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.