The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (26 page)

X-ray reception is closed when he arrives. The air seems to fizz with the smell of bleach and the ageing institutional lino floors seem tacky as he walks on them. He sits in the central bank of chairs, probably the only time he’s ever managed to get a seat here. Normally patients stand three or four deep waiting for their close-ups. To complete the zombie-movie aesthetic, the strip light above him flickers. He checks his watch: 3:02.

“Maybe it’s a joke,” he thinks with no conviction. Then he hears footsteps from behind and turns. He doesn’t recognize her for a second. She’s thin—marathon runner thin. It shocks him a little.

“The clothes, Jim, for Christ’s sake, we don’t have much time. Is that it?” She snatches up the bag and heads for the women’s toilet in the next corridor.

Jim watches her go. Only a few seconds—but he knows she isn’t mad. She’s Patty—she looks older, leaner but … “Christ.” The intelligence flares in her eyes. She’s illuminated from within. He realizes that, after all this time, he desperately wants to hold her.

Patty storms out of the toilets after a minute. She throws the bag, Jim isn’t sure if it’s to him or at him. She looks angry.

“What the hell were you thinking?” She indicates her body.

Jim looks down at her and blushes. The clothes he picked out make her look like a clown.

“You …” He wants to say: “You used to be taller, fuller, more …” but he dries up. She is thin and bird-like, angular and pointy … and amazing. And angry.

She walks toward him and her head leans as if to kiss, but instead she hisses, “Go out the Warren Street exit and I will meet you on the corner by Wimpy.”

“Patty …” he starts but she’s already heading away. Jim watches her stride purposefully away toward the main exit. She walks quickly but erratically, correcting herself as she veers slightly from one side to the next. Then she turns the corner and is gone. Jim feels like he’s in a dream. He looks at the sign above him; the Warren Street exit is on the other side of the hospital. He needs to head into the belly of the beast—Accident and Emergency. He gets up and goes forward. Corridors wind and turn like in a maze, then suddenly the corridor opens out onto a full room of men clutching arms and heads, girlfriends with hands covered in gore and children asleep on laps. Except for the red flash of blood, all is pallid and miserable under the glare of strip lights. Everywhere, people seem to huddle and wait for help. That’s what hospital emergency departments are at night: a sodium-lit purgatory.

As he walks through, hollow eyes look up, pleading with Jim to diagnose, advise and administer drugs so they can get home to bed. Everyone looks so desperate. But all Jim can do is shrug
apologetically and try to avoid stepping in the fresh drops of blood. They look like scattered breadcrumbs leading the lost back home. Jim looks around—why is there no one with a mop at this time of the night?

Close to the exit Jim sees a man with green skin, eyes that are a huge black void, hair matted with blood, kicking a vending machine.

“Where is my fucking Coke?” the man repeats over and over. Each time the searching question is underlined by a thump to the Perspex cover. “The hospital is a place for philosophers,” Jim thinks. “Where indeed are our fucking Cokes?” Jim stops and gently hits A11 on the machine. The mechanical arm moves, trundles across and delicately plucks a red-and-white can from the shelf and drops it into the chute. Jim nods. He can’t heal anyone but he can at least deliver some succor. The automatic door slides open and he walks out into the night. The door slides back and he can just hear the man.

“I wanted Diet Coke.”

The street is empty and cold, still snow-spewed as it continues to fall. The car is on the other side of the hospital—Jim hopes Dani is okay, he wishes she were with him now. He crosses the treacherous street and can see the restaurant. He approaches the Wimpy with caution. He can’t remember the last time he saw one; he thought they’d gone out of business years ago. They seem to be something from a bygone age—before the Whoppers and Big Macs came and swept them away. He assumes Patty will be in the doorway, but as he gets level, it’s empty. No one inside; just enormous close-ups of meat. It reminds him of the hospital. The mixed grill looks like pictures he’s seen of men eviscerated in war and they make him feel a little queasy. Where is she?

Then he sees her pushed into the doorway of an off-license. She’s rocking slightly on her heels, back and forth, looking tightly wound. He opens his mouth to shout but stops. Instead he moves slowly, his hands outstretched, showing he has nothing in them, as if he’s approaching a dangerous animal. Patty catches sight of the movement and instinctively pulls into the shadows.

“It’s okay, it’s me.”

She relaxes a little and steps forward.

“What’s up?”

“It’s good to see you, Jim.” Her voice is husky with intense tiredness. She smiles and he feels like he’s twenty again. “What took you so long?” The years melt away. She’d said those exact words the first time he kissed her. He’d been gathering his courage for weeks. Finally the dam had burst and he had launched himself at her in the clumsiest way. Instead of a clean kiss they had bumped chins and clattered teeth.

“If we’re going to do it, then let’s do it properly,” she had said and grabbed his jacket, pulling him to her and … fireworks.

“Patty …”

“Can we get to the car? I’m cold and you didn’t exactly bring me winter clothes.” She sounds exhausted but her prickliness has melted away.

“I’m parked a little way away. Have my coat.” Jim peels off the jacket and holds it open so she can slide inside. He feels her move against him—brittle, bird-like. A memory hits him hard—that first night—the curves and full breasts, the weight of her as she lowered herself onto him with her hands on his chest—taking his breath away. He can’t help himself as he puts the jacket around her—he pulls her into him and closes his arms around her like he did all those years ago. Then, she melted into him like syrup—tonight she pulls away and her face is a mix of rage and fear.

“I … Sorry. I was just …”

She doesn’t make any reply, just shudders a little from the cold. Jim motions with his hand toward where the car is parked and she moves off. Nothing is said as they walk. Clouds roll by, mostly unseen in the dark night until the moon is revealed just for a few seconds. Jim slides back through the years: he is walking with Dani, right on the spot where he is now. They are crossing this same tarmac strip. How old is she? Eight? They have just visited her gran, who is dying. They walk in silence. Her small, warm hand in his. She’s deeply thoughtful, then she looks up to him and asks: “Where do we go after we die, Daddy?”

“The next right,” he shouts to Patty, who is ahead of him. His hand seems a little warm, clammy as if it has held a small, sticky little mitt. The moon disappears once more as the clouds roll by. Ahead, Patricia strides forward.

“Just there, on the left. Red Saab.”

The moon skids back and Jim can see Dani sitting on the bonnet of the car. She smiles broadly and waves, happy to see him. He waves back to her, not thinking. Patty turns and sees him; she jumps.

“I’ve got this bad shoulder. I was just stretching it.” It’s a terrible lie. On the car Dani laughs.

“I’ll open it.” He pulls out the little leather fob and for a second it feels like a small hand rests in his.

Where do we go after we die, Daddy?
The air seems to carry the echo through the decades.

Dani slides off the bonnet and walks over to her mother, looks directly into her face, but Patty sees nothing and climbs into the passenger seat. The clouds scud past once more and the moon is so bright, it feels like daytime for a second, then it fades to black as the clouds roll past again.

Jim climbs into the driver’s seat. He can see Dani in the rearview mirror, leaning forward on the backseat, her face blank. Jim wonders what she’s thinking, the three of them together after all these years. In the backseat Dani sighs and then yawns. Patty silently stares out of the window. Jim pulls away from the curb, the wheels skid but he slowly moves forward, heading to Patty’s house. The roads are clear of traffic and the main roads are pretty well gritted. After ten minutes he allows himself a sideways look at his wife. She’s closed her eyes, might be asleep.

“Do you remember Monty?” Dani asks from the backseat.

“Of course,” he says softly. Monty had been Dani’s dog. One day, it must have been her last term or so of A levels, Dani came home with him. Patty was fine about it and Jim loved dogs, so Monty stayed. Of course, when Dani went off to university she couldn’t take him, so he stayed with them. Jim had thought that he would end up being the main carer for the big lump, but when it came to it, Patty had been the one to replace Dani in terms of walking and feeding. Jim hadn’t minded; he thought it was good for her and gave Patty and Dani something to talk about. In some ways it was a little bit of a bribe for Dani: don’t just come back to see us but to see Monty too. He’d been a great dog, adored Dani, so happy to see her when she came home. Until she didn’t, of course.

Patty withdrew her love then. It was almost as if Dani’s death burned all affection out of her. She didn’t show anybody or anything any love. Maybe a cat could have survived the loss of love, but not Monty. He would literally howl into the wilderness that was Patty’s face, trying to get her to see him, to respond to him, but there was nothing. Jim thinks it broke the poor dog’s heart. They gave him to some friends about three months after Dani’s death. Within a year he had developed cancer and was put down.
Jim never told Patty. By that time, he thought, the capacity for grief had left her.

“I remember Monty.” Jim flicks his eyes to the rearview mirror but cannot see Dani’s face in the murk of the backseat.

Where do we go after we die, Daddy?

Jim tries to recall his exact words to his poor little girl who was losing her beloved gran.

“Mrs. Henson said heaven was where Gran would go. Will she go to heaven, Daddy?” she asked him.

Jim feels shame. He could have planted the seed of hope in his daughter. Let her believe that, no matter what terrible things happen to us in life, that death honored the just, good and blameless lives of ordinary people. But he didn’t.

“Dani, I really don’t know. I think that Gran will have no pain anymore, which will be really good, but probably there is just nothing when you die, darling. Nothing.”

Nothing? Had he really believed that? The man who lives with his daughter’s ghost? “I am such a bloody hypocrite,” he thinks.

The moon slides behind the clouds once more and is finally gone. He sneaks another peek across at his wife. The closeness of her makes his chest burn a little. He has been so lonely. The worse loneliness had been in those between years—when Patty supposedly was still with him and yet she was so distant. Then he had no one. During that time he left his work—he even volunteered for the Red Cross. For a year he drove trucks of medicine and aid, usually flying to the nearest safe haven and then driving truckload after truckload of life and hope and aid to desolated areas. He delivered food and medicine to Sri Lanka, Turkey and Haiti. He saw so much destruction—but it hardly affected him. Whenever his truck had rolled into town, a group of children would follow. He always kept
his pockets stuffed with energy bars so that when they caught up with him, he could hand them out. There were never enough. In those moments he didn’t feel powerful, no Santa or Jesus—not even some low-rent Robin Hood. Instead he felt needy, desperate to buy some love, to show himself he could do good in this shitty world. Just for a moment to see pain turn to a smile. That was what he failed to do in the years with Patty, after Dani died. To turn off the darkness inside his wife, just for a second. Even with those poor kids, he could do nothing. After a year of volunteering he stopped. Instead he drove a minicab in London. He liked to keep moving—he thought he might die if he stopped. Then Patty left him and … but tonight, when she needed someone, she called him. If it weren’t nearly four in the morning, and he hadn’t just broken someone out of hospital, he’d feel heartened by it. Maybe tomorrow he would. Right now tiredness was starting to sweep through him and make him feel nauseous. His introspection is broken by the sound of snoring. He glances across at Patty and allows himself a chuckle.