Millwrights
The only thing he can think of remotely equivalent to this is that very first bus journey – the day after his mother had been taken in. Then, as now, Daniel had been oblivious to everything around him, in a state of shock, aware of nothing but the overwhelming need to be at the hospital bedside.
He bursts upon the reception area and jostles the line-up with an urgency that immediately impels it forward. The same woman is there, but even she is drawn by his desperation, looking up from her desk with a startled expression.
“Daniel George,” he announces breathlessly, gripping the desktop. “Called in urgently by Dr Gregory Prentice. He has to see me now.” The words ring out more as a Biblical edict than a request. Though she frowns briefly as if to challenge him, by some miraculous conversion she is straight onto her pager.
Minutes later, in breezes the great man himself, the smile out front, the spotless coat billowing in its wake like a fine white sail. He carves through the sea swell of bodies, leaving in his wake a bow wave of lovelorn admirers. Eagerly he beckons Daniel over, not a trace of resentment for the earful of abuse he’d taken on the phone. Prentice remains the composed, polite and flawlessly diplomatic professional. Daniel climbs to his feet, anything but composed, suddenly hot and nauseous, his legs misbehaving. Prentice grips his shoulder and shakes him by the hand, congratulating him on the arrival into his life of a brother as though about to unite a proud but distraught father for the first time with wife and newborn child. It’s all Daniel can do not to thump the man.
Health-wise, Prentice pronounces, Alex’s condition has made little progress. Improved breathing and some signs of weight gain. No evidence of brain haemorrhage or stroke, but brain activity remaining minimal with no response whatsoever to stimuli. No matter how much Daniel protests, Prentice can offer nothing more. Every test has been run, every appropriate drug tried and every function monitored. All they can do, he insists, is to leave the body to deal with whatever trauma has befallen it in its own way and at its own pace. The one thing that might help is for Daniel to talk to his brother – about anything at all, especially shared memories. Daniel’s stomach turns at the thought of raking up such stuff with the likes of Prentice listening in, but if that’s what it must take to jolt Alex out of himself then so be it. He follows nervously in the slipstream of the white coat-tails, out of reception and through the first set of doors. As they hit the carpeted area he feels again the unwanted touch of the man’s hand on his shoulder.
“So. I’ll leave you to be with your brother. If you’ll forgive me, I have some matters to attend to, and I’m sure you’ll want some privacy. Of course if there’s any change the monitors will alert us immediately. If you have any questions, I’m sure reception will be only too happy to help.”
A trade wind whips him away, back through the turbulent waters of human suffering, to fuse more bodies and melt more hearts. But there is no time to dwell on the magnanimous Prentice, his goodly deeds, or the fact that the fucker is shacked up with Gulnaz. Daniel has arrived again at those little windows to the ICU. As before, the swing doors give in to the pressure of his hands, snapping shut behind him and leaving him engulfed in a blaze of white. In an instant all his anger is forgotten. Suddenly nothing else matters in all the world.
For two hours Daniel just sits. No fear left of tubing and technology, no attempt needed to link up telepathically, or to scrutinise the face for assurance. It’s enough just to be here in the presence of his brother – not someone who may or may not be him, but actually his brother. Whether by act of sublime grace or unspeakable cruelty, Alex is finally back where he belongs. And after a ride on the world’s wildest rollercoaster, Daniel can finally face up to the future. However challenging, it will be a thousand times more preferable to those long decades of emptiness. If Alex chooses never to speak to him again then at least Daniel will know he is out there. If he’s left disabled or deranged, in need of a lifetime of care, then Daniel knows now he will not begrudge it. Even if Alex never wakes up at all Daniel will still rejoice in his miraculous return.
The moment slowly takes him. He senses the white painted walls and steel-green flooring bleed into the solid white of a winter’s sky above the soft greys and greens of coastal rock. He hears the faint hiss of air-conditioning and his brother’s slow breathing around him becoming the whispers of a sea breeze and the distant crash and drag of waves. For the first time this memory not only has colour, but sound too. In his thick grey duffel coat Alex is ahead – running, pointing and shouting. The words themselves at long last come through. ‘Daddy’s boat! Daddy’s boat! He’s come home. Daddy’s come home for Christmas!’
If fate has a sense of humour then it can be twisted and cruel – striking anytime, anywhere, heartless and indiscriminate. Seeing his twin lying there, all skin and bone and muscle loss, Daniel is finally moved to voice their father’s words.
“Alex, remember how pathetic I used to be; what Dad used to say to me?”
He’s crossed now to the bedside, wishing he were brave enough to take the upturned hand. “‘Get out and kick a football around’, he’d say. Or, ‘Go and take a swim, climb a tree.’ It’s why he built me the tree house. D’you remember? He wanted me to be more like you, not go burying my head in the clouds with my shells and silly puzzle books. ‘Get some meat on you, boy, before you waste away!’ he used to say.”
The courage comes to him suddenly to touch and then to grasp Alex’s open palm. “But look at you now, mate. It’s you who’s wasting away, and I’m the one with a body to d…” He checks himself. “You’re not going to stand for that, are you? Come on, Alex. Wake up, eh? Where’s your fight? Where’s your pride? That’s what Dad would have said if he could see you now.”
He recalls their last contact, knocking the man he thought was a total stranger unceremoniously to the ground and dragging him away from the grave. To hold his hand now is so much more than mere ceremony. He stares down at the rigid form a moment longer, in vain hope of catching some response. Their fingers separate, but the sensation of touch remains. Drawing a defeated breath, Daniel mumbles a nervous farewell, turns and heads out through the doors, elation and despair tugging him first one way, then the other. Walking the corridor becomes his purgatory between the two.
Prentice nobbles him as he rounds the corner.
“Ah, so glad I caught you. I have a message, from Nurse Rahmani. She asked me to tell you she’s just heard the news and is on her way.”
This guy is incredible. His audacity goes beyond words. Daniel eyeballs him with utter contempt.
“I have a message for her too. Tell her I’m down at the Millwrights, drinking myself into an early grave. If she’s at all interested, she’ll know where to find me.”
Prentice blinks. “Do you really think that’s the best plan under the circumstances? Of course I understand all this must be quite a shock. And I’m sure you want to mark the occasion. But if I may suggest, Mr George…”
The doctor’s wise medical advice is left to contend with the back of Daniel’s head, as he pushes his way through the glass doors and out to the car.
Of course he has no real intention of getting as legless as that. The urge to hit the Millwrights is driven by a confusion of impulses – to celebrate, to grieve, to plan, to brood. A part of him wants to offload into the nearest willing ear; a part of him seeks total anonymity. Neither is served by the discovery of boarded windows, two newly appointed bouncers on the door and a heap of broken chairs in the corner. And it soon becomes clear that any tale he may wish to share of reformed prodigal brothers will have to take its turn; Gorgeous Gail wastes no time in bending his ear over the violent conclusion to the pub’s New Year’s Eve bash. The usual lunch-time crowd are noticeable by their absence. If they’re not still nursing hangovers (or worse injuries) then they’re clearly too ashamed to show themselves. All in all, this is not the best time to be filling his local with joyous-cum-sorrowful tidings. He blows out through his lips and heads for his favou
rite spot in the corner; discretely in the shadows, yet just within sight of the door. It’s possible that Gulnaz will track him down. He mostly hopes that she won’t – he has his brother now; what place could Gulnaz possibly have in this new chapter of his life? Still, each time the door opens his heart sinks a little when it isn’t her. Maybe he just needs her to explain herself, maybe to have her congratulate him – or at least to bear witness. She’s the one person after all who really understands, who has shared his journey this far. Only she knows what the DNA result means to him. There is so much now to get his head around. Gulnaz might at least be able to help him sort things out.
Three characters step noisily from the street, two males and a female – students, by the look of their clothes. They’re held at the door by the bouncers and briefly interrogated before being allowed through to the bar. Then, drinks in hand, they advance towards Daniel and spread themselves out across the table next to his. Their intrusion narks him. They could have chosen anywhere. He considers whether or not to move, but decides instead to blot them out of mind. Up on the cliffs again. Poor kid, Alex really had thought that boat was their dad’s. Well, understandable enough, what with all those bombshells their mother kept dropping. He still remembers her words, how carefully she’d chosen them, ever more formally delivered to hide the growing heartbreak: ‘Daddy may not be home for Easter because he’s about to go to sea… Your dad won’t be here for the holidays because he’s away at sea… Your father won’t be coming home… Your dear father has been lost at sea’.
Each time their father had been called away, under strictest orders not to say where, why or for how long, Daniel’s conviction had mounted that he must captain a special submarine, one so secret that it could only surface at night and never approach land. Those nights lying awake, sharing tales of their father’s heroism in some far off country; it hurts just to think of it. After their mother had broken the news, he’d told Alex their dad wasn’t really lost, but had been instructed to stay on the seabed and watch out for ‘Argies’, even though the war was already won. The shrinking ice cube at the bottom of the whisky glass goads the memory on. No wonder Alex thought a rowing boat was needed to come ashore.
Something to think about.
“Hello Daniel.”
He looks up, half expecting to see Gorgeous Gail with an armful of empty glasses. It takes a moment to recognise Gulnaz. She’s holding a white wine, and a whisky for him. She places herself opposite and raises her glass.
“Dr Prentice told me I’d find you here celebrating. So. We should celebrate. I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I am for you. To Daniel and Alex, reunited!”
He takes the whisky and eyes her incredulously. ‘To Gulnaz and Greg’ he might have toasted in return, but for a curiosity to see just how far she’s prepared to pursue this deceit – plus a certain need to leech upon her company. The whisky she’s given him, the fourth to be downed in one, is swift to make its mark. Gulnaz wants to know how he heard the news, how it feels, what he plans to do next. Though he hears himself returning vaguely coherent answers it proves impossible to identify with his own words. When your whole world is turned on its head, when something drops into your lap that has been so long out of reach, the distant past shunted into an urgent present, then the present is as far ahead as you can see. Tomorrow? A month from now? Ten years on? He hasn’t a fucking clue.
The loudmouthed students at the next table aren’t helping him focus. From the word go they’ve been rowdily spouting off with total disregard for others, and their mindless, leftist bullshit is proving impossible to ignore. Can a man not expect some privacy and quiet in his own local, a space to think? But as the TV continues to peddle the headlines and images of Saddam, so inevitably comes their clichéd, simplistic tosh – ‘Britain has become the lapdog of America, and in supporting the invasion of Iraq has laid itself open to terrorism attacks of which Seven-Seven was but the tip of the iceberg’.
“Can you believe these guys?” Daniel says, cutting off Gulnaz mid-sentence. She looks at him blankly, then widens her eyes and frowns.
‘War On Terror’ is a contradiction in terms and can only inflame Islamic resentment of Western interference and domination. One student in particular, a guy with a straggly beard and an especially annoying voice, is trotting out this garbage as though he’s memorised an entire Guardian editorial.
“I mean like, Britain should keep its nose out of other countries’ affairs(?) We should be getting more into Europe(?) Model ourselves more on, like, Scandinavia(?)”
The longhaired hippie beside him has been nodding furiously while teasing out strands of tobacco along Rizla papers, rolling and licking each one and laying them aside. Now he’s toying with his mobile. “We should dismantle our army (beep, beep, beep). Use all that taxpayers’ money on things like the Health Service, social programmes, infrastructure. Terrorists would leave us alone then (beep, beep).”
“Just ignore them, Daniel,” Gulnaz whispers, a trifle desperately. “Or let’s move to another table.” But Daniel is no longer distracted by their conversation. The unfortunate turn it has taken now commands his full attention.
Beard again. “Cool. Do you know how much they’re, like, planning to spend on that Falklands Anniversary thing this summer? Thirty million pounds. Thirty million, man! Just so a bunch of old soldiers can, like, wave their medals about(?)”
Longhair: “No shit!”
The girl with nose rings pipes up. “I heard they’re not even going to invite bereaved family or anything, or anyone who’s been injured. I think that’s just sick.”
Beard: “Yeah, bad Karma, but then Britain should never even have invaded the Malvinas,” (the name is given a pretentiously Spanish flourish, as though to charge his statement with complete authority). “We’d, like, stolen them from the Argentineans back in the nineteenth century(?) It was just Thatcher’s way of boosting her re-election chances. We were well out of order. Jeez – I mean, did you see it on the telly, when they showed all those hundreds of ships returning to Portsmouth? All that flag waving? I was, like, ‘Ugh?’ Get real or what?”
Daniel slams down his glass and turns in his chair. “You want to learn to shut your fucking mouth mate, before someone shuts it for you.”
The group stare in stunned disbelief. Gulnaz clutches his hand.
“Daniel, don’t. Please.”
Beard mutters something into his beer and ignores him.
“Freedom of speech, man,” protests Longhair.
“No, I’ll tell you what it is, man. Leftist fucking shit, that’s what.” Daniel can feel the hard spirit now pumping through his veins. “Your type make me sick. Easy for you, isn’t it, sitting in your universities at the taxpayer’s expense, banging on about the state of the world? Well, while you’re sat here, mouthing off, our brave lads are out there getting themselves blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep shits like you safe.”
Beard snorts. “Safe! Huh, that’s a joke. Try telling that to the bereaved relatives of Seven-Seven.”
Longhair proves to be more of a zealot. He even puts down his phone.
“Yes, but if the Government were truly serious…”
“How do you think our boys feel when they read the leftist crap you read? ‘Oh, the army is an occupying force, not a peacekeeping one’. Fucking hell: a couple of soldiers lose their rag because they’ve been fired on, pelted with stones, spat at, seen their mates blown to buggery. Okay, so they go and kick a few Iraqis. All over the news then, isn’t it? But what about the rest of the time? Overwhelmed by insurgents, doing their best with shit weapons, fuck-all medical care, hands tied behind their backs. When do we ever hear about that?”
“Oh, man. Where are you from?” snarls Beard again, with a provocative shake to his head. “We weren’t even talking about that, actually(?) We were talking about the ‘Malvi–’”
“Look, you wanker, they’re called the Falkland Islands, and we lost over two hundred servicemen fighting to keep the
m British.”
Nose-Rings: “I think you’re a very rude man.”
Longhair: “But the Argentineans were just boys. We sank the Belgrano when it was sailing away from –”
“Ignore him, Owen,” interrupts Beard. “You can’t talk sense into people like that.”
“I’d like to go now, guys,” says Nose-Rings. Beard makes a point of staying put and stretches back in his chair, nursing his pint. Gulnaz stands up.
“Come on, Daniel, let’s go. I can understand why you’re so upset.”
“Yeah, go with Mummy. I think you’ve lost this one, mate(?).”
Beard nearly takes a fist in the face for that. But the whisky has loosened more than Daniel’s tongue. As he swings a right hook, his legs buckle and only the chair breaks his fall. The three students leap from their seats. Someone’s beer is sent flying. The two heavyweights on the door, who’ve been watching the argument escalate, march over, puffing out their chests. One of them grabs Daniel’s hair, pulls him over the table and head-butts him. Daniel goes down like a ragdoll. The whole incident is over in a matter of seconds and the rest of the customers remain stock still. The bar staff, however, have been swift to act. They’re already calling the police as the bouncers set about dragging Daniel from the bar. Gulnaz intervenes and miraculously they concede, allowing Daniel to climb shakily to his feet. Blood is streaming from his nose. The three students are nowhere to be seen. Gulnaz leads Daniel out onto the street. That’s when they see Nose-Rings, loitering over the road and sucking on a cigarette.
“You’re wrogg about the fabilies,” Daniel bellows out to her, in a voice charged more with pain than with anger. “They will be there. I Dow. I dow cos I got ad idvite!” Then he sinks down onto the pavement.
It’s the first time he’s ever told anyone about the letter, perhaps because at the time he’d been so incensed by it that he’d thrown the damn thing away. For their father’s company not to have checked first. Unforgivable. A letter addressed to his mother containing three tickets, one for her and two for her boys.
Still, this revelation is sure to blow Gulnaz away. He waits expectantly for her outpourings of sympathy and her healing, nursing touch.
But apparently she has no intention of offering anything of the sort.
“Why, Daniel? Why?” she hisses at him. To his amazement, she is livid.
“Why do you do it? The drink. It makes you… It turns you into a…”
He realises she is crying. What the drink turns him into is never said. A police car has now pulled up in front of them and a young constable, whom Daniel vaguely recognises, is climbing out of the passenger seat, talking on his radio. He sidesteps the pair of them, despite Daniel being the crime’s obvious victim, and walks straight towards the Millwrights. The students and the bouncers have now vanished. After the briefest of conversations, the landlord throws up his hands and disappears inside, leaving the policeman no choice but to interview his two remaining witnesses.
“I know you. You’re a troublemaker,” he says, jabbing a finger at Daniel.
“Officer, that’s unfair,” Gulnaz retorts. “This man was dragged and head-butted by one of the pub’s security staff. It was a totally unjustified use of excessive force. No-one else was hurt.”
“And you might be?”
“Gulnaz Rahmani. I’m an agency nurse working at the hospital.”
He gives her a visual frisking, then looks down again at Daniel, who is now rocking back and forth with his arms around his knees. “So, he’s one of yours then is he? Right, do either of you wish to make a statement or press charges and waste a lot of police time, or can I assume you’ll try and keep him out of trouble for the rest of the day?”
Daniel merely snorts. He is too preoccupied with gaining maximum impact by keeping his head forward and breathing out sharply through his nose. It throws highly impressive spray patterns across his jeans. The accompanying groans add a further touch of pathos: here is a fellow who’s been badly beaten up, an innocent bystander brought down by the excessive forces of the state. As soon as the policeman has re-joined his colleague and driven off, he throws his head back, drags a tissue from his pocket, presses it hard to the bridge of his nose to stem the bleeding, and begins to giggle.
“Well dud you! Guldaz Rabidabby, agetcy durse. Like you were F.B.I. You put the bastard right id his place. You were great. Add I wasd’t bad either, was I?”
“I’m serious, Daniel. I cannot be doing with this.”
For one moment he assumes she’s making a joke, but the tone of awful finality in her voice suddenly hits home. The laugh congeals among the blood on his lips.
“You’ve ruined everything,” she sniffles, wringing her hands. “I thought something was really starting between us.” His heart dips at her use of the past tense. “I know you’ve just heard about your brother; I know this is an emotional time for you. But I’ve just come through one violent relationship and I’m not getting myself into another.”
It sounds like a parting shot. But she is a nurse after all, and he’s a man on the street pouring blood, and inevitably she yields. “Right,” she continues in a softer voice, “pinch your nose and keep your head forward. I’m calling you a taxi.”
But Daniel waves her away. He doesn’t need this. He’s done nothing wrong, nothing his father wouldn’t have done in his shoes. When she holds her ground and tries to lift him he fends her off more roughly than intended.
“Don’t bloody well mother me! I’m alright. Just go away.”
Perhaps it’s fortunate he misses the change in her face; that sign of having seen in him something she’d been trying hard to deny. She retreats, stares, then exclaims with a look of hopelessness, “It’s pathetic. If you ever want to make a go of this, Daniel, you’d better sort out that drink problem of yours.”
And with that she walks off. A few yards later she stops and turns. “And get some anger management while you’re at it!”
It all leaves him feeling quite dizzy.
Relationship? Who ever said anything about a relationship? And a violent one at that. He has never, never hit a girl. He just wouldn’t. But it sounded like old Doctor Perfect Prentice had been doing so. Fuck! Who’d have ever guessed that? Why the fuck hadn’t she said something?
So, things really had been starting between them. Hey. Nice one. Nice one! Heathcliff scores again. God, what a liberty: get help to sort out his drink problem. Does he have a drink problem? “I fancy a drink. I buy a drink. I drink it. No problem.”
He sniggers.
“And anger management? I need that? Me, angry?”
Grasping for a nearby lamppost to pull himself up, he feels the world pitch dangerously to one side. A wave of nausea crashes through his body and jets his stomach contents across the pavement. The seasick legs again give way and tip him over into the gutter and into the vomit. Beneath a hail of swearing he kicks out at the base of the lamppost and nearly breaks his big toe.
Blood on his face and trousers, puke all over his jacket, Daniel limps thoughtfully off to the bus stop to catch the number thirty-seven up Cooper’s Hill.
“She may have a point,” he concedes. “On both counts.”