Is This the Way You Said? by Adam Thorpe

Author:Adam Thorpe [Adam Thorpe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2006-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

ABANDON

1

It had never once occurred to him that dying might be pleasurable. Without the solace of faith, he had anticipated the final weeks of weakening powers with some fear, just as he used to be fearful of going to bed up the long stairs as a child, shielding his night light. But when the time came and he was installed in the hospice, confined to the wheelchair, he was amazed at the way it had all turned to simplicity, as if a very elaborate machine had been swapped for a carpenter’s tool, its handle polished with use, its blade precise and functional.

‘Any more tea, Jack?’

‘No, thank you very much, Carol.’

‘Anything interesting in the paper?’

‘Oh, the usual stuff and nonsense, Carol. I don’t need to worry about it, at any rate, do I?’

The nurse tut-tutted smilingly and moved on. He was only pretending to read the newspaper. George Brown had resigned as Foreign Secretary; the Stock Exchange had closed; Enoch Powell spoke eleven languages and read a book a day. He himself had no desire to read. He was content with two things: watching the emergence of spring through the glass doors of the lounge, and appreciating the young nurses: nurses like the lovely almond-eyed Carol or the waif-like Pooma. Youth had never seemed to him more extraordinary, as if it was a phenomenon only just discovered. Likewise the dappling of flowers on the lawn and under the great trees – crocuses, daffodils, anemones – seemed like something new and unique. Death was not winter, to him (nor to his old friend Bruno, but for other reasons – Bruno’s heaven being a ridiculous perpetual summer), since death led to nothing further. Corporeally, of course, it was a return, a feeding, which was why he had asked not to be cremated, despite his sister’s rejoinder that ashes were very good for roses, filled as they were with potassium (and good for lawns, too, if spread thinly before rain). But spiritually, or mentally, Jack considered any elaboration a fiction.

And amazingly his fear had not yet declared itself; he was climbing the stairs to the unmeasurable darkness, yes – but the pictures on the wall, the views of the twilit road through the landing windows, the very patterns on the runner and the gleam of its brass clips, were as the contents of Aladdin’s cave. He now felt sorry for those upon whom the end came unexpectedly, as with both his brothers in the trenches. He had always envied them before, even though he had survived physically intact.

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