The Flatshare(91)

‘Absolutely. Me too. Furious. I’m the worst. And Mo isn’t talking to me either, if that helps.’

‘That doesn’t help,’ I say reluctantly. ‘I don’t want you to be a pariah.’

‘A what? Is that some kind of dessert?’

‘Pariah. Persona non-grata. Outcast.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m resigned to a life of disgrace. It’s all I deserve.’

We sit in companionable silence for a while. I reach around inside to find that enormous pool of Gerty-fuelled rage again, but it seems to have evaporated.

‘I really hate Justin,’ I say miserably. ‘You know I think he did this mostly to break up me and Leon? I don’t think he would actually even marry me. He would just leave me again, once he was sure he’d got me back.’

‘The man needs castrating,’ Gerty says firmly. ‘He’s done you nothing but harm. I have actively wished him dead on several occasions.’

‘Gerty!’

‘You didn’t have to sit back and watch it happening,’ she says. ‘Watch him cleaning all the Tiffany-ness out of you. It was sick.’

I fiddle with the Brixton blanket.

‘All this mess has made me realise . . . I really like Leon, Gerty. Really like him.’ I sniff, wiping my eyes. ‘I wish he had at least asked me whether I actually said yes. And . . . and . . . even if I had . . . I wish that he hadn’t just given up.’

‘It’s been half a day. He’s in shock, and drained after the session in court. He’s built this day up in his head for months. Justin, as ever, has impeccably dreadful timing. Give it a little time and I hope you’ll find Leon un-gives up again.’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

‘Have faith, Tiffy. After all, isn’t that what you’re asking from him?’





66


Leon

Move between wards like I’m haunting the place. Should I be able to focus enough to take blood from a vein when even breathing feels like an effort? It’s easy, though – blissfully routine. Here’s something I can do. Leon, Charge Nurse, quiet but reliable.

Notice after a few hours that I’m circling Coral Ward. Dodging it.

Mr Prior’s there, dying.

Eventually the junior doctor on shift says a morphine dose on Coral Ward needs countersigning. So. No more hiding. Off I go. White-grey corridors, bare and scratched, and I know every inch of them, maybe better than the walls of my own flat.

Pause. There’s a man in a brown suit outside the ward, forearms on knees, staring at the floor. Odd to see someone here at this time of the morning – no visitors on the night shift. He’s very old, white-haired. Familiar.

I know that posture: that’s the posture of a man Mustering Courage. I’ve struck that pose enough times outside prison visiting halls to know how it looks.

Takes a little while for it to click – I’m barely thinking, just moving on autopilot. But that white-haired man staring at the floor is Johnny White the Sixth, from Brighton. The thought seems ridiculous. JW the Sixth is a man from my other life. The one full of Tiffy. But here he is, so. Looks like I found Mr Prior’s Johnny after all, even if it took him a little while to admit it.

Should feel pleased, but can’t.

Look at him. Aged ninety-two, he’s tracked Mr Prior down, put his best suit on, travelled all the way up from the coast. All for a man he loved a lifetime ago. He sits there, head bowed like a man in prayer, waiting for the strength to face what he left behind.

Mr Prior has days to live. Hours, possibly. I look at Johnny White and feel it like a punch in the gut. He left it so. Fucking. Late.

Johnny White looks up, sees me. We don’t speak. The silence stretches down the corridor between us.

Johnny White: Is he dead?

His voice comes out husky, breaking halfway.

Me: No. You’re not too late.

Except he is, really. How much did it hurt to come all this way knowing it was just to say goodbye?

Johnny White: It took me a while to find him. After you visited.

Me: You should have said something.

Johnny White: Yes.

He looks back at the floor. I step forward, bridge the silence, take the seat beside him. We examine the scratched lino side by side. This isn’t about me. This isn’t my story. But . . . Johnny White on that plastic seat, head bowed, that’s what the other side of not-trying looks like.

Johnny White: I don’t want to go in there. I was thinking about leaving, when I saw you.

Me: You’ve made it to here. There’s just the doors, now.

He lifts his head as though it’s something heavy.

Johnny White: Are you sure he’ll want to see me?

Me: He may not be conscious, Mr White. But even so, I have no doubt he’ll be happier with you there.

Johnny White stands, brushes down his suit trousers, squares his Hollywood chiselled jaw.

Johnny White: Well. Better late than never.

He doesn’t look at me, he just pushes his way through the double doors. I watch them swing behind him.

Left to my own devices, I’m the sort of man who’d never walk through those doors. And where’s that ever got anybody?

I get up. Time to move.

Me, to junior doctor: On-call nurse will countersign on the morphine. I’m not on shift.