The Facts of Life (70 page)

Edward swallowed, finding his own throat constricted with emotions he did not understand. He had to speak if he were to maintain control. He spoke the first words that came to mind.

‘It was not a punishment. Miriam was right. It was just a disease. We love people and sometimes they’re taken from us, sometimes not. He died but it wasn’t a punishment. Not for him. Not for you. Now, tell me what happened.’

‘No,’ Sam groaned.

‘Finish your story, Sam.’

Sam sniffed. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Edward pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to him but Sam merely clasped it, unused.

‘I kicked him harder than I thought. He went deaf in one ear.’

‘God.’

‘And one of his eyes was damaged. They stitched me up, of course. Said I’d tried to pick him up then turned nasty when I saw his ID card. My word against theirs, three against one. Even my fucking parents believed them. And my mates. It was in the local paper. My solicitor appealed and I got let out after four years for good behaviour. End of story. Thanks for listening.’

He stood abruptly, dropping the handkerchief and making for the front door, unable to meet Edward’s eye.

‘Wait,’ Edward called, having difficulty getting up as fast from such a low position.

‘What?’ Sam paused, half turning, eager to be off.

Only inches away, Sam seemed to be sliding down into a cold pool of isolation. Edward hated himself for his inability to reach out to him.

‘You served your sentence,’ he said. ‘You had your punishment, however unjust the means. Don’t punish yourself again. You’re not alone. We all have bad things behind us. All of us.’

‘
I actually killed someone
,’ he wanted to tell him. ‘
I smothered her with a pillow
.’

‘What would you have done,’ he asked instead, ‘if … if Jamie hadn’t just got the doctors to take him off medication? If he hadn’t been able to. If he’d been in a coma. What would you have done?’

‘Pulled out the plug,’ Sam said. ‘Or whatever. Whatever it took. He asked me to kill him towards the end. I couldn’t.’

‘But it wouldn’t really be killing.’

‘Yes it would.’ Sam turned sore eyes upon him. ‘It
would
but it wouldn’t be murder. I’d like to have had the chance, in a way. I wouldn’t have felt so useless then.’

‘You couldn’t have done more than you did. You stopped Miriam taking him back into hospital. That was enough.’

‘But it was cruel to leave it so late. Fucking cruel. Do you know what he said?’

‘Tell me.’

Sam smiled to himself, evidently remembering.

‘Jesus he said some stupid things sometimes. Weird things. Especially towards the end.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said that killing him when he was ready to go would be “an act of love”.’

Edward looked away, afraid of how much his expression might betray. He had received these words from beyond the grave as hungrily as any widow at a séance.

‘Are you busy with something?’ Sam asked at last.

‘Yes. No. Not really. Why do you ask?’

‘I could do with a drink.’ His laugh was half a shudder, an aftershock of what had at last been drawn from him. ‘Come out in the sidecar for a bit. I’ll drive us to the Lamb and Flag for a pie and a pint before I set off.’

‘All right,’ said Edward, eager once more to be out of the house. ‘Why not?’

Bouncing along in Sally’s old sidecar, wrapped in a tartan rug, his hair blowing in the cold autumn air, he felt no fear, only the giddiness of late reprieve.

During Alison’s absence, her secretary’s services seemed to have been borrowed so often by her colleagues that he now regarded himself as some kind of editorial trainee. He did not bring her coffee when she arrived, and when she asked him to find her some files, seemed faintly surprised that she could not fetch them herself. Her desk had disappeared beneath an untidy pile of post and memos, several of which, she swiftly saw, had needed action taking on them within hours not days of receipt. A year ago she would have called him in at once for a summary scolding. Now she merely sat at her desk and worked her way though the pile herself, aware that people peered in at her as they passed the open door, checking for dramatic evidence of bereavement. She was ruthless, binning half the mail, answering the rest with speedy phone calls, but all the while her mind was elsewhere. The last outstanding task was the copy for a dust-jacket, required by the printers three days before. Half-way through checking it she became aware that her eyes were merely scanning the words, blind to error. She reached for the telephone again and called Sandy.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m back in the land of the living. How are things? Did you sort out the lease problem?’

‘Nope.’ Sandy’s tone was cheerful but resigned to the worst. ‘And the council turned down our appeal against the grant cut. We’ve got until Friday, then we’re out.’

‘But can’t you run it from home? As a temporary measure?’

‘In theory, yes, of course. It’s my home after all. But the girls have been having kitchen table conferences behind my back and they’ve all voted to move out if the helpline moves in. I need their rent, Alison. I dunno. Maybe I’ve done enough now. Maybe it’s someone else’s turn.’

Alison pushed the jacket proof to one side and brought out the notebook she had been scribbling in on her way to the office.

‘Don’t scream at me,’ she began, ‘but I think I might have a solution.’

‘You’ve found us a squat?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Is it legal?’

‘Perfectly. There’s a peppercorn rent. There’s even a garden. And there’s all the space you need to go on with your idea of a drop-in centre. Only … Sandy what do you think about a kind of holiday place for people affected by the virus? Not just PWAs, but everybody. Doctors. Nurses. Carers. Sisters.’

There was a pause as Sandy took this in.

‘I think it sounds suspiciously wonderful. What’s the catch?’

‘Well the helpline wouldn’t be a problem, but it might be a bit remote for people to just drop in. I think they’d
have
to come and stay.’

Alison made more calls; to her grandfather, to the bank, to her building society, to the Rexbridge Area Health Authority. Still on a roll, she dialled a number from memory, hoping to catch Sam at the flat. A stranger answered, a man.

‘Hello?’

‘Oh. Hello.’

‘Sophie?’

‘Er. No. It’s Alison. I think I must have the wrong number.’ Suddenly the man was apologetic.

‘Oh. No. You haven’t. He’s gone out for a moment. Sorry. I only answered because I’m expecting a call from my secretary. I’m just measuring up for the details.’

‘Sorry. I don’t quite understand.’

‘Colin Liddell. Tuckett and Hood estate agents?’

‘Oh. Oh I see. Well, when he gets back, could you tell him Alison rang and she’s coming over right away?’

‘Of course. He shouldn’t be long. I’ll tell him.’

She threw a few things she wanted back in her bag, including the notepad which she had now covered with telephone numbers, facts and figures.

‘You aren’t going out already?’ her secretary asked.

‘Yes, Toby. I am.’

‘But you’ve a meeting with Cynthia at twelve.’

‘Well you should have done your job and reminded me about it before, shouldn’t you? I can’t think of everything. You’ll just have to make my excuses and rejig it for tomorrow. I’ll be back tomorrow. Say I’m wild with grief. And while you’re at it, pull your finger out and answer some letters for me. That’s what you’re paid for. I’ve made piles; yesses on the right, noes on the left. And check that jacket proof through for me. It should have been faxed back last week. It’s not good enough, Toby.’

‘Sorry, Alison. Is everything else … all right?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s all lovely. I just have to go out.’

She made her taxi driver take the fast route, plunging down south of the river early on rather than trailing along the Embankment through Westminster. She tipped him precisely and waited for every penny of her change; she was about to join Sandy on a permanent economy drive. She ran to the bank of doorbells and Sam buzzed her in. There was a handful of post in the hall addressed to Jamie which he had ignored. She snatched it up and threw herself up the stairs two at a time. Arriving, breathless, at the open door, she walked in to find Sam alone again, packing a suitcase.

‘Hi,’ he said, still packing.

‘Hi.’ She put the letters on the kitchen worktop. ‘You got my message.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you letting this out?’

‘Selling it.’

This was more than she had expected. Her mind was racing with possibilities. Her first thought, when she heard the estate agent’s voice, was that he had found someone new. It was right that he should, of course. He would have to, sooner or later, she supposed. Some man or some woman. But the brief misconception had rattled her. And now the flat. She understood his wish to sell it, it was so irredeemably Jamie’s, and the proceeds from the sale would change his life entirely. It was only that his action seemed abrupt, even dishonouring. She sat on the sofa, watching the man who had come to her with only two shirts in his possession, carefully fold away a whole colourful heap of clothes.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, sensing her watching him.

‘I – Where are you going, Sam?’

‘I had a long talk with Edward. I’ve decided to go back home. To Plymouth. I need to see my mum, my brother, sort things out, lay a few ghosts. Maybe there’ll be some work for me. I dunno. I might end up renting a place out in the country somewhere.’ He sighed. ‘You lot have given me a taste for that now. It feels wrong being back in a city.’

‘Don’t go, Sam.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t want you to go.’

‘Oh. Well.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want this flat, Alison. I never wanted it. You can have the money. Give it to your precious helpline or something.’

‘Didn’t you want to stay on with us?’

‘Yes. Sure I did. But you’ve got your life to lead and so’s Edward. We can’t all just sit around missing Jamie.’

‘Who says we’d sit around?’

‘Well,
I’d
sit around. It was different when Jamie was down there. Now, well, I feel like a bit of a third leg. Edward’s got work that’s always taking him away. You’ve got your job up here. I’d go out of my box down there on my own with nothing to do.’

She was mad to have come here. Hearing the measured coolness of his words, watching him going about his business, reawakened the inappropriate anger she had felt in the days before the funeral. He had known about her fainting and cutting herself, how could he not with a lachrymose Miriam on the premises, yet he had said nothing. If anything, he had seemed resolutely colder towards her, not touching her, not meeting her eye, saying nothing more than occasion demanded of him. She had rushed over to see him on nothing more than the wings of infatuation, eagerly laying herself open to abuse. She would have to tell Sandy, she realised now, to make her feelings for him a thing apart from herself, something they could pick over and be appalled and eventually amused at. Anger at him and at herself coloured her voice with a tremble as she said. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got a job any more.’

He left the suitcase, turning to her, all attention now. He cared on some level, at least.

‘They haven’t
sacked
you?’

‘No. And I haven’t handed in my notice. But I might later on today or tomorrow. Oh Sam, listen. Please listen. I –’

‘Hey. Calm down.’ He chuckled, briefly his old self. He sat on the other end of the sofa, up on the arm, his big shoeless feet pressing into the cushions. ‘There,’ he said, holding wide his palms, ‘I’m listening.’

‘A respite centre,’ she said, uncertain how to start, so plunging straight to the heart of her idea. She would let this alone sway or lose him – if he was interested in the project she knew he could make a valuable contribution and her own untrustworthy feelings would simply have to be subordinated to the common good. ‘An AIDS and HIV respite centre,’ she said. ‘We turn The Roundel into one. Not a hospice. We can’t provide any medical care or drugs or anything, but we
can
have people to stay when they need a break and can’t face an ordinary hotel full of healthy people and noisy children.’

‘How do you pay for it?’

‘I made a few calls, just theoretical ones, to see how people would react to it in principle, and I reckon we could persuade local health authorities to pay for people from their area to travel down and pay for their board and lodging. We’d have to get care workers to make referrals and so on. I mean the whole thing obviously needs looking into closely, but I think it could work. Sandy’s always been saying the helpline could do more. Well now it can. We can base the helpline there-they’re about to lose their space in any case.’

‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

He thought for a moment.

‘Jamie was very happy there. Before he got sick, I mean. He said it helped him. Old Eds is always saying he thinks it’s a healing place.’ He paused, sighed. ‘I think it’s a good idea. But why do you need to tell
me
? Is it the flat? I’ve already said you can have the money. It would help with all the improvements you’d have to make; new bathrooms and stuff.’