Mr. In-Between

by Neil Cross

  Jon shrugged. ‘I s’pose so.’

  Chapman persisted, ‘How much pocket money did you get?’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On how good you were?’

  He felt Jon retreat from him somewhat.

  ‘Did your mum ever buy you comics?’

  The child looked at him, and it occurred to Chapman then that the peace which gave him an element of beauty was incongruous with what he had done: the thing he had done. The thing for which he had been consigned to limbo. The child’s gaze became more specific, and he turned it on the priest, who had to fight to suppress a shudder. It was not childish contempt he saw there. It was the contempt of something far older than this child, far older than Chapman himself. He fought an automatic genuflection, masking it by making a fist into which he coughed.

  ‘Why won’t you speak to your mum, Jon?’ he asked softly. ‘Do you know how sad it makes her that you won’t speak to her?’

  ‘My mum’s dead,’ said Jon with chilly finality.

  The priest reached out and stroked the boy’s head. Jon made no attempt at withdrawal. ‘No,’ Chapman explained. ‘No, she’s not dead. She had to go away for a while, but she’s not dead. She misses you ever so much. She misses you as much as I bet you miss her. I bet you miss her, don’t you?’

  Jon looked at the priest with eloquent, specific malice. He said nothing.

  Chapman knew that it was not unusual for a child to become confused between absence and death, particularly if parents felt it necessary to pollute enquiring minds with euphemism. But he had been granted limited access to Jon’s records and knew well that the boy was not unacquainted with the reality of death.

  The child smiled. Chapman found himself picturing this smile on Jon’s face as he stood at the foot of his father’s bed and watched him drown in his own blood. Goose bumps tightened his flesh.

  ‘She’s dead,’ Jon repeated.

  ‘Why do you think so, Jon? Why, when all these people are telling you that she’s not? Would they lie to you? Why would they lie to you?’

  ‘He killed her.’

  ‘Who, Jon?’ His voice shook a little. ‘Who do you think would hurt your mum, Jon?’

  Agonisingly and horribly, the child laughed. ‘Stupid,’ he accused. ‘You stupid thing. It was Dad that killed her.’

  He pierced Chapman for another moment with eyes that burned and froze him. Then he looked back to his comic.

  Chapman looked at the carpet until the flood of dizziness passed. ‘God bless you, Jon,’ he whispered.

  God help you, he meant. God help you.

  Jon slept easily in the hospital bed. He woke only once or twice, and then only because his sleep was interrupted by a snore or a snuffle or a reverberative fart from one of the surrounding beds. Half-asleep, the ward seemed even less real.

  Upon waking, his first thought was of the Tattooed Man.

  There was a hollow in his stomach, as if he had been kicked there. Even this was somehow distant, closer to wistfulness than raw regret. It felt like driving past the house in which one had grown up.

  Peculiarly, rather than Tattooed Man as he knew him, he was able to summon only the mental picture of a tattered old shoebox stuffed to overflowing with photographs. The Tattooed Man laughing in the summer as he stood at the barbecue in a plastic apron upon which was printed in bright pink a pair of cartoon breasts. There was the faded garishness of the 1970s, complete with sideburns and questionable lapels. There was the Tattooed Man in black-and-white: a baggy-trousered suit, the brim of a fedora throwing his eyes into shadow. One leg, foot laced into shining brogue, rested on the running-board of an old car. There was the Tattooed Man in sepia, faded to nicotine yellow and scalloped at the edges, wearing the uniform of a British soldier and the expression of a different century. The same face stared from them all, unaged and unchanging, more grave than in life.

  Jon did not know why he thought these things. He had never seen such photographs.

  He was submitted to exhaustive examination. Although his neck was unbroken it had undergone a trauma such that he would require some physiotherapy and perhaps suffer recurring twinges of ‘spinal discomfort’ for months, perhaps years, to come. His ribs were badly bruised. One of his lungs bore traces of scarring clearly inflicted years ago (probably by a badly broken rib), and which failed to appear on any of his records. This was a cause of some consternation and concern. There was some calcification of his left patella caused by the over-enthusiastic knitting of an old fracture. The gash beneath his eye required ten stitches in an admirably neat half-moon; there might be some subsequent loss of sensation in his cheek. The shallow wound between his clavicles did not require stitching. His many minor abrasions were redressed. His equally numerous minor bruises were prodded and tutted over. They examined every curve of every plane of skin, even the inside of his mouth, upon the roof of which they were apparently dismayed to find some scarring. They checked his blood pressure, which was too low, and they checked the volume of his lungs, about which they said nothing. They took blood samples and shit samples and urine samples. They checked his eyes, and asked him if he was aware that there seemed to be some loss of peripheral vision in his right eye, possibly caused by a blow to the head.

  They informed him that, if what he had told them about the duration and extent of his drug use was true, there was the possibility, even the likelihood, of liver damage. Which, they warned, was irreversible.

  By the time Chapman arrived for the promised visit Jon was tired but calm. The routine of the ward—the snatches of conversation he heard the nurses share as they went about doing this, or setting up that—filled him with a sense of banality, the effect of which was profoundly to deepen his sense of unreality.

  As Chapman sat on the edge of the bed, Jon experienced an unsettling moment of déjà vu.

  Chapman nodded his head in the direction of a departing nurse. ‘You can see why they call them angels, can’t you?’

  Jon agreed.

  ‘I’ve brought you some fruit and chocolate.’ The priest set some small paper bags (two of which bore the legend Shop Local!) on Jon’s bedside cabinet. ‘I would have brought you a book or two, or some magazines, only I didn’t know what you like to read. So if there’s anything you’d like me to bring along, just say the word. I like whodunits myself,’ he confided cheerfully, ‘but that’s probably because I’m not much of a reader of fiction.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jon. Once again it occurred to him that Chapman had a peculiar presence, like a black puncture in the white continuum of this odd limbo.

  ‘How are you this morning?’ said Chapman.

  ‘Much better,’ Jon told him. ‘Much better, thanks.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  Jon opened one of the bags (leaning over awkwardly, the plastic neck brace restricting his movement) and took out an apple, from which he took a healthy crunch before saying with his mouth full, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Would you like one?’

  ‘No,’ said the priest. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks. I bought them for you. Actually,’ he leaned forward and put his hand on the bedclothes above Jon’s knee, ‘I’m not a man who’s over-fond of apples. It’s a Catholic thing, I think.’

  ‘Look,’ Jon said, ‘about last night—’

  Chapman dismissed him with a wave. ‘Let’s hear no more about it.’

  ‘No,’ insisted Jon. ‘No, really. I don’t know what was going on. I don’t know why I said those things.’

  The priest smiled. It raised into shadowed relief the worry lines of sixty years of loving his neighbour as himself. ‘You were in a deal of pain,’ he said. ‘People react in funny ways to pain. Especially—’ and Jon thought he looked sad, as if it was a struggle for him to maintain. even that melancholy grin, ‘especially where there seems to have been so very much pain. And for so long.’

  Jon wanted to reach out and squeeze the priest’s leathery hand. He thought it would be very dry and warm. He thanked him and believed he mean
t it.

  ‘Is there anything you want?’ Chapman asked. ‘Anything I can get you? From home, perhaps? Can I contact Andy for you, or any other friends or family?’

  ‘No please don’t do that.’ He made a reassuring face. ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

  ‘Well,’ said the priest, standing, ‘this must be a flying visit, I’m afraid. No rest for the wicked. I just wanted to make sure you were OK. I’ll be back, though. To see how you’re coming along.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ said Jon.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Chapman. ‘It’ll help keep me out of mischief. Are you sure there’s nobody I can call?’

  ‘Really,’ said Jon. ‘I’m fine here. In limbo,’ he said, ‘attended by angels.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Chapman confirmed. He paused at the door of the ward and sagged, as if he suddenly felt himself to be an old, old man, and unbearably tired.

  Jon knew that it would require effort to extricate himself from this place. In order to avoid being sectioned under the Mental Health Act of whatever year it was he would be required to provide proof of his effective sanity, concerning which, given the extremity of his physical state, there was some question.

  He knew well, however, how to lead others away from the apprehension of his nature. He had done such a thing before, although he had been younger then.

  The duty psychiatrist was a blank canvas with bobbed hair that was badly in need of a trim and clothes that were too old for her, worn rather selfconsciously, as if to cultivate gravitas. She wore rather severe oval spectacles with tortoiseshell rims and smoked Marlboro lights at such a rate Jon was driven to concern for her mental well-being.

  She began with his childhood. Jon took pains to indicate a careful balance between assimilation, acceptance of, yet healthy distancing from the events to which she referred. Behind the drifting clouds of cigarette smoke she wore a neutral expression, although she betrayed what Jon interpreted as occasional irritation or boredom by tucking a lock of hair behind her left ear. She also tapped her cigarette rather too frequently on an overflowing ashtray on her desk.

  She then briefly tried a more elliptical approach. In response Jon was carefully ambiguous. The second time he saw her she had clearly decided upon a different tactic. She announced the decision unconsciously with a particularly aggressive tuck of the hair. She looked at him from behind reflecting lenses and asked him how he had come to be so scarred.

  ‘I’m a prostitute,’ he replied.

  She undertook to conceal any response by lighting a fresh cigarette. ‘A prostitute for men?’

  ‘Usually,’ he confirmed. ‘But not always. You’d be surprised.’

  Still she was careful not to react. She twisted at the waist and referred to Jon’s records, which lay on the desk beside her. She read, closed the notes. ‘Your records show no sign of anal trauma. No recent,’ she corrected, and made another note as she concluded with diminishing volume, ‘anal trauma.’

  Jon indicated that this meant nothing beyond the obvious. He added that it took all sorts.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ she agreed. ‘I suppose it takes all sorts, right enough.’

  Despite this capitulation, she pursued the subject. Why? Who? How? Did he enjoy it? Did it involve promiscuity?

  ‘No,’ Jon answered. ‘I’m a sort of personal assistant,’ he said. ‘Although I have, in that capacity, on occasion been required to cater for parties.’

  She removed her spectacles and breathed on each oval lens in turn. As he continued, she polished each one carefully with a soft, yellow cloth. ‘And this fellow,’ she said, holding one lens close to his eye, then polishing it more, ‘are you and he together?’

  Did she mean, were they a couple?

  ‘If you like, yes.’ Breathe on lens. Polish.

  Not in the traditional sense.

  ‘But it is a long-term … association. Or has there been another relationship of a similar nature? Or relationships plural.’

  No. It was the only such relationship, and it was ongoing and mutually satisfactory.

  She coughed dryly. ‘In what sense satisfactory? In the emotional or the financial?’

  Both.

  ‘So this fellow,’ she said. ‘This chap. Would you say that you loved him?’

  Jon paused, seemed to think. ‘I suppose so,’ he said, at length. ‘As far as you can say that such a thing as love exists.’

  She replaced her spectacles with a certain finality, an action which rewarded Jon with the knowledge that he had chosen wisely the nature of his lies.

  There were degrees of insanity, she told him: an ongoing continuum of oddity (whose flow she demonstrated with a wave of her hand), much of which she had encountered in this office or one similar. In her opinion, she disclosed, masochism was an unfortunate pattern of behaviour, since its genesis lay somewhere in deep psychological pain. She conceded that in a sense it perhaps even constituted an illness, since she believed that it could be treated and possibly cured, if cured was the right word. But it didn’t constitute insanity; instead, she confided, she was often more concerned by people who seemed to think it did.

  She saw Jon three times more, each time with clearly decreasing levels of interest. They spent the final session engaging in what she announced to be an Informal Discussion. This sounded sufficiently like a psychological tactic for Jon’s suspicions to be alerted. In the end, the Informal Discussion proved to be an interminable discourse on safe sexual practice, in which the word ‘consent’ was endlessly emphasised. When she was (finally) satisfied, she wished Jon all the best of luck for the future. She reminded him that should he ever require somebody to talk to then, well, that was her job. She shook Jon’s hand across the desk for all the world as if ending a job interview: She advised him to look out for himself, and be sure to have frequent medical check-ups. There was nothing wrong with being careful.

  Jon thanked her.

  When the day came for Jon to leave, he returned from the toilet to find Chapman waiting at the side of his empty bed.

  The priest noticed that Jon was dressed. ‘Aha,’ he said. ‘All better, I see.’

  Stiffly, Jon demonstrated that he could turn his head, although he had been advised to avoid doing so for a while. He thanked Chapman for taking the time to visit him during his stay. He offered the priest his hand.

  Chapman responded that it had been a pleasure.

  ‘By the way,’ he added, regarding Jon through slightly narrowed eyes, as if gazing into a distant light, ‘I forgot to mention that Andy is well on the mend. He went back to work a week or two ago. I’d almost forgotten that you two knew one another, or I would have mentioned it earlier. He’s coming on in leaps and bounds. He’s even been promoted. Isn’t that good news? Apparently he’s the new assistant manager of the garage. Or something along those lines. I forget exactly what.’

  Jon had neglected the existence of the world beyond the confines of the hospital. He had pictured himself among endless ranks of prone bodies, lost within an infinite, endlessly echoing domain of tiled corridors and rubber-wheeled trolleys. A place without end, without entrance or exit. Numberless, milling hordes of men and women in white coats. Inconceivable numbers of attending angels. Corridors that stretched to the far horizon and beyond, which branched off to form unknown routes to unknown corners, which themselves branched and branched and branched again. All those souls in Limbo, all those helpless souls.

  He had quite forgotten what it was that he was to be released into. He considered external time to have stopped, its actors preserved like the postponed characters of a half-read book.

  Chapman saw some of this fall like a shadow across Jon’s face. He watched his eyes disfocus, then solidify.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  Jon nodded distantly. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, that’s good news.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Chapman. Then, ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

  ‘
Of course,’ said Jon, ‘or they wouldn’t be letting me go, would they?’

  He patted Chapman’s upper arm and walked silently away, along the length of the ward and through its swinging doors. Not one of the nurses paused to bid him goodbye and good luck. They didn’t seem to register that he was leaving. He drifted behind them like a cool breeze and was gone. He seemed to leave in his wake no sense of his absence, no trace that he had ever been here.

  For a reason he well knew, this troubled Chapman. For the same reason it frightened him.

  9

  A Face from the Ancient Gallery

  Jon took two days to abrade the stink of institution from his flesh before visiting the garage. He still wore a short, scruffy beard and his hair was shaggy and unkempt. The half-circular scar beneath one eye was livid purple against the winter pallor of his flesh.

  Gibbon was hanging about the forecourt, a mug of tea clasped in his paw. His blue overalls were unbuttoned to the waist, revealing an oily t-shirt with a picture of Garfield and the legend. ‘Diets start tomorrow!’ swelling beneath his impressive musculature and pot belly.

  He lacked the facility to mask his surprise.

  ‘How’s it going, Derek?’ said Jon.

  ‘Fine,’ said Gibbon. ‘How are you? It’s been a while.’

  Clearly, Derek Gibbon was privy to rumours Jon hoped Andy was not. ‘It has been a while, Derek,’ Jon confirmed. ‘Things are good. Thanks for asking.’

  ‘Good,’ said Gibbon. ‘No problem. Nice one.’

  ‘Andy’s in the office, is he?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gibbon. ‘In the office. Doing the paperwork.’

  Jon walked past him and into the office, which was considerably cleaner than the last time he had seen it. A cigarette in his hand, Andy sat at the desk, Bic Biro paused above a sheaf of papers. He was wearing pressed blue overalls, and had lost a little weight.

  ‘Hello, fucker,’ said Jon as he entered.

  Andy looked up, startled. He dropped the cigarette on his lap and flustered and cursed as he retrieved it. He called Jon’s name like an exclamation of sharp pain and stood. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ He stepped forward and took Jon in a bear hug. As ever, Jon was surprised at his strength.