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Strings

By Steven Rogers

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Prologue

The beauty of Einstein's equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who's

experienced it as the beauty of music. We've learned in the 20th century that the equations

that work have inner harmony.

Edward Witten, physicist

Monday, 4th July, 2005

Janine

White noise. She could remember the white noise as her Grandfather tuned his old

radio. Janine remembered listening to that hiss and thinking it was like the sound of the

universe itself. The whole cosmos, and the whole of time being picked up by Granddad’s

small ‘wireless’, as he called it. She remembered thinking that we were all lost and lonely

radios slowly spinning through the frequencies of the universe trying to tune into something.

Anything.

And now, over twenty years later, the very same song drifted from her radio in her

kitchen. The memory came to her like a gentle breeze. Not a momentous thing. A memory

formed from a beautiful fleeting coincidence.

Perfect and exquisitely brief, like a child’s bubble.

Sometimes these coincidences move like the ripples formed from a polished stone

thrown into a still pond. The ripples growing outwards, moving towards the very edges of

time.

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The song coming on now, in her kitchen, reminded her that she had forgotten her

lunch. Tomato soup. It was still in the fridge. The remembering only took a split second. A

firing of neurons. A simple chemical reaction, but the cognition went like this.

She was fifteen years old and had been helping her mother look after her grandfather.

He had been taken ill with a bout of shingles and was in his bed. Her mother was heating up

some tomato soup, and Janine had been told to sit with granddad to keep him company.

Granddad was tuning his old wireless. The white noise on the radio. The universe itself. Then

the song caught and the music suddenly sang out

Norwegian Wood by The Beatles began. The guitar strumming that familiar riff, then

the sitar joining in, building on that same riff until John Lennon began singing too.

Her grandfather had sunk back into his pillows. Both of them sat in silence listening

to the music. The smell of the tomato soup wafting through from the kitchen. Neither of them

spoke until the song had finished.

Then her Granddad had looked at Janine and said, “If I had to listen to one song for

the rest of his life, it would be that one.” There was a pause. A moment of contentment

between them before her mother came in with the tomato soup.

And so now, twenty years later, the song was playing on the radio in her kitchen and

she remembered and went to the fridge. Her soup was in a Tetra Pak. Her soup was made

from plum tomatoes and had basil in. A middle class kind of soup that was made to make her

feel better about her life. She put it into her rucksack.

The rain outside was fierce. She kissed her two-year old daughter goodbye, first

wiping away the remnants of mashed banana on the side of the child’s face with her finger.

An anxious mother full of anxious love.

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Janine then fastened the clasp under her cycling helmet and kissed her husband

goodbye, carefully tilting her head to one side so as not to butt him with the beak of her cycle

helmet. Then with a playfulness she chirruped, “Toodle pip!” and left for work.

Down the Tulse Hill road, sloping towards the junction with Brixton Water Lane. On

the first corner stood a carpet warehouse. A big, red steel building with huge posters of happy

couples on the side. Nice families sat on nice carpets.

On the second corner of the junction there was the large Hootenanny pub, which

doubled as a hostel and selling cheap lager. Posters outside advertised small-time indie outfits

of the nineties, reggae, hip-hop and DJ nights.

On the third corner there were some unremarkable flats, and on the last corner there

was a laundrette standing at the end of a row of shops.

The laundrette owner, a proud yet bored man stood outside in the rain. A man born in

Turkey who knew about coffee, and knew that the English don’t know anything about coffee.

The noise of the shutters opening as he pushed them up cut through the noise of the

traffic and the rain. He went inside quickly, weighing the large bunch of keys in his hand. He

prepared his coffee machine, while outside the rain was coming down hard.

Trickles joined bigger trickles, which joined streams, which joined bigger streams

following the path of least resistance. The road was edged with streams, which here and there

meandered across he carriageway. The streams picked up litter and debris and the detritus of

south London was carried forever downwards until it gathered and clogged at the entrance of

the storm drain outside the carpet shop.

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Here the water started to back up and form a large puddle as more and more debris

got caught and blocked the drain. This is what occurred on the corner by the carpet

warehouse with its smiling families and nice carpets.

Janine came down the hill on her bicycle. Her fluorescent-yellow visibility jacket

sang out against the rain and grey skies as car headlights reflected off it. She shushed through

the water, following the line of least resistance. As she approached the junction, she could see

that the traffic lights in front of her had just turned from red to green.

And so with a feeling of luck and good fortune, she pedalled hard and rushed through.

She saw the large puddle at the storm drain in plenty of time, tactically looked behind

her and moved out into the traffic to try and avoid it.

The van coming from the other direction was turning right but didn’t see her.

The only thing Janine could do was swerve around the back of the van. She was off

balance and wobbling out into the path of a Ford Fiesta also turning right. She bounced off

the bonnet, the windscreen fractured into a web of a thousand cracks before she then bounced

off, skidding across the wet road.

She stopped as her head hit the concrete island in the middle of the road that held

traffic lights.

The traffic light obliviously turned back to amber. Then turned to red.

Janine lifted her head slightly. Pain seared down her spine. People began to gather

around, some not knowing what to do, one who phoned the emergency services. Strange how

everyone thinks someone else is in charge. She lay there alone. She could feel a strange

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wetness underneath her head. She painfully put her hand behind her head and then moved her

hand back in front of her face. The red dripped from her hand.

“Tomato and Basil soup,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s just tomato and basil soup.” She

paused and then said, “actually, they’re plum tomatoes.”

But it wasn’t plum tomato and basil soup.

The Turkish man in the laundrette heard the commotion outside and put down his

coffee. He went to the large window at the front of his shop and looked over the neon sign

that flashed ‘service wash’ in blue and green. He swore in Turkish.

White noise.

The buzzing of reality, as every infinite possibility influenced the one reality that

happened. But it was the collective consciousness that made all these probabilities collapse,

and all that happened was the one singular outcome. All those infinite futures still resonated,

like waves rippling out from a stone thrown into a pond, the waves bouncing, reacting and

influencing each other. Some cancelling others out, some adding and making the waves

higher. But this was a single moment.

Plum tomato and basil soup.

The traffic, already heavy because of the rain, began to back up. People slowed down

to look at the accident. To be disgusted. To be shocked. To see. They were curious to see

what one of London’s accident black spots would once again yield before them.

When the emergency services eventually arrived, the electric-blue lights rang with

clean and intermittent bursts, crystalline across the wet London streets.

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As the song finished, the riff cadenced it’s way down and then John Lennon sang the

last line. The sitar and the guitar alone rose one last time together to play the riff in its

entirety. The last sumptuous chord was struck satisfyingly hard and the song ended.

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Chapter One

Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware

that it is counting.

Gottfried Leibniz, mathematician and philosopher

10 Months Earlier… Monday, 6th September, 2004

Edward

The front door. Late-September sun played through the stained glass on the front

door. A baptism of multi-coloured light.

The key clunked in the lock and the door slowly opened. So slowly and deliberately,

allowing the sound of a distant pneumatic drill, the sound of the heavy London traffic swell.

Red.

Green.

Blue light twisted and flowed across the wooden floorboards of the hallway.

He walked in. Numb.

Exhaling heavily, he turned and pushed the door closed behind him and as quickly as

it had come, the noise abated as the door clicked shut.

Edward removed his long overcoat and hung it on the wooden post at the bottom of

the stairs, the floor creaking as he moved forward. He steadied himself against the post. He

closed his eyes and, like he’d been punched, took a sharp intake of breath.

He stood still for a moment, holding his breath, one hand on the post.

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Edward stood in the silence, embraced by the serenity of the colours of the stained

glass as they washed over him. He stood. The silence beginning to engulf him.

The full profundity of the consultant’s words to him and Carla surged through him

like a wave.

It felt like there was a hot stone in his throat. Deep lines crumpled into his forehead.

His face twisted and contorted.

He began to weep.

That slow heavy weep, that came from somewhere deep within.

His shoulders lifted. Shook with the rhythm of his fear and grief.

His lifted his hands to his face. His fingers curled and pushed hard into his face

around his glasses, his nails digging into the flesh of his forehead.

Those words ate into his heart like a parasite, and the inevitability of it all was laid out

before him. The omniscient demon had calculated the momentum of every particle in the

entire cosmos. There was only one outcome for Carla. The vibrating string of one life. One

small moment in the universe.

Carla’s death was going to happen and he knew he would have to face it alone and

that there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

He pushed his glasses up and pushed his fists, hard into the sockets of his eyes. They

ached. The sobs surged up through his body, like something had been unplugged in him.

Salty tears ran down his face, through the greying whiskers of his beard and into his

mouth.

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When he had left Carla at the hospital, he’d left in a daze. He had got on his bus and

sat there numb as people had got on and off around him, until he’d found himself looking out

the window, unable to recognise his surroundings. He’d missed his stop.

God damn them to Hell. They must say those things everyday to hundreds, probably

thousands of people.

Nothing more they could do was all they could do. So what are we supposed to do?

He thought of the people he would have to tell. The conversations he’d have to have

with family and friends. The awkward platitudes.

Sweet Jesus Christ, the sympathy. He couldn’t take that tide of sympathy. What

would he tell her sister Diane? Sweet Jesus Christ, no one expects that phone call.

He took a sudden sharp involuntary gasp of breath, and the violence of his own

emotions was suddenly apparent to him. He felt out of control.

He moved off towards the kitchen, stumbling down the corridor, knocking into some

pictures on the wall. They clattered and skewed, one picture falling to the floor, the glass

shattering. A picture of Carla and himself when they were younger. Standing between them

was their son Erwin. A small five-year-old blonde boy holding both their hands. Forever five

years old. His blonde hair was like Edward’s had once been. His eyes, laughing. Bright.

Intelligent, like Carla’s.

Edward looked down at the broken picture. The image seemed to belong to a lifetime

ago. A different Edward. A different Carla. A different life. If Erwin were still alive would he

be here now consoling him? Father and son grieving together over the inescapable loss of a

mother and wife.

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Edward went into the kitchen. He took a glass and filled it with water from the tap. He

drank greedily and then wiped his sleeve across his face.

He then turned and threw the glass against the wall. The glass exploded violently,

sending thousands of glittering pieces splintering down. There was a small wet stain on the

wall at the point of impact. He turned and leaned against the sink. He let his tears splash

down onto the stainless steel. He felt exhausted. Spent. He ran his upper arm across his eyes

to dry them.

He walked out the kitchen down the hallway, carefully stepping over the remains of

the broken photograph and stood in the doorway to the front room.

The sitting room was suffused with warm light through the sash windows. Albert the

cat sat tall on the window ledge.

The cat turned and looked nonchalantly at Edward.

It was then that Edward felt a strange and sudden nostalgia roll over him. The room

and its contents seemed to resonate with significance and meaning, like a living, physical

memory. Over thirty years of marriage was laid out before him, embodied by all this stuff.

The old, brown-leather sofa, which dipped comfortably where they would sit. The

patterned armchair in the corner, with worn patches on the arms. The large wooden coffee

table, cat scratches on its legs. The mug on the coffee table, chipped along the top, curdled

residue of tea inside. The patterned ashtray, a gift from a friend’s holiday in Spain. The

bronze dancing figurine, a Christmas present from Diane. The carriage clock, Carla’s

father’s. He looked around the room.

The large bookcase against the wall, with its wobbly shelf. Ornaments and family

photos stood in front of the books. Each object was a page in the inventory of his life with

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Carla. Each artefact had touched their lives, layered again and again through use, through

familiarity, imbued with meaning and significance. Each stain, each mark, each scratch, each

imperfection, a compelling idiosyncrasy that bound the object to them. Edward saw all these

things again with a heaviness. His life with Carla added up in all these things.

Edward ran a hand through his hair.

At fifty-five, he was in good shape. He was a lecturer at the department of Physics

and Astronomy at UCL and was more than aware of his physical vulnerabilities. He began to

harbour the creeping realisation that every ache had the potential to turn into something more

crippling.

Despite his slender frame, he held an inner strength. ‘Strong hands’ was what his

father had always said. ‘You need strong hands in this game.’

Edward moved towards the table in the centre of the room. A floorboard squeaked

under his weight as he walked across to the coffee table.

There was a time when Edward could easily make everything all right. When he and

Carla had married, she was a slight girl from Stoke Newington who used to make an awful lot

of tea. She used tea as a great leveller of any situation. Tea, for Carla, was the answer to any

emotional turmoil. Edward was finishing his PhD and, together, they were ready to take on

the world. They were a team, and Edward could protect and provide.

He would come home late from his research work. It would be nearly four am and he

would creep up the stairs, treading carefully so as not to make any noise. He would turn on

the hall light and gently peek into their bedroom. The light spilling through from the hallway

was just enough for him to make out her shape under the duvet. A sprout of hair breaking out

of the top of the duvet and spilling over the pillow. He would think she was peaceful, so

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beautiful, and he would think he was caring for her and protecting her the best he could. He

would then climb into bed next to her, and lie there as still as possible. And morning never

felt too far away.

In the darkness he would hear his own breathing and it would feel to him that he was

the only one awake on the whole planet. Carla would then search out with her foot in the bed.

Their feet would touch and she would sleepily tease him, saying “How’s my Starman?”

And he would whisper back to her “Go back to sleep. It’s late,” and he would hear her

gentle breathing. The sweet sound of her breath whistling out through her nose. Edward

would lie there looking at the orange sodium street lights outside the window as they crept

around the edges of the curtains, and playing in his head would be that David Bowie song

Starman, an earworm circling around and around in his head.

He picked up a packet of cigarettes form the table in the front room and tapped the

box, letting one fall out into his hand. He picked up a lighter, flicked it with one swift

movement and drew hard on the cigarette. He breathed out through his nose, and the blue

smoke drifted up into the room.

He shifted his weight onto his other foot. There was that creak from the floorboards

beneath him. Again, he shifted his weight. Creak. There it was.

Shift. Creak.

Shift. Creak.

Shift. Creak.

He made a decision. Carla had always said he was impetuous, and always started big

projects at inopportune moments. There was the time he demolished the wall between the

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kitchen and the dining room on Boxing Day. And the time he began to dismantle his

motorbike in the kitchen at two in the morning.

He had once decided to organise the loft midway through Sunday dinner. Carla’s

sister and mother were over and, he had just said, “Excuse me a moment,” leaving his fork

still embedded in a piece of beef which had a smear of mustard on it, and left the table. When

he hadn’t returned, Carla went to find him and saw the loft ladder descended. She’d climbed

the ladder and, poking her head through the loft hatch, had found him looking through boxes.

“What are you doing?” she had asked.

He’d stopped rummaging and turned to look at her. “I’m looking. I’m looking for

something,” was all he had said and returned his attention to the box.

Carla had then descended from the loft. A few hours later, Edward had joined them in

the front room where they were all watching something dull on early Sunday-evening

television.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Carla had asked.

“No.” Edward had said. “I didn’t find it, but I’ve sorted it all out.”

“Good,” Carla had said. There was a pause while her mother bristled. Carla had then

asked, “Fancy a cup of tea, then?” And no one had mentioned it again.

He remembered how Carla had protected him, how she was an emotional blanket.

Albert the cat decided that Edward wasn’t interesting enough and, blinking slowly,

returned to perusing the street.

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Edward took one final drag on the cigarette and shifted his weight on the squeaking

floorboard once more. He pushed the cigarette into the Spanish-holiday ashtray and went

through to the kitchen, out the back door, across the garden and into the shed.

He returned to the front room with a claw hammer and a chisel. He placed them both

on the coffee table and then bent over and pushed the whole table, together with its cargo,

into the corner. The coffee cup shook rhythmically, vibrating as the table scraped along the

floor. The cup then toppled over, pouring the curdled tea all over the table. He threw

yesterday’s newspaper over the spill in a half-hearted attempt to soak it up. He then turned

his attention back to the floorboards. He picked up the hammer and the chisel and walked

back. With a self-conscious dainty dance from foot to foot, he tried to locate the exact

location of the squeak.

Albert the cat turned lazily, watching him again. With a precise fix on the squeak,

Edward bent down and used the chisel and the hammer to gain a purchase on one end of the

floorboard. He pushed and twisted the tools until the end of the floorboard squealed,

squeaked and was prised up into the air.

He worked his way along the piece of wood with the claw hammer until the whole

length was loose. He pulled hard on the floorboard and leant it against the wall.

He stood back with his hands on his hips and considered the gap he had just made.

Small amounts of dust rose from the hole.

He got down on his knees and carefully peered into the darkness. Amongst the dust,

he could see old nails, small pieces of spent green and yellow plastic wiring, bits of paper,

plastic and dirt and old envelope.

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He pulled at the next floorboard, which came up more easily. He then moved onto a

couple of the surrounding floorboards, pulling them up with anger and frustration.

He was sweating, and wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his forehead.

Albert the cat jumped down from the window ledge and sauntered over to where

Edward was. The cat crouched down with his paws on the edge of the hole and looked into

the darkness enthusiastically, his tail swinging from side to side.

“What do you think?” asked Edward.

He then reached down and sank his fingers into the dirt. He brought his hand up

slowly and ceremonially let the dirt sift out through his hands. It was then that Albert’s innate

curiosity got the better of him and he jumped into the hole – then, crouching, he moved off

quickly under the floorboards and disappeared into the darkness.

Edward pounced, trying to grab the cat but missed.

“Albert, you little git. Come out,” said Edward.

He leant forward and peered underneath the floor, trying to see where the cat had

gone.

“Albert!” he called out. He searched but couldn’t see the cat anywhere and there was

no response from under the floorboards.

He let out a heavy sigh and decided to change tack. He began making tutting and little

kissing noises.

He put on his best friendly cat voice. “Come on boy!”

He kissed and tutted some more. “Out you come.”

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He was met by silence.

Edward stood up and looked about the room. He pushed the thumb of one hand deep

into the palm of the other, circling and massaging his hand.

There was then the seed of a delicious thought.

He left the front room and went back out to the shed returning with a spade. He first

leant the spade against the bookshelf and then began pulling up more and more of the

floorboards. He retrieved the spade and stood astride the hole. He stood on the joists that ran

the length of the room. He stood there like a colossus over the dirt and filth that lay beneath

his floorboards.

Edward lifted the spade high in the air, its blade towards the ground. He closed his

eyes, hoping the cat wouldn’t make a sudden escape and forced the spade hard down into the

dirt.

The blade sank deeply and satisfyingly. He opened his eyes. Put a foot on the

shoulder of the spade, pushing it in deeper. He pulled back with his weight on the spade and

the dry dirt lifted. He placed the spadeful of dirt onto the floorboards next to him.

He dug again. He began to dig and dig, down and down. He began to dig and dig,

down and down, and he began to make his hole. His own hole.

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Chapter Two

Spreading out the particle into a string is a step in the direction of making everything

we're familiar with fuzzy. You enter a completely new world where things aren't at all what

you're used to.

Edward Witten, physicist

Monday, 4th July, 2005

Simon

The weather front had moved in from the west. Seeded several weeks ago in the warm

waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the system fed and bloated itself on the warm seas into a dense,

grey, formless nimbostratus. It then gently, grandly, malevolently moved across the north

Atlantic.

The system met landfall on the coasts of Cornwall, releasing the rain within. It then

moved on over the lush green fields of Devon. Across the plains of Somerset, Dorset,

Wiltshire and over the Midlands and Berkshire, following the M4 corridor towards London.

Past Oxford, Reading and Slough and onto Heathrow to eventually sweep out over London.

From above the clouds, an airplane, bound for Heathrow from Australia, began it’s

decent. From above, the clouds looked glorious. The massive blue sky spread out and,

looking down, there was an infinite beauty in the folding, rolling peaks and dips within the

chaos of the soft, white cloud, like the folds of cloth in a Caravaggio painting.

The plane descended into these clouds and from the inside of the plane, streaks of rain

could be seen running down the windows as it bumped and juddered through the turbulence.

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It eventually emerged from under the cloud, into a different world where the rain

came down meanly and steadily.

The suns efforts to light the world had been thwarted by the cloud and dispersed into a

melancholic greyness. The light, travelling at one hundred and eighty six thousand, two

hundred and eighty two miles every second and taking eight minutes and eighteen seconds to

travel the one hundred and fifty million kilometres to touch the Earth, could not fully

penetrate the soft nimbostratus.

In south London, dawn didn’t break, it came into existence incrementally. Like a light

on a dimmer switch.

Simon stood at the bus stop and watched the rain fall down through the orange

sodium glow offered by the street lights, illuminating the slick and shiny streets. The rush

hour played through all of this, as it always did, every Monday morning.

Simon’s hangover was ripening into an all-too-familiar intensity. He stood inside the

bus shelter, his head throbbing with every movement, every stimulus. He felt nauseous and

beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

This was a regular occurrence for a Monday morning. Each week would follow a

pattern. Monday would be the hangover from Sunday. Monday night would see Simon and

his flatmate Jonathon take it easy. Maybe stay in and watch the DVD box set of Curb Your

Enthusiasm or catch up with Lost. They would smoke a few joints, have a few cans of lager

and probably nip out to the White Hart for last orders.

Tuesday would be the least hungover day, and Tuesday night would be attacked with

a new vigour. Wednesday morning’s hangover would be somewhat severe and so Wednesday

night was pretty much a repeat of Monday night – but the viewing would maybe be The

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Sopranos or The Wire. Thursday was practically the start of the weekend and so was fair

game, leaving Friday morning to another acute hangover, which only a ‘hair of the dog’

would satiate. Friday night would see them join other friends and more often blended into

Saturday morning, which after either chemical enhancement or an afternoon kip continued

through to Saturday night, which then melted into Sunday’s pub lunch. This usually ended at

last orders on Sunday night and ‘one for the road’ back at the flat.

This had been pretty much the pattern over the last six months, with varying degrees

of hedonism and varying methods of intoxication.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had woken up without a hangover.

Jonathon’s influence on Simon started when they met at university. Simon was

studying English and Jonathon was his next-door neighbour in halls of residence at Bristol

University.

As a Physics student, Jonathon was anathema to his peers. He would listen to The

Clash, The Strokes, The Wedding Present and The White Stripes. This, when his fellow

students were listening to American Pie by Madonna.

Jonathon was edgy and intriguing and had taken on Simon as his own personal

project. Simon was the blank canvas on which Jonathon could paint his opinions.

They met on that very first day of university.

On the morning they met, Simon’s mum had just left in floods of tears leaving him in

that small oblong room with his single duvet, rucksack and box of books studying the strange

stains on the wall.

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His mum had struggled to say goodbye and Simon had had to be the strong, stoic one

once again. He knew his mum wasn’t going to be able to cope very well on her own. He

knew she might very well descend back to the place she had been a few years ago where she

would stay in bed all day and only venture out to the shops in her slippers.

He had applied for Bristol University because that was what he was expected to do. It

was the path of least resistance. It was the path on which he could gently roll along, letting

life’s gravity take him where it must.

The way he remembered it, was there was knock on the door and Jonathon had strode

in without waiting for a reply. Jonathon was unlike anyone Simon had ever met at home. He

seemed to be infinitely more at ease with his new life as a student. They chatted about ‘what

course are you on?’ and ‘where do you call home’ as Jonathon rummaged through Simon’s

box of books and CDs. Simon sat on his bed trying to figure out whether Jonathon was an

idiot or someone who he should maybe try and like.

It was during that first freshers’ week that Simon saw Jonathon’s irresistible powers at

work.

It was here that Simon witnessed Jonathon’s ability to spin spectacular rhetoric. As

other students vomited and passed out exercising their new found freedom, Jonathon –

although drinking just as much –chatted to girls with a spine-numbing, omnipotent profundity

that could melt the heart of any half-drunk girl who was desperate for a shag but still had the

sense to be with someone who could string a sentence together.

Simon was always amazed that Jonathon’s chat-up lines worked. As a bystander,

Simon would watch while Jonathon would exude confidence. Simon found that Jonathon was

one of those tiny number of people whose approval it was hard not to crave. Simon could

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only wonder at how someone could have such an understanding of the world and also an

understanding of girls. It was part of Jonathon’s very being, part of his looks, part of his

personality, part of his DNA. He had a generosity of spirit about him, too, which made him

even more likeable. It was a generosity not just with his money and with his drugs, but with

his time and patience with people. People most others would find insufferable.

Jonathon would be the one everyone would ask after. He would talk to people for

what would seem to be the absolute optimum time, then make an excuse to leave, and talk to

someone else, always leaving them wanting more.

He had a disarming honesty with people, discussing things that others would find

embarrassing or might make them look silly. It was as though he had no fear over his

shortcomings and no pride beneath which to try and obscure himself.

Simon shared in Jonathon’s excesses simply by association. If Simon was with

Jonathon then he was sure to pull a girl that night as well.

Over the years, their friendship grew and they shared university digs together for the

subsequent years at university. After they had both graduated, they moved down to London

and into the flat together. It was here that Simon began to wonder whether Jonathon really

was an appropriate flatmate as they progressed into the working world. His then- girlfriend

Annie had never liked Jonathon and had said that he was the type of person that if you told

him to go fuck himself, then he would if he could.

Flat sharing with Jonathon in London had slowly turned into a war of attrition. When

they had been students, there had been a common apathy towards cleanliness. Pissing on the

shit stain on the back of the toilet had been the pinnacle of their cleaning duties. But now that

they both held down jobs, the last five years had seen the London flat become a

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psychological battlefield of domestic duties. A rota had been drawn up which would last for a

cycle of a few weeks before slipping into recrimination and counter-recrimination. Jonathon’s

attitude was more of letting it build up until it was no longer bearable, then attacking the

whole house in one big blitz. Simon was more fastidious and believed in a little bit at a time.

Jonathon’s inability to put the lid back on anything was one of Simon’s pet hates. It was an

ongoing trait that left Simon picking up the Marmite, which would then crash to the floor

leaving him holding the yellow screw-on top. It continued throughout the flat. Toothpaste,

mustard, milk, peanut butter. All unsecured lidless annoyances.

Simon had started playing a little game where he would take a mental note of any

domestic discrepancies that Jonathon had not noticed. Simon would then count off the days

until Jonathon would notice. More often than not, Jonathon would never notice. Whether this

was due to stubbornness or just through a stunted aesthetic, Simon was never quite sure. For

example, for eight days now, Simon had been keeping an eye on the dead woodlouse on the

stairs.

It lay there, dry and grey. Its little legs pointing up.

Simon would spot it in the morning, knowing there could be no doubt that Jonathon

would have also seen it. There was no way Jonathon would have missed it. How could he not

notice it? This dead woodlouse had now become a barometer to which Simon would gauge

Jonathon’s domestic inadequacies. Eight days.

Water dripped from the roof of the bus stop under which Simon now stood.

He watched the rain come down in spiteful squalls, bouncing off the tarmac. Small

streams ran in the gutter carrying the filth of the city. Cigarette butts, old crisp packets, bits of

24

plastic, yellow polystyrene fast-food containers with bits of ketchup on, bits of unidentified

foil and rubbish. An urban jetsam, following the path of least resistance.

A sweet wrapper caught Simon’s eye as it gently flowed along the gutter, its colours

bright and gaudy in the grey morning. It spun slowly, and bobbed along, suddenly twisting as

it caught on an eddy. It ran through the water towards a storm drain, hit a twig, bounced and

wedged itself into a clod of soggy rubbish.

Simon leant against the long strip of angled orange plastic that ran along the back of

the bus shelter and served as a bench. He half sat, half leaned against it. It was a strip of

plastic that was designed more for waiting than for comfort. Leaning implied an interim point

in one’s journey. There is no need to get comfy. Leaning seemed to be an apt way to wait for

a bus. Sitting had an overt permanence, which no one wants to feel at a bus stop.

A woman with an umbrella was stood next to him. Bloody greedy cow, thought

Simon. She’s standing under the shelter and she has her umbrella up. He wondered what else

she doubled up on in her life to protect herself. Did she, for example, wear two hats? Or wear

two sets of shoes? I bet, he thought, she double locks her door and double bags her groceries.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She stood stoically, her raincoat done up

tight and high around her neck, her bag hanging from the hook of her elbow.

Selfish bitch, he thought. He looked down at her feet. He saw that she had flimsy

pumps on. He saw that her feet were very wet. The wind attempted to pull her umbrella from

her grasp with intermittent jerks.

She leaned out and looked up the road towards the traffic lights from where they were

expecting the bus. The lights had just gone green and let through another pulse of traffic

25

without yielding any bus. The cars passed them by, rhythmically swooshing across the wet

tarmac. The woman sucked through her teeth.

She looked over at Simon. He caught her eye and he smiled at her. He thought the

smile was saying, “I know. Look at us having a shared experience of waiting for a bus in the

rain. Crappy isn’t it?”

The woman sighed heavily and did the slow blink, looking away at the same time. It

was very clear to Simon that she was not going to have any complicity with him. Her

expressionless face was expression enough.

Simon scratched his ear, pulling down on the lobe. His head hurt and he was tired. He

looked away from the woman so she didn’t think he was some kind of freak. Who the hell

smiles at a strange woman whilst waiting for a bus?

At seven in the morning.

In the rain.

In London.

He breathed sharply out of his nose and dug his hands into his pockets. He felt for his

mobile phone and toyed with it through his fingers. Cars went past, spray rising up from the

tarmac. The rain was catching in the headlights like sharp, golden shards.

The woman stood alone in the rain with her umbrella. Simon waited alone in the bus

shelter next to her.

He looked around for something else to look at, other than the rain and the traffic,

only finding a poster of Gwyneth Paltrow.

26

It occupied the solid end of the bus shelter with her smugness. A piece of chewing

gum had been stuck over her teeth, making her look grotesque.

Simon thought how the gum might still taste vaguely minty. Like the gum under a

table at school absently touched. A shudder of disgust washed through him.

He made a quick mental projection about calling Niall to tell him how late he was

running. He knew he couldn’t do anything about it and his boss knew he couldn’t do anything

about it. It was an undisclosed contract of commuting in London, that the traveller has a

certain latitude of lateness in which to play. There was a correlation between the obscurity of

the point of departure and the level of lateness this allowed the traveller. This was multiplied

by the number of transport modes used. Simon had a bus, and then a tube-ride ahead of him,

which didn’t allow him much play in the latitude of lateness.

But, no one really knew where Crown Point really was. This meant his lateness

coefficient could be relatively high. For the person at the other end of the call, this brought

out a principle of uncertainty. They would know where Simon was but not how soon he

would be able to get in. The more they knew about where he was, the less they knew how fast

he was travelling.

Simon took out the phone from the pocket of his coat. He looked at the time. Seven

twenty five. He put the phone back into his pocket without using it.

The rain kept coming in drifts. The traffic kept coming in pulses through the traffic

lights, swooshing past rhythmically. The rain was fierce company.

He waited for the bus with the woman with the umbrella and the wet shoes, his head

throbbing.

27

He heard the bus arrive before he could see it. The high pitched mechanical whine and

the deep throaty tones of its engine. The bus powered along the road towards him. At fucking

last.

Simon got his Oyster card from the back pocket of his jeans and held his arm out into

the rain to hail the bus. The bus continued to accelerate as it came towards him. The shit’s not

going to stop.

The bus driver left it to the last-possible moment before signalling and braking hard.

Spray came off the wheels as the bus came to a halt, letting out a high-pitched remonstration.

It had stopped about two metres in front of the bus shelter. Even though there were

just two people at the bus stop, and both of those stood under the shelter. You absolute

wanker.

The doors opened with a hiss and the sound of metal scraping against metal. Simon

and Mrs Selfish Umbrella Woman walked out from the bus shelter into the rain and then to

the open door of the bus. The bored bus driver sat behind his Perspex security shield. Simon

hung back a little to allow the woman with the wet shoes to get on the bus first. She got on,

closing her umbrella with a quick flick to shake the water off, spraying water over Simon’s

leg.

She then began to rummage through her bag looking for her Oyster Card. Simon

stood behind her, waiting, half in the bus, half out. Her now-closed umbrella was dripping

onto the bus floor. A drip from the bus door fell and landed on Simon’s neck. He stepped

onto the bus so he was out of the rain and waited close behind the woman.

She half laughed and then tutted to herself as she carried on looking in her bag. She

expectantly pulled out her purse from her handbag. This didn’t seem to help. She then

28

brought out her phone. It had long, dangling headphones attached. They unfurled themselves

untidily and dangled onto the floor. Rather than helping, this seemed to impede her even

more. The woman dug around some more in her bag.

The bus driver lent laconically on the steering wheel.

Simon could bare it no longer. He reached around her to place his oyster card on the

round yellow card-reader next to the driver. It let out a satisfying beep, and he moved on

down the bus. He went up the stairs and surveyed the top deck of the bus.

Condensation obscured the windows and the strange grey morning outside had little

penetration. Running down each side of the bus were strip lights, hidden beneath frosted

plastic. They washed the inside of the bus with their harsh buzzing light. One of the sections

of light was off further down the bus.

Simon scanned the seating situation. His eyes swept the bus looking for the seat with

the maximum potential. Most of the seats were taken. He then saw his target. There were two

seats together and both were unoccupied. Excellent, he didn’t need to sit next to anyone and

had the potential to sit out the journey on his own. Next to a window!

As he walked towards his quarry he passed a guy who was sat on the aisle seat

leaving, his bag on the window seat. Simon admired his audacious seat-saving strategy. The

guy was also pretending to be asleep, an insurance on his seat-saving strategy. There is an

instinctive drive in the London commuter to avoid any human contact if at all possible.

Simon moved forward down the aisle, stepping over some chicken bones. The bus

began to move off. He got to the seat and sidled along sitting down next to the window. He

then implemented his own seat-saving strategy. He positioned himself comfortably and

29

plopped his bag on the seat next to him. With self-satisfaction, Simon leaned back into the

chair. The man sat directly behind him coughed into the back of Simon’s head.

The umbrella woman appeared at the top of the stairs. Simon watched as she tried to

juggle with the debris from her bag and walk down the aisle of the moving bus.

An empty Lucozade bottle clinked and chimed its way from one side of the bus to the

other as the bus lurched around a corner. Simon watched as the woman wobbled and

stumbled, using one of the bright yellow poles to steady herself. One end of her headphones

was swinging out bumping into things. The small rubber earpiece then fell off and rolled onto

the floor.

She sat down in the seat just in front of Simon. He wondered if anyone else had seen

her lose the small bit from her headphones. He wondered if someone else would tell her?

Simon could have said something to her. He could have easily told her she had

dropped something. He could have just leant forward and tapped her on the shoulder and

pointed at the rubber earpiece on the floor. He didn’t even have to say anything.

He felt a sharp pang of sympathy and regret. She took her phone and began to locate

the ends of the earphones. He had surely left it too long to say anything now. She studied the

end of her headphones, looking around for the missing bit. Simon watched as she resigned

herself to having lost the earpiece and she put the one good headphone in her ear.

The drone of the air-conditioning unit at the back of the bus lifted and fell in soothing

rhythmic waves of harmonies as Simon’s hangover pulsed through his head.

He got his iPod out, and pushed the round little headphones into his ears. He spun the

wheel on the front of the iPod until he found his hangover playlist. He had collated the

playlist over a period of months, adding new songs when he found them, until he had a

30

reasonable mix of songs to soothe his fragile sensibilities. He played it on random, enjoying

the musical nuances chance presented him.

Simon looked through the condensation out of the window at the blur of the south

London streets as the distant school-hall piano of Mogwai’s With Portfolio began.

He looked out as the colours flowed past. It was as though everything had been de-

tuned. Separated from reality. The orange wash from the street lights. Reds and greens from

the traffic lights. Bright white headlights.

Simon gripped the sleeve of his coat and ran it in a small upward arc across the

window. A small sweep of the world outside came into focus. He looked out through this

small porthole. He saw the people going about their morning business. He didn’t think any

more on them. They were just shapes of people, moving through a landscape of rain. He

expected they might think the same of him.

More passengers got on at the next stop. A burly man, fortyish, in a suit, came down

the aisle and eyed the seat next to Simon. Damn it, thought Simon. His seat-saving strategy

had failed.

The man approached and stood next to Simon.

“Excuse me,” said the man. Simon couldn’t hear him through the guitar loops of his

music but saw him make the shapes of the words with his mouth. Simon thought he seemed

to say them indignantly.

He shifted his bag from the empty seat onto his lap allowing the suited man to sit

down.

The man was heavily built and his coat was wet from the rain.

31

Simon shot a glance at the man’s pale and doughy face. The red welts of his shaving

rash on his neck. The chicken-pox scars high up on his cheek. The coarse hairs sticking out of

his ears with flecks of dry skin on them. He noticed a weird-shaped mole on the man’s neck.

Nausea ebbed up through Simon, his senses overloading and the acrid smell of the man’s

aftershave catching in the back of his throat.

The man began to fumble through the rucksack on his lap, elbowing Simon a few

times as he did so. He got out his book. It was “The unbearable lightness of being” by Milan

Kundera. Simon gave a short snort through his nose at the thought of this oaf reading that

particular book. Simon had read the book a few years ago when he was a student.

It had been lent to him by Jonathon, who said that it was one of the top-ten books he

should read if he was to be any kind of dedicated student. Simon had read it dutifully without

fully understanding the book and then leant it to Annie, using Jonathon’s line that it was one

of the top-ten books she should read if she was to be any kind of dedicated student.

Annie had never given the book back. She must still have it somewhere, thought

Simon. Did she take it to Australia?

Jesus. A flood of memories came back to him. In particular the glass of red wine she

had thrown in his face the night before she had left him to live in Australia. He recoiled with

humiliation at the memory.

The Mogwai sound began its ending, the incessant feedback panning from left to right

pounding into his hangover like a plank of wood repeatedly smacked across his skull. The

song finished and Bob Dylan began to croak and jangle his way onto the playlist with I Want

You.

32

Simon’s knees began to ache from trying not to touch the other mans knees. He didn’t

want to begin playing that alpha-male knee game for space.

He took a quick look around the bus.

Everyone was alone, together on the bus. Everyone concerned themselves with their

own things, in their own worlds. It was as though the closer people were forced together, the

further away they became.

He closed his eyes. Bob Dylan wanted him. He let his thoughts soften and his

conscious mind caught on an updraft of sleepiness. Sleep came like a comfortable friend,

easing him away from reality. He drifted away, safe in the knowledge that there would

always be some part of his unconscious mind that would remain percipient to his location on

this journey. Something deep and resonant inside him would always wake him when he

reached his destination.

33

Chapter Three

Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.

Erwin Schrodinger, physicist

Sunday, 14th November, 2004

Edward

There in the middle of the room, amongst the furniture was the large hole. Open and

sore, like a wound. The top of a ladder could be seen poking out the top. A bucket of earth

was sat next to the ladder, ready to be removed to the garden.

Today would follow a familiar pattern. He would visit Carla in the morning and then

go on to the university to catch up on some work or, if they pushed him, take a lecture. Under

the circumstances, the university had given him some of the first semester of the MSc in

Advanced High Energy Physics Course. This meant explaining the intricacies of amongst

other things, Lorentz transformations which reflect the fact that observers moving at different

velocities may measure different distances, elapsed times, and even a different orderings of

events. It was all too easy to push them hard into the advanced mathematics of it all and he

could spot the students who got it and those who couldn’t. Sometimes he liked to see how

many students he could lose on the way through a lecture and then pull them back in with a

moment of teaching that he called his ‘shining diamond’ moments. Watching the dawning

realisation of their understanding was a beautiful thing.

Edward turned away from the hole in his front room and walked out of the room. At

the front door he picked up his keys from a small blue ceramic bowl. It was a bowl he and

34

Carla had bought on a trip to Cumbria many years ago. The bowl had assimilated itself into

their lives as a receptacle for keys and spare change, becoming something other than its

bowlness.

He left the house, out into the November rain.

He waited at the bus stop, pulling his collar tighter around his neck. He scratched his

greying beard along his jawbone, feeling the bristles. He looked up at the arrival times on the

electronic display at the bus stop.

Four minutes. Four ‘bus minutes’ could equal ten real minutes. The rain fitted his

mood. It seemed to be the only thing that made any sense at the moment.

The ominous threat of Carla’s decline had been a constant companion. It sat there in

the pit of his stomach. He knew he would have to feel so much very soon and the least he

could do, right now, was to pretend that everything was okay for her. At least try and smooth

the absurdity and suffering out into something resembling normality.

The bus arrived and he dropped his fare into the tray in front of the driver. Edward

then found himself a seat upstairs and sat there, numb, as he had done day after day over the

last few months.

Each hospital has its own logic. The hospital, to which Edward was now heading, was

built around the bones of the original Victorian building. New utilitarian buildings had been

tagged onto the original at various stages over the last one hundred years. It was like a

behemoth of old and new, where a strategy of blue, green, red zones and yellow zones guided

visitors and patients to their destination.

35

Stepping into one of these hospitals for the first time is a daunting prospect. One has

to contend with fear, bewilderment and trepidation of someone poking you or your loved one

in the name of Science.

Edward was on autopilot and his body knew where he should go. His body knew

which lift he should get. His body knew which floor he should get off at.

Past the cash machine, fast-food outlet, past the newsagent’s. He walked along the

corridor towards the lift at the far end. He pushed the button to call the lift and waited.

Another man joined him in waiting for the lift. The other man pressed the button again and

again. That’s ridiculous – it’s not going to make the lift come any quicker. Edward didn’t say

anything. The lift arrived and they both got in. The man pressed the floor that Edward

wanted, and they stood in silence as the lift shuddered upwards. He leant back against the

brushed metal at the back of the lift, facing the doors. He stood there. It was the same every

day. He could feel the realisation moving through his body. It was a feeling that had a direct

correlation to his proximity to Carla in her hospital bed.

The lift bumped and stopped as it reached their floor. The metal doors pulled open

and Edward stood back, allowing the other man to exit the lift first.

Edward stepped out of the lift and followed the red line that destined its way towards

the ward, his shoes squeaking on the polished floor.

He reached the large double doors of the ward, his mouth dry. He pushed the doors

open and entered.

A group of nurses were gathered around the nurse’s station going over the patients’

notes. He caught the eye of one of the nurses and smiled kindly at her as he walked past. The

nurse smiled back at him with indifference.

36

He walked down the corridor, self-conscious of the squeaking of his shoes. He then

turned into the small ward that led off this main corridor. Eight patients occupied the room.

There was a strong smell of saline and gravy. It was an awful, horrible olfactory blend

that could only be attributed to a hospital. This smell would embed itself deep into his

memory and would always remind him of this time.

The smell masked other smells that at certain times permeated through the ward.

Namely the sweet peppery smell of sweat, and the underlying smell of stale faeces.

As Edward entered the small ward, he looked around and saw that a few of the

patients had their curtains pulled around their beds. The curtains gave the patients the illusion

of having some kind of privacy. Edward had always found this idea slightly ludicrous and a

poor attempt to retain any kind of dignity the patients had left.

Edward looked over at Carla’s bed, which was nearest the window. She was asleep.

He approached the bed, took his coat off and sat down on the high-backed blue mottled chair

next to her.

He watched as Carla slept. Her mouth slightly open. He thought that thought which

always came into his head when he saw Carla asleep these days. She looks as though she

could be dead. Is this what she will look like when she dies? It was a thought that took a split

second to comprehend, but left a lingering after taste, like licking a battery.

He looked out of the window at the rain. It was still coming down in vicious squalls.

He watched as drips ran into other drips, which then flowed down the window with

unstoppable inevitability.

He turned back to Carla and began to check her intravenous drip. He took the plastic

tube in his fingers and flicked at it with his other finger.

37

He paused, then turned his attention to the bag that was hung under her bed that was

connected to her catheter. The bag was full of urine.

I’ll get the nurse to change it soon, he thought. Maybe if I wasn’t here to check it, he

thought, it might not get changed at all.

He folded his arms in front of him and closed his eyes, hoping to catch a few minutes

sleep.

“She’s been asleep for a while,” said the woman in the bed opposite. Edward opened

his eyes and looked over at her.

The woman in the bed opposite was very old. She seemed to be more bed and pillows

than human. Her face was gaunt and pale and her false teeth seemed to be the liveliest thing

about her. They flashed out of her face like a beacon.

“She needs sleep,” she paused and then said again. “She needs sleep.”

“Yes.” Edward said. “She does need her sleep.” He smiled at the woman, hoping that

would bring the conversation to a close. She had been in the bed opposite Carla for about a

week, during which time she had kept herself to herself.

She piped up again. “All night long there’s something going on in here. It’s so hard to

sleep.” Then she repeated her last sentence again with a sense of urgency. “It’s so hard to

sleep.”

“I know,” Edward said. He felt it fell a little short of a polite conversation, so added

“I know it must be hard to sleep in here.”

“You know,” continued the old lady. She nodded and indicated towards Carla, “she

knows,” she said pausing and then said dramatically rolling her eyes, “I know.” She left a

38

pause. “But, the nurses! The nurses! Well, they don’t know. They still wake us up in the

middle of the night, to take this or that pill or take our temperature or poke us about.” She

paused and rolled her eyes again. “They give me pills in the middle of the night I tell you! If I

walked out of here, I’d rattle. Rattle I would!” She gazed at Edward, waiting for him to say

something in response.

There was a pause.

“Well,” began Edward. “It... it must be hard.” It was all he could manage. He looked

at the floor as the silence grew between them.

“Do you want to know something?” asked the woman.

Edward thought about the consequences of getting involved in this conversation.

He sighed heavily then looked up from the floor said. “Sure,” he smiled and nodded.

“Okay.”

The woman looked around conspiratorially. Then said, “Do you know when the worst

part is?”

“It’s at night. Not because it’s dark and I’m afraid of the night. No, it’s because at

night they sometimes close the doors. They close the doors and you can hear something

happening. And when they close the doors, it means someone’s gone. In the middle of the

night, someone’s gone and died haven’t they?” She paused for dramatic effect. “And last

night it happened in here. They closed all of our curtains, and the old girl who was in that

middle bed over there, she went. In the middle of the night. Just like that.”

Edward looked over and indeed the bed was empty.

39

“They try and do it quietly, but they just don’t realise you can’t sleep when you’re ill.

And you certainly can’t sleep with them taking dead’ns out.”

She then sunk back into her pillows. “The night time,” she said again, shaking her

head. “When they start to close the doors and curtains, that’s when you know someone’s

dead.” She then added blithely. “Can you pass me my drink dear? I say, would you be a

poppet and pass me my drink?” She indicated the juice on the table next to her.

Edward knew very well she could reach it herself. He got up from the chair and

walked across the ward to the old lady’s bed, his shoes squeaking as he went. He stood next

to her bed and poured some fresh squash into the plastic tumbler and passed it to her. She

sipped it, eyeing Edward all the time.

“Thank you.” Then she reached out and grabbed him by the forearm. He was startled

and tried not to flinch away from her bony hand. He looked down at her hand, the skin

mottled and pale.

“Thank you, poppet,” she said. “I wish they were all as kind as you.”

He looked into her eyes. She looked back at him and held his arm. He didn’t move.

He noticed how dark her pupils were. Her eyes reminded him of the dark eyes of a shark.

They looked cruel and hard.

He patted her hand gently.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

She then turned her hand around and held his hand in hers. Although he knew it was

wrong, he felt repulsed by her, and wanted to get away. Ashamed by his own feelings, he

thought that surely he should have some sense of compassion for this woman dying of cancer.

40

Her life had brought her to this bed in a London cancer ward and all she wanted was a hand

to hold.

She squeezed harder with her bony fingers. “She’s lucky you’re here to make sure

she’s seen to,” she said.

She looked at him with her dark shark eyes. “Lucky, she is.” She squeezed even

tighter. “Lucky.”

“I know,” was all Edward could say. It’s all he could think of saying. He smiled

again, willing the whole painful encounter would come to an end.

She let go of his hand and then reached across to push her tumbler of squash back

onto the bedside table. He didn’t help her, although he could quite easily have done so. She

strained as she reached with the cup wobbling, its liquid sloshing around inside. She found

the edge of the table and then pushed the cup onto it.

She then fell back into her pillows, exhausted. She closed her eyes and breathed out

heavily. A silence grew between them.

To break the silence, he asked “Are you going home soon?”

He felt himself blush as the sudden realization and implications of the question

flushed hotly through him.

If she goes home, then she goes home to die.

He hadn’t intended his question to be so blunt and he berated himself for his

insensitivity.

“I don’t know.” She smiled at him, her white beaming out. “My son Malcolm’s

trying to sort something out. He’s trying to sort something out.”

41

“Oh,” said Edward. He looked at his hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” He

gestured a hand in the air. “You know…”

“It’s okay, poppet. I don’t think Malcolm wants me to... you know…” She paused

and looked around the room as though she was looking for something. She then continued

“…die in his house. He thinks it will scare the children. And I don’t want to scare the

children. No, I don’t want to scare the children.”

“Malcolm may have a point,” said Edward.

“Yes,” she said. “He may well have a point.” She looked at Edward and smiled and

blinked at the same time. He looked back into her shark eyes and felt an immense sadness for

her.

“Do you want me to plump up your pillows?” he asked

“No. I’m okay. It’s just my mouth is so dry. I’m just very thirsty. Yes, I’m very thirsty

all the time,” she said. “She told me you were good to her.”

He smiled and nodded.

“You want anything else?” he asked

“No.” She reached out and took his hand again. This time he didn’t flinch.

“Thank you,” she said.

“That’s okay.” He squeezed her hand back. He could feel the bones beneath the

warm, dry, papery skin. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s all okay.”

He removed his hand from the old woman’s grasp, smiled kindly and went back to

Carla. She was still sleeping. He stood by the large window and looked out. His reflection

42

looked back into the room like a ghost. The rain outside was still falling heavily and there

was an aptness about it. It was right for it to be grey and raining. The world should resonate

for him. The world should amplify his feelings. Like that Peanuts character he use to like, he

thought. The one who was followed by the raincloud.

He sat back into the blue plastic chair next to Carla’s bed. He closed his eyes and felt

himself being pulled backwards into the warmth of sleep.