by Jo Verity
‘That was perfect,’ Vivian said.
They were on the train back to Victoria. Vivian was sipping hot chocolate from a cardboard cup. The salt wind had tangled her hair and raised the colour in her cheeks and she looked younger, less composed, than usual. For the umpteenth time, he marvelled that he was the man she had chosen to be with.
A crumpled copy of yesterday’s Metro protruded from the pouch on the back of the seat in front and he fished it out. It featured a list of New Year resolutions made by ‘celebrities’.
‘Good to know that Rihanna intends to see more of her mom and grandparents this year,’ he said. ‘And, hallelujah, Heidi Klum – Heidi Klum? – is going to be good to the people around her.’
‘Have you made a resolution?’ Vivian said.
‘No. But maybe I ought to.’
‘What would it be?’ she said.
‘I should probably try not to piss so many people off this year.’
Dribbles of condensation running down the windows. A child singing ‘Bob the Builder’. Vivian’s lip pressed to the non-spill cover of the cup.
‘I hoped Irene had gone away,’ he said, ‘but I may have been overly optimistic.’
Vivian half-turned to face him. ‘What’s happened?’
He wished he didn’t have to tell her, but it would surely come out before long. Best she hear it now, from him, in case Irene decided to drag her into it.
‘She’s written to the hospital,’ he said. ‘She claims I made “inappropriate remarks”. That I wasn’t to be trusted with female patients.’
Kevin had relayed this information yesterday. ‘Don’t worry mate. We’ll sort it out,’ he’d said, ‘I told them straight out she’s a nutcase.’
From day one, Gil had kept his boss abreast of Irene’s attentions. Kevin was fully aware that she’d been pestering him and Vivian since the night of the explosion. Gil was sure he was in the clear. For starters, he wasn’t permitted to photograph patients without there being a ‘chaperone’ present – a nurse or a medical student. Nevertheless, it wasn’t nice knowing that she was out to get him.
‘What?’ Vivian said. ‘How can she say that? She isn’t even a patient at UCH. You’ve never photographed her. They must know she’s lying.’
‘She was treated there on the night of the bombing. If they check, her name will come up on the database.’
‘But all she needed was a couple of sticking plasters,’ Vivian said.
‘That’s true. And, once they’ve established the facts, they’ll dismiss her accusation. But you know how it is. There are procedures to be gone through. It may take a while.’
‘It’s my fault,’ she said.
‘How d’you work that out?’
‘If I hadn’t waited with her—’
‘You would have gone straight home,’ he said, ‘and I would have gone straight home, and we wouldn’t be sitting on this train together.’
Richard was waiting in the hospital foyer.
‘Good of you to come,’ he said as though this were her first visit. ‘They’re looking after him very well.’
‘Oh? What makes you say that?’ she said.
Clearly he hadn’t expected to be asked to validate his statement and he smiled nervously. ‘Well. They make sure he’s comfortable. Check him frequently. The sheets get changed every day.’
‘Really? Gosh, I hadn’t spotted that.’
Richard Carey wasn’t a bad man but he’d somehow become her adversary in some kind of battle over their father. He probably didn’t want to win the contest any more than she did but, once engaged, it seemed that neither could back down.
Their father’s room was quiet after the bustle of the ward. The lamp attached to the back of his bed was dimmed as though bright light might damage him. He was sleeping, the trace on the monitor the only proof that he was alive.
‘I don’t suppose his results are back,’ she said.
‘As a matter of fact they are,’ he said. ‘It’s MRSA.’
‘Oh,’ she said, annoyed that he hadn’t told her right away.
He must have read her thoughts because he said ‘I didn’t want to ruin your day with bad news. Apparently the infection’s deep in the wound.’
‘Right. So what happens next?’
‘They’re talking about operating again. Apparently the MRSA bacteria gather around “foreign bodies” – in this case, the replacement hip. They want to take it out, flush the area with antibiotics, then put in a new joint. It’s called “washing out”, I believe.’
‘That’s revolting,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘No choice, I’m afraid.’
‘There’s always a choice.’
He shot her a glance and she realised he thought she was suggesting they leave the man to die.
‘I mean, can’t they inject something into the joint?’ she said. ‘Does he have to go through it all again?’
‘That was my first question.’ He nodded towards the drip. ‘Intravenous antibiotics – which amounts to the same thing – would have worked by now if they were going to.
‘But can he take another anaesthetic?’ she said.
‘It’s a risk.’ He paused. ‘Actually, there is another option.’
‘What?’
‘They could take out the joint and…not replace it. It would offer a better chance of eliminating the infection.’
She absorbed the information, trying to block an image of her mother, boning a leg of lamb ready for stuffing, the ball-joint coming away from the raw, fatty meat.
‘But how would he—’
‘He wouldn’t. He’d be confined to bed.’
They stood, silently watching the prone figure. This old man’s fate lies with us, she thought.
Their father chose that moment to rouse himself and start pushing at the sheets as if preparing to get out of bed. The cot-sides were raised to prevent his tumbling out but they also gave him something to grab onto and he summoned enough strength to pull himself up to sitting. Still with his eyes closed, he shouted ‘Heaven. Heaven. Heaven.’
Vivian was astounded yet filled with delight. She wanted to cheer. They’d written him off but here he was, refusing to surrender, sounding like a hellfire-and-damnation evangelist.
‘Christ,’ Richard said.
Vivian barely managed to stop herself laughing at his reaction.
‘Can you help me?’ he said, prising the old man’s hand off the rail. ‘He needs to be lying down.’
‘Why?’ she said. ‘Look. He’s awake. That’s good, isn’t it?’ She turned to her father who had opened his eyes and was peering crossly at them. ‘Hello, Dad. Happy New Year.’
He looked startled and started scrabbling at the covers again.
‘I’ll get someone,’ Richard said and disappeared from the room.
Alone with her father, she willed him to spit out a scathing remark about Richard, or wink to let her in on whatever game he was playing.
‘Dad,’ she said. ‘It’s Vivian.’
‘Vivian.’ He pronounced it slowly and without inflection, as if it were a made-up word.
‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘Last time I was here, you started telling me something important.’
He shook his head.
‘Yes, you did’ she said. ‘You kept saying “we should have…” Come on. Please try.’
He’d stopped his restless movement and was leaning back against the pillows. She laid her hand on his arm. His skin was translucent and a livid bruise spilled across his wrist from beneath the binding that secured the business end of a syringe to the back of his hand. She opened the locker and saw that Richard had, as instructed, brought in a tube of moisturising cream. Squeezing a blob onto her palm, she massaged it gently into the paper-thin skin. He let out a sigh and she felt him relax.
‘It’s okay, Dad,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
33
New Year had fallen on a weekend and therefore Monday was designated a holiday. Richard was travelling back to Scotland b
y train and he and Vivian met in Starbucks at Kings Cross.
‘Sorry to abandon you,’ he said. ‘I’ll be down again as soon as I can. Did I mention that John’s coming over? Probably next week.’
Vivian had almost forgotten John. A second patronising half-brother on the scene was a disquieting prospect.
‘D’you think Dad’ll make it?’ she said.
‘We just have to hope for the best,’ he said.
‘Best for whom?’
Vivian had decided she neither liked nor trusted this man and she enjoyed watching the shadow of discomfort cross his face.
‘Did you get any sense out of him?’ she said.
‘Not really. He was away with the fairies most of the time.’
They discussed a few practicalities. Quarterly bills would soon start turning up and they agreed that, for the time being at least, she should settle these and he and John would reimburse her.
‘I can’t imagine why he hasn’t set up direct debits,’ he said.
She’d had this out with her father and been exasperated by his unwillingness to trust British Gas, npower, the TV licence people, Thames Water, and pretty much the rest of the world, all of whom he was convinced were out to fleece him. All the same, she stood up for him.
‘Checking bills, going to the bank, things like that make him feel he’s in control. And it gives him something to do. It’s worked fine until now.’
‘Well that will have to change,’ he said, slamming his palm down on the table.
They talked about work and, when they’d exhausted that, moved on to Richard’s daughter and family who lived in Glasgow. Their lives sounded successful and well ordered, but they were of no interest to Vivian and she was thankful when an echoey announcement interrupted the conversation.
‘That’s my train,’ he said. They hugged awkwardly. ‘Oh, I’ve had the hospital add my name to yours as next of kin,’ he said. ‘I hope that’s okay with you.’
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ she said.
He squeezed her hand, insinuating that they were in something together. But they weren’t. He was scurrying back to Scotland whilst she was left here, on permanent duty.
Kings Cross was no distance from the Elephant House and Vivian contemplated putting in a couple of hours on the Cologne job, but her conversation with Richard had stirred unsettling thoughts and she doubted whether she would be able to concentrate. It was still bitterly cold but the wind had dropped. The sun – the first London had seen for weeks – was casting a watery glow across the sky and, needing to think things through, she set off to walk the three miles home.
Why on earth had Richard chosen to stay at Farleigh Road? He had every right, of course, but he wasn’t short of money so why choose the gloomy, draughty house over the comforts of a hotel? She didn’t like the idea that he’d had hours to snoop around. Had she left anything there that she’d rather he didn’t see? Which bed had he used? She and Gil had made love in both and it was excruciating to imagine him smirking as he spotted a stain on the sheet or a grey hair on a pillow.
In Camden Town the shops were open and doing brisk trade. She didn’t stop but bought a coffee from a kiosk and strode on towards Chalk Farm.
A little way ahead of her a couple were picking their way along the uneven pavement. The woman was towing a wheeled shopping bag, her free hand tucked beneath the man’s arm. It was obvious from their caution and their gait that, beneath padded coats and woolly hats, they were old. Old and frail, and probably frightened of what the New Year might bring.
Her mother hadn’t chosen to die. She hadn’t chosen to leave her – Vivian – as Philip Frederick Carey’s ‘next of kin’. But, when all was said and done, he was her father. And he was going to die. He was going to die very soon. Microscopic organisms were consuming him. Already there was nothing much left of him. Certainly nothing left to hate.
By the time she reached the bookshop, she’d made up her mind to decamp to Tooting.
Each evening, after work, she went directly to the hospital, sitting with her father until eight o’clock. (Visiting times, relaxed over Christmas, were being enforced again.) By the time she got back to the house and ate supper, she was ready for bed. Three days in to her new routine she was exhausted, no longer sure why she was doing this.
Sometimes, when she perched on the bedside chair, studying her father’s emaciated figure, his eyes would be open (although there was no telling if he was seeing anything). Sometimes, when she took his hand in hers, his grip tightened. Sometimes he murmured, or pushed at the covers. He seemed not to be in pain and she liked to think that wherever he was – because it certainly wasn’t here – was a pleasant place.
Whilst she sat, she sometimes thought about Gil. For her eighteenth birthday, her parents had given her driving lessons. She’d been a nervous pupil and her instructor had reassured her that, were she or another motorist to make a terrible mistake, he could take over the ‘dual controls’ and avert disaster. This had never happened but it calmed her enough to get her through the test. Knowing that Gil was there – or at least in the same city – calmed her, too. If she were in a pickle, he would come – no questions asked. It frightened her to think that he would soon be thousands of miles away.
*
UCH was in full swing again after the break, consultants fired up to meet unachievable targets – or so it seemed to minions like Gil forced to run around after them. To keep up with the flood of patients needing to be photographed, he worked through his lunch hours and, as if he didn’t have enough to do, Kevin volunteered him for a couple of early morning theatre sessions. It was full on.
Kevin was confident that nothing would come of the Irene business.
‘You told them about the angel claptrap?’ Gil said.
‘And the parcels. Everything. I made sure they knew she’d been trying to make something of this from day one.’ Kevin paused. ‘Best not let on that you’re going to Oz next week though. They might think you’re doing a runner.’
Gil laughed. ‘Save them the hassle of transporting me.’
He felt thoroughly miserable at the prospect of leaving Vivian and spent the front end of the week making deals with the Devil. Icelandic ash clouds, please. Wrongful arrest. A dose of something contagious (but not serious) if that’s what it took to keep him in London. He felt bad (and spooked) when reports began coming through of flooding in Queensland following freak summer rains. He might not want to go but neither did he want people losing their lives and their homes. So accepting that, like it or not, he would be flying to Australia on Saturday, he made ‘to do’ and ‘to pack’ lists.
He’d not seen Vivian since their outing to Brighton. Apparently, after Richard had vacated Farleigh Road, she’d moved in to make visiting her father easier. By all accounts, the old guy was semi-comatose. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have a clue whether he had visitors or not but she was doing what she felt was right and one day she might take consolation from that.
He would be away for just eleven days. That said, they would be eleven decisive days. The odds on his straightening things out with Polly were slim but he had to give it his best shot. However it played out, his relationship with his daughter would be different by the time he returned. The next couple of weeks would be critical for Vivian, too. It wasn’t looking good. A ‘wash out’ was bad news for an old man in Carey’s condition, although he didn’t tell her that.
The prospect of leaving without seeing her made him feel despondent. Yet he’d made a point of playing down his trip and he didn’t want to make a song and dance of the temporary separation. In the end he called and asked about her father and, as if it were an afterthought, added ‘How are you fixed this week? Perhaps we could get together.’
‘We could meet for lunch,’ she said.
He wanted to sit with her. Talk to her. Be with her. A scant hour in a coffee shop wasn’t what he had in mind.
‘What about after work?’ he said.
He pressed hi
s phone tight to his ear, hoping to detect a hint of eagerness in her voice but the traffic grinding along Euston Road drowned out any nuances in her response.
‘I go straight to the hospital,’ she said.
‘How about I meet you there?’
‘It’s a real schlep for—’
‘When would suit you?’ he said. ‘Today? Tomorrow?’
‘Won’t you be packing tomorrow?’
‘Today it is then.’
‘Okay,’ she said.
One of Gil’s commissions took him to the trauma ward where he’d passed occasional lunch hours with Tyler. When he last inquired, the lad was having problems and Gil was mindful that he’d failed to check on his progress. After he’d finished on the ward, he went to the nursing station.
‘D’you know what happened to the biker?’ he said.
All they could tell him was that Tyler had been transferred to the Spinal Injury Unit and Gil returned to the basement feeling rotten that he’d not seen the kid to wish him well.
Messages from Coffs filtered through. They were all looking forward to his visit. He’d grown accustomed to being the black sheep, the fall guy, and their enthusiasm was unexpected and slightly puzzling.
With a few days to go, Polly suspended her silent protest, finally mailing him after a sustained period of non-communication.
dad. no questions. no lectures. no bullying. no bribery. ok? p x
He could go with that. At least she’d spared him a kiss.
34
Vivian was starting to understand how the hospital worked. The hierarchy. The routine. The shifts. The layout. She recognised a number of the staff, and they her, when they passed in the corridor. She noted how wiped-out they looked when they snatched five minutes in the cafeteria or shivered in the ‘smoking shelter’. It was hard to believe she’d made such a fuss about visiting her father during those first days when he was lucid and bolshie. It would be a pleasure – yes, a pleasure – now to sit at his bedside, having a set-to about this or that. We should have. He was right. Whatever it was, they should have.
Gil joined her in her father’s room. He looked tired and, to be honest, old.