Left and Leaving

by Jo Verity

  ‘Hey, I’ll be over soon,’ he said.

  Either Chris hadn’t heard or wasn’t interested because all he said was, ‘Here’s Adam.’

  Gil went through a similar exchange with his other son, this one involving an element of bike talk. The boys were non-identical twins and bore little physical resemblance to each other, but they had – or had cultivated – the same nihilistic take on life.

  ‘Is Polly there?’

  ‘Yeah. Uhhhh. No. She and Mum had a row. She went off in her car.’

  ‘A row?’

  ‘Yeah. Mum wouldn’t let her have a drink. Because of the baby. This baby thing is freaking me—’

  ‘But she didn’t have a drink?’

  ‘Daaad. She’s thick but she’s not that thick.’ He laughed as though he’d said something clever.

  ‘Is Mum there?’ Gil said.

  ‘No. She’s gone after her.’

  ‘Right.’ Right. ‘Could you let them know I called?’

  ‘Sure. Look, I’ve gotta go, Dad. There’s another call coming in. Oh, Merry Christmas and all that stuff.’

  Vivian had pushed the pillows away from her, wedging them against the headboard. She was deep in sleep, spreadeagled on her front in the centre of the bed and, reluctant to wake her, he went looking for somewhere else to sleep. The neighbouring room contained, amongst other things, dining chairs, a stack of cardboard boxes, a filing cabinet and a rolled rug. The junk room. He tried the next one and found a single bed.

  The bed was comfortable and he was bushed but, when he closed his eyes, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop Polly’s car spinning off the road.

  29

  Gil woke to find Vivian standing next to the bed holding two mugs.

  ‘Did I drive you out with my snoring?’ she said.

  He heaved himself up. ‘You were sleeping when I came up. I didn’t want to wake you. What’s the time?’

  ‘Eight o’clock,’ she said. ‘Coffee?’

  She sat on the end of the bed. He must be looking pretty crumpled and he was glad that she hadn’t switched on the light.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ she said.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Vivian.’

  ‘You spoke to your family? Were they pleased to hear from you?’

  He’d given her the expurgated version of his family circumstances. Now might be the time to fill her in on how it really was. But on Christmas Day? Maybe not such a great idea.

  ‘Yes. Thanks,’ he said. ‘I must give you something for the calls.’

  Over breakfast they made a plan, deciding to cook their meal in the evening. Vivian was doing her best to be upbeat, but he could see that she was dreading visiting her father.

  ‘We could call in this morning. Check how he’s doing,’ he said. ‘If we don’t want to traipse back here, there’s sure to be somewhere we can get a bite of lunch.’ (For Gil one of the wonders of living in a multi-cultural city was the availability of anything at any time.) ‘Then we could go back and spend a bit more time with him.’

  ‘Or we could stay here.’ She sighed and shook her head, as if to dislodge temptation. ‘Let’s leave at eleven.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  She held out her hand. ‘Shall we go back to bed?’

  Her invitation took him by surprise and he felt himself harden as he followed her upstairs.

  She was tense and tentative. Apologetic. Her timidity seemed to rub off on him and what should have been a Christmas gift turned into an unsatisfactory fumble.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I rushed it.’

  ‘No. It’s me. I can’t seem to…’

  He wondered why she’d suggested they come back to bed. He hated to think that she felt she owed it to him. That he expected it. Most of her difficulty stemmed, he was sure, from too much thinking. But trying to convince her with words would only add to the tangle of thoughts that constrained her. And assuring her it would be better next time – well, that would be patronising. He held her close, regretting that he couldn’t simply flick a switch that would allow her to let go.

  It was quiet there in the bedroom. Quiet and still. No ticking clock or drone of a plane, only the sound of her breathing. She felt suddenly heavier in his arms. He couldn’t see her face but he guessed she’d fallen asleep. Her head must be pressing on a nerve in his shoulder because his hand was starting to tingle. But he didn’t move.

  Her father was sitting up in bed, connected to an array of monitors, staring towards the window, which was obscured by vertical blinds. He paid no attention to them as they washed their hands, only acknowledging them when the stood at the bottom of his bed.

  ‘Good,’ he said to Vivian. ‘You’re here.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Dad. You’re looking better.’

  He nodded towards Gil. ‘You’ve brought him.’

  Gil held out his hand. ‘Hello again, Mr Carey. How are you doing?’

  The old man frowned. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘It’s Gil, Dad,’ Vivian said. ‘He brought you the copy of Sherlock Holmes. Remember?’

  Ignoring her question, he said ‘Has he got the van? Can he bring it round under the window?’

  Vivian was staring at her father, silenced by his rambling.

  Often in his job, Gil had to deal with confused people – old and young – and he’d learned that the best strategy was to take the lead from them and go cautiously with the flow.

  ‘The van’s off the road, Mr Carey,’ he said. ‘Carburettor trouble.’

  The old man frowned and raised the bed covers, peering at whatever was – or whatever he imagined was – beneath them. ‘I’ve got to get this stuff out.’ He turned back to Vivian. ‘Did you bring my clothes? I need to go home.’

  She glanced at Gil and he winked, encouraging her to go along with the Alice in Wonderland conversation.

  ‘They’d like you to stay a bit longer, Dad,’ she said. ‘Besides, you haven’t had lunch yet. They do a very nice lunch here.’

  He pointed towards the carrier bag in her hand. ‘Are those my clothes?’

  ‘No. They’re presents. For you. It’s Christmas Day.’

  She took several gift-wrapped parcels out of the bag and handed them to the old man who tore them open, tossing the contents on the bed without seeming to register what they were.

  ‘Toiletries,’ she said. ‘Not very exciting, but always useful. And the scarf’s a cheery colour, don’t you think?’

  The old man inspected the scarf. ‘Red. Roses are red. Blood is red. Tomatoes are red.’ He raised his finger. ‘And books are read, too.’

  ‘That’s a good one,’ Vivian said. She seemed to be getting the hang of it now.

  Gil pulled his ID tag from his pocket and looped it around his neck. ‘I’ll nab someone. See if I can find out what’s going on. Won’t be long.’

  ‘I’d understand if he were delirious,’ Vivian said. ‘But he’s so calm.’

  ‘Infections cause all sorts of symptoms,’ Gil said.

  ‘So everyone keeps telling me.’

  They were sitting on the wall that surrounded the visitor car park, drinking foul coffee from the vending machine in the foyer.

  Despite his ID tag and charm offensive, he hadn’t established much. Bloods, urine and swabs had gone off for testing. He guessed that, having isolated the old man, the urgency had gone out of their investigations. It was Christmas, after all, and the staff had enough on their hands. The labs would be closed for days to anything but emergencies. Old man. Bit befuddled. Hardly priority.

  ‘If the wound’s infected, wouldn’t it be obvious?’ she said.

  ‘It may not be the wound. It could be a urinary infection. They’re very common.’

  Gil’s stint at UCH had been akin to a medical apprenticeship, albeit a haphazard one. He’d photographed an assortment of bizarre and banal conditions and, listening to the top guys explaining things to patients and students, he’d picked up a fair knowledge. Were he a gambling man, he’d bet a f
iver that the medics were looking for a super-bug. If this turned out to be the problem, the prospects weren’t great for Philip Carey.

  ‘What d’you want to do now?’ he said.

  She grimaced. ‘Fast forward six months.’

  He thumbed an imaginary remote control and shook his head. ‘Batteries are flat. How about we look for something to eat?’

  They headed towards Tooting Broadway. It was as if a curfew had been imposed and only a few defiant souls had dared venture out. Without the usual bustle, dilapidation and graffiti were what caught the eye, and the area looked depressing and a little menacing. As they passed one shuttered shop window after another, Gil wondered if he’d been optimistic in thinking that they would find somewhere to eat. They’d all but given up, when they came to a pub that was open for business. The Star was on the rough and ready side and it appeared that all the misfits in the Borough of Wandsworth had been lured by its beery fug. He recalled last year and his two-day pub crawl around Kentish Town with Andy. They’d been like the blokes he saw around him in this bar, doing their level best to eradicate Christmas and all its attendant baggage. But it was a relief to be out of the cold and comforting to be somewhere dingy and insanitary after the bland hospital environment.

  The only warm food on offer was, according to the chalk board, ‘Christmas in a bun’ which the barman explained was turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce in a bap.

  Vivian wrinkled her nose but Gil persuaded her to chance it and they ordered one each, and half pints of beer to wash them down.

  ‘About this morning…’ Vivian dipped her head.

  ‘No worries,’ he said.

  He waited, giving her time to say more. When it was clear that she wasn’t going to, he reached out, wiping a non-existent trace of cranberry sauce from the corner of her mouth, suddenly wanting to connect with her in an intimacy that had nothing to do with sex.

  ‘Shall we go back?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want to but I suppose we should.’

  When they arrived, two nurses were fussing around the old man, checking the equipment and tidying his bedclothes. He was awake, staring at the ceiling.

  ‘Did you have a good lunch, Dad?’ Vivian said.

  He smiled but said nothing.

  The younger nurse tutted then, speaking loudly and slowly, she said: ‘Come along, Philip. Tell your visitors. Did you eat all your dinner?’

  Gil reached for Vivian’s hand. She was going to find this whole hospital scenario harder to handle than most.

  *

  They made their way back to the house. More people were around, more traffic on the move. Dog walkers. Kids wobbling along on oversized bikes. Teenagers escaping. Grandparents (or parents – not always easy to tell) pushing strollers. The citizens of SW17 had been allowed out after the Christmas morning lockdown.

  They passed a woman whose wild, dark hair made him think of Feray. She and the children would be with her parents, somewhere out near the North Circular. He hoped they were having a good time and that, if she weren’t able to forgive him, at least she could forget him for the day. After Christmas, he must try and patch things up with her. He hadn’t planned to go through life hurting people and letting them down. His mother. His wife. His children. A string of lovers – although they probably had expected no better from him. Now Feray had joined the list.

  Vivian had stopped to read a ‘Lost Cat’ notice stapled to a plane tree.

  ‘Some crazy woman’s offering two hundred pounds for information,’ she said.

  He waited for her to catch him up.

  ‘It’s not even a pretty cat,’ she said.

  ‘But it’s her cat,’ he said. ‘It could be her only reason to get up in the morning. The thing that keeps her going.’

  ‘A cat? Oh, come on.’

  ‘Think about it’, he said. ‘She has a run of bad luck. Her family moves to…I dunno…Timbuktu. Her friends let her down…’

  ‘So she gets a cat?’ she said.

  ‘We deal with things the best way we can,’ he said. ‘And getting a cat beats getting religion, don’t you agree?’

  They turned into Farleigh Road and spotted another notice fixed to a fence. Gil studied the image of the timid-looking animal – predominantly white with a smatter of tabby smudges. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty ugly.’

  ‘If I’m ever reduced to getting a cat,’ Vivian said, ‘it’ll be a chocolate-brown tom. With turquoise eyes. And whiskers this long.’ She held the palms of her hands six inches apart.

  Vivian had never imagined that this house could become a safe haven. Yet, as she and Gil prepared their meal, the tension gripping her shoulders eased.

  Her aversion to the hospital had developed into loathing. The smell, the heat, the faulty lifts; the makeshift signs and pathetic Christmas decorations; the confrontations and unanswered questions; the lack of privacy, the bewildered visitors, the elusive staff. All those sick people. It was too much.

  She’d never had to confront the kind of degeneration that was gaining hold of her father. Death, when it swooped in and took her mother, had been instant and immutable. Vivian had been called on to do nothing but survive. It had been cataclysmic yet somehow honest by comparison with her father’s degrading – and probably futile – ordeal. Were his hip to mend and he regain his senses, the best he could look forward to was a limited and dependent life. Dependent – that menacing word again.

  Gil touched her arm. ‘Penny for ’em.’

  She shook her head. ‘Let’s eat in the dining room.’

  They set the table with a white linen cloth, which she found in the sideboard drawer along with her mother’s favourite bone-handled cutlery. After they’d added candles and a sprig or two of holly, the austere little room felt surprisingly festive.

  They opened the wine and a jar of olives and pottered in the kitchen, the aroma of roasting chicken intensifying as they discussed the best way of achieving crisp roast potatoes and whether the carrots should be cut into discs or batons. By the time they’d finished, every surface was strewn with the aftermath of food preparation.

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve made such a mess,’ she said.

  ‘Cooking’s like making love,’ he said. ‘If you’re not making a mess, you’re doing something wrong.’

  Her cheeks were warm from alcohol and cooking, but she felt them flush further.

  Last night she’d left him downstairs, making his calls, and she’d lain in the dark, waiting for him. The last thing she recalled was his voice murmuring up from the hall and, when she’d woken this morning, she’d found herself alone in her father’s bed, wondering why he wasn’t beside her. He explained that he hadn’t wanted to wake her. This was perfectly reasonable but not the way she’d anticipated their Christmas Day starting. After breakfast, she’d attempted to reclaim him but the spectre of her father (they were in his room and in his bed) had paralysed her into failure.

  She hadn’t realised how hungry she was and she’d forgotten how delicious home-cooked food could be. More often than not, she and Nick had eaten out or picked up something for the microwave. They’d rarely cooked together. In fact, it was hard to remember what they had done together.

  When they’d finished eating they decamped to the sitting room and pulled the sofa close to the fire.

  ‘Let’s do presents,’ she said.

  They placed their parcels side by side on the hearthrug. They’d both chosen green wrapping paper – his to her, metallic and tied with silver string; hers to him, dark green, dotted with cotton wool snowflakes.

  ‘Have you ever opened a present that lived up to expectations?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A fountain pen. From my mother. I still use it.’

  For her thirteenth birthday, she’d asked for a fountain pen, one with a refillable reservoir. She already owned several ‘cartridge’ pens whose scratchy nibs dug into the paper and whose narrow bodies were difficult to hold. She’d explained this to her mo
ther but when she saw the small parcel sitting next to her breakfast plate she’d been frightened to open it in case it was the wrong one. She needn’t have worried. Inside the sleek snapping-jawed presentation box lay a Pelikan Classic 200. Marbled grey with a gold nib that flexed with the pressure of writing. Fat enough to sit comfortably between her fingers. When she’d gone into W H Smiths to buy a pot of black ink she’d checked the price, guessing that her mother had concealed the cost of it from her father.

  Gil handed her his parcel. ‘Quick. Open it before I chicken out.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘A small thing but mine own. Merry Christmas, Vivian.

  From its size and heft, she guessed it was a book. She was right. The corners of its cream linen cover were battered – one appeared to have been chewed – and the front was stained with a coffee-coloured circle. The title running down the spine read A DREAM TOO FAR by Elspeth McKendrick.

  She must have looked puzzled because he reached across and flicked back the cover. Inscribed in the top corner of the flyleaf in precise, rounded handwriting was ‘Helen Thomas. Christmas 1958.’ Then, below it, in the same handwriting but this time larger and more confident-looking, ‘To Gillon – may God keep you safe. Ever your loving Mother. June 2005.’

  ‘I was going to be “Peter” after my granddad until she read that,’ he said. ‘She had a tough labour by all accounts so when she came up with Gillon, Dad didn’t have the heart to argue with her.’

  Vivian riffled through the yellowed pages, pausing now and again to scan the text. ‘Gillon. There it is. Gillon. And here. Gillon.’

  ‘Mum gave it to me when I left,’ he said.

  She ran her hand across the cover of this book, which had been in the world longer than he had. ‘I love it. But I can’t accept it. It should go to your daughter.’

  He laughed. ‘She’d lob it straight in the garbage can.’

  She lifted it to her nose and caught the unmistakable scent of old book. ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘I gave up after ten pages. It’s drivel.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d feel the same about you if you were a Peter.’

  ‘That settles it. It’s yours.’