A Ladder to the Sky(72)

‘Christ,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You’re psychotic.’

‘Not really. I just need to be a writer, that’s all. It’s all I’ve ever needed to be. That and a father. And it’s not as if you’ve been much use to me on that score, is it?’

‘Don’t bring that up,’ I said quickly, feeling a twinge inside myself at what I knew that you didn’t. ‘That’s got nothing to do with any of this.’

‘It’s got everything to do with it,’ you said. ‘You can’t give me a child so surely you can make up for that by giving me a book. I need it, don’t you see that? Without a writing career, what am I, after all? Please, Edith,’ you said, your tone changing slightly now, becoming less aggressive and more beseeching. ‘If you tell anyone, you’ll ruin me. There’ll be no coming back from it. My reputation will be completely destroyed.’

‘Just like Erich Ackermann’s was,’ I said.

‘Erich Ackermann was a Nazi!’ you shouted, losing your temper now. ‘You said so yourself. You can’t compare me to him.’

‘The truth is,’ I said, looking you directly in the eyes, ‘you’re not a writer at all, Maurice. You’re desperate to be but you don’t have the talent. You never did have. That’s why you’ve always attached yourself to people more successful than yourself, pretended to be their friend and then dropped them when they were no longer of any use to you. You must have thought that all your Christmases had come at once when my career started to take off.’

‘Shut up,’ you snapped, your face contorting in anger now.

‘But the thing is, I am a writer,’ I continued. ‘And that book you’ve been passing off to the world belongs to me. I’m everything that you’re not. You’re just a hack. You stole Ackermann’s life, you stole my words. On their worst day, any one of my students has more ability than you.’

‘You’d better stop talking,’ you said, your chin trembling in fury.

‘I want you out, Maurice,’ I said, feeling strong now, stronger than I’d felt since the night you raped me. ‘I want you out right now, do you understand? Unless you want to be here when I start making my phone calls.’

I turned away from you and you pulled me back, spinning me round. As you did so, I felt my ankle twist beneath me at the top of the stairs. I reached out for the railing, that broken railing I’d asked you to fix on so many occasions, but my hand didn’t connect with it. The whole thing felt as if I were moving in slow motion. As if I were watching myself from above while I stared at you, aware that I was about to fall. All I needed was for you to reach out and grab me and I would be safe. I said your name.

‘Maurice.’

I stood there for what felt like an eternity, unable to fall, unable to recover, and that was when I saw the clear resolution on your face. You knew exactly what you had to do to save yourself.

You reached out and, with a gentle, almost loving, tap, pushed me.





8. Now


I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been here. The concept of time loses whatever credibility it had when you’re locked in a coma. It’s been more than a few weeks, though, of that I’m sure. Perhaps a month or two? I’m in no pain, which is good, but nor am I alert to a particular lack of pain. The best I can do is describe it as having a consciousness but no body, no movement or expression. I’m an anthology of thoughts and memories trapped within a static shell. I can see everything around me and yet my eyes refuse to open. I can hear every sound but can’t make myself heard. I’m alone and yet I’m frequently surrounded by people.

There are nurses, of course. They wash me every morning using soft sponges and tepid water. They move my arms and legs, bending them carefully at the elbows and knees, to ensure that my muscles don’t atrophy. They rotate my wrists and ankles, trim my fingernails, apply moisturizers to my skin. They empty bags filled with my excreta and replace them, so I can void again. And yet they seem to forget that I was once alive, that I’m still alive, holding conversations over my inert form that go something like this:

Nurse 1: You know who she is, don’t you?

Nurse 2: No, who?

Nurse 1: She’s a writer. She wrote that television programme, Fury, that won all them awards a couple of years back.

Nurse 2: Oh, I never saw that. I read the book and thought it was a bit pretentious.

Nurse 1: I didn’t read it. I always say that if a book’s any good, sooner or later it’ll find its way on to the box. I don’t have any time to read these days, anyway.

Nurse 2: Well, you haven’t missed much.

Nurse 1: I used to read a lot when I was younger.



Or this:

Nurse 1: You’ve seen her husband, I suppose?

Nurse 2: Lord, yes. If I was ten years younger and twenty pounds lighter!

Nurse 1: The poor man is inconsolable. He must have really loved her.

Nurse 2: I don’t see it. I mean, she’s not bad-looking but he’s in a different stratosphere. And, you know, there’s the colour thing too.

Nurse 1: (laughing) You can’t say that!

Nurse 2: Oh, I don’t mean anything by it. I’m not racist or anything. I’m just saying. My cousin Jimmy married a black girl and she ran off on him in the end. Took the children too. The poor bloke never got over it. You have to be careful, that’s all.