‘How long have you been standing there like that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, half an hour maybe.’
‘Come on, old man.’ He took Paulsen by the elbow and walked him over to the armchair. ‘It’ll do you no good leaning like that. You’ll be sore in the morning.’
‘Yes, yes, alright, don’t fuss.’ Paulsen dropped into the chair and groaned. He went back to the book. ‘This part right here—’ He held one finger to the page, underscoring a single sentence. ‘He actually quotes Nietzsche. Anyone who knows Herb will tell you, there was a time he could hardly bring himself to say the man’s name—like an actor with Macbeth. But it’s right here, look—he actually paraphrases the man.’ He read aloud: ‘As Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, the irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence. Jennifer Doe insists my rational brain is not equipped to comprehend who or what she is. The more I listen to her, the more I can see value in Nietzsche’s point … Value in Nietzsche’s point! Herbert Crest, wash your mouth out with soap and water!’
Oscar was listening but his eyes were closed. It was a struggle to stay upright. He needed the support of the wall.
‘Late night, I take it?’ Paulsen said.
He shook himself awake. ‘You could say that.’
‘You’re welcome to sleep on my bed. I won’t tell.’
‘I’d love to. But I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve still got three hours of my shift to go.’
Paulsen shrugged. ‘So tell them I’ve made a big mess and you have to clear it up. Say I’ve done it in my tracksuit bottoms again. That should buy you some time. I’ll lock the door.’
Oscar relented. He slept in the old man’s room for over an hour, and by the time he woke up, he felt more able to face the world. Outside the window, grey clouds were slouching through the sky. Paulsen was back at the shelves, still examining Crest’s book. ‘I’ve been wondering,’ he said, not looking up from the page, ‘how come you left school so young?’
Oscar rolled away, straightening out the pillows. ‘Oh, I really don’t want to get into that. Not right now.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because.’
‘Because? That’s all you have?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Because is not a complete sentence, it’s a conjunction. You’d have known that if you’d stayed in school.’
Oscar gave out a long, heavy breath. ‘There were other things more important to me at the time, okay? Let’s leave it there.’
‘What could be more important than your education?’
‘Leaving home, having my own life, money in my pocket.’ He got to his feet, arranging his uniform. ‘Why are you so interested all of a sudden?’
‘I don’t mean to pry. It’s just that reading this book again has made me think about Herbert. Not Herbert now—I mean when he was younger. I feel like I’ve been getting to know him all over again.’
‘What’s that got to do with me leaving school?’
‘You remind me of him, that’s all. The way you see the world and think about other people—you’re so alike. That effortless compassion you both have. Quite aggravating really, the pair of you.’ Paulsen smiled. ‘And yet, the more I think about it, the more I see the differences between you. Your lives are complete opposites. I found that comforting at first, but now I think it just saddens me.’
Oscar shifted on his feet. ‘How’d you mean?’
The old man took a moment before he answered, as if proofreading the words in his head, making sure they came out as he intended. ‘When I think of the life that Herbert had and compare it to your life—and then when I see how similar you both are, how your minds work in the same way—it makes me sad, because I know that if you only had a scintilla of his education, you could achieve more than Herbert ever could. And Herbert’s achieved plenty. So what was it, son? Did you not get the grades?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m here now, aren’t I, and that’s all that counts.’
‘I don’t think it was the grades. You’re too clever for that.’
‘Marks weren’t the problem, okay, but I don’t want to go into it. Not today.’
‘A-ha! I knew it!’ The old man paused, eyeing the window. ‘A smart boy like you shouldn’t be here wiping food off my chin. He should be at one of those colleges out there with all the other smart boys his age. So, come on, what was it?’
One day, Oscar would tell the old man everything. He’d already imagined how it would go. It would be some rainstruck afternoon when the whole of Cedarbrook was trapped indoors and there was nothing to do but sit with Dr Paulsen and talk about the past, while the other patients watched quiz shows down in the parlour and the staff all bantered quietly in the corridors. He would tell the old man about the nursing home he used to work at—the one in Watford where he’d once helped his father build an extension—and how he’d got talking with the staff nurse there about a care assistant job, how she’d made it sound so worthy and dignified. He would tell the old man that leaving school had not been a choice for him but a necessity—a chance to get away from his parents’ closed-off estate and find his own place on the other side of town; just a little bedsit above a bookmaker’s, nothing fancy, but somewhere he was free to see whatever kind of people he liked, have a broadsheet newspaper delivered to his own door if he wanted, spend weekends in London or walking in Cassiobury Park, feeding the ducks with his own stale bread. He would tell the old man that independence had been his biggest priority when he was seventeen, that he’d secured it by sacrificing the luxury of an education—something he felt he could always return to when he was older. He would tell him that getting the job at Cedarbrook and moving to Cambridge had been the biggest achievement of his life. And if the old man were to say, ‘Yes, but don’t you regret leaving school? You could’ve been so much more,’ he would look away and smile, and explain the feeling that pricked his spine every time he wandered through town, passing by those ancient college buildings, and how he’d trained himself to ignore it. Soon, the rain would begin to soften outside. The noise of the residents downstairs would get louder, and the nurse-calls would start ringing again. And Oscar would tell the old man his only regret: that he was living the unremarkable life his parents had always expected from him.
But this discussion was for another day. The past wasn’t something he felt ready to talk about with Dr Paulsen yet. He thought of it as a stinging wasp he’d trapped inside a glass: though he could still see it there, long sedated, he didn’t feel secure enough to lift away the glass and release it.
‘I don’t need you to feel sad for me, Dr Paulsen.’ He placed a hand on the old man’s arm. ‘Just let me keep coming up here to talk to you. That’s enough for now.’ He smiled, turning for the door. ‘Thanks for the siesta.’
Iris said she couldn’t even remember stepping out into Silver Street, or where she was supposed to be going. She didn’t know the size, shape, or colour of the van that had hit her. She could hardly even recall the feeling of being hit or riding in the ambulance. All she could remember was that, before she’d seen the blazing headlights emerging from the fog, there had been a tiny moment when she’d known what was about to happen to her. She said it was like time had ruptured for a second, and the earth had stopped spinning. It had given her enough time to twist her body around. ‘It was the strangest thing. It was instinct. I turned my back so the cello case would protect me. I didn’t even know why I was doing it; I just knew it would save me. And it did. That little moment saved my life.’
Lying in her hospital bed against a bank of pillows, she talked in slow, uncomfortable phrases. Her caged leg creaked when she made the slightest move. She closed her eyes. ‘Oh, this morphine is lovely, but it’s making me so tired.’ He thought that she was falling asleep, but then she looked at him, smiling. ‘Thanks so much for your letter,’ she said, ‘and the poem.’
‘There were things I needed you to hear. I know I’m a terribl
e poet.’
‘Nonsense. It was the most wonderful poem I’ve ever read.’
‘Shut up. It was awful.’
‘No it was not. I mean, I’m hardly an expert, of course, but who cares about a piddly thing like technique anyway? It’s the intention, the emotion that counts.’
He stroked her wrist with his thumbs. ‘I’d be more comfortable if you teased me about it.’
‘That’s what I’ll never understand about you, sweetheart. When people try to pay you compliments, you tell them they’re wrong, that something must be wrong with them for thinking nice things about you. Well, I’m not going to apologise. I love the poem, and I love you for writing it.’
He knew there was a difference between I love you and I love you for writing it. But the sound of the words still emptied the breath from his lungs. It was the first time he’d ever heard them spoken—by Iris, or any girl he’d ever been with—and they sounded much less formidable than he expected. He kissed her dry lips and she groaned with pain. ‘Oh, this leg is just agony. I feel like a mashed potato.’
‘Go easy on the morphine. You don’t want to get addicted.’
‘Does that really happen to people?’
‘A lot.’
‘Then I suppose I’ll just have to get used to the pain, won’t I?’
Hospital noises flooded into the room—the clack of nurses’ heels in the vinyl corridors, the dulled-out conversations of soap actors on next door’s television, the coughs and wheezes of patients—sounds he knew so well.
‘Have you heard from Eden?’ she asked. ‘I thought he would’ve been in to see me by now. Funny, my parents seem to be in a bad mood with him. Did something happen?’
‘He went off somewhere last night. Your father had words with him, in front of everyone.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘He was acting blasé about everything—you know how he is. Anyway, your dad really gave him what for.’
She shook her head, wondering at the idea. ‘Do you know, I can’t even imagine what that must’ve been like. What did my mother do?’
‘Nothing really. Your dad was angry enough for both of them.’
‘Oh, I’d give anything to have been there. No wonder they kept changing the subject when I asked about him.’ She stared towards the window, thinking. Her eyes turned to thin slats. ‘He’ll probably keep his distance for a few days, let things cool down. But he’ll visit me. I know it. He won’t be able to keep away.’
In fact, a week went by before Eden came to visit. Oscar arrived at the ward at the usual time, carrying a few books he thought Iris could pass the time with. He stopped when he saw Eden through the darkened glass of her room and held back in the corridor, peering in from an angle. That tall, wiry frame of Eden’s loomed like the shadow of an oak tree at the end of her bed. He was wearing a long black mackintosh and his hair was pulled back into the slightest ponytail with a bright blue elastic. His ear-stud caught the light of the corridor and glinted. Oscar didn’t feel guilty about eavesdropping. He saw it as insurance against a possible disaster.
‘These doctors can only help you so much, you know,’ Eden was saying. ‘I mean, I’m sure you’ll be back on your feet by the summer, but can you really afford to take so much time away from study right now?’
‘You’re sounding just like Dad.’
‘Yes, well, Theo knows what he’s talking about. Missing out on a whole term will set you back a year, maybe two.’
‘I can catch up. All I have time for now is reading.’
‘It’s not just about reading. What about your labs? And that placement you were going to do? You’ll miss out on that. They’ll give the job to somebody else. Someone who can actually stand up. Have they told you how long it’ll take before you can walk again?’
‘I’m not worried. Things will work themselves out.’
‘I don’t know how you can be so calm about this, Iggy.’
‘Don’t call me that. I’ve told you to stop calling me that.’
‘Yes, yes, fine. But you know what I’m saying. This is very important.’
‘There’s not much I can do about it. I just have to accept it.’
‘Nonsense.’ Taking a step back, Eden unhooked the clipboard from the foot of the bed and perused her medical notes. It made a thick, metallic sound when he put it back again. ‘I can help you.’
‘You going to attend my lectures for me? Take my exams?’
‘No, no, don’t be silly, of course not. You know what I mean. I mean I can help you.’
Oscar moved in closer to the door.
Iris lifted her chin. ‘Ah. Well, why didn’t you just say so?’
‘I’ve been trying to,’ Eden said. ‘You haven’t been listening to me.’
‘I don’t know. You really think you could fix me? This isn’t exactly superficial damage I’ve got here, Edie. The doctors say I’m going to need months of physical therapy.’
‘You won’t need any of that, I promise.’
‘Well—I don’t know—I’m not sure.’
Oscar couldn’t tell if she’d seen him standing there, or if she could see anything beyond her brother’s broad, flat shoulders. He got the impression that she was amusing herself somehow, that she was toying with Eden for the sheer pleasure of it. And though all he could see was Eden’s back and those white socks that stood out from the bottoms of his cords, he could tell that Eden was not aware that he was being strung along. There was a resoluteness to his stance, a patience in his manner.
‘If I did let you try,’ Iris went on, ‘how exactly would it work?’
‘You just leave all that to me.’
‘But what would I have to do?’
‘Nothing. Just lie still.’
She paused. ‘Alright.’
Eden drew his heels together slowly. ‘I promise you, you’ll be back on your feet before the spring.’
‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ she said. ‘When would we have to start? Now?’
‘No, no, not here. As soon as they let you come home. When are you being discharged?’
‘Friday. They need the bed. You should’ve seen how happy the doctors were when I asked for home care.’
‘Well, what do you expect from an NHS hospital? I tried to get Theo to move you, but that boyfriend of yours made a big fuss. Sometimes I wonder what the pair of you have to talk about.’ Eden drummed his fingers on the bedframe. ‘I take it you’ll be staying in the rectory when you come home.’
‘No, the organ house. More space in there. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Not at all. In fact, it couldn’t be better.’
‘Good, because I’m rather looking forward to being waited on.’
‘I wouldn’t count on Mother sitting at your bedside,’ Eden said. ‘Or Theo either. He’s been peacocking his feathers over your surgery, but once you’re home it’ll be a different story.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I know so.’ Eden sniffed. ‘Next week then. That’s when we can start. I’ll get everything prepared.’
‘Alright.’
‘And don’t bother worrying about all of this now.’ Eden gestured towards his sister’s legs. ‘I’ll have you feeling better soon.’ He walked over and offered his cheek, pointing at the exact spot he wished to receive her kiss. ‘Be well, sis,’ he said.
Oscar retreated quickly into the corridor. He waited until Eden came striding out of the room, heading for the lifts.
‘You’re a terrible snoop,’ Iris called out. ‘I saw you the second you arrived. You heard every bit of it.’
‘So what if I did?’
‘Don’t get defensive—I’m glad you were there. It’s the first time anyone’s been around to witness my brother’s ego in full swing.’ She nodded at the books under his arm. ‘They for me?’ He set them down on the table-tray and kissed her. She shuffled the books in her hands like playing cards, studying their covers one by one. ‘We’re going to be ready for him this time,’ sh
e said. ‘You heard how he was talking. He doesn’t care about me, he doesn’t care about my surgery, he just sees it all as some big opportunity for him to prove how clever he is. He’s too full of his own importance to even notice what he’s doing. Well, I’m going to make sure we catch him this time. He’s starting to slip. Oh, you brought me The Fountainhead. Is this actually any good? I’ve heard so many bad things about it.’
Oscar didn’t answer, and she satisfied her curiosity by flipping the book over to read the blurb. ‘How do you mean, catch him?’ he said.
‘We’re going to get everything on tape. I don’t really have a plan yet, but I will. It’s too good a chance to miss. If he wants to use me as some sort of guinea pig, fine. But we’ll be there, ready with a plan of our own. All we have to do is think of one.’
LAST DAYS
Like a man travelling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, though in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them.
—Benjamin Franklin
EIGHT
The Bellwether Revivals Page 16