Louisa is dying. It is clear to Jomier when he sees his daughter appear through the arrivals portal at Heathrow’s Terminal 3. She is in a wheelchair pushed by an employee of the British Airports Authority while Jimmy follows with their luggage on a trolley. There is no flesh on her face. The skin is sallow and loose; the eyes huge. She sees her father and gives a tired smile. Jomier steps forward. They embrace. Two skeletal arms come up to enfold him. Jomier scents decay. He stands and greets Jimmy: a bear hug but no clap on the back. Jimmy says: ‘Here we are.’ He glances obliquely at Jomier. Jomier avoids meeting his eyes. He does not want Jimmy to see reflected in his expression his shock at Louisa’s pitiful condition.
Jomier takes control of the wheelchair from the British Airports Authority employee and leads the way towards the lifts that will take them out of arrivals to the Terminal 3 car park. The first lift takes them to a sloping Bridge of Sighs. Those in the contraflow glance at Louisa and then look away. Jomier wishes his load were heavier. They reach Level 1 where Jomier waits behind excited new arrivals from the Indian subcontinent to pay the car-park charge at the machine. Louisa waits with Jimmy. Jomier reaches the head of the queue. He puts in the ticket, then his debit card, punches in his PIN, then retrieves his now magnetically validated ticket and, after pushing the requisite button, a receipt. They then take a second lift to Level 2 and cross the concrete to the Golf. Jimmy wants to put Louisa in the front of the car but she insists on sitting in the back beside the stacked suitcases; the collapsed wheelchair takes up most of the space in the boot.
They drive into London. ‘It so good to see you, Dad. I just wish the circumstances weren’t so . . . tiresome.’
Jomier asks after his grandchildren.
‘Oh, they’re fine.’ Louisa begins to give some detail but the effort appears to exhaust her. Her voice tails off. Jimmy finishes for her – a brief résumé of academic progress and sporting achievements. Then: ‘Do you know this Professor Adams?’
Jomier shakes his head.
‘You must google him,’ says Jimmy. ‘He’s supposed to be the best.’
‘He’s at St Chad’s,’ says Louisa quietly. ‘Professor Cochella, the specialist in Argentina, studied under him. He says that if anyone can find out what’s wrong with me, it’s him.’
‘He takes private patients?’ asks Jomier.
‘A few. He’s still friendly with Cochella. And it seems that I’m a challenge.’
They reach the Hampton Clinic. Louisa checks in. Jomier and Jimmy accompany her to her room. The nurses are smiling and polite. They ask Jomier and Jimmy if they would like a cup of tea while they wait for Louisa to change and settle into her bed. Both accept the offer. Tea and biscuits are brought on a tray. Jimmy takes this treatment for granted: he is used to travelling club class. Jomier, used to Ryanair and the National Health, feels a grumbling disgust. Why does courtesy and politeness only come with the upgrade? How would these selfsame nurses treat them if they were poor?
Jomier and Jimmy are readmitted to Louisa’s room. Her pretty blue nightdress reveals more of her wasted body. Jomier dares not meet her eyes for fear that she will see the anguish in his eyes. They sit and chat. ‘I hear you’ve got a girlfriend?’ says Louisa: ‘I hope you’ll introduce me.’
Jomier does not want to think of Judith. ‘Not really,’ he says.
‘Not really – you won’t introduce me? Or not really a girlfriend?’
Jomier is happy to be teased. He looks into his daughter’s laughing eyes. ‘I’ll certainly introduce you when you’re better.’
‘You think meeting her might finish me off?’
Jomier smiles. ‘Henry and Sandra survived it.’
‘They say she’s very nice.’
Jomier prepares to leave: Jimmy will stay. Jomier will deliver Jimmy’s luggage to the Stafford Hotel. He will come and see Louisa again the next morning. He leans over to kiss his daughter, embracing her lightly for fear of breaking her bones. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Yes. And, Dad . . .’
He turns, holding the open door.
‘Pray for me, will you?’
‘Of course.’
Jomier returns to his house in Hammersmith. It is growing dark but he does not close the curtains in his living room or switch on the lights. He sits in an armchair in the gloom, staring out of the bay window into the street. A car passes. The click-clack of a woman’s high heels on the pavement. The clunk of scaffolding being loaded onto a lorry. The sounds made by people with something to do. Jomier has nothing to do. Or nothing he feels like doing. His journal? Copy out the past? Enter the present? ‘Met Jimmy and Louisa at Heathrow. Louisa looks like death.’ Would words detach Jomier from his anguish? Would they distance him from his suffering? Is that what keeping a journal has always been about – keeping his feelings at arm’s length by writing as if they were felt by someone else? Is that the function of all writing – processing the raw material of human agony into digestible entertainment for airline passengers and reading groups?
Jomier looks with loathing at the carefully catalogued books on his shelves. There is not one that has prepared him for the sight of his dying daughter. He looks at his stacks of CDs. What music could he play that would not disgust him with its manipulation of his emotions – soothing what cannot be soothed, calming what cannot be calmed, healing what cannot be healed? And there, facing him in the gloom, is the black rectangular screen of his television – the open window that has let in all the sham, pretence, denial, distraction and falsity of the world.
Jomier falls asleep. When he wakes only the orange light from the street lamps illuminates the room. He stands, switches on the lights, closes the curtains. He goes to the kitchen. He looks in his fridge to see what he might cook for his supper. There is some lean mince. A bolognese sauce. He goes up the stairs to his study. The red light blinks on his answering machine. Jomier listens to the first and only message. It is from Judith. Her voice is gentle, appeasing. Jomier listens with a cold, clenched heart. How can you forgive someone for delivering so triumphantly your daughter’s sentence of death?
Jomier switches on his computer. He checks his emails. The ads for Viagra and Cialis skip into his spam folder. The only message is from Judith. ‘i am sorry for what i said about louisa it was cruel i love you xxx judith’. Jomier deletes the message. He goes to Google and types in ‘rare blood diseases’. He studies the websites. The possibilities seem infinite. No wonder Professor Cochella threw in the sponge and passed the buck to his mentor, Professor Adams of St Chad’s. But is it too late? ‘Patients with any blood cancer,’ he reads, ‘that occurs relatively infrequently may have difficulty finding information about where and from whom to obtain the best treatment. All patients with cancer should seek care from a physician or team experienced in treating his or her disease, and this is especially important for patients with rare blood cancers, because these diseases may be difficult to diagnose – but are sometimes easily treated if diagnosed correctly.’ This from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Easily treated if diagnosed correctly. Why is not Louisa in the US where competition and financial incentives keep doctors on their toes? Why has she come from chaotic, incompetent Argentinian health care to chaotic, incompetent British health care? Why has she been referred by the posturing macho hairy-chested nurse-bonking Professor Cochella to the self-important time-serving golf-playing Professor Adams?
Is it because it is cheaper? Has the credit crunch hit the Miller de Ramirez family trusts? Has the price of beef and soya fallen through the floor? Jomier will pay. He will tell Jimmy the next day that he will liquefy his pension funds and pay for Louisa to go to the US where high-powered physicians will be enticed by thoughts of silver-grey Mercedes and condos in Palm Beach to find out what is wrong with Louisa and come up with a cure. He will tell him that he should have no faith in British consultants because they are exempt from the universal law of the stick and the carrot; they are paid their fat salaries by the state whether they cure their patients or not. The smiles at the Hampton Clinic are smiles of derision at the gullible health tourists who are so easily parted from their money.
Jomier goes down to his kitchen. He starts to chop an onion for a bolognese sauce. The tang makes his eyes water; it is as if he is weeping, and all at once he is weeping. He sits on a stool, his shoulders shaking, tears wetting his cheeks. When do grown men cry? The death of a father. The death of a mother. The collapse of a marriage. And now this.
Jomier abandons the bolognese. He eats half a cheese sandwich, then goes through to his living room to watch television. He switches it on and flicks through the channels. Everything is intolerable. He switches it off. He goes upstairs. He takes a shower, changes into his pyjamas and goes to bed. It is not yet ten at night. He cannot sleep. The earlier nap in the armchair has spiked his fatigue: angry thoughts continue to ricochet in his mind. The elation he had felt earlier at the thought of sending Louisa to the US has collapsed. Even doctors enticed by the carrot of silver-grey Mercedes and condos in Palm Beach cannot cure the incurable; they cannot thwart fate.
Can fate ever be thwarted? ‘Pray for me.’ Louisa believes so. Louisa believes that there is a deity, a He Who Is who talked to Moses from a burning bush and became Homo sapiens as Jesus of Nazareth. She believes that he thwarted fate. That he cured lepers, brought Lazarus back to life and himself rose from the dead. She believes that he is God and could, if he so chose, do something for Louisa. But why should he? Why, out of the many millions who are suffering and dying, should he help Louisa? Because she believes in him? Because she is a Catholic? Don’t Catholics suffer? Don’t Catholics die?
Jomier gets out of bed and goes to his study in his pyjamas. He switches on his computer. He googles God. There are 475 million hits. He googles Jesus. 183 million hits. Better to flick through the Bible that sits among his reference books on the shelf next to his desk – the prize for RE at school, the sourcebook for his arguments with Theo. He reads, looking for the formula that induces God to do humans a good turn. He sees no hope of a favour from the pitiless despot of the Old Testament – the Hebrew Bible. None, certainly, if one is not a Jew. And Jesus – the protagonist of the New Testament? When the Jews turn up their noses at what he has to offer, he is prepared to give it to the Gentile dogs. But he is quite as demanding as his father who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. Repent, or else. Believe, or else. Love, or else. Forgive, or else. Stick up for me and I’ll stick up for you. Nothing is for nothing. Even God expects a quid pro quo.
Fair enough. Jomier is a lawyer. He knows about negotiations. He knows how to enter a plea. He can make deals. If God will save Louisa, he will have his quid pro quo. Jomier will love, believe, repent and forgive. He will forgive the civil servants in the Lord Chancellor’s office who turned down his application to become a QC. He will forgive Judith for what she said about Louisa. He will forgive Max for stealing Tilly. He will forgive Tilly for going off with Max.