Hemispheres (7 page)

What’s the prognosis?

Doctors are dysfunctional bastards who don’t know how to communicate. And they’re particularly shit at telling you you’re
dying. They’re embarrassed somehow, can’t wait to show you the door.

But he did tell you.

He give me a leaflet, he says. Can you believe that? I’m on the way to the knackers yard and they give me a leaflet. Options
and Treatments.

Are you going to enlighten me?

The bacon buttie is finished now. I throw away the paper napkin and watch it bowl away down the road, carried by the wind.
Birds on Saltholme Pool are going about their business quietly. Coot, dunlin, tufted duck, feeding across the silver water,
rooting in the shallows.

Well, he says. I’m calling him Jim. Sounds friendlier than squamous cell carcinoma and we’ll be living together for a while
so we may as well be on first-name terms. Jim’s a big lad. And he’s going to get bigger. A right fat bastard, in fact. But
at the moment he’s not causing me any grief. Later on he might ring up his mates and get them squatting in
other bits of me. Liver, bladder, brain, you name it. But for now they’re going to give him some slimming pills – chemo, you
know. They can’t tell me how long – how much time. You know.

He grins.

I’ve always been lucky. Reckon me and Jimbo might spin it out for years.

I turn away for a moment.

When I came out here, I was going to tell you to forget it. Go back to Pattaya.

Can’t. I’ve sold up over there. Nowhere to go back to. This is where – where I came from.

Yeah.

It’s like the abos, he says. In Australia. Them dreamtime gadgies – you know, the ancestors and that. They came out of the
ground and then they danced all over the continent naming things. Rocks, trees, mountains, birds. Naming things. But when
it was finished, when their life was done, they had to find the same hole they came out of.

They went back in.

Aye, that’s it. Look, there’s plenty of life left in me. I’m going to push my luck as far as it goes. They’re going to start
pumping me full of drugs in a week or so. See if they can lick Jim into shape.

A fire engine roars past, lights blazing, from the station at Seal Sands.

Over-reacting again, says Yan. Anybody lights a fag on the Billingham site and they’re out. They’ll probably drown the poor
bugger.

He pulls out a tobacco pouch and begins to twirl a skinny fag between finger and thumb.

Can’t believe you, I splutter. Should be quitting them things.

He smiles, thin and tight.

Yeah, he says. They gave me a leaflet about that as well.

I have to laugh.

Have you told Kate?

No, you’re the first. Apart from – I’m not sure what to do about Kate. Haven’t seen her since she went out to Perth. How is
she these days?

She’s still got the bar, and Terry seems a decent enough bloke, I blurt out, catching a warning look in his eyes which brings
me up short. He looks away across the marshes, sleet bristling into his face, inhales deeply from the cigarette. The tip glows
brilliantly, then subsides into grey ash.

Nowt was the same, he says, when I came back. We had great sex, mind. Awesome sex. And afterwards we lay in bed and watched
the light grow outside and I stroked the hair away from her forehead, over and over. And you lie there and think about the
times to come. But when you look back you realize that
was
the time.

He pauses, rubs his stubble.

There’s some time left, he says, for you and me at least. But I feel like we’ve become strangers, over the years.

You didn’t move to Thailand because of me. There’s no stopping you when you get the bit between your teeth.

How about we get on the grapevine again? he says. Maybes I could still add a couple to my life list.

He grins ironically and I laugh along with him.

I’ll tell Kate, I say. Another fire engine bullets past towards Port Clarence, blue lights blazing under the darkening sky.

Good morning Vietnam, said Gary Hagan at the top of the stairs as he pushed me against the wall, a bulky hand either side
of my head. The sound of a fire engine outside on Port Clarence Road, Doppler effect as it sped past.

I said nothing, watched his pudgy features swim in towards my face until his nose was almost touching mine. His jaws were
working, chewing gum on his breath.

Vietnam, he breathed, the sharp smell of Juicy Fruit making me blink. Thailand. It’s crazy shit over there son. Sodom and
fucking Gomorrah. One day I’m going to take me a trip. Franco’s been over. Got the snatch hair off a fourteen-year-old virgin,
carries it around in his wallet. What do you think about that?

I shrugged, and Hagan sneered.

You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?

Kate was in the bathroom, one of her interminable soaks. And someone was climbing the stairs. I could hear the footsteps,
boots reverberating in the stairwell.

Lasses don’t want to go with people like you, said Hagan.

The large gold hoop in his left ear glinted. I imagined grasping it between my teeth and ripping it out through his flesh.
The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and a figure passed through Gary Hagan, emerging again on the other side. At least
I thought it was a figure, a shape created from interference in the air, like a snowstorm on the TV,
popping and fizzing like an Alka Seltzer. It melted into the opposite wall and disappeared. Hagan didn’t seem to notice.

Me, I’ve got nothing against you son, he said. It’s just that you’re so – he paused to search for the right word – so
hittable
. His face was so close it was blurred. I moved forward and kissed him full on the lips. He sprang back, rubbing his mouth.

You dirty little –

He raised his hand and I flinched away from the blow but he stopped and laughed.

Next time son, he said, and I ducked away down the empty stairs.

Later at Razia’s house my eyes began to blur and swim, headache jolting into migraine. I slumped down wearily over the table,
rested my head against a chemistry textbook.

You’re not in the mood for this, she said.

I sat up and looked at her, deep brown eyes and sharp features, perky smile framed by the
hijab
.

Everyone’s full of shit, I said.

She laughed at me.

Like what.

I dunno. Get your exams and go to university and be a suit. Jack it in and go on the pancrack. Raid the till and blow it on
lighter fluid. Your mam needs you Dan, she’s finding it hard to cope. Why don’t you go and find out what happened to your
dad? There’s a million things.

A million?

Aye. A million. And you can only choose the one.

Raz leaned back on her chair, eyes twinkling, inwardly laughing.

It’s more than a million, she said. And that’s the beauty of it Danny boy. Any moment in time, there’s a zillion different
maybes, all hanging out there. Sometimes you never even see them brother. It’s mad as biscuits.

Are you sure it’s just a zillion like? Not a zillion and one, or nine hundred and ninety-nine trillion nine hundred and ninety-nine?

Actually, she said, very seriously, leaning back so far on her chair I thought she might tip over. It’s a zillion and twelve.
But I was rounding down for the simple-minded.

I wanted to kiss her. Instead I looked out of the window across the back garden. Over the saltmarsh a gull was levitating
on the wind, perched at the apex of a blustery crystal-clear morning, half a mile above Port Clarence. I thought about the
equations you need to fly – the hieroglyphic tangle of fluid dynamics, turbulence, chaos theory and the rest. The gull swayed,
tilted, blew over with a raucous cry.

Well they can fuck off, I said. All zillion and twelve of them.

Shh, don’t swear, Dad’s upstairs. Puckered up her brown face into that expression, half laughing and half admonishing. Mr
Shahid clattered down the stairs, on the way out for his shift on the minicabs.

Daniel, he said, by way of acknowledgement. His eyes glittered like Razia’s above the thin moustache. The door clicked shut
behind him and I heard his engine rev outside. We didn’t speak much, just a word or two when he was going out to the taxi,
or coming back in after a shift. He tolerated me in his house, at his kitchen table or on his sofa.

A ghost went through Gary Hagan, I said. Straight through him.

That means he’s going to die, said Raz. No bones about it.

Ghosts don’t have bones, I said. She wrinkled her nose at the lame joke. Seriously though, I asked her. Do you believe in
them?

Aye, I reckon. Saw this old biddy once in Dhaka, going out to the well in the morning. Only she’d died the night before.

What do you think they are?

I don’t reckon it’s the dead coming back, rattling a chain. Maybe it’s because time and space are all folded and wrinkled
and scrunched up, so one place can rub against another. Leave a mark like pressing on carbon paper.

So a ghost is like a bad photocopy?

She laughed. Aye, maybe. Have you had any dinner? I think there are frozen pizzas – I could heat some up.

Better get back to the pub Raz, I said, I’ve got stuff to do.

I shuffled into my overcoat. I had to squeeze close past her at the front door. She sparkled at me,

Take care Dan, she said.

I pulled her towards me, but she squirmed away expertly.

Don’t make things more complicated than you have to, she said.

Kate was in the living room with the TV blaring and the gas fire pumping out the heat on full whack and Trajan sprawled beside
her toasting his bollocks. He was Yan’s dog and I never worked out what breeds made him up but he was a big leathery bugger
whatever.

She grabbed my jumper as I went past, nostrils flared like a horse.

Don’t think, she said, her big brown eyes wandering aimlessly. Don’t think you can fucking swan back in here without a word.
After three years, you bastard.

Half drawl and half croak, with a blast of Coke and Jack Daniels on her breath. Sweet and sticky.

Mam, I said. It’s Danny.

Looked down at her hand. Pastel-pink nails flaring against mahogany skin.

Don’t think, she said. Gave my jumper a hard yank, almost overbalancing me. The heat was oppressive, sweat patches heavy
under my arms.

Mam.

Aye, she said. Tried to focus on me. Danny.

She reached over the arm of the sofa and found her glass and took a good hit. Then she rummaged in her bag for tablets and
shovelled a few down and chased them with more whisky and Coke.

It’s
Randall and Hopkirk
, she said. I love this. Come and sit next to us and watch it like.

I sat.

Last night, she said. Did you notice anything?

Like what.

It got cold.

I didn’t notice.

I woke up in me bed and it was cold. It was so cold I couldn’t move and me breath was making crystals. I was frozen stiff
as a board.

You were dreaming mam.

I was lying there paralysed. And there was someone standing at the foot of the bed. A man.

What did he look like?

You couldn’t see him. He was just there. And you could feel him. Just a feeling of malice, like he meant me harm. It was steaming
off him.

So what happened?

I dunno. I sat up and he was gone and the room was warm again.

You were dreaming.

I need to know what he wants.

Why?

Ghosts want something, don’t they?

I dunno. I can’t breathe with this fucking gas fire.

Gary Hagan wandered in with a bottle of Mexican lager in one hand and calfskin loafers on his feet. He sat down in Yan’s chair.

What you watching Katie?

The way he was looking at her, seeing the long legs in tight stone-washed denim and the sunbed skin and blueblack hair like
a fall of coaldust. Not seeing the nicotine stains on her teeth and the cracks in her skin, not smelling the raw panic on
her breath. She was ten years older than him but she’d still pass for thirty.

Trajan padded over to him and sniffed at his groin and he looked worried but made a show of rubbing the dog’s ears.

Who’s behind the bar Gaz? said Kate.

Lads are looking after it.

You’ve got it under control, then.

Aye. Just leave it to me Katie.

She settled to watch the TV again. She flicked a sly look at Hagan.

You got big muscles Gaz.

Got to keep yourself in shape.

He was practically purring.

Aye. You’re almost as big as my Yan.

Right.

He was – He is –

She burst out laughing.

Which is it?

Laughed again.

If he walked in now, right. I’d deck him. One hard punch. It was that bastard showed me how to throw a good punch. You know,
not a lass’s punch.

You’re a tough cookie Katie.

And after I’d decked him, she whispered, breathily. I’d drag him down on the floor and fuck his brains out. Fuck them right
out.

She was looking right at Hagan with her face wide open.

When Kate was asleep on the sofa I went into her bedroom and found the shoebox of Yan’s stuff at the back of the bottom drawer
in her dresser. There was an old paperweight and a wet shaver and a box of cufflinks, one of them old digital watches with
the liquid crystal all faded away to nowt and a bunch of keys. I expected photos but there weren’t any. Maybe nobody could
afford a camera when they were growing up. And there was Yan’s old diary for nineteen eighty-one.

I rifled through it in the green half-light seeping through bedroom curtains. There weren’t many names and addresses in the
back and most of these I didn’t recognize. But a couple of them rang a bell. I jammed the little diary in my back pocket and
closed the shoebox and buried it again at the back of Kate’s drawer.

The curtains were closed in the saloon and the darkness was prickling with dust so thick you could taste it. I moved over
to the bar, feet squeaking on the lino tiles, and when I got there I lifted the flap and ducked through. I had my finger in
the dial of the phone and then I
thought you don’t just ring someone out of the blue and expect them to spill their guts. It has to be face to face.