“It’s not hectic,” Andy said again. “To tell you the truth, it’s like the bloody morgue.” His heart leaped daringly inside him. This was treachery.
“Is she still in the coma?” Mark asked, although he knew fine well that she was. Only that afternoon he had been round Fran’s house getting the latest. Fran looked worn down. Hers was the most recent visit to Liz and she came back telling everyone that, even hooked up to life support, Liz still looked like the Queen of Sheba. Tubes gurgled into her nose, lights pinged and monitors skipped, and among it all Liz looked indomitable. She’d come out of this soon. Over tea and Battenburg cake this afternoon, Fran had told Mark she imagined Liz coming back from the brink of the next world and telling them all about it. She could see her sitting at the kitchen table, just like this, regaling them all with the lowdown on life after death. Liz would be just the type to have an out-of-body experience.
What did they tell you? That you floated up to a high luminous white point in the ceiling and when you looked down you could see your own body in repose. Like an empty crisp packet. Of course Liz would be the type to come back.
Something of what she saw at Bishop General had depressed Fran. It was to Mark, and no one else from Phoenix Court, she explained this. Mark wondered why she could trust him with her anxiety. He wondered about this as she was telling him, and he thought maybe it was because they had already shared tragedy. They had a shared history of tragic, true-story films and they knew all about hospital bedsides. She said to him, “Remember that film about the coma patient? I remember one thing, they return to being like a bairn in the womb. They curl up. From lying down they curl up and even suck their thumbs. They make themselves small as possible.”
“Horrible,” Mark said.
“I can’t imagine that happening to Liz,” she said.
I was listening to him going on and my mind was not really on it. “So tell me,” I said — and I’m a master of small talk —”tell me about your New Year’s Day.”
“Oh, with the family.” Mark pulled a face and the tattoos got pulled out of shape with his frown.
As he told me all about it, I wanted him to gather me up...and do what? Take me off to bed?
I just wanted him to gather me up.
Andy, man, I was berating myself. Get a grip. Who else do I know weak as me? Penny’s strong. No one fettles her. Vince always gets what he wants. Here’s me hanging on Mark’s every word.
“Well, you know I’ve got this ex-mother-in-law, Peggy. She took it upon herself to cook for everyone. She wanted the whole family together and that included me as the father of her granddaughter — Sally’s my daughter.”
Was he saying that pointedly to me: ‘Sally’s my daughter’? I already knew he had a daughter. “And of course Peggy’s got her own baby to look after, just gone two. Sixty-six and looking after a bairn like that and she’s wanting to cook for everyone.”
“She sounds like a star.”
Mark snorted. “Peggy’s a star all right.”
“Where did she get a baby from at sixty-six?” I asked.
“Oh, well.” Mark threw up his hands and looked as if he didn’t want to explain. I didn’t mind. I could do without all the complications of his life. “Put it this way,”’ he said, “she had a baby last year when she wasn’t expecting it. It came as a bit of a surprise to all of us.”
“Right.”
Now I was looking round at the living room and to me it seemed tidy. It hardly looked lived in at all. Mind, I’m used to number sixteen which, while it’s never dirty exactly, we’re not dusting everyday. And there’s a kind of rumpled chaos about the place. I like that. It’s homely. ‘Rumpled chaos’ was Vince’s phrase for it, by the way. Things lying about. Always there’s clothes horses up with shirts and pants drying. A pile of CDs and tapes out of their cases on the floor in front of the stereo.
In Mark’s flat you got the feeling that whatever he used he put back in its place immediately he was finished with it. I think that’s unnatural. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like something had been excised from the place. Maybe signs of other people. His wife and daughter, of course, and I felt sorry then for analysing what he had or didn’t have lying about. This environment was so obviously the result of his being left all on his own. He made the best of it and for him this meant a crippling nearness. I went to the bathroom and noticed that round the edges of the bath he’d neglected to remove all traces of his ex-family. There were a number of those plastic characters you get bubble bath in: Ariel the Mermaid, Minnie Mouse, Robocop. I was almost tempted to check if he’d cleared out his daughter’s old room. I don’t know why. I knew he had her staying at weekends, so it stood to reason that her room would be kept the same as ever. It was something perverse in me that wanted to see her room like a shrine.
Honestly, I think I’m turning into a sick bastard.
I reckon I do need to get out of Aycliffe for a few days, I thought. They’re all doing my head in. I’m sick of seeing Penny with a face like a slapped arse. Sorry, Penny, that’s not fair. I owe Nanna Jean a visit anyway. I didn’t go and see her during the festive season. Festive season! I’ve had more festive shits. Nanna Jean was in Corfu anyway with the girls from the club. But she’s due
