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‘She shouldn’t have let him in. He mustn’t be allowed in – he wants to hurt my son—’

‘You’re upsetting the other visitors. We can talk about this outside. I can call someone for you to talk to …’

Catherine shakes her head.

‘No, no.’ She doesn’t want to leave. She can’t leave Nick alone in here. It isn’t safe. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘But it can only be Robert or me; no one else can come in.’ The nurse walks away.

Robert arrives earlier than usual and Catherine rushes over to him in relief.

‘He was here. The father. He was trying to get to Nicholas. He was going to hurt him.’

He shakes her off. ‘The hospital called me. I know what happened. I told him he could come. I invited him. He has every right to see Nick—’

‘You asked him to come? Are you mad?’

‘No, I’m not mad.’

‘Why on earth would you do that?’

He looks at her as if he can’t believe her question.

‘He knows what it’s like to lose a son.’

‘Have you met him?’ Her voice rises, while his stays quiet.

‘No, not yet. If I’d known what his son had done for ours, I’d have been in touch with him and his wife years ago. I would have thanked them. It’s too late for me to thank Jonathan’s mother, but I can at least try and make it up to his father.’

It is the first time she has heard him say Jonathan’s name.

‘How could you, Robert? How could you ask him here?’ He ignores her question and walks past her to Nicholas’s bedside. She follows him, hissing in his ear. ‘Why do you think he chose four in the morning? Don’t you see that he wanted to come when he thought no one would be around?’ He turns and grabs her, his fingers digging into the tops of her arms.

‘I saw him leaning over Nicholas. He was—’ she starts to protest.

‘He was what? The nurse told me exactly what happened. She told me what you did …’ He is pushing her towards the door.

‘Please, Mr Ravenscroft …’ A nurse marches up. ‘We can’t have this in here …’

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ Robert says. ‘My wife is leaving now.’ He turns his back on Catherine and takes up his place at Nicholas’s bedside.

50

Summer 2013

A little nudge, that’s all it would have taken. I had to clean myself up, make myself look presentable. I spent longer in front of the mirror this morning than usual. I wanted to look as good as it is possible to do at my age. I am missing a few teeth, but luckily they’re not at the front and if I manage my smile carefully the gaps are not too noticeable. I practised smiling in front of the mirror. My eyes were a problem though. They didn’t catch my smile and the whites were the colour of spit with a trace of tobacco. I opened the bathroom cabinet and found a bottle of eye drops. Probably not a sensible thing to do, as they were long out of date, but I administered them anyway. It stung, and for a moment I feared I’d done myself serious damage, but after frantic blinking they recovered and looked slightly more wholesome than they had before.

Dressing was altogether more straightforward. I have one decent jacket, and a shirt I’ve always been fond of. Not too jazzy. Soft cotton, white with a faint check in it. Neither fits as well as they used to, but with Nancy’s cardigan underneath to fill me out, it worked I think. I haven’t completely lost it, you know. I do have some sense of how I need to appear to the outside world. It’s all very well, wearing comfortable old clothes at home when only your loved one can see you, but a degree of effort must be made for strangers.

If the father had been there, I’m sure things would have gone to plan. He would have welcomed me, even fetched me tea. An elderly man, parched, exhausted by the two hours it has taken me to get to the hospital. Public transport …

‘… yes, it’s a long way, but I had to see Nicholas. I know it’s what my wife would have wanted. She was wonderful with young people, you know … she would have loved the chance to get to know Nicholas … it would have meant a lot to her … No, no, of course, I understand. I understand. It’s not your fault. Oh, thank you, that is thoughtful. Yes, a cup of tea would be very nice.’ And I would have watched him leave and then I would have flicked a switch, pulled out a tube, and left. All over. Finished. The boy wouldn’t have known anything about it. Quite a nice way to go, really. He wouldn’t have felt a thing. Quicker than drowning. And he’s halfway there already – probably more than halfway. Took himself there; I didn’t touch him. I didn’t lay a finger on him. And the consequences? What do I care for the consequences? I don’t. I couldn’t care less. But that’s not what happened.

When I looked into the ward and saw the rows of beds I worried that I wouldn’t find him, but a nurse kindly pointed him out. And smiled. I smelled right. I looked unthreatening. All I had to say was ‘Nicholas Ravenscroft’ in a whisper, and the poor, tired nurse assumed I was a grandparent. No need to correct her. But then in flew the mother. The Fury. Stupid of me. I had counted on her being as negligent with her son now as she was when he was a child. I thought she would have been safely tucked up in her bed at that time of night.

There was fear in her eyes when she looked down at me. I recognized it straight away because I’ve seen it before, although I’m not used to seeing it in an adult. I’ve never been the type of man who strikes fear in those his own size. Yes, she looked frightened, although not for herself. She was frightened for her son, and that surprised me because it was not what I was expecting. I expected anger, fury and righteousness, not that instinctive protection for her child. But then I became distracted by the nurse touching me. It’s been such a long time since a woman has shown me concern. I liked feeling her hands on me, taking care not to hurt me, being careful with my pain. And her voice was gentle too. It was real, her concern for me, and so was my response. I was grateful for her kindness.

Now it has become more complicated. I thought I’d be able to slip in and out, job done; instead I will have to pay another visit. What is the alternative? To rely on fate to finish him off? It is possible that he will slip away all by himself with no need for intervention. A stroke, the nurse said. He’s had a stroke. He may survive, but he may be ‘severely impaired’. Will that do, Nancy? No? Severely impaired not enough? I am tired and I ache from the fall and the journey home.

The phone rings. Nancy answers. A man’s voice leaves a message, but I interrupt.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Mr Brigstocke, it’s Robert Ravenscroft here.’

I wait. Why should I help him?

‘I hope you don’t mind me calling. I wanted to say how sorry I am about what happened. About my wife. I’m so, so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault, Mr Ravenscroft—’

‘Robert, please call me Robert.’

‘She was shocked, I suppose, to see me there. You didn’t tell her you had invited me?’

He doesn’t answer. I wait again.

‘We don’t really speak. It’s stupid, I know, with Nicholas so ill, but … I’m finding it hard to understand what she did … why she didn’t tell me …’

‘I’m sure it is difficult for you.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound self-pitying. I’m phoning to apologize for her and to say I hope you will come again. I am sure Nicholas would want you there. Perhaps we could meet. I can understand if you feel nervous about that, but …’

‘Yes, perhaps we can,’ I say. ‘But I’m afraid I must go now. I’m very tired and a bit shaken, to be honest. I was on my way up to bed when you rang …’

‘Yes, of course. I’m so sorry again. I just wanted to make sure you got home safely.’

‘Quite safely, thank you, Robert.’ And I hang up.

I rather regret giving him my number. I can see he might become a nuisance. I hold on to the banister, dragging myself up the stairs. The nurse said the base of my spine may be bruised, but I suppose it could have been worse, I could have broken something. On second thoughts, perhaps that would have been useful. I would have had to stay in hospital, planted on a ward, perhaps just down the corridor from the boy. Never mind, I have an invitation from the father himself. We will stand together over his gravely ill son’s bed.

I reach for the glass of water on the bedside table. It is half empty, but there is enough for me to take the pills. Two for pain, two for sleep. A little something for anxiety. The water tastes stale, it’s been there for a while. Dusty and stale. Sleep will come easily, I can feel it on its way, I only hope it won’t be so deep that I miss the phone if the husband calls. He has promised to let me know of any change in Nicholas’s condition. Nancy will answer though. He will hear her touchingly, hesitant voice:
We are not at home at the moment. Please leave us a message so that we may call you back.
I drift off for a while, but then I wake too soon and it is not Nancy’s voice that has woken me, I am sure of that.

The house is silent, yet something has pulled me back to consciousness because I am still thick with sleep. I had been dreaming that I’d fallen through a window, crashed through a huge pane of glass. The glass had gone before me and was waiting, hovering above the ground, its edges pointing upwards, ready to slice me like wafer-thin ham. That is what woke me. The sound of breaking glass. Someone is downstairs.

And then I hear the door close. It is impossible to shut our front door silently: the catch is positioned a little off-kilter so it always clicks when opening or closing. Has someone arrived or have they left? I imagine gloved hands. I imagine the police, but this is silly. A twinge of guilt, perhaps. Silly, though. The police would knock, they would have no need to break in. I heard the front door, but now nothing. I pull on my trousers and take the cardigan from the back of the chair. I creak, the floorboards creak, the stairs creak. There is no hiding my descent and I don’t try to. I am fearless, no longer a coward.

I stand at the bottom of the stairs and look around. Light is shooting through the bottom of the curtains. The pane of glass in the front door has been smashed. I look around the room, half waiting for something to hit me on the back of the head. Nothing happens. And the room is empty. I walk through to the kitchen, slowly, still stiff and sore. The house is empty. Then I see that I am mistaken. The house is empty but I am not alone. She is standing in our garden, looking at the bonfire which still smoulders. I walk to the back door and she turns and looks at me. This is the moment I have been waiting for. Here she is. She is destroyed. Nicholas is dead? What will she do? Will she try and kill me? I wait. Neither of us says a word. Then she walks towards me and I stand aside, letting her come back into the house. She sits down at the kitchen table and puts her head in her hands. She rubs at her eyes so hard I fear they will pop from her head. When she looks up they are red and dry. There are no tears. Red-rimmed, but not wet. I wait for her to speak.

‘Sit down.’

So I do. Why not?

And then she spits at me. Covers me with it. It seems as if she cannot stop. It keeps coming until I am awash with thick, clogging mucus which pours out of her, and settles on me. I am an insect again, trapped by the spittle of my predator who is planning to eat me alive. I am being eaten alive.

51

Summer 2013

Catherine has blood on her hands. Mixed with her sweat, the inside of both her palms are a filmy red. But it is her blood, from a cut on the heel of her right hand where she broke the glass and reached through to open his front door. She sits in her car outside Stephen Brigstocke’s house and wipes it off on to her jeans.

She hadn’t bothered to knock. She simply broke in and closed the door behind her. The curtains were drawn and in the dim light it took her a few moments to recognize that she was walking through the wasteland of a life. Dirty cups, plates, empty tins of beans still with the fork in them littered the table. The floor was strewn with bits of paper; an old Welsh dresser recoiling in humiliation: its drawers hanging out, its doors flung open. Her eyes gravitated to the only tranquil spot in the room: a desk, neat and tidy, with a silver-framed photograph of a young couple from the sixties and a laptop: open, but sleeping. She woke it up with a stab of her finger and then flinched as Nicholas’s Facebook page blinked back at her. There is a message on it from Robert giving an update on Nicholas’s condition.

She walked on through the filth and stink of the kitchen to the window at the back of the house. She knew he must have heard her; knew he was probably upstairs, but she was in no hurry. She looked out at an apple tree laden with fruit; a garden neglected, yet beautiful still. Wildflowers tickled through the unmown grass and mature shrubs stood proud against the weeds that threatened to strangle them. A bonfire smouldered and she went outside, peering down at the remains of the things he had tried to destroy.

She felt him before she saw him: a shrunken figure, hugging a woman’s cardigan around his scrawny, bare torso, standing at the open back door. He didn’t protest, barely blinked, when it poured out of her, but she saw him wilt and shrivel under her words.

Catherine remembers more than she told him. Unspoken words swam around her head, but she held them there, not wanting them to clutter up her story. Get to the heart of it. And she had. When she finished he was silent, looking down into his lap, his hands gripping the edge of his stool.

‘I’m sorry.’ The words surprised her. They came from her, not him. She hadn’t planned on saying them, they just came out. She left them there, got up and walked out.

And now she allows herself to cry. Years and years of tears pour out of her.

Summer 1993

When Jonathan smiled at Catherine sitting on that bar stool, after her phone call with Robert, she smiled back. It was instinctive, yet it embarrassed her and she ignored his gesture inviting her to join him and hurried instead to the lift up to her room. She locked the door and moved over to the bed, checking on Nicholas. He was fast asleep, spread-eagled in her bed. She opened the door into the adjoining room and carried him through to his own bed. Then she had a shower before going to bed herself. Nothing had happened that night. Nothing.