Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) (5 page)

              As a man of God, he had expectations. Every job had it’s perks. Sales reps got company cars, butchers got all the steak they could eat and vicars got a personal meet and greet when their time came. Where were the choirs of heavenly angels? The light at the end of the tunnel? The large wrought iron gates, with St Peter, clipboard in hand? Blackness. Nothing, but a bland emptiness. That he had not been expecting.

              Now he was dead. Where was God? Where was the personal meet and greet he had been led to believe was part of the package? William’s next thought brought him up short. What, he wondered, if the missing God, missing choirs of heavenly angels, missing tunnel and light combination, missing person in robes, was to show him that he wasn’t dead? Was he asleep? Dreaming in glorious Technicolor? Seemed unlikely, but possible. Could you think when you were dead?

“William, William Bacchus?” It’s too late, he thought, I’ve been waiting here for ages and you’re going to say you’re late because; why? If you can’t get it right for one of your own, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of them.

“William, I’m going to need your help.”

Need my help? William looked around inside his head where the voice had come from, but could see nothing. Need my help? I’ve spent my life helping. I preach, visit, pray, and preach some more and that’s not enough?

“William, when you wake up, you might not remember this, but we will come and talk to you again once you have seen my gift to you.” What’s this guy talking about? I’m dead; I’m not here to receive a gift. Or does that mean I’m only sleeping?

“Mr Bacchus, Mr Bacchus,”

At first they spoke with a concerned gentleness and then with more insistence.

“William, Mr Bacchus. Can you open your eyes, please?”

              Open my eyes?  William thought. I’m asleep. You can’t sleep with your eyes open. William knew he was thinking rubbish but he hadn’t felt this good since having his first joint and discovering girls all in one evening.

“William, open your eyes, please. You’re in Yeovil hospital and we need to talk to you. Open your eyes, please.”

              William was struggling to understand why this person thought he was in a hospital. He’d had a couple of whisky’s, well a few, quite a lot actually and he was a little fuzzy. Perhaps he ought to try to talk to them and find out what they were doing in a vicar’s bedroom in the middle of the night. He sniffed or thought he did. If he was in hospital, wouldn’t it smell? The sterile antiseptic came first, reviving the memory of a hospital ward in Devon. On holiday with his mother he’d climbed some large rocks on the beach at Croyde Bay. He’d then discovered that the going up is far slower and less painful than falling down. He had an operation to repair a badly broken wrist and spent three days being pampered by his mother and all of the nurses. His nostrils twitched again, tasting the air around him. Next he smelt a subtle spicy scent with a background note of citrus, followed by a waft of garlic and gum disease. He felt garlic and gum disease turn away and say,

“Dem, he seems to be sensitive to the morphine. I can’t get this chap to wake up enough so that I can check he’s still alive.”

              Looking across from the next bay where he was treating a patient with a broken femur, Dem said in his idiosyncratic way,

“It is looking like he is waking. I will be with you momentarily. Can you ECG him and have some blood? Oh sorry, I forgot, please. Please.”

              After finishing putting his patients leg in a temporary splint Dem came and stood by William’s bed and started reading his notes and looking at the ECG that the nurse had handed him.

“I think we should try harder to wake him?” A statement in the form of a question would have confused anyone who wasn’t used to Dem’s peculiar use of English but after three months was ignored by all the A&E nurses.

“Dem, I have been trying for the past ten minutes. Should we try Naxalone?”

“No, no here he is now.”

              Moving around the bed so that he could talk to William who was lying on his side. Dem began,

“Mr er, Bacchus?” a voice to the left of William asked. Glancing down at the folder, the voice resumed.

“I think perhaps I mispronounced you. Apologies apologies. In Gujarat where I am from … No, no. Before I fascinate you with Gujarati wisdom let us discover your malady. Please call me Dem. Ah good you are becoming awake. Let me tell you what has befallen you.” He paused to let William struggle into an upright position with the help of a nurse. He then continued,

“The ambulance crew were called by a lady who had found you unconscious in your bathroom. It would appear that while you were urinating you collapsed into unconsciousness. As a rule urination is not considered traumatic enough to induce unconsciousness, so we need to apply ourselves to discovering what caused this unusual event.”

              Gesturing to a nurse who had been fiddling with needles and wires, he continued,

“This lady has, as well as sticking needles into you, also performed an ECG. An ECG measures the electricity in your heart and shows us how it is beating and how well it is feeling. From this, I can deduce that your heart is not feeling well at all. In fact, it is looking like you have had a heart attack. Not a big one I think, but a heart attack nonetheless. In Gujarat, we say that any heart attack is too big, or maybe that was in medical school, I can’t recall. Anyway, this machine does not give a complete answer so we will also take a little more blood to test and this will tell us how big a heart attack it has been. Okay?”

              William was sure that this was a very truncated version of the actual conversation. His next thought disturbed him. Was the strong smell of urine coming from him?

              Dem continued,

“So let us bust that clot and offer Mr er …”

“William.”

“Mr William, sorry no just William, some more pain relief. 10 mg of Morphine and a little something, er Metoclopramide I think, for the inevitable vomiting.”

              William had remembered very little after that. The following morning he woke in a ward full of old men and women attached to beeping monitors, covered in tubes and breathing oxygen. Looking down at himself, he realised that he was also covered in tubes, attached to a beeping monitor and breathing oxygen through a small tube that sat at the entrance to his nostrils.

              William settled back into the forest of pillows that were supporting him and studied his surroundings. He had another bed, at the moment empty, to his left and another three beds opposite him. Behind the partition wall opposite were another two beds and then two side rooms. The nurses’ station was along the wall to his left where they monitored each of the patients in the Cardiac Care Unit. The decor was a neutral light green and cream brightened up by extravagant floral curtains around each bay.

              One of the few things he had remembered from the previous evening was a nurse sitting down on the edge of his bed to tell him that they’d had the results of his blood tests back and he had suffered a heart attack. Not a large one, but a heart attack nonetheless. He recalled saying to her that any heart attack was too large. How could he have had a heart attack? He was forty-four. Heart attacks were the domain of the elderly, not a young man like himself.

              The attractive nurse saw that he was struggling to accept his heart attack and came and sat on his bed. William looked at her and said.

“I’m forty-four, isn’t that too young? Compared to these people,” he indicated the other patients on the Cardiac Care ward,

“I’m no age at all. Why me?” Her answer was honest and illuminating.

“Age is only one factor. Lifestyle plays a much bigger role in deciding who is affected by heart attacks. Do you smoke?” William nodded,

“I did until twelve hours ago”

“Do you exercise on a regular basis?” He indicated his overweight body, but said nothing.

“Is your diet rich in vegetables and fruits? Oily fish? Low in sugar and salt?” William didn’t know what to say. His diet hadn’t been rich in any of those things. His lifestyle was killing him.

“Treat this as a wake up call, a warning that if you don’t change the way you live, you might not be living as long as you had hoped. We can help, the tablets will help, but the hard work’s down to you.”

              A voice to the right hand side of him startled William out of his reverie.

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch that,” William said as he turned to see a very large chap in the bed next to him. On closer inspection, he seemed to be a similar age to William, a few years older perhaps, but a lot younger than the other patients on the ward. He had a rugged, handsome face; a nose that had been broken a number of times and a fine scar running from his hairline above his left ear to his chin that accentuated his looks, giving him a dangerous air. William smiled at the man.

“I said, it’s good to see you awake, you didn’t look great yesterday. You were grey. You look a lot healthier this morning.”

“I’m delighted by the improved prognosis.”  William said. He continued,

“Yesterday was a blur, but from what I can remember, I feel a lot better today. I’m William Bacchus.” William leant as far as he could across the intervening gap proffering a hand to his neighbour.

“Tiny Jonson. I manage a nightclub in Yeovil, or did. I don’t need the stress anymore; not after this.” He patted his chest indicating his heart problem.

“What about you?”

“I’m supposed to be the vicar at St Bartholomew’s, but I seem to spend most of my time doing project work for the bishop. My parishioners, or at least those who know what I look like, are not happy.“ He paused to see what the reaction would be. Nothing. Well, nothing other than,

“Anglican then I expect. My brother’s with the Catholic’s at The Church of the Holy Sacrament at the far end of Yeovil. I was visiting him when all this happened.” He said pointing to his heart again.

“He has a very relaxed attitude to the evils of drink and will often come down to the club for a drink and a chat. It’s odd, my customers behaviour improves when they see a dog collar.  In return, I run a youth club for some of his more challenging young parishioners, helping to keep them out of trouble and channel their energy in a more positive way.”

“Channel their energy in a more positive way?” William asked.

“Don’t let the nose and scars confuse you, they come from another life. No, we bird watch, more nature watch really. Liam, one of my greatest challenges has recently finished a degree in Zoology and Ecology at Bristol; by all accounts, he is a young man who is going places. With many of these kids, you just need to show them a different side to life. They will do the rest themselves.”

“Mr Jonson? Time for your echocardiogram.” said a young nurse pushing a wheelchair to the side of his bed.

“We’ll have to carry this on later,” Tiny said. William nodded and as the wheelchair was turned around for Tiny to climb in, William said,

“I’d like that. Lunch time?”

The sound of the doorbell and the demented barking of his Labrador, Wooster, shattered Williams concentration as he considered the report he was writing for Freddie Aldhelm, his bishop.

“Wooster shut up. It’s the front doorbell.”

              As William rounded the corner with the door now in sight, the bell rang again.  Peering through the frosted glass and not seeing any signs of life the ringer turned and started down the house steps to the road. William grasped the door handle and, while fighting off Wooster, opened the door. He looked left and right but couldn’t see anyone and cursed the kids from the estate across the road under his breath. Mick, his postman, emerged from two doors down, glanced in his direction waved and started back towards him.

“Morning Father, having a crap was it? I haven’t got all day to wait for you to grace me with your eminence.” Grinning, he continued,

“Got a registered for you, Bishop decided to sack you by post now has he?”

“Thank you for sharing the subtle nuances of your famous Bangladeshi wit with me.”

              William slit open the envelope with a steak knife and eased out the letter. Smoothing it flat on the breakfast bar William scanned the brief letter and then read it again with more care, absorbing the detail. 

              Confused, William addressed Wooster, his black Labrador.

“I have no idea what this is supposed to mean Wooster. It appears that I have a relative, a distant relative who has bequeathed something to me. I have to arrange an appointment with a solicitor in London, the author of this letter, and he will furnish me with details of the bequest and the conditions attached to it. I’m not even sure they have the correct William Bacchus.” The conditions imposed in the letter from the solicitor where unequivocal.  If William wished to discuss the possibility that he was the correct recipient of the bequest, he would have to sign the copy letter confirming adherence to the stated requirements laid out in Mr Sanderson’s last will and testament. Left with little choice, if he wanted to exercise his curiosity, William had decided to sign.

              Now that the letter had been dispatched, the secretary had called and an appointment was made, William was left to consider the relative or perhaps friend of the family he was unaware of.