The A to Z of You and Me

X

X

WH—?

Familiar sound of the double doors slipping shut off down the corridor.

Doesn’t feel quite–

Who’d be walking down there now?

It just feels — wrong. Seems — against the routine. What’s—?

Ridiculous. Stop, stop.

Stop thinking.

I have it in my mind that Mal is approaching, wafting through the double doors, unchecked, unbalanced.

Ease off now.

That’s mad thinking.

Mini squeak of shoe rubber on glossy floor. Trapped and amplified by the shiny walls.

He is out there. That’s enough for me: these two things. Door slip, wrong time of day; squeaky shoe.

Who else could it be?

No.

Fix eyes shut.

Think of other things.

X. X-ray.

Xylophone. Ribs as a cartoon xylophone.

Xs for eyes.

X-chromosome.

‘All right, fella.’

Wh—?

Brain on.

Flicks on like a security light. There’s — was there movement over by the doorway?

Anything?

Is anybody over there?

My ears listen out, but I’m too asleep to open my eyes. I’m realizing I’m more asleep than I thought. Can’t — move.

There’s nothing there.

Same old night terrors.

Brain off.

‘Y’all right, are you?’

On.

Over by the doorway, at the foot of my bed, definitely.

The room remembers the sound.

Paintwork resonates.

‘Nice place you’ve got here. All mod cons.’

Grey matter now fully lit up and active.

Mal’s voice. Definitely Mal. Gravelier, but same tones. Same tune.

He’s there. He’s there in the doorway.

Alert now. Alive to the room.

I can’t — there’s nothing I can do.

Sickening twitch accelerating in my chest.

Push the button. I want to push the button. Find my hand. Find the button to push.

My hand reaches, grasps: nothing. Blanket wasteland.

‘I wanted to come and see you.’

Low voice. Anxious. Slight edge to it.

Silence. Shit, shit.

Air conditioning ceaseless, ceaseless breath.

Unseal my eyes. Painful light. There he sits. Simply sits. He’s just there.

Can’t see if it’s him, but it’s him, isn’t it? Everything tells me it’s him.

Shit. Shit, Sheila. You said he’d never get in.

Maroon jacket. Yellow lettering top pocket. NRG. Wh—?

Has he wh—? Is it Mal? I’m confused.

‘It’s Mal,’ he says. ‘It’s Malachy.’

‘M—?’ I mean Mal. I mean Mal, but my lips stick together.

‘That’s right. Don’t talk if you can’t talk.’

‘N — no.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t—’

‘Don’t what, fella? What— what are you saying? I can’t understand you.’

He leans over. Looms over.

‘S — s–’

He’s frowning down.

There’s a smell off him. Outside smell. Football pitches. No, like — football terraces. Makes no sense. Cold smell.

He leans in, dangerously in.

‘You what, fella?’

I push, push out at him, push him away.

He steps back, sizes me up.

He thinks I’m delirious.

I’m not delirious.

‘Stop,’ I say. I think I say it.

He’s stepped back.

‘All right — I’m not going to hurt you. Easy, man. Easy.’

He’s still frowning. Trying to work me out.

‘I’ve just come here to see you. I’ve just come to say hi.’

He lifts his hand and scratches through his hair — a familiar motion. A Mal move. Shows me he’s stressed. Anxious face.

He looks hesitant. Nervy.

He looks genuine.

Benign.

‘I just wanted to say hi,’ he says again.

The longer I look at him, the more I resurface. Relax. Relax a little. Reality.

He looks scared. Seems almost timid.

‘Do you mind if I sit?’ he asks. ‘Stay awhile?’

I close my eyes, it’s not my decision whether he stays or goes. In time I hear him choose. Tiny knock-scrape. Plastic exhalation. He’s sat himself in the visitors’ chair.

‘Fuck me, man, I’m not going to do you any harm. You didn’t think that, did you?’

I shake my head. Yes.

I open my eyes again, rest them on him.

He looks quickly away, out the window.

Perhaps he can’t take the vision of me, lying here, this mask strapped to my face.

That’s fine. I’ll look at him looking away.

‘I don’t know what to say in places like this,’ he says, still gazing out at the magnolia tree. The heart, the fluttering heart. Can he see it too? ‘I hate hospitals. I could talk about the weather.’

Pause a moment.

‘Inclement.’

He snorts to himself.

I’m going to say something. I need to try to say something.

But it won’t come.

‘Here,’ he says, standing and coming forward.

I can’t stop him–

He carefully pours a little water into the teacup on my table, and places it to my lips.

‘C’mon.’

He places his hand behind my head to lift it, but I can’t–

And he has tears in his eyes, I can see, close-up, he has tears.

‘Wait a minute,’ he says, setting my head gently back down. ‘I’ll just — here.’ He unwraps a clean sponge from my bedside table and dips it into the teacup.

‘Here we go, that’s better, isn’t it?’

Lips moistened. Better, yeah, better.

Try again now. Say: ‘Where you been?’

Clear my throat. Clear a little with the water.

‘I’ve been staying with Becca for a bit. Giving myself a bit of a head space, bit of brain space. She wanted to come and see you, Becca, but, y’know. Bit scared, I think. She hates hospitals. You know what it’s like. People hear the name St Leonard’s, and they think — they think a certain thing.’

I close my eyes. Yeah. Come out feet-first in a box.

The silence swells in between us on the air conditioning.

He wants me to say something. Give him a sign.

In all the world of words, I can’t think of a single thing.

‘Do you know why I’m here? I hoped you’d know.’

Here we go. Here we go now.

‘I want to make everything better, but I can’t make anything better. Can’t say anything. Some stuff is too big, you know? Too complicated for words. But I didn’t just want to leave it, man. You need better than that. I wanted to be here. I haven’t got all the fancy words, you know, but I thought, if I bring myself and something good might come out of it. Do the right thing, yeah?’

He snorts quietly, nibbles anxiously at a cuticle.

‘But fucking hell, you know, even saying this man, feels fake. Oh, you know, I don’t know what to say. It feels like I’m just saying it to make you feel sorry for me, but I’m not, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry to you.’

He chokes suddenly, unable to continue.

I look at him. Sympathy.

‘I promise I was trying to do the right thing, but — well, it’s just words, isn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘I wanted to say, there’s a lot of things I should have said and done, you know? And a lot of things I shouldn’t have said and done. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. Too much time. You know that. I bet you’ve been through that, haven’t you? I know you have.’

I have.

‘You find suddenly you’ve done all these terrible things for — for no reason, almost. Things that didn’t seem terrible at the time, you know? And not for a long time. But you find that — you know, your whole world’s changed because of them. Lots of people’s worlds. You’ve made your mark, whether you like it or not.’

I look up at him, now, and he seems small. It’s like I’m looking on him from a long way away. The little man. A little man in a chair, next to me, here, a little man in a bed.

‘So here I am, you know? Here we are.’

‘Mm.’ I frown and attempt to swallow. Get halfway and unswallow.

I can’t–

‘I don’t know why I’m here, man, if I’m honest,’ he says, looking over at me almost shyly. ‘All those years you know, of imagining what it would be like to meet up again, say what I’ve got to say. I knew it’d never be the same as I’d thought. I had loads of things to say. Sitting there. Thinking it all up. It’s gone, you know? It’s not important, is it? Words don’t change anything. Don’t change what’s happened.’

‘No.’

‘You know man, if I could I would — in an instant I’d go back and change everything. I wouldn’t let you stay at that party. I wouldn’t have let you leave that party. I wouldn’t have fucking got in that car. I wouldn’t have done any of it man. It was all my fault, man.’

No, no. Too raw. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to have this out now. Have it out later if we’ve got to have it out at all. Have it out later. But he’s focused on me, intent on going through this. He’s going to sit there and make me go through this moment by moment.

‘No,’ I say.

‘It was. I was right there, I should have stopped it. I know I should.’

‘I don’t—’

‘You’re a dying man, yeah? Let’s not fuck about with this. You’re dying. And that’s my fault too, isn’t it? I never told you, did I? When you were fucking yourself up in the clubs every night, I never said anything. But that’s because I didn’t know, man. I didn’t know how bad things were with you. But I should have known. I should never have stood by and watched, and I’m so, so sorry.’

He’s fixing me with a desperate stare.

‘And if there was anything, anything, I could do to make it all better, I would do it, straight away, you know what I mean?’

The piercing glare in his eyes flickers, and is finally diluted, and a tear swells in his right eye, breaks over the lid and flees down the side of his nose. He drops back now, back into the seat. Exhausted with the effort of it all.

I close my eyes again.

It’s me. The outline of me, could have been a chalkmark, scrawled on the floor of our flat. Our shared flat. I’m looking up, amazed at the bicycle wheel hanging craply from the light fitting. Amazed at seeing a vision. A vision of glowsticks and smoke.

Amazed enough to propel me to your front door, declare myself amazed.

Your face, not amazed. Not amused.

Your voice, alarmed. Trip to A&E for me.

Back seat of the car for me, looking up at you.

You and Mal, uneasy alliance.

All for me.

All because of me.

I am a passenger.

You, there in the hospital bed, me cradling your hand.

Me, here in the hospital bed. Because of me.

It’s because of me. All of it.

I look over at Mal. He’s not looking.

I need to get him to look at me.

‘Mal.’ He looks up.

His face is grey and drawn. The trace remains of the fallen tear.

I hold out my hand. He edges towards. Takes it. Takes my hand by the outside. His palm to my knuckles. Wraps it gently into a fist.

‘You’re all right,’ I say.

He exhales and sniffs graphically. He doesn’t try to snatch back the blame. In truth, I think it lies between us. But — no use for truth.

A large stream of snot begins to dangle from his nose.

‘Ah, shit man, sorry,’ he says clapping his hand to his face and wiping with his cuff.

I smile. It actually makes me smile. I can feel it spread across my face.

‘Sorry,’ he laughs.

I breathe.

It is good. This feels — it feels good.

It was the right thing to do. All things fall into place.

A broad, happy smile fills his face, right to the eyes.

And the relief, the relief in him. I didn’t expect that.

And they were right, of course, they were right. Sheila. Kelvin. Laura, even. About — about what?

To see him so broken — he looks — forgiven. And that’s not right.

‘Sorry, man,’ I say.

He looks back up at me. ‘Don’t be soft.’

And oh, the relief of it: in him and now in me … I can physically feel it here in my body. I’m lifted with it, the weight of it gone. That’s what they told me would happen. A weightlessness, it’s true. This is definitely a thing. Definitely a real feeling.

It’s you I want now. It’s you I want to forgive me.

I cough. My body coughs without me. I have to wait to let it pass.

I look beyond him, gaze over at the window. Painful light.

One fluttering relief: the heart, there. Your heart in the tree.

Close my eyes.

So, so glad this is all over.

Seems so easy, it’s embarrassing. I can feel from my heart up through my back, through the pain, through my limbs to the fingertips an overwhelming surge of love and goodwill.

Drifting, I can feel the time slide around me.

The coffee machine works up again and ceases, and Mal, close by, remains. The sense of a hand in my hand remains.

And I don’t know if it’s there, and I don’t know if it’s you, crossing our hands to make a bird. A fluttering bird. Up against the sky, fluttering in the blue. Mingling in the wind. No more blur.

The relaxation, I can feel it, creeping up my spine and into the base of my cranium, up through and around the thick bone of my skull, around to the deepest recesses of my brow. But in the depths of my deep frown, I can feel the resistance. I’m trapped in the room. We’re still in the beige, dry, air-conditioned room.

Overwhelmed by the surge. I can feel my face crumpling, but no tears come. Tight throat.

‘Oh, man, are you all right?’ says Mal’s voice, close.

I open my eyes, and he’s there. Still there.

And I’m still here. I look at him, and — are there tears?

No, still.

‘I know man,’ he says. ‘I know.’

‘Just—’

‘I know.’

‘River Severn.’

Silence — save the endlessly exhaling air conditioning.

‘You what, fella?’ His voice, dry in the silence.

I open my eyes wide. Look at him. Look at him hard. Does he remember? Does he remember everything I remember?

His grey face holds still, rough and unshaven, shapeless hair encroaching on every side.

‘Hephzibah?’ I say.

His addled eyes grow clear, sharp. I’m reading him, reading. Willing him to remember what he said to me.

‘Hep-hep-hoo-ray?’ I say, urging, urging him to recall.

The clearness freezes in his eyes. A memory registers— He must remember. Wheelbarrow me up to Hephzibah’s Rock … a couple of spins around, hammer style … fling me down into the Severn …

‘You got me?’ I say …

‘Ah, no, man.’ He’s looking at me. Scanning.

‘You said.’

Still scanning. He’s afraid.

‘Don’t ask me, man.’

‘Please. Mal.’

‘It’s not fair to ask anyone that.’

It isn’t. It isn’t fair.

I sigh deeply — deeper than I can — and cough. Crumble into what coughing I can manage.

My clamouring thoughts sink, defeated, to the back of my head. All I want now, all I need, is to be with you. I close my eyes and dump my head back into my pillow.

Listen to the silence.

‘Come on, fella,’ says Mal’s voice, renewed with brightness. ‘I can make you comfortable anyway. Is — is this the same blanket — is this Mia’s blanket?’ Slight waver in his voice. ‘It’s no good folded up by your feet, is it?’

I sense him lean across me to gather it up.

‘Here you go, man. Let’s get you settled, yeah?’

Subtle shift of cool air.

‘Shall we take this off?’ I open my eyes, and lift my head and allow him to prise the oxygen mask from my face. He hangs it carefully on the top of the canister beside me. Cool, dry air on my nose and mouth, the clammy shape of the mask subsiding.

‘Close your eyes man, yeah?’ he whispers. ‘Close your eyes.’

I look at him: fix my gaze on to his eyes. Another tear drops from his eye as he leans over me. I feel it land on my cheek.

He looks at me, and I look at him, I can see it in his eye. I can see what he’s asking me.

‘Close your eyes.’

I close my eyes now; close them.

The sight of his face, the twisting branches of the tree in the daylight, cropped by the window beyond, all remain, fading on my vision.

Luminous eyelids darken now.

His hand now cupped on the back of my cranium, holding my head in his palm.

Palm of calm.

Faint familiar scent — vetiver. Still detectable, after all these years.

You.

Soft wool on my face. Alpaca and Merino. So thick and heavy, pushed, pushed by Mal, tight, tight. Tight enough. Just right.

Consistent stitches.

Strong sense of you.

Dry that tear.

My hand now reanimated. He’s holding it. Gently, gently. Warm hand cradling mine, mine I’d forgotten. Mine so cool.

‘That’s better, yeah?’

Stronger now, the scent.

Pushed, tighter.

Strong sense of you.

That’s it, that’s what I can do: deep inhalation.

Draw deep.

Sleep down deep with you.