Corpsing (4 page)

Vicky was the Victim Liaison Officer sent along by the police.

She was a sweet, long-haired girl with a crumbly grandmother’s chin and brown-stained teeth. When she spoke it came out as half comic-cockney and half joke-yokel.

‘Any time you want to call me up – day or night, please do. We want to look after you, ahead of the trial.’

You could tell that she hated her job, hated her clients and most of all hated herself – for not having whatever it took (guts, imagination, ambition) to get herself somewhere else.

‘Here’s my office number. And my mobile.’

Altogether now – ahhhhh, for poor Vicky.

I gave her a line about me wanting to confront the perpetrator of the crime of which I’d been the victim. In other words, when I finally got out of hospital, was there any way she could get me in to see the hitman. She said she thought it wouldn’t be possible. The police were still proceeding towards a prosecution. He would be the accused. I would be the chief witness. We weren’t exactly going to be allowed to get together and compare notes. I would have to wait until after he was convicted – ‘Are you sure of that?’ I said. ‘Convicted? We’re talking about the police here.’ – before I would be able to do any prison-visiting. But I wasn’t going to get anything out of him the police hadn’t already. What was he going to do? See me in a wheelchair and break down in contrite
sobs, confess all and name names? Not outside of a very bad movie. I did want to see him, though. I wanted to see what kind of person he was, how he spoke, how he moved, whether I’d’ve liked him if he hadn’t shot me.

As far as I could remember, we’d been out for a couple of drinks together – and that was all. Yet here she was.

Anne-Marie worked as a booker in Lily’s modelling agency, Select. She had the sad allure of a woman who spends her entire life assisting other women in the pursuit of a beauty she herself will never attain. Anne-Marie was nearly thirty. There were work-bags under her eyes, the corners of which were beginning to admit lines. Her teeth were the dull colour that Diet Coke stains ice cubes. She
was
beautiful, but not in the right way. If she’d been an actress, she’d have been perfect for young-and-damaged. As it was, damaged (really damaged) had yet to hit
Cosmopolitan.
If any harm was to be done to a model’s appearance, then it was to be done by the make-up artist – and was to be temporary.

She seemed to be suffering from the fashion industry’s love of tragedy-by-association. She’d brought flowers and grapes and magazines, as if she couldn’t decide which.

‘How are you?’ she asked.

Then went on to talk about nothing but Lily for half an hour.

‘I’ll give you a call when I get out,’ I said as she was going.

‘Mmm,’ she said, blushing. ‘That’d be lovely.’

And another motive for her visit suddenly became apparent.

‘Aren’t I supposed to find you attractive?’ I said to the most lissome of all. ‘Isn’t that your job?’

She gave me an article to read about masculine sexualization of neutrally designed female work-uniforms.

‘But I used to fancy schoolgirls, too,’ I said, when I’d let enough time go by to pretend I’d read the article.

She gave me a pitying look.

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Could you do that again, but this time with your uniform off?’

She gave me the finger, smilingly – on the cusp of offence.

I rolled over on to my front and hiked down my pyjamas.

‘Anything you say, nurse,’ I said. ‘But don’t forget the lubrication.’

By the time I looked round again, she’d left the room.

I started crying.

He was a businesslike man in grey, obviously embarrassed by having to invent a bedside manner for himself.

The fact that I was recovering evidently caused him no small discomfort: if his errand had been a mercenary raid in search of a death-bed signature he would have been far more sanguine.

As it was, he gave me the news with a matter-of-factness that matched the cut of his hair, his suit, his fingernails.

‘In the weeks before she died, following what I understand was your permanent separation, Lily neither made a new will nor altered the conditions of the old. Therefore, according to the terms of the latest will she made, about a year and a half before she died, you are named as sole beneficiary. You will therefore inherit all her assets, moveables and property. That includes the flat in Notting Hill which firstly belonged to Lily’s parents and latterly to her mother alone. Lily’s mother, I must warn you, is particularly distressed about this. I foresee some small trouble on that issue. There is also in existence a small life-insurance policy on a pension she had recently taken out.’ Very unLily, I thought; then remembered I had persuaded her into it. He named some figures. ‘However, I have consulted with Lily’s parents – and they have indicated to me that among Lily’s possessions there are a number of items – photographs and the like – which would be of some considerable sentimental value to them. They have therefore asked me to intercede with you on their behalf, and to ask if you would allow them to take these items from her flat.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.

‘Also, I think you should know, for the sake of accuracy, or perhaps I should say conscience, that I did receive a phonecall from Lily on the very day of her death indicating that she fully intended to alter her will – urgently, in fact. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to meet her that day – and we all know the rest. But, in the knowledge of this, you might consider how Miss Irish might have wanted things.’

‘How do you think she’d have wanted them?’

‘She gave me some indication that she had a preference as to which of her parents was to receive the legacy.’

Her mother: Josephine.

‘And Lily was going to make a new will giving everything to her?’

‘That is what she led me to believe.’

‘Including the flat,’ I said.

‘Including the flat,’ he replied.

‘I’ll bear it in mind. Give Josephine the keys to the flat. Tell her she can take what she wants.’

For a set number of hours a day, the State told me it valued and loved me.

However, I will spare you the tales of hospital-ward
bonhomie;
the horror stories and the at-the-time-hilarious jokes; the tributes to individual doctors and nurses; the deaths from trivial complaints and the recoveries from life-threatening illnesses; most of all, I’ll spare you the unremitting devotion of my mother.

Count yourself lucky.

Walking my first few faltering steps was every bit as schmaltzy as you’d expect. Like a complete girl, I cried. But I’m not going to get all TV movie on you. My motivational methods were a little unconventional. (The physio disapproved.) I thought that if I hated myself enough, I would probably be able to shunt myself around. And so, to encourage movement, I used to chant with each step: Cri Pple Cri Pple. I walked.

My doctors bored me back to a semblance of a semblance of normality.

Six months since I recovered consciousness. Six months, and then I and my hardly-needed-any-more wheelchair were sitting in the back of a black London cab.

An interconnected group of strange-shaped metal objects were placed in my hands – these, I eventually recognized, were the keys to my flat.

The driver had already been given my address.

Cue my parents, a little late because of the traffic on the M40.

My mother had already been into the flat to prepare it for my return.

‘I’ve thrown away those magazines,’ she’d said.

I didn’t need to ask which. They’d been in the bottom drawer of my desk, along with my diary.

My mother knew me better than ever and liked me less and loved me more.

I opened the door for them.

‘Oh, aren’t you well? Let’s get you to bed, then. Would you like a cup of tea? Herbal tea? Coffee? Hot milk? There’s food in
the fridge, frozen food in the freezer. There’s fruit in the fruitbowl. I bought you a fruitbowl – it didn’t look like you’d got one. You needed a fruitbowl. The rent’s been paid. I’ve darned your socks. Please don’t buy any more acrylic ones. There’s a list of the people who left messages by the phone. Are you feeling better now? We had an awful journey. You’re looking terrible. What time is it? Now, you know we both love you.’ Beat. ‘Very much.’ Beat. ‘You know. Dad is going to drive home now. I’m going to be staying in a little B&B round the corner. I’ve left their number for when you want to get in touch with me. They said they’d have you back at your work, whenever you feel like it. Everything’s going to be all right. But you must be tired. Why don’t you go to bed. I’ll bring you some hot milk. Hug and kiss. Hug and kiss. There’s no need to use that language.’

After that first year and a half of intensive ga-ga goo-goo, your parents can never address you sensibly again.

In the evening my mother brought me scrambled eggs – just like on the days I faked illness to get off going in to school. But I wasn’t able to eat them.

‘Why didn’t you take the embryos out?’ I bleated.

‘There weren’t any there.’

‘Look, there’s one. And another. They look like babies.’

I scraped them – crimson-flecked jelly – to the edge of the plate.

‘I can’t eat that.’ Blood trailed across the yellow-white surface of the egg, blood swirled around the gelatinous not-yet-chick.

‘I’ll make you some more.’

‘Please, no.’

‘Baked beans on toast?’

‘Okay.’

But the baked beans reminded me of the time my new pet lizard had a miscarriage, giving birth to the entirety of its womb.

‘Weetabix and hot milk?’

‘If you scrunch them up for me.’

She put her hand on my forehead. Even though I was obviously unwell, she wanted me to know how patient she was being. I would be expected to repay her – in kind – when I recovered: phonecalls, visits, Christmas.

I didn’t sleep very well.

After being driven half mad by the deathly groaning and murderous snoring of the various terminal oldsters in my ward, I now found that I missed them.

The stereo was in reach of the bed. I put on Radio 2, which helped a little. But it was too harsh. It wasn’t Hospital Radio.

I flicked the dial to one of the message stations – bleeping out inexplicable bursts of non-Morse. This was the sound of the Cold War, echoing past its use. I closed my eyes in a world still divided up between the Russian Bear and the American Eagle, Leonid Brezhnev and Ronald Reagan. Jets boomed over, descending towards Heathrow. I imagined them to be B-52s carrying atomic bombs – and I felt safe and warm and protected. Nuclear anxiety was merely another nostalgia.

Sleep came.

From around the flat I gathered together everything I could find that had any connection whatsoever with Lily.

I made a bonfire in the garden: an aerosol of Photo Mount, aftershave, an alarm clock, bank statements, books, CDs, a clockwork mouse, cutlery, diaries, dope, eau de cologne, a framed photograph of Francis Ford Coppola pointing a revolver into his head during the shooting of
Apocalypse Now,
Ikea things, letters, LPs, maps of our two holiday destinations (Dublin, Manhattan), medicines, newspaper cuttings, my NFT membership card, notebooks, pencils, pens, the photo album, Polaroids, postcards, Rizla papers, shampoo, the green Swatch she gave me, tapes, a toothbrush (special, for precoital brushings), a teddy-bear called ‘Pinter’ whom we’d always used as a prop to get past awkward silences, underwear (Calvins, not boxers), videos (‘Brandy: The Complete Humphs’), a wastepaper basket in aluminium from Habitat, 3½″ diskettes.

I didn’t have any paraffin or meths, so I poured a whole bottle of vodka over the pile.

Then I started to pick things off, thinking
not this, not this.

First a Polaroid of Lily dressed as a Playboy Bunny. Next a tape of Nick Drake. Then Pinter. And the Nurofen. And another Polaroid, of Lily standing like a pale-yellow already-ghost in a friend’s summer house. And the clockwork mouse.