The man transferred his unfavourable gaze to him. "Want to get off?"
"I think you should."
The man's lips writhed as if he was about to spit. "Good job for you my stop's next."
"I'm sure it's a good job for someone."
The man kept staring at him but steadied himself with the pole so as not to touch David as the bus slowed for the stop. Once he'd sidled clumsily along the aisle and dropped his bulk off the bus Stephanie murmured "Well, that was unexpected. I'm not saying you were wrong."
"You wouldn't have thought I'd face up to him, you mean."
"Of course I would, David. Maybe just not quite like that."
"I was only following your lead." This wasn't what he needed to say, and before he could falter he said "Would you have wanted—"
"I certainly wouldn't have liked you to have a fight with him."
"Then you wouldn't have liked—" David was faltering after all "You wouldn't have wanted what happened last night," he said, but even this wasn't enough. With an effort he added "To Mick."
When she turned to gaze at him he had to meet her troubled eyes. "David, how can you possibly ask?"
"I don't mean what actually happened. Maybe something not so bad." He was well in retreat now and, worse, forgetting how it must have been for her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he protested. "I'm reminding you. You had to see what did."
"I had to identify him."
"Steph, forgive me. I didn't realise." David felt still guiltier for asking "Was it bad?"
"I hope I never have to do anything like it again."
"He wasn't too disfigured, though." This sounded like underestimation, and David hastened to explain "For you to identify, I mean."
"Disfigured."
She was gazing at him because he'd betrayed he knew more than he ought to. He did his best to sound both convinced and convincing as he said "Didn't you say something like that? I'm sure you did."
"I don't know what you think you heard, David. You're talking about his face."
"I'm sorry." He saw that his apologies had begun to weary her, and said "Yes."
"You needn't worry about that. It wasn't."
Once he realised his mouth was open he had to find it some speech. "Wasn't..."
"Disfigured. He looked as if he couldn't believe what was happening, but nothing else was wrong with it."
David was beyond grasping how this made him feel. "So what do they think happened," he tried asking, "the police?"
"That he got so drunk he did it all to himself. They don't seem to think he meant to."
David was ashamed of interrogating her, but he had to know. "Did what?"
"He smashed a bottle of olive oil. I think he could have done that in a rage. I shouldn't say that really, should I? It's not as if we're ever going to find out." Remorse silenced her, and David was oft the edge of prompting her when she said "He slipped on it, and he must have slipped trying to get up, because you could see he'd fallen twice. And he'd knocked over a knife block, and he was so drunk he tried to use one to help him up. Only that slipped on the work surface, you could just see the mark, and it went in him."
David had no idea how to respond. Too much that he'd begun to accept, however reluctantly and nervously, seemed not to be the case after all. When she said "Don't let's miss our stop," he had an impression of starting awake. The pavement underfoot felt less present than his thoughts, and he had to concentrate on waiting for traffic lights to let him usher Stephanie across the dual carriageway, unless she was ushering him. As they reached the far side it occurred to him to ask "What's going to happen to the restaurant?"
"Mick's wife is on her way home and she'll decide. Shall we have a little walk in the park?"
At least Stephanie hadn't lost her job, then. David wished he could use that as an excuse to feel relieved, but relief was keeping its distance while he was unable to grasp how the Newless rant related to the events at Mick's. If only there was someone he could question—and then he realised what he had to do. "Let's walk," he said, though besides a postponement this was a way of hiding his thoughts, and recaptured Stephanie's hand to lead her into the park.
NINETEEN
As he crossed the road David willed Mrs Robbins not to be involved with rubbish for once. She wasn't in her front room, which resembled a sample of a show house. Three straight-backed armchairs wore lace caps that put him in mind of maids, and an intensely polished table crouched between the chairs, displaying a magazine about the week ahead on television. The flat screen of the television looked as scrubbed as a blank slate, and the oval mirror above the hearthless mantel gleamed so much that it seduced David's watchful reflection to a silhouette. When he rang the doorbell it responded with all the quarters of Big Ben but fell short of the hour. It was running through a repetition when the door inched wide to reveal Mrs Robbins clutching a precarious stack of crumpled paperbacks against her flattened breasts. "Mr Botham," she said, more a statement than a question. "Do you read books?"
"I've read a few things in my time."
"You won't have read these."
If this was any kind of query it was masquerading as an assertion, and disapproval was involved as well. David had to lean towards her squashed bosom in order to make out the titles on the wrinkled spines. Call the Revenger, The Revenger Again, Vengeance for the Revenger, The Revenger Never Forgets... "They aren't really my style," he said.
"Then there's just one place for them."
"You could donate them to one of the charity shops," David said, though he didn't understand why he was anxious to prevent her from behaving as she so often did. "I could take them in the car if you like,"
"There's already too much of this sort of stuff in the world. It's a pity whoever wrote them didn't keep them to himself." She dumped the books on a stair in the hall and rubbed her hands clean. "I'm clearing out the boy's room," she said. "It's long past time somebody did."
"He'll be your son."
"That's right, he'll always be, and you don't stop being a parent either. You're responsible for what you create whether you like it or not." David couldn't tell if this was a complaint or a declaration of principle, unless it was both. "Anyway," Mrs Robbins said, "that's our business and nobody else's. What is it, Mr Botham?"
From her tone he might have imagined she was requiring him to parrot the comment about her business. "I wondered if you'd found out about Mr Dent," David said.
"He's still in hospital."
"Did you happen to hear where? You said you'd let me know."
"I was waiting for you to come over, Mr Botham. That's what neighbours do occasionally, you might know. I assumed you'd lost interest."
He mustn't waste time arguing. "So where is he?"
"You'll be paying him a visit, will you?" She waited for confirmation before she said "He's at Arrowe Park."
"I'll go right now," David said and then thought to ask "Do we know his first name?"
"I've no idea what you know, Mr Botham. I think you might if you're so concerned about him."
"I don't know who else I could ask."
"Then you should make yourself more of a member of the community. Nobody knows much about you at all."
"That's because there isn't much to know." As he wished there were less David said "So you'll know his name."
"As a matter of fact we aren't on those terms, Mr Botham. There's a sight too much familiarity these days."
David felt as if she was determined to portray someone she hadn't been just a few moments ago—as if the personalities hadn't even been introduced to each other. "Do you know if he has many visitors?" he said.
"I'm sure you'll be allowed if you say you're a friend." Before David could determine how scornful this was meant to be—surely she had no reason to suspect he was the opposite, or why he needed to be alone with Dent—Mrs Robbins said "Please wish him a speedy recovery."
As David returned to his house he heard a series of dull thuds at his back—the fall of books on
to bags of garbage—and the slam of the plastic lid, "Living up to your name again," he muttered and had to remind himself that she wasn't doing so at all.
His mobile showed him that the intensive care unit at the hospital was open for visitors in half an hour. Mrs Robbins watched him from her window as he swung the car onto the road. How guilty should he feel? At least Stephanie seemed to have recovered from the shock of finding Mick, and now she was at the restaurant with Mick's widow. He hoped the day would resolve that situation and his own as well.
In five minutes he was on the motorway. He'd scarcely joined it when he was brought almost to a halt by a lumbering mass of traffic. The matrix signs were warning of a queue ahead and set to thirty miles an hour. When at last he rounded a long curve and saw the way ahead, there seemed to be no reason for the queue except for the signs themselves. As he regained speed he encountered a car still crawling along the middle lane, however many drivers urged its venerable occupant to move over. David pulled out to overtake, only to find a Jaguar racing up behind him at not much if any less than a hundred miles an hour. He had to swerve in front of the elderly hindrance, who rewarded him with a blinding glare of headlights and a prolonged squawk of the horn. As he returned to the inner lane he saw a car swell up in the mirror, overtaking on the inside and treating him to another dazzle of lights and a blare of the horn. "Idiot. Idiot. Idiot," he heard himself repeating like some kind of charm well after he'd left the motorway for the road to the hospital.
The post at the entrance to the car park teased him with a glimpse of a paper tongue before putting out the ticket once again for him to snatch. Seconds later the post raised its grudging metal arm to let him through. At least half a dozen cars were cruising between the ranks of vehicles in search of a space. More than ten minutes later David saw a car emerging from a space behind him. He was indicating to reverse into it when a battered Datsun veered in. "That's the way to do it, son," he heard the driver declare.
David thought he was being mocked until the man let out his son, a small but equally thickset boy aiming to match his father's baldness. The driver stalked over to David, jerking his head up and twitching his eyes narrow. "What you waiting for? Got a problem?"
"None you'd want to know about," David couldn't resist saying. "You're quite a role model."
"What the fuck you talking like that for? You a teacher?"
"You wouldn't like the lesson," David said, but only to himself. He was ashamed of worsening the man's behaviour in front of his son, however loyally pugnacious the boy looked. He drove out of the car park and eventually found a space nearly half a mile away on the main road.
Despite the chill of the grey afternoon, his body prickled with exertion as he tramped back to the hospital. Beyond the automatic doors, which stood back for a man levering himself along on crutches with a wincing grin at every step, the lobby felt as oppressive as fever. By the time David reached the intensive care unit his mouth was almost too dry to let him swallow, while his armpits felt full of hot ash. "Can I see Mr Dent?" he croaked at a nurse behind a desk.
She blinked several times on the way to looking up from a computer. "Mr..."
"Dent." Perhaps she was asking for the first name, unless David's voice was so parched that she hadn't understood. "He fell off a ladder," he said as distinctly as the threat of a desiccated cough would let him.
"Are you a relative?"
"No, I'm just..."
The notion of claiming he was a friend left David almost too guilty to speak, but the nurse gave him an encouraging smile. "You're just?"
"That's what I am." He hadn't meant to say that; he could have fancied someone else had. "Just a neighbour," he said.
"I expect he'll be glad to see someone. Third bed down on the left. Don't expect too much, will you? And I'm afraid you haven't got very long."
At first David couldn't see Dent for the visitors around the intervening beds. The man was lying on his back with his head only slightly elevated by a pillow. A chunky bandage capped his scalp, and a padded pink ruff encircled his neck. Tubes led to plastic bags from one bruised arm that lay on the sheet and from underneath the covering, and wires connected him to monitors. David had the notion that the whole of the man had been rendered remote, and couldn't help wondering how that would feel. There was no telling from Dent's face, both sides of which drooped inertly towards the pillow. His moist reddened eyes were gazing upwards, apparently unaware of his visitor, even when David advanced from the foot of the bed to stand beside the pillow. "Mr Dent?" he said.
The slack brow wrinkled feebly and then winced as if the movement had roused a bruise. Dent's eyes shifted in their sockets, dislodging a trickle from the left one, but came nowhere near focusing on David. "Can you hear me, Mr Dent?" David said a little louder.
"Who?" While this was barely audible, it appeared to exhaust Dent's breath. Perhaps it wasn't the entire question, since he made a visible effort to speak as his head lolled sideways to help his watery gaze find the visitor. "Who's that?" he gasped.
"It's David Botham. I live round the corner from you."
Dent's forehead stirred again, tugging at the hem of the bandage. "Do I know you?" he said too faintly for his tone to be anything like clear.
David was thrown by how reassured he felt not to be recognised. "As I say, we're neighbours. We've spoken now and then."
"Don't remember. Don't remember much," Dent mumbled mostly to himself.
Perhaps the lack of recognition wasn't so heartening after all. "You used to help me get out of my drive," David risked saying.
"Did I? Good neighbour then."
This sounded too indistinct for a memory, more like an idea no sooner found than lost again. "I live across from Mrs Robbins. The lady who's forever at her bins," David said. "Mrs Robbins. She hopes you'll be better soon, and I do."
"Bins."
It might have been all of her name that Dent had the breath to articulate. "So how are you feeling?" David said.
"Not all here." Dent's mouth worked to shape more words and possibly a rueful grimace. "Like the rest of me's somewhere else."
"They're taking care of you, though."
For a moment Dent seemed to recall something, and then his brows relaxed, having failed to grasp it, "Doing their best," he said.
David couldn't put off the question any longer; it was why he was there. "Do you mind if I ask what happened to you?"
"Fell." Dent's head lolled another inch in his direction, and a thread of drool escaped onto the pillow. He was regaining more awareness, dabbing at the general area of his mouth with the hand that wasn't hindered by a tube. "Fell off a ladder," he said. "Should have got someone else."
"You'll know another time, won't you?" David couldn't help emphasising the situation since it absolved him, even if it hardly explained the Newless blog. "So long as you're getting better," he said.
"Wait," The skin beneath Dent's eyes twitched, perhaps to help them focus. "There was," he breathed.
David couldn't tell or more accurately hoped he didn't know why his mouth had grown parched again. "Was what?"
"Someone else," Dent said and stared so hard at David that his eyes bulged. "What did you say your name was?"
"It's David Botham."
"No." Dent's head moved weakly from side to side on the pillow but kept its gaze on David. "No, that's not right," he said "Have you got a brother?"
"Not even a sister." This went nowhere near assuaging David's panic. "I'm the only one," he said, which felt just as ineffectual.
"Someone else close, then. Somebody that's got your face."
"Who'd want it?" This didn't work either. "There's nobody," David almost pleaded. "There's only me."
"Have you come to see me before?"
"Here in the hospital, you mean?" Too late David realised he oughtn't to make that distinction. "I'm sorry," he said and had to swallow before going on. "I've never been anywhere near you."
"Then I must have dreamed it when they ha
d me under."
David swallowed again, but his voice came out thin. "What did you dream?"
"Nothing you'd ever do. You wouldn't be here now if you were like that. I'd be embarrassed to tell you, Mr Botham."
"Was it—" As David's voice threatened to let him down he succeeded in saying "Was it about the ladder?"
"What else do you think would be on my mind?" All the same, Dent's gaze wavered as if he wasn't altogether happy with the sight of David's face. "I think I'd like to rest now," he said. "Thank you for coming and thank your neighbour for me."
David turned away and trudged almost blindly out of the ward, feeling as if his senses were somewhere else. He'd learned more than he would have liked to know, and it left him riddled with helpless bewilderment. Whatever expression he was displaying, the nurse at the desk blinked rapidly at it until he changed it into an automatic smile that made him feel even more concealed inside himself. He was heading for the exit—perhaps the chill out there might tone down his feverishness, if that wasn't just a symptom of his thoughts—when he heard a voice behind him. "Don't you ever fucking show me up again like that, you little fucking shit. I taught you how to fucking behave."
David hunched up his shoulders as though they could keep him from turning his head, but the man called after him "There's the fucking teacher. Got anything to say to me?"
"Don't let the boy see." If this was addressed to the father, David's voice was too low for him to hear. He didn't know where his words might have ended up, which dismayed him so much that despite the man's jeers he almost ran out of the hospital.
TWENTY
"I'm sorry I'm not better company, David. I'm feeling guilty, that's all."
"You're the last person who should feel that, Steph."
"It's just that I feel as if I could have wished what happened to Mick."
"I'm certain you'd never have done anything of the kind. And if anyone had a reason to wish he'd sort himself out, you had."
"I think his wife might have had more of one. She doesn't seem too unhappy now he's gone."
"Then you've even less of a reason to feel bad."
Think Yourself Lucky Page 12