Think Yourself Lucky (16 page)

"What the fuck you talking like that for? You a teacher?"

"You wouldn't like the lesson," David said, but only to himself. He was ashamed of worsening the man's behaviour in front of his son, however loyally pugnacious the boy looked. He drove out of the car park and eventually found a space nearly half a mile away on the main road.

Despite the chill of the grey afternoon, his body prickled with exertion as he tramped back to the hospital. Beyond the automatic doors, which stood back for a man levering himself along on crutches with a wincing grin at every step, the lobby felt as oppressive as fever. By the time David reached the intensive care unit his mouth was almost too dry to let him swallow, while his armpits felt full of hot ash. "Can I see Mr Dent?" he croaked at a nurse behind a desk.

She blinked several times on the way to looking up from a computer. "Mr..."

"Dent." Perhaps she was asking for the first name, unless David's voice was so parched that she hadn't understood. "He fell off a ladder," he said as distinctly as the threat of a desiccated cough would let him.

"Are you a relative?"

"No, I'm just..."

The notion of claiming he was a friend left David almost too guilty to speak, but the nurse gave him an encouraging smile. "You're just?"

"That's what I am." He hadn't meant to say that; he could have fancied someone else had. "Just a neighbour," he said.

"I expect he'll be glad to see someone. Third bed down on the left. Don't expect too much, will you? And I'm afraid you haven't got very long."

At first David couldn't see Dent for the visitors around the intervening beds. The man was lying on his back with his head only slightly elevated by a pillow. A chunky bandage capped his scalp, and a padded pink ruff encircled his neck. Tubes led to plastic bags from one bruised arm that lay on the sheet and from underneath the covering, and wires connected him to monitors. David had the notion that the whole of the man had been rendered remote, and couldn't help wondering how that would feel. There was no telling from Dent's face, both sides of which drooped inertly towards the pillow. His moist reddened eyes were gazing upwards, apparently unaware of his visitor, even when David advanced from the foot of the bed to stand beside the pillow. "Mr Dent?" he said.

The slack brow wrinkled feebly and then winced as if the movement had roused a bruise. Dent's eyes shifted in their sockets, dislodging a trickle from the left one, but came nowhere near focusing on David. "Can you hear me, Mr Dent?" David said a little louder.

"Who?" While this was barely audible, it appeared to exhaust Dent's breath. Perhaps it wasn't the entire question, since he made a visible effort to speak as his head lolled sideways to help his watery gaze find the visitor. "Who's that?" he gasped.

"It's David Botham. I live round the corner from you."

Dent's forehead stirred again, tugging at the hem of the bandage. "Do I know you?" he said too faintly for his tone to be anything like clear.

David was thrown by how reassured he felt not to be recognised. "As I say, we're neighbours. We've spoken now and then."

"Don't remember. Don't remember much," Dent mumbled mostly to himself.

Perhaps the lack of recognition wasn't so heartening after all. "You used to help me get out of my drive," David risked saying.

"Did I? Good neighbour then."

This sounded too indistinct for a memory, more like an idea no sooner found than lost again. "I live across from Mrs Robbins. The lady who's forever at her bins," David said. "Mrs Robbins. She hopes you'll be better soon, and I do."

"Bins."

It might have been all of her name that Dent had the breath to articulate. "So how are you feeling?" David said.

"Not all here." Dent's mouth worked to shape more words and possibly a rueful grimace. "Like the rest of me's somewhere else."

"They're taking care of you, though."

For a moment Dent seemed to recall something, and then his brows relaxed, having failed to grasp it, "Doing their best," he said.

David couldn't put off the question any longer; it was why he was there. "Do you mind if I ask what happened to you?"

"Fell." Dent's head lolled another inch in his direction, and a thread of drool escaped onto the pillow. He was regaining more awareness, dabbing at the general area of his mouth with the hand that wasn't hindered by a tube. "Fell off a ladder," he said. "Should have got someone else."

"You'll know another time, won't you?" David couldn't help emphasising the situation since it absolved him, even if it hardly explained the Newless blog. "So long as you're getting better," he said.

"Wait," The skin beneath Dent's eyes twitched, perhaps to help them focus. "There was," he breathed.

David couldn't tell or more accurately hoped he didn't know why his mouth had grown parched again. "Was what?"

"Someone else," Dent said and stared so hard at David that his eyes bulged. "What did you say your name was?"

"It's David Botham."

"No." Dent's head moved weakly from side to side on the pillow but kept its gaze on David. "No, that's not right," he said "Have you got a brother?"

"Not even a sister." This went nowhere near assuaging David's panic. "I'm the only one," he said, which felt just as ineffectual.

"Someone else close, then. Somebody that's got your face."

"Who'd want it?" This didn't work either. "There's nobody," David almost pleaded. "There's only me."

"Have you come to see me before?"

"Here in the hospital, you mean?" Too late David realised he oughtn't to make that distinction. "I'm sorry," he said and had to swallow before going on. "I've never been anywhere near you."

"Then I must have dreamed it when they had me under."

David swallowed again, but his voice came out thin. "What did you dream?"

"Nothing you'd ever do. You wouldn't be here now if you were like that. I'd be embarrassed to tell you, Mr Botham."

"Was it—" As David's voice threatened to let him down he succeeded in saying "Was it about the ladder?"

"What else do you think would be on my mind?" All the same, Dent's gaze wavered as if he wasn't altogether happy with the sight of David's face. "I think I'd like to rest now," he said. "Thank you for coming and thank your neighbour for me."

David turned away and trudged almost blindly out of the ward, feeling as if his senses were somewhere else. He'd learned more than he would have liked to know, and it left him riddled with helpless bewilderment. Whatever expression he was displaying, the nurse at the desk blinked rapidly at it until he changed it into an automatic smile that made him feel even more concealed inside himself. He was heading for the exit—perhaps the chill out there might tone down his feverishness, if that wasn't just a symptom of his thoughts—when he heard a voice behind him. "Don't you ever fucking show me up again like that, you little fucking shit. I taught you how to fucking behave."

David hunched up his shoulders as though they could keep him from turning his head, but the man called after him "There's the fucking teacher. Got anything to say to me?"

"Don't let the boy see." If this was addressed to the father, David's voice was too low for him to hear. He didn't know where his words might have ended up, which dismayed him so much that despite the man's jeers he almost ran out of the hospital.

"I'm sorry I'm not better company, David. I'm feeling guilty, that's all."

"You're the last person who should feel that, Steph."

"It's just that I feel as if I could have wished what happened to Mick."

"I'm certain you'd never have done anything of the kind. And if anyone had a reason to wish he'd sort himself out, you had."

"I think his wife might have had more of one. She doesn't seem too unhappy now he's gone."

"Then you've even less of a reason to feel bad."

They were in the dining-room of Stephanie's apartment. Under the paralysed tears of a chandelier the table had pulled in its midriff to accommodate just twice as many people as were dining. The hint of a chill kept surging through the window, outside which the park waved its trees. The walls bore menus that had amused Stephanie so much she'd had them framed, from a restaurant that offered Hot and Spicy Rabbi, a specialist in dishes from another Chinese region that apparently included Human Ribs, a French restaurant that promised Bee Bourgignon, which had prompted David to suggest that was why bees were disappearing... He didn't feel like finding any jokes now, but raised his glass of Rioja towards the casserole on the table. "And there's a reason why you should feel good."

It was one of her signature dishes, a Portuguese pork and bean stew to which she added herbs he'd never been able to guess. Having several signatures could suggest she had a hidden personality, an idea David supposed might occur to a writer, which meant it didn't appeal to him. As he dunked a chunk of her sourdough in his bowl she said "I hope Mrs Mick shares your enthusiasm."

"I'm sure she'll see your customers do when she opens up again. Does she really call herself Mrs Mick?"

"No, that's what I just did." Too late David saw that Stephanie had been trying to lighten the mood. "Her name's Rhoda Magee," she said. "We'll be staying closed until at least after the funeral. I'll have time to think up dishes for your stunt if you still want me to."

After dinner David cleared the table while Stephanie emptied the dishwasher. Once it was loaded she replenished David's glass and hers. "I may as well start thinking of your dishes," she said.

"You won't need me, will you?" His mind was elsewhere, and he needed to be. "I'll just walk off my dinner," he said. "So good I ate too much."

He gave her a quick kiss and then struggled into his fat unwieldy coat as he hurried along the hall. A piano on the ground floor accompanied his descent with a jolly variation on a sombre tune, which was interrupted by an electronic stutter as he let himself out of the house. He didn't look back until he was beneath the trees at the edge of the park. Although Stephanie's windows were curtained, he put more trees between him and the house before taking out his mobile. He thumbed the key to call a number in his contacts list and turned his back to the wind, which brought him a rumble of thunder—no, the sound of roller skates in the depths of the park. The trees overhead were growing frantic with the wind by the time his father said "Alan Botham."

"Hi, dad. It's David."

"David. It couldn't be anyone else."

"Why couldn’t it?"

"Calling me that. There certainly couldn't be now." David's father sent away a hint of wistfulness by adding "Have you called to say you're coming to see us?"

"We will soon. I'll talk to Steph."

"Have a word with her now if you like."

"She isn't here just at the moment." In a bid to approach why he'd called David said "How are you both? How's work?"

"There are pressures. I'm sure you have them in your own job and Stephanie's. How is she getting on with that fellow at the restaurant?"

"She isn't any more." David was nervous of continuing until he thought to say "She said he had an accident. A fatal one."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that, as I would be about anyone. How will it affect her?"

"We aren't sure yet. She's working on some recipes right now and she didn't want me in the way." However far this deviated from the truth, David hadn't time to care. "Speaking of accidents," he said, "I understand mother's client who we were talking about had one."

"Which client would that have been?"

"The one who attacked the policeman. The girl at work who knows about him said—"

"Let me apologise, David. I should have asked how life has been for you since your previous lady took the reins where you work."

"I can still do my job, that's what matters." David's effort to recall a name felt like drawing on someone else's memory. "Moorcroft, that's what he was called," he declared. "What happened to him?"

"As you say, he had an accident. I'm not sure what else you'd want to know."

"How bad was it?"

"How bad would you like it to have been? No, that's not fair to you. Blame the pressures I was mentioning. We know you're not that sort at all."

David felt unworthy of the observation. Before he could persist his father said "Sounds violent, I must say. Where exactly have you gone?"

"What do you mean, violent?" David had wandered down a side path in a vain attempt to avoid the gusts that were roaming the park. "What is?" he demanded.

"Whatever's there with you. Is it the wind?"

"That's what you'll be hearing. Anyway, what can you tell me about Moorcroft? My friend at work would like to know."

"You can assure her that he isn't likely to be a threat to anyone for quite some time."

"I will," David said and was afraid that his father might think this was all he wanted to know. "So what did happen to him?"

His father let out a sigh that contained a generous helping of patience. "He fell down an escalator not far from where you work."

"How did he, do we know?"

"From the top to the bottom." David couldn't tell how sardonic this was intended to be until his father said "It was quite a fall."

"No," David said and had to work on taking a breath, since the wind snatched half of it. "I meant what made him."

"Carelessness, if you believe someone who saw what he did."

"Who else is there to believe?"

"Well, precisely." As David parted his lips in frustration his father said "Not Mr Moorcroft, certainly."

"Why, what did he say?"

"Does it matter?" David was on the edge of admitting that it might when his father said "He insisted somebody was waiting at the top for him."

"Anybody," David said and was tempted to let the wind steal his words, "anybody in particular?"

"You really ought to ask Susan. He had her number on him when she was in town at the time. She stayed with him till the ambulance came, but she says he was making even less sense than usual."

"As you say, perhaps I'd better—"

"She thought at first he was saying he'd been lucky."