NO TIME
27 SEPTEMBER
Look at her.
Just look at her, will you?
I mean, you should probably ignore the thin line of spittle coming from her mouth that’s gently soaking the pillow, and that crust around her eyes looks like it’ll need a good going at with a warm flannel, but other than that, isn’t she just perfect?
She’s everything Sienna wasn’t.
I’ll get up and make her a cup of tea in a moment, but I’ll let her lie in a while longer, I think.
Today promises to be difficult for Allie. Burying someone you love usually is.
Freddie died of a massive and sudden heart attack during the night. Bernard found him when he went to see why his friend was late for breakfast. He was quite amazed that the old man had gone in such a quiet manner. ‘You’d have expected some kind of speech, at least,’ Bernard had told Allie. ‘Something florid and obtuse about travelling into the great beyond.’
Allie got the call from her mother the morning of his death.
Twenty-four hours later she was standing on my driveway.
‘You were the first person I thought of,’ she told me as we sat in my kitchen together after my mother had left. ‘After my family. I just . . . wanted to see you. To let you know he was gone.’
‘He was a unique person, Allie,’ I replied, not yet willing to think about why I’d be the person she’d want to see after such news. ‘I only met him once, but I can see why you loved him so much.’
‘He was the one that got me into the theatre,’ she said. ‘He used to take me to see so many shows when I was a child. I always knew I wanted to be on the stage, right from then. To follow in his footsteps.’
‘Ah . . . so without him there’d be no Libby the Happy Lemon,’ I said, trying to lighten the mood a little.
Allie gave me a look. ‘She’s all your fault, mister.’
‘Well, regardless, I wouldn’t have met you if he hadn’t made you interested in the theatre, so that’s something I definitely have to thank him for.’ I closed a hand over hers. ‘Are you sure you want to be here, Allie? With me? After what I told you, and now with Freddie’s death . . . I’m probably going the same way as him at some—’
Allie leant forward and placed a finger over my mouth. ‘Enough. Enough talk about death,’ she said, and shifted closer to me, leaning forward to kiss me with a ferocity that quite took my breath away. ‘Take me upstairs and show me life instead.’
And upstairs is pretty much where we’ve been ever since. We’ve barely left my bedroom.
My bedroom is a magic place when Allie is with me. In there, you forget about everything that hurts.
But now we have to leave it, as today is the day Allie has to bury her grandfather – and I have a cup of tea to make.
As I potter around the kitchen, I start to consider my own feelings about the upcoming service. The idea of attending someone else’s funeral doesn’t appeal in the slightest. It’s like watching somebody get a root canal when you’re next in the dentist’s chair.
Today isn’t about me, though. Today is about Allie, and I will stand there and watch Freddie being put in the ground, even though it’ll be like pulling teeth for me every single moment.
Allie smiles when I wake her gently, placing the tea down beside her. Then she remembers what’s going to happen and has a little cry in my arms.
Yes, today is not a day to be concerned about what’s going on in my stupid head. Today I am just a pair of arms and a soothing voice. This suits me just fine.
‘Bloody hell, he was popular, wasn’t he?’ I say, dumbfounded, as we pull up at the graveyard and get out of the car. The place is packed. I’ve never seen so many people at a funeral in all of my life. There must be four hundred people here. No wonder the whole service was scheduled to take place out here in the open air. You’d never have fitted even half the people gathered into that small church.
Allie smiles and takes my hand. ‘Yes. People loved him. He was a very special man.’
I look up and squint at the early autumnal sunshine. ‘Good weather for it.’ It’s an asinine thing to say, but I’m still quite blown away by the amount of people who have turned out to see Freddie buried, so my mind’s drifting a little.
‘Yes, I suppose,’ Allie replies. She then turns to give her mother, Jennifer, a weak smile, who returns it in kind. I would have liked to have met Jennifer and Allie’s father, David, in better circumstances than at a funeral.
I just hope I get the chance to see them again before mine comes around.
Stop it. Arms and a soothing voice, remember!
I breathe deeply, give Allie’s hand a comforting squeeze and start to walk with her towards the gathered mourners.
The ground where Freddie will be buried is close to the back of the graveyard. His casket sits by the side of the open grave, ready to be hoisted in by several black-clad pall-bearers, who are loitering discreetly off to one side. There’s a fair bit of grass surrounding the grave, where the majority of the mourners are tightly packed. A space has been cleared right in front, into which Allie’s family and I slot ourselves. To my left and right I can see Freddie’s fellow Helmore Care Home residents, all decked out in funereal black like the rest of us. Most are sat down on foldaway chairs, as you’d expect due to their age and infirmity. Bernard looks close to tears, as does Deidre. Who can blame them?
The vicar looks reassuringly boring. There are no expensive suits or tans here. This man is all about the cassock, dog collar and soft voice, which is only right and proper.
It is with a soft voice that the vicar starts to tell Freddie’s life story to us – and I have never heard anything so incredible in all of my life.
I knew Freddie Stockhouse was both an actor and a musician, but the extent of his career comes as a complete surprise.
‘He knew Laurence Olivier?’ I whisper to Allie from one side of my mouth.
‘Yes,’ Allie replies in an equally hushed voice. ‘They used to get drunk on port and play cards badly. Olivier cheated a lot, apparently.’
It appears Freddie Stockhouse had done pretty much everything in his time on earth.
Other than curing cancer and climbing Mount Everest, the old bastard had accomplished practically every good thing there was to do in this life – and he travelled extensively across the planet to do it. His passport must have been as thick as a telephone directory.
From sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, to performing in front of the Japanese emperor’s family, to starting a successful youth theatre in a deprived Indonesian village, this man had achieved so much it’s a wonder he made it to eighty-seven without dropping dead years ago from overexertion.
The fact he did it all with barely two pennies to rub together half the time makes it all the more incredible. It seems Freddie was the living epitome of the phrase ‘money can’t buy you happiness’. It’s a lesson I only started to learn myself a few months ago.
‘Lion taming?!’ I exclaim, my whisper so loud this time that Bernard looks up from his sad reverie for a moment to see what the noise is.
By the time the vicar is telling us about how Freddie gave up six months of his life to build toilets in Africa, I’m reeling.
So much life! So much experience! So much time!
No wonder there are so many people at this bloody funeral. Freddie Stockhouse must have met thousands of them during his life.
And here I am . . . barely into my thirties and I’m probably already finished.
Christ on a bike.
The open-air service takes a good half an hour to wrap up, such is the length of Freddie’s obituary. Eventually, though, the vicar stands aside to allow the pall-bearers to do their job, and Freddie Stockhouse is slowly lowered into place, to the accompaniment of Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’. This couldn’t be more appropriate – especially given the fact that Sinatra apparently once spilled his drink over Freddie in a Las Vegas bar and offered him one of the showgirls as compensation.
While Ol’ Blue Eyes sings, I do my job as a pair of arms and a soothing voice as Allie cries softly into my shoulder. Her mother, Jennifer, gives me a thankful look. I also think I see a little pity in there as well, which tells me Allie has very probably told her about my condition.
As the crowd starts to disperse on its way to the wake being held at Helmore Care Home, Allie and I linger by Freddie’s grave for a while, letting the silence eventually wash over us as the graveyard empties.
‘What a life,’ I say softly, watching the wind pick up a few leaves from the grass in front of the grave.
‘It was. The stories he used to tell me were quite amazing.’
‘I wish . . . I wish . . .’
‘That you’d got to know him better?’
‘Er . . . yes, that’s right.’
That wasn’t what I was going to say.
What I want to say is that I wish I had the time afforded to me that Freddie had. But I can’t say anything of the sort – because I’m a pair of arms and soothing voice today, and nothing else.
‘Shall we go?’ I say, turning to Allie to look at her. ‘It’s getting cold, and people will be expecting us.’
‘In a while, please,’ she replies. ‘I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet at the moment.’
Allie might be enjoying the peace and quiet, but for me, it’s torture. I need people around me. I need noise and distraction so my thoughts don’t keep coming back to the fact that, compared to Freddie Stockhouse, I’ve had no life at all.
I manage to maintain my role as comforting arms and a soothing voice until about 7 p.m. By then I’ve had a couple of drinks and I’m tired from being on my feet all day. That bastard headache is back again as well, of course. Its presence is almost an inevitability now.
My resolve breaks as Allie and I are walking towards her flat, having been dropped off just up the road by her parents.
‘Are you okay, Nathan?’ Allie asks me as we amble along the road. ‘You’ve been quiet for most of the day.’
‘Have I?’
‘Yes. When Bernard was talking to you about Freddie’s time in Reluctant Badger, you didn’t look like you were paying that much attention. I thought that’s something you’d be really interested in.’
Damn it. I thought I’d done better at hiding how I was feeling throughout the day.
‘Sorry. I . . . I had something on my mind.’
Allie pauses for a moment. ‘Your illness?’
We haven’t really talked about the tumour since she told me about Freddie’s death. It’s been better that way. ‘Yeah, I guess,’ I reply reluctantly.
Allie stops. ‘Are you feeling all right? Is it hurting you? Oh, I’m so sorry, Nathan. I should have thought about it!’
‘No! Please! Don’t worry! I didn’t want you to have to think about it, not with what’s happened to you in the past few days. And I’m not feeling poorly, honestly! It’s just that your grandad led such an amazing life and I’ve done nothing with mine . . . and now I’m not going to get the chance to change that, and I . . . I . . .’
Allie looks incredulous. ‘What are you talking about? You have done things with your life! I’ve only known you a few months and I can see that as plain as day.’
I shake my head. ‘You say that, but I don’t feel it. There’s so much I wanted to do, Allie . . . so much I wanted to accomplish, and now I won’t, because I have no time.’
Oh great, now I’m getting tearful again. The dam that I’d rather effectively raised throughout the day in order to help Allie is crumbling away – and the problem with damming your emotions up is that when it breaks, those feelings come bursting through without any control.
Allie grabs my hand. ‘You don’t know that, Nathan! You don’t know how long you have. You might have plenty of time!’
I pull away from her. I shouldn’t, but it’s a reflex action.
She doesn’t understand!
‘No, Allie. I don’t have time!’ I’m sounding angry now, and I don’t want to – not today, not when I made a promise. ‘I can’t do anything! I can’t go anywhere!’ I look to the darkened skies. ‘I’m frozen! Any second now it could end and I’m terrified! I’ve done nothing worthwhile and now I’m never going to get the chance to!’ The look I give Allie is so full of self-pity that a part of me just wants to curl up and die. ‘Your grandfather had eighty-seven years. He had a life. But you can’t go dancing with royalty or tame any lions when you know you could drop dead at any moment!’
Allie steps forward. ‘Nathan, I—’
I thrust out both hands. ‘No! Please, Allie! I don’t want to talk about it any more.’ I stumble backwards. For some reason I have the overwhelming urge to get away from her – to get away from everything. I just need to be alone.
I look around for a cab and see one parked up at the top of the road. ‘I’m going to go now.’
‘No, Nathan, please stay with me!’ Allie begs.
‘I can’t! I can’t stay with you! I want to more than anything else in this world, but I CAN’T!’
And with that, I’m running away.
The tears blur my vision as I close in on the cab. I don’t look back at Allie standing there on the street corner alone, because if I do I might just turn around and go back. And that would be a bad idea – because sooner or later, I’m going to have to go away permanently and there will be no turning back then.
I jump in the cab, wiping my eyes.
‘Where to, mate?’ the cabbie asks.
I think for a moment, trying desperately to marshal my thoughts. I need to get to somewhere alcoholic and quickly.
‘The Elysium Bar . . . take me to the Elysium Bar,’ I tell the cabbie, and slouch back into the seat, nibbling on one finger and staring into space at nothing.
Two hours later and I’m still staring into space, but for vastly different reasons. It’s amazing how six double vodka and Cokes can change your perspective on life – largely from a vertical one to something more horizontal.
I’m about to order a very ill-advised shot of tequila from the barman when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
‘Nathan!’ a female voice says from behind me. I look around to see a brunette in a small black dress. It’s testament to the power of vodka that it takes me a good ten seconds to realise that the voice belongs to someone I was sleeping with until fairly recently.
‘’llo, Sienna,’ I tell her, affecting a smile. The last time I saw this woman I was throwing her out of my house, so I figure I can at least try to look pleased to see her to make up for it. Mind you, I’m so drunk, I probably just look like I’ve suffered a head injury.
. . . another head injury, I mean.
‘How are you?’ she asks, which is a loaded question, if ever there was one.
‘’nestly, Sienna? Been better.’
She affects a sympathetic look. ‘That tumour thing again?’ she says, like I have a nasty case of irritable bowel syndrome and not a life-threatening cerebrodondregliwhatshisface.
I stare at her for a second, trying to think of a response that doesn’t involve too many swear words or spittle. ‘Yeah. Still that tumour thing,’ I eventually say.
‘Aw man, that sucks.’ Sienna says, which is probably the best I’m going to get out of her, sympathy-wise. She looks around for a second. ‘Are you with anyone tonight?’
‘’scuse me?’
‘Are you with anyone?’ she asks again, curling an arm around my neck. ‘Only I am. And I don’t like it.’ Her eyes have gone smoky. ‘How about you and me go back to my flat and relive some good times?’
I look at her for a second in disbelief . . . and then burst out laughing, nearly falling off my bar stool as I’m consumed by maniacal giggles.
‘What’s so funny?’ she asks, recoiling a little as I basically fall apart in front of her.
It takes a good few moments for me to get control of myself. I have no idea why her request is so hilarious . . . but it just is. ‘I don’t . . . I don’t think that’d be a very good idea, Sienna,’ I say, wiping my mouth. ‘I might . . . I might drop dead b’fore you get my cock out.’
This makes me laugh so hard that I do indeed topple off the stool for a moment, one unsteady hand the only thing between my head and another concussion courtesy of the bar’s edge.
Sienna’s eyebrow arches as I sit back down carefully. ‘Well, if you change your mind any time, then give me a call.’ She runs a hand down my chest. ‘I miss you, Nathan. We had a fun time together . . . we can again, if you like.’
This just sends me off into another huge gale of hysterics. For some reason, seeing Sienna and being offered sex with her so bluntly is possibly the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever experienced.
‘Sure thing, Sienna!’ I cry, tears of laughter in my eyes. ‘Why not? After all . . . we’ve got all the time in the world, haven’t we?’
‘Yeah! Of course!’ she replies, completely missing the point of both this conversation and my entire life.
A young black woman in an equally small blue dress approaches us. ‘Sienna! We’re going back to Sasha’s place. She’s got blow and a new hot tub!’
Sienna’s eyes go wide. ‘Wow, Nevaeh! That sounds great!’ She turns and looks back at me. ‘How about it, Nathan? You want to come back to Sasha’s with us? You’ll have a great time with all of us, I promise!’ She holds out one hand towards me, an expectant look on her face.
I give Sienna and her extremely attractive friend a long, hard look and can instantly feel the axis of my world shifting beneath me.
This time it has nothing to do with the drink, though.
It would be so easy, wouldn’t it?
. . . so easy to just get up, take Sienna’s hand and follow her back to a flat I’ve never been to before, where drugs, sex and a hot tub await me.
I can take the path of least resistance. I can just fucking escape everything.
It’s certainly something the old Nathan would have been well and truly up for – the Nathan that effectively stopped existing the second I walked out of Mr Chakraborty’s office nearly six months ago.
But here and now, I can be that Nathan again. Tonight, I can live that life again.
No tumour. No death sentence. No time limit.
Wouldn’t that just be so wonderful? To be him again? If only for a short while?
After all, what’s really stopping me?
I’m half off the stool and reaching out to take Sienna’s hand when Allie’s face flashes through my mind. Not as it was the last time I saw her, in the street earlier tonight, but as it was the first time I ever saw her – red, blotchy and sweaty in that stupid Libby the Happy Lemon costume.
My hand, within touching distance of Sienna’s, freezes in mid-air.
I’m going to die and nothing I do matters any more.
Except this.
Except Allie.
I slump back down on to the stool, feeling the world shift on its axis again.
‘You go,’ I tell Sienna with a smile. ‘Go and have fun in the hot tub. I’m going to stay here and order another drink.’
‘Okay,’ Sienna replies, looking disappointed. ‘But I’ll see you again soon, yeah?’ she says, as her friend grabs her arm and tries to lead her away.
I give Sienna a grave look. ‘Yeah, sure,’ I tell her – knowing full well that I’ll probably never lay eyes on her again.
And with that, Sienna is pulled away from me, back into the crowd and out of my sight.
I turn back to the bar and order that tequila I’d promised myself.
‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ the barman asks, watching me sway back and forth on the stool.
I fix him with a drunken stare. ‘Oh, good grief, yes,’ I reply, with a smile on my face that doesn’t reach my eyes.
This is the last coherent thought I have that evening.
. . . or for the next two days, for that matter.