Love Your Enemies (19 page)

It took Melissa a good hour to neaten the kitchen superficially, but she was pleased with her work and full of a sense of self-satisfaction and piety. She really believed that she had now made a difference to the quality of John’s life.

She made two cups of coffee – black because she had not thought to buy any milk – and took them back through to the living room with the cake. John remained fast asleep. She didn’t know whether to wake him or not. His eyes were darting around under the skin of his eyelids as though he was a dog dreaming of rabbits. She smiled to herself and sipped her
coffee. The house seemed very quiet even though the radio was playing at high volume. She helped herself to a slice of cake and ate it slowly and carefully. John seemed no closer to waking now than he had when she’d arrived back from the shops. His face was so thin, though, and his eyes ringed with grey.

She looked at her watch and decided that it was probably best to go. After finishing her coffee she searched around for a pencil and found a piece of paper that was blank on one side. On it she wrote:
Dear John, I didn’t like to wake you when I got back from the shops. Your soup and tablets are in the kitchen. I did a bit of tidying, hope that’s all right. Please phone me at work tomorrow
. She wrote the number in big, bold letters.
I’d like a proper chat with you. Love, Melissa
. She pinned the letter to the wall next to John’s other diagrams and illustrations and then left the house as quietly as possible.

John awoke and staggered to the kitchen for a glass of water. He saw the painkillers on the sideboard and grabbed them, hurriedly placing several into his mouth at once and chewing them before swigging them down with a mouthful of water. He was indifferent to the unpleasant sour taste that they had left in his mouth.

Every sensation in his body and brain on wakening had been immediate. Increasingly he was fuelled and energized only by desperate cravings and sheer necessity. He just had to keep his body moving, to satisfy it, to quell its pain. He could not think beyond these needs, these basic urges.

After swallowing the tablets he tried to open a can of soup but he did not have the strength to grip the tin opener and turn its handle at the same time. He also knew that when the strength in his body returned it would have to be conserved for more important work. Painting was now a priority over eating, completion was his only real desire. He slumped against the kitchen cabinets and slid slowly down on to the
kitchen floor where he lay on his side and stared at the tiles, tracing each line, each square into infinite patterns and diagrams, into apartment blocks and fairgrounds and Meccano sets. The floor was very clean. He thought of Melissa for a moment before pain drove him back into a state like sleep.

Melissa keenly awaited John’s telephone call the following day at work but he did not phone. Nor on Tuesday, nor on Wednesday. For some reason this lack of contact made her feel unbearably sad. She knew that her options were open to go and see him again, but felt that her welcome could not be guaranteed since he had made no effort to get into contact with her. She wondered if she had offended him in some way, or whether he still hadn’t forgiven her for her frank behaviour on her previous visit.

Steve watched Melissa becoming increasingly depressed and listless as the week progressed. It didn’t take much intelligence to guess why she was so down.

On Thursday he decided to broach the subject directly. She was folding up some T-shirts that a customer had unfolded a few minutes before. He was at the till putting in a new till roll. As he wound the paper up tightly and pressed it into the till he said, ‘You haven’t mentioned that guy John in a while, have you seen him?’

She turned from her task and stared at him. ‘Why do you ask? Did he phone earlier while I was out getting lunch?’

Steve shook his head. ‘Were you expecting to hear from him today?’

Melissa sighed and completed what she was doing. Then she straightened up and leaned against the shelves, tucking a stray piece of dark hair behind her ear. ‘I don’t think he’s very well. Every time I go and see him he looks worse. I went on Sunday and he looked like an Auschwitz survivor.’

Steve pulled a rather cynical expression and her eyes widened. ‘No, honestly, I’m not exaggerating. He looks all
thin and he’s growing this awful beard. He’s really unkempt and the house is in a terrible state.’

Steve thought for a moment and then said, ‘Have you spoken to him about it?’

She sighed. ‘What am I supposed to say? “Hello, God you look awful?” I don’t think he’d even pay any attention if I did. Last time I went to see him he sent me off to the shops to buy some soup and painkillers then when I got back he was fast asleep, really deeply asleep. He didn’t look too good.’

Steve shrugged. ‘Maybe he is unwell. I thought he was a diabetic or something. Did you wake him up?’

Melissa shook her head. ‘I didn’t like to. I hardly know him. I cleaned the place up a bit – it’s really messy and dusty and dirty now – then I went home. But I left a note for him asking him to contact me here.’

‘But he hasn’t?’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

John had not seen Melissa’s message because everything had been unfocused all week. It had taken several hours on Sunday night to drag himself into the living room from his position on the kitchen floor. He had almost lost all feeling in his feet but his hands were still clumsily movable which, he told himself, was all that really mattered. Standing was virtually impossible. Any fast movement was now entirely out of the question and everyday tasks like getting food and drink, washing or going to the toilet were now arduous and exhausting.

Using his initiative, he managed to rig up a bucket and washing bowl system in the living room so that he hardly had to move from that room any more. The bucket was full of drinking water and he used the bowl as a chamber pot. Most of his time was spent on the floor. He had pulled his coffin down off the bench and now lay across it as he painted it. After several attempts, he had managed to drag the central
Warhol illustration from the wall, ripping it in the corners where the drawing pins stayed fixed into position. Melissa’s note was now out of his range.

One of the windows in the room was still open for ventilation which meant that he felt very cold a lot of the time. But he saw the cold as a kind of blessing because it prevented him from sleeping and forced him to work, although his hand shook so much as he held the brush that he had to hold it still with his other shaking hand.

The radio was always on, day and night, and the tunes flew around the room like brightly coloured birds which he could not grasp, but he watched them and was dazzled by them. In all his pain he felt so happy and so righteous. He had never felt as happy before and he welcomed this feeling as if it were a stranger and shook its hand with great formality and offered it a cup of tea. But he only had water now, and after a few days the bucket was nearly empty and he had difficulty telling the bucket from the bowl until he sipped a mouthful of his own urine; but after a while his urine tasted only of water.

And so his time passed, everything in close-up, each letter, each colour, each movement of the brush the only thing, everything, his only concern. He had nothing else left to think about and that was tantamount to bliss.

Eventually he was numb to the hips and he smiled and pretended that he was a snail. It was nearly done.

Steve was really quite concerned about John and told Melissa that she should go and see him again, and soon, but she wouldn’t go. She kept saying – and with increasing insistence and irritation – ‘If he wanted to see me he’d contact me. I don’t want to get involved and find that I’m out of my depth. He’ll phone eventually, and if not, well, then not. The end.’

Steve kept saying, ‘But what if he’s ill and hasn’t seen your note?’ She didn’t answer.

He also asked her about John’s work. He felt an unaccountable concern for John and was interested in what he was doing; he respected it, he understood it. After their initial discussion about John on the Thursday he’d asked, ‘How is his work progressing? How’s the coffin? Is it nearly completed yet?’

Melissa shuddered. He smiled, ‘A sensitive subject?’

She shook her head, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I hate it. I think it’s evil, I know it sounds stupid …’

Steve nodded, ‘You’re right. It does. It is.’

Seven days went by, uneventful days. Then a woman phoned the shop while Melissa was out getting lunch and asked for her in an uncertain voice. The shop was empty. Steve said, ‘I’m afraid that she’s not here at the moment. Can I take a message?’ ‘I’m John’s mother. John is dead. I want to find out how it happened. I read her note on the wall.’

Her voice shook. Steve closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again. He said, ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I’ll tell her to call you back.’

She provided her number – it was John’s old number – and said goodbye.

Steve waited for Melissa to return and felt sick at the idea of telling her. He served several people before she got back. She said, ‘Sorry I’ve been so long, but I got distracted on Berwick Street. I found this lacy stuff in red and green which is really gorgeous.’

Steve smiled his response and then said, ‘Melissa I’ve got a bit of news for you which I think you might find upsetting.’

She put down her bag at the back of the shop where they kept their private belongings, then returned to him. He said, ‘John’s mother rang and she said that he’s dead.’

Melissa shrugged. ‘I knew this would happen, I knew it. I really did.’

Steve felt angry. ‘Of course you didn’t fucking know. If you knew you could have done something.’

She was flushed and her eyes seemed very round. ‘Don’t you start trying to blame me for anything now Steve, that would be bloody typical. Don’t make it look like I could have stopped this. I didn’t do anything, so don’t try and make me feel bad.’

Steve grabbed her hand, which felt dry, ‘I’m not blaming you. Do you think I’m really as horrible as that? I’m just telling you what’s happened, that’s all.’

She took her hand away and closed her eyes. He said, ‘Sit down for a minute.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m fine, just surprised, well no, not really surprised, just … I don’t know.’

Steve provided the word. ‘Upset.’

She said, ‘What did he die of?’

He shrugged. ‘She left her phone number. I think she’s hoping that you may be able to shed some light on the whole thing. I think she’s a bit confused.’

Melissa suddenly looked unwell. ‘I can’t phone her.’

He laughed, amazed, ‘Of course you must. He was your friend and now he’s dead.’

She turned on him. ‘Shut the fuck up, won’t you? You’re loving this. It’s not as though you understand what’s going on. You never even knew him. It’s hardly your problem, is it?’

He smiled grimly at her. ‘It’s not my problem, no. It’s his problem. He’s dead. Maybe it’s too much to expect you to phone his mother.’ He felt ridiculous, felt as though he sounded like a stiff-shirted actor in a stage melodrama. She sat down on the chair by the till and covered her face with her hands.

Eventually an arrangement was made. Steve telephoned and they agreed to all meet up at John’s house after work. Melissa said that she needed his moral support. He was her friend.

On the walk from the tube to John’s house Melissa professed to be feeling rather sick. On a couple of occasions she retched dryly, bent double, clutching her stomach, but no liquid came from her throat, only painful, deceptive air. Steve tried to calm her down. He thought that this malady was induced by her nerves and he was right, but that didn’t really help matters; it didn’t make the pain in her belly and her throat go away.

John’s mother answered the doorbell in a matter of seconds. She didn’t look as old as they had expected, her hair was not completely grey, although she must have been in her early sixties. She was smartly dressed in a dusky-coloured woollen suit. She smiled thinly at them in greeting and beckoned them in.

Once inside, Steve looked around with great interest. He had imagined the house from Melissa’s occasional descriptions and it was very much as he’d expected. John’s mother was saying, ‘When I got here the door was locked and no one answered my knocking, but I could hear the radio, and the curtains were open but the nets were still in place. I could just make out the shape of John on the floor inside. I got one of his next-door neighbours to climb in through the front window, which was open, and to unlock the front door to let me in. He took a while to get to the door – too busy checking the body, I suppose – and when he opened the door he said, “I think he’s dead.” He was dead. Afterwards I spoke to his GP and to another doctor that he had apparently been recommended to. He was ill, but in the end he died from something like exposure, a mixture of the cold and hunger and dehydration.’

She had explained all this as they walked to the kitchen where she switched on the kettle and rinsed out a teapot in the sink. Melissa asked, ‘You mean that he had some sort of disease initially?’

She nodded, ‘Something to do with …’ – she frowned, confused – ‘… immune deficiency, I think. He was very ill,
but it needn’t have ended like it did. I thought that he may have told you.’

Melissa shook her head. ‘I didn’t know him well. I only came to see him here a few times, but on no occasion did he suggest that he might be unwell.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I was worried about him though. He lost a lot of weight over a fairly short period and he seemed to lose all interest in his appearance. He made out as though everything that was happening in his life was connected with his work.’

His mother shook her head. ‘He resigned from work in the sales department about five or six weeks ago. He’s been here alone since then.’

Melissa began to say something but Steve gave her a warning glance that quickly silenced her. He said, ‘We both work in a shop that John came into, that’s how we became acquainted.’