Love Song Read online

  He flailed about mentally within himself for a few seconds, hardly able to think that what she had said could possibly be true.

  Finally, the words seemed to blurt out of him and he said, ‘I thought, dear God! I mean I thought you people were meant to be able to do great things for stroke victims nowadays? I thought you were on top of all this stuff, what with all these advances in technology and brain scans and all that stuff. I thought that nowadays you never gave up on stroke victims?’

  ‘That depends on the initial damage, Jack. The scan indicated that this was a particularly damaging embolism, resulting in heavy bleeding. It would be unrealistic to expect any more than partial recovery. From talking to my colleagues here—’

  Polly stopped. She had elected to break the news to Jack because it was she who had, after all, looked after Hope, and knew Jack, if only by sight, enough to say hallo to him and pat the little girl that Hope and he sometimes brought to the clinic on the head.

  ‘Will you have help at home when we send the baby home, Jack? With the little one and a new baby, and Hope in here, you really are going to need help.’

  Polly thought it best to try to steer the conversation away from the immediate fate of her patient, and for a second she could see that the poor man, who looked wrecked, was indeed distracted by the practicalities of what might lie in front of him as father and stepfather.

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course. Yes. We have plenty of help. Mrs – er – Shepherd, I think that’s her name, at the cottages at Hatcombe, where Mrs Merriott used to live with her husband’s great-aunt, and then of course there are two daughters still at home, and of course I have brought up three children myself. So, yes, I think we can manage. Until Hope gets better. Because she is going to get better. She’ll be back with us. As soon as you can say – well, anything. She will be back. I know it.’

  ‘It must be very hard for you to accept what has happened—’

  ‘Hard? I don’t accept it! I simply will not accept that Hope will not come back to me. It’s as simple as that. I will not accept that she will be lying in there instead of coming back to talk and laugh with me as she always has. I will not accept it, so don’t expect me ever to leave her side from now on, not ever, do you hear? I will not leave her. She will get better! She will!’

  Jack turned towards the door behind which Hope lay, and flinging himself through it he fought his way past his tears to his love’s side, not caring that the duty nurses were seeing him, Jack Tomm, a grown man, crying.

  But once in the room he found that it was not just his tears that made seeing Hope so difficult. It was everything. The quiet, and the seeming dark of the room, and the tubes and tubes, and more tubes, and bottles, and things going ‘blip, blip, blip’. But he didn’t care, not a hoot, not a jot.

  He took her hand. She was his Hope. He would never leave her. Not ever!

  PART THREE

  The Way is not difficult; only

  There must be no wanting or

  Not wanting.

  Chao-Chou

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jack Tomm’s devotion to Hope Merriott was the talk of the hospital. When they came to take blood from her he liked to make little jokes which the nurses and everyone found touching, although not as moving as the sight of this man who would not leave the side of his so dearly loved love, who sat holding her hand for hours on end, sometimes reading to her, sometimes playing music to her, always telling her that he was there.

  Today when they came for some blood he said, ‘Watch it, darling, here comes the Frankenstein mob again,’ and when they went away again, he said, ‘I hope you didn’t feel that, darling?’

  From inside the peace of her silver-green shell Hope smiled to herself. Jack was so funny! She loved to hear his little jokes, listen for his voice, waiting for it to reach her where it would echo into her silver-green shell and tell her about all manner of things, about precious things that she had always held dear in her life when she had been with him on that far distant shore where she was no longer, but where he was, from where his voice was coming to her in her peaceful silver-green shell.

  * * *

  But sometimes, like today, Jack could not stay as long as he wished, and so Melinda came in with Letty, and they sat beside her and told her of their day, and on other days Claire – whose temporary job had come to an end – came in, and she read to her. It was an erratic family routine which had established itself, if only to get Jack to realize that he did have to go home sometimes and change and bath, and sometimes even shave, before he bolted back once more ‘to be with my Hope’.

  Of course it had been Jack’s idea to keep talking to her, or reading to her, or playing music to her, and perhaps because of this Melinda and Claire had felt shy at first, self-conscious, not really knowing whether or not they should be treating Hope as alive or dead, but they had quickly got used to what was required. Not so Rose who, when she came down on her one day off, temporarily freed from looking after Hugh Reilly’s house, had been petrified of even sitting with her mother.

  ‘What are we meant to be doing, Mel?’ she kept asking.

  ‘You’re not in a play, Rose, for goodness’ sake,’ Claire grumbled. ‘You’re going to see your mother. You can’t look for Mellie to direct you, as if you were in some production or other, you know. I mean, you just have to go and sit there.’

  ‘I’m dreading it!’

  Claire and Melinda stared at Rose, at first in furious, outraged horror, and then Melinda started to laugh, and although Claire did not, she did at least smile in understanding.

  That was so Rose, somehow. She was always the one to say exactly what she felt, and then wait for everyone else to tell her off, which they inevitably did, while all the while knowing that she had merely said what the rest of them had actually been feeling.

  ‘We felt just like you, at first,’ Claire agreed, ‘didn’t we, Mellie? But after a couple of visits we were fine. I mean it’s not like being with someone who’s dead, it’s like being with someone who’s very much alive, just doesn’t speak back, if you know what I mean?’

  Rose had found that there were two chairs either side of the bed, and Melinda directed her to the far one, and she sat on the nearer one, and while at first Rose just could not look at her mother, after a minute or so, allowing herself to look, bit by little bit, she soon got accustomed, and she sat in on Mellie reading to her from one of Hope’s favourite books and that somehow soothed Rose.

  As she said to Claire later, ‘There is something about favourite books that has that effect, and the special moments seem even more special because you know that they are coming, and in this case, in a hospital room, they spread themselves out, like a garden, all those somehow familiar words that you have never learnt but which you nevertheless know, and it’s suddenly all right, everything is all right, and you’re not frightened any more. Anyway, that’s what I think.’

  After that Rose had gone back to London, but she telephoned every evening, and that was when they had all started to pretend that it was all a sort of game, really.

  They pretended that looking after Letty and the baby was a hoot. They pretended that nappies and bottles and getting up in the night was the same. They made jokes about setting fire to disposables and, because they were so expensive, they called them ‘fivers’.

  ‘How many fivers have you set fire to today, Claire?’

  ‘Fourteen fivers – and they wouldn’t burn. Imagine!’

  Neither of them wanted Rose back, which was good, both for her and for them. It would be hell for her, and hell for them, and they all knew it, so the subject never came up, but she sent them money, another subject which never came up between them, except as a joke, because everything was in such a muddle that what else could they do except joke?

  ‘Something will happen to change everything,’ Rose confided to an ever more desperate Claire one evening.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  To Rose living in London on hope and cream cra
ckers, Claire was sounding more and more desperate. Claire herself did not know it, but because the voice is such a sensitive conveyor of the state of a person’s feeling, Rose heard her sister becoming less and less confident until her voice was almost a monotone, and it seemed to her that it was almost too hard to bear, to be there at Keeper’s as Claire was, and yet not want to be there at all.

  The young doctor stood by the desk in the pale yellow room, which, like so many official rooms everywhere, was bare of detail, a sort of void of a room which seemed to have nothing to do with hospitals, or patients, or sickness, or anything really except forms, some of which were attached to his clipboard which he now put down on the desk, making it seem almost obscenely untidy, and the clipboard pathetic, as if what it said was already past and did not matter, would never matter, not really, not the way Hope mattered, and Jack didn’t matter at all, not to himself anyway.

  To her who was still with him, he was sure he mattered to her, but not to himself, not any more, for he was in that state of tiredness where his whole life had become an out of body experience, all the time looking down on himself, wondering at what a strange kind of guy he was – that fellow – Jack Tomm.

  ‘What is love, do you think?’

  The doctor looked astounded. ‘I beg your pardon?’ He stared at the tall, bearded, rambling shambles of a man in front of him in his crumpled although obviously expensive clothes, with his strong good looks, his bright blue eyes and his controlled restlessness – which meant that although he stood still, and his hands and body were quite relaxed, he seemed to be moving inside, climbing and climbing to some height which the doctor could only sense, but which none the less frightened him.

  ‘I asked you – what is love, do you think?’ Jack raised his fine arched eyebrows and, what with his bright blue questioning eyes, everything in his face demanded an immediate answer of the white coat with the bland expression who now shifted, puzzled, almost hurt that someone should be asking him something that was not in a form, that did not have a box number attached to it, or could not be answered by pointing to an X-ray.

  ‘I really don’t think I, er, know, really, Mr Tomm—’

  ‘You must have some sort of idea, surely?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid I don’t, and I don’t have much time, either, Mr Tomm, much as I would like to debate such a question with you. I have very little time for such discussions thanks to the National Health reorganization, and the cut in our working hours.’

  ‘How can you be a doctor if you have no idea, not even an inkling of an idea about love? Without love you would have no people, and without people there would be no-one to cure, nothing for you to do, no fulfilment.’

  ‘Look, Mr Tomm—’

  ‘All right, let’s begin again, shall we? Do you know what Gertrude Stein asked before she died?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She asked, What is the answer? And when no answer came, she laughed and said, In that case what is the question?’

  ‘I really have very little time—’

  ‘And no questions, hmm?’

  There was a short pause, during which Jack’s eyes remained on the doctor’s face but his mind bent itself to trying to understand this other mind that did not want to contemplate the greatness of that greatest of all emotions, in all its forms. Then Jack snapped back to attention as the doctor spoke.

  ‘I’m afraid Mrs Merriott, my patient—’

  ‘My great love—’

  The doctor managed to look both embarrassed and shocked at that, which was probably why he cleared his throat.

  ‘I’m afraid there is no real news about her condition, Mr Tomm,’ he went on carefully, picking his way across his words as if he was afraid that the waiting Jack would suddenly pounce on him. ‘I have run a few checks on Mrs Merriott—’

  ‘My beautiful Hope—’

  ‘As I say, I ran a few checks on her, and I am afraid there is really nothing at all to indicate any change in the depth of the coma, which is very disappointing.’

  ‘Nothing to indicate it yet.’

  ‘Well, precisely, nothing to indicate it, yet.’

  ‘Except your tests—’

  ‘We can only do tests on Mrs Merriott, Mr Tomm. We can’t do anything else.’

  ‘You could. You could exercise some humanity around her. That is another alternative, besides tests, I would say. Quite a positive alternative.’

  The doctor stared at Jack, almost dreading what he would have to say next, and yet at the same time filled with a curious fascination, as someone might be who sees someone standing without clothes in the middle of a busy high street, a harmless sight, and yet none the less exercising a strange fascination on the clothed.

  ‘For instance, yesterday,’ Jack went on, and he found himself breathing in deeply and then breathing out slowly, to control something inside himself which might become uncontrollable, which might burst out of him, and cover the room which was so bare of humanity, so devoid of anything, with red raw humanity and feeling. ‘Yesterday, and this was not a test, doctor, this was a human reaction, I squeezed Mrs Merriott’s hand and I swear I felt some movement. So.’ He nodded and the look in his eyes was replaced by wonder at the memory of what he had felt. ‘So. You see. So you see, you must be just a little behind with your tests, doctor. Or do your tests not allow for human reactions, only rats’? And by the by, why is it always rats and beautiful gentle guinea pigs whom you people carry out all your experiments on? I mean whoever thought that a rat or a guinea pig’s reaction was the same as ours? I have actually got to know both extremely well at different times, and I can tell you neither of them are like human beings, not in the least. They are gentle, clean, non-destructive and do not bear the slightest likeness to ourselves. So why do you people think they are so like us that any reaction of theirs will have any bearing on ours? Why condemn them to lives of torture and agony when – doctor – we are so totally unalike? You must tell me. It’s something I have always wanted to ask someone. And now I have.’

  The doctor looked down at his clipboard, waited for a few seconds and then began again, obviously determined not to pay any attention to the madman in front of him.

  During those few seconds Jack imagined the doctor going home to his wife that evening, having put in the statutory hours laid down by management – perhaps even clocked out. He might use that expression, who knew? He imagined him saying to his wife, who would momentarily lower the switch on the telly to hear, My God, if today was a fish I would throw it right back! Remember that woman I was telling you about, the one on the life support machine – been there for weeks. Well, I had the boyfriend in. What a nutter! Blabbing on about rats and guinea pigs and I don’t know what. I’m glad they’re not all like him, I tell you.

  ‘Mr Tomm. I know you are going through a great strain, but really, I must ask you not to be quite so demanding, if you don’t mind, to try to see things from a medical point of view. I know it is very difficult—’

  ‘Life is demanding, doctor, death is demanding, the only thing that is not demanding is you, which surely is wrong? Medicine and philosophy are as one, are they not? Should it not be you people, most of all, who should be asking the questions?’

  ‘Mr Tomm! I am trying to explain what the chances are of Mrs Merriott’s surviving, and since her husband has not come to the hospital since she was brought in, and there is only you in daily attendance, I must explain to you despite the fact that you have no actual status! What I am trying to say is that I do not have to be here, and I do not have to have this conversation with you. You have no status in law, but because you are obviously in love with Mrs Merriott, I am quite willing to take you into account! Now either listen, or I will leave.’

  ‘It is you who have not been listening – either to the questions or the answers.’

  The doctor came up for air, took a breath, and gave it one last go.

  ‘No matter what you think of doctors, we try, Mr Tomm. We really do. And if I may say so, if
you don’t like the way we do things, you try being us, and see how you get on. It’s not easy. Believe me.’

  Jack opened his large eyes wider, and then he shook his head slowly, and his voice lowered itself so that it was hardly audible. ‘You want to turn off her machine, don’t you?’

  The doctor looked at him and for the first time a look of compassion came into his eyes. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you want me to agree?’

  ‘Yes. Although, as I said, there is no question of your having a status in law, you have …’ the doctor gave a half-smile of great gentleness, ‘you are devoted.’

  ‘You want me to go and tell Hope’s daughters that we should switch off their mother’s life support machine?’

  Jack knew straight away from the look in the doctor’s eyes that he was there in one.

  ‘Why don’t we both sit down?’

  Jack sat down and as he did so he seemed to collapse.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No. Of course not. Would you be?’

  The doctor looked at him. He could not allow his emotions to become involved, it would be unprofessional, but it was difficult to prevent some feeling for this great rock of a man creeping into his dealings with him, for who could not feel moved by someone who so loved this woman on her life support machine that he would only leave her for a few hours at a time? Besides, he had, when he was at school, read of people who had gone mad with grief, and perhaps that was what had happened to this man. He was mad with grief.

  * * *

  Rose must be there, of course, so she must be summoned home, or back to what passed as home. And Melinda, and Claire, but not Letty, really she was too small, Jack thought dully as he drove home. Just too small, little Letty, to be told anything except euphemisms. For a second Jack wished that he too was too small to be told anything except euphemisms, and he remembered, long ago, holding his father’s hand as they walked together by a river in Cumbria where they had lived, and he thought of how gentle his father had been, and he wished suddenly, for a few weakening seconds, that he was that small boy once more.