‘What time is it?’ he asks.
‘I want you to keep nice and still while I take your blood pressure.’
He is ill, really ill. He hears mutters above his head but doesn’t open his eyes.
‘You’re going to feel a little prick in your arm now.’
There is someone he must see but the name is gone. He cannot get to the places in his head where he keeps the right words. His eyes are sealed, as if someone else has his thumbs on the lids. With a rush of relief he gives in, as if he’s giving in to death.
It is light. Giles lies beached on his bed. He can see the fold of the sheet. There is a vile, rubbery taste in his mouth. He gags, and someone lifts his head. His teeth chatter on the rim of an enamelled dish; he heaves and vomits. He is alive and out of surgery. Now he can see the nurse’s hands taking away the kidney bowl. Another nurse kneels by the side of his bed and takes his hand. Her young, fresh voice goes in and out of his consciousness. ‘You are back from theatre, Mr Holloway. It’s all gone well. Mr Anstruther will be coming to see you shortly.’
They are giving him blood. He doesn’t care about anything. He is empty. He has vomited out all the filth of the night.
‘Simon,’ he mutters. ‘I must see Simon Callington.’
The nurse puts her fingers on his wrist. ‘Mr Anstruther will be coming to see you presently. Try to sleep now.’
He sleeps and wakes. Mr Anstruther stands by the bed, a glorious pinstriped column. Giles raises his eyes and sees at once that Mr Anstruther is someone who will understand. He listens, gathering his forces, as Mr Anstruther explains about the internal bleeding that made the operation a little more tricky, and its satisfactory conclusion. In a day or two Giles will be in the pink.
Giles strikes. He opens his eyes, gives a small, apologetic smile, says, ‘You’ve been marvellous. This is all a frightful bore. I need to ring up a couple of people quite urgently – is that in order?’
Anstruther glances down at his notes. ‘You’re at the Admiralty, I gather.’
‘Yes. Hellishly busy at the moment, too, more’s the pity.’
They are in it together, two men at the top of their profession, self-deprecating, knowing their own worth. Very probably Anstruther is at the top of his profession. Giles can still gather it to himself, the manner that makes things happen, even though he’s falling, not rising – falling right through himself …
‘I’d be most awfully grateful,’ he says through closed eyes.
Giles’s bed is right by the nursing station, because they need to keep a close eye on him after the anaesthetic. But yes, he will be moved back into his private room as soon as possible.
The telephone. The clanky old trolley with the phone and trailing wire that plugs into the wall. Here it is by the bed, within reach. And here is a bottle of Lemon Solo squash beside his water jug, a pile of clean handkerchiefs and his wallet. Ma Clitterold must have visited while he was asleep. He is not in the ward any more, but back in his private room. He must be better, or else more time has passed than he realised. Blood is still going into his arm. He wants to lie here, thinking of nothing, listening to the hiss of traffic far beneath the window.
It’s dark outside. The day is over. They’ve moved around him, sponging him and emptying bags. His left leg, in heavy plaster, hangs suspended from the ceiling. There is the blood transfusion tube going into one arm, and for some reason they’ve left a blood-pressure cuff on the other, slack but ready for service. Why on earth have they done that? How do they expect him to make a telephone call with that thing on his arm?
He rings the bell. A very young nurse pads in and takes the thermometer from the case above his bed.
‘Before you start on that,’ he instructs her, ‘I need you to get a number for me, and then pass me the receiver.’
‘I must fill in your chart first,’ she says.
It hurts him to look up at her face. She is so young. Her face is smooth and pink, obstinate. He’ll have to be careful.
‘All right, my dear, you go ahead.’ She frowns with concentration as she takes his temperature and blood pressure, and fills in his chart, but she doesn’t meet his eyes. Give me the sodding telephone, he thinks, and bugger off. But no, he needs her to dial the numbers for him.
She wedges the receiver rather cleverly so that he can speak without having to hold it. A wave of exhaustion catches him. Concentrate, Giles. After four rings, the phone is picked up. No one speaks.
‘Oh hello, it’s me,’ he says, the usual tired, automatic formula. ‘You know, George’s cousin. I’ve had a bit of an accident and I’m in the Latimer. There are a few things I’d like you to pick up from the flat, if you would. Don’t bother about the file; someone will be coming from the office to sort out all that. You’ve still got the keys, haven’t you? Thought so. Excellent. You know my study. I’ll tell my Mrs Thing.’
Still got the keys, he thinks, eyes closed, as the nurse replaces the receiver. Fatigue and nausea wash through him again. They’ve got the keys all right. The keys to everything, lock, stock and barrel. Sometimes, when he comes home, he’s pretty sure they’ve been in the flat. They keep an eye on him. Nothing is obviously disturbed, but he can sense it. They want him to sense it. They know he knows they know.
That’s sorted out the Minox and the other stuff. Now for the file.
‘I’m not sure …’ says the girl doubtfully. She’s worried about Sister. Mr Holloway is a head injury and needs to be kept quiet.
‘One more brief call,’ says Giles. With an effort, he opens his eyes. The silly pink face gapes at him. Will she, won’t she? Of course she will.
It’s after eight o’clock when the telephone rings in the hall of Lily and Simon’s house. The children are all in bed. Lily hurries, in case the ringing wakes them.
‘Lily Callington speaking. Yes. Yes, he is. Just a moment, please.’
Simon is reading the latest number of his son’s Railway Magazine. He looks absurdly serious over it, just as Paul does. Simon assumes that the caller will be one of Lily’s friends – Erica, probably. Simon hates the telephone. He has quite enough of it at work.
‘It’s Giles Holloway for you.’
‘Bloody hell. I thought he was in hospital. There was a memo round this afternoon saying he’d had an accident.’
‘Was it serious?’
‘Can’t have been, can it, if he’s ringing me up?’
Lily dislikes Giles Holloway. Or perhaps she’s been unfair. The first time they met, long ago, he’d had too much to drink. His eyes flickered over her. She thought, or perhaps imagined, that there was something hostile there. But since then he has always been civil. He’s an old friend of Simon’s. It was Giles who got Simon his job.
She watches as Simon pushes back his chair, already preoccupied. The magazine drops to the floor. Simon goes out of the room, pulling the door to behind him. Lily picks up the magazine and smoothes its cover. Paul won’t like to see it creased. He is a collector, a careful saver of railway tickets, postcards and memorabilia.
Simon picks up the receiver. He speaks quietly, aware of the sleeping children and the bedroom door left open upstairs, because Bridget likes to see the landing light.
‘Hello.’
‘It’s Giles.’
‘I thought you were in hospital.’
‘I am. Simon, dear boy, could you do something for me? I was working on some documents which need to go back to the office – to Julian Clowde’s secretary. If you come down now, I’ll give you my keys. I’d be enormously grateful …’ The voice weakens. He’s in a bad way, thinks Simon, his irritation swallowed in concern. ‘I’m in the Latimer, in a private room. Let me ask the nurse for the ward number—’
‘But surely it’s too late for visitors?’
A flash of impatience. ‘For God’s sake, Simon, I’m not asking you to sit at my bedside.’
Typical Giles, thinks Simon, as he puts the receiver into its cradle. He always wrong-foots you. And now, somehow, Simon
has agreed to cross London, pick up Giles’s keys and collect whatever work it is that Giles has taken home so that it can be returned to the office the next day. That’s the evening gone. He and Lily were going to listen to the play on the wireless, and then go to bed early.
‘Why are you wearing your coat?’ asks Lily.
‘It’s bloody annoying. Giles left some work at home which needs to go back to the office asap apparently. That’s why he was ringing. What an idiot.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know what’s up with him. He wants me to pick up his keys and then collect a file from the flat.’
‘Now?’
‘He said it’s urgent.’
‘Surely you could do it tomorrow, if you go in early.’
‘I know. He’s the limit, but he’s smashed his leg badly. They had to operate. He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s got a head injury. He sounded all in. You know how obstinate he is when he’s set on something.’
‘I don’t really know him at all,’ says Lily, and picks up another exercise book. ‘I suppose he was drinking when he had the accident. He’s like a child, Simon, and you all cover for him.’
Simon’s face darkens. ‘Don’t wait up for me, Lily. I’ll creep in quietly.’
She looks up, looks him full in the face. ‘Be careful.’
The door clicks softly, and Simon’s gone. Lily thinks of him hurrying through the dark streets and all the way downhill to the Tube station. She hears the wheeze of the train doors as he is swallowed inside. He’s going to the hospital and then Giles Holloway’s flat. She can’t picture either place, but everything to do with Giles makes her uneasy. If only he hadn’t rung Simon—
She squashes the thought. In a couple of hours Simon will be back and everything will be as it was before. You have to feel some sympathy for a man on his own, with no one to look after him. A smashed leg and concussion sound quite serious.
But I don’t sympathise, she thinks. I don’t want Simon to have anything to do with Giles Holloway.
She looks up at the clock. There are eight more exercise books to correct, and then she’ll switch on the play. According to the Radio Times it’s about a woman who loses her memory and doesn’t recognise her own children. Ridiculous. However, it’ll take her mind off Simon out there in the dark. Her hand reaches out for the top exercise book, but instead of opening it she stands up, kicks off her shoes and goes lightly through the hall, up the stairs and on to the landing outside Bridget’s little slip of a room. The door is ajar, as always. Inside, the room is dark, still, warm. Lily thinks that she can smell Bridget’s sleep. She’s the only one of the three who still has that baby-smell.
She stands there for a while, then goes to Sally’s bedroom door, and listens. There’s no sound, so she moves on to Paul’s. They are all asleep. Lily is smiling as she moves noiselessly back downstairs.
4
I Am a Friend of Giles
There’s a pulley thing attached to Giles’s leg. The leg itself is cased in plaster and hoisted into position. It doesn’t look like part of a living body. Giles, in a hospital gown, lies flat on his back with his eyes shut. The hospital smell reminds Simon of when Paul was born, and Simon was allowed in at the visiting hour to see a strangely unfamiliar Lily, with a burst blood vessel in her right eye. They brought in the baby, wrapped up like a caterpillar in a cocoon. He can still see that baby, as clear as clear, quite separate from his son asleep at home. As if somewhere, if he opened the right door, he could find them again. Lily would smile and say in a voice that had a crack in it: Simon.
Giles is asleep, snoring lightly. His face is slack and his mouth open. He won’t like Simon seeing him like this. The nurse is outside, visible through a glass panel, at her desk, writing under a shaded lamp. There’s a bell by Giles’s left hand. Tubes run from his right. Simon glances at the bag of blood, suspended on its own scaffolding. The blood crawls down the tube and into Giles. There are dressings on Giles’s forehead. The hospital gown has a number stamped just below the neck. Giles wouldn’t like that either. The numerals are so blurred with washing that you can’t read them.
The hospital smell catches in Simon’s throat. An animal instinct sweeps over him. He’s got to get away. Back out on tiptoe so there’s no chance of rousing Giles, turn to race along the corridors and then take the stone stairs two at a time, faster and faster, chasing the echo of his own footsteps. He wants to burst out into the night, and run all the way to the Tube, head back, legs pumping, even though there’s no one after him. Later, he’ll remember that instinct.
‘Giles?’ he says tentatively. He has absolutely no idea whether he’s talking at normal volume or not. This place is far too quiet. Giles snores more deeply, as if he’s heard Simon’s voice but is determined to take no notice. Bugger this for a game of soldiers, thinks Simon in sudden annoyance. He should be at home, reading Paul’s magazine so that the two of them can talk about it over breakfast. He should be listening to the play with Lily. Giles, with his telephone call, has put a stop to all that. Now that he’s dragged Simon out, Giles can bloody well wake up.
He leans over the pillow and says loudly, ‘Giles, it’s Simon. I’m here.’
Slowly the eyelids unglue themselves. Giles’s gaze, perfectly blank, is revealed. Even more slowly, he focuses. Simon sees the big darkness of his pupils contract: whoosh.
‘What are you doing here?’ asks Giles hoarsely. ‘Stuck a bloody tube down me.’ He clears his throat loudly. His eyes glint with the old conspiracy.
‘You rang me up and asked me to come,’ says Simon. Yet again, in Giles’s company, he experiences the sheer hopelessness of trying to impress on Giles that he, Simon, has an entirely separate life that is worthy of not being interrupted. Giles always knows where to put his hand on Simon, reclaiming him. Or trying to: Simon is stronger than Giles now, not because the other man is lying in a hospital bed, injured, but because he, Simon, has moved on to his own territory. He has Lily. He has the children. The past is the past. ‘You telephoned. Don’t you remember?’
‘So I did,’ says Giles. His voice is stronger now. He blinks, wrinkling up his face, and starts to cough. As the spasm develops, Simon grabs the glass of water from the locker and holds it to Giles’s lips. He bats it away, spilling water on the bed. His skin darkens, dusky red and soon purple. Just as Simon’s about to ring for the nurse, the tide of colour starts to ebb. The coughing fit is over. Giles wipes his mouth with his free hand. ‘It’s that damned gas they give you. I was sick as a cat when I woke up.’
‘What kind of operation was it?’
‘Surgical repair of a comminuted fracture of the right tibia and fibula,’ says Giles, with a flicker of pride. ‘Bloody nuisance, but as long as I keep my leg elevated the sawbones says I’ll be as good as new. Or, to translate, with any luck my leg won’t drop off.’
‘That’s good. What happened? How did you do it?’
Weariness curtains Giles’s eyes. ‘Lost my balance going downstairs.’
‘Did you have to wait ages before anyone came? No, I suppose not, there are always people coming and going in those flats.’
Simon assumes that he must have fallen on the common stairway. ‘No,’ says Giles, ‘I was in my flat.’ He can’t be bothered with explaining. Sleep, that’s the thing. Tides of it washing over him. But first, Simon … He gathers himself. ‘I’ve left a file at home, like an idiot.’
‘You said. What file?’
‘Julian asked me to go through it. You know he’s in Venice. Shouldn’t have taken it home, I know, but I’m up to my eyes at the moment. Left the wretched thing in my study. Oh, you don’t know my study, do you? There’s a staircase up to it, off the bedroom corridor. Door looks like a cupboard.’ The gaff is blown. The study is already a thing of the past. It will never be used again. Move on. ‘I’ll give you the keys.’
‘You want me to bring you the file?’
‘Not here,’ says Giles, with the old impatience, as if only
a halfwit could ever have thought this. ‘Take it to Brenda in the morning. She’ll deal with it.’
Please, Simon nearly says aloud, so used is he to drumming manners into the children, and as if Giles has heard his thought, he wrenches out one of the old charming smiles and says:
‘I’d be most awfully grateful, Simon. My name will be mud if that file isn’t in place first thing.’
What the hell do you mean, I don’t know your study? I never knew you had a staircase in your flat. You haven’t mentioned it in all these years.
What the hell do I think I’m up to? Is that what you want to know? Go on then, ask me.
They are both silent, bristling. Another door opens in Simon’s mind, on to a grey January day years ago. He was in his digs, lying on the bed, huddled up, all the blankets piled on him and his winter coat on top of that. He was freezing cold, shaking with it. He’d got the flu, like everybody else. The night before he’d been so hot he’d chucked all the bedclothes on to the floor, even the sheet. There was a sick, sour smell around him and he ached all over. He was thirsty, but the glass by his bed was empty.
There was a knock at the door. Simon turned his head. The door opened and Giles stepped into the room. Simon wanted him to go away. He didn’t want Giles to see him like that. But Giles put his hand on Simon’s forehead and said, ‘You need aspirin. I’ll go and buy some.’
There was more muddled time, with Simon not sure if he was asleep or awake. Later, when it was dark, he woke up for sure. The gas fire was on, and Giles was sitting under the lamp, reading. He looked up and said, ‘You’ve got a touch of flu, dear boy.’ He lifted Simon’s head and helped him to drink the lemon barley water that had appeared from somewhere. Two more aspirin. ‘You’ll be as right as rain tomorrow. I’ll sleep in the chair.’
Simon wanted to protest, but said nothing. He was glad to have Giles there. The shadows seemed to be staying in their right places now, instead of reaching out for him. Later, Giles brought a bowl with soapy water and a flannel, and washed Simon’s face and hands. Imperial Leather, not the cheap white soap that Simon’s landlady supplied. He unbuttoned Simon’s pyjama jacket, sponged his chest, and dried him carefully with the threadbare towel. Simon closed his eyes and went down deep, dark, into a sleep that lasted until it was light. Giles helped him to the lavatory and supported him while he peed a thin dark stream into the bowl. He was so weak that Giles had to half carry him back to bed.