On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory (2 page)

“You do, do you? Perhaps it doesn't surprise me. Just so long as …”

But he didn't finish. Didn't need to. We'd been through all of this a dozen times before. After the last occasion I had foolishly believed that we'd got rid of it forever. I had relaxed my guard.

Just so long as it's other people's money
.

We'd had a good time. We'd had a truly good time. How was it possible then that on a fairly brief journey home—half an hour at the outside even allowing for our stop by the lake—how was it possible that such a note of sourness could so suddenly have erupted out of nowhere? Threatening to become the most abiding memory of the entire evening?

But Brad was hurrying on.

“Still we could always fall back on
The History Boys—
we both said we'd be happy to see that again?—or
Guys and Dolls
or perhaps even
Mary Poppins
. We'll get her to choose. And then there'll be things like the Rubens exhibition and that show at the Tate Modern. And restaurants. And tea at the Dorchester. And I suppose we'll have to drive up to my parents' and spend a day there. But we're going to have a wonderful week, the kind of week where we can just play everything by ear and be totally spontaneous and dream up all sorts of happy things we've never done before …”

At last, though, he ran out of steam; and turned towards me with a hopeful smile.

“You bastard,” I whispered. There were now tears running freely down my cheeks but just then they were not tears of happiness.

“Oh Danny!” he said. “Oh darling! Don't! It was only meant to be humorous—just came out sounding so wrong. I wouldn't do anything in this world to hurt you—oh sweetheart you must realize that? You know you're life itself to me, dearer than life itself?” His tone was almost unbearably full of anguish; unbearably I mean even for me. “I love you,” he said.

I was going to tell him I loved him too. It wasn't worth getting into a pet about; he hadn't meant it. But I didn't tell him. There wasn't time. His were the last words we spoke to one another in the car.

We had veered off the road and smashed into a tree.

2

The whole of my right-hand side was a mess: broken arm, shoulder, ribs and leg. I learned later that even at the roadside I'd received treatment. My breathing had been checked, a head wound staunched, evening suit cut away and air pumped into bags already placed around my arm and leg. It was in hospital of course that the splints had been fitted.

When I finally came to I was aware of bright lights, a mouth that was dry and disgusting and a headache that felt like a hangover; quite possibly was. A wall clock opposite my bed told me it was eight-twenty-five but I had no idea whether this meant morning or night. I heard a woman's voice say softly—but urgently—“Doctor he's coming round!”

Then there was a gangling young man with sandy hair. Dressed in a white overall and with a stethoscope hanging from his pocket. “Hello there,” he said. “Welcome back.” He was holding my left wrist. “How d'you feel? Are you in pain?”

“Brad,” I cried.

“Sorry?”

“Where's Brad?”

“You mean—the driver of the car?”

“Yes!”

“Oh he's doing fine,” replied the doctor. He let go my wrist. “Now how about giving us your own name?” The nurse picked up a pencil and a board.

My own name seemed so utterly beside the point. But I supplied it—impatiently.

“Well, then, Danny. Do you remember anything about this accident?”

I said: “You're lying to me aren't you?”

“Lying about what? No never mind old chap; just try to take it easy. You've been through a terrifying experience and the essential thing right now—”

“The essential thing right now …” I was virtually shouting. “Is he okay? Is Brad okay?”

“Yes I told you Danny—he's fine.” But his tone was as unconvincing as it was supposed to be reassuring.

The bastard.

Oh Christ.
Bastard
. That was the very last word I'd spoken to him. Brad. The very last thing I'd ever called him. Oh God he couldn't be. Couldn't be. Oh please God—anything, anything—I'll promise you anything. But don't let Brad be dead.

“Danny there's only one thing you must worry about from now on. Nothing else matters. You've got to concentrate on getting well. You've been badly hurt but you're young and you're strong and there's absolutely no reason why …”

Oh God I don't care about getting well. If you want one of us please take me not Brad. I truly don't care about dying.

(Except that if Brad lived ‘truly' wasn't entirely true. Still … nothing but a quibble, that.)

Yet first I need to talk to him again. Quite briefly. Just to tell him what I didn't have the chance to, what I was on the very point of telling him—

But it was only the doctor who responded.

“We need the telephone number of your next of kin Danny. And then we're going to give you something that will help dull the pain and relax you—get you back to sleep for a while.”

You see I need to tell him that I love him. And how very much I love him. And that finding him was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Please.

Besides, God. What about Suzanne? Who'll be there to meet Suzanne?

“This
is
Sunday morning?” I said.

The doctor nodded. “Telephone number?” he asked. He paused—hypodermic pointed ceilingwards. The nurse, who had just swabbed a patch on my left arm, now retrieved her pencil.

“But first you've got to tell me. I need to know what's happened to Brad. Is Brad dead?”

I saw his look of uncertainty.

Yet even then I had to hear it put into words.

“Please,” I said. “Just tell me the truth—I'll give you the telephone number, you'll give me the injection and then I'll be your easiest living patient bar none.”

Still he hesitated. We watched the excess fluid spurt out of the syringe.

“Danny I repeat it's you who are important now. And for Brad's sake as much as for your own you've got to put all your energies into simply growing strong. But yes old man. I am sorry. Your friend is dead.”

3

The doctor and the nurse both left the room—maybe only to confer in the corridor but in that case I hoped their conference wouldn't be too brief; I hoped the drug now pumping through my bloodstream would also allow me the several seconds that I needed. But this was slightly more in my control: mind over matter I told myself.
Mind over matter
!

I'd noticed the jug of water and the glass. They were sitting on a bedside locker to my left.

It wasn't difficult to seize that tumbler. It wasn't difficult to bring it crashing down against the locker edge.

Much of the glass remained embedded in my palm—I was hardly aware of it; far more concerned about the noise of breakage. But the vital point was this: between my thumb and forefinger I now retained a good-sized shard.

For I knew where the jugular was; Brad had once shown me when discussing the details of a thriller he'd been reading.

And it seemed wholly right that it was from Brad I should have learned this. Because I couldn't live without Brad. It was as simple as that. I just couldn't live without him.

So. I had assumed he'd died on impact. This would have given him a six-hour start. Roughly. But I thought it likely that if I set out fast enough I'd very soon catch up—my notion of the afterlife included an early reunion of people who had loved each other. Self-evident then: a need for the swiftest possible pursuit. Apart from all else I had to draw the sting out of that very last word he'd heard from me.

‘Apart from all else …'? What I cared about more than anything just then was the question of our being able to travel through purgatory together. I couldn't bear the thought of his feeling either lonely or homesick or afraid.

Through purgatory.

Towards judgment.

4

Instinctively, I knew I was still visible. Therefore I had to hide behind the door when finally the nurse returned. In the end I'd been left alone for something like five minutes; she clearly hadn't heard the shattering of the glass. But she gasped and very nearly screamed when she saw the nasty mess upon the bed: the mortal remains of the late Danny Casement wreathed about in blood and bandaging yet also (to my own eye anyway) wreathed about in tranquillity.

And behind the door I was free of blood and bandaging and splints and saline drip. Free of hangover or headache. I felt light-limbed and even light-hearted. Liberated.

Naturally I was sorry for the shock she'd sustained; and for the vast amount of trouble I might now be causing; but I wasn't sorry when she ran out shakily to summon help. Then I made off swiftly in the opposite direction—at this end the corridor was clear. Through side-doors I saw patients propped up in their beds talking or reading or simply staring into space. Heard a snatch of music from one of the wards: Gladys Knight, “I'd rather live in his world than live without him in mine.” This seemed either a remarkably happy coincidence or else a positive message of encouragement—and, reassuringly, that midnight train to Georgia kept running through my head for at least the next hour. It beat time to my lookout for orderlies, beat time to my lookout for clocks. Just thirteen minutes to nine. Great. It hadn't taken long.

I avoided the lift and the obviously busy entrance hall. I was wearing nothing but a gown. I had no wish to be challenged.

Instead I took the stairs and charged down them two-at-a-time until I reached the basement. I was in the right area of the basement; almost at once I found a bolted door that gave onto the outside world: up from the nether regions into the late-October sunlight, a glorious Indian summer which we'd been enjoying for the past three days and had been hoping, Brad and I, would stay constant for Suzanne's visit. So when I grabbed a raincoat hanging on a peg beside the door I was thinking less about exterior temperature than about youthful modesty: those gowns revealed a lot of butt. And I knew the location of the hospital where they'd have brought me—if I wanted to take the shortest route back to the scene of the accident I'd have to pass in full view of the house which served as police station. I had no idea why I needed to return to the scene of the accident. I only knew I did.

I kept to the grass as far as I could; for much of the time on a bank above the road. It wasn't a busy road; it was the same that Brad and I had joined last night, a little further on, out of a rutted and cross-country lane. During the next half-hour no more than a dozen cars went by. I saw two cyclists and an old man with his dog and a schoolboy wearing cap and tie and blazer—despite its being a Sunday. I strode out purposefully but at no point did I run: running would only get me into a sweat and I wanted to retain my cool. My cool, my street cred … I almost laughed. I could scarcely have imagined I'd ever be seen dead walking along the queen's highway in nothing but a hospital gown and some grubby bit of gabardine, too tight and barely reaching to my knees. I remembered the perennial childhood cry of myself and my siblings when forced out on a weekend family tramp: “Hope I don't meet anyone I know!” Fifteen years later I again proclaimed it, more cheerfully this time, but now followed it with its antithesis: “Hope I
shall
meet somebody I know!” In fact I actually shouted this more positive version as if I half-believed its sound or sense might carry on the wind to wherever Brad had got by now—maybe not so desperately far ahead—to let him know that I was bearing up. I felt pretty certain he'd be bearing up (gone was my earlier worry that he might be feeling scared). But then it occurred to me not only wasn't there a wind, he wouldn't even be aware of my being so hotly in pursuit. Wouldn't be aware yet that neither of us need journey on alone. I hadn't realized: I had it a good deal easier than him. I tried to push myself still faster.

But despite my speeding and preoccupation I could hardly be impervious to the blue sky and warm sunshine which filtered through the trees. “You know,” I had said to him once, “I really can't imagine the sun continuing to shine after I'm dead. I really can't imagine things just carrying on as usual. People doing their shopping; looking to see what's on TV. You're going to say of course that's being immensely arrogant.”

“No perish the thought,” he'd told me. “I shouldn't dream of saying any such thing.”

“Which is just as well you fibber. Because if you think
that's
arrogant I'm afraid you haven't heard the half of it!”

“Then go ahead: shock me. No I'm sorry. I mean educate me.”

“I don't know if I dare.”

But naturally I did. It was pillow talk; one of those countless occasions when we'd rambled on under cover of darkness about all sorts of unimportant things—and yet who ever knows what might turn out to be important? “I can also find it hard to imagine that the sun ever managed to shine
before
I was born. Honestly! I quite often look up at the sky and think, ‘Since the start of human life people have felt the sun on their skins and seen cloud formations just like this and gazed up in wonder at the sunset,' and to say that each time it fills me with surprise might be slightly overstating it but it does give me a little jolt, or frisson. I shouldn't even say since the start of human life. I only have to go back a couple of hundred years to find it all equally astonishing, the fact that people shared the same experiences as me—that other men for example all through the ages have enjoyed orgasms roughly the same as mine. Is that now getting arrogant enough?”

“No you're still an absolute beginner. Just paltry unambitious stuff.”

“I think I can do better then.”

“Indeed I should hope so.”