We disembarked in a wide, cream-coloured, empty corridor, the most striking feature of which was a disinfectant smell, masked by something artificial—reminiscent of strawberries.
I shuddered. ‘A classic stench I never could abide. Where are we?’
Standing beside me, my travelling companion was dressed in a simple black dress and wearing little makeup. Her expression told me she was struggling with inner demons, but the aroma of the place less mortified her.
‘Looks like a hospital.’
‘Oh, surprise,’ I muttered.
‘I don’t have any recollection of being here.’
‘Aren’t we getting absent-minded in our old age?’
I smirked indulgently at my minor league put-down. At the same time, I leaned over to read a poster on the wall.
My initial attraction to this public notice was that it was pasted up at an angle, not straight, something guaranteed to annoy me. English dominated the thing, warning women of breast cancer. In the bottom right-hand corner, the poster was branded with a purple, not entirely legible hospital stamp, about the size of a twenty-cent coin.
While I couldn’t read all these details, I didn’t need to. I recognized the hospital’s name.
‘I know this place.’
‘You do?’
I nodded my head. ‘Yes. Why are we—?’
Comprehension didn’t just dawdle up to me; it cudgelled my senses. This in turn caused a loss of balance, and Kohana put a confoundedly reassuring arm around me. ‘What is it?’
‘Christ, it’s another bloody flash from my past.’
‘Well, that explains things.’
‘This is wrong. I do not wish to be here. Take me away, immediately.’
‘Um… Not that easy, Wolram.’
‘Not so long ago, you intimated it was. End this. Now.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t. This is your memory, like you say. You brought us here—it stands to reason only you can wind it up.’
‘How on earth do I do that? This is ridiculous. Wrong. I would never again inflict this on myself.’
I decided to act on my own—stuff the woman—and peeped both ways down the corridor. Perhaps I could stroll out of the fix? Manageable. No need to run. I could retain some dignity.
Just as I made up my mind to do this, I noticed the closed door.
It’s possible I hadn’t marked the entrance because the door was the same colour as the walls and the ceiling and the linoleum floor, but it was distinct enough now. I really needed to have my eyesight retested.
The number there—42—clutched all my attention. Oh yes, I knew it well, and what life on the other side implied.
Mostly pain, anguish. Memorable things like these.
‘Also joy,’ Kohana broached softly.
‘Bullshit.’
‘Look again. You need balance to remember this correctly. It’s not how you convinced yourself to see it.’
‘Rehashing existentialist hogwash, like you?—No bloody way. I recall exactly what happened. Right here.’
I tapped my temple. By chance, I did so on the same stretch of skin where Floyd’s bullet had ostensibly entered my skull.
‘And let me tell you, once was enough. I never volunteered for this—we were only ever supposed to visit your memories.’
‘Not particularly fair, stalking my seedy past while you get to remain aloof. What kind of business arrangement is that?’
Kohana gripped my hand, and with force laid it on the stainless steel door handle. She allowed her fingers to remain there, holding mine.
‘It is your choice, but don’t play the coward.’
‘I’ll have you know, I’m no coward. Let go.’
‘If you’re not afraid, it shouldn’t be any trouble to step through this door—a piece of cake, right? Easie peasie?’
‘I refuse to listen to these inane clichés. I have nothing to prove.’
‘Only that your bravado is not mere blustering.’
‘It isn’t.’
‘Then why vacillate?’
‘I’m not. I am considering options. Let’s go someplace else.’
‘Where?’
‘Madagascar.’
‘Obscure. You have other important business there?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Liar. Madagascar is definitely out. Let’s focus closer, on the next room. I’ll come with you. I won’t vanish, I promise. I owe you.’
‘You owe me nothing.’
‘If you think I’m persistent now, just wait till I get going.’
I pressed my lips together so hard it hurt. ‘For goodness’ sake, will it stop you playing the harpy?’
‘Possibly.’
‘And you’re coming with me?’
‘Didn’t I say as much?’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’
‘Hallelujah for small mercies.’
‘Bah.’
In spite of better judgment to hotfoot it away, I had a yen to prove the woman wrong, swallowed my distress, and opened the door.
On the other side was a bright, relatively spacious private hospital room, just like I recalled: an electrocardiograph machine in one corner, a huge bouquet of irises in another.
The centrepiece display was a woman on her back on top of a hospital bed, stomach huge. I couldn’t see her face, but I could clearly hear the shrieking.
There was a midwife hovering nearby, and a man who sat on the edge of the bed next to the pregnant woman, holding her hand. He leaned over to wipe the woman’s face with a damp cloth, and whispered sweet nothings in her ear.
Me, at fifty. I was already an old fool.
Right then, the door slammed in our faces.
‘Did you lose your nerve?’ Kohana wondered aloud.
‘Of course not! I had nothing to do with that. Although, come to think of it, this may be the opportune moment I stepped out to indulge in a Cuban cigar.’
‘Well.’
‘Well, what? It was the done thing in traditional Western culture. I’m not going to apologize for smoking it.’
‘Not the cigar—I could care less. I mean the door.’
‘Ah.’ I again pushed it open. The scene, and its furnishings, had changed.
There was a pretty woman sitting up in bed, face drawn and pale, her expression jubilant.
Dozens of red and yellow roses occupied every available space.
And again there was me, this time in an armchair alongside the woman, holding a bundle at which we both gazed. A priceless combination of wonder and elation was stamped upon my face. If it had been at all possible, I’d have strode right up to me and torn the expression off my cheeks.
‘The best of times, the worst of times,’ I mused, as the room folded up on itself, and other memories assembled before me.
I had no idea if Kohana caught these.
‘I never thought to quote Dickens—what’s the world coming to? Hackneyed stuff. I suppose, however, if you write twenty tomes, like him, you’re bound to hit poignant at some stage.’
There was a longer vignette, a memory of the baby, now aged about fourteen months, asleep on top of a bed.
‘Corinne.’ I threw myself into the sight. ‘God, I adored this little girl. More than anything you could begin to imagine.’
‘I see that.’
‘From my memory here, or from the stupid look on my face?’
‘Both?’
Kohana nudged me, in a playful way. I wasn’t in the mood.
‘What was it?’ I mused. ‘What changed me? A combination of the small things?—I guess that’s what you call it. The feeling of warm, tiny hands enclosed in mine, the way she started seeing everything around, as she grew and developed. I remember hours, lying in warm sunlight from the window, staring at the miniature person sleeping so soundly beside me. It was a miracle. A goddamned miracle. When she started to walk—the ambles we had together, observing the world with brand new eyes. Insects, rocks, flowers, junk, all fresh. As she got older, the infectious smile on her face once I set foot through the door after a long day’s work. I never told Corinne how I used to rush from the office, push through people, and race to our house, just to be gifted with that smile at the end of the sprint.’
I stared at a younger me, standing on a landing near some stairs, painting pink a wooden bedroom door. Calm, patient, content. Happy.
I loathed the fool.
‘Think again, Kohana, if this makes you conjure up some idealized childhood you never had, or never gave. There were times the stress of parenting became too much. Josephine and I constantly fought over petty differences and, frankly, I was over-absorbed in my job. Still, there were incredible times—till we turned the page.’
The flow of snug, chipper memories ended. Everything changed in a wink.
A dark shadow settled itself over the preceding colours. Hospital, again.
Doctors. Machines. Fluorescent lighting. A sour smell, masked by something vaguely reminiscent of strawberries.
We stood before a steel cot in which a five-year-old child lay unconscious, pinioned in the midst of wires and tubes.
‘She got sick,’ I said. Stating the obvious was somehow appealing.
‘What was wrong?’
‘Polio—it was polio. For God’s sake.’
I leaned over to stroke the girl’s wet, troubled forehead. She mumbled in her sleep and the lids fluttered.
‘There, there,’ I cooed—and then I yanked my hand away. I took a long step back.
‘Are you all right?’
It was my turn to ignore Kohana. Too many things battered me. I believed I’d put all this behind me—but I was in error.
‘At first, we thought Corinne had the flu, worrying enough at her age. Our GP told us so. When the symptoms persisted and in fact she got worse, the doctor struck me as panicky. He referred us to over-qualified “specialists”—that’s what the certificates proclaimed on their office walls. Specialists… hah! One by one, each was at a loss to explain the illness.’
I was back to hovering, close by the little girl. I wanted to touch her hair, hold her hand, remember her warmth. More than anything, I wanted to help her through this confounded horror.
Instead, I suffered the same debilitation I remembered from the first time round: I was powerless to do anything. I was useless. I could barely breathe.
‘Finally, one of the bastards did some proper research and found the truth. He told us it was a dead disease. Said they hadn’t come across a single case in years and that ninety percent of people who came in contact with the virus never suffered any symptoms. Of the unlucky ten percent that did react, a single percentage point had the virus enter their central nervous system, and only one in two hundred infections led to irreversible paralysis. The quack that stumbled across this pot of gold gave us the figures in a monotone speech, and handed me poorly photocopied notes straight after.’
I shook my head; all the old frustrations, disbelief and anger running riot. I wanted to scream.
‘What the blazes was the point of the waffling? Our child knocked on death’s door—one percent, or one hundred, the numbers didn’t matter, not when they proved how absurdly unlucky we were. One in ten, or a hundred—what did this mean? The bogus sympathy, the hands thrown in the air in defeat… What kind of answers were these? I wanted to stuff the man’s paperwork down his half-witted throat.’
‘But… Aren’t children immunized against polio?’
Even as I trampled atop the spiralling memories, and the doctors’ faces, I could not make out my companion. Vision had become hazy.
‘Corinne fell through some absurd gap. A medical bureaucrat must have neglected to add her name to a list, or clean forgot to add that vaccine to her inoculations. The doctors couldn’t explain it. I don’t want to try.’
It was Kohana’s round to hold my arm. ‘I can’t imagine what you and your wife went through. I’m so sorry.’
I pulled myself free of her. I wasn’t patrolling for sympathy. ‘Josephine wasn’t my wife. Not that it matters. Nothing matters.’
‘What happened from here? Your daughter recovered?’
‘Eventually, she was again able to walk, but with one leg significantly shorter and scrawnier than the other. She was lucky. The doctors made sure to let us know about another percentage—this time, ten—of the likelihood of her dying while she was at her worst.’
I had been unconsciously pacing the room, chewing my lower lip, so I diverted myself back to the cot and leaned on the railing. I was cleft in two. Love and affection, anger and rejection. A fury was percolating deep inside my gut.
‘If I heard any more percentage possibilities, there was a ninety percent likelihood I’d sock someone in the jaw! All my life, I had this strange feeling that behind the medical profession lurked something sinister. This experience confirmed it. I mean, what do you think of doctors? You think they’re saints? Hah! They’re foxy beasts! They say, “We’ve got no medicine, we’ve no cure. We’ve got nothing!” But they have! They have everything! Dig under the floors! Or search the clinics! You’ll find plenty! …They pose as saints, but are full of lies! If they smell a battle, they hunt the defeated! They’re nothing but stingy, greedy, blubbering, foxy, and mean! Goddamn it all! But then who made them such beasts? We did!’
‘Wolram.’ I felt fingers on my cheek.
‘Take that away,’ I hissed. ‘I don’t need it.’
I forced down my batty grievances, smothered the lot, and stretched out a tentative hand toward the fevered child—but the world flipped.
Now, I was on a street. Walking with an absurd spring in my step.
I turned into a small, overgrown front garden, hopped up to the solid front door of an old brick terrace house. I took a bronze key from my pocket, slid this into the lock, turned it, and entered the building.
It was daylight outside, dim within. I switched on a light.
Here was a long, high-ceilinged passageway, with stained wooden closets on the left, and to the right Victorian-style, William Morris-designed wallpaper, depicting white and purple lilacs. My ludicrous home improvements.
‘Kohana?’
‘Behind you,’ I heard.
I wanted to check, but couldn’t control my movements. I bent over to pick up, then sort through, a wad of junk mail that had gained access via the slot in the door—assorted brochures courtesy of Zoroaster, Henkel and Ambroise, an electricity bill, and a catalogue from Trillian’s. An excessive waste of precious paper banned a decade before I died.
The sorting done, I walked along the passage. At the end was a staircase; I paused momentarily, and then I started to go up.
On the landing, I faced two doors, both closed.
One, to my right, was a pink door that had a wooden picture of an angel done in a childish hand. The other door was a plain light green.
‘Take the door on the right,’ my head counselled, but I gravitated in the direction of the green one. No, I warned. Stop.
I opened this door wide.
On the other side of a sizeable master bedroom, on top of a queen-size bed, two people were caught in the middle of noisy coitus. Josephine, sweaty and raptured, and an athletic younger man with whom I’d never before had the pleasure.
Bile ripped through my stomach and tore through my throat.
I staggered from the room, howling, back down the way I’d come—past wallpaper decorated with marigolds, and furniture I no longer recognized. Just as I was about to spill my lack of lunch, I recovered myself.
I was back in Kohana’s shack, on the sofa, with my head between my knees.
I knew this because I recognized the rice straw that surrounded my feet. I was too ashamed to look up—blubbering is rarely a pretty sight.
‘Twenty-two years her senior,’ I choked. ‘Stupid, stupid old man. How could I have expected her to remain faithful to an ancient fool? I should have known there was a reason she refused to marry me.’
I beat the sides of my head with fists, watched the mucus from my nose dangle and jiggle just above the tatami matting.
‘I think I’m going to despoil your floor,’ I muttered.
‘Who decided on the paternity test?’
Ah.
I haltingly raised my head, wiped my nose on my sleeve, and peered at Kohana.
She was seated on the floor next to the couch, looking my way. While I found concern aplenty, there was a serenity there I appreciated. I couldn’t have stood more sympathy.
‘Me.’
‘Why?’
‘I had to know.’ I breathed out loudly, and my body shuddered. ‘Judy, my secretary, put the notion into my head—she made the suggestion as she passed me my morning tea, like it was just part of our day-to-day business routine, but once there inside my head, the thing sprouted. I had to know.’
‘And the child wasn’t yours.’
It took a while for me to answer the question.
‘No.’ I cleared my throat, and then coughed several times. ‘So I’d lost her. But I couldn’t let her go.’
‘How old was she?’
‘Six when this happened. Until that time, Corinne was my entire world, through good times and bad, everything to me. Everything. Afterward, she became my ball and chain. The more her mother begged and pleaded for me to give Corinne up, the more I dug in my heels. There was a principle to uphold.’
‘Your revenge?’
‘Something along those lines.’
‘I now understand why you prefer Shakespeare.’
‘I couldn’t—couldn’t—let her go.’
‘That’s just sad, Wolram.’
I again wiped my leathery old face, and scrutinized the collection of shiny moisture and other stains on the sleeve. It really did need a hearty cleaning.
‘You know, it could be found amusing.’
‘What could?’
‘The hospital room number, 42. It’s the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything else.’
‘Says who?’
‘Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a book I cherished in my university days.’
‘So you did read, then.’
I almost smiled. The expression withered.
‘When Corinne was born, I deluded myself that having a child was the meaning of everything—her arrival, in a room numbered 42, added to this certainty. In my middle age, I was a born-again Walter Mitty. Even her illness made no dent in the fool’s paradise.’
I rolled up my sleeve to examine the sagging, discoloured skin on the inside of my elbow. How many doctors’ needles had been carelessly poked there?
‘This brainless theory was culled once I saw the result of the paternity test, and—after the anger and the humiliation and the madness and the despair had settled—I had an epiphany, of sorts. It dawned on me that something was fundamentally wrong with society. It was a botched bauble that needed repair work.’
I glanced at Kohana to see if she was listening. She nodded.
‘At the self-same time, I could cast a spotlight on the medical profession for the inhumane, distorted, quack organization it truly was.’
‘In other words, you took revenge against the entire world? The insult that made a man out of Mac?’
‘Something of the sort.’
‘Tell me, are you proud of what you did thereafter?’
‘No. No. I was never proud. Obsessed, with a fiercely blinkered vision I honed over two decades, fighting for something. But what was it?—pride didn’t figure into it. I thought I was right. I was convinced I was right. Everything I did was done for the greater good. The “greater good”—listen to me preach. Yes, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. The insult didn’t make a man out of me. It made a monster.’
I coughed a little more, and rubbed my eyes. Everything ached.
‘Ultimate answer, my arse—and, quite bluntly, I never thought I’d end up beating about in Arthur Dent’s pyjamas.’