Dying to Know You (12 page)

HE WAS THERE.

And he was alive.

I stopped, hidden among the trees a hundred metres or so from him. I could hardly stand for relief.

The glade by the river where we’d spent the crisp early spring day, and where he’d camped with Fiorella in the heat of summer, was gemmed in cool golden autumn, the trees moulting their leaves.

I’d parked in the lay-by and walked the ten-minute trek down the wooded valley as quietly as I could. I didn’t want him to hear me in case he did something desperate before I could reach him.

My first thought was to let Mrs. Williamson know. But I remembered there wasn’t a signal, though I checked to make sure. I didn’t want to go back to the road, where there
was one, for fear that Karl might do something untoward or leave before I got back.

When I first saw him, he was standing, head down, on the edge of the riverbank. Was he preparing to throw himself in? I took off the backpack so I’d be ready to rescue him. But after a few moments he walked a couple of steps, picked up a rock big enough to need two hands to lift it, which he carried a few steps from the river to a pile of stones about knee high. He placed the stone carefully on top, stood back and surveyed the pile, then returned to the river and stood again, head down for a few moments, before picking up another stone from the water’s edge and carrying it to the pile.

This back-and-forth business went on long enough to build the pile up to his chest height, forming a roughly shaped pyramid-like mound, wide at the bottom, tapering to a flat top. It reminded me of the cairns that mark the highest points and sacred sites on the Yorkshire moors where I’d hiked in my youth.

I began to worry about what I’d do if this went on all day. I was already feeling cold—the autumn air among the trees in the bottom of the valley was chill with damp. My old man’s settled ways had been upset by the events of the morning, breakfast was four hours ago and I’d not had my mid-morning coffee because I’d driven nonstop from Karl’s house (breaking the speed limit wherever I dared, I have to
confess). In the backpack were the coffee and sandwiches Mrs. Williamson had made. But they were intended for Karl more than me.

How long had I been hiding here? Going on an hour.

Time to make a move. I’d decompose into compost if I stayed much longer.

Making as if I were just arriving, I broke cover, walked to the river as if unaware of Karl, and sat myself down in a patch of sunlight on the edge of the riverbank ten metres or so from where he was standing, head down, looking into the water.

I opened the backpack, took out the flask and box of sandwiches, poured a mug of coffee, drank it, opened the box, took out a sandwich and began to eat.

It was hard not to glance at Karl, but I managed to keep my eyes to myself.

I took my time with this performance, a spur-of-the-moment, unthought improvisation, inspired by the basic need to eat and drink and warm up. The gentle autumn sun on my face and the refreshing ripple of the river at my feet raised my spirits.

Again I was going on my own experience of melancholia. It had helped to have a sympathetic friend with me, so long as they didn’t talk much, and didn’t ask about how I was feeling and why and offer suggestions for “getting better.” Silent companionship, yes. Fuss and advice, no.

I’d finished one sandwich when Karl came and sat down
beside me. I pushed the sandwich box towards him. He took a sandwich and began to eat. I poured a mug of coffee and set it down near him. I helped myself to a second sandwich and ate it. He too, after drinking his coffee. I refilled both our mugs. When the sandwiches were finished—five for him, two for me—I held the bar of chocolate out to him. He took it and set to work eating it.

I studied the view—the river dappled and ribbled with sunlight, the harlequin autumn trees rising up the valley opposite.

Karl finished the chocolate.

“How did you know?” he said to his feet.

“Guesswork,” I said to the river. “It’s what I’d have done.”

“Liked lurking about behind that tree, did you?”

I smiled to myself. “Never much good at the scouting lark,” I said.

I packed away the box and flask.

“Your fishing gear is in the car,” I said.

“If you like.”

“Want to come with me to get it?”

“I’m OK here.”

“I thought you might want to let your mother know you enjoyed her sandwiches.”

“I would, but I forgot my mobile.”

“Mind if I do?”

“Please yourself.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“No rush.”

We looked at each other for the first time.

He gave me a down-turned smile. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A risk. A test of my trust. And trust dies from ifs and buts.

I was back in thirty minutes. It had taken a ten-minute call to Mrs. Williamson to give her time to vent her relief and to reassure her that Karl was all right, that I’d not leave him, would take care of him whatever happened, and get him home as soon as he’d agree. She wanted to know why he’d left without telling her, and what he was doing. I had to tell her I didn’t know and thought it best for Karl to explain when he felt he wanted to, that there was no use questioning him, it would only dam him up and even turn him away. I could hear in her voice as she rang off—“Give him all my love, tell him I’m here for him anytime”—that her relief was tangled with the anxiety of absence.

When I got back, Karl was busy piling more stones onto his cairn. He stopped when I arrived and again we sat side by side contemplating the view, his fishing tackle lying between us.

Coffee is, for the old, a potent diuretic. After twenty minutes or so I had to make for the trees. When I returned, Karl was assembling his rod.

“Anything left in the sandwich box?” he asked.

I opened it. He took some cheese, nipped off a small knob, rubbed it into a ball between his fingers, and threaded a hook through it on the end of the line.

“Not fly-fishing today?”

He shook his head.

“Will they go for that?”

“On a good day some coarse fish go for anything. Bread, bits of meat, cheese. Cupboard bait.”

There was a backwater pool under a tree a few metres away. Karl cast his line into it, and remained sitting, rod in hand, eyes on the float.

During the next hour or so—for once I didn’t check my watch—he caught nothing, now and then wound in his line, renewed the bait, and cast again.

But that was only displacement activity, keeping his hands busy while he did something else, something that I could tell took all his will power against the resentful passion of his melancholia.

What he did was talk. Not the fluent flow of the time at this very spot when he told me about his love of fishing, but in gobs squeezed out of his mouth, expectorations of words and phrases, sometimes a few sentences together. It was as if one part of him was trying to speak while the other part tried to strangle the words before he could say them.

To write down what he said in the tormented fashion in which it was spoken—I’ve tried to do it—is as tortuous to read as it was to hear and for Karl to utter. So instead
I’ve composed his monologue—which it mostly was, because I interrupted only to ask a question now and then—into a continuous speech that accurately honours, I hope, his meaning, and uses his own words as far as I recall them—which isn’t difficult because Karl’s declaration was so unsparing of himself and so trusting of me that I shall remember it for the rest of my life.

Karl’s Declaration

I meant to do it.

I came here to do it.

I’d worked out how.

I’d thought about it for days.

Nights as well.

I didn’t sleep much.

Planned it.

Went over and over it in my mind.

Didn’t want to do it at home because of Mother. Took as long as I did to decide to do it because of her. Thinking what it would do to her.

But it kind of built up in me.

The more I thought of doing it the harder it got not to do it and the less I thought of Mother or anybody else.

By the time I decided last night I wasn’t thinking about anybody except myself.

I didn’t care about anybody anymore.

I just wanted to end the pain.

What pain? What caused it?

Don’t know.

Hard to say.

Fiorella.

She dumped me.

And what I did then.

The way I behaved.

That started it.

And Dad.

It brought him back.

Not having him.

Him not being here.

It all got mixed up.

My fault about Fiorella.

Don’t know what came over me.

Why? What did you do?

Doesn’t matter.

It did her in and she dumped me.

And then it all came over me.

Like it had been waiting to happen for ages.

Well—since my dad.

I don’t know.

It was like sliding down into a deep pit, a deep dark place, and I couldn’t stop myself. Down and down. Leaving everything behind.

Even myself.

Like I wasn’t me anymore.

Like a fish when you’ve gutted it and what’s left when you’ve eaten the good bits. The bones. The carcass.

I felt like that.

A carcass.

But still alive.

I did struggle.

I did try.

But the longer it went on the harder it got.

Like I’d been drugged with poison.

Sapped my energy.

I’d lost everything. Even myself.

And there wasn’t any hope of ever getting any of it back again.

Not even myself.

Or of getting out of the pit.

Never getting anything right again.

[
He went on like this for quite a while, going over and over how he’d felt, as if repeating it was the only way to understand it—to try to understand himself. Until finally I said:
]

You felt lost.

Lost?

Everything lost.

Whatever.

Anyway, it got too much.

Couldn’t stand it anymore.

Just wanted it to stop.

That’s what happened last night.

Couldn’t take it anymore so I came here to do it.

Why here?

D’you believe in life after death?

No.

No. Nor me neither.

Dad didn’t.

He used to say what is
is
and you’ll know what is when it happens.

And he said the people who say they know are the worst.

But do you believe anything of you stays behind?

I don’t know.

Nor me neither.

But I’ve never felt Dad has gone.

I mean, sometimes I feel if I turn round he’ll be there. Not him like he was. I mean, not … well … flesh and blood. But him. Somehow him. Him. There.

Have you ever felt that about somebody?

Yes.

Who?

My wife.

Your wife?

She’s dead.

You never said.

No.

I wondered.

Because she was never there when I came to see you and you never mentioned her.

Well, anyway.

The thing is, Dad loved this place.

We had the best time here.

Since he went I’ve tried not to think too much about him.

Can’t help it, though.

And feeling he was still there, still here somehow. I thought if I came back it might help.

That’s why I came here with you.

I didn’t want to do it on my own and not with Mother.

And coming here with you and, you know, the thing with the memory stick. It was good. I liked it.

And because there was Fiorella.

And you’d been like—

Well, you’d been a help.

I was feeling so good. Fit and well. Really fit and really well for the first time since Dad went. I thought I must be getting over it, must be accepting it, because I hadn’t yet.

I see that now.

So bringing Fiorella here was a kind of celebration.

If you want to put it like that.

A celebration of Dad.

And a celebration of Fiorella and me.