At some point or other during the confusion of his delirious dreams Stanton heard a doctor say, ‘He’s dying.’
36
STANTON’S CONDITION CONTINUED to deteriorate over the next two weeks, during which he lay in his hospital bed either unconscious or delirious and on the edge of death. There were brief moments of lucidity when he was aware of doctors and nurses nearby. He knew that he was dying and he knew that he was being drugged to help with the pain. He had an idea that this was clouding his brain. It seemed to him that there was something he needed to tell those doctors about. Something he wanted them to fetch for him but he could not remember what it was.
It was during one of these moments of tormented dream-like consciousness that he opened his eyes and saw Bernadette Burdette.
She was talking to him. Talking and talking and talking. He loved listening to her voice even if he knew he was only dreaming it.
She said that she was sure he could pull through …
Oi’m sure yez’ll pull troo.
And she said she would stay with him and keep talking to him until he did.
He felt overwhelmed with gratitude. He felt that he was weeping. Weeping in his dreams. He wondered where Cassie was. Why wasn’t she sitting beside his bed too? Why was he only dreaming of Bernadette?
Perhaps it was just because she was so much more talkative.
‘The whole awful thing where the mob tried to lynch Rosa Luxemburg made it into the British papers,’ he dreamt he heard her saying, ‘and of course they were particularly interested in the story that a mysterious, tall, blond and fiendishly dishy Englishman had come to her aid, who had then paid the price for his chivalry by being shot in the street. Well, Hugh darling, you can imagine that my ears pricked up at that. After all, wasn’t I thinking about my own mysterious Englishman in Berlin and whether I’d ever see him again? And of course it was you! They’d found your papers on you so they had your name and they even published photos. The one from your papers, and a grainy flash photo of you standing on the podium outside SDP headquarters. I couldn’t believe it! You do get about, don’t you?’
The story went on. He couldn’t decide whether he’d heard it all at once or in bits. He certainly felt he’d heard it often, it seemed terribly familiar.
‘They had all that information and yet it seemed no record could be found of you either in Berlin or in Britain! Well, there wouldn’t be, would there? Bearing in mind your, ahem, what shall I say? Profession. The papers were appealing for anyone who knew you to come forward. Of course I don’t really know you … except, well, only in a rather intimate manner that couldn’t possibly be of any help in identifying you. And anyway I thought that perhaps they wouldn’t identify you because, let’s face it, you are a’ – she dipped her voice to a hoarse whisper – ‘spy. And so I felt the best thing to do was to come to you and see if I could help. Maybe even get you home. But I’m afraid you’re pretty ill, Hugh, and, well … they don’t really think you should be moved. Oh dear, I’ve told you this story twenty times and now I suppose I shall have to tell you again because I feel sure that talking might help …’
Stanton didn’t mind. He loved hearing her voice and hoped that she would keep talking until he died, when he could go to Cassie and tell her about his Irish friend, although of course he wouldn’t tell her everything … And yet there was that thing he needed to tell someone … something that needed fetching … but he couldn’t remember.
Once more his consciousness reconnected with Bernadette’s voice; she was holding his hand now, telling him about Rosa Luxemburg.
‘She came again this morning to see how you were,’ Bernadette was saying. ‘So brave of her, the streets really aren’t safe for her just now. She has a gang of bodyguards who never leave her side. Hugh, I can’t believe you told her about me! I nearly died when she said that you’d mentioned an Irish Suffragette who admired her! That was so sweet that you remembered. And telling her you saved her because of me. She actually thanked me for sending you to her in her hour of greatest need. Rosa Luxemburg! You can’t believe what that means to a girl like me, Hugh. Rosa is the most important woman in politics, even more than Mrs P. She’s overcome so much and inspired us all …’
Bernadette was squeezing his hand, probably too hard considering his rapidly fading strength, but somehow the firm touch of her skin on his seemed to give him a moment’s clarity. He opened his eyes and saw her mouth moving, that small mouth that had fascinated him so … and the strands of strawberry hair framing her bright green eyes.
For a second he was back on the train to Zagreb, the first time he saw her. Should he offer her a Manhattan?
No. Get back. Get back to the present. With a huge effort he struggled to return his mind to the hospital. Something was telling him this wasn’t a hallucination, that she really was beside him. If only he could remember what he wanted to tell her. Remember that thing he needed. There was something he needed.
‘Bernie,’ he whispered. ‘Bernie!’
‘Hugh!’ she gasped. ‘You’re here!’
‘No! No. Dying,’ he whispered, struggling to master his fevered thoughts, ‘dying. Listen to me, Bernie. You have to do exactly what I say because I shan’t be able to say it again because I’m going to die. Go to my apartment. The key is in my jacket. Find my bags … remember my bags?’
For a moment he lost his focus as a vision rose before his eyes of Bernadette, her face illuminated by the ghostly luminosity of a computer screen, levelling his pistol at him in a Vienna hotel room. He struggled to push away the memory and stay on message but now he couldn’t recall what he’d been saying.
‘Yes, yes, Hugh, your bags,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you want from your bag.’
Her voice brought him back. That was it. He remembered what he needed.
‘The smaller one. Open it. Again, key in jacket,’ he said, struggling to form the words. ‘In the bag there’s a pouch marked with a red cross. In that pouch are boxes of little plastic needles.’
‘Plastic? Sorry, what?’
‘Like glass … clear tubes with needles … for injections … get them. Stick one in my guts and push the plunger every twelve hours. Hide it, don’t show them … just do it, Bernie, do it.’
There he’d done it. He’d remembered … he could sleep now.
But she was still squeezing his hand.
‘Hugh! Hugh!’
He heard her voice speaking urgently. Was it over? Was she back?
‘Have you done it?’ he asked, drifting away.
‘No! No! Hugh … where is your apartment? You didn’t say. Where is your damned apartment?’
‘Mitte …’ he whispered. ‘Mitte.’
Then he was gone. Deep down into an unconsciousness where Bernadette could not follow. He left her far behind him in the light. He was in the dark now.
In a tunnel. A bloody tunnel. Who would have thought the old cliché was true? A dark tunnel with light ahead … and, yes, inevitably there was someone standing in the light at the end of it.
It was Cassie, of course. Cassie and the children waiting for him.
In the light at the end of the tunnel.
Why was he surprised? It was just like those people on morning TV shows who talked about near-death experiences said it was.