26. Circling scythe
‘…on what small things depends our fortitude in dying…’
Sometimes Dan and Natalie go for a walk around the block. This takes them past the canal, where Dan likes to stop and contemplate the scene. There are ducks, perhaps, a pair of swans, a cormorant even, but these days Dan isn’t looking at the birdlife; he’s looking at the water.
One day at a time, and he tries to make each of them worthwhile. When he’s not being hoisted, shunted, medicated or otherwise feeling like a nuisance, he can read (but not for long); he can respond to his ex-colleagues’ respectful requests for technical advice on the synchrotron apparatus he designed; he can write emails to Mike or James; he can classify a few more galaxies in the crowdsourced astronomy project to which he contributes; he can reminisce. His brain is kept supplied with glucose fuel by the liquid feeds, with oxygen by the assisted ventilation he’s now hooked up to at night. As for his body, it’s not entirely inert but visited by strange twitchings and shiverings, memories and imagined sensations of movement, itchings and achings. There is more discomfort and indignity than acute suffering. It’s a life of sorts.
Natalie could understand him until the spring — several months after anyone else — but then the last of his consonants escaped him and he had to resort to typing. For reading and browsing he uses an eye-operated computer, but for simple communication tasks his left thumb just keeps soldiering on, defying the doctors. Weakening of his swallowing muscles brought on the choking episodes which have been perhaps his darkest moments, but those are largely behind him now. This first available exit he passed by — chose life, and tube-feeding. He can still manage soups and smoothies by mouth: between them these cover an impressive array of taste sensations (not a rasher-of-bacon sensation, sadly, or that favourite warm-smacky glass of red). Saliva mostly exits via the corner of his mouth, but neatly now. Adapt, adapt, adapt.
The next exit opportunity seemed to be approaching fast when his breathing difficulties began, but these have now stabilised. He needs the machine they call the puffer — ingenious yet inescapably horrifying — only at night. The disease has a habit of galloping along with intent, then taking forty winks at the roadside. He might be in for the long haul. But what about Natalie? One day for him; one day for her. Her life, its possibilities — that he never did enough to encourage — all on hold. How much longer?
An aura of dread surrounds this place now, hangs over the glinting water. He could get here on his own, and there is no barrier. It would be a messy way to go, upsetting for Nat, but he’s left it too late for the neater options: he can’t take drugs by himself, nor can he ask Nat or Mike to administer them. (They see a lot of Mike, these days — he’s always dropping by, always ready to help.) Dan thinks of those fish living their gloomy, secret lives at the bottom of the English Channel. Hauled up to their doom. Might he not reverse the process?
How much longer?
Meanwhile, James F. Saunders positions his new signboard prominently on the pavement. Chalked on one side: ‘The human heart, O Chactas, is like those trees which do not yield their balm for the wounds of men until they themselves have been wounded by the axe. Chateaubriand.’ On the other: ‘Truth itself is always halved in utterance. Lawrence Durrell.’ Plenty more where those came from.
The bell jangles as he shuts the door and turns the sign to OPEN. He inhales the cool, page-fragrant air. Upstart Books, of which he is now the manager and Brenda the proprietor following its fortuitous selling-up by his ailing employer — and a little help from Mike — occupies one of the prize spots on the main street in Wigtown on the Galloway coast. James is gradually honing the stock towards irresistibility (he is ruthless and well-practised when it comes to disposing of verbal trash). They have a permit to sell coffee and, after much trial and gull-fodder error, have learned to bake passable cakes. Simple website: up and running; Twitter followers: forty-six; upstairs flat: draughty but spacious.
His relationship with Brenda is an adventure in itself. During the summer, while paperwork was delaying the shop’s reopening, they walked two hundred miles up the wild northwest coast of Scotland in nine days. He has never felt fitter or more exhausted. Brenda loves the shop. Her new boss on the Galloway estate has taken all his management courses and treats mental health issues sympathetically.
Last night, as James watched his old university magazine burn in the bedroom fireplace (while Brenda was showering off the residue of her own demolition work), he wondered whether any other copies survived, eleven years on, or if anyone would still remember his poem. Every hour… That clock still runs, perhaps. Meanwhile he and Brenda lean against each other like a couple of damaged spruces, in mutual gratitude and love.
Mike Vickers awaits the seven twenty-two, toes of his brogues on the yellow line, staring across the tracks at the near-deserted platform opposite. During his garden leave he rented a flat in Maidenhead, in between Reading and London. Dan and Natalie didn’t ask why: they understand. He still uses the Paddington flat occasionally, as does his mother, when she’s in town.
He persuaded Mij to follow him across to Crispin’s new firm, and the soft-spoken, fridge-chested developer has become his boss in the small Soho office. He’s learning a new programming language, building a sexy interface for the traders (Crispin’s adjective) while Mij makes the thing actually work. The fund has only a handful of investors so far; there is no magic show — just Crispin and the other portfolio managers calmly presenting their evidence, explaining exactly what the various strategies do and what they don’t do. Fees are low. The office mood is calm and focused. Pay cuts are the norm for new hires, and nobody, as far as Mike can tell, is rushing out to buy tapestries. He’s an essential, competent cog, and it feels good.
In a few seconds, the fast train will hurtle through with a furious wallop of air and sound. Presumably death comes like that sometimes — the only warning an ominous humming of rails. Not always like the Grimpen Mire. Mike takes a deep breath.
Wham. In the blur of rushing train windows he sees his own crisp, sunlit reflection, not alone but standing in the midst of a multitudinous army of commuters. No superstar, high achiever or Rocket Jesus, not top of the class, but a minion, an underling, getting on with it. Some of these solemn-faced, drab-suited worker-bees may indeed be brain surgeons, or social workers, or brilliant, inspiring teachers. The admired. Others are facilitators like him: agents of this or that, telemarketers, baristas, project managers. If nobody facilitated, if nobody tinkered and sold things, the brain surgeons among us would have nothing to buy.
Onward, proud and peaceful commuter troops! Yours is a just and noble cause. Specialise, negotiate, delegate, innovate! Stand tall and facilitate! Help out here and there. Politely disregard the naysayers, the ideologues, the hypocrites. Keep the ball of prosperity rolling. Pay your taxes. Be a good friend.
Find a girl, settle down.
Mike Vickers, do your best! I promise to do my best.
As Brenda Vickers taps the trig, she notices that the stone balanced on top is weighing down a piece of paper — a photograph. She tugs it loose, glances — a grinning, grey-haired man with walking poles. A dead man. She thinks of her grandfather. Of Mrs McCready, too. Stuffs the photo in her pocket. Sorry, but not up here. Let the wind say his name instead.