The Man Who Forgot His Wife (14 page)

On the fourth floor I was directed towards my father’s room, and as I entered I was pleasantly surprised by the apparent health of the stout, dark-haired old man lying in the bed in front of me. So this was my father. This was Dad. I sat down and dutifully took his podgy little hand.

‘Hi, Dad, it’s me. I got here as soon as I could.’

The old man regarded me for a second. ‘Who fuck hell are you, fuck-bastard?’ he said, in a strong foreign accent. I saw the Arabic name on the patient’s plastic wristband and leapt up and out of the room.

I sat in the corridor for a moment to calm myself down. I had pumped myself up into a state of some emotional tension which it was hard to maintain once I’d realized I was holding the hand of the wrong old man. Or maybe that had been the right old man, and Gary had forgotten to tell me that my father was also a Syrian spy who’d risen up through the ranks of the Royal Air Force, despite his incomprehensible accent and penchant for grammatically incorrect swear words.

Now I was standing outside a room where the occupant shared the same surname as myself. I steeled myself and went in. Lying in the hospital bed, surrounded by purring machines, tubes and wires, was a skeletal old man – discoloured skin pulled tight around his skull, the lips almost non-existent. The contrast could not have been greater; the digital monitors and expensive technology seemed self-consciously space age, while the body at the centre of it all looked like a Bronze Age corpse preserved in a peat bog.

‘Hello?’

‘Is that you, son?’ he said through his oxygen mask.

‘Yes. Yes, it’s me.’

‘You are very good. To come and see me.’ His voice was very weak and he didn’t turn his head to speak.

‘Oh, that’s okay. It’s the least I could do. Is there anything I can get you?’

‘No, sit down. I’m fine,’ he said, though he clearly wasn’t.

I had ascertained from the hospital that my father was conscious and compos mentis, but I had somehow expected the patient to be sleeping or unable to talk through an oxygen mask and that, as the dutiful son, I would just have to sit there for a bit and then go home again.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Ooh, you know. Just pleased to be here.’

‘Are you in any pain at all?’

‘A little. Not too bad really.’

‘And there’s nothing I can get you?’

‘Large whisky. No ice.’

I smiled at the old man’s light-heartedness and realized I already liked my dad. He managed to be humorous even though he was at death’s door. In fact, he looked like he’d gone straight past death’s door, into death’s hallway and was heading towards death’s lounge to make himself comfortable. The room smelt of disinfectant failing to mask bodily decay.

‘Maddy and the kids. Were here …’

‘That’s right.’

‘Wonderful children. So charming.’

‘They are.’ And then I struggled to think of anything else to say. ‘And they’ve coped so well with it all.’

The old man seemed not to respond at first, but finally processed what I’d just said.

‘Coped with what?’

‘Well, you know …’

‘Is something wrong?’

Instantly it hit me that the old man knew nothing about our marriage break-up. Of course – my father had a heart condition, he was old and vulnerable: why would we have added the stress of telling him that his only child’s marriage had failed? And by the same token, he clearly hadn’t been told that I’d gone missing or was suffering from chronic amnesia.

‘I mean, they’ve coped very well, both of them, you know … with their grandfather having a heart attack.’ And in a perverse way I was grateful to this medical emergency for coming to my rescue.

Suddenly an alarm sounded on one of the monitors. I leapt up, uncertain what I should do. A red light was flashing on a machine just above the bed. Was this it? Was this the moment that my
father
died, a couple of minutes after I’d first met him? I was about to run and get help when a nurse strode in, casually flicked a switch to silence it and headed back towards the door without saying anything.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Yes, it’s just that machine. It does that sometimes.’

‘Thank you!’ said the old man, but the nurse had gone. ‘They’re marvellous here.’

‘So you’re keeping your spirits up?’

‘Oh yes. Mustn’t grumble.’

‘Well, you’ve just had your second heart attack. You’re entitled to grumble a little bit if you want.’

‘No, I’m very lucky. The staff are very kind. Absolutely marvellous.’

It was indeed ‘absolutely marvellous’ my father could find nothing negative at all to say about his present condition. I had not known whether to expect him to be tired or scary or grumpy or martyred, but the heart-attack victim just seemed incredibly big-hearted.

On the side was a home-made card, and I could see it had been signed ‘Dillie’.

‘I like Dillie’s card.’

‘Bless her. So thoughtful.’

I listened to his laboured breathing. I tried to imagine this man holding my infant hand and leading me across the road; I pictured myself as a little boy being allowed to change the gears in an old-fashioned car; I visualized us kicking a leather football together in some imaginary back garden. But none of it came into focus.

‘Do you remember us playing football when I was little?’ I asked.

‘How could I forget? You were always …’ and he paused for a moment as his ageing mind searched for the right words ‘… so
useless
!’

I chuckled at his joke.

‘Yeah, but I was only a kid.’

‘No, no. Even when you were older. Completely rubbish!’ His tired face muscles still managed a smile. Obviously my father’s memory was not going to be as sharp as it had been, and I attempted to move on.

‘No, well, football was never really my thing. Gary was reminding me how I used to sing in a band.’

‘Oh, yes. What a voice!’

‘Oh … thanks.’

‘Like a strangled cat.’

‘What?’

‘Bloody terrible.’

‘Ha! I suppose rock music’s always going to sound like that to the older generation.’

‘The audience clapped –’

‘Well, that’s good.’

‘– slowly. While you were singing …’

It seemed that this was another relationship based on mickey-taking, but I just didn’t expect strangers to be this rude.

Once I’d made the adjustment, I realized it was wonderful that my father was still able to tease me like this from his hospital bed. It showed what a bond we must have had; this was clearly my dad’s way of showing his affection.

‘But none of that matters,’ declared the aged mystic, who could see a time that was invisible to his pupil. ‘Because the big thing in life … you got right.’ His voice was sounding increasingly strained now.

‘What – my job?’

‘No.
Your wife
.’ With all his effort, he turned to face me. ‘You married the right girl.’ His breathing was becoming more laboured and I struggled to hear the whispered sentences under his mask. ‘You two. Are perfect together.’ And he closed his eyes, perhaps to picture me returning to Madeleine this evening and how happy that thought made him.

I suppose my father’s physical condition added a little extra value to these words. Any sentence can seem apt and profound if it’s uttered on your deathbed. You could use your last breath to say, ‘You know, you should take your coat off when you’re indoors or else you won’t feel the benefit’, and the onlookers would nod reverentially at the wisdom of such an insight. But for my own father to spare the breath to tell me that Madeleine and I were perfect together – it was the first time anyone had had anything positive to say about my marriage.

‘Yes, she’s one in a million,’ I agreed.

‘Just like …’ and now he needed another gasp ‘… your mother.’

Then suddenly my time was up. It had only been about ten minutes, but already the fuel tank was empty. ‘Bit tired now, son. Can’t talk any more.’

‘Okay.’ And then I forced myself to say it. ‘Okay,
Dad
.’

Dad fell quiet and the noise of his breathing changed gear as he sank almost instantly into a deep sleep. I sat there just staring at him for a while, trying to spot myself in those weathered features. A trolley rattled past the door, but no one came in. I had worried that seeing an unrecognizable parent would make me want to cry, but actually I found myself feeling uplifted. His instinct about Madeleine was the same as mine. ‘Perfect together’ is what he had said. If it had been my heart connected to the ECG machine, the alarm would be going off by this time.

A few minutes later a nurse came in and said that he would sleep for hours now.

‘He’s surprisingly upbeat, isn’t he?’

‘He’s just one of those people,’ smiled the nurse, ‘who makes you feel good to be alive.’

‘He’s my dad.’

‘Yeah.’ She smiled. ‘I know.’

I was disappointed to find Gary and Linda’s flat empty when I got back. I had so wanted to tell them all about my father, what he had said about Maddy, to share what the nurse had said about him. Maybe I could call Maddy now and talk to her about him. What could be more natural, the two of us catching up about our respective visits to the hospital? I had already learned the number off by heart and I pressed all but the last of the buttons and left my finger hovering over the final digit. Then I hung up and walked into the hall. I lay on the carpet for a while staring up at the smoke alarm giving a tiny blink every few minutes to show that no one had taken the battery out. And then almost without thinking I got up and just dialled the number and was shocked that it was answered almost immediately.

‘Hello?’ said a girl’s voice, friendly and almost surprised that anyone might call. ‘Hello, who is it please?’ she said after a pause. ‘Mum, they’re not saying anything but I think there’s someone there …’

‘Hell-ooo?’ said Maddy, taking the handset. ‘Hello? Oh – can you call back, please, we can’t hear anything at this end … Thank you, goodbye.’

And I could just hear Dillie saying a shocked ‘Mum!’ before the line was cut off. That was the first time I had heard my daughter’s voice.

I had used my own mobile phone, but had withheld the caller’s ID. I wondered if right now they would be trying to find out who had intruded. Looking at the phone in my hand I suddenly noticed the camera icon on the menu. I excitedly scrolled across to find another icon labelled ‘Photos’ that I had never been told about. Just one click and I uncovered a whole gallery of pictures of Jamie with the dog or Maddy with the dog or myself with the dog. Then there were about another hundred pictures of just the dog. I was hatching a suspicion that Dillie may have used the camera feature slightly more than I had ever done. But there were a few images of her as well, always stopping to pose and give a big
smile
to the photographer. I scrolled through them all slowly again, looking at these actual human beings that Maddy and I had produced. And then I nearly ran down the battery staring at pictures of Maddy, trying to discern her feelings in every photo, imagining the actual moment that had been captured, the words that might have accompanied these silent stills. And no rational thought could counter the overwhelming gravitational pull I felt towards her. The wife that Gary had said I could never win back. The woman my father had said was perfect for me.

An hour later I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and raised the blade to my throat. I took one last look and then went for it. Soon, big grey-streaked tufts of beard were falling into the sink; wiry clumps of old Vaughan were scooped off the porcelain and dumped into the pedal bin. The uneven stubble was harvested as close to the skin as it was possible to go, before it was smothered in masculine-scented foam and then scraped off with a brand-new razor that boasted far more blades than can have been practical or necessary. Bit by bit, I saw the shape of my face emerge from where it had been hiding ever since the late 1980s, when apparently I had read somewhere that Mrs Thatcher disapproved of beards.

The birth of my face was not without a little blood and pain. I was a novice shaver, and pressed too hard around the chin and missed annoying tufts under my lower lip, but eventually I washed and moisturized my pale shiny face to see a new person looking back at me. I tried to persuade myself I looked rather square-jawed and handsome, like James Bond or Action Man – an effect only slightly spoiled by the specks of blood and deadheaded spots that needed immediate patching. The clean-shaven figure was still wearing the crumpled, shabby old clothes I’d found in Gary and Linda’s bedroom cupboard, but now I set about part two of my action plan.

Gary had said to me that my fugue was just some sort of mid-life crisis, an accusation I had vigorously denied since I felt as if I were right at the beginning of my life. ‘Honestly, what a bloody fuss about approaching forty,’ he had said. ‘Why can’t you just get an earring and a red sports car and have done with it?’ His words came back to me as I strode into the menswear section of a large department store, announcing that I was looking for a new suit or two.

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Something classy, you know, sort of smart and sophisticated …’ and then I noticed in the shop mirror that a blood-stained fragment of toilet paper was still stuck on my face.

The makers of the suits I liked best had even spent money where no one else would see it: there were fancy flowered linings and neat little extra pockets on the inside. I felt myself standing an inch or so taller in front of the mirror; I looked sharp and in control, and the assistant deigned to share his expertise that this was a ‘very nice suit’. The outfitter had regarded me rather disdainfully when I had first trespassed into his department – an attitude that was not ameliorated by my inability to remember the PIN number on my credit card. A frantic text to Maddy then informed me of my PIN, my mother’s maiden name and my secret password. Re-armed with the knowledge required to survive modern life, I bought three designer suits, three shirts and two pairs of shoes. I kept one of the suits on; my old clothes were placed inside the shopping bags, even though I could never imagine wearing them again.