An hour or so passed before he heard any movement downstairs. He was sitting in silence, the television on mute, reading the subtitles when Tom appeared in the doorway.
“Another bad dream?” Tom asked, stifling a yawn.
“No, I just couldn’t sleep,” he replied truthfully this time. “Go back to bed. I’m fine, really.”
Watching Tom run himself into the ground only added to the pain. He sincerely hoped that Tom would find some peace when he was gone.
Tom ignored him and sat down on the sofa. He felt the cushions dip under the added weight.
“Please call her,” Tom said. “I know you say you don’t want to, but I don’t believe you. I know you.”
He felt his shoulders tense but he managed to keep his annoyance in check. “You know me?” he smiled wryly.
“Yes, Sam Wilson. I know you.” Tom looked him in the eye and held his gaze.
“Maybe you’re right,” he conceded at last and looked away. “But I can’t call her now. Have you seen what time it is?”
Tom laughed and clapped him on the knee. The movement sent a jarring pain up his leg.
They sat together, cuddled up beneath a blanket, until it was daylight outside. Usually he had to keep a hot-water bottle by him at all times, but Tom’s body was giving off enough heat for the both of them. He rested his head against Tom’s shoulder, enjoying the warmth.
“Shall I call her for you?” Tom said.
He didn’t respond straight away. “No, I’ll do it. I wouldn’t inflict that on you.” He felt rather than heard Tom chuckle.
“Don’t go—not just yet,” he said, clutching at Tom’s arm to stop him from getting up. Tom sank back onto the sofa and pulled him close. He rested his head on Tom’s chest.
A tear ran down his cheek, onto Tom’s T-shirt. Then another, and another. It wouldn’t be long before Tom felt the damp patch against his skin. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“What for?” Tom asked. He felt Tom’s lips against his bald scalp.
“For dying.”
Tom’s body stiffened but his embrace got tighter. His bones seemed to be grinding against each other but he would have endured any amount of pain to stay the way there were for a few moments longer.
“I called her,” Tom said, walking back into the room carrying a plate of toast. Tom offered him a slice but he shook his head.
“I can’t—I’m sorry.” He turned his head away. Even the smell of food made him want to vomit. “So what did she say?”
Tom put the plate down on the sideboard, well away from where he was sitting. “She’s coming over this morning. I told her not to come before ten, though.”
It was barely nine o’clock when the doorbell rang. Tom had only just disappeared downstairs for a shower. He levered himself off the sofa and made his way to the front door, holding on to the furniture for support. The doorbell rang a second time before he had even reached the hall.
“I’m coming,” he croaked, covering the last couple of metres with one, Herculean effort and grabbing hold of the door handle. He leaned all his weight against the frame and took several deep breaths. When his head had stopped spinning, he put his shoulders back and open the door. “Hi, Mum.”
His mother raised her head and her face assumed a look of absolute horror. “Oh, Sam,” she gasped, bringing her hands together in front of her mouth as if in prayer. “Oh, Sam, my poor boy.”
“Why don’t you come in?” he said, ignoring the outburst.
He hadn’t heard Tom approach, but when he turned, Tom was standing right behind him. Instinctively, he reached back and held on to Tom’s arm. His mother bristled.
“Hello,” Tom said, but she walked straight past him as if he didn’t exist.
It was a year since he had seen his mother, and she seemed to have aged at least ten years in that time. Her hair, now completely white, was pulled back over her scalp and tied neatly in a bun.
She looks so old, so fragile, he thought, watching in silence as she wandered around the unfamiliar room, her handbag clutched to her chest like a lifesaver. Many times he had imagined showing his mother his home for the first time. Never had he envisaged that it would be under such circumstances.
Instinctively, he wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her, but something held him back. His mother seemed to sense his indecision and looked up. He turned away. The memory of their last argument was still too raw. “Just go,” she had told him—his own mother. “You’re not welcome here any more.”
“What do you want, Mum?” he said. He watched as she squared her shoulders and raised her chin in a gesture of defiance. “Tell me the truth, Sam,” she said. “Is it AIDS?”
He didn’t think his mother could shock him any more, but apparently he was wrong. He stared at her in disbelief. “Would it matter if it was?” he asked.
“I know you hate me,” she said, ignoring the question completely.
He sighed and sat down on the nearest chair. He couldn’t stand a moment longer.
“No, I don’t hate you,” he replied. He felt worn out already and she had been in the house less than five minutes. “Why are you here, Mum?” he asked again.
She paused for a moment before replying. “It’s been so hard since your dad died. I know we didn’t have the perfect marriage—”
He scoffed. He couldn’t help himself. “He beat you black and blue, for heaven’s sake, Mum.”
“He had his faults, but I loved him. And he loved me,” she said, as if defying him to contradict her.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Tom interrupted. His mother accepted with a solitary nod and Tom escaped to the kitchen.
“Sam, won’t you please let Father Maguire visit you?” his mother said as soon as Tom was out of earshot.
“What for?” he asked.
“Sam, it’s not too late to repent.” His mother kept glancing at the door as if she expected the Devil to appear at any moment. “God will forgive. The Bible promises us—”
He had heard enough; she hadn’t changed and never would. “Stop,” he said. “I want you to leave now.”
His mother leaned forward and clutched at his hands but he pulled them away.
She stood and walked past Tom, who had just appeared with a tray of tea and biscuits. When she reached the door, she stopped and turned. “Your father repented and he is now at peace. I hope I will be able to say the same for you.”
For three days and three nights, Tom stayed by Sam’s bedside, wandering only as far as the vending machine at the end of the hall when his hunger got the better of him. His sister had begged him to go home and rest, promising to stay with Sam in his place, but he had ignored her. Sleep could wait.
Sam’s skeletal body was almost hidden beneath the blankets, and the room, which was bathed in a perpetual twilight by the blinds, was beginning to smell.
“You should get some sleep,” his sister said, reaching across the bed and squeezing his hand. He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I’ve got to go,” she continued. “But I’ll be back first thing in the morning. Call me if anything changes, and I’ll come straight away.” He nodded.
A never-ending stream of visitors had been filing in and out of the room all day, and he was glad finally to have some peace.
Sam groaned and opened his eyes.
“I’m here,” he said gently, sitting up with a start and slipping his hand into Sam’s. He felt Sam’s fingers clench ever so slightly. “You’ve been asleep.”
He watched as Sam’s eyes scanned the room. He seemed to be looking for a point of reference. His eyes were
only half open and the whites were now completely yellow.
“I’m here,” he repeated, moving into Sam’s line of vision. He saw the muscles in Sam’s face relax instantly.
“You’ve been snoring.” He smiled, dipping a fresh cotton swab into the glass of lukewarm water next to the bed and carefully wetting Sam’s lips. They soaked up the water like
a dry riverbed, and Sam let out a groan of thanks.
“That better?” he asked. Sam nodded his head just a fraction.
“Lots of people have been to see you today. Neil came by with his new girlfriend. She seems nice. I think this one might actually have gotten under his skin. It’ll be interesting to see how that pans out. I hope for his sake it lasts, because I don’t think he’s ever had his heart broken before. Still, it might be good for him to be on the receiving end for once. And your sister visited. She didn’t stay long. She had to get back to feed the kids.”
Banalities flowed from his mouth. What he really wanted to say was buried too deep for him to get to right now.
He sat back down and pulled the chair up as close to the bed as possible. Gently, so as not to cause any movement, he rested his head on the pillow next to Sam’s. Their noses were almost touching and each time Sam exhaled he had to fight back the urge to gag.
“Love you,” he whispered, just loud enough for Sam to hear. Sam sighed and closed his eyes. Within minutes he was asleep again.
This is not how death is supposed to happen, he thought, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his legs. It never ends like this in the movies—the dying always look impeccable.
Sam was still breathing, albeit more softly, when he woke an hour or two later. He jumped to his feet and stared down at Sam’s wasted body. It was in exactly the same position as before, and only once he had seen Sam’s chest inflate and deflate half a dozen times did he sit back down.
When Sam started to make a gurgling, choking sound an hour or two later, he flew out of the room in a blind panic.
“Try not to be alarmed.” The ward matron put an arm around his shoulder and ushered him into the family room. She closed the door behind them. She remained perfectly composed in her spotless cotton uniform. “What you can hear is just the sound of air passing over the fluid that has collected in the back of his throat. He’s not in any distress, I can assure you.”
He didn’t feel reassured in the slightest.
He returned to Sam’s room and sank back into the recliner with a groan. Every muscle in his body ached with tiredness and his head was throbbing as if he had gone ten rounds in the ring.
I’ll just rest my eyes for a few minutes, he told himself, leaning his head against the back of the chair. The next thing he knew, it was light outside, and an eerie silence had descended on the room.
Still half asleep, he lifted his head and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
As soon as he looked at Sam, he knew it was all over. His chest was perfectly still and the rasping sound in his throat had stopped.
Slowly, he reached over and touched Sam’s left hand, which was lying on top of the covers. The skin was cold and lifeless, like a slab of meat. He recoiled.
Unsure what he was supposed to do next, he sat and stared at Sam’s lifeless body. He had never seen a dead person before. When his father died, he had gone out in the morning and simply never come home. His mother had refused to take him to the morgue; she had said it would be too traumatising. It wasn’t something children should see. It would seem that she was right.
Sam’s mouth was open and he reached over to close it. “You’re catching flies,” he said, as if everything were perfectly normal. But when he tried to push Sam’s jaw closed, it wouldn’t move. He tried one more time and stopped.
When the doctors arrived to certify the death, he allowed himself to be shepherded back to the family room by the kindly nurse, who made him a cup of hot tea with plenty of sugar. He took one sip and put it down. The sweetness was nausea inducing.
He returned to the room to find all the lines and tubes had been removed from Sam’s body. Stripped of all the paraphernalia, his body looked even more fragile than Tom could ever have imagined. He stared in disbelief, unable to reconcile the alien he was looking at with the person he had loved.
He followed the orderlies down the corridor in a daze, his eyes glued to the metal gurney that bore Sam’s body. Everything felt surreal. He wanted to peel back the covers to check that they weren’t carrying away the wrong person.
The lift doors opened with a joyless ding and they all shuffled in alongside the body. There was barely enough room to move. Sam wouldn’t like this, he thought instinctively. Sam had always hated confined spaces.
“Wait!” a voice called out just as the doors were closing.
A Filipino nurse appeared. She stuck an arm through the gap to stop the doors from closing. “It’s the mother.”
The sight of Sam’s mother being escorted gently towards the lift, a short man with close-cropped grey hair, spectacles and a pure brilliant white dog collar in tow, was more than he could bear. He was out of the lift and striding down the corridor before he knew what he was doing. “Get her out of here,” he roared at the top of his lungs.
“Please, sir,” the Filipino nurse tried to explain as she chased after him, “it’s the mother.”
But he was past listening. He grabbed Sam’s mother by the arm. He was so angry his hands were shaking. “How dare you come here playing the grieving mother,” he said, squeezing her arm as he would have liked to wring her neck. “You’re too late—too late.”
To give Sam’s mother her due, she didn’t even flinch. She raised her nose and looked past him defiantly.
“Sir, I need you to let go now.” A middle-aged security guard appeared at his side as if from nowhere. Reluctantly, he released his grip.
“Is something the matter, sir?” the guard asked, manoeuvring himself in front of Sam’s mother.
He stared at the guard, open-mouthed. “Yes, something is the matter,” he said. “Get this fucking woman out of here, or I will.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam’s mother piped up from behind the security guard’s back. “He was my son and I want him to have a Christian burial. Isn’t it enough that you corrupted him while he was alive?”
“How dare you turn up here with your demands?” he said, brushing the security guard aside as if he weighed no more than a small child. “You have no rights,” he said. He dragged Sam’s mother along the corridor, past the swelling crowd of onlookers, and shoved her through the double doors at the end.
He didn’t realise it was possible to feel so angry. Fury seethed from his every pore. “Where were you when your son needed you, eh?” He flung her arm away in disgust. She recoiled against the far wall and leaned on the handrail.
“Where were you when your son was lying on the sofa in agony? When he was puking up blood? Each time he went to the hospital for yet more chemo? When he fucking died?”
She held his gaze for a moment and then looked away.
He covered his face with his hands. Right now, all he could see was Sam’s lifeless body, his features wasted beyond recognition.
“Where were you?” he repeated, almost to himself. He shook his head to dislodge the mental image, but it refused to budge.
“I’m sorry,” he said, raising his hands in surrender when the security guard appeared. He was too tired to fight any more. Let them do their worst.
At best, he would be trespassed from the hospital; at worst, he could expect to see the inside of a cell at the watch house on Victoria Street.
But to his surprise, instead of reading him the riot act, the guard smiled warmly. “Let’s get you back to where you belong, eh?”
He almost burst into tears right there in the foyer.
Of all the times to cry, he thought, rubbing at his eyes with his fingers.
chapter seventeen
Tom nudged the front door open with his right foot.
“Far out,” he groaned, dumping the shopping bags onto the hall floor. He massaged his fingers just below the knuckles until he could feel the blood flowing through them again. The string handles had cut grooves into his skin.
A quick visit to the local tramping store had netted almost everything on his list. He wasn’t sure how he was going to fit it all into his backpack, let alone carr
y it halfway up a mountain, but he would worry about that later; right now, he would just enjoy the rare feeling of achievement.
“Why, hello,” he smiled, glancing down at Bentley, who was weaving around his ankles, his tail flicking from side to side like a metronome. “You hungry, puss?”
Bentley meowed as if in response, then padded over to one of the large paper bags, sniffed at it cautiously, and rubbed the side of his mouth against one of its corners.
Reluctantly, Tom turned his attention to the growing pile of unopened mail on the sideboard. He couldn’t ignore it any longer. He picked up the assortment of envelopes and flicked through the first few. Power bill, bank statement, junk mail.
“Damn them,” he cursed, ripping open the next envelope, which was addressed to Sam. He had notified every organisation he could think of, but still the letters kept coming. How many more people would he have to tell all his business to?
With a sigh, he returned the envelopes to the sideboard—he would deal with them later—gathered up the shopping bags, and carried them the short distance to the kitchen.
He had called past the bottle shop on his way home from the tramping store. The wine bottles clinked as he set the bags down on the kitchen bench.
Bentley was already waiting by the pantry. He meowed and pawed at the door.
He had just finished unpacking when Jarryd arrived.
“I said to come around for a quiet drink,” he said, helping Jarryd with the twelve-packs of beer that he was carrying under each arm.
“Stop being a big girl’s blouse,” Jarryd replied. He tore open one of the boxes and removed two bottles. He handed one to Tom. “You didn’t think we were going to let you sneak off now, did you?”
Tom smiled. He should have known better.
“Cheers,” Jarryd said, chinking bottles with him.
The beer bubbled out of the top and he had to catch it with his mouth. “It’s not like I’m going for ever,” he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “I’ll be away a few months at most.”
Jarryd gave him a sceptical look and swigged his beer. “Fuck, that’s good,” he said, smacking his lips and admiring the bottle, which was dripping with condensation. “So you all set then?”
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