When We Were Young

by Richard Roper

  When she, Amber and I finally walked into the hospital, it was just in time to see Theo and his family arrive. I knew they were coming with him, but I hadn’t really thought about what seeing them all again would feel like. Inevitably, there was something of an awkward standoff—a solid meter of daylight between the two groups. I felt Amber increase the pressure a little as she squeezed my hand. I gave her a reassuring squeeze back. She was worried, I knew, about seeing Alice.

  “All right?” I said to Theo.

  “All right,” he replied.

  There was a pause, which was ended by Mum walking over and pulling Theo into a hug. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” she said. “You are a wonder, Theo.”

  Theo’s cheeks went pink. “ ’S nothing,” he mumbled.

  Mum turned to Geoff and Angie. “You should be ever so proud of him,” she said.

  I sensed Geoff shutting down his automatic response—to make a knowing joke about Theo: “He’s not so bad when you get to know him” or something, in the way only a dad can. Instead, he smiled and said, “We are.”

  “Hey there,” Alice said, looking at Amber and me in turn. We said hello back, then Amber cleared her throat and said, “Alice, would you have a moment to talk later? We could get tea or something.”

  Alice paused for a moment, then looked at me and Theo. “Well, I gather these two are going to keep us knocking about here for god knows how long, so, yeah, let’s.”

  It was only a brief exchange, but it seemed to make everyone relax.

  Theo and I hung back as everyone shuffled into the waiting room. Theo looked a little green around the gills.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’ll be fine when we get in there,” he said. He pointed at our families ahead of us now beginning to chat politely, like they were at a coffee morning or a church fete. “Well, this is surreal.”

  “Agreed. But amazing all the same.”

  “Yeah,” Theo said, his voice wobbling a little. “It really is.”

  We had to wait a little while before someone came to collect us, which didn’t help with the nerves. As we were taken through the endless warren of corridors, I kept the image in my head of the first moment Theo and I had ridden off on our tandem, the sun on our backs, the years rolling away, doing my best to channel that hope.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Theo

  Dressed in a paper gown, lying on a gurney, I felt my nerves begin to fail me, despite what I’d told Joel. The room felt airless. I started to worry that if I had a panic attack, that would somehow mean they couldn’t do the operation and then I’d have let Joel down again. Thankfully, the feeling passed by the time a nurse came to get me.

  I felt a lot better when I saw the others again. They had obviously been well drilled—by Dr. Abbasi, I suppose—to smile reassuringly at me when I came in, and some of them were better at smiling on demand than others, which made it look a little bit like they were characters in a farce trying to hide an unconscious nun behind them. After a few minutes of chatting, everyone relaxed a bit, and I felt my heart rate slowing.

  Mum hugged me one final time, whispering, “We love you so much” before she stood up. Dad gave my foot a little squeeze. “You’ll be right as rain in no time, okay?” And then Alice leaned across and hugged me, passing something into my hand as she left. It was a drawing she’d done. The scene showed the two of us sitting in her garden, drinking whisky under a starry sky. The caption read: “To Theo, still the bravest idiot I know.”

  Joel was in a room next to the operating theater. I felt for him, because he would have the longer wait. My operation was set to take around six hours, but Joel had to be nearby to go straight into the theater as soon as I was done. “Apparently it’s ‘against protocol’ for me to go for a curry and a pint,” he said when I was wheeled in to see him. “It’s PC gone mad.”

  “What next?” I said with a sad shake of my head. “No smoking in the operating room?”

  The nurse wheeled my gurney around so that Joel and I were facing each other, toe to toe. The nurses said they’d give us a few minutes alone together.

  “Shall we just hide?” I whispered once they’d gone. “See how long it takes them to find us?”

  Joel glanced over at the door. “Yeah, why not? You go first and I’ll just say you ran away, and then when they’re off looking for you, I’ll make a break for it, too.”

  “Okay—deal.”

  There was some movement outside the door and we both looked over—was our time up already? No, we had a little longer.

  “So,” Joel said. “Are you . . . you know, scared?”

  “Nah,” I said. “Are you?”

  “Nah,” Joel said, waving his hand dismissively. “Absolutely not.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Joel

  I had never been more scared in my life.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Theo

  I had never been more scared in my life.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Joel

  Actually, that’s bollocks. I am actually incredibly fucking scared,” I said.

  “Me too, obviously,” Theo replied.

  I’d been weighing up whether to tell him about Jane Green’s call. If you were to tell someone perhaps the best news they’d ever had immediately before an operation, would that mess with their heart so much you’d have to delay it? Because, as it turned out, a change in “creative direction” at Channel 4 meant they’d decided not to go ahead with their pub-based sitcom, which meant that the BBC did want The Regulars after all and were keen to get Theo on board—especially when they read what I’d sent on, which I’d told them was mostly Theo’s work. Looking at him now, I felt like he could actually do with having something positive to focus on.

  “So, I had a call from Jane,” I began.

  “Oh yeah?” Theo said, distracted still.

  “The show’s back on,” I continued. “The Regulars. BBC back on board.”

  Theo looked at me. I looked at Theo.

  “You know what I’ve realized,” he said, putting his hands behind his head and stretching back, brow furrowed.

  “Go on . . .”

  “Life’s just absolutely fucking mental, isn’t it?”

  “Quite possibly the most profound thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, smiling to myself as I saw the happiness spreading through Theo like a nurse had come in and attached a drip full of it to him. It made me think of the teenage him: the innocent, optimistic kid who sent scripts to major TV channels at the age of thirteen with genuine hope in his heart that they’d get made. It also reminded me of something else he’d written—something we’d never actually talked about, and which I felt compelled to tease him about now.

  “Here’s a question,” I said. “Do you remember that time when I found that thing you’d written called My Ideal Girlfriend?”

  Theo froze. “Don’t think so,” he said, suddenly trying to look casual, throwing in a yawn for good measure.

  “We must have been fourteen. You told me it was a character monologue, but I never quite believed you.”

  “Hmm, not ringing any bells.”

  “Let me refresh your memory,” I said. I cleared my throat and began to recite: “ ‘My ideal girlfriend writes poetry, but never tells anyone about it. She knows about French New Wave and takes a Super 8 camera on holiday . . .’ ”

  That was when Theo gave up the pretense.

  “Oh god, please stop! Shut up! Blah blah blah blah!” He was raising his voice, trying to drown out mine.

  I showed mercy and stopped.

  “You know, I nearly sent that to a girl in my English class until you made fun of it,” Theo said. “I owe you one for that.”

  “Well, you are about to give me a sizable portion of one of your most vital organs, so I’d say we’re about q
uits.”

  Theo nodded.

  “You know what the worst part of that thing I wrote is?” he said after a moment.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s still true. All of it.”

  That made me laugh the hardest I had in ages.

  “Not to wipe that grin off your face,” Theo said, “but I’ve been thinking about something a bit more serious. About what we spoke about on the bench the other week—about Mike and everything.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “I mean, way to ruin the jazzy mood I’m in . . . but go on.”

  Theo shifted on the gurney. “I was just thinking that, touch wood and everything goes fine today, in the future, if we find ourselves going through something hard or worrying, whatever it may be . . . we should tell each other, right?”

  “That sounds like a good plan to me, Theo.”

  I could hear movement in the corridor outside. It was nearly time.

  I cleared my throat. “Listen, I’m rubbish at this sort of stuff, as I think you’ve probably realized by now, but . . . I want you to know something. I can’t think of a better friend than you. And I feel very lucky to have had you in my life.”

  At this, Theo nodded, his bottom lip trembling a little. He couldn’t quite manage to reply, but instead he stretched out his leg, and we tapped our feet together once, twice.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Theo

  Dr. Abbasi came in and explained that they were ready for me, and the anesthetist made his way over to my bed. Looking at Joel, I felt compelled to say something that placed us together in the future.

  “By the way,” I said, “you do know we’re definitely going to finish that walk, right? Start to finish this time.”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely,” Joel said. “Even if we do the whole thing with Colin next to us.”

  We couldn’t help acting up then for Dr. Abbasi’s benefit, but also, I guess, to distract ourselves from our nerves. We asked her stupid questions about whether she’d ever had a patient spontaneously combust, while she steadfastly ignored us until it got too much for her and she let out a big sigh.

  “You two . . . ,” she said.

  Us two, I thought, exchanging a smile with Joel and lying back down. Quite the little double act.

  The anesthetist was young, with wispy blond hair, and had a spot of what looked like mustard on his chin. I made a note to tell him when I was conscious again. Now didn’t seem the right time. As he told me to hold the mask in position over my nose, I could feel my heart thumping harder and harder in my chest.

  Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, I repeated to myself, concentrating as hard as I could on trying to stay calm.

  The anesthetist finished attaching the drip to the back of my hand, took hold of my arm, placed it on my lap and told me to count backward from a hundred. I was at eighty-five, and the room was beginning to fall away, when I heard what I thought was Joel’s voice, sounding very distant. It was hard to make out, but I think the words he said were “Love you, mate.”

  “Love you too,” I said. But it was hard to tell if the words had made it out of my mouth, because everything was fading, fading, until it was just darkness.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Joel

  One year later

  I closed my eyes and listened to the wind rushing through the trees. In the distance, there was the gentle growl of a combine harvester. A cloud that hadn’t received the memo moved reluctantly away from the sun, and I felt a warm glow return to my face. The grass beneath my legs was soft and springy. I shifted upward so that my back was against the stone warmed by the morning sun—the stone which marked the start of the Thames Path. How strange yet familiar it felt to be back here again.

  It was set to be another beautiful day, the kind of late summer Saturday which England thrives in, where barbecue smoke is never far from your nose, where garden furniture gets brought out of the garage for one last hurrah, and everyone, for a few hours at least, slows down enough to remember that life can be pretty great.

  I closed my eyes again and tried to picture Theo’s face the day we’d met here last year. Had he looked nervous and apprehensive as he pushed open the gate, or was there at least the hint of a smile on his face when he saw me? I wondered—as I had done so many times—what would have happened in an alternate universe where we’d done the whole walk without me telling him I was ill. I had a vision of us standing by the murky waters of the Thames, down from Greenwich, saying an awkward good-bye before going our separate ways—then, a few months later, he’d have turned on his phone and read on the BBC news page, or from some equally impersonal messenger, that I’d died. Would he have cried for me? Would he have still been blinded by hatred for what he thought I’d done to Alice—and in Edinburgh?

  I realized I was absentmindedly scratching under my T-shirt. I couldn’t be sure if the scar that stretched from my stomach to my chest still really was itchy or whether it was just psychosomatic, a reminder of the episode that I knew would define the rest of my life.

  “Colin would be delighted.”

  “Whatever happened to him, I wonder?”

  “He’s probably in hiding deep in the Bolivian jungle, waiting for the day Interpol track him down on charges of assault.”

  “Probably.”

  I’d been doing a lot of this, lately—imagining whole conversations with Theo as if he were standing right beside me.

  As if he were still here.

  * * *

  The operation had been a complete success, that far. They had removed what they’d needed to of Theo’s liver without a hitch and had sewn him up—they couldn’t have been more on the home stretch. But after the precious cargo had been taken away, beginning the short journey to the room I was just going into, a blood clot began to travel from Theo’s leg up to his lung. It all happened very quickly after that, apparently.

  I often wonder whether he was still with us when I went under—whether we’d have at least been alive at the same time so that perhaps, even though he was unconscious, some semblance of understanding registered: they had got what they needed.

  The hardest thing was how long it took me after I’d come around to understand what had happened. It just didn’t make any sense. I was the one who should have been dead. It was only when Dr. Abbasi calmly talked me through it that I finally got it.

  I still haven’t been able to revisit those dark hours that followed. I don’t think I ever will. To be filled with so much rage and fury and sorrow, but to be so weak that I could barely move . . . It was like the stories you hear of people with “locked-in” syndrome, screaming as they try to make themselves heard, but no noise escapes. When they told me that the signs were looking good—that my body had accepted Theo’s liver—the only part of me that registered it was the one that wished it wasn’t true. I didn’t want to get better. I wanted to die. Because what had I done? What the fuck had I done?

  It was probably harder for Amber than it was for me in those first few weeks. She was devastated about Theo, of course she was—but she also wasn’t able to show relief or even joy that I was getting better, because I was so utterly broken at what had happened, about what I’d made my friend do, that thinking of anything beyond that made me convulse with shame and self-loathing. Mum and Amber saw me through those early days together. It will be a long time still before I’ll be able to show them the gratitude they deserve.

  I don’t remember much about the memorial service. The whole day had an unreal quality to it. It rained so hard the church roof leaked. I got caught in the downpour outside, but I hadn’t even noticed I was soaked through. I gave a soggy, faltering speech. None of the sentiment came out properly. I kept getting my words muddled. I’d wanted it to be funny, the way John Cleese was at Graham Chapman’s funeral, because I remember Theo making me watch that video a hundred times, and it clearly meant somethin
g to him. But I lost my nerve. It wouldn’t have been right. I couldn’t look any of his family in the eye. The guilt was too much.

  I was sitting outside afterward in my hospital wheelchair when Alice wheeled up beside me. We hadn’t spoken since Theo had died. She, out of everyone, was who I was most scared of talking to.

  We looked on as Theo’s distant relatives helped themselves to the buffet.

  “Why do people feel the need to eat at memorials?” Alice asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “It feels like one of those things that we just do and never question why.”

  “I wonder who was the first,” Alice said. “Some big burly Viking got a bit peckish after all that setting fire to the boat and pushing it out to sea business and thought, ‘You know what I need now? An egg and cress sandwich.’ ”

  I smiled.

  We were quiet for a while, then Alice said, “I’m trying to imagine what he’d make of all this, you know. I can sort of picture him looking down, all that hair bunching up over his eyes and just going”—here she morphed into a very accurate impression of her brother—“ ‘Oh, what, me? I’m the one that carked it? Well, that’s just fucking typical, isn’t it.’ ”

  I laughed even through the shock of Alice re-creating Theo’s grumpiness so well.