Wearing Purple

Chapter 30

I wanted my dad, very badly. I sat there, on a chair in the wine cellar of the restaurant, where Prim and the owner had taken me as I began to recover from my faint.

I was aware, yet unaware. I knew that something very bad had happened, but my mind refused to tell me what it was. All I knew was that I wanted Mac the Dentist with me, just as I had wanted him when I was four, when I had fallen out of a tree and broken my wrist.

Primavera was sitting next to me. Her head was on my shoulder, she was clutching my arm tightly, and she was crying. She was shaking like a leaf, too.

A man stood facing us. He asked me in Spanish if we would be all right. I looked at him blankly. ‘How the fuck would I know?’ I said, in English. He must have thought that I had meant ‘Yes’, for he nodded and disappeared back up a flight of stairs, to the restaurant.

I looked down at Prim again, and I saw my phone in the breast pocket of her shirt. I remembered, and I knew. My mind still wouldn’t form the words, ‘Jan is dead’, but I knew all right. Mike Dylan’s cracking voice on the phone, the look of unprecedented fear on Prim’s face as she had picked it up, and now her racking, helpless sobs, far different from the tears of relief which she had shed earlier.

Horror. It was a word you saw in bookshops over a rack of shelves filled with names like Koontz, Barker and Stoker. It was an adjective used with movies. It was a concept from wars long before my time. It wasn’t a word that was meant to figure in my chaotic, but comfortable, life.

Yet now it did; now it consumed me. I sat there, in that dingy, musky, dusty cellar and I felt myself becoming cocooned in it: in a chrysalis of pure horror. It was numbing; it brought out beads of sweat which clung to my forehead like little chips of ice. ‘Where are my tears?’ I demanded of myself as Prim sobbed beside me, but it was too, too cold for weeping.

I closed my eyes and, clear as day, Jan’s face swam into my vision, her dark hair shining as if moonlit, her head tilted back slightly, her eyes giving me her knowing look, light laughter on her lips. ‘It’s all right,’ I told myself, ‘it was a dream.’ But then, as if to mock me, red blood began to froth from her mouth. It ran in thick lines from her nostrils, and from her ears, down her cheeks and chin to form a river round her neck.

I opened my eyes again, to drive away the vision, but it would not go. Whatever I did I had to confront it. I twisted my head, this way and that, but still it was before me, until at last I felt my mouth twist, and I heard myself scream, ‘No! No! No!’

Then Prim was on her feet, still crying, but wrapping her arms around my head, pressing my face against her. ‘Oz, oh Oz,’ she whispered. ‘This can’t be happening.’

But she couldn’t break through my chrysalis, through my cold carapace. Nothing could crack that. I seized her arms above the elbows, near the shoulders, in my hands, gripping hard enough to bruise, and forced her away from me. I held her at arm’s length and I spoke to her in a voice that I had never owned before.

‘You talked to him? You talked to Dylan?’

She nodded, helpless in my grip.

‘Tell me what he said.’

‘Let me go, Oz. You’re hurting me.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I will, but Oz, you’re breaking my arms.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Oz,’ she wept. ‘Please don’t punish me for being alive.’

At last, her pain got through to me: I let her go, noticing the furious red and white weals which my madman’s strength had left on her skin, noticing, but dispassionately, still not caring much.

‘What did Mike say, Prim?’ I asked her yet again, but patiently this time. ‘I remember he was talking to me, but that’s all. Then we were down here.’

She sat down again beside me, in her dining chair, with its bentwood back, and she began to stroke my arm, with her right hand, gently; up, down, up, down, ruffling the soft blond hairs, then smoothing them down again, ruffling, smoothing. I watched her, knowing that I didn’t really want her to speak.

She did, though, as I had demanded of her, more fool me. She spoke, and changed my life.

‘Dylan told me that Jan is dead, Oz. He said that she was found this evening. He couldn’t say any more, he was too upset. But he gave me a couple of numbers for you to call, when you’re ready.’

Her tears came again. ‘Oh, Oz. I am so, so sorry.’

I was still numb, and by now I was taking relief in it. I looked at her, and I said, ‘I’ll bet.’

She looked at me as if I’d slapped her. I saw her hurt, but I was impervious to it. No, nothing got through my cocoon.

A small part of my rational brain knew all this, and made me realise that I had to use my horror as a shield. It wouldn’t hold for ever, I knew, but while it did, I could be functional. Once it gave out. .

So I cherished my coldness, and I hung on to it. To read that sort of book, they say you must suspend disbelief. In my need, I did it the other way round; I suspended belief.

‘Come on,’ I told her, standing as I spoke. ‘We can’t stay here. We have to go. I have things to do.’

She nodded, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. ‘Okay. Do you want to go back to your hotel?’

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I hadn’t thought my way past the top of the staircase, in fact. I handed the controls to my ice-cold auto pilot, and let myself go by instinct. ‘No, I can’t be with them. They’re friends but they’re strangers too. I need privacy for what I have to do. Take me to the apartment.’

Primavera looked at me. ‘Are you sure? Is that-’

‘Right and proper, you were going to say? I don’t give a monkey’s about that. What Dylan said isn’t right or fucking proper either. I need privacy if I’m to deal with it. So come on. I’ll drive.’

The man in the restaurant wasn’t going to take any money, but I insisted on paying for what we had ordered. The Faustino III was on the table, not yet uncorked: having paid for it, I took it with me.

The hamlet of St Marti d’ Empuries, in the municipal district of L’Escala, lies just over an hour and a half away, by the Autopista, from the centre of Barcelona. Prim’s car had a sporty engine, and so I did it in an hour and fifteen minutes. Neither of us said a word all the way up the road. I was aware that my speed was making her nervous, but I didn’t care, comfortable as I was within my icy state. Once she reached for the temperature control on the heater panel, turning it into the red zone, but I twisted it back to the blue minimum straight away.

The lights were still on in Meson del Conde when I drove into the square and parked beyond the church. Even before I switched off the engine, Prim jumped out, ran to the ground level entrance to the apartment, opened it and pounded up the stairs to the living area. I followed her, carrying the Faustino; as I stepped inside and closed the door, I heard loud retching sounds coming from the bathroom.

I raised the shutters, opened the glass door and stepped out on to the terrace, gulping in deep lungfuls of the cold night air, as if it was fuel for my mood. I don’t know how long I’d been there, looking out at the sea, when her voice sounded behind me. ‘I’m sorry about that, but all of a sudden. .’ I shrugged my shoulders, my back still to her.

‘I’ll put on some coffee,’ she volunteered.

I stretched out my left hand, behind me, offering her the Faustino. ‘Open that too, and let it stand for a bit.’ As she took it from me, I said, ‘Remember the last time I stood here, and I told you that I was going back? Back to Jan?’

An indistinct murmur came from behind me.

‘God works in mysterious ways, eh Prim. Let me tell you something, love: something you can believe. There is no God; he chucked it years ago. I think he probably gave up in disgust back in the thirties. Now there’s only the other fella, and he’s got the monopoly.

‘I’ll tell you something about Hell too. They say it’s hot. Wrong: fucking freezing, you take that from me.’

I turned towards her. ‘You got those numbers Dylan gave you?’

She nodded, took one of the restaurant cards from her shirt pocket, and handed it to me, together with my phone. ‘Oz,’ she asked me. ‘Why was it Dylan who phoned you?’

‘He and his bird are friends of ours in Glasgow. He works there now, like us.’

I took the numbers from her, and sat down on the couch, beside Prim’s phone, but before calling Dylan, I retrieved the charge card for the hotel restaurant from my jacket and dialled the number. The night porter grumbled for a bit, but eventually he did as he was told and connected me with Senor Davis’s suite.

Daze lived up to his name as he took the call; he sounded as if he was still three parts asleep. He soon woke up the rest of the way, though.

‘Everett,’ I said, coldly and evenly. ‘Listen up, please. It’s Oz. I’ve had a message from home and it’s bad news: personal. I’ll tell you all about it when I know all the details myself, but I have to go back as early as I can tomorrow. I need Barbara to get on to Iberia and pull some strings to get me to Glasgow as fast as they can, by whatever route.’

‘Sure man,’ he rumbled. ‘Oz, what sorta news is this?’

‘Don’t ask, mate. I’ll tell you when I can. I’m sorry you’re stuck for an announcer for tomorrow’s matches.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll have Liam do it.’

‘Aye, he’ll love that. By the way, I’m not in the hotel just now. This is where you’ll get me.’ I gave him the apartment phone number. ‘Thanks. I’ll be in touch.’

I hung up, and picked up the restaurant card, just as Prim placed a cup of strong black coffee in front of me. ‘There, drink that,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about going to sleep. I’ve got some pills here that’ll do the job.’

‘You don’t have enough,’ I told her. ‘Anyway. I never want to sleep again. Just you keep the coffee coming.’

I looked at the card: one number was for a mobile phone, and the other was Glasgow, prefix 0141; Susie’s, I guessed. It was two-twelve local time, an hour earlier in the UK, but somehow I guessed that they wouldn’t be out clubbing. I called the second number.

Susie picked up the phone on the third ring, and she knew who it was. ‘Oh Oz,’ she cried, as soon as I began to speak. ‘I’m so sorry. Mike’s here, hold on.’ I was surprised by the speed with which she handed on the phone, but I didn’t know then that some people are afraid to speak to the bereaved. I do now: I guess they’re afraid it might be catching. Have I got news for them; it is.

‘Oz, how are you?’ Dylan asked as he came on line.

‘I’m okay, Mike. I’m sorry for what happened when you called, but I’ve got it together now. I need you to tell me what happened. Was it her heart? A cerebral haemorrhage? A road accident?’ As I mentioned the third scenario, my vision of Jan from earlier threatened to slip inside my shield, but I was strong enough now to force it away.

‘It was a domestic accident, Oz. She was electrocuted.’ He paused, waiting for me to faint again, perhaps.

‘Go on,’ I said, curtly.

‘From what I’ve been told it was your washing machine. It was faulty. It must have gone live when she switched it on to do a wash, then next time she touched it — she was killed instantly. She wouldn’t have known a thing, the doctor said.’

‘When did this happen, Mike?’

‘Just before six.’ Something tugged at my brain but I ignored it.

‘How was it discovered?’

‘When it happened it blew out all the power in the building. The Scottish Power guys isolated the problem to your flat. When they got no reply to the doorbell they forced an entrance; in case there was a fire risk, as much as anything else.’

‘How did you get involved?’

‘Our people found Susie’s number on a notepad. They called it to see if she knew where you were. I had your mobile number, on that card you gave me, so I said that as a friend, I’d deal with it.’

‘Thanks, Michael,’ I told him, not because I felt any gratitude, but because I knew he expected to hear it. ‘It took guts, I know that.’

He grunted something. I thought it might have been, ‘’S’okay.’ It wasn’t of course.

‘Has anyone been in touch with Jan’s mother?’

‘No,’ he replied, at once. ‘They wouldn’t know how. It’s our job to inform next of kin, and that’s you.’

‘Has there been anything on radio or television?’

‘Clyde carried a piece about the accident, but we haven’t released the name. I told our press people not to, until I’d heard from you that it was okay.’

‘I’d rather they didn’t,’ I told him. ‘If that’s allowable.’

‘That’ll be okay. I’ll fix it.’

‘Good man. Listen, I’ll contact you when I get back tomorrow. Meantime. .’ I knew what I had to ask next, and my shield of disbelief cracked for a moment as I approached it. Until now, this could all have been fantasy: now we were getting close to the point at which there could be no denial.

‘D’you know where she is?’ I asked him.

‘They took her to the Royal, Oz. She’ll be in the mortuary there.’

‘They won’t have done a PM or anything, will they?’ I tried to stop myself from trembling.

‘No. Not unless the Fiscal orders one, and in these circumstances, he probably won’t, unless you ask him to.’ I sighed with relief, then concentrated again. The worst was still to come, and I had to be able for it.

‘Okay. Mike, we’ll speak again tomorrow.’

‘Sure, Susie sends her love, by the way.’

‘Yeah. Thank her for us.’ The plural still seemed entirely natural to me.

As I hung up, Prim topped up my coffee. I told her, in summary, what had happened. She went as white as a sheet and shuddered. ‘As simple as that,’ she whispered.

‘I wouldn’t call that simple at all,’ I barked at her. But I was shouting for the sake of it now. My cloak of disbelieving horror was becoming threadbare. Beneath it, there was anger and I knew that it would sustain me for a while, but afterwards. .

‘Okay, okay,’ she murmured, ruffling my hair with her fingers as I sat there, mollifying and comforting me as best she could.

‘How am I doing?’ I asked her. ‘Come on; you’re a nurse. You must have seen hundreds of people in this situation. How am I handling it?’

‘Too well,’ she responded. ‘You’ve got to let it go soon, Oz. Otherwise when the dam bursts. .’

I stood and walked out to the terrace, carrying my mug, as she followed me. I turned, leaned my back against the railing, and looked down at her. ‘I know that, Prim,’ I said. ‘But I have to hold it together while I do one more thing. I guess you know what that is.’

She nodded.

‘You do one more thing for me, then. Let me be alone while I tell him, and afterwards. Take a couple of your pills and go to bed. Leave me the Faustino, and a key to get back in. I may go out for a while.’

She reached up, took my face in her hands, drew it down, and kissed me on the forehead. ‘Is there a perverse law of nature, do you think,’ she asked me. ‘One that abhors perfection?

‘That’s what you two were, you know, you and Jan. I knew it in my heart of hearts that day up in her flat in Castle Terrace, when she helped us give that man the slip, and sent us off in her car. I remember looking at the two of you as you said your goodbyes and thinking, This is crazy. The perfect couple and they don’t even realise. But I was in love with you too, and at that point I had you, so I was selfish, and put it out of my mind.’

Her eyes had filled with tears again. ‘I am so sorry, my love,’ she whispered. ‘You did not deserve this.’

I shook my head. I knew that the dam was cracking, and that a sea of grief and despair was barely being restrained. ‘No, Prim. She didn’t deserve it. Now go, please, and leave me to make this last call, while I still can.’

I took my mobile phone from my pocket as soon as she had left the terrace, turning to face the sea as I dialled the number. I knew that there was no chance at all that these two would be out clubbing. The phone rang for a while until, eventually, I heard it lifted. ‘This better not be a wrong number,’ a gruff voice growled.

‘It isn’t, Dad, it’s me.’

‘Eh? I thought you were supposed to be in Spain, son. In fact I know you are; we watched you on telly tonight. What is it? Are you pished?’

I steeled myself to reply. My senses were heightened as never before, so that I could hear my own voice, hard and controlled. ‘Yes, I am in Spain, Dad, and no I’m not drunk. . yet. Is Mary awake?’

‘Yes, she wakened with the phone ringing.’ I had never sensed fear in Mac the Dentist before, but there on Prim’s terrace, I did.

‘In that case, you’re going to have to tell her something that’s going to break her heart — into as many pieces as mine.’