Hollywood Ending (14 page)

Yes. All us wonderful people in the dark. When the film ended and the screen was turned off, the lawn was plunged into darkness. I looked over at Hank and even in the shadows I could see he was crying.

We hailed a cab back to his apartment. It was still strange to see him out in the night air, standing in his front yard, the wind blowing through his greyish blond hair. It was a beautiful sight. I handed him back his bed pillows.

‘You sure you don't want me to help you with those?' I asked.

‘I'm fine, I just gotta get in,' he said, racing for the front door of his apartment.

I yelled out the window of the cab. ‘Hank!'

He turned around. ‘Yeah, what?'

‘How 'bout next time
you
tell
me
where you wanna go?'

‘Next time. Yeah, sure,' he yelled back, and before I could say anything else he was gone, flying up the stairs as fast as someone his age can.

EIGHTEEN

The next day I found myself standing on Benji's doorstep even though I knew he wasn't home. Benji and his parents were long gone up to Yosemite. Mrs Connor had given me a spare key years ago, just in case Benji ever forgot his, as if we were joined at the hip. To be fair, that wasn't so far from the truth, but it was the enthusiasm with which she gave it to me that made the whole exchange a little creepy. I felt like she was trying to push us closer together and turn us into a couple, and was secretly hoping that we would ‘play house'.

I took the key from my pocket, opened the door and went over to the wall to punch in the alarm code. The house was deathly quiet. I crept through the kitchen with its spotless surfaces. I walked down the hallway, past all the happy portraits of Benji through the years, his parents flanked either side. Freddy Prinze snuggled into my legs, happy to have the house all to himself, content with the automatic cat feeder that sat in the corner, exposing a fresh batch of food each day.

I pushed open Benji's door. For some reason I hesitated before stepping forward, as if expecting the room to be booby-trapped, or for bats to fly out as if abandoning a cave for the night sky. But it was just a bedroom. Mrs Connor had made his bed before he left; the sheets were freshly laundered. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The posters on the walls that you would find in any teenager's bedroom; the collection of objects in the cabinet were, to the unknowing eye, pieces of bric-a-brac collected from yards sales. But the reality was something much more disturbing. I opened the cabinet door, touched the piece of floor where RFK had supposedly fallen. I placed my hand flat on the piece of linoleum, waited for something, anything, perhaps an electrical charge, a bolt of light, a dose of meaning. Nothing came. It was just linoleum.

I turned to the cupboard, the reason I was there. I hoped I wasn't too late. Slowly I opened the door, pushed aside all the perfectly pressed T-shirts on hangers, felt my way through the darkness of the mess below. Finally I felt it; underneath a carelessly tossed robe was the unmistakeable smoothness of glass. I picked up the robe, not wanting to look but knowing I would have to. All of a sudden the cat came back to me: poor little Oscar, thrown in a dumpster and left to bake in the summer heat.

I held my breath. There, in the glass bowl, was Benji's goldfish, but he wasn't lying motionless on his side, and he hadn't floated to the top. He was hiding in his little castle, not moving much, but enough to let me know he was alive. I put the robe back over the top and pulled the bowl out carefully. I would have to expose him to the light a little at a time: too much at once might send him into shock.

‘Come on Sid,' I said. ‘We're running away.'

I closed the cupboard door, left Benji's room, and set the alarm again before leaving.

NINETEEN

That night when I arrived at Hank's I was surprised to find the door wide open and the chair in front of the television empty. In the middle of the room stood a man wearing a baseball cap, looking like a mirage. He was young, tanned, had black curly hair and bright red sneakers, and looked out of place in Hank's dingy apartment. He reminded me of Jim Morrison scrubbed up, his unruly hair tucked inside the cap. He turned towards me, empty beer bottles under his arms, and I saw that his cap had the name of a movie studio printed across the front. We looked at each other.

‘Who are you?' I asked.

‘Who am I?'

‘Yeah. Who are you? Where's Hank?'

‘He's not here.'

‘Hank!' I yelled, racing towards the closed door of the bedroom and swinging it open. Empty.

‘I said he's not here,' the man repeated, throwing the bottles into a black recycling container that he must have brought with him. I walked towards the bathroom and opened the door. No Hank. There was water everywhere, as if someone had just stepped out of the shower and not bothered to put down the bath mat. That's when I saw a spot of blood on the edge of the bath. I'd seen enough photos of blood to know it was fresh. And it was wet.

‘Where is he?' I demanded, storming back to the living room. ‘I saw blood in there. Tell me what's going on!'

‘Whoa, take it easy,' the man said, holding up his hands as if shielding himself from attack. ‘Hank's in hospital.'

My lip started to tremble. ‘What happened?'

‘He fell in the shower. Hit his head. He's out of emergency so it's all cool. I'm just tidying up, then I'm grabbing some things for him.'

‘What hospital is he in?'

‘Calm down. He's fine.'

‘Just tell me where he is!'

He picked up the recycling container and placed it under the kitchen sink. I was surprised at his familiarity with the place. Was this Hank's secret helper?

‘I'm going over there now,' he said, running his hands under the tap and wiping them dry with a towel. He waited. ‘Are you coming or not?'

We drove to the hospital in a rusty old convertible with torn leather seats, top down, CD player blasting some crappy dance music. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was at its hottest, leaving long, glistening waves of heat along the surface of the road like in a dream.

‘I'm Jake,' he yelled over the music. ‘Jake Gilmore.'

He looked around college age, with his red Converse sneakers and crumpled black T-shirt. He tapped a cigarette from a packet and put it in his mouth. ‘I've seen you before at Hank's place.'

‘Can you turn the music down please?' I asked. My mind was racing and the last thing I needed was some inane dance track blaring in my ears.

‘Sorry,' he said, and turned the volume down. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it behind his ear. ‘What's your name?'

‘Hilda.'

‘Hilda? Like the Saint?'

‘I don't know. Is there a Saint Hilda?'

‘Sure is. She was meant to be very wise, very knowledgeable.'

‘If I'm so knowledgeable then how come I've never heard of you?'

He flashed me a grin, and his teeth were even whiter than Benji's. ‘Hank hasn't mentioned me?'

‘No. He hasn't.'

After all of Hank's paranoia it was odd to walk into his apartment and find a young guy. I guess I'd always assumed Hank's helper was a middle-aged Mexican. Jake pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses from his pocket and put them on.

‘Strange,' he said. ‘It's interesting he hasn't said anything, I mean, considering the amount of time you spend with him.'

‘How would you know that?'

‘I'm his neighbour. I live downstairs.'

‘You mean in the apartment under his?'

‘Yeah, that's right. Man, who did you think I was?'

‘I don't know. You could have been, like, a debt collector or something.'

‘Or the Feds?' he asked with a grin. ‘A long-lost son perhaps? Heir to the Anderson fortune?'

‘I don't know. It's just strange that he's never mentioned you. I didn't know Hank had any other friends.'

‘Well, we aren't exactly
friends
. I just help him out with stuff occasionally, odd jobs and things like that.'

‘Why?'

‘Why what?'

‘Why do you help him?'

Jake stared at me. ‘Why? Because I'm his neighbour. That's what neighbours do.'

‘I don't know many guys your age who like hanging around with old guys like Hank.'

‘I don't know many teenage girls who do either. I guess we're both kind of strange, huh?'

We? I hadn't been aware that I was part of a team, a veritable contingent tending to Hank's needs. I thought it was strictly a solo venture. Even Benji had been banished from the operation when three became a crowd.

We pulled up at the hospital and I followed Jake up to the ward where they had Hank under observation. He was in a room at the end of the corridor, sitting up in bed, a bandage around his head. I started to walk faster and could feel Jake racing to catch up with me.

‘Hank!' I yelled. The nurse jumped. ‘What the hell did you do?'

When he saw me his eyes grew wide. ‘Hey Hilda!' he cried, and gave me a big toothy grin. ‘How ya doin'?'

‘What the hell happened to you?'

‘Bernie! He pushed me over in the shower!'

Jake pushed forward. ‘What is he talking about?'

‘No one pushed you, Hank. You probably fell.'

‘No I didn't! Bernie pushed me!'

‘Who's Bernie?' Jake asked.

‘He's a guy who lived in Hank's apartment,' I began. ‘He was an actor.'

‘What's this actor got against Hank? Why would he come in and push him over?'

‘He wouldn't. He's dead.'

‘He died in my bathroom!' Hank yelled as he tried to sit up. The nurse pushed him back down. ‘He killed himself in my bathroom!'

‘An actor died in Hank's apartment?' Jake asked. ‘When?'

‘It was decades ago,' I explained.

‘I'm very confused,' Jake said.

‘Nurse!' Hank yelled.

‘No need to yell, Mr Anderson. I'm right here.'

‘Gimme your ass,' he said, reaching out. She slapped his hand away.

Jake laughed, then clasped a hand over his mouth when I glared at him. ‘What?' he said. ‘Come on. You've gotta admit that was kinda funny.'

‘I'm so sorry,' I said, turning to the nurse. ‘He's probably just concussed.'

‘It's perfectly fine,' she said, smiling through gritted teeth. ‘It's just the morphine talking.'

‘Cocktease,' Hank muttered.

‘Hank, do you know this guy?' I said, nodding towards Jake. ‘He was at your apartment.'

‘Hey Hank,' Jake said, holding the toiletry bag aloft. ‘Got your toothbrush.'

‘What'd you bring him for?' Hank yelled. ‘The kid's a goddamn pain in the ass.'

‘He gave me a ride.'

‘I'm his neighbour,' Jake said, explaining to the nurse. ‘I live in the apartment under his.'

‘Are you the one who called the ambulance?' she asked.

‘Sure am.'

‘That was really lovely of you to look out for your elderly neighbour like that,' she said, and she inched closer to Jake, just stopping short of batting her eyelids.

‘Oh please,' he said, all fake humility. ‘I did what any other decent person would do. If we didn't look out for each other, the world would be a very soulless place indeed.'

‘Soulless,' the nurse repeated, nodding and contemplating. ‘Yes it would.'

‘You've got to be kidding me,' I muttered under my breath, and when I looked back at Hank I was relieved to see he had dozed off, his snore filling the room like a jack-hammer.

We stayed at the hospital until the doctor arrived. He told us that Hank would need to stay overnight so they could take x-rays. It appeared to be just a concussion, he explained, but they wanted to be sure.

‘In your medical opinion,' I asked, ‘should a man his age be living on his own? I mean, doesn't he need someone to look after him? Perhaps he needs to be in a home.'

‘He's not alone,' Jake said.

‘Are you family?' the doctor asked him.

‘I'm his neighbour. I check in on him all the time. Hank's more than capable of looking after himself.'

‘Actually, Mr Anderson's had a few close calls recently,' he said, opening Hank's medical file and running through it with a pen. This wasn't the first time Hank had been admitted. The previous year he'd been brought in unconscious and diagnosed with alcohol poisoning. Prior to that, he'd fallen down the concrete stairs outside his apartment, bruising his back and spraining an ankle. Still, I remembered Hank's words: ‘
Bernie pushed me
.' What role had I played in this? What crazy ideas had I put in his head?

I thanked the doctor and walked away, started to head back down the corridor towards Hank's room. Jake's arm shot out.

‘Whoah,' he said, grabbing me. ‘Where you going?'

I shrugged him off. ‘To see Hank.'

‘He's asleep. Nasty bump like that, he needs his rest. How about we go for a coffee?'

‘But I don't even know you.'

‘What are you, some kind of punk Nancy Drew? Here, pull my face. This isn't a Scooby-Doo mask, and it's not gonna come off in your hands. I just want to buy you coffee.'

‘Okay,' I sighed. I was tired, had no idea where I was, and didn't have the energy to try to figure things out. On top of everything else I was feeling disappointed. Benji had said that I liked being the only person in Hank's life, that it made me feel special, and I guess that was true. Everything was clear now. But what the hell would a guy like Jake want with an old man like Hank?

‘Like I said, Hank's mentioned you before,' Jake said as we walked from the ward. ‘But he hasn't told me much. I'd like to get to know the young lady who's been spending so much time with my neighbour.'

‘I have some questions I want answered myself,' I said. Somewhere in the hospital an alarm sounded and we watched doctors and nurses rushing from one room to the next.