On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory (5 page)

“I'm sorry. I know you're disappointed but I can only repeat what I've already told you. At this point it's yourself and no one but yourself that should concern you.”

“He was my partner God damn it!”

“I do sympathize.”

“I don't want your sympathy. I want your reassurance. And I was the one who brought about his death. Therefore if it wasn't for me this whole silly question would never have arisen.” Well not for another forty years or so but I was now in no mood to let any element of fairness enter into this.

And anyhow who knew what changes mightn't have occurred during the next forty years or so? Concerning that vexed question of belief? I knew I'd have been working on it. Working on it with insidious persistence.

“I feel certain he's going to be all right,” said the other—but was it just a question of appeasing me? He turned and opened the inn door. I stayed precisely where I was.

“No. Listen. Would it be a problem?” I was really doing my level best to remain calm. “This whole issue of his non-belief? Because it's quite obvious, isn't it, that the very second he stepped out of the car or at least the very second he realized he'd be capable of doing so he'd have changed into a believer? And knowing Brad he'd have said, ‘Dear God how could I have got it all so wrong? What a complete idiot I must have been. I'm so ashamed. Forgive me.' So he wouldn't have been turned away would he? That's all I need to know.”

I was aware I was repeating myself. “You're very persistent,” said the manager.

“Please Richard.”

But he was as repetitive as I was. “There's no way I can hand out guarantees. There just isn't. Again I must apologize.” He smiled. “But if you insist on holding up our work much longer I think
you
may be the one having to apologize!”

“Oh sod your work!” It wasn't just the deadlock which caused me to behave like this, it was that grin of his, the knowing charm and warmth of it, fraudulent maybe but at the same time nearly irresistible.

Nor did he react to my explosion. Neither by word nor look. (And anyway, if he had, it wouldn't have made a difference.) “You needn't think I'm moving an inch inside that door unless I know there's going to be some point!”

“Point?” That did seem to surprise him.

“Unless, that is, I know I'm following in the footsteps of Brad Overton. Because the one thing that's more important to me than anything else on earth right now—on earth or in any other place—is to catch up with Brad and tell him that I love him. I'm sorry if that sounds novelettish. I'm a novelettish sort of guy and have novelettish points of view. If he isn't inside here … then too bad. I'll have to go and look for him elsewhere.”

“Absolutely putting paid to your own chances? You do realize that if you turn away now there's no second chance.”

“Oh God in heaven! How can I make you understand? I couldn't give a toss about my own chances.”

Richard subjected me to a long hard look. “You really mean that?” he asked, after some considerable pause.

I wasn't even sure that it had been a question but in any case I treated it as such. “You better just believe it,” I said.

“Very well.”

There was a further lengthy pause.

“Danny of course your friend is okay. Checked in, as you say, at his expected time. At round about three this morning.”

Apparent capitulation. Just like that. I knew it had been too easy—far too easy. There were lines we'd had to learn at school:
meet it is I set it down, that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain
… “So you're saying he's here? You're telling me I can be taken to him straightaway?”

But it was stupid: notwithstanding my obvious scepticism I still felt a brief stirring of hope.

“No I'm sorry. I'm not telling you that.” (Well surprise surprise!) “Brad's already moved on.”

“Of course he has,” I said. “Evidently very
long
stays here are the kind encouraged.”

Almost without knowing it I had backed away. He regarded me with a concern which in spite of everything I could have found convincing.

I pointed at an aerial attached to one of the gables. “That's just for you I take it?”

“For me and for my colleagues,” he agreed pleasantly. “Though not entirely so. Occasionally people will stay with us for several days. There's no fixed rule.” He added in the same conciliatory tone and with scarcely any break, “Danny you're an awkward little cuss aren't you? I wonder if you realize that.”

Well he had charisma—or sex appeal—or the art of persuading you that he was being sincere. Or something. And Christ knows if I couldn't have faith in Richard then I would really be out on a limb. Where on earth would I turn next? Though my own capitulation was a little less graceful than his. “And is that what goes down in my report?” I asked. “Awkward cuss?” Brad had sometimes called me ornery.

“Oh you'd be surprised at what goes down in your report! But don't tell me that finally you may be almost ready to come in?”

“Yet only for a minute or two; I'm afraid I can't stay.”

He laughed.

“A minute or two may prove to be something of an understatement,” he said. “But only a small one.”

“Why do I get the feeling that if anyone actually spent the night here you'd class him as a resident?”

“In fact I'd say—what?—thirty minutes ought to do it comfortably.”

“Do what?”

“See to things before you have to start back.”

“
Back?
”

“Back to where you've just come from.”

“But I thought you said …” Already? The resurgence of distrust? “Said that if I turned away now …”

“Being ordered back is scarcely the same as turning away of your own accord. And besides. It's purely on a temporary basis; very temporary. But the thing is—you're wearing an article of stolen clothing.”

For the first instant I didn't even understand his reference.

“
This?
”

As my thumb and finger plucked at the worthless gabardine my tone betrayed equal amounts of distaste and incredulity.

“Surely it isn't going to ruin anybody's life: the lack of
this
? Or even mildly inconvenience it?”

“You don't know that. And the fact remains—it's stolen property.”

“Then the gown I'm wearing underneath must also count as stolen property. Only think how that'll delay my return—I mean my return
here
—when I get arrested and charged with streaking!” In all honesty I found the prospect slightly titillating.

“The gown is standard hospital issue,” observed Richard. “No problem about that.”

“I'm not too sure I follow your distinction.”

“And in any case you're now going to be given some new clothes. Let's find Hermione.”

Hermione turned out to be the housekeeper: a young and pretty woman who took me to a storeroom on the second floor. “The clothing here is all quite basic,” she said, “though certainly well enough made. If I were you I'd go at present for something as simple as jeans and T-shirt and trainers.”

Underpants and socks were also supplied and then she left me on my own to change. When I ran back downstairs she was sitting in the manager's office drinking coffee with him. She had poured a cup for me as well. Richard surveyed me in my new garb. “Bit tight across the chest?” he suggested.

“I like a T-shirt tight across the chest.” I realized that I was being brazen and hoped I hadn't blushed—but
to thine own self be true
; that's what Brad had many times advised me. “Why else d'you suppose I work out twice a week?
Used
to work out twice a week?”

“Nothing to stop you carrying on with it,” Richard observed mildly. “If that's what you have a mind to do.”

“Yet you're wanting to say—exhibitionistic. Naff. Aren't you?”

“Not a bit of it,” he grinned.

“I get the feeling that you yourself probably work out.”

“But I don't pick T-shirts a size too small.”

“Is it sinful to be naff?”

“Not altogether cool maybe. But not really any major sin either.”

Hermione looked at him and laughed. “Oh come off it Rickie! It's not a sin at all and well you know it.” To me she said: “You go with whatever makes you feel right. If you ask me I think you look just fine.”

“Oh vanity vanity,” said the manager. And gave his head a mournful shake. Reminding me of Brad.

But she seemed pretty much as bolshie as he'd earlier told me I was. “Well even a little bit of that is allowed and don't you try to have us believe otherwise.” To accompany those last few words she shook a teaspoon at him.

He made a grimace. “Danny finish your coffee and then we'll get away from this subversive woman.” I think he fancied her. I think she fancied him. I suddenly wondered if they were having a relationship.

“Anyway the best of luck,” she said to me. “Don't let him bully you.”

“I'll try not to. Thank you for your good advice.”

“You just remain your own man,” she smiled.

“Yep.” Yours too I said to Brad. “And Brad's,” I told her quite spontaneously.

Richard took me into the dining room … with a quick stop-off at the loo. He wanted to order me an early lunch but I felt there was no way I could have handled one. “Anyhow,” he said, ‘you'll be back here soon enough.” So we looked in at the lounge bar. It wasn't full and he stopped to have a short chat with everybody gathered there, some sitting alone, some in couples or groups—his having first, from the doorway, introduced me. Several of the guests offered me wine but I explained I'd only just had coffee. After about a quarter of an hour Richard drew me away. “By now Hermione should have got that package ready.”

Since I was anyhow having to visit the hospital they'd decided I might as well carry back as many of the laundered gowns as I could manage; people arrived in them from time to time without there being any settled system for their return. “Yes a bit of a drain on the poor old Health Service,” I'd murmured drily.

The parcel proved to be a lot more bulky than anticipated and Hermione worried it could easily grow to be a nuisance over a distance of some two to three miles. I told them I was glad to be of service (asked winningly if this would score me any points); said I could always carry it on my head if necessary and in any case what was the use of going to the gym twice a week if I meant now to be defeated by a silly little bundle of laundry. “Besides,” I said, “if I do transport it on my head people will still be able to see my pecs; I feel one has to be considerate regarding all such points as these.”

I soon had my comeuppance. Already ten minutes or more into the journey I suddenly realized I had forgotten the raincoat. Ironical or what? I was obliged to go back and collect it. Feeling a bit stupid. Richard saw me off again. “You'd better put it on,” he said, “otherwise it will be slipping about all over the place.” He not only helped me into it but with a look of benign yet slyly triumphal paternalism insisted on doing up all the buttons while he somehow prevented me from throwing down the bundle and thereby putting up a decent fight.

That raincoat felt practically like a straitjacket.

But I showed a sweet forbearance with him. Because he had shown a sweet forbearance with me.

And of course the moment I was out of sight I attempted to undo the buttons. Yet again—anyway for the time being—there was something which prevented me succeeding.

It was a cheap trick but at least I found it amusing. Not so long ago Brad and I had watched a black-and-white movie made in the Forties. There was one particular line in it which had entered our vocabulary … “Okay gov—you got me—it's a fair cop!”

7

At the hospital I left the raincoat precisely where I'd found it but then decided I ought to take that burdensome parcel up to one of the wards and leave it with somebody official; otherwise … unattended bags and packages … weren't we always being warned to be vigilant? Besides, a very basic amount of explanation would surely be required: “A secondhand stockiest—closing down—wondered whether…?” Or would I then be made to return a second time? Yet it seemed plain I couldn't just stick to the truth, the lovely unvarnished truth. The lovely unvarnished truth could cause nothing but confusion.

I don't know why but I'd thought that perhaps for old times' sake I should go back to the third floor. I took the lift. As I returned down the long corridor I began to sing softly—at first not even realizing I was doing it—telling myself again that he'd be leaving, leaving on that midnight train to Georgia. I was in fact cheerfully acknowledging once more that I'd rather live in his world than live without him in mine when an old woman in a pink nightdress came wandering out of a side ward, grew aware of my presence and appeared to do a double take. She eyed me up and down severely.

“James! So you've decided to come back? And from whose bed
this
time I should like to know!” Her thin grey hair receded at the front but fell almost to her shoulders. Her long and bony nose had a drop quivering at its end. The plunging neckline of her nightie might have seemed better suited to some well-stacked young actress in a sex farce. I said, “I'm sorry but I think you're mistaking me for someone else.”

“Oh you think that do you?” One hand shot out and clutched me round the wrist, the fingers gripping with surprising strength. “What have you got in there? All those nastily stained bedsheets you expect me to bung into the wash as usual? Oh Jamie, Jamie! Why must you keep on breaking my heart this way? Why must you? What have I done?”

I looked desperately towards the ward she'd wandered out of, trying to convince myself that at any instant some bustlingly efficient nurse would come rushing forth with cries of humorous reproach: “So there you are me old darlin'. Merciful heavens where are we off to now?” And to me: “Always got an eye out for the boys. She'll have you standing beside her at the altar before you can even say whoops-a-daisy!” I considered calling urgently for aid, not “Help!” exactly but “Excuse me there's a lady come out here …” Yet, all the time, she was implacably pushing me back along the corridor and somehow I couldn't find it in me to cry out for assistance. And utterly amazing though it might seem it wasn't actually my own dignity or lack of it that I was thinking about.