The Posthumous Adventures of Harry Whitaker

by Bobbie Darbyshire

  Bobbie Darbyshire won the 2008 fiction prize at the National Academy of Writing and the New Delta Review Creative Nonfiction Prize 2010. She has worked as barmaid, mushroom picker, film extra, maths coach, cabinet minister’s private secretary, care assistant, adult literacy teacher, and in social research and policy. Bobbie hosts a writers’ group and lives in London.

  Also by Bobbie Darbyshire

  Truth Games

  Love, Revenge & Buttered Scones

  OZ

  First published in Great Britain by

  Sandstone Press Ltd

  Dochcarty Road

  Dingwall

  Ross-shire

  IV15 9UG

  Scotland

  www.sandstonepress.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

  or transmitted in any form without the express written

  permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © Bobbie Darbyshire 2019

  Editor: Moira Forsyth

  The moral right of Bobbie Darbyshire to be recognised as the

  author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland

  towards publication of this volume.

  ISBN: 978-1-912240-50-0

  ISBNe: 978-1-912240-51-7

  Cover design by David Eldridge

  EBook compilation by Iolaire Typography, Newtonmore

  For Paul Lyons, my dear friend and incisive critic

  Acknowledgements

  Ideas for this story came from many sources, including from On Acting by Laurence Olivier. For their invaluable insights and encouragement during the drafting, my thanks go to my comrades in Writers Together: Angela Trevithick, Bob Boyton, Chris Boyd, Colette Sensier, Eden Carter Wood, Ellen MacDonald-Kramer, Emma Bamford, Joanne Rush, Joe Watts, Julia Rampen, Magda North, Natalie Barbosa, Nick Clark, Paul Lyons, Sharon Brennan, and Toby Vaughan. Big thanks also to Ali Bacon, Debbie Collier, Elizabeth Barton, Emily Standring, Gabriel Clare Hunt, Ian Jewesbury, Janet Mitchell, Katie Wernham, Maureen Jewesbury, Pip Wheldon, and Simon O’Brien. I’m hugely grateful to dear Ros Edwards and Julia Forrest at Edwards Fuglewicz for their enthusiasm and support, and to Bob Davidson and everyone at Sandstone Press, most especially my insightful editor Moira Forsyth and Ceris Jones who hit on the title.

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  1. Thursday

  2. Friday

  3. Two Wednesdays later

  4. Thursday

  5. Friday

  6. Sunday

  7. Monday

  8. Tuesday

  9. Thursday

  10. Friday

  11. Saturday

  12. Sunday

  13. Monday

  14. Tuesday

  15. Harry

  16. Wednesday

  17. Thursday

  18. Friday

  19. Three years later

  These our actors,

  As I foretold you, were all spirits and

  Are melted into air, into thin air

  The Tempest, Act IV, scene I

  There are no bigger questions.

  Life itself is the mystery. It is all here.

  Clive James, BBC Breakfast interview

  31 March 2015

  Thursday

  ‘... and now... yes... news just in. We’re getting unconfirmed reports that actor Harry Whittaker has been rushed to hospital after collapsing on set. Stay tuned and we’ll keep you updated as we hear more.’

  ‘Sadly, we now have confirmation that Lord Harold Whittaker is critically ill after suffering what is thought to be a heart attack while filming King Lear. Well-wishers are gathering outside St Thomas’ Hospital, London, anxious for news. Over now to our reporter, Gerry Matterson.’

  ‘Thank you, Bridget. I’m at St Thomas’ Hospital amidst what I expect you can hear is a large crowd, many of whom are in tears, fearing the worst. Lord Whittaker, who last year was awarded the Order of Merit, may be eighty-two, but he remains probably the most gifted actor the world has yet known...’

  Harry

  I snap awake into startling light. An emergency room in sharp focus. Uproar and commotion, doctors battling to save me. But thank my stars, what relief, I’ve survived! I am going to be fine, I just know it. The pain is gone, vanished completely, and now...

  Now there’s a glorious absence of feeling, almost as if I were—

  ‘Stand back,’ shouts the consultant, and I glance down and see – oh horrible – a purple face, eyes blank and empty, only inches away. A white-bearded old man in a frightening state, sprawled in the chaos, jolted by the shock to his chest.

  He is me. There’s no way to deny it. I struggle to yell but no sound emerges. Lips, teeth, vocal chords – save me, where are they?

  The old man still has them. His mouth, sagging open, contains them. Quick, quick, I must get back inside. I will myself forward, and yes, willing it carries me nearer. Let me in, let me in... but how?... there’s no way...

  The crash team share my feverish need. They have magic and hope in their eyes. Come on, you can do it, I would roar if I could. The great man isn’t gone – this can’t be the end of him. Surely they can thump and shock him awake?

  The consultant is speaking. ‘No use. All agreed?’ A young nurse comes running, bringing adrenalin, but he waves her aside. He’s checking his watch and announcing the time, while the nurse’s brown eyes fill with tears.

  Not agreed, I am trying to shout. Where’s my own doctor? Then, Hey, be careful! The consultant’s hand zips past me – or was it through me? – reaching to give the nurse’s shoulder a squeeze, and – No, wait – now he’s closing the eyes I’m still urging to focus and blink, the mouth that should be protesting. He’s drawing the tattered remnants of an Elizabethan shirt over the frail, bruised chest.

  I’m dead, that’s what he’s saying, yet here I am, seeing and hearing like the head of a guillotined man. A few seconds is all I have left. Any moment now I’ll lose consciousness forever— Or else, please, he is wrong and my heart will flicker back into life. Wake up. Don’t leave me.

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’d better speak to the press. Or is that for you, John?’

  ‘We’ll split it,’ says a suit by the door.

  I’m still very much here – lucid, alert – staring at the corpse with its closed eyes and mouth. Somehow it seems I’ve survived.

  The consultant’s not staring. He’s sliding an arm around the brown-eyed nurse. His eyes offer her sympathy, but there’s a tell-tale glint too. You just let me die, you incompetent bastard, and you’re thinking of sex?

  He lets go of the nurse. He’s slipping on a jacket and tie, checking his hair in the mirror above the basin, and now off he sweeps, solemn-faced, followed by the whole faithless, frivolous lot of them, busily thumbing texts to their friends.

  I want to see the press too, but I can’t bear to abandon my poor body, not yet. Only the nurse stays behind – Ellen, I read on her name badge – shooting a secret smile at the mirror before starting to put the equipment away.

  Her face becomes grave as she turns to her patient. Gently, reverentially, she begins to smooth and straighten this dead man who no longer is me. And hush now and look, just look at him. Lord Whittaker on his death bed. It’s heartbreaking how ruggedly handsome he’s becoming with a bit of buttoning and combing from Ellen. The purple will fade; he’ll be a touch bloodless and waxen, but nothing a good makeup artist won’t be able to deal with. Eighty-two years of age, yes, but strong-limbed
and stern-featured, with a full head of white curls.

  Sorrow engulfs me. I can’t bear that he’s dead.

  The nurse bends nearer, caressing his cheek with the back of her hand. Bless you, Ellen. I approach close as close, adrift in her breath, fanned by her eyelashes. With a smile, a steady gaze, a few velvet words, I shall charm her.

  The shock hits me again. I have no smile to offer. No words. There is my body, and here... here is... what am I? She has drawn a sheet over the face and is speaking on the phone to the mortuary, but I’m desperate with concentration, frantic again for him to wake. He must stir, must reach out for her fingers and bring them to his lips, whispering, ‘Dearest Ellen, don’t be alarmed. Your tenderness has saved me.’

  Not a twitch, not a tremor. He is dead meat, a carcass, unable to be anyone’s lover. I would kick him, but he has my feet. Damn it, there’s no way to channel my frustration. For what worse fate could befall me than to be stripped of my physical self? ‘The world’s greatest ever actor’, isn’t that what The Sunday Times said? Only today I was the embodiment of Lear, beyond any mere ‘actor’, the old king himself, and now?

  God, I need a drink.

  The door opens, and in come two porters and, at last, a familiar face. It’s my neighbour Simon Foyle of all people, red-eyed and blowing his nose. His shirt strains to contain his belly; his polished head reflects the hospital lights. Trust Simon to come haring up from Brighton – he must have heard of my collapse on the news.

  One of the porters pulls down the sheet. ‘Has he been identified?’

  Ellen shakes her head. ‘Hardly necessary.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ says Simon. ‘That’s Harold Whittaker.’

  He speaks my name with such gentleness. Hey, Simon, I want to say. Up a bit. Left a bit. Here I am. Look at me. Please.

  ‘Are you next of kin?’

  ‘Just a friend.’ He produces the business card of his failing antiques shop, but nobody bothers to take it. He has me feeling more cheerful, he is such a buffoon.

  ‘They shouldn’t have let you in, then,’ says Ellen.

  ‘There was no one to stop me. They’re all out at the front with the TV cameras.’ He stares miserably at the card and returns it to his pocket. ‘I’m not sure who the next of kin would be. Harry had no children or other family as far as I know, and his ex-wives all hate him.’

  Hey, would you care to rephrase that?

  ‘Do you want some time alone with him?’

  He hesitates.

  Ah, please, let’s skip it, Simon. Heaven knows how you’ll embarrass yourself. Declare your long-held secret love for me in all probability. You’ve been on the verge of it for years. Pull yourself together, man.

  He shakes his head mournfully. ‘Kind of you, nurse, but no need.’

  Did he hear me? Sense me? He peers into the face, takes one of the hands between his, and whispers, ‘Goodnight, sweet prince.’

  Could be worse, I suppose. For this cliché, much thanks.

  His tears leak and run down his cheeks, and all at once I’m comprehending the enormity of what has happened. Simon is the first of thousands, maybe millions, who will gush oceans of tears. Already it’s starting as the consultant delivers his news to a crowd of reporters and well-wishers. The most beloved actor in the history of stage and screen is dead. Cue blanket coverage across every television and radio channel, a tsunami of tributes engulfing the networking sites. It’s Julian who should be here, managing the story, not Simon – where the deuce is my agent when I most need him?

  The porters are moving in on the body, but I’ve no more desire to watch. The show here is over; it’s time to embrace my new role. Though I scarcely know what I am, things may not be so bad. A confirmed atheist, who expected nothing but nothingness, wakes up in an afterlife bristling with possibilities. I shall head out to the crowd, find some journalists, hear their sombre reports to camera, beamed live to the nation, multiplying across the internet. Then, what is to stop me? I can go anywhere, eavesdrop on anyone, see if not touch the most beautiful women—

  But help, what is happening? Try as I may – however I think it – I cannot get away from the body. I can glide along to its feet, splayed in the grey silk socks I put on this morning. I can turn, rise two feet in the air, and float back again to its head. I can insinuate myself under the sheet and slip out again, but I cannot escape it. The porters are wheeling it from the room, across to a lift, and off I go with it, like a helium balloon on a string.

  Hang on. Stop. Help me please, Simon, Ellen. This cannot be right.

  Richard

  The pink hair drew his eye, and whenever he glanced across she was watching him too. She pretended she wasn’t. Her gaze slid to the window or dropped to her magazine, whose headlines promised latest stories about celebs on The Reality Channel. It was the second time she’d been in today, and she’d made this banana milkshake last half an hour.

  Richard scoured mugs and plates in the sink. He liked to keep busy even when there was nothing to do. As he reached for the tea-towel, he decided to tease the girl just a little. Spinning round, he caught her eyes on him again, and his wink had her blushing almost the same shade as her hair.

  Seventeen at a guess, eighteen at most, with the faces of some indie band blazoned across her top. Where were her mates? At her age, all of twelve years ago, he’d spent his time drifting about the south coast with four other lads, puffing at cigarettes and lurking in bus shelters, plotting revolution or outdoing each other with fantasies of world travel. From Alaska to Zimbabwe. Up the Amazon and down the Zambezi. He’d been doing the alphabet thing again recently, surfing the internet, telling himself it was high time he saw some of these places for real. Last night he’d googled Antigua because he’d reached ‘Z’ and had to start back at ‘A’. He’d lost himself in images of white sand and pastel blue water. ‘Luxury Caribbean getaway,’ said Wikipedia. Tonight he’d take a look at some Bs. Bhutan, for example. Where was that? Who lived there? What did it look like? And Bangkok of course, firmly on his must-visit list.

  He vigorously dried the last plate. Come on, Worthing! Great coffee and cake to be had here. Shake the rain from your umbrellas and take the weight off your feet. One milkshake was hardly keeping his struggling café afloat. The place would be empty right now if it weren’t for the girl and Maurice, his only regular, who whiffed a bit and tied his trousers with string. Maurice was slumped in the torn leather armchair in the library corner, with an empty mug at his elbow, deep in the café copy of War and Peace.

  Richard sighed. Something had to be done. He must stop losing money and start making some. He was nearing his overdraft limit and his credit card balance was frightening. How adventurous he’d felt at twenty-six, quitting his job as a barman, renting these tatty premises not far from the pier, starting his own café, all set to make money to finance his travel plans. That was four years ago and look where it had got him. He’d promised himself he would start travelling before he turned thirty, but the deadline had crept up and slipped past several months ago, and here he still was. He should face facts, cut his losses, sell the equipment, give notice to the landlord.

  And then what? His mate Joe, who’d moved on from bus shelters in Worthing to marriage and babies in Wimbledon, had suggested a driving job – removals or minicab. Good idea. Anything would do to get himself solvent enough to go travelling.

  June was a daft time of year, though, to quit making milkshakes. The sun would surely break through tomorrow. It made more sense to keep going until the dark evenings closed in, to have one final crack at turning a profit. Wi-Fi, for example. Several customers had asked about Wi-Fi. He made a note on the pad by the till.

  Location was the problem he never could solve. Barely thirty paces from where the day-trippers strolled, he might as well be half a mile inland for all the passing trade he attracted. These last three mornings he’d set up a pavement board on the seafront with a big red arrow: ‘This way to THE ECLECTIC CAFÉ for great coffee, fri
endly service and book exchange.’ It had brought in several customers. None today though, except possibly the girl. Perhaps the board had blown over. ‘Back in a tick,’ he said, heading for the door.

  He sprinted up to the promenade through the unseasonal drizzle and found the board gone, not a trace. No amount of scanning right and left persuaded it to materialise. Some bastard had stolen it. Twenty quid wasted.

  He was hit by a gust of cold rain. Dismal and damp in his happy-face T-shirt, he ran back to find the girl in a fluster, barely knowing where to look or what to do with her hands, while Maurice chewed manfully, his cheeks stuffed like a hamster’s. The top chocolate brownie had gone.

  ‘Brilliant. Help yourself, Maurice, why don’t you?’

  Maurice buried his face in Tolstoy, his Adam’s apple working overtime.

  One pound twenty. Richard bit the words back. The brownies would only go stale; the bastard might as well eat them. He retreated to his stool by the espresso machine and concentrated on elsewhere. Anywhere else.

  None of his mates had got far. Joe had migrated the fifty miles up to London, not to Moscow or Singapore. Keith had fallen for a French day-tripper and was now living in Calais, big deal. And the other two had gone nowhere, one a chef, one a council clerk, sucked into being wage-slaves in Shoreham and Brighton. It was high time he set an example. If only he could pay off his debts. If only he were free of his mother.

  She’d rung twice already today, guilt-tripping him that she hadn’t seen him since whenever last week. ‘I’ll try to come over on Monday,’ he’d told her, but ‘try’ wasn’t good enough: she’d demanded a promise.

  He might as well see her; there’d be nothing much else to do. Monday was a dead day for trade, Claire worked Monday evenings, and the lads rarely got together now except at weddings and christenings and on Facebook. The two in Worthing were too busy with their kids and their jobs to meet up for a pint any more. They spent their free time assembling flat-pack furniture or rooted to sofas watching widescreen TVs.