Warhol's Prophecy

that it looked as if someone was trying to tug her scalp off.

The small badge pinned to her left lapel announced that her name was ANNA COLEMAN.

‘How are you, Anna?’ He grinned.

‘Are those for me?’ She nodded towards the flowers.

‘If they were for you, this bunch would be twice as big,’ Walker told her.

‘You smoothie,’ interrupted the other nurse. ‘She loves all that stuff.’

‘Haven’t you got some work to do, Nurse Stinson?’ replied Anna with mock irritation. Her cheeks had coloured slightly.

‘Yes I have, Nurse Coleman.’ The other woman smiled.

Two or three of the residents gazed blankly at Walker. The others seemed more intent on the TV screen, although Walker wasn’t sure they even understood what they were watching.

‘I’m looking for my father,’ he said.

‘He’s in his room.’ Anna’s smile faded.

Walker nodded, turned, and headed back down the corridor, back into the reception area and off to the right.

There were more bedrooms in that direction. He knew that at the far end of the corridor there was even a small chapel.

Beyond it, outside, was a beautifully kept garden, even an orchard where apple trees blossomed in spring. The setting was idyllic.

Strange therefore, he thought, that he hated this place so much.

He passed two rooms with their doors wide open.

In the first a man in his seventies lay on the bed, reading a newspaper.

In the second another man sat staring out of his window, tapping out a Morse-like tattoo on the sill with one arthritis-twisted forefinger.

The door of the third room along was firmly closed.

Walker paused outside, holding the bunch of flowers before him like some aromatic, cellophaned cosh.

He swallowed hard, then – without knocking – walked in.

The man sitting up in the bed, propped there like a puppet with its strings cut, turned to look at him. But the eyes were blank, no recognition registered there.

The patient was in his early seventies, white hair combed back from a heavily lined forehead, wisps of hair also curling from each nostril and ear.

Closing the door behind him, Walker stood at the end of the bed.

‘Hello, Dad,’ he began flatly.

27

IF THERE WAS any recognition in the eyes of Philip Walker it didn’t show.

He watched silently as his son moved around to the side of the bed and brandished the flowers at him.

‘I brought you these,’ said Adam.

On the bedside table there was a vase filled with dead flowers, its water beginning to smell rancid.

Adam took out the dead blooms and dumped them in the waste-bin beneath the sink, then he swilled out the vase and set about replacing the old flowers with the new.

The room was about fifteen feet square: carpeted and tastefully decorated, but otherwise fairly spartan. There were a couple of pictures on the wall. Copies of El Greco’s The Agony in the Garden and Antonio Allegri da Correg-gio’s The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine hung on either side of a large crucifix.

Reminders?

Adam put down the replenished vase, aware that his father was peering up at him. He was frowning slightly, as if trying to remember who this newcomer was, and what he wanted here.

Adam sat down beside the bed and looked at him.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

No answer. Only blank eyes staring back.

‘When you weren’t in the day-room, I thought there was something wrong.’

Philip Walker was plucking gently at the flesh on the back of one liverspot-dappled hand.

‘Has the doctor been in today?’ Adam asked.

‘Doctor?’

His father spoke the word whilst looking directly at Adam.

‘Doctor,’ he repeated.

Adam shook his head.

‘No,’ he said softly, ‘I’m not a doctor. Do you know who I am?’

Silence again.

Still plucking at the flesh.

‘Do you fancy going for a walk?’ asked Adam. ‘The fresh air might do you good. Better than being stuck in here all day.’

He looked again into those blank eyes, then across at the wheelchair in the corner.

His father turned to look at the flowers.

‘“Man cometh up and is cut down like a flower”,’ he said slowly, as if considering each word before he spoke it.

It was Adam’s turn to stare silently at the old man.

‘At how many funerals did you say those words?’ he said finally. ‘How many did you see off? How many good men and women did you bury?’

The old man was plucking at the back of his hand again.

‘How many children?’ Adam persisted.

‘“Suffer the children to come unto me”,’ his father intoned.

‘So, is there still something in there?’ Adam said, tapping his own temple. ‘Still a light in the forest?’

‘“I am the light”,’ said his father.

Outside, the wind seemed to be growing stronger. It swirled around the building angrily.

Inside Philip Walker’s room there was only silence.

His son sat motionless for long moments, then leant forward and flipped open the bottom section of the bedside cabinet.

The smooth white band of stiff material was where it always lay.

The dog-collar.

He smiled ruefully to himself and held it up before him.

‘It’s like a badge, isn’t it?’ he said, without looking at his father. ‘A badge for a club that you never leave.’

The old man continued pulling at his hand.

‘You’ll never leave it, will you?’ said Adam. ‘You’ll never tear up your membership card.’

He continued to gently stroke the white dog-collar.

‘Do you think He still cares?’ Adam asked flatly, turning his eyes skyward briefly. ‘Do you think He cares about any of the things you did?’

Fingers plucking at mottled flesh.

‘He would have seen everything, wouldn’t He – over the years?’ Adam continued. ‘All the good and the bad. I wonder what He thinks about you now.’

They sat in silence, only the ticking of the clock interrupting their solitude.

When Adam finally got up to leave, the hour hand of the clock had shifted more than once.

‘I’ll see you again soon,’ he said, one hand on the door handle.

His father stared blankly at him.