Lazarus
As the car pulls up to the newsagent’s, a little after three, for the first time there’s no sign of Gulnaz on the roadside. Instead, she appears at a faceless green door some yards further along and waves him over. Behind the door, a flight of stone steps, also painted green, rises and turns from sight. After a quick embrace she leads him up to her flat, the cold concrete of the stairwell ringing to her apologies for the mess that awaits them. Daniel is reminded of Christmas Day, when the roles had been reversed, though he can’t bring to mind any apologies of his own. She tells him she’s only had three hours’ sleep – her way of readjusting her body clock. Despite her obvious tiredness, she seems warm enough towards him; the hug had felt genuine and he detects no tension in her manner. His disquiet remains, all the same.
Over the phone, he’d listed the things for Alex he still needed from town, and Gulnaz had asked if she could join him. Now he sees just how much this has squeezed him for time. He’s made two trips already this morning, but is keen to get back on the road. The sight before him as they step into her room suggests however that she’s had other ideas. Her table has been laid; a teapot sits over a tea-light beside a tray of confectionery. He recognises gaz – the pistachio nougat he’d sampled on their picnic. Pride of place is given over to a giant wooden bowl stacked with different fruits, though he knows from the picnic that the heavy fragrance of citrus comes more from the tea than from the fruit. Another smell teases his palate too; toasted, biscuity, of warm linen. It’s like having walked into a harem, or a gypsy caravan.
So where’s the mess she’s promised him? Everywhere looks immaculate. Sadly, all this will have to wait. He proposes a rain-check for the food and tells her they should get going. Gulnaz responds by taking her place at the table.
“Come and sit down,” she insists. “Let’s have tea and run through your list. We’ve plenty of time. Tonight’s late night shopping and the recycled furniture place is open tomorrow till four.”
It’s so unexpected that he’s already seated before it quite hits him what has just happened. She’s done it again – like at the graveside – disarmed him, assumed control. She pours tea and offers him the sticky cakes. Conceding defeat, he begins to take her through the plans he’d made for the flat and lists the extra items needed for each room.
“Don’t forget my offer,” she prompts. Daniel stares back blankly. “You got my note? The spare bed, the folding one, it’s yours if you want it. Greg used it sometimes when we weren’t…” She shakes her head. “Anyway, he always insisted it was quite comfy.” Then she laughs, “I trust I won’t be needing it for a while.”
Daniel thinks of her letter, the exact wording, and understands. So now he can rest easy. Once again he’s been a prat. Always reading the worst into other people’s words.
Over tea, they work on the finer detail, making lists of smaller but equally vital purchases: bibs, wooden cutlery, trays, toddler’s drinking cup, incontinence sheet, extra pillows and blankets, a sliding board for getting between the bed and the wheelchair – he’d thought of none of these – dressing gown, slippers and pyjamas, and new clothes for when Alex is well enough to venture out. Though Gulnaz visibly fights her exhaustion, massaging her face with her palms and repeatedly filling her glass with tea, her mind still turns over with unwavering clarity. Now she has moved on to the DIY tasks, like a handrail for the toilet, special tap tops, replacing door knobs with long handles. There are the administrative jobs: organising home-help visits, applying for disability allowance and carers’ benefits; a disabled badge for the car. To Daniel it seems endless. Looking after his mother had never been like this; he’d just been her skivvy until things got really bad and then they’d taken her away. He wonders whether he would have had the strength to go through with it all without Gulnaz, stuck in his flat for a whole month, trying to deal with all this.
Given that it might be their last evening alone together for some weeks, he finally makes up his mind to relax and enjoy it. Gulnaz is right; there will be time enough for everything tomorrow. He sits back and breathes in the magic around him. Somehow she has managed to transform this most unpromising of spaces into a Middle-Eastern paradise; her personal touches are everywhere he looks. Hand-woven rugs hang from the walls, each one a unique tapestry of reds, blacks, blues and greys. The lighting she’s created is soft and alluring. Table lamps and candles are cleverly placed against windows or mirrors to make them sparkle. Even the ghastly fluorescent tube ceiling light is ingeniously disguised by a fine red muslin headscarf, throwing a blanket of warmth over the whole room. When she offers to show him the rest of the flat he readily agrees. ‘It won’t take long,’ she assures him wryly. And she’s right. The all-in-one kitchen diner leads only to a single bedroom and a cramped little shower room.
And Daniel thought his flat was small.
Further feminine touches adorn the bathroom, like scented candles and coloured glassware. In her bedroom, along with more rugs and candles, he sees tiny pastel coloured drawings set within frames inlaid with intricately patterned mosaic. It’s all so seductive that he could happily skip food altogether and take her straight to bed.
Later, she serves him khoresh-e-bodemjun, along with the steamed rice he’d smelled cooking earlier. Savouring the tomatoey aubergine stew, studying her candlelit face across the table, Daniel can see now just how wonderfully foreign she is. Hard to believe that the line of her nose, her sharp eyes, the chiselled cheek bones, the large but perfect white teeth, her broad lips, coming together as they do into something unfamiliar, had led him at the graveside to judge her as plain. In fact, her beauty is extraordinary. It’s only her work-a-day appearance that belies it – the way she normally wears her hair, her drab coat, the loose fitting sweater, the bicycle. But here everything fits together; everything makes perfect sense.
Does she see the look he is giving her? Certainly she must notice his eyes picking over the details around him. She’s on her feet, leading him over to another set of pastel drawings and introducing each one. There’s a young Persian woman poised with a pitcher of wine over her crouching, bearded lover; a polo match on cartoon horses; the swishing sabres of a ceremonial hunting scene. Each little gem, she declares proudly, is handcrafted in a place she calls Esfahan.
“I brought some of the pictures with me,” she says. “A couple of the rugs were smuggled out much later by an Iranian friend on her way to Canada. Everything else I found here in England.”
His curiosity gives her the confidence to open up further. Only after her grandfather’s death had she really felt this need to surround herself with such things. She’d left Iran at thirteen. In taking her under his wing, her grandfather had felt a duty to reintroduce her to the Kurdish ways. She’d wanted to forget everything, to become British, to put the past behind her. “I’ll tell you,” she throws in with a despairing laugh, “I was one very confused teenager.”
But losing her grandfather had cut her terribly adrift. Her flat, she says, became her way of making sense of it all. A way of reconnecting with her parents, with the child she once was, with where she once belonged. A kind of shrine.
“I remember when I told all this to Greg the first time he came here… Do you mind me talking about him?”
Daniel shrugs.
“I remember how poetically he expressed it. Apparently, I’m teetering between two – what did he call them? – two footholds, or something: anyway, the hospitals and care homes on one side, my life here, on the other. I agreed how unsettling it all was, and he promised he’d ‘be my rock’.” Daniel cringes. She laughs. “Oh yes, Greg had a wonderful way with words. All very sensitive when it suited him. Can’t believe how I fell for that stuff. A rock! Well, perhaps the kind that grinds you down into the dust.” Then she smiles and puts her arms around his neck. “But that’s all in the past. Now I have you.”
Daniel isn’t sure he’s quite ready to be anyone’s rock, being all so at sea himself.
The sex that night is intense but perf
unctory. A combination of her extreme tiredness and his anxiety over the day ahead leaves them distracted and impatient. Climax for Daniel is rushed and unrewarding. He isn’t even sure that Gulnaz reaches hers before they both roll over and fall into very private sleeps. But it’s comforting to feel her rump against the small of his back, to touch her calves with the soles of his feet, and, when the din of shopkeepers wakes him next morning, to recall her half-lit face at the table. Gulnaz’s deep regular breathing telling him she sleeps on, Daniel forces open an eye and finds himself staring at a photograph on the bedside table of a woman, a child and two men. Only half awake, at first he lays the faces in the picture over the remnants of a fading dream. The two men, one slim and handsome, the other moustached, overweight and considerably older, briefly assume the role of hospital orderlies. The young woman, her face round and troubled, framed in black headscarf, takes on the mantle of Gulnaz, neatly turned out in her nurse’s uniform, wheeling a chair across the ward ahead of the men. The likeness between Gulnaz and this woman at once names them as daughter and mother; the men, by implication, therefore the father and grandfather. The group poses before a scene of red earth and high mountains – the real context becomes clear as the dream is shaken off. And though the little girl in their midst must be six years old at most, the characteristic lips and nose and piercing bright eyes belong unmistakably to Gulnaz herself.
The light niggles him, as does the relentless clatter of unloading crates, raising shutters and cocky bonhomie. Sunday is no day of rest for the shops on this street, or for its unfortunate residents. He slips from the bed and into the bathroom. By the time he’s familiarised himself with the antiquated shower, Gulnaz has come awake. He offers to brew up some coffee, but the coffee grounds and cafetière defeat him. They breakfast at the table, still laid from the previous night. She eats ‘Café Lucca’ style; bread and cheese and a little cold meat. Daniel finds some wheat flakes, courtesy of ex-boyfriend Greg. Gulnaz’s coffee is incredible.
The day quickly gathers momentum, the enormity and sheer physicality of the job soon hitting home. Getting the second-hand furniture to his flat without paying for delivery takes three return trips. Afterwards, Daniel leaves the rear seats folded, ready to receive very different cargo the next morning. As dusk falls, the last items are unloaded and carried through to their appointed rooms. By the end of it, the flat is in chaos, the worst case of fly-tipping Daniel has ever seen. They clear a space on the sofa and rest up for a moment with their drinks, but he can see just how exhausted Gulnaz has become, how each blink is slower than the last, and it’s no surprise when she admits her wish to sleep by herself, in order to be fresh enough for work next day. In truth, he’s rather relieved. His is not the widest of beds. He insists he should finish the work alone, that she’s done more than enough. Half an hour later, he drives her home and kisses her goodnight.
The final visit he’d planned on making to the hospital now seems rather pointless. He’d wanted to go after lunch. Visiting hours end early on Sundays and there’s only an hour left. In a little over twelve hours he’ll be back there anyway. One job remains, however, that Daniel must tackle before heading home, something he’s been meaning to face for days: to make his peace with the Millwrights. It’s a wonder the ruckus with the students hadn’t landed him an outright ban, his long-term loyalties to the place doubtless counting in his favour, but it remains to be seen whether the bouncers will actually allow him back through its doors.
The pub is just opening as he pulls into the car park. To his relief, the two thugs are nowhere to be seen. All the windows targeted by New Year’s Eve revellers have been replaced, and everything seems strangely back to normal. Inside, the broken chairs too are gone, even the barman is someone new; no apology or swearing on his mother’s grave to behave apparently necessary. The bar is all but empty, the only real drama playing out on TV, busy as ever with News 24. Tonight, the jukebox is silent and the fruit machines switched off. There’s something of a tension about the place. Of the handful of customers, none seems brave enough to disturb the air with anything above a murmur. Daniel orders a beer and props up the bar, speaking to no-one and avoiding eye contact. His mind is still busy with rearranging furniture and bringing Alex home from the hospital. It’s some minutes before he becomes aware of the figure sat alone in the corner, and only then because of a tingle of discomfort that breaks his concentration. The sensation is the same as the one he’d had that night in the cemetery; a feeling of being watched. The glance he steals over a shoulder should be more than enough to tell any voyeur they’ve been rumbled. Their eyes should immediately drop, or flick to the side; a pint should be raised, a cigarette lit or a newspaper reached for, any kind of pretence to suggest the staring has been misconstrued. But this man makes no move whatsoever. He faces Daniel square on, his hands to his side, no drink, no fags, no paper at his table, and his eyes never once blinking. Even after looking away and back again Daniel finds no change. Then, from the memory of a night misted by drink, he locates this man: the baby-faced sumo wrestler who’d been with Jerry on Boxing Day evening, the night that Daniel had been jilted by Gulnaz. He’d had the same look then as he does now. A look to drain a man’s blood. In response, Daniel downs his pint and climbs from his stool, heading deliberately for the exit that takes him straight past this weirdo’s table. With escape safely in his sights and the man directly to his left, he loudly clears his throat, neatly sandwiching within it the word ‘faggot’.
The incident has probably spared him another night of disastrous boozing, and allowed him at least a fighting chance of finishing the flat before bed. Really, Daniel should be grateful. But he isn’t. The encounter has left him fractious, nervous, confrontational. And it falls to poor old Scoff to bear the brunt of it. For the past two or three days Scoff has been particularly infuriating when it comes to food, driving Daniel to distraction with his endless pestering, only to leave his meal to go dry and rancid. Again tonight, the bowl has been virtually untouched, and, as the big sorting operation gets underway, one of Scoff’s mega vomits comes to light beneath the TV.
“You sodding animal!” he cries. Three sheets of kitchen paper hastily cordon off the mess.
He heads back into the kitchen, collects up the dish, scrapes the furred and crusty mixture into the bin, pulls out the Tupperware from the fridge and ladles another dollop into a fresh bowl. It’s a miracle how Scoff survives on this diet of thin air. Little wonder that when he isn’t throwing up he’s spread-eagled somewhere in a catatonic state. Tonight, it’s the turn of Daniel’s bed, from which he’s whisked – legs dangling – out of the room and thrust in front of the food. Scoff withdraws drowsily, only to be firmly returned by the scruff and his head forced down into the bowl. After an initial meow of vague protest, he begins to purr loudly and take a prospective lick, then a few token bites. All appears well. Daniel lets go the scruff. Scoff promptly shakes his head, spraying bouillabaisse over a wide area, blows out through fishy lips and wanders casually back to bed. The incident ends there.
Midnight has passed by the time Daniel feels he’s done enough to turn in. Too exhausted to start fretting over what awaits the next day, he’s out the moment his head touches the pillow, oblivious to his cat’s subsequent efforts to prise himself under the bedspread and curl up against a warm crotch.
All the symptoms of a hangover are there in the morning: the dry mouth, the churning guts, the sweating, the shaking, the tightening in the chest, the pangs of nausea and the pressure behind the eyes. But this time it is not a hangover – one pint, no matter how badly kept, could never do that to him. It is fear, pure and simple. No more problem-solving, no more focusing on a job to be done, and no more hiding away in exotic harems.
The arrangement with the front desk had been to collect Alex at ten. Still more or less on time for once, Daniel pulls the car off the dual carriageway and onto the hospital perimeter road. Immediately the butterflies begin their crazy dance. The next roundabout presents a choice
: left for the car park, ahead for the front entrance. The first exit is passed. And then the second. The car makes a complete circuit and heads back the way it has come. For the last mile, with that terrible fortress pulling him ever closer to its breast, Daniel has hardly taken a breath. He knows now that his body is in meltdown, his head mashed up. What’s the bloody problem? Hasn’t he been planning this for days? Hasn’t he rehearsed this moment over and over, worked his arse off to make it happen? Absolutely he has. But the moment no longer lies some way in the future, safely at arm’s length. It is here. It is now. There, just across that car park, Alex will be dressed and ready in his wheelchair, with Gulnaz at his side to help get him into the car. Daniel is heading the wrong way and there is jack shit he can do about it.
The hospital is fast receding in the mirror, and with it any idea of what the hell should happen next. One more roundabout and he’ll be back onto the main carriageway, another two miles at least before he can escape it again. Just a few seconds to make a decision or there’ll be no decision to make. The white lines approach, but his brain remains stalled. Nothing to be done but to watch his own actions – signal and U-turn, or just keep on going.
A look darts into the mirror, a hand moves for the indicator, a foot slows the vehicle and the arms cross at the wheel. Exits pass by on his left. Again he is facing the hospital and this particular crisis is over.
But hot on its heels comes a second. Drawing up at the front entrance, now nearly ten minutes late, Daniel is suddenly struck by a fear that the nurse waiting for him might not be Gulnaz. Again the butterflies, the tingling throughout his frame, an irrational wave of panic over not having cleaned and vacuumed the car, over not having pushed the passenger seat back to its furthest setting, not having brought a blanket, and over a hundred other petty details – his earlier crisis now splintered into shards of petty anxiety. He savages some gum to steady his nerves and sits for a couple of minutes with eyes closed, a sensation of floating in speckled blackness. Next thing, he is punching the wheel with both fists and leaping from the car.
Alex is seated just inside the entrance, exactly as they had promised. But, worst fears confirmed, Gulnaz isn’t there with him, in fact Daniel can see none of the nurses he’s met in the wards over the past three weeks. Behind the wheelchair stands instead an immensely tall young black man. Anxieties again begin to spiral out of control. But this man wears the most extraordinary white smile, one that eats up his entire face. It hits Daniel then that the other nurses never smiled; even Gulnaz struggled to do so when in uniform. The contrast is a revelation. And something else helps calm him. One overriding nightmare that has dogged his thoughts for the past two weeks proves unfounded. Far from being reduced to a drooling vegetable under heavy blankets, Alex sits tall and alert. The side of his face that was slumped so strangely only days before has risen again more or less into place. His frame is given bulk and definition by the thick sweater and tough jeans. His lank hair now washed, it sits thickly around his ears and forehead, fuller even than Daniel’s own. Both arms hang to the sides, idle but not useless, the thumbs extended and palms curved ready to grip and propel him forward.
The nurse offers a hearty welcome and has Daniel complete some formalities. Together, the three of them then roll out into the morning sunshine. Though it’s the man’s gigantic hands that actually power the chair, Alex is already busy rehearsing the grip-push-release-back, grip-push-release-back actions over the wheels. Daniel forges ahead and opens up the car’s side door and tailgate. The nurse brings the chair as close to the bodywork as he can. But the next step isn’t clear – no way has enough room been left for Alex to be lifted into the car.
“Come on now, Mr George,” the man intones in his crisp, African voice, “You know you can do this.”
Thinking he’s being called upon to assist, Daniel rushes forward to await further instruction.
“The wheelchair is quite secure, Mr George. You can be sure of that. Steady now. One, two, three.”
Daniel clocks now that he is redundant; this is to be the patient’s challenge, not his. At first, Alex seems reluctant to play. He holds fast at the wheels, threading his fingers through the spokes and pulling himself deeper into the seat so that the wires bite into his flesh.
“Please, let us not have a scene,” the nurse chides him. “You have practised this, Mr George.”
Like some giant praying mantis, the nurse leans over the back of the chair and gently untangles the fingers. Alex finally abandons his defiance and lets his arms go limp. Daniel freezes, waiting to see who will make the next move.
Lazarus rising. That’s how it appears. Miracle on Gladstone Way North. Shakily, Alex pushes those hanging arms into service, eases himself forward onto his feet and grasps the car roof above the doorway. The chair is drawn back, the nurse taking its place but doing little more than guiding and reassuring as Alex manoeuvres one foot into the footwell and lowers his body with stupendous effort onto the seat. As he comes to rest, his mumbling explodes into a cry of triumph.
And all this, from the man who only days before had been laid out in white, adrift in another world, plugged into a battery of equipment as though his very life depended on it. Daniel can only watch in amazement as this slick operation concludes. The crutches are brought from a pouch at the back of the chair, catches to the chair’s front and rear are released, and in no time the two sides have concertinaed together, like a Keystone Kops getaway car sandwiched between two passing trains. The chair is so magically light that the nurse can lift it effortlessly into the boot of the Golf. And in it goes, perfectly – with room to spare for the crutches; no need from now on to fold down the rear seats or remove the parcel shelf.
Job done. A handshake. An induction leaflet on, ‘Safety first! Best practice in the use of your wheelchair’. The NHS being as moronic as ever. Daniel is then instructed on how to strap the sticks to Alex’s hands, and given a second leaflet obliquely entitled, ‘One step at a time! From two-point to swing-through crutch gait’. With that, the nurse wishes them both good luck and is gone. Still no sign of Gulnaz, and no message of farewell either from Prentice. Well, so be it. Daniel doesn’t need them. After one final scan of the hospital reception through the glass, he slips in behind the wheel and revs the engine.
The true enormity of this moment can now sink in at last: the pair of them, the dynamic duo, here together for the first time on their own terms. So, so long since they’d sat this way, side by side on those innumerable car journeys: the visits to their father’s ship in Plymouth; little trips to the shops or to school when the weather wouldn’t allow them to walk; those longer journeys from the South West to Shropshire for their annual caravan holidays. But always they’d shared the rear seat, fighting over their respective halves, never up front like this, never like grownups. True, when their mother hadn’t come with them Alex was sometimes permitted to sit beside their father; second in command, the co-pilot and navigator, the lookout. But Daniel would always be left in the back. Daniel was only ever cargo, never more than ballast.
Well, today Daniel takes command. Poor Alex is no longer fit for purpose; no coordination for co-piloting, no voice for navigation. Only good for looking out – onto a bewildering world from that locked room of his mind.
On the journey home, Daniel feels compelled to clutter the silence with words, at first just stuff about the sights they’re passing, but when that topic runs thin he turns to the home that awaits them. He’s both quietly confident and proud of his efforts, after such a hard slog getting it all sorted. Alex hears him out impassively. His upper body remains twisted toward the side window, eyes riveted to the view, the characteristic pose Daniel so well remembers seeing from his rear seat vantage point all those years ago.
But just before they hit Cooper’s Hill, he slumps back in his seat. Daniel turns the car into Sedgefield Court, stops outside the garage and leaps out to unload the wheelchair from the boot. Getting it to unfold proves trickier than expected, as the c
atches are not quite as he’d understood them. Twice the whole thing falls over before finally springing into shape. The next move is even less certain – whether Alex has actually mastered the art of getting into it unaided. Something to have checked with the nurse before leaving.
But Alex wastes no time in proving himself, and again his abilities outstrip all expectation. With the will of an Olympic gymnast he hoists himself up and almost throws himself backwards into the seat. By the time Daniel has garaged the car, Alex is already engaging the grip-push-release movement he’d practised earlier and powering himself towards the road. It’s all Daniel can do to stop him from attempting the busy crossing under his own steam.
“You’re amazing; you know that.” Daniel is almost too choked up to work the door key as they reach the flat. Alex’s progress has completely bowled him over. “It’s not exactly five stars,” he splutters excitedly, “but I’ve done what I can to make it comfortable for you.”
Inevitably of course, the chair can’t negotiate the step without help. Alex tucks his arms out of the way to allow Daniel to hoik it up and in through the doorway. Fortunately the clearance is sufficient. The same however cannot be said of the corridor. Not a single resident has taken heed of the notes in their pigeonholes and the way is littered as ever with an impossible array of junk: the same three bicycles, joined now by a tatty skateboard, three pairs of wellingtons, a large opened umbrella and a child’s buggy.
“Stay there,” he growls, as though Alex might leap from his chair in fury. He attacks the stairs three at a time and begins pounding at each door on the first floor. The old codger in flat 5 insists he doesn’t accept cold callers and threatens to call the police. Flats 4 and 6 are either not at home or choose to ignore him. On the top floor, flat 7, the TV is racked up to full volume in response to his hammering. To its right, a dog starts to bark, snarl and scratch at the door, and at flat 9 the corpulent tenant emerges threateningly onto the landing, arms folded. Baby buggy? Skateboard? Bikes? You must be bleedin’ jokin’, mate.
Daniel is seething now, charging back down to the lobby, grabbing the pushchair and dragging it out into the forecourt. He rounds on the other items and hurls them after it. Not that it’s cleared the way – all he can do with the bikes is to give them a sound kicking. Alex will now have to abandon the chair and attempt the last few yards on crutches.
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn the bloody-minded bastards.” Daniel momentarily takes the strain while fitting each leather strap around his brother’s hands. With his full weight bearing down on his wrists, Alex looks stable enough, but evidently in great pain. All that training to get him in and out of wheelchairs must have left no time for crutch practice. Left stick first, right leg second, right stick third, left leg fourth. Each cycle takes over a minute to complete. Daniel does what he can to guide him, step by faltering step into the flat and across the hall and kitchen. The straps are removed. Freed again from the crutches, Alex props himself up against the kitchen sink while Daniel heads back for the chair. On his return, seeing his brother there, clutching on for dear life, Daniel’s heart leaps back for a moment to that other place, the roll top seen again as a fringe of grass over vertical rock, but joined now by the clawing, failing grasp of a child. ‘No, Alex, stop! You’re gonna fall,’ calls a distant voice. The fingers unlock. The child is tumbling.
And the wheelchair takes him.
“Alex, did you climb down the cliff to reach the water!?” The words are already out before Daniel can intercept them. “Just yes or no will do. Just make a sound, one sound for yes, two for no – or nod, shake your head, it doesn’t matter.”
Too late, if raising this now is the wrong thing. At first he hears nothing. When it comes, the solitary sound should strictly speaking signify a ‘Yes’, but the intonation suggests the opposite.
“Yes? Yes? Yes. Okay. And did you fall? Were you badly hurt? Knocked out?”
He wants ‘Yes’ to be a short unequivocal sound – the equivalent of a yes. When Alex emits a second single utterance, it’s so drawn out as to mean nothing.
“So, did someone find you – before the police came?”
This time, no sound at all.
“Please, Alex, it’s really important you remember. If you were… If someone took you away.”
Another slow murmur, half drowned by a kind of choked gargle. But Daniel is now too intent on getting these questions off his chest. “I have to know why, Alex. Why you never once made contact. I have to believe there was good reason, and not that you simply didn’t care, or couldn’t be arsed. You understand that? Why that’s so important?”
Either Alex has now forgotten the rules, or he’s embroiled in some heated conversation all of his own. With a flash of horror, Daniel suddenly cottons on. He swings the chair around. The kitchen light picks out the tears streaming down his brother’s face and the spittle on his chin. His entire body is shaking. His mouth hangs open, snatching at the air like a beached fish, his eyes rolling upwards in terror. Daniel freezes.
He has to call Gulnaz.
No. No way. He can just hear her reaction, ‘Give him up to a shrink – let them put him away.’ He must use the instinct of a twin and deal with this alone.
He remembers a boy in secondary school who used to have fits. They seldom lasted more than a minute, but they still left him in a terrible state; a second attack often followed soon after. Yet their teacher always instructed them not to interfere, only to make sure that he wasn’t injured. For a moment, those strict orders override the instinct to rush to Alex’s aid.
But there was a particular girl in that class. When the teacher wasn’t around she would seize the boy’s right hand and squeeze it tight. She said it helped her friend recover more quickly. Remembering this suddenly, Daniel squats down and reaches out. The joining of hands. Once again that special bond, the symbol of reconnection they’d established on day one at the hospital bedside.
“It’s alright, mate. You’re doing fine. I’m so sorry. No more questions for today. Take it easy. Deep breaths.”
He could kick himself for what he’d done. Alex just isn’t ready.
“You don’t have to say anything. No-one’s going to force you to explain things you don’t want to. It’s enough that you’re here. I’m just so thrilled you’re back.”
Slowly the shaking comes under control, Alex’s breathing settles and he closes his eyes. Without letting go his right hand, Daniel wraps a left arm around his shoulders. For several minutes they remain in wordless communion, heads close together, breathing in rhythm. Like embryos in the womb.
Alex is the first to break the link, slowly turning the chair around and propelling himself with grim determination towards the bedroom.
“No, wait. Your room is through here,” Daniel says, grabbing the handles. He immediately loses control negotiating the turn, wedging a wheel into the skirting board and having to reverse out. He tells himself to stop flapping, to steady his nerves and slow down. Alex is going to be okay. Everything will work out. The lounge proves to be perfect – plenty of room for the chair, a clear run through to the bed. He parks up and helps Alex onto it, midway between a pair of crisp new pyjamas and two folded towels. It makes quite a picture. Although some sign of appreciation would be nice, he’s grateful at least for Alex’s continued silence, hands in his lap, no suggestion that another fit might be on its way.
“I’ll go and make some coffee.” Daniel declares. It takes effort to stay cheerful. “Just through here if you want me, okay?”
For the time being at least, Alex had better not be let out of sight. Opening the door wide and stepping away, Daniel glances back from the worktop. Not such a pretty picture actually. For all those hours he’s toiled over that room, Alex just sits there, hunched forward, staring at nothing, forlorn and defeated, like some half-starved refugee hiding up in a cargo hold, perched on the folding bed like it’s some battered old tea chest. Are they to have a whole month of this? What the fuck is Alex??
?s problem? Would he prefer to be back in hospital, is that it? Or locked away in some loony bin?
But the voice of reason tells Daniel to stop, be patient, and just give the poor bastard a little time.
Time is not something they’re short of. The morning drags painfully by. While Alex is sleeping, Daniel sets his mind to the logistics of food preparation. No guidance has been given over this; no instructions from the hospital regarding diet or feeding habits. Alex is no help at all. With its deep-lipped plates and baby-feeders, its thick wooden fork and spoon, the new tableware only seems to cause him offence. In the end, Daniel tests him on standard cutlery and finds it perfectly adequate. A total waste of good money. But getting the food itself right goes beyond a farce. Too hot, too cold, too tough. Eventually, he decides to stick with ingredients that cook into a pulp. For the time being at least, Alex’s diet will consist of overdone vegetables, mashed potato and soup. Maybe jelly or trifle for afters. Hospital food must have suited him just fine.
It’s hard work having someone in the house who won’t speak, whose only solace is to stare despondently at the floor for hours on end. Again to keep his mind busy (and his lips sealed), Daniel turns to the long list of DIY tasks. They prove to be only marginally less maddening than lunch. The special tap tops with extended side handles go on relatively simply, but not the new handles for the doors: their spindles are so short that he has to fudge the job by reusing the old ones, packed out with masking tape. And then there’s the handrail: easy enough to fix to the wall beside the toilet – a good result, he tells himself, until discovering there is no longer room to sit down. It has to come off again and be moved to the other side. But the efforts pay rich dividends. A little later, Alex takes his first trip to the bathroom and, thank God, thanks to the newly fitted rail he finds he can relieve himself unaided.
By the time Daniel has finished for the day and found some downtime he’s left totally shattered. The mindless stupidity of game shows and a few Stellas is his absolute limit. The thought that this is but day one of thirty. A whole month of todays. Surely it can only get easier. Maybe not. He stares into the screen. Maybe he is the Weakest Link.
A sound infiltrates the TV chatter, a sound quite at odds with the presenter’s exaggerated sarcasm. Plaintive, heartfelt, tender – it could almost be the call of a pigeon. Intrigue getting the better of exhaustion, Daniel hauls himself to his feet and shuffles back to the sitting room. Alex is back in his chair, his eyes still lowered, but something has shifted his attention. A ball of ginger fur now sits in his lap between his hands, as if someone had thrown him their Russian hat. A familiar road-drill is hard at work, hammering away in sync with the tiny stroking motions along its back. The tears on Alex’s cheeks are visible even from the kitchen.
Well, well, well. Kindred spirits. True kindred spirits. Thank God – Alex is fond of cats. No allergies or phobias. And old Scoff must have a nose for DNA. The wily scoundrel, the chancer, what a bonus for him. Four knees to lay claim to, two bedspreads, twice the fussing. Who knows, maybe in the goodness of time even dual rations. His master cloned for his sole benefit. Now Scoff can look forward to round-the-clock company and be more spoilt than ever.
Daniel finds a smile at last. Things just might be working out after all.