The Shivering Turn, page 22
Well, what do you expect from a god who doesn’t exist?
But since, now that Charlie’s gone, I have no one else to talk to, I suppose I might as well talk to Him.
‘The thing is, God,’ I say, ‘I don’t think my dad was ever happy. He doesn’t even look happy in his wedding photographs. I think he got married because that was what you were supposed to do. And he got his job with the insurance company because having a job was what you were supposed to do. Then he and my mum had me, because … Are you getting the message, God?’
I stop, because my nose is so blocked that I can hardly talk. I reach for the tissues on my bedside table and have a good blow.
‘Sorry about that, God,’ I say. ‘So my dad never got to do anything he really wanted to, but then, to be honest with you, there never seemed to be anything he really wanted to do. And I think that, on the whole, he was content – in, of course, a slightly disappointed way.’
I really seem to have sobered up. Or is it just that I am still drunk enough to simply imagine that what I’m saying makes sense?
Whichever it is, once you’ve got God on the line, it doesn’t do to keep Him waiting.
‘And then there’s me,’ I say. ‘I’ve never felt so miserable in my life, and I can’t see it ever getting any better. So here’s the deal – you bring my dad back to life, and you take me instead. You don’t have to make any promises about what’s there once I’ve crossed the threshold. There may even be nothing there at all. I don’t care, because anything – even if the anything is nothing – will be better than what I’ve got now.’
NINETEEN
My head feels like it is about to explode every time the bloody hammer hits the bloody bell. I’m aware that I have to do something about it but, before I can, I need to take careful stock of my current situation.
I know I am not dead, because the dead can’t possibly feel half as shitty as I do.
I know that I’m lying on my back, because that is just something you just do know.
And I know I’m in darkness, which may possibly be attributable to the fact that my eyes are tightly closed.
The hammer hits the bell again – sending shock waves ricocheting around my cranium.
I open my eyes with reckless haste, and the light streaming in through the window causes a thousand tiny needles to stab burningly into my pupils.
I close my eyes again.
Perhaps I should stay like this for a few hours – or maybe a few days – I tell myself.
But the bloody bell simply isn’t going to let me do that.
I open my eyes more cautiously this time, and when I have persuaded them to focus, I find myself gazing up at a ceiling which looks quite familiar.
So, I’m in my bedroom.
Good!
But where is the bloody bell?
I roll on to my side, and make two interesting discoveries. The first is that the ringing sound is coming from the telephone on my bedside table. The second is that the hammer has nothing to do with the bell, but is working independently, inside my head.
I pick up the telephone receiver, and mumble ‘Go away’ into it.
‘Is that you, Jennie?’ asks the voice at the other end of the line.
George Hobson!
‘Yes, it’s me, George,’ I admit, with some degree of reluctance.
‘I’ve been trying to contact you since early last evening. I must have rung you ten times. Where were you?’
‘Basket-weaving classes,’ I say, because that is the first thing that comes into my head.
‘Basket-weaving classes?’ he repeats, incredulously.
‘Listen, George, just tell me what you rang up to tell me. And make it quick, because I want to do some serious suffering here, and you’re just getting in the way of it.’
‘Do you know, Jennie, there are times when you make no sense at all,’ George says.
‘Please!’ I implore him. ‘Just say what’s on your mind, then I can go and hunt down some aspirins.’
‘There’s been a development in the investigation since the last time you were at the station.’
‘A development!’
‘Now don’t go getting too excited, because it’s not going to help you in your quest to bring the Shivering Turn to justice. In fact, it will probably work the other way – by making them even more untouchable.’
I wonder if my mouth is dry with anticipation – or if it’s just dry.
‘For the love of God, George, just tell me,’ I say in a furry voice that I hardly recognize as my own.
‘As you know, we’ve been trying to keep Tom Corbet out of the loop, but as the rumours started to fly, it was becoming harder and harder,’ George says. ‘Anyway, he somehow got hold of Crispin Hetherington’s name, and early last evening he attacked Hetherington as he was crossing the Venetian Quad. They tell me he was like a man insane, and it took half-a-dozen students to pull him off.’
‘Was Hetherington badly hurt?’ I ask.
‘Yes, he was – very badly indeed. The doctors say that he’s going to be permanently paralysed from the neck down.’
‘Thanks for the information, George,’ I mumble, and before he has a chance to say anything else, I hang up.
I go to the bathroom, and force myself to drink about a pint of water. For perhaps half a minute, I feel better, then the water hits my stomach, and I realize I’m going to puke.
‘But that’s a good thing,’ I tell myself, as I kneel down in front of the toilet bowl. ‘It will get rid of all the poisons.’
In all honesty, it doesn’t feel like a good thing once I’ve started to be sick – it feels, in fact, as if I’m vomiting up all my insides.
I stop throwing up, but I know it isn’t over, because I can feel new waves of nausea building up in my stomach.
But at least I have a little time to think – and several thoughts are already competing for the brain space.
The first thought is that it is a tragedy that Tom Corbet, who I think is basically a good man, should have had his life destroyed by what happened that night in the Blind Beggar.
The second is that, as much as I despise Crispin Hetherington, I wouldn’t have wished a lifetime of paralysis on him.
But it is the third which, though related to the other two, is so powerful that it dominates the centre of my brain, and sends the other two scurrying into the darker recesses. And it is this – George Hobson was quite wrong when he said that Corbet’s attack on Hetherington made the Shivering Turn even more untouchable. What it has actually done is present me with an unexpected opportunity to really screw the privileged little wankers.
I throw up a second time, and then a third. I calculate there is nothing left in my stomach now to get rid of, and force myself to take a cold shower.
I towel down, go into the kitchen, and make a cup of strong black coffee.
I will never drink alcohol again, I promise myself – not if I live to be a hundred.
The coffee does its work. I no longer feel as if my death is imminent, and though the hammer is still at work in my head, it is now pounding cushions rather than anvils.
I pick up the phone and ring Charlie Swift.
‘I thought about calling, but I didn’t want to disturb you,’ he says. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m feeling fine,’ I lie. ‘Listen, Charlie, I need a name – and I need it right now.’
‘Steady on, old girl,’ Charlie says.
I didn’t think anyone said, ‘Steady on, old girl,’ any more.
‘Look, I’m sorry if I’m sounding a bit abrupt, but this is really important,’ I tell him.
‘Any particular sort of name you have in mind?’ he asks ‘A Welsh name? An exotic name? One of the secret names of God? Or are you just collecting a ragbag of any old names?’
I love Charlie dearly, but there are times when I could kill him – and this is one of them.
‘I need the name of a student at St Luke’s who is quite small, quite light and quite sporty,’ I tell him. ‘And if he is also someone Crispin Hetherington dislikes, that would be a bonus.’
A middle-aged couple are standing in front of the reception desk for the intensive care unit of the Radcliffe Hospital. They are respectably – but not expensively – dressed, and they remind me in some ways of my own parents.
The man has his arms draped comfortingly over the woman’s shoulder, and the woman is talking with painful intensity to the pretty nurse behind the desk. It is clear to me that the woman is not imparting any sort of vital information, but merely feels compelled to talk, and the nurse – knowing that she needs this release – is listening sympathetically.
I try not to eavesdrop, but the woman has a voice which carries. I could walk away, I suppose, but I am on a mission, and the moment the woman has stopped talking to the nurse, I want to have a word with her myself.
‘He’s always been such a good boy – never any trouble at all,’ the woman is saying. ‘He studied damned hard at school, and even now he’s in university, he gets a job in the summer—’
‘And at Christmas,’ her husband chimes in.
‘And at Christmas,’ the mother agrees. ‘Easter too, sometimes – and all so he can pay part of his own way through college.’
‘I’m only a window cleaner, you see,’ the husband says, apologetically, ‘and Oxford does seem to be very expensive – much more expensive than any of the universities that Christopher’s school friends have gone to.’
‘We used to worry that he had no time for fun,’ the mother says, ‘but he told us we shouldn’t concern ourselves, because he was investing in the future – but now he hasn’t got a future, and all that sacrifice was for nothing.’
‘He seems a very determined young man, and that will certainly help him in the difficult years ahead,’ the nurse says.
‘It doesn’t seem fair,’ the mother says.
‘It never does,’ the nurse replies.
The father looks at his watch. ‘We’d better go now, or we’ll miss the train to home.’
The woman stiffens. ‘I don’t want to go home,’ she says. ‘I want to stay here in Oxford.’
‘It’s not about what you want, love,’ the man says with a gentleness that it almost breaks my heart to hear. ‘It’s about what Christopher wants. And what does he want?’
‘He … he wants us to go home.’
‘That’s right. He says it’s distressing for him to see us so upset. He says we should go back to Coventry, and then, in a week or so, he’ll call and tell us when we can come again.’
‘But he can’t call us, can he?’ the mother asks, on the verge of hysterics. ‘He can’t even make a simple phone call.’
‘You know what he meant,’ her husband says. ‘He’ll get the hospital to call.’ He pauses. ‘Christopher’s feeling helpless enough as it is – how much worse is he going to feel if we won’t even respect his wishes?’
The mother nods. ‘But I want to take a later train,’ she says determinedly. ‘Before I leave Oxford, I want to see his college.’
‘All right, love,’ her husband concedes. He turns to the nurse. ‘Could you tell us how to get to St Luke’s College?’
‘Haven’t you been before?’ the nurse asks, the surprise evident in her voice.
‘No … we … Christopher said none of his friends’ parents visited them in college, so he’d find it embarrassing if we did.’
The nurse gives them directions to the college.
‘Goodbye, Mr and Mrs Hetherington,’ she says.
‘Goodbye,’ Mr Hetherington says, over his shoulder.
And Mrs Hetherington, her head sunk so low that her chin is almost touching her chest, says nothing.
I am in the hospital cafeteria. Around me sit all manner of people, united only by the single fact that, at this moment, they are all connected – in one way or another – to illness.
Under this broader canopy of sickness and malfunction, each table is its own little theatre, and the actors sitting around it are playing out a drama which God, or nature – or perhaps just blind chance – has written specifically for them.
At the table to my left, for example, an old man is talking earnestly to a middle-aged woman who could be his daughter, perhaps persuading her that there’s a good chance her husband will pull through.
At the table to my right sit a man and a woman who are about my age and, though they are holding hands, it is plain that each is swimming in a thick sea of personal misery.
And then there are a group of nurses, all looking very tired and drawn, and setting an example of healthy living by chain-smoking their way through their short break.
I have – for obvious reasons – postponed my personal drama for an hour, and I am now thinking about names. If I had not been a redhead, born with the name Redhead, it seems to me unlikely I would ever have thrown myself into the martial arts with such vigour. And perhaps if Crispin/Christopher had been born a Sidebotham – rather than the posh-sounding Hetherington – he would never have felt impelled to pretend to be a member of the upper class.
I look at my watch. The hour has passed, and now it’s time for me to attempt to con the arch-conman.
I approach the nurses’ desk, and smile sadly at the pretty nurse.
‘I’d like to visit one of your patients, if possible,’ I say.
‘Could you give me his or her name?’ the nurse asks.
‘Christopher Hetherington.’
‘Poor Christopher,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Are you family?’
I want to say we’re friends, because that’s likely to make her more receptive, but, try as I might, I just can’t bring myself to do it.
‘No, I’m not family – we’re from the same college,’ I say – and hope that’s enough.
‘We normally like our patients in intensive care to have as many visitors as possible, if they feel up to it,’ the nurse says, ‘but I have to tell you that Christopher doesn’t even want to see his mother and father, so I doubt very much that he’ll be willing to—’
‘I think he’ll want to see me,’ I say earnestly.
‘Well, all we can do is ask,’ the nurse replies, philosophically. ‘Could I have your name, please?’
‘Jennifer Redhead.’
‘And do you have any means of identification, Miss Redhead?’
‘There’s my driving licence,’ I say, taking it out of my bag and offering it to her.
She examines it carefully, then hands it back and says, ‘Would you please wait here, Miss Redhead,’ before disappearing through a pair of swing doors and leaving me with my thoughts.
I’ve known right from the start that Hetherington relishes conflict, and that he likes to live on the edge, but now I’ve learned he’s not the man he pretended to be, I think I know why he created the Shivering Turn. And it wasn’t about sex – it was never about sex.
The nurse has still not come back. It’s always possible, I suppose, that Hetherington will refuse to see me, but I will be surprised if he does, because even in his present pitiful condition, I don’t imagine he’ll be willing to turn away from a good fight.
The nurse returns, with a slightly bemused expression on her face.
‘He’d like to see you,’ she says. ‘Would you please follow me?’
Crispin Hetherington has countless wires and tubes attached to him, and these wires and tubes run into several machines that I wouldn’t even try to name. He is pale and fragile-looking, but it is clear from his eyes that he is more than willing to do battle with me.
Neither of us risks more than a neutral ‘hello’ while the nurse is still there, but the moment she has gone, he says, ‘I really am rather disappointed in you, Miss Redhead.’
‘Are you?’
‘Indeed I am. I’ve always considered you a worthy adversary, but now it seems I was wrong, because if you really were worthy – if you had anything like the spirit I have – you would never have lowered and degraded yourself by coming here to gloat.’
‘I’m not here to—’ I begin.
‘I haven’t finished,’ he says fiercely. ‘Not only have you diminished yourself in my eyes – and, when you have time to think about it, in your own – but you haven’t even achieved your pathetic objective. You have no grounds for gloating, because we both know that while I may be paralysed for the rest of my life, I’ll always be a gentleman, whereas you, with control over your body, will never be any more than a piece of working-class scum with an education.’
I have to admire him for his sheer nerve – his determination to extract some kind of victory from even the most devastating of defeats. I could, of course, easily rob him of that victory with a few well-chosen words about his parents, but I don’t want to – because I hate to kick a man when he’s down. Yes, he is still the vicious little bastard he’s always been, but now he’s a tetraplegic vicious little bastard, and if it will help him through the remaining years of his life to think he’s had me fooled, then I’m more than willing to go along with it.
‘Can I speak now?’ I ask.
‘Yes, you may.’
‘I’m not here to gloat. I’m here to keep you up to date – courtesy of your local police force – on what your good friends in the Shivering Turn have been doing since you were admitted to hospital.’
‘What are you talking about?’ he asks.
‘Most people would have expected them to sit around in shocked silence after what happened to you, but we both know they’re made of stronger stuff than that,’ I say. I take my notebook out of my pocket, and turn to a blank page. ‘Let me see … John Teale and Gideon Duffy went down to the Grapes last night, and they picked up two good-looking nurses from this very hospital. They all left together, and Gideon used his credit card to book two rooms in the Randolph Hotel—’
‘His daddy’s credit card, you mean,’ Crispin interrupts me bitterly.
And then he realizes that, for the first time, he has shown me his envy of the wealthy – and that simply will not square with the idea that he is wealthy himself.
‘Gideon has to go begging to his father for every penny he spends,’ he continues. ‘I have had drawing rights on all the family accounts since I was fourteen years old.’
