Warhol's Prophecy

‘He’s due home tomorrow. I’m picking him up from the hospital.’

‘And the police still haven’t got any idea who attacked him?’

Hailey shook her head.

‘I wish I had,’ she said quietly. ‘I’d kill them.’

He regarded her silently across the table. Saw the anger in her expression.

‘He’ll be well enough to come to the gig and the party afterwards, won’t he?’ Marsh asked.

Hailey nodded. ‘I think Becky would drag him along, even if I didn’t,’ she said, grinning. ‘She can’t wait to see Waterhole in the flesh.’

‘Even though they are a bunch of arseholes. I was right, wasn’t I? People like Lennon, Hendrix and Janis Joplin would be spinning in their graves if they could see those dickheads now. Tell me I’m wrong.’

‘I can’t,’ she admitted.

‘At the risk of sounding like an old fart,’ Marsh said, ‘this world really has turned to shit, hasn’t it? It makes you long for the good old days.’ He chuckled. ‘Do you know what we had in the good old days? Malnutrition, rickets, TB and poverty.’

They both laughed.

‘You’ve come a long way, Jim,’ Hailey said. ‘We all have.’

‘Let’s drink to that,’ he echoed.

They both raised their glasses.

‘To rickets,’ he said.

Again they laughed.

90

‘PLEASE LET US call an ambulance.’

Dr Raymond Simmons stood beside the bed, looking down at Adam Walker, watching for any flicker of emotion on the younger man’s face.

Adam sat in a chair beside his father’s bed, staring at the old man lying on his back, eyes closed.

Every now and then his lips would flutter silently, as if he was trying to speak. But no sound would emerge.

‘Mr Walker—’ Simmons began.

‘I heard you, Doctor,’ Adam said flatly, without taking his eyes off his father.

‘The longer we delay, the less chance there is for your father. Please let us call.’

‘You once told me that you could cope with his condition here as well as any hospital could.’

‘I meant his ongoing condition,’ Simmons protested, ‘his kidney problems. This is entirely different. This is a medical emergency.’

Adam heard the urgency in the doctor’s voice, but it made little impression on him.

‘You called me an hour ago,’ he said, his tone measured. ‘I told you then that I wanted no ambulance. That I didn’t want my father taken to a hospital.’

‘He’s my responsibility while he’s here at Bayfield House.’

‘He’s my father,’ rasped Adam, finally turning to look at the doctor.

‘Then let us help him,’ Simmons said. ‘Let the hospital help him.’

Adam continued to gaze down at his stricken father.

‘A stroke, you said?’ he murmured.

‘It looks like it,’ the doctor answered. ‘And that means speed is important. The quicker he can be taken to hospital, the better his chances of survival.’

Adam chuckled sardonically. ‘Survival,’ he muttered. ‘What has he got to look forward to, Doctor? If the hospital manage to keep him alive, he’s looking at weeks – months, if he’s lucky – on a life-support machine. That’s about it, isn’t it?’

Simmons nodded slowly.

‘Not really much in the way of survival, is it?’ Adam said, shifting slightly in his seat. His hands were resting on his lap, the fingers entwined. Slowly he pulled them apart, and pressed one to his father’s temple. ‘He’s dead in there now. He has been for years. Alzheimer’s, renal failure – he’s better off dead.’

‘I can’t just stand here and watch a man die, Mr Walker,’ Simmons protested.

‘Then get out,’ Adam said flatly, looking up at the doctor once more. ‘No one’s asking you to stay.’

Simmons was momentarily taken aback by his tone. He looked into the other man’s eyes and saw nothing.

No emotion. Nothing . . .

Just a cool detachment that raised the hairs on the back of the doctor’s neck.

‘I’ll stay with him,’ said Adam quietly, returning his attention to his father. ‘This is what he would have wanted. He never wanted to die in a hospital. He always said that.’

Simmons hesitated.

‘Please go, Doctor,’ Adam insisted.

He heard the door close as Simmons left.

The only sound now seemed to be the ticking of the clock.

‘You’re going to die,’ he said softly to the wizened form in the bed before him.

Philip Walker made a low gurgling sound in his throat.

‘And I’m going to watch you,’ Adam said, leaning closer.

For fleeting seconds his father’s eyes opened, and Adam found himself gazing into those watery orbs. He saw something there, didn’t he?

Was it a final moment of clarity?

Was it pain?

Or fear?

His father reached out a hand, gnarled fingers scratching across the sheet towards Adam, who sat motionless.

Still he gazed into his father’s open eyes.

‘You’re going to your God,’ Adam whispered. ‘You should be pleased – or perhaps not. How are you going to explain to Him some of the things you did to me?’

His father’s eyes closed again, but his hand continued to flex as if seeking contact with his son.

Adam looked down at the hand.

‘Don’t touch me,’ he said scathingly. ‘You’re never going to touch me again.’

Again the eyes opened. Wider this time.

‘Just die,’ Adam said, his words barely audible.

In the silence of the room the clock continued its somnolent ticking.

Each second a fragment of life.

Adam sat back in the chair and looked on.

91

AT FIRST SHE’D been terrified.

Becky had looked up at her father’s face and recoiled from the sight that greeted her. The patchwork of cuts and bruises: some still vivid purple, others yellowed and black at the edges.

But, within a matter of minutes, she had run to him and embraced him.

Hailey had carried his holdall as they’d walked to the car, happy to see that Becky had chosen to hold his hand.

On the way home she and Rob had chatted in the car, while Hailey drove in virtual silence. Now, as they pulled into their driveway, Hailey hurried around to help Rob out.

‘I can manage,’ he said sharply, pulling himself out of the car, but wincing as he felt the pain from his still-