I’m going to … It could be Rosie’s motto. ‘At the end of this week I’m going to tell Steve to pack his bags.’ Or, when Pa is about to pay us a visit, ‘I’m going to cook us all a nice meal: steaks, salad, vegetables, the works. I’ll get some good fillet steaks. I’m going to spoil him, the poor thing; he’s working much too hard.’ Those are another couple of I’m going tos which have yet to reach fruition. Yes, even my sister’s best intentions, of which, at one time, there used to be plenty, have not come good. Poor Rosie! For her whole adult life she has teetered between potentialities and their realization. When she left university in her early twenties, nobody doubted that Rosemary Breeze would feast on life’s dangling fruit. With the long reach which her brains and her beauty afforded her, success and happiness would be easy pickings. But it just never happened. Her first scheme was to go abroad for a year, but that did not really come off because the waitressing job she took to raise the money did not pay well enough. All that her year of travel added up to was three weeks in Spain and six months at the Rockport Pizza Hut. Returning from Spain all brown and skinny and raring to go, her red hair streaked with yellow, it was I’m going to be a teacher. When, during the year of professional training, she discovered that the work disagreed with her, she took a temporary job, again as a waitress. It was around this time, when she was twenty-three, that Steve made his appearance. He was temporary, too, according to Rosie. A plaything for the summer, nothing more. I’m going to have some fun for a while, she said defensively. It isn’t for ever. (Temporary: who can blame her for wanting temporary? Who wants finality?) Soon afterwards, Rosie fell out with her flatmate and, as an interim measure, moved in to Steve’s place in that tower block. For a year or two Pa and I hardly saw her. During this time the waitressing job ended – we were never told how or why – and for a long time, for over a year, Rosie did not go back to work. When asked by Pa about getting a job, any job, out it came, I’m going to, the phrase used for the first time by way of postponement and not anticipation. Then Pa bought the flat. ‘A fresh start,’ he said. Shortly after, Rosie joined the airline: I’m just going to do this while I look for something else. A stopgap, that was the thinking. Wishful thinking, because Rosie has not, so far as I am aware, got round to job-hunting. It is not surprising. Five years ago, yes, you could understand her ambition and believe in it. But since that time – this is a terrible thing to say, but it is true – Rosie has gone into a decline. Her nerves, her stamina, her sociability, even her intelligence: they are not what they were. So much so that, far from quitting her job, Rosie will do well to hold on to it. At twenty-eight, she is still teetering, except now it is no longer on the rim of success, but on a brink. My sister is toeing a sheer drop.
Pa can’t bear it. ‘Why did she do it, Johnny?’ he asked. (This was yesterday, on our way back from the hospital.) ‘Why did she do it?’ He turned the car around a corner.
I didn’t have the strength to say anything. Seeing Merv had wiped me out.
Pa said, ‘It’s a crime. It’s a crime when you’ve hair that long and beautiful to just chop it all off.’ He took a right. ‘Where will it end?’
‘He’s seeing another woman,’ Rosie says. She cries out, ‘The shit! The shit!’
‘Come on, Rosie,’ I say, ‘don’t get all worked up. You know that’s not true. Steve would never do anything like that.’
‘You don’t know him,’ Rosie says. She sniffs. ‘And I’ve been so horrible to him,’ she says with a trembling voice.
I automatically begin to take issue with her, in order to comfort her, but then I stop. She has been horrible to Steve.
Rosie starts crying. ‘My hair,’ she says. ‘That’s what did it. My hair.’
I feel awful for her. ‘Rosie,’ I say.
Rosie’s hair. Here is the terrible truth about it: not that cutting it was vandalism, but that it was not. The fact is, Rosie was beginning to look a little absurd with that girlish, overlong fleece.
‘Johnny,’ she says, ‘what am I going to do?’
There is nothing Rosie can do. ‘Just wait,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be back.’ There is a pause. ‘Just be nice to him when he gets back, all right?’
There is a desperate silence.
‘Rosie?’
‘He’s seeing someone else,’ she says finally. ‘I know he is. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I lose him,’ she says. She hangs up.
I’m very tired and I have to sit down. I fish out a crooked cigarette from its packet. Angela, I think.
Then I think, Losing Steve: is it possible? Mislaying Mr Stay-Put himself? I suppose if anybody could manage it, it is Rosie. She could squander just about anything. Her beauty, for example. Her marvellous idiosyncratic looks are leaving her, moving on to settle down on other faces. When I see the sparkle of my sister’s blue-green eyes, it is not in her face but in the girl’s at the supermarket check-out; her smooth cheekbones now belong to the woman at the travel agency; and now the redhead turning heads in the street is somebody else. Of course, nobody keeps their looks for ever, but Rosie seems to be discarding hers, trashing them before their time in the way that, in her cleaning frenzies, she throws away half-full cartons of milk and newly opened jam-jars. Her hair needed to be cut, yes, but not savaged like that. She smokes, she cakes her face every morning in a thick muck of make-up, she constantly eats junk food, she takes no exercise. Of course, there would be nothing wrong with all of this self-neglect if it did not bother her. But it does. She inspects herself in the morning and says, ‘Wrinkles. More wrinkles every day.’ And it’s true, there they are, fanning out from the edges of her oval eyes at the slightest move of her face. Her voice grows hoarse. ‘One year. I’ve got one more year. Then that’ll be it. It’ll be over. And look at these open pores,’ she wails, pointing at microscopic apertures under her eyes. ‘Look at them. They’re everywhere. I’ve got a face like a dartboard!’ She laughs at the simile – we all laugh, because it’s a good one – and then begins to weep. I would like to hug her tightly at this point, to take her in my arms and secure her with a brother’s love.
And then there is Pa. With her constant unkindness to him, Rosie is doing her best to lose him, too. Of course, that could never happen. Pa’s love is unlosable. Pa still believes in his daughter no matter what, believes that, like Steve, she has inner resources. ‘She doesn’t mean it,’ he tells me after she has hurt him again with some remark. ‘She has a heart of gold,’ he says, and I stupidly imagine a lump of that soft metal implanted in my sister’s breast.
A heart of gold: I suppose it’s no surprise that Pa should resort to platitudes like this. That’s how he often deals with difficulties, by grasping on to tried and tested sayings as though they were the warm rungs of wisdom’s ladder. Right now, I’ll bet, he is lying in bed and telling himself that it is darkest before the dawn and that all clouds have silver linings. He is saying to himself that although, one, his best friend is in intensive care; two, his job is at risk; three, his children are sources of fear and anxiety; four, he has been attacked by a strange man and by a dog; five, his refereeing hobby is a humiliation; six, his pet is missing; seven, his house has been broken into and the precious photographs of his late wife, herself robbed from him, have been stolen, although all of these things are true, at least he and his children are healthy, at least his house is intact – things could be worse, Pa is saying to himself.
Now this relativism may be true (although, in fact, things are worse: Pa still does not know about the imminent collapse of my exhibition, does he?), but surely even Pa knows that it is also crap. Everybody knows that.
Pa’s fondness for adages has spilled over into his work. Prompted by the arrival of Paddy Browne, the Network whizz-kid, he has taken to reading executive success books, in particular the How To books written by a management guru called Mark Q. Fincham: The How To of Negotiation, The How To of Team Play and The How To of Making Contacts. Every chapter in a Mark Q. Fincham book begins with a pithy ep
igraph in glittering italics and it is these, rather than the body of the work, which really impress my father. ‘How about this,’ he says. ‘Build your adversary a golden bridge to retreat across. Sun Tzu.’ He leafs through some more pages. ‘In the long run, men only hit what they aim at. Henry David Thoreau.’ He is full of admiration. ‘You should read this, John. There’s some great stuff here. Nobody shoulders a rifle in defence of a boarding house. Bret Harte. Now that’s smart.’ He reads on. ‘Success as an executive requires the presence of many qualities – whereas failure will proceed from the absence of merely one of them.’ Pa hesitates over this one. He starts to say something but then stops. Then he says defensively, ‘Dr Robert N. McMurry. Who the hell is he, anyway?’
His favourite business Bible is Fincham’s What They Don’t Teach You at Rockport Business School, because Paddy Browne went to Rockport Business School and Pa figures that reading this book will give him some kind of edge over the man. Following Fincham’s recommendation, he carries around in his wallet the special takeaway cards that come with the books, cards which boil the techniques of business down to their mysterious essence. DIAGNOSIS, one card reads. NON-POSTPONEMENT, reads another one. INPUT? THROUGHPUT? OUTPUT? asks another. And my favourite: INEVITABLE PROBLEMS – QUICK RESPONSE. It’s the dash I love – that immediate, right-on-top-of-the-problem dash.
Answer me this: Merv’s accident – what is the quick response to that?
11
Merv is being treated in a hospital just outside Rockport city. It is an isolated, dark-bricked, turreted old building and for panoramic reasons, one supposes, its founders located it right on the precipice that overshadows the Rockport yacht haven, giving the place the bleak, looming air of a Central European schloss. We approached it by a narrow road that ran alongside the edge of the cliff. Below, to our right, was the city in its basin and, to our left, on the exposed flatland in front of the hospital, stood a wind farm, the propellers planted in the arid earth in parallel rows, blades spinning sweetly in the plentiful sea wind.
We arrived just after three o’clock. There was a moment of quiet after the car stopped. An ambulance drew up to the hospital entrance, its roof light turning orange again and again. Neither of us felt like moving.
Pa tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing. I looked: way below, a train, slithering carefully through gardens and allotments into North Rockport Station. Pa checked his watch. ‘Bang on time,’ he said.
We got out of the car and walked into the reception area and Pa asked about seeing Mr Mervyn Rasmussen in intensive care. First floor, take a right, take a left, go down to the bottom of the corridor, the receptionist said, then wait in the waiting-room.
‘Hold on a moment,’ Pa said, just as we were about to set off. He dashed outside and came back moments later with a bouquet of daffodils and a get-well card with a joke. It could be worse, the front of the card said. I looked inside it for the punchline: I could be ill and you could be listening to me complaining!
BEST WISHES FOR A SPEEDY RECOVERY, MERV, Pa wrote. WITH BEST WISHES FROM THE BREEZES. He signed his name and Rosie’s, and then I signed. ‘OK,’ he said worriedly. ‘I suppose we’d better get going.’
We walked without speaking. We turned one corner, then another. Finally, after what seemed like half an hour going down a long corridor, we reached the intensive care waiting-room. It felt like an airport lounge full of delayed passengers. The atmosphere was one of exhaustion and camaraderie and domestic informality, the visitors unkempt, walking around in socks, eating snacks, dipping into bags for belongings. A television was on in the corner. There was a low hum of conversation.
Pa said, ‘There she is. That’s Mrs Rasmussen – Amy. And that’s Merv’s boy,’ he whispered. ‘He’s called Billy.’ We approached them. ‘Amy,’ Pa said. He gave her a big hug while Billy and I stood awkwardly by.
‘Billy,’ Mrs Rasmussen said, ‘you remember Mr Breeze?’ Pa and Billy shook hands. ‘And you must be John,’ Mrs Rasmussen said. We shook hands. Then, after a moment of hesitation, Billy Rasmussen and I shook hands, too. Billy was a big-shouldered, brown-skinned man of about my age. His hands were enormous. He kept half grinning, as if there were something comical about the situation.
Mrs Rasmussen was a tiny Oriental woman of around fifty, a Filipino by origin, I guessed. She was wearing a pyjama suit and slippers and obviously had been camping out in the waiting-room since the accident. I could see a sleeping-bag and a small suitcase under her chair.
‘How is he, Amy?’ Pa said.
Mrs Rasmussen shrugged. ‘Not good, Gene.’
Pa went quiet for a moment. He made to hold up the daffodils, but then he lowered them again.
Mrs Rasmussen said kindly, ‘You don’t have to see him, you know. You can leave the flowers with me, if you like.’
Pa moved a little.
‘Would you like to see him?’ Mrs Rasmussen said. She looked at me.
Pa said. ‘Only if it’s OK, Amy. We don’t want to disturb him.’
Mrs Rasmussen smiled. Her tiredness showed. ‘Of course it’s all right. You’re his best friend.’ Then she smiled at me, as if I, too, were a best friend of Merv.
A nurse nodded his approval to Mrs Rasmussen and we followed her through one door and then through another, her slippers slapping against her heels. She pointed through a third transparent door. ‘He’s in there,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait here,’ she said.
Looking uncertainly through the door-glass, Pa went in. Not wanting to wait outside with Mrs Rasmussen, I followed him.
Almost immediately I broke out into a sweat. The ward was fervid as a jungle. On the bed in front of us a fat, bright red naked body, the skin lacquered with cream, lay wrapped in transparent plastic sheeting. That was not Merv. Merv was a pale, skinny man. We had no business with this fat man. We quickly walked past to the second bed, the one behind the screen.
Pa and I looked at each other. The bed was empty.
Pa undid his collar and took off his coat. He said with a weak smile, ‘Boy, I tell you, I could grow some plants in here, that’s for sure.’
I said, pointing back towards the first bed, ‘That … That isn’t him, is it?’
Pa fanned his face with the greeting-card and looked at me anxiously.
We went back. Pa slowly approached the unconscious patient and leaned over him.
‘Well?’ I said, after a moment.
‘I … I’m not sure.’
I was. That was not Merv. Merv was spindly. This poor guy was shaped like the blow-up Michelin man, all puffy and creased. His face was round as a football and his eyes were slits, whereas Merv had a thin face and big eyes; and although it was hard to be sure, because he was lying on his bed, I saw no sign of a hump. Besides, I had an idea about what we were looking for: a man with the appearance of a physics experiment, encased in bandages and plaster, with his arms and legs suspended by weights and pulleys from the ceiling.
Then Pa said, ‘It’s Merv. He’s been burned.’
I moved forward.
Jesus. It was him, ballooned and roasted. A tube had been inserted into his mouth and pushed down his throat: a ventilator. Shit. Merv could not even breathe.
I kept sweating. My God, it was boiling.
I turned my eyes to the machine and monitors stacked like a hi-fi next to his bed. Merv was plugged into everything. One machine was fixed to a drip under his collarbone, another to a drip on the top of his foot – the only part of him not burned, it seemed – and another to three stickers attached to his chest and legs. Nothing was stuck to Merv’s arms. They were too badly injured. One of the machines bore a screen with a pattern of dense, spiky peaks: his heart, I guessed. In spite of everything, that pump still kept pushing up those electrical mountains.
Pa gestured at the instruments with his bouquet. ‘Just look at all these things,’ he said. ‘Science …You’d think it would be impossible for a man to die these days.’ He wiped his brow with his handkerchief. ‘Why
is it so hot in here?’ he said in bewilderment.
We turned around. Billy had come in.
He had heard Pa’s question. ‘It’s because he’s losing a lot of heat. They have to keep him warm and humid.’ Billy touched one of the machines. ‘The CVP,’ he said expertly. ‘To keep the bodily fluids balanced. It’s very difficult with burn victims. You see, the fluid’s in the tissues, not the bloodstream,’ he said.
Pa and I stood there nodding gravely, trying to absorb this information. Billy grinned again. He pointed a thumb at his father. ‘He’d make a nice meal, wouldn’t he? Nicely basted,’ Billy said, with reference to the ointment smeared over the slick, bloated stomach. He laughed. ‘Actually, on second thoughts, he’s a bit too microwaved for my liking.’ He laughed again.
Was he out of his mind?
Pa’s bouquet crackled. He glanced uneasily at his friend, lying there in his wrapping. I looked too and noticed, with a shock, that clear yellow droplets were oozing from his skin like sap from a tree. What the hell were those droplets doing there?
Pa said, ‘How’s the swimming coming along, Billy?’ Pa looked at me. ‘Billy’s a swimming champion, John. The butterfly, that’s right, isn’t it, Billy?’
Billy said, ‘I’m too old now, Mr Breeze.’ Demonstrating, he suddenly swung his arms over his shoulders in a violent stroke, his hands taking fruitless scoops of the hot air. ‘Too slow,’ he said cheerfully.
The Breezes Page 10