‘It’s all about the biscuits,’ Tully said, as if to relax everybody. He turned to Anna. ‘You all right, babe?’ She nodded and held his arm with both her hands and I could see she had no resistance left. She’d done her best to forestall this hour and now it was pacified by her gravity. At one point, he reached into her handbag and took out the bottle of Acqua di Parma and gave himself a spritz. Anna took it from him and did the same and passed it to me, and I took some and gave it to Iona. The staff poured the tea and began laying out the procedure and the rules. He could go home now if he wanted. Was he sure this was his decision and of his own free will? Tully looked at me across the table and said very clearly that it was, and there was silence for a moment.
‘A Top Three,’ he broke in.
‘Oh, here we go,’ I said.
‘What’s your top three biscuits of all time? And don’t say Wagon Wheels, because it isn’t a biscuit.’
‘One: McVitie’s orange Club,’ I said.
‘Fair play,’ he said.
‘Two: the Garibaldi.’
‘That’s a bit London.’
‘And three: the humble custard cream.’
‘Ah, the true taste of Ayrshire,’ he said.
Everyone laughed. ‘He’s being polite,’ I said, turning to the companions. ‘Normally he wouldn’t give my choices the time of day.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’ll be pondering them in eternity or whatever cosmic tea room I’m going to after the chow-down.’
He was like that the whole way. I couldn’t say what bravery is, but it must resemble something like the way Tully remained himself. He gestured to Anna and suggested we all have a drink. She brought out a bottle of Havana Club and some Cokes and asked for ice. ‘No problem,’ Zoe said.
When she went to the kitchen the other companion messaged Matteo and he brought in more papers. Tully put on his glasses and read them over and then asked me to come and look at them. With a hand on his shoulder, I suggested Anna read them first. She flicked through the pages and patted my hand. ‘Go ahead, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Make sure they’re okay.’ I borrowed his glasses. Matteo came back in a few moments and checked again that the decision was Tully’s.
‘Before you drink any alcohol,’ he said, ‘is everything clear to you? Your medical information states you will die within three months. You are electing today to end your life and making an autonomous decision to do it here.’
‘I am,’ Tully said. I had to turn away. ‘It’s my last vote, buddy.’
He signed the papers and they told him to take all the time he wanted. The rum went round. He said no to music. Anna had stored a lot of his favourite tunes on an iPod but he said it would be better if we could just talk. He sniffed his glass and held it out for us all to clink with him. ‘Remember Steady McCalla?’ he said, looking over at me. He turned to Anna and Iona. ‘Brilliant guy who drank in the pub back home. I wonder where he is now. Wish he was here – old Steady, the calmest guy we knew.’
The helpers came in and out but Tully said he didn’t want anything else. He spoke about his mum. He spoke about Fiona and Scott and the kids, how proud they made him, and he went on to talk about the times we’d had with our old friends, and the one who died young. ‘Limbo always thought I was the lucky one,’ he said, ‘and he was right. But I wish we were back in Manchester for one night only. Just to tell him we’d stick together and make everything okay.’
‘He’d tell you to fuck off,’ I said.
‘Too right,’ he said. ‘He was always good like that.’
‘Cheeky Bastards United.’
‘It’s been a hell of a ride, Noodles.’
There were two small cups. He asked for the first. Zoe had explained it was to line his stomach, and the second, thirty minutes later, would be a dose of pentobarbital. We walked into the bedroom, and he stood like light and air.
The bed had a yellow sheet and Indian pillows.
He drank the first cup.
Along the windowsill there were votive candles and we could see a football pitch outside. It had white goalposts, a ball sitting on the grass, and a small lily pond in front of the house. He asked if he could go out to the playing field, just for five minutes by himself. But when he reached the door he held out his hand for Anna. From the window we watched them walking the touchline and the sun was hazy and the pond was perfectly still. He stood for a moment, looking back. Then he hugged his wife and blew us a kiss, before running onto the field with his arms outstretched. He stormed towards the goal and booted the ball and when he turned round the champion’s smile was on his face again.
Acknowledgements
The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permissions granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book.
Page 28 A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney (1958/film 1961): reproduced with permission from the Estate of Shelagh Delaney, courtesy of Sayle Literary Agency.
Pages 28, 29, 37, 64, 98, 127, 253 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958/film 1960) by Alan Sillitoe. Published by HarperCollins, 2008. Copyright © The Estate of Alan Sillitoe. Reproduced by permission of the Estate c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd, 20 Powis Mews, London w11 1jn.
Page 29 Mona Lisa (1986): reproduced with permission from D. Leland, N. Jordan and Handmade Films.
Page 37 The Exorcist (1973), screenplay by William Peter Blatty, reproduced courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Page 54 ‘They Shall Not Pass’, 1936, The Spanish Revolution, 1986. The Ex. © 1997 The Ex/AK Press © 1997 The Ex. Reproduced with permission from T. J. Hessels and The Ex.
Page 76 ‘Therese’ (The Bodines)
Words & music by: Michael A. Ryan
© 1986 Cherry Red Songs / Kassner Associated Publishers Ltd. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Pages 133, 249 White Heat (1949), screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, reproduced courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Pages 215, 251 Excerpts from The Godfather and The Godfather Part II © Paramount Pictures Corp. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher would be pleased to rectify any omissions that are brought to its attention at the earliest opportunity.
About the Author
Andrew O’Hagan was born in Glasgow. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize, was voted one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, and he has won the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Editor-at-Large of the London Review of Books and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
By the Same Author
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OUR FATHERS
PERSONALITY
BE NEAR ME
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF MAF THE DOG
THE ILLUMINATIONS
non-fiction
THE MISSING
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
THE SECRET LIFE: THREE TRUE STORIES
Copyright
First published in 2020
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This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
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ISBN 978–0–571–27370–6
Mayflies Page 22