn’t play golf and couldn’t imagine himself starting in celebration of being successfully treated.
Out the window the green fields and hedges were bursting with summer flowers. The cows in the field were being herded towards a milking barn, heads down, udders swaying, the farmer studiously ignoring what was happening not a hundred yards away.
Suddenly he felt like weeping. He was terrified and all alone. Russell was like Michael; he couldn’t talk about Ray’s cancer either. He’d got all tight-lipped and pale when Ray first told him he thought something was wrong and refused to go to the doctor with him. Ray had found him crying in the bathroom later and hadn’t mentioned it again. He hadn’t even told him he was taking the day off to see Dr Moncrieff today. He sighed, took more deep breaths.
The young woman sitting next to him wearing an army surplus coat several sizes too large, got her phone out and made a call.
‘Hey, Maddie – you’ll never guess what – the train ran into someone. Like a real person. And now we’re sitting in the middle of a field and no one’s told us what’s going on and when we’ll get going again or nothing.’
Ray winced and closed his eyes. What was the world coming to? What was so fascinating about a death it had to be broadcast in real time to your friends? And anyway, it was only rumour so far that there had been a suicide. Maybe it wasn’t even a suicide – maybe someone had wandered onto the tracks in a state of inebriation or under the influence of drugs. Maybe it wasn’t a person at all but one of the cows from the field.
‘Yeah, I know. Shit. Yeah, okay. Oh, yeah – thanks. I’ll let you know. I’ll call you back. Laters.’ The young woman put her phone down in her lap and picked it up again immediately, scrolling through her texts, sent a few back to chosen recipients, typing with her two thumbs as fast as Ray could type with ten fingers. How did they do that, these people who had been raised on a diet of phones and American sitcom ‘kulcha’? He shook his head and the woman looked at him, angled her phone so he couldn’t see what she was writing and shifted away from him as far as the seat would allow.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I can’t read anything without my glasses.’ He smiled in what was meant to be a reassuring way but she rolled her eyes and got back to her phone.
Anyway, I wouldn’t want to read your mindless tosh, he added to himself. You probably can’t spell your own name, read trashy magazines and your mother’s looking after your children so you can have a day in the Big Smoke finding a daddy for the next one. God – where did that come from? He wasn’t usually so judgemental. It must be the stress. The cancer.
He felt like weeping again just thinking about those cells invading his body. It terrified him. What if they’d already spread, were even now eating away at other parts of him? He’d heard you don’t recover if it spreads to other organs like the stomach or the liver, but his doctor hadn’t even checked that. He’d just said he was sure the tumour was discrete. Discrete! Contained. Unattached. Separate. Different. Exactly how Ray felt these days. He and his tumour had that in common. He almost laughed at the irony. A cluster of cells had marched in and taken up residence in his body where they didn’t belong. Multiplying. Growing.
‘How soon do you think I can leave without hurting Eugene’s feelings?’ Russell had asked.
Ray had looked at him, this tall, good-looking young man and his heart had all but stopped. ‘Oh, I think we should give it another half hour before we make a break for it,’ he said, and Russell had laughed.
For Ray it was love at first sight but he hadn’t dared hope it might be reciprocated. Especially when he discovered Russell was going out with a woman. Tall, elegant, aloof Lucy. He was happy enough to discover he and Russell had a common interest in architecture and they’d started visiting stately homes together and spending the evenings afterwards discussing them over dinner and a bottle of wine. There had been invitations to Russell’s house – he still lived with his parents in their enormous mansion – and social occasions with his family. Ray had been happy to be included, especially since his own family wanted little to do with him. Everything would be perfect if it wasn’t for this bloody cancer. If only Russell could man up about it and give him a bit of support instead of Ray looking after him and his feelings all the time.
No, that wasn’t fair. Russell looked after him in other ways, and his father had died of cancer, that’s why he couldn’t bear to see Ray going through it. Although Jeff, Russell’s father, had been a sixty-a-day smoker since he was a teenager; lighting a cigarette before he got out of bed. There was always a cigarette in his hand, and he drove his Bentley, cigarette in mouth. There were ashtrays in the toilets. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when he got lung cancer, but it was. As if money and status should have protected him against something as pedestrian, as proletarian as lung cancer.
