A to Z of You and Me (20 page)

“Mmm, yeah.”

“Breathing bad again, was it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, awful.”

She tuts sympathetically and takes up my hand.

“What's, uh…what's the day?”

“It's a lovely bright Tuesday.”

“Tuesday? I can't keep track.”

“Still, at least you've got an excuse, eh? You're allowed to lose track when you're feeling a bit peculiar. I don't know what my excuse is.”

“Heh, no.”

“You feeling a bit better now, though?”

I nod. “A bit strange. Really, really weird dreams.”

“Yeah, that's normal. That's quite normal for morphine.”

“But…better than awful.”

“That's good. We aim to please, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well now, I can't hang around here gassing all day. I should get on.”

“Right.”

“Have you got your buzzer? It's there by your hand, look.”

Look. My hand is next to the buzzer.

“I'm just outside, OK?”

“OK.”

She leaves, leaves the tea steaming behind her.

I know I'm not going to drink it.

I can't taste anything anymore.

Tongue, teeth, and taste buds, all dead.

All dead already.

Urethra

Urethra? Ha? Urethra Flankrin.

What are you talking about?

Uvula

“Sash! Sasha, come here!” Mal calls through the booming music of our housewarming party. Very much his housewarming party. I don't want to meet anyone new.

The kid in the bowler hat meets up with Mal, and Mal throws his arm around his shoulder and draws him to me.

“Ivo, this is Sasha. Good mate of mine from up north.”

I shake his hand, which is cold. He's got three spikes coming out from beneath his bottom lip and gouged earlobes. “How you doing?”

“Sash's the piercing king,” says Mal.

“Oh yeah?” I say with effort. I don't want to start getting to know this stuff. I couldn't give a toss. “What you got?”

“Well, the ones you can see.” Sasha smiles with a faintly nerdish choke to his voice. “I've got two twenty-six-mil ear gauges, the three in the bottom lip, two nostrils, and an eyebrow—”

“What about inside?” Mal says with anticipation.

“Tongue, gum, and uvula,” he says.

“What's that?” I ask.

Sasha opens his mouth and flashes his tongue at me, before lifting his top lip and displaying a silver bolt that I think pierces his top gum.

“Ah, Jesus,” I say. I've always been a bit squeamish for stuff like this.

“Show him,” urges Mal.

Sasha opens his mouth wide and sticks out his tongue.

“Uvula piercing,” says Mal, bright-eyed.

I frown and look in there, not knowing what to look at, and then I see it: the punch bag at the back of his throat has a bolt through the front.

“Ah, Jesus,” I say. “I don't want to see that.”

Mal grins, but Sasha looks offended. He death-stares me before pulling down his lower lip and showing me the inside. There, between the three bolts for the three spikes, is tattooed the word PAIN.

He disappears off into the darkness, an air of nerdish revenge having been exacted.

I don't need this. I never wanted a housewarming in the first place. But Mal insisted, of course. A prime chance to get all his mates and acquaintances around. Get his customers comfortable with his new setup.

This is my new stage in life. This is what I'm committing to. I've never felt so low.

I sit on the floor, lean against the wall.
My
wall. Half mine. All our chairs have been taken up by faceless freeloaders invited by Mal, and the buzz throbs through me, through the floor. This is not what I want.

Come on, come on now, positive thinking.

I pick myself up off the apartment floor and say to myself,
Bring it on.
Use the words: C'mon, c'mon, bring it on. Let's feel it. Gaze up at the lights through the smoke. Even though I helped Mal rig the old bicycle wheel to the light fitting, it still works. It looked rubbish, dangling down like a slipped halo. But hats off, man, the Christmas tree lights hanging off it, they're magical.

You can be the magician and still enjoy the trick.

Mal's dropped Coldcut, and the twentysomethings are up and bouncing around and shouting “Chooon!” and pointing at the ceiling. They're jumping up and down, and I can feel them through the floor.

Fucking Coldcut, though, man, genius, I'm on it now, the bass, as I pulse against the wall, I can feel it through the floor, I can feel it through the wall, it's the bass drum, the belly that's speaking to me. It's living me.

I wish you could be here to feel this… I wish—

Sasha's grotesque dancing face looms up at me now. Aggressive. He's being aggressive. The only thing I can think is I want to turn him into a punch bag. Sucking, scummy leech.

I push at him with my fists, and I get him off balance. Puff of stink off him like damp-clothes smell.

I'm away now, shoved away by Mal, and he's shouting at me. He's trying to calm me down.

“Fucking prick,” I say, looking over at the punch bag punk. He's regathered himself over the opposite side by Becca, playing freaky with her. She's paying as much attention to him as she has to me.

“Come on, man.” Mal's still at me, I see, his face in my face. “You're in a bad space, yeah? We're going to take you out of this. Here, here, wait…” He turns around to the drinks table. “Here—get a load of this, yeah?”

I take the drink and down it.

“Little housewarming present from me, OK? Time to cheer up and chill out, yeah?”

“Yeah, right.”

I look up, and his face is still staring, right at mine.

Thuds and colors and wailing faces slide past me, and I've burst out of the front door now. I'm on the street, and Mal's with me. He's talking to me.

I'm going to make everything all right
, he's saying.

We're leaving the housewarming behind—no one's going to care, are they? Not this far gone.

We can sort you out
, he's saying.

He's going to make it all right.

We can explain it to her. I'm going to take you there.

He's going to bring me to you. He says you'll be thrilled. And we'll be together again.

Listen, let's take my car. It's pissing it down.

Yeah, yeah, a car. We don't have to walk even.

And we're driving. I love driving. I love being driven. Since I was a kid, with my dad. The streetlights flung past, caught up in the animated rain on the windshield. How much time must it take your brain to render all that movement? It's amazing, amazing. Every corner is drawn in real time as we drive around it. All the angles perfect.

Where are we going? We're not going; we're coming. I'm coming to you.

Parked up, chunk-chunk car doors shut, and out on my feet now, yep, yep, I'm coming to you. I'm inhaling the pavement—long, straight terrace street, and I'm surfing it, every slab of it. Tiny ups, tiny downs.

We can straighten it out!

I'm thumping on your door, because I've got to tell you now, this is it. I should say, right, this is it forever, yeah? I'm done! I see you! I feel you! You and me forever.

Your door opens, and it's you! It's exciting!

What? Go home. Go home, it's four o'clock.

“We can work it out!” I say. “We can do it, Mia!”

Jesus, Mal, what state's he in?

He wanted to come see you. I've brought him to see you.

“This is it forever,” I say. “I'm excited! It's beautiful!”

Go home, go on. We can talk about it when you're more together.

“I'm—”

Are you looking out for him? You're not stoned as well, are you?

Nah, nah. I'm fine.

Are you all right?

Are—

“I'm not—”

What is it?

Have you taken your insulin?

“I don't know—”

All right, stay there. I'm going to…I'd better call an ambulance.

Nah, nah. I'll take him in the car. You don't call an ambulance out for something like that.

Yes, you do.

Fine, well, you call an ambulance, and in an hour and a half when they get here, tell them I've taken him to the hospital.

Oh bloody hell, all right, let's get him in your car.

I'm in the back of Mal's car, and you're in the passenger seat, and Mal's driving. I'm trying to speak, but the first words won't come.

Your voice.
Come on, think of something. Keep thinking, now. You and me up in the valley. You remember? Up on the top, with the grass washing all around us, the sky above, and the sky below. Are you with me?

I can't think. I don't want to think. Leave me alone.

I don't know what sounds are coming out of my mouth.

I can hear you. I can still hear you. You're not talking to me. You're talking to Mal. Your voice in the whirl.

There, there: there's the hospital sign. Do you know where the emergency room is?

Mumbles from Mal.

Your voice changes.

Are you all right? Mal?

I hear no response.

There's a big sustained heave, and my head and shoulders feel funny. Funny heavy.

I'm awake, I'm aware. I'm aware of the orange lights sweeping past. I'm lying on the backseat, and I can see Mal's towering silhouette, lurching and twitching around in his seat, and you're on at him to stop.

Stop!

And then there's a thump, and your voice and Mal's are silent suddenly, like a sudden sweeping intake of oxygen, and the weight on my head and shoulders is immediately immense, and then gone, and in one snap, I'm dumped down into the footwell and shoved, forced, hammered into the metal and the carpet and the cogs of the seat mechanism. I'm being crushed, and an immense and horrendous sound smashes all around us, of everything smashed and shattered.

• • •

Your hand. I'm holding your hand with my hand.

The ventilator breathes out, you breathe in; clicks; in, you breathe out.

I'm here for you. Can you feel me holding your hand?

I want you to feel me holding it. My palm to your palm. Fingertips on the back, by your wrist, our thumbs turned around each other. Can you feel the life coming into you through my palm? Good energy, good energy coming into your palm from my palm.

I want you to know what's happening to you. You were in a car crash. You were hurt. You're at the hospital. They're keeping you asleep on purpose, because they want to see if your body can heal itself. Do you understand?

In; clicks; out.

But listen, it's really important you listen to me.

They're talking about turning off the machine. You need to get strong enough do this on your own.

So if you can just get a little bit better, just try to get on top of this—now's the time. Now's a really good time.

Your mum's here, and your…your dad's here too.

We all just want—

Baby, you can't go, you can't go.

Who's going to buy me silly stocking stuffers at Christmas?

I need you to look at my garden designs. For the course. I need you to approve them.

How could you leave me to do that?

Are you receiving me?

Can you feel my thumb stroking your knuckles? Can you feel my hand?

• • •

“There we go,” Sheila says as the burly young student nurse fastens the final buttons on my pajama jacket. “A bit of cleanliness makes the world go round.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks.”

“No worries,” says the nurse. “Thank you.” He turns to Sheila. “What should I…?”

“Take the water through to the washroom down the corridor on the right, and you can pour it away there.”

The nurse flicks me a look and a shy smile before leaving.

“There we go,” says Sheila. “Thanks for that.”

“It's fine. Hard work being a student.”

“Lovely. Now I'd better go check on the lunch orders and make sure—”

“Sheila…”

“Yes, lovey?”

“Do you have the number for Kelv? The man I spoke to on the phone.”

“Phone number? Yes, of course.”

“Will you call him? Tell him I want to speak to him.”

Her face lets slip no glimmer of opinion.

I'm grateful.

• • •

I—What's that?

For a moment I could honestly feel the shape of your hand in mine. The softness of your skin. Are you back now, for me? Now that I am the one in the hospital bed? Are you holding my hand, like I once held yours?

I'm here.

I'm going to imagine you here.

I'm here.

My hand cradled in yours.

Your hand.

Your hand.

Your thumb tenderly strokes my knuckles.

I need you to tell me this is the right thing to do.

You know it's the right thing.

• • •

The quietest of knocks, just enough to make the wood of my door resonate.

My dull brain sharpens once more to see what's what.

“Hello, mate. How are you doing?”

“Hi, Kelvin.”

“How are you doing today?”

“Not great.”

“No, no.”

There seems to be no hint of the bad feeling of our last phone call. Good. I'm glad of that. Life's too short.

“Sheila told me you wanted to see me.”

I beckon him in, gesture him over to the chair.

The door, which he left open, is now fixed shut from outside, and I see the stipple of Sheila's tunic as she drifts away beyond the slot window.

“Well,” says Kelvin, “it's a nice old day out there. Nice and sunny. Not too windy. Perfect, really. I'd take you out again today if I could, but I think you wouldn't thank me for that, would you?”

“No.”

“Maybe next time then, eh? If you concentrate on getting a little bit stronger, you and I can go out there and have a bit of an old roll around the gardens.”

His nervous jabbering slows to a halt. Of course, he wants to see why I've summoned him here.

And I'm not sure. I'm going to have to…

“I wanted to make sure we're OK.”

“Of course we're OK, mate. Don't be daft.”

“You're a good friend.”

“Don't be daft,” he says again and looks away.

“I want a favor.”

“Oh, typical,” he says. Forced amusement.

“I can trust you.”

“You can.”

“I want you to make sure they're all right. Laura. Mal's mum and dad.”

“Of course.”

“When I'm gone. I want them to be OK.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

This isn't going in the direction I want it to. Be more direct.

“My funeral.”