‘ No! ’ I cried again.
I felt the strong urge to tear all these dreadful papers into shreds, but at the same time I wanted to preserve them as the one link I had to my life before. And my anger faded quickly, leaving behind this aching, empty longing, which was worse. Energy drained out of me and I sat there until one of the staff came and knocked on the door, asking me if I needed any help. I realised I couldn’t stay any longer and hastily piled the contents of the box into my bag to go.
I suppose I must have caught the metro back home but I don’t remember the journey. I’d feared that what was inside the deposit box would upset me, but I had been unprepared to receive such devastatingly bad news as this. The worst news I could have got. And now I suddenly had the most thumping headache, pressing in behind my eyes, throbbing relentlessly with every pulse of my heartbeat. I got into the elevator inside my apartment block and pressed the button for my floor. Then I put a hand to my head, fingers massaging my temples, trying to relieve the pain. There were tears pricking my eyes. I could throw the rest of that fish food away now. I was never going to need it. Everything was ruined. Everything was totally ruined. I couldn’t even remember them! I couldn’t even see their faces in my head…
‘Are you okay?’
I dropped my hand and glanced up, realising that the elevator had come to a halt on my floor and the doors were open. My neighbour, Casey March, was stood there gazing at me. She was wearing a barmaid’s uniform; her dyed hair tied back; a satchel on her shoulders.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked again. ‘It’s Gabriel, isn’t it?’
I glanced round fearfully but there was no way to avoid her. I couldn’t leave the lift without walking past her. Anyway, she had seen me now.
‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ I said, desperately trying to pull myself together long enough to get past her and back to my own apartment.
Casey hesitated, glancing at my shaking hands. ‘Do you want me to call someone for you?’
‘No, I’m okay,’ I said, stepping out of the elevator. ‘I… I just got some bad news, that’s all.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, looking like she meant it.
I nodded, and the movement seemed to almost split my head in two. I couldn’t help but cry out and instinctively jerk my hands back to my head again. What was this? I hadn’t been drinking! Where had this agonising headache come from? Why was the light suddenly blinding me? Why could I taste bile rising at the back of my throat?
‘What?’ I asked, realising that Casey had just asked me something.
‘I said do you suffer from migraines?’
‘Migraines?’
I automatically went to say that, no, I’d never had a migraine in my life, but then I hesitated. How could I know? How could I know? I don’t remember anything! The pain was so bad I thought I was going to throw up.
‘It looks like a bad one. My brother gets them. You can have some of his medicine if you want.’
I would have eaten a poisoned apple at that point if I’d thought it was going to help.
‘Thank you,’ I managed.
‘I’ll just get it for you.’
I followed her back to her apartment and waited outside until she came back with a foil strip of tablets in her hand.
‘The adult dose is two tablets every four hours,’ she said. ‘It might help if you draw the curtains in your bedroom and lie down for a while. That’s what I do for Toby. Anyway, I’d better go or I’ll be late for work. I hope you feel better.’
10th October
Casey’s advice worked. Although the pain lingered for a good twenty-four hours, it only felt unbearable for a few of those. I’ve never known anything like it. If Casey hadn’t realised I was having a migraine attack I would have thought I was dying — having a brain haemorrhage or something. I checked my cupboards the next day and found migraine medicine in there, so I clearly have had migraines before. I don’t know how often I have these attacks but I sincerely hope they don’t occur often.
I couldn’t even sleep. I wish loneliness could be the way it’s portrayed in romantic comedies. When the lovely heroine feels lonely, she goes to her best friend for comfort, the friend gives her a tub of ice-cream and this very often seems to quickly solve the problem. I wish real loneliness was like that; I wish it really could be solved with ice-cream. Since I remember neither Nicky nor Luke, you’d think I wouldn’t miss them as badly as I do.
What will happen when I am an old man, unable to take care of myself any more? There will be no children, no younger relatives to come to my aid. There will be no one. I will have to move myself into an old people’s home. Still, at least I would be living with other people again; I wouldn’t be on my own any more… But that’s many years away yet. Perhaps I should ring some retirement homes and find out what the minimum age of admittance is, to know how long I will have to wait before I can go to one. But this is hardly the attitude, is it? I’m sure that, by then, I will have married again. I will have other children and grandchildren to care for me by that time.
I slept in late this morning, not getting out of bed until gone nine o’clock. By the time I had showered and eaten something, I was feeling much better so I caught the metro to the Castle District and walked to the Hilton. Of course, I didn’t know if Stephomi would be in when I got there. But it was still quite early, only just gone 10 a.m., and there was the chance that he would still be in the hotel. I wanted him to fill in the blanks for me about my family. I wanted to know what Nicky, my wife, had looked like, how we had met… I wanted to know about my son… I wanted them to be real to me so that I could grieve for them, say goodbye to them, and move on. Only Stephomi could give me that.
It wasn’t until I arrived at the Hilton that I realised I didn’t know which hotel room Stephomi was staying in. I went to reception and asked if they could ring to Zadkiel Stephomi’s room and let him know I was there. The woman behind the reception desk typed something into the computer, fingers flying over the keyboard before her.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but Mr Stephomi has a Do Not Disturb request on his room. I can’t phone up to him.’
‘But I need to see him!’ I said agitatedly, running my hand through my hair in frustration. ‘Please, isn’t there any way you can get a message to him? Or give me his room number?’
‘I most certainly can’t give you any of Mr Stephomi’s private details, sir,’ she said, looking alarmed. ‘And I can’t phone his room until the Do Not Disturb request has been removed.’
I argued with the woman for a little longer, even though I knew it was useless.
‘Oh, all right,’ I said in the end. ‘Can you take a message for me and pass it on to him when you can? Can you tell him that Gabriel Antaeus wishes to-’
‘Antaeus?’ the woman broke in sharply. ‘Why didn’t you say? Mr Stephomi left orders that we might bypass the request for privacy if it was on your behalf. He is in the presidential
suite at the top of the hotel, sir. I’ll just phone to let him know you’re coming, shall I?’
But I was hardly listening to her. I was already striding for the elevators with my bag firmly clamped under one arm. But as I got off the elevator and approached the room, I was surprised to hear thumping and muttered cursing from within.
‘Stephomi?’ I called, hammering on the door.
The scuffling abruptly stopped and the door was pulled open a bare few inches, showing half of Stephomi’s face as he peered at me from behind the door. There was stubble on his chin and dark rings under his rather bloodshot eyes.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ I asked in surprise.
‘I’m sorry, Gabriel, but this really isn’t the best time.’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘There isn’t somebody in there with you, is there?’
Stephomi gave a wry smile and swung the door open wide for me to see the empty living room within. ‘No one here but me,’ he said.