A to Z of You and Me (21 page)

Kelvin sighs and sets himself to say something.

“Listen,” I say. “I didn't want one. I hate fuss. But it's…it's for others. Other people.”

“People will want to pay their respects.”

“Yeah, well, I want it to be me. I want them to…to know me.”

“Ah, mate,” he says. “I'm really pleased to hear you say it. It's definitely the right thing.”

“So, music.” I let go a wobbly sigh, look up at the ceiling. “‘Introduction' by Nick Drake.”

Kelvin scrabbles around for his phone and makes a note of what I'm saying.

“And I like Gillian Welch singing ‘I'll Fly Away.'”

“Right.”

“They're me. That last one's a bit happy, anyway.”

“Anything else?”

“‘Monkey Gone to Heaven'?”

He looks up at me a moment before smiling and shaking his head.

“I've always thought the cancan is unfairly overlooked.”

I tense. Laughing, after a fashion.

OK, now we're getting somewhere.

“Something to make them feel better,” I say. “I can trust you.”

“Of course you can, mate.”

“And…could you write some words? Something that means something?”

He looks genuinely taken aback. “Well…yeah. I'd be honored. Are you sure you trust me to do it?”

“I want you to do it. If you could just…just say—” Sudden unexpected choke in my throat. This is
hard
. “Could you just say that I knew…a bit late in the day maybe, but I realized that…you know, I shut myself away. And that…that wasn't maybe the right thing to do. I could maybe have…been around, you know? And helped people through. Does…does that make sense?”

Kelvin nods wordlessly.

“And that this funeral is my gesture—”

“Too much.”

“Too much?”

“Yeah.”

“OK, well, the rest of it, not too sad, not too hilarious. You know me.”

“Thanks, mate. Thank you. I'll do that.”

“Oh, and ashes.”

“Ashes.”

“Scattered up on the top of the valley.”

“Up at the top, right.”

“Somewhere that feels right.”

“OK.”

“There aren't many trees out there, but…if you happen to see an apple tree—”

“Apple tree, right…”

“Just there. At the root.”

“Got it.”

My mind drifts out the window again, and I push my fingers through my blanket, gather you up around me.

Voice

“Hello.”

Wh—?

“Hello.”

It's…it's
you
.

Clear as day. It's
you
.

Your voice. Your friendly voice. Where was that from?

Am I hearing that? Are you really there?

So completely familiar. Familiar voice. Familiar tailoring to the sounds. The tilt and tone, the lift and fall, the pitch and percussion of it. So clear, so clear.

I have a blueprint. Right here, a blueprint of you. No one can take that away from me. I love it, I love it.

“Hello.”

I can hear you saying it now.

Illuminates my gray brain.

Makes my heart accelerate now. I can feel it pulse now. Through the sheets. Through the mattress. It slows.

“Hello, baby.”

Pulse up quick again now, pound through the mattress. It's the tailoring to the sounds, my blueprint of you. I want to be close to you. I want to merge with you.

Hello, hello.

It slows.

Where are you?

Have you come to see me?

I say, “Mia?”

“Morning, lovey.”

Oh.

Sheila.

Gentle Sheila.

That's a proper sound. Physical sound.

I can hear it with my ears. Oh, that feels different, hearing with my ears. Bass vibrations.

“I've got some fresh water for you here.”

Cruel confusing morphine. It's confusing. Strange.

Sound. Gentle sound. Low sound. Stirring my gray brain. Strange brain.

“Let's wet those lips, OK?”

Cool mess on my lips, my chin. Low relief. It's dripping; it's dribbling.

Sheila still speaks to me. Lovely singsongy voice. Nice voice. But slow, gentle.

“I've been thinking about your A to Z,” she says. “Where have you got up to now?
V
, is it? Or
W
?”

Voice, voice. Sheila's voice.

When did I last use my voice?

I want to say thank you. I'll try to say—

“Don't try to talk, lovey.”

Too dry now. Too parched.

What were my last words? I can't remember.

I hope I've said enough.

Enough for them to be going on with.

• • •

Light flick.

Switch on.

All I can feel about me now is a heartbeat in a bed. I can hear it through the mattress. Faster, now faster.

It's sensed what I've seen through the window.

My heart beats out what I have seen.

Should I push the button?

Sheila? Is Sheila there?

No, no.

Faster now, my heart beats in the sheets.

My heart beats, and I breathe.

I breathe and I see.

That's all I am now.

I'm seeing now through the window and beyond. Beyond to the magnolia tree.

In the breeze between the hard-bitten branches of the little tree outside, there flutters and bobs a heart.

A love heart.

A crochet love heart.

It's there. Look, it's really there, in the tree.

I can see it.

Wings

I'm up above the valley.

I'm here. I can sense it here all around me.

I can feel the sun's warmth, my blood basking beneath the surface.

And it's you.

You, look, you're holding up your palms and crossing your hands now, pressing your thumbs together to make a bird. A fluttering bird.

I take my right hand, press it to your left, thumb to thumb.

A bird. A fluttering bird.

Hold our hands against the sky.

Fluttering, fluttering in the blue.

Two songbirds, fluttering on the eddies, energized by the fruit from the tree, out in the gasping yawn of valley air. That's when we'll be together, mingling in the wind.

You're smiling and widening your eyes.

Your eyes.

“Oh, it's so good to see you,” I'm saying. “I thought I'd never see you again.”

Let me look at you; let me drink you in.

“You look so well and so happy. Are you happy?”

“Really happy.”

“Oh, I'm so pleased. This is amazing. You look amazing. I've missed you so much.”

“Miss you too.”

“I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”

“I know.”

“You were so straight and clear and good and honest with me. I'm so sorry.”

“I know.”

“I can't even ask for your forgiveness. You must never give me it.”

“No matter.”

I can't tell you what a relief it is. After all these years. You're exactly, exactly as I remember you, only clearer. Crystal clear. Your eyes glisten brightly for me.

“Will you give me your hand?”

“Here.”

I can feel it! I can feel the soft skin. I can feel you stroking my knuckles with your thumb.

“Hereing me.”

“Oh yes, yes. I am hereing you.”

“Knowing my words.”

“They sound just the same, exactly the same as they used to.”

“Same sound, no sound.”

“Can you hear me now? Do you know my words at the same time as I think them?”

“I know.”

“Forgive me.”

“Come.”

“Where are you going? You're not going, are you? Please don't go.”

“I won't leave you. Here for you. Don't worry.”

Washed-out quality of your voice.

Signature squiggles of birdsong.

The flutter of wings.

• • •

Ohhh.

Still here.

Awake forever.

This breathing, this breathing.

Like through a drinking straw.

Sleep won't come.

Lying across the pain.

Pain like a branch through my back.

Sharp twisted tree branch.

Tinkle cart.

“Hallo, lovey. It's only me. It's only Sheila.”

Tinkle tinkle.

There it goes. Hmm.

Tinkle tinkle.

The people don't speak to me now. Not Jef, not Jackie. Only Sheila.

Good good.

Speak stirs the chemicals, busy head.

Keeps me awake.

No more.

Good.

They're good people.

Good people.

Angels.

Night now.

Shhh.

Shhh shhh shhhut up.

• • •

“Morning, lovey.”

Tinkle, tinkle.

Here comes the cart.

Drink, I can't drink.

Good, go.

I like it when nothing happens.

What was I…? What was I suppose to be…?

I?

• • •

“Hallo, lovey. It's only me. It's Sheila.”

Sheila.

“I'm just going to take your blanket, OK? Let me unhook it from your fingers here, so we can sort your bedding out, OK?”

Mmm?

“I'm just going to put it by your bedside, all right? It won't be far away.”

No. I—

No…no, that's not right.

I don't feel right.

Cold.

Cold now.

X

Wh—?

Familiar sound of the double doors slipping shut off down the corridor.

Doesn't feel quite—

Who'd be walking down there now?

It just feels…wrong. Seems…against the routine. What's…?

Ridiculous. Stop, stop.

Stop thinking.

I have it in my mind that Mal is approaching, wafting through the double doors, unchecked, unbalanced.

Ease off now.

That's mad thinking.

Mini squeak of shoe rubber on glossy floor. Trapped and amplified by the shiny walls.

He is out there. That's enough for me: these two things. Door slip, wrong time of day; squeaky shoe.

Who else could it be?

No.

Fix eyes shut.

Think of other things.

X
. X-ray.

Xylophone. Ribs as a cartoon xylophone.

X
s for eyes.

X chromosome.

“All right, fella.”

Wh—?

Brain on.

Flicks on like a security light. There's… Was there movement over by the doorway?

Anything?

Is anybody over there?

My ears listen out, but I'm too asleep to open my eyes. I'm realizing I'm more asleep than I thought. Can't…move.

There's nothing there.

Same old night terrors.

Brain off.

“Y'all right, are you?”

On.

Over by the doorway, at the foot of my bed, definitely.

The room remembers the sound.

Paintwork resonates.

“Nice place you've got here. All the gear.”

Gray matter now fully lit up and active.

Mal's voice. Definitely Mal. Gravellier, but same tones. Same tune.

He's there. He's there in the doorway.

Alert now. Alive to the room.

I can't… There's nothing I can do.

Sickening twitch accelerating in my chest.

Push the button. I want to push the button. Find my hand. Find the button to push.

My hand reaches, grasps…nothing. Blanket wasteland.

“I wanted to come and see you.”

Low voice. Anxious. Slight edge to it.

Silence. Shit, shit.

Air conditioning ceaseless, ceaseless breath.

Unseal my eyes. Painful light. There he sits. Simply sits. He's just there.

Can't see if it's him, but it's him, isn't it? Everything tells me it's him.

Shit. Shit, Sheila. You said he'd never get in.

Maroon jacket. Yellow lettering top pocket. NRG. Wh—?

Has he wh—? Is it Mal? I'm confused.

“It's Mal,” he says. “It's Malachy.”

“M—?” I mean Mal. I mean Mal, but my lips stick together.

“That's right. Don't talk if you can't talk.”

“N—no.”

“What?”

“Don't—”

“Don't what, fella? What…what are you saying? I can't understand you.”

He leans over. Looms over.

“S—s—”

He's frowning down.

There's a smell off him. Outside smell. Football pitches. No, like…football terraces. Makes no sense. Cold smell.

He leans in, dangerously in.

“You what, fella?”

I push, push out at him, push him away.

He steps back, sizes me up.

He thinks I'm delirious.

I'm not delirious.

“Stop,” I say. I think I say it.

He's stepped back.

“All right… I'm not going to hurt you. Easy, man. Easy.”

He's still frowning. Trying to work me out.

“I've just come here to see you. I've just come to say hi.”

He lifts his hand and scratches through his hair—a familiar motion. A Mal move. Shows me he's stressed. Anxious face.

He looks hesitant. Nervy.

He looks genuine.

Benign.

“I just wanted to say hi,” he says again.

The longer I look at him, the more I resurface. Relax. Relax a little. Reality.

He looks scared. Seems almost timid.

“Do you mind if I sit?” he asks. “Stay awhile?”

I close my eyes. It's not my decision whether he stays or goes. In time I hear him choose. Tiny knock-scrape. Plastic exhalation. He's sat himself in the visitors' chair.

“Fuck me, man. I'm not going to do you any harm. You didn't think that, did you?”

I shake my head. Yes.

I open my eyes again, rest them on him.

He looks quickly away, out of the window.

Perhaps he can't take the vision of me, lying here, this mask strapped to my face.

That's fine. I'll look at him looking away.

“I don't know what to say in places like this,” he says, still gazing out at the magnolia tree. The heart, the fluttering heart. Can he see it too? “I hate hospitals. I could talk about the weather.”

Pause a moment.

“Inclement.”

He snorts to himself.

I'm going to say something. I need to try to say something.

But it won't come.

“Here,” he says, standing and coming forward.

I can't stop him—

He carefully pours a little water into the teacup on my table and places it to my lips.

“C'mon.”

He places his hand behind my head to lift it, but I can't…

And he has tears in his eyes. I can see, closeup, he has tears.

“Wait a minute,” he says, setting my head gently back down. “I'll just… Here.” He unwraps a clean sponge from my bedside table and dips it into the teacup.

“Here we go. That's better, isn't it?”

Lips moistened. Better, yeah, better.

Try again now. Say, “Where you been?”

Clear my throat. Clear a little with the water.

“I've been staying with Becca for a bit. Giving myself a bit of head space, bit of brain space. She wanted to come and see you, Becca, but, y'know. Bit scared, I think. She hates hospitals. You know what it's like. People hear the name St. Leonard's, and they think…they think a certain thing.”

I close my eyes. Yeah. Come out feet-first in a box.

The silence swells in between us on the air conditioning.

He wants me to say something. Give him a sign.

In all the world of words, I can't think of a single thing.

“Do you know why I'm here? I hoped you'd know.”

Here we go. Here we go now.

“I want to make everything better, but I can't make anything better. Can't say anything. Some stuff is too big, you know? Too complicated for words. But I didn't just want to leave it, man. You need better than that. I wanted to be here. I haven't got all the fancy words, you know, but I thought, if I bring myself and something good might come out of it. Do the right thing, yeah?”

He snorts quietly, nibbles anxiously at a cuticle.

“But fucking hell, you know, even saying this, man, feels fake.
Oh
, you know,
I don't know what to say
. It feels like I'm just saying it to make you feel sorry for me, but I'm not, I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry
to
you.”

He chokes suddenly, unable to continue.

I look at him. Sympathy.

“I promise I was trying to do the right thing, but…well, it's just words, isn't it?”

“No.”

“I wanted to say, there's a lot of things I should have said and done, you know? And a lot of things I shouldn't have said and done. I've had a lot of time to think about it. Too much time. You know that. I bet you've been through that, haven't you? I know you have.”

I have.

“You find suddenly you've done all these terrible things for…for no reason, almost. Things that didn't seem terrible at the time, you know? And not for a long time. But you find that, you know, your whole world's changed because of them. Lots of people's worlds. You've made your mark, whether you like it or not.”

I look up at him now, and he seems small. It's like I'm looking at him from a long way away. The little man. A little man in a chair, next to me, here, a little man in a bed.

“So here I am, you know? Here we are.”

“Mmm.” I frown and attempt to swallow. Get halfway and unswallow.

I can't—

“I don't know why I'm here, man, if I'm honest,” he says, looking over at me almost shyly. “All those years, you know, of imagining what it would be like to meet up again, say what I've got to say. I knew it'd never be the same as I'd thought. I had loads of things to say. Sitting there. Thinking it all up. It's gone, you know? It's not important, is it? Words don't change anything. Don't change what's happened.”

“No.”

“You know, man, if I could I would—in an instant I'd go back and change everything. I wouldn't have let you stay at that party. I wouldn't have let you leave that party. I wouldn't have fucking got in that car. I wouldn't have done any of it, man. It was all my fault, man.”

No, no. Too raw. I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to have this out now. Have it out later if we've got to have it out at all. Have it out later. But he's focused on me, intent on going through this. He's going to sit there and make me go through this moment by moment.

“No,” I say.

“It was. I was right there; I should have stopped it. I know I should.”

“I don't—”

“You're a dying man, yeah? Let's not fuck about with this. You're dying. And that's my fault too, isn't it? I never told you, did I? When you were fucking yourself up in the clubs every night, I never said anything. But that's because I didn't know, man. I didn't know how bad things were with you. But I should have known. I should never have stood by and watched, and I'm so, so sorry.”

He's fixing me with a desperate stare.

“And if there was anything,
anything
, I could do to make it all better, I would do it, straightaway, you know what I mean?”

The piercing glare in his eyes flickers and is finally diluted, and a tear swells in his right eye, breaks over the lid and flees down the side of his nose. He drops back now, back into the seat. Exhausted with the effort of it all.

I close my eyes again.

It's me. The outline of me, could have been a chalk mark, scrawled on the floor of our apartment. Our shared apartment. I'm looking up, amazed at the bicycle wheel hanging crappily from the light fitting. Amazed at seeing a vision. A vision of glow sticks and smoke.

Amazed enough to propel me to your front door, declare myself amazed.

Your face, not amazed. Not amused.

Your voice, alarmed. Trip to the ER for me.

Backseat of the car for me, looking up at you.

You and Mal, uneasy alliance.

All for me.

All because of me.

I am a passenger.

You, there in the hospital bed, me cradling your hand.

Me, here in the hospital bed. Because of me.

It's because of me. All of it.

I look over at Mal. He's not looking.

I need to get him to look at me.

“Mal.” He looks up.

His face is gray and drawn. The trace remains of the fallen tear.

I hold out my hand. He edges toward. Takes it. Takes my hand by the outside. His palm to my knuckles. Wraps it gently into a fist.

“You're all right,” I say.

He exhales and sniffs graphically. He doesn't try to snatch back the blame. In truth, I think it lies between us. But…no use for truth.

A large stream of snot begins to dangle from his nose.

“Ah, shit, man. Sorry,” he says, clapping his hand to his face and wiping with his cuff.

I smile. It actually makes me smile. I can feel it spread across my face.

“Sorry.” He laughs.

I breathe.

It is good. This feels…it feels good.

It was the right thing to do. All things fall into place.

A broad, happy smile fills his face, right to the eyes.

And the relief, the
relief
in him. I didn't expect that.

And they were right; of course they were right. Sheila. Kelvin. Laura, even. About…about what?

To see him so broken… He looks—
forgiven
. And that's not right.

“Sorry, man,” I say.

He looks back up at me. “Don't be soft.”

And oh, the relief of it: in him and now in me… I can physically feel it here in my body. I'm lifted with it, the weight of it gone. That's what they told me would happen. A weightlessness, it's true. This is definitely a thing. Definitely a real feeling.

It's you I want now. It's you I want to forgive me.

I cough. My body coughs without me. I have to wait to let it pass.

I look beyond him, gaze over at the window. Painful light.

One fluttering relief: the heart, there. Your heart in the tree.

Close my eyes.

So, so glad this is all over.

Seems so easy, it's embarrassing. I can feel from my heart up through my back, through the pain, through my limbs to the fingertips an overwhelming surge of love and goodwill.

Drifting, I can feel the time slide around me.

The coffee machine works up again and ceases, and Mal, close by, remains. The sense of a hand in my hand remains.

And I don't know if it's there, and I don't know if it's you, crossing our hands to make a bird. A fluttering bird. Up against the sky, fluttering in the blue. Mingling in the wind. No more blur.

The relaxation, I can feel it, creeping up my spine and into the base of my cranium, up through and around the thick bone of my skull, around to the deepest recesses of my brow. But in the depths of my deep frown, I can feel the resistance. I'm trapped in the room. We're still in the beige, dry, air-conditioned room.

Overwhelmed by the surge. I can feel my face crumpling, but no tears come. Tight throat.

“Oh, man, are you all right?” says Mal's voice, close.

I open my eyes, and he's there. Still there.