State We're In Page 8

  He followed his father’s gaze and looked out of the window too. They were high up on the sixth floor; there was nothing to see but a grey, disappointing sky. They both stared at it as though it was the most fascinating thing ever.

  Oddly, it was the depth and desolation of the silence that clarified for Dean his reasons for coming to England, to the hospital, to this bedside. He had been questioning the sanity of his decision; the one person in the world he hated hurting was Zoe, and he knew he had hurt her by coming here, but weighing against her disapproval and even more compelling than the catheter tubes, Dean was stuck in his seat because there was something he had to know.

  Just one thing.

  This was his first and last chance to ask it; he could not pass it up. He realised that his burdensome curiosity was why he had allowed Lacey to bully him on to the flight. It was that which had driven him to hop on the tube and then walk through the streets of London this morning to this dreary place.

  He wondered whether he had the courage or energy to ask it. He wondered whether his father had either thing in order to answer. This was so mercilessly confusing. Part of Dean felt like an angry teenager again. He knew he had to shun that level of perplexity and uncertainty; he had to cling to the man who prided himself on being in control, being logical. He’d worked so hard to find balance and reason and he couldn’t let that slither away. He knew he wasn’t perfect; for example, he didn’t do ‘deep’. So many women had come and gone from his life, moaning that he was distant or shallow and that he wouldn’t let them in. The expression always amused him. Did they think he was some sort of boutique shop that they were entitled to browse round? He assured them that what they saw was all there was: a shiny, affluent, sexy man. He was lying, of course. Deep down he knew it was murkier, but he couldn’t afford that part of him to bubble up to the surface.

  All he had to do was lean close to the old man’s ear and whisper, ‘Why did you leave? Why did you abandon us?’ It was as simple as that, but he just couldn’t do it. He’d never once said the words aloud. He’d never asked his mother. He hadn’t had to; she’d shouted, screamed and smashed out her thoughts on the matter over and over again. In her opinion Eddie had left because he was a coward, because he’d found some whore to run off with, because he was a bastard. Was that all there was to it? His whole childhood massacred and his belief in the good stuff – like trust, fidelity and love – injured beyond repair just because his father hadn’t been able to keep it in his trousers? Was that it?

  He hadn’t once asked Zoe. As the big brother, it was his job to beat off the gloom, deny it if possible, not probe. ‘We don’t need him’ was the thing he most often said to her.

  Of course he’d internally debated, endlessly asking himself why. Why had his dad gone? He’d come up with his own theories on the matter. The one about him not being impressive enough to keep a dad in his right place, at home. And the other one, the fact that you could never trust anyone, not completely, not truly. Dean thought that if a dad could leave, then anyone could. Would. The world was populated by selfish bastards. There was nothing you could do about that, other than protect yourself. Dean didn’t get too friendly with colleagues or too close to his mates, so they couldn’t hurt him when they stabbed him in the back as he was sure they inevitably would. One thing he was absolutely clear on: he would never fall in love. He wouldn’t have children; that way he couldn’t screw them up.

  Yet here he was, hoping to be contradicted. Could it possibly be the case that, after all these years of hating and festering, the truth was that Dean didn’t want to believe something so bleak? Was he here because he hoped his father would offer up something a little more substantial, something healing and comforting? Did he still think Eddie might make it all better? Not exactly kiss his cut knee and apply an Elastoplast – it was too late for all that – but offer an explanation that would make the hurt recede a fraction, allow the trust to bloom a little.

  Eddie Taylor’s hands trembled, ever so slightly. They were splattered with age spots and covered in swollen blue veins which created the impression that somehow he had dipped his elbow in a tin of paint and then allowed it to drip down his arms and hands. The skin was thin, almost transparent, like crumpled tracing paper. The man was decaying, even before he’d died. Loose skin suggested that until relatively recently he had been packed and fortified with layers of fat; the cancer had leached away that buffering and now his skin hung sloppy and grey. The hollows in his cheeks were cavernous. His eyes were watery; there was a film covering them that somehow seemed to underline the distance between the two men.

  One was vital and of this world.

  The older man had accepted that he had an imminent exit.

  A nurse appeared at the bedside and broke the silence. Dean was grateful. She was a different one from the one he’d spoken with this morning. ‘You’re awake, Eddie, that’s good.’

  Dean thought this was probably what was widely accepted to be an understatement; a dying man waking up must be the high point of a nurse’s day. He appraised the nurse with the practised eye of a womaniser. She was probably about his age but she looked significantly more worn in. Worn out. Dean worked out four times a week, he ate organic food and he never smoked or drank alcohol. He cared about his physical appearance. He sometimes thought of himself as a brand; a dynamic, attractive, slick, successful brand. The nurse carried a small tyre around her midriff and looked as though she ate takeaways. Surprisingly, Dean quite liked to see that particular bulge, because it represented contentment, and although he didn’t do contentment himself, he accepted that others did and that was a good thing. That said, contented women didn’t tend to fall in Dean’s way. He dated hard-bodied gym bunnies who had allergies to carbs and were often coldly ambitious.

  The nurse had reasonably good legs; there were some benefits to being on your feet all day. He studied her face: big brown eyes and a sloppy, smiley mouth. He briefly imagined that mouth – made up with scarlet lipstick – inching its way from his lips to his chin, his chest, across his belly, down lower, the big brown eyes staring at him all the while. No, the fantasy didn’t fly. Even though this woman was wearing a uniform and kept flashing him big, careless grins, he couldn’t get anything started. He wasn’t really in the mood. He watched passively as she whizzed around the bed, tapping tubes and checking readings.

  ‘Keep trying to drink your fluids,’ she said to Eddie. For a moment she allowed her hand to rest on his shoulder. It was a tender gesture. Dean saw his father move his head a fraction towards her. He couldn’t lay his cheek on her hand as he might once have done – he didn’t have the flexibility; besides which, it would have been inappropriate – but there was something in the movement, however slight, that suggested that he hankered after human contact. Dean wished he hadn’t noticed.

  ‘When will he be getting some breakfast?’ he asked the nurse. He checked his watch. He had little idea what time it was here in England. Despite being a frequent flier, he always suffered with jet lag; it played havoc with his reality at the best of times, and this clearly wasn’t that. ‘Or lunch? It’s past lunchtime, right? Where has the morning gone?’ He wondered whether it was worthwhile trying to adjust to UK time or whether he should stay in the US zone; he’d be going back soon. When this was all over. The thought made him feel grateful and sick at the same time.

  The nurse sidestepped the question. ‘If you’re hungry, there’s a shop on the third floor that sells chocolate and crisps and there’s a café in the lobby. They do sandwiches and jacket potatoes, that sort of thing. The BLT wrap is decent. I’ll be back in a few minutes with the painkillers.’

  It took a moment for Dean to understand. Eddie Taylor was no longer taking solids. The two men avoided one another’s gaze and stayed silent until the nurse came back with the medication.

  ‘Still happy with the syringe?’ she asked brightly.

  Eddie nodded, then wheezed, ‘If happy is the right word.’

  ‘Content,
then? Not too drowsy? Doesn’t make you feel sick?’

  Eddie nodded again. This time the nod was sharper, curt. Dean thought the gesture was somehow the physical equivalent of saying ‘What the fuck do you think?’ Eddie was probably just desperate for some relief. How much pain was he in? Dean suddenly felt overwhelmed with emotions that he only sparingly dispensed and had never felt for his father: pity and sympathy. Then he remembered that it was his father dying in front of him and he slammed the lid on that swell of emotions. His father didn’t deserve his sympathy; he didn’t even deserve his pity.

  ‘What is that exactly?’ he asked the nurse. Concentrating on the practicalities of the situation was the best thing to do, he assured himself. He could be good in a crisis. If he remained detached, he’d be fine.

  ‘This is a syringe driver. It’s the best way to manage your dad’s painkillers. We tried fentanyl as a patch but it irritated his skin. This is so easy to set up. A tiny needle is inserted just under the skin of the arm, there.’ The nurse rubbed a dab of something on Eddie’s arm and inserted a needle. ‘Sorry about my cold hands.’

  ‘I could warm them up? Put them under the covers,’ chipped in Eddie. His breath came out in puffs.

  ‘Eddie.’ The nurse pretended to look shocked, but her voice was full of tolerance and warmth, despite his improper suggestion. It was clear that she knew how to handle men like Eddie.

  ‘Still, they say cold hands, warm heart. Have you?’ mumbled Eddie.

  ‘You know it.’

  Dean could not believe it. His father was flirting with the nurse. An old, dying man flirting! Life in the old dog yet had never been such an apt phrase. Dean wasn’t sure if he was disgusted or impressed.

  The nurse turned back to Dean and held up a small portable pump. ‘And this holds enough painkillers for twenty-four hours. It gives a continuous dose. Should I put it on the bedside table or tuck it under your pillow, Eddie?’

  ‘On the table. Thanks.’

  The words were barely out before Eddie closed his eyes. Relief seemed to flood through his entire body. Dean stood up and followed the nurse as she walked away from the bed. When he thought he was out of Eddie’s earshot he asked, ‘Did you give him something to make him sleep? Is there a sedative in that?’

  ‘No. Sleep is natural right now, at this stage. The miracle is that he’s awake at all.’ The nurse paused, allowing Dean a moment to compute what she was saying. ‘If you have any other questions, the doctor or the palliative care team will be able to answer them.’

  Dean did have one more question, the only one he needed an answer to, but the doctors and the palliative care unit couldn’t help him. Why did he leave us? The question threw itself around his head like a small orb ricocheting around a pinball machine. Why did he leave us? The words raked around his head, scratching up pain and distress. He strode back to Eddie’s bedside and burst out, ‘Why did you leave us?’

  ‘I was not prepared to take that particular bullet, son.’

  Dean jumped back a foot, nearly knocking over the catheter as his father rasped out his reply. He had thought Eddie was asleep.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This is a shit way to die, but it’s better than dying through living an ordinary life. A slow death of just doing nothing, being nothing.’

  Dean bristled with resentment. ‘You were a husband and a father. That’s not nothing.’

  Eddie winced and motioned weakly to the water on the bedside table. Dean reached for the beaker and helped him take a sip.

  ‘Are you a husband?’ Eddie huffed. His chest was actually rattling; Dean had always thought that was a figure of speech, not a grim reality.

  ‘No,’ Dean admitted.

  ‘Or a father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well you’re not in a very convincing position to argue from, are you?’

  Fury flickered through Dean’s body like a flame. He flung himself back into the plastic chair. ‘Thing is, I’ve always avoided becoming a husband or a dad. I’m pretty sure I’d be lousy at it. I didn’t have a role model, you see,’ he snapped sarcastically. Eddie’s eyes met Dean’s, just for a moment, but neither of them could stand the pain and they both looked away quickly.

  ‘I just wanted more,’ whispered Eddie.

  Dean was furious. With Eddie and with himself. Of course Eddie Taylor was not able to offer up anything healing and comforting. How had he allowed himself to be such an idiot to think he might? He was ‘not prepared to take that particular bullet’; just a poetic way of saying he’d decided to do what the fuck he liked. His father was a selfish bastard. It was as simple as that. Well, at least there was some comfort in the fact that Dean had been right all these years: people couldn’t be trusted. They’d let you down. Over and over again.

  So what had he done, this father of his? What had he achieved that was so extraordinary? Something, please God, something that could go some way to justifying all the hurt. Perhaps he’d written a great novel. A piece of literature that had changed the world; its beauty so sorrowfully exquisite that the words would be quoted for generations to come. But Dean knew this was not the case. He’d have heard. Nor did this man look like the type who had built hospitals in far-flung African villages. And it seemed unlikely that he’d made millions through business ventures because he was here, in an NHS hospital, wearing cheap nylon pyjamas. Dean would have read it in a newspaper if his father had become a politician or a leader of industry.

  He dared not ask what it was exactly Eddie Taylor had been searching for, and whether he had found it. He did not want to face the fact that he might have been abandoned so that his father could pursue a life of indulgence and womanising, because whilst that was how Dean spent most of his time, hearing his father admit to as much would somehow seem so mediocre. Anything but that.

  ‘There was a woman,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Oh fuck.’ Dean wanted to howl.

  ‘Actually, there were loads of them. I wasn’t designed for fidelity. I had appetites. I was young.’

  ‘Not that young. You were thirty-four when you left. My age. I don’t feel young.’ He never had. Eddie closed his eyes once more. His breathing slowed a fraction. Dean did not want him to lose consciousness again. Not before he had his answers. ‘Who was she?’

  ‘She was posh. Married. Different to the others. I thought we could live better.’

  ‘Because she was wealthy?’

  ‘No, because she was her.’

  It seemed an oddly romantic thing for the most selfish man on the planet to say, and Dean found himself asking, ‘What happened?’

  ‘She didn’t want me once I was free. She stayed with her husband.’

  Dean froze. He used every iota of self-control to hold his body in place. If he moved, even a fraction, he might start to flay and spin, break and smash. He might upturn the vital medical equipment that was reducing Eddie’s pain; he might rip down the curtains that were offering the last shred of privacy and dignity. He might let out the scream that he’d swallowed for so many years. All that agony. All that sorrow. For pussy that didn’t want even want Eddie Taylor. He’d hated his father for so long and with such intensity, he’d never thought it was possible to hate anyone more, but now he found he did. He hated her, this woman, whoever she was, wherever she was. He hated her more.

  10

  Jo

  I head back to my parents’. I can’t think of anywhere else to go, which says it all really. As I sit on the tube, travelling towards Wimbledon, I think that I might as well be carrying a placard declaring ‘THIRTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD SCREW-UP’. I’m sure my failure is obvious to everyone; it pools around my feet like rainwater around an umbrella. How have I become this homeless, jobless, loveless woman? What will my parents think? They’re the opposite. They don’t have a hint of failure about them. They own two beautiful homes: the family home in Wimbledon and a ski lodge in the Alps. My father is an incredibly successful City analyst, and although Mum doesn’t have a paid job,
she’s a faultless homemaker and she’s also enthusiastically involved in raising funds for a number of worthy causes. In addition, they are the most loved-up couple you could hope to encounter. Even after all these years they still hold hands in public.

  It’s sickening, really.

  My parents live in a prestigious four-storey detached house close to Wimbledon Common. My father’s income and my mother’s dedication to home decor has ensured that it’s one of the most impressive and stylish homes most people could imagine stepping into, let alone living in. Floor-to-ceiling windows guarantee that light spreads throughout the house, allowing Mum to be bold with the colour scheme; the ground floor is awash with muted taupe and mushroom, but the tones deepen with each floor, culminating in the pewter and purple master bedroom at the top of the house. The entire place is elegantly fitted out. Carefully selected antique bureaus and writing desks nestle against daring Designer Guild wallpapers, while restored high-backed Queen Anne fireside chairs and slouchy retro leather sofas welcome guests. There are a large number of bookshelves that house early-edition classics as well as impressive contemporary literature. Original artwork hangs on the walls and magazines about antiques are placed carefully on occasional tables. It always smells as though the windows have been open and the summer wind has just drifted through, even in the winter.

  We moved to Wimbledon when I was a toddler. We initially lived in a pretty two-up, two-down Victorian cottage in the village on top of the hill, which Dad shrewdly sold when the market was buoyant, and then they rented and only bought when the market was flat again. With a cash offer and no chain they were able to move up by driving a hard bargain. This technique was repeated three times in total, and that strategy, combined with a healthy banker’s bonus, allowed us to move into the current much bigger and more prestigious home just after I turned fourteen.