As Far as You Can Go

by Julian Mitchell

  The driver looked at them, then went over to the police lieutenant. They talked for a while, then came over to Diane and Harold. They had not spoken to each other.

  “I told you not to stay up there more than twenty minutes,” said the lieutenant.

  “How long were we?”

  The lieutenant took the piece of yellow paper which Harold had put in his pocket and now produced, looked at his watch and said, “Twenty-five. I could book you for that.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” said the driver. “I want to take these two kids to hospital. What are you going to do about that car?”

  “Where do you live?” asked the lieutenant.

  Harold gave him the name of the hotel.

  “Right. The car will be there when you get back,” said the lieutenant. He walked away.

  “Get in,” said the driver.

  “Can I see Grandma?” said Diane.

  “Sure.” He went to the back of the ambulance, opened the doors, and said, “Another passenger for you, fellows.”

  When they reached the hospital things seemed to happen very quickly. Mrs Washburn was taken out of the ambulance, put on a trolley and wheeled away somewhere. Diane was taken off by a starched white nurse. Harold was taken off by a starched coloured nurse. She took him into a room and told him to lie down on the bed. He lay down and felt very sick, so sat up again. She said that that was all right, the doctor would be in in a minute. She sat with him, took his pulse and his temperature and chatted amiably. Harold found himself replying in monosyllables. His head was getting worse. At last he said, “I feel really awful.”

  “Don’t you worry,” said the nurse. “You haven’t broken anything, anyway. You’ll be all right.”

  “But I feel absolutely terrible.”

  “Are you English?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. That accent, it’s kind of funny.”

  “So I’m told.”

  A doctor came in. He was short and bouncy and made Harold strip, then gave him a pill, and said, “Now lie down again, and see if you still want to be ill.”

  Harold lay down and went fast asleep.

  When he woke it was noon. His head still ached a little, but otherwise he felt all right. He looked for his clothes and found them in a cupboard. Then he went to look for someone who might want to know how he felt.

  The coloured nurse met him in the corridor and said, “Hey, you’re not supposed to be walking around.”

  “I’m quite all right, now, thank you.”

  “You go back to your room. I’ll get the doctor.”

  The doctor came and made the usual checks.

  “O.K.,” he said, “you can go.”

  “How are the others?” said Harold.

  “What others?”

  “The old lady, Mrs Washburn. And her granddaughter, Miss Washburn.”

  “Miss Washburn’s fine. She’s upset, though, naturally.”

  “And Mrs Washburn?”

  “Was she some relation of yours?”

  “No.”

  “Well, she died a couple of hours after we brought her in here. Shock kills people that age, you know.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Harold. “Does Diane know?”

  “The granddaughter? Not yet. She’s still sleeping. She was real upset when we brought her in. She’ll be all right by the evening, though. We’ll discharge her tomorrow, I guess.”

  Harold wondered why the doctor kept sayíng “we” had brought her in. He said, “Well, I can go, can I?”

  “Yeah, you can go.”

  “Do I have to pay someone?”

  “Sure you do. You think this is England?”

  “No,” said Harold. “That’s one of the few misapprehensions I’ve never been under.”

  “No socialized medicine here, thank God,” said the doctor.

  Harold went down the corridor with the coloured nurse. She took him into an office and said, “It was nice meeting you.”

  “Thanks for everything,” said Harold.

  “All part of the day’s work,” said the nurse. She gave a wide smile, and went out.

  “Jesus,” said the girl behind the desk when Harold asked whom he should pay and how much. “We haven’t even got a card for you yet. Here, fill this up.”

  “No,” said Harold. “Either I pay now, or I don’t pay at all. I am not going to fill in any goddam form.”

  “Watch your language,” said the girl. “Hey, are you English or something?”

  “Yes,” he said, wearily.

  “I thought there was something wrong with the way you said ‘goddam’,” said the girl, with an air of triumph.

  “All right, all right,” said Harold. “How much do I owe?”

  “I’ll have to go and ask. Why don’t you fill in the form and let us send you a bill?”

  “Because I’m about to leave the country.”

  “O.K. But fill in the form, anyway.”

  She went out. Harold filled in the form, marking his sex as F and his age as two.

  The girl came back and said, “We can’t give you a bill now. When are you leaving?”

  “Now.”

  “Well, let’s say ten dollars and forget about it,” said the girl. “I’ll put you down as a charity case.”

  Harold gave her ten dollars, then went into a phone booth in the corridor and ordered a taxi. When the taxi came he told the driver to take him to his hotel. He felt very hungry, and suddenly remembered that he hadn’t eaten since he was in San Diego. It seemed several light years ago.

  He had a large lunch, and thought about what happened next. It seemed as though everything had suddenly come right. He had the miniature in his pocket, Mrs Washburn was dead, might God condemn her to everlasting fire, and Diane was free. It had taken an act of God to arrange everything, but there it was, all arranged, and he might as well take advantage of it. Of course Diane would be very upset about her grandmother’s death, but she would get over it. The future would look after itself.

  For what, after all, did the future matter now? He had finished his business in America, he had completed his work for Dangerfield, he had fallen in love, he had been through fire, he was ready for anything, could take anything on. Whatever the future might throw at him, he could throw right back. No one starved these days, anyway. And he had his credentials, his exams passed, his experience of America: he would be in great demand.

  He took the miniature out of his pocket and looked at it. The insolent young man stared back. He was a talisman, a token of good luck. You had to earn your good-luck token, you had to struggle with old women and the elements, but if you won through, then you were blessed for life. Nothing would go wrong now. There would be no more Helens, no more Blacketts, no more dreariness.

  He decided he should call Henry Washburn and tell him what had happened. Then he would call the hospital and sec how Diane was. Then he might go down to the beach and lie in the sun. He had deserved it.

  On his way through the lobby he saw Chuck, dressed in a suit instead of the hotel uniform.

  “How are you, Chuck?” he said.

  “Whatever happened to you?” said Chuck. “What’s all that sticking-plaster?”

  “Good God,” said Harold, looking at himself in a mirror. He had quite failed to realize that he had a piece of plaster on his forehead. Then he vaguely remembered the coloured nurse saying he had a nasty cut.

  “I got it in a fire,” he said. “I fell down.”

  “Gee,” said Chuck, “is that right?”

  “What are you all dolled up for?”

  “It’s Eddie’s inquest. I have to go and give formal evidence of identification. It’s this afternoon. I’ve fixed for the cremation right afterwards.”

  “I’d quite forgotten about all that sort of thing,” said Harold. “Would you like me to come with you?”

  “No thanks,” said Chuck. “I guess I’d like to do this by myself. But thanks all the same. Look, how about tomorrow for going to see these To
wers? I have the afternoon free.”

  “All right,” said Harold. He wanted to say something about Eddie, to say he hoped it would be a nice service, but knew that it would be absurd and inadequate. “Yes. Two o’clock?”

  “Thanks, Harold,” said Chuck. He smiled and went away, walking slowly but without any conscious heaviness, a young man, Harold thought, resigned to hiding his feelings now and always.

  He went to his room and called Henry Washburn.

  “I heard,” said Henry, when he started to tell him the news. “They called me.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” said Harold. “Is there anything I can do? I was going to call the hospital to see how Diane was.”

  “I guess she’ll want to come and stay here,” said Henry. “Of course she must.”

  “My car is full of things from the house,” said Harold. “We managed to save a lot.”

  “Yes,” said Henry. “Tell me what happened up there.”

  “I think Diane tried to call you first,” said Harold. “I don’t think she could get through, or something.”

  “Yes,” said Henry flatly. “I wasn’t home last night.”

  Harold gave him the story of the fire as well as he could. Bits of it were already rather hard to remember. He explained about going back for the miniature. It then occurred to him for the first time that if he hadn’t gone back, Mrs Washburn would not have fallen and broken her hip. If he hadn’t gone back none of them would have been in danger. Suddenly he knew what it was like to have tried to commit suicide.

  “She slipped and fell and broke her hip. At least the man said he thought it was her hip. It was all in a flash. I don’t remember it clearly. She couldn’t get up, and we tried to put her in the car, but we couldn’t get her in, and the fire was almost on us. So I picked her up and carried her down the hill. There was an ambulance there, and it took us all to the hospital.”

  “But why did she slip?” said Henry. His voice sounded puzzled and suspicious.

  “It was all so silly,” said Harold. He took a breath and told a lie. “She was turning to get in the car and slipped. That was all. And then in the panic and everything, I told Diane to drive on down, and that I would carry her. We couldn’t get her into the car, and the fire was almost on us, you see.”

  “I should be very grateful to you for what you did,” said Henry Washburn. “And I am.”

  “I tell you what I’ll do,” said Harold, hoping to change the subject. “I’ll call the hospital, and if Diane’s all right, I’ll bring her to you, with all the stuff. I expect she’ll be pretty upset when she hears about Mrs Washburn. She was still asleep when I left the hospital, but she should be awake now, and they will have told her.”

  “I guess I’d like to bring her home myself,” said Henry. “They gave me a couple of days off. I reckon I have to be head of the family now. My brother won’t care one way or the other.”

  “All right,” said Harold.

  “Thanks for calling,” said Henry. “It is still very soon after the event. I’m rather stunned.” His voice sounded rather falsely religious.”

  “Of course,” said Harold.

  “Why don’t I call you this evening?” said Henry.

  “Very well,” said Harold. “I’ll call the hospital to see how she is, all the same.”

  “O.K.,” said Henry. “I’ll call around seven.”

  Harold felt slightly aggrieved that his own good fortune should have coincided with the misfortune of others. But Henry Washburn’s feelings had certainly to be considered, and perhaps it would be better if he saw Diane before Harold. At a time of death one wants one’s closest relatives around one, not one’s friends or lovers. Death was something that one kept within the blood of the family circle.

  He smoked a cigarette, thinking about Mrs Washburn, then called the hospital. They asked who was calling and he told them. He was put on to a doctor, who said that Diane was coming along well, was awake, and that the news of her grandmother’s death had upset her very much.

  “You’re not Mr Washburn, are you?” he said.

  “No, just a friend. I was mixed up in the fire with her and her grandmother.”

  “Is that right?” said the smooth professional voice.

  “Thank you,” said Harold, and rang off.

  He wondered whether to go to the beach for the afternoon or not. He still didn’t feel very well. He wanted just to lie about somewhere and let his muscles relax, his mind clear itself of the jumble of images of the fire.

  He went and lay in the shade by the hotel’s swimming-pool. Gradually his headache disappeared. The sky wasn’t quite clear, smoke from the fire causing a haze over that whole section of Los Angeles. But it was better than smog, it didn’t irritate the eyes.

  As he lay there, awake but his mind idling, it occurred to him that in all the activity of the day, he had thought of Diane simply as a girl whose life was nearly in danger, never as the girl he loved. Slowly certain scenes came back to him with the black and white clarity of a film. Gone were the yellows and reds and oranges of the real fire, and in their place were close-ups of Diane and Mrs Washburn, as though he had been able to see every pore on their faces during that strange moment of calm and confidence while he had held the miniature in his hand and said “No”. Feeling detached, almost apathetic, about it, he remembered Diane’s face, its whiteness so suddenly flooded with colour, her hands beating the smoke as she lunged towards him. He saw it all again in slow motion, her grandmother’s grab, her collapse on to the ground, Diane halted in mid-stride.

  She had hated him then. Oh, yes, she was right about women being prepared to do anything for the protection of their families. In that moment she had been prepared to kill him. He saw it now, all the instincts in her face. He admired her, in his detachment, he admired her very much. It might even be that he loved her for her strength, her determination, her loyalty. But he realized, lying in the shade by the hotel swimming-pool, that he had killed her grandmother. And that as surely as he had done that, he had saved himself. If Mrs Washburn had not slipped, Diane would have attacked him, torn at him with the same hands that had seemed to tear away the smoke between them. She wouldn’t have killed him literally, he could have fought her off, protected himself. But the old woman and the young one could have fought him there, till the fire swallowed all three. One life had saved two, perhaps? Manslaughter, that was what it was. In his strange apathy, he contemplated what had happened, and was glad. There could be no more attempt at love between Diane Washburn and Harold Barlow, and it grieved him, distantly, that this was so. But only distantly, only at the edge of his consciousness. The time would come when he might grieve deeply. But not now. Now there was room only for the contemplation of what he had done, and how he had done it. His limbs still felt weak, but his mind told him he was strong.

  Later, he went back to his room and waited for Henry Washburn to call. When the phone rang he prepared himself for bitterness and even threats.

  “Mr Barlow?” said Washburn. He sounded deliberately unpleasant.

  “Hallo.”

  “I’ve been to see Diane. She is very badly shocked still. Not just medically shocked, but shocked to the core of her being. She seems to think you murdered my mother.”

  “Yes,” said Harold.

  “You don’t deny it?”

  “It wasn’t murder,” said Harold. “Don’t be ridiculous. I tried to save her life, didn’t I?”

  “I don’t know,” said Henry Washburn. The unpleasantness went out of his voice. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m all shook up. I shouldn’t have said that. Can you come and see me?”

  “All right. Right away?”

  “Yes, please.”

  As he drove to Santa Monica Harold wondered what Henry Washburn was going to say and do. He thought again of the scene, of the pause in time, on the road below the house, with the fire bearing down. But it wasn’t murder, it was self-defence. He hadn’t meant to harm her. And yet he had, too, without thi
nking about it, without planning it, without knowing what he was doing.

  It had all happened so quickly. He had been running, and then there had been the old woman making an impossible demand when she should have been in the car ready to drive straight off down the canyon. And yet, though this was true, there was something else. There was Harold himself saying “No” and “No” again. And he hadn’t said it because all their lives were in danger, he hadn’t said it because he wanted to spite the old woman, there had been no intention at all, no thought of saying “No”, just the word, coming out flatly, not even shouted, “No”. He didn’t have any idea at that time why he said it, and he wasn’t sure now, but it seemed as though it might have been a test of his strength against hers, a refusal to yield any further, and in that case, if she stumbled and fell under its weight, then the “No” had killed her, the shock of the “No”, its brutality, its very flatness, its finality. But then it wasn’t murder, it was self-defence.

  Henry Washburn met him on the porch of the house. He had a drink in his hand, and he silently handed another to Harold, ready on a small table. Pedro didn’t seem to be around.

  “Look,” he said, in a tired emotionless voice, “I don’t want to talk. Diane says she never wants to see you again. The doctors say she’s still suffering from shock, that she doesn’t mean what she’s saying when she says you killed my mother. But maybe you’d better not see her. I don’t know. I wanted to see you, I wanted to tell you, this was nothing to do with me. It’s Diane. You must make up your own mind. Let’s not talk about it.”

  Harold looked bewildered, then he saw an expression of anguish on Washburn’s face, and said, “Let’s get the stuff out of the car.”

  “All right,” said Washburn.

  They unloaded in silence, then Washburn said, “Do you still have the miniature?”

  “Here it is,” said Harold. He took it out of his pocket.

  Washburn took it, opened it, then closed it again and handed it back to him. “I don’t ever want to see that again,” he said, “and I don’t want to hear about it, either. I loved my mother very much, Harold. I’d be glad if you’d take the picture away.”