Owen Marshall Selected Stories (44 page)

‘Maybe I should call in here on my way to Soong tomorrow,' said Mervyn.

‘No, you'll be fine. Give me a call when it's all over, but have a cold beer and take off your tie first. And make sure Andrew doesn't send a girl to your room. He's a bugger for that.'

Jansen had a snooze after Mervyn left, and then met his doctors for the first time, including the surgeon who had cut into his stomach. Jansen had come to admire the intelligence and skill of the Chinese: he had no doubt he was in the best of hands. He decided to send the surgeon the company's prestige assorted pack of cheeses. He said how much he appreciated the air-conditioning in his room, and talked with the doctors a little about the amount of snowfall in New Zealand. The Chinese doctors of Singapore found the possibility of a white and frozen landscape interesting and exotic. ‘Tomorrow,' said the surgeon, ‘you will be able to take some mild food orally, but please don't eat anything visitors bring in without checking with staff. In particular, no fruit. Fruit is in composition bad for you at present.' When they left, the younger doctor looked back through the window in the door, and gave an informal wave and a smile, as if farewelling Jansen at an airport.

He slept less well that night than the one before, and guessed it
was because he wasn't so doped up. Twice he eased himself out of the high bed to use the commode, which had a motor for height adjustment. The central heating wasn't calibrated with South Island Kiwis in mind, and even the coolest setting was barely doing the job. He lay on the cover and let his mind wander. It took him to personal things, rather than anything to do with business. The Soong talks seemed a long way from his concern, and instead he began to wonder where he and his wife should live when they retired. They hadn't talked much about it. Jansen thought that was because both sensed that it would prove a sticking point, and in their marriage they preferred to avoid serious disagreement. She enjoyed the opportunities offered by the city; he, although a city man all his life, had a yearning to end up in a small place, by the sea perhaps, or one of the southern lakes.

He knew that it was a notion unfounded on any experience of life in such a place, and not sensible in terms of proximity to the facilities they would increasingly rely on as they got older.

Yet, lying there almost naked in the private room of the Catholic hospital in Singapore, the idea was stronger in him than ever. He told himself that it was just a reaction to the business pressures over the years, this pipedream of a village life with both simplicity and solitude. Maybe even some explicable response to his stomach pain and the operation, which would pass. In the morning common sense would thrive again.

It was a novelty to use a spoon again at breakfast, and, despite the pap, the tastes were strong after being fed intravenously. Even the sensation of food passing down his gullet was briefly unusual. The nurse who brought his tray was youthful and very small. He had a fancy he could see light through her slim hands, and in her presence he felt clumsy and stolid.

Several times during the day he remembered the meeting going on at Soong: Mervyn Linkiss and Andrew Shih working so carefully to secure the right deal. He found it surprisingly easy to move on to
other things, however, or just lie and think of nothing much at all. No doubt the pain, and then the operation and drugs, had broken his concentration on business. It occurred to Jansen that all over Singapore there were meetings that were crucial to those involved, but in truth had little significance. All the world was an ant-hill of industrious communication with decision piled on decision, and corporations waxing and waning like the Medes and the Persians.

Despite Jansen's advice, Mervyn came straight from the meeting. He had about him still the whiff of battlefield powder, and went through the happenings of the day with barely suppressed eagerness. He wanted Jansen's advice for the next day, and only just remembered at the end to ask about his health. ‘Go back to the hotel and relax for a while. Take it easy,' said Jansen.

Andrew Shih rang soon afterwards to give a more succinct account. Mervyn did better than okay, he said. Tony Alexadis was also in touch. ‘I'll give Mervyn a ring, of course,' he said, ‘but I wanted to get your feel of things.'

‘Andrew Shih says Mervyn's doing fine. And he's been at Soong meetings with me before, remember. I reckon he'll handle it well,' said Jansen.

‘You've always been very supportive of him, Hector,' said the CEO. ‘That reassures me a good deal.'

For his evening meal Jansen was given sweet fish rice and soft vegetables. The prospect attracted him, but part way through, his appetite left him, and he lay back, conscious of pain. The nurse said that he would probably have such discomfort for a few days, but that it was important that he have solid food passing through the digestive tract as soon as possible. She later changed the dressing on his stomach incision, sprinkling a white powder like icing sugar on the stitched wound.

‘How's it looking?' Jansen said.

‘Is excellent,' she said.

His room had a television on a swivel bracket, but he didn't turn
it on, although he knew there were English-speaking channels. There was also a remote, which dimmed the light in the room, and he used that until there was a soft, half darkness. Activity in the corridor outside decreased as the night went on, and Jansen lay on top of the bed with the air-conditioning at maximum coolness. The pain in his stomach was somehow the pain of recovery, and not the fearsome thing he'd experienced in the hotel room — was it two, or three, days ago? He had not the slightest inclination to dwell on the Soong talks, or Andrew Shih and Mervyn. Thoughts about his boyhood, his time at university, his two and half years in Canada were insistent and clear. It's having the scare with the operation and everything, he told himself in the soft dimness. He'd heard others talk about the effects of such a shock: the reassessment of your life. That's what it was.

Until he'd gone to Canada he'd played a lot of badminton, represented his province even, but he'd never picked it up again on his return. His job had early begun to push other things from his life. In his mind's eye he saw the shuttlecock in a perfect arch, and his quick, athletic leap to meet it. He remembered a men's double partner who used to bite his own arm to increase concentration, and a mixed doubles one as expert in blasphemy as in the game, despite her schoolgirl looks. He was listening to the whispering of the air-conditioning and trying to remember her full name when Samantha rang. She wasn't sure of the time over there, she said, and hoped she hadn't woken him. Jansen was more interested in her health than his own. ‘Oh, Dad, stop worrying about me. I'm pregnant, not sick. I wanted to go over to Mum's, but she says she's fine. Concentrate on getting better yourself, for goodness sake. What's the latest from the doc?' As he reassured his daughter, Jansen wanted to talk about her as a child: the years when the four of them were the corners of the family square, and almost everything was shared. He'd experienced a measure of power and responsibility in business, but not with the gratification of love that accompanied them in fatherhood. He just
avoided any sentimental mention of that by a switch to badminton, which seemed even to him somewhat random.

‘I used to play badminton a lot, Sam. Did you know that?'

‘I remember some of your racquets we used to play with as kids. They had very narrow metal shafts, didn't they?'

‘That's them. It was my main sport before I went to Canada, and then for some reason I gave it away. Busy, I suppose.'

‘Well, you won't be playing badminton for a while now. Are you okay? Are you sure you don't want Mum or Greg to fly over?'

‘I'll be home in no time,' said Jansen.

‘You're not being bothered with any business stuff while you're in hospital are you?'

‘None at all.'

Jansen dozed for a while after his daughter's call and was woken by the slide of his cellphone from his relaxed hand onto his neck. He recognised his surroundings immediately; was not at all disorientated. Mervyn at the Sheraton would be still working almost for sure, but Jansen had no curiosity about that.

Other things had gained in importance since his illness. Sixty-four was an age at which it seemed some balance began to tip, triggered by the failure of his digestion. His father had been chief economist for a bank, but in retirement spent all his time and energy, and a good deal of money, in ridding offshore islands of rats so that native bird species would have a better chance. In old age he derided the profession in which he'd spent most of his life, and which had provided well for him. Economics is a dead language and smells of it, he told his son. And later, when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, he reminded Jansen that old age rarely comes alone. Hector Jansen had loved his father, his mother too, and in thinking of them with a tenderness that surprised him, he drifted off to sleep in the darkened and private room of the Catholic hospital in Singapore.

His pain, if anything, was worse the next day, and both his doctors came back to look at him. His temperature was up a bit. The surgeon
said that there was a moderate infection and that they'd go back to intravenous feeding and give him antibiotics. ‘It's a dirty operation once the wall of the duodenum has been perforated,' he told Jansen. ‘Infections are unfortunately quite a common consequence. You should monitor your own discomfort carefully, and we'll take another x-ray.'

‘Will it keep me here any longer?' Jansen asked.

‘In another twenty-four hours we'll know how things are,' the Chinese surgeon said. He was a very thin man, and the skin of his head followed the bone structure so closely that he had a slightly mummified appearance.

Andrew Shih rang at the end of the day to say that the second day of talks had gone well. He and Mervyn were on their way to informal drinks with Mr Yuan-jen of Soong. The invitation was a good sign. ‘Mervyn did very well again,' said Andrew. ‘You'd be proud of him. After lunch Mr Hau tong ambushed us with some in-house memos he'd got hold of, setting out retail margins, but Mervyn was hardly ruffled. He's very well prepared, and has a good rapport with Mr Liang too.'

‘That's great, yeah,' said Jansen.

Andrew Shih put Mervyn on, and, during the conversation, Jansen could briefly hear Andrew telling the taxi driver the best way to Mr Yuan-jen's executive club. Jansen had been there several times himself, and remembered the long veranda festooned with wisteria, and the Second World War photographs behind the bar: the thin British general surrendering to the Japanese, and then later the Japanese officer in his turn handing his sword to the British and Americans.

‘How are you, Hector?'

‘A bit groggy today,' said Jansen.

‘Maybe I won't bother you by coming in tonight, then,' said Mervyn. ‘Let you get a good rest.'

‘Andrew says the day went well. Good on you.'

‘I think we're making sound progress. It's a constructive atmosphere, apart from Mr Hau tong, and Andrew's really on the button.'

‘Maybe I should give Tony a ring,' said Jansen.

‘Actually I've done that. I thought I'd better check in. He especially asked about you, wanted me to pass on his best wishes.'

The circle was closing without him: not with any deliberate exclusion, not with any particular intent, just the pressure of business and the need for the main players to be in direct touch. No one's indispensable. Commerce is a broad pond and the circles form and reform constantly on its surface. Jansen felt only a slightly cynical relief after the call. He hadn't felt up to talking business with Mervyn anyway. Isolated and ineffectual because of his illness, Jansen felt only a benign apathy concerning his career. For the first time he saw past his work to some equally worthwhile life beyond. Sixty-four's not old, not as such, he told himself. He traced with his fingers the perimeter of the dressing on his stomach; massaged gently to test the pain.

Jansen had a vomiting session in the afternoon, bringing up bile and a little blood. The lesser doctor took out the tubes and asked him to sip a thin, white liquid every ten minutes or so. ‘This will give you a lining,' he said cheerfully. Jansen saw on the blue name tag that the doctor's name was Lowe. Without the eminent presence of the surgeon, Jansen was more aware of the individuality of the younger doctor. Dr Lowe was darker than most Chinese, and his face was pock-marked from the eyes down. He had an easy, natural smile that made his face attractive despite his complexion. His voice was deeper than most of his fellows: more European in timbre. ‘A wash is a pleasant thing after the discomfort of vomiting,' he said. ‘I'll arrange it immediately, and just ask if you want something for the pain.'

A male nurse gave Jansen the sponge bath, and recounted his backpacking experiences in Queensland and the Northern Territories. He said the sky was bigger there than in Singapore.

‘Has the air-conditioner any cooler setting?' asked Jansen. The nurse looked at the dials carefully, and said it didn't.

Jansen slept for an hour and woke feeling no worse, but for the first time he had the thought that maybe he would die in Singapore: that the end of business for him would be the end of everything. He was angry with himself for not considering the possibility earlier, for not being more searching in his talks with the doctors. He rang the buzzer — he'd not used it before — and when a nurse came, said that he'd like to see Dr Lowe as soon as possible.

Dr Lowe came within fifteen minutes, and his smile was untroubled. He sipped from a white cardboard cup, and pulled the one chair closer to Jansen's bed. ‘So,' he said, ‘there is something?'

‘I'm worse today than yesterday,' said Jansen.

‘Yes, you have an infection as we said, and with that a slight fever. It happens quite frequently with acute admission cases such as your own. The abdominal cavity is difficult to cleanse of all intestinal material.'