Praise (29 page)

Finally another wardsman came for me. He took me up to my ward. It was a long crowded room, about forty beds. One end male, the other end female. Everyone seemed to be very old and very sick. There were cries of pain. Hands writhed above sheets. A lot of the patients looked catatonic, lying on their backs, open-mouthed and vacant. It was my fourth time in hospital and I'd never seen anything like it.

A nurse and the wardsman conferred, then he wheeled me down to a bed. I got off the trolley. I said, ‘What is this place?'

This is ward 2D.'

‘Ward 2D?'

‘It's the end of the world.'

‘Oh.'

‘It's the worst ward in the hospital. It's where they send all the old people. The ones who won't ever get better but who aren't quite ready to die either. The ones the nursing homes refuse to take.'

‘Why am I here?'

‘They couldn't fit you anywhere else. The hospital is always packed on Friday nights.'

He went off and I settled down. On my right there was a thin old man with huge ears. His feet had been cut off. He was rubbing his left ear and staring down at the bandaged stumps. On my left was another old man. He was asleep. A large clear tube ran out of his stomach. It went up to a bottle on the wall. The bottle was full of grey, bloody pus. I listened to the moans, the wailing, the terrible old voices. The wardsman was right. The place
was
the end of the world, it was purgatory. No one there was ever going to leave alive.

I couldn't sleep. I didn't know what drugs they were dripping into me, but they were doing something. I was high. It was like acid. Around eleven they turned all the lights off and I sat there hallucinating. The beds were moving, the old people were getting up, tottering around, pus gurgling in the tubes.

I dozed. I heard voices in my mind. The catatonics were talking to me. Their spirits were restless and trapped. The voices ranted about colours and brightness and pain. A female voice started yelling that she was not going to leave, she was not going to
go
. I woke up. There was a cluster of nurses down around one of the beds on the women's section. She's dead, I thought, she's
gone
.

I was right. The nurses drew all the curtains around our beds. Then I heard them wheel her out.

‘Why do you close all the curtains?' I whispered to the nurse when she opened mine again.

‘We don't want to upset anyone,' she whispered back.

But the ward was awake now, the old people knew.

By the next morning I was feeling more coherent. The consultant came by on his rounds. He examined me, listened to my lungs, made me blow into the machine again. I hadn't improved.

He said, ‘I think you'll be here for a few days.'

‘Oh.'

‘You're a smoker aren't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, you're a fool. Did anyone tell you the results of your blood test? It was appalling. If I'd been here last night you would've been in intensive care. You could've very easily
died
yesterday.'

I looked guilty. I felt guilty.

‘I will tell you this only once,' he said. ‘If you keep smoking, I wouldn't give you fifteen more years. Stop!'

I said, ‘I will.'

Two days passed. It wasn't too bad. After the first night it was even good. My breathing gradually relaxed. They brought me three decent enough meals a day. I was being looked after. It was what I'd always wanted. I stayed in bed. I slept, read newspapers, stared, thought. On the second day I got up and wandered around the ward. I watched the old people slipping away. Some of them could still talk. Their conversation was full of memories.

My only worry was the car. It was clocking up all that money. A nurse had told me that they only charged a maximum of eight dollars a day, but still, I was going to have to ring someone, let them know, ask them to come and take it away. I didn't want to have to do that. I thought about who it would be.

I thought, Rachel?

I thought, Maree, Frank, Leo, my family?

But I dreaded talking to any of them. They cared. They'd come and visit, they'd abuse me about the smoking, they'd be nice to me. I was embarrassed enough as it was.

On the third day I finally went out to the phones in the hall. They were both occupied. I sat down. I still wasn't sure who I wanted to call. I thought it would be Rachel. I wanted to see her. I missed her. I missed her company. I hadn't been expecting that.

Some patients came out of the ward across the hall. A man and a woman, both young. I'd been told that the ward across the hall was the psych ward, the locked ward. So these were some of the crazies. They looked it. They were beautiful. They had thin faces and short cropped hair and dark eyes. And they were smoking, lounging up against the walls. The smoking confirmed it. Only the insane were allowed to smoke in hospitals. I watched them do it. Lifting the cigarettes, drawing it in, letting it go. It hurt. It was going to be hard. They saw me watching, looked me over with their distant, arrogant eyes. They were lords, they were gods, they had it all and they knew it.

What was I?

I was an asthma patient.

I knew who it had to be. I got up to the phone, put the money in the slot and dialled STD to Darwin.

Cynthia answered.

I said, ‘I'm in hospital, Cynthia. The asthma finally got me.'

‘What?' She started laughing. It was rich, loving laughter. ‘Oh my poor, poor baby,' she said. ‘You're sick? You're really sick?'

‘I am.'

‘You don't know how
good
that makes me feel.'

It was what I needed to hear.

In the end they kept me there a week. I rang Frank. He came and took my car away. Rachel visited several times. She sat on my bed and we talked. It was good. The others dropped through. I got better.

It was Friday afternoon again when they sent me back out. They gave me several bottle of pills, warnings and instructions, and I caught the lift down to the street. I stood on the footpath in front of casualty. I felt fit and strange. It was the real world again. I looked at the waiting line of taxis. Then I started walking home.

For the first time in several years, I was entirely healthy. Over the next few days I did not drink and I did not smoke. I woke up in the mornings and felt good. I could breathe. No coughing, no wheezing, no hangover. I could walk for hours ... and nothing happened. No pain, no attack.

I was untouchable, uncorrupted, pure. I had conversations and I was aloof to everything anyone said, anything
I
said. My voice seemed to have deepened from some of the drugs. I was still on high doses. I spoke with wisdom, authority. I'd been close to death. I knew it all.

But then I came off the drugs.

I felt strange, restless, uncomfortable. I longed for nicotine but that was gone forever. I couldn't look anyone in the eye. Conversations alternately disgusted or frightened me. I was incapable of dealing with people.

Then, after a few more days, that passed too.

And it was just me again.

Alone.

It was time to go back to the STD clinic for the results of the
AIDS
test.

The waiting room was a little more crowded this time. I sat and read the magazines. They were the same ones I'd read the last time. I moved around in my seat. I felt loose-limbed and aroused. I had an erection. It was the women in the underwear advertisements.

A doctor, a man this time, called my name. I followed him into one of the rooms. He sat down, I sat down. He took out my file and read down through it.

He looked at me. ‘Warts, huh?'

‘Yes.'

‘Just the one, I see. Did it fall off?'

‘It did.'

‘Noticed any more?'

‘No.'

‘Well, take off your pants and we'll have a look.'

I looked at him. ‘I'm here for results of an
AIDS
test.'

‘Oh.'

He went back to the file.

‘Oh, yes. Here it is. Negative. Didn't anyone tell you?'

‘No. They didn't.'

‘Well, there you go. Negative. Positive news, huh?'

He laughed.

I stood up and lowered my jeans.

After the clinic, I made my way to a barber.

I looked at my long, lank hair in the mirror.

‘Cut it off,' I said.

A few days later I was sitting in the flat. It was a Friday, early afternoon, two weeks after I'd left hospital. I was watching television. The weekend was looming. I had some money. I didn't know what to do with it. There didn't seem any point in going out. There was no one I wanted to see. Nothing new was going to happen. We'd exhausted it all.

The phone rang. It was my brother Stephen. He managed a section in the public service. I never had learned the name of it. He said, ‘I might be able to get you a job, if you want one.'

‘What doing?'

‘Well, just shit in the mailing room. It'd only be temporary. Three or four months. You interested?'

‘I'm not sure. Could I call you back in a while?'

‘Okay. Only make it this afternoon.'

‘I will.'

I hung up.

I looked around the flat. I thought about things. It was almost nine months since I'd been employed. Did I want to go back? Was this life working or wasn't it?

I didn't know any more. The old certainty was gone.

But a job, a
job?
Surely work wasn't the answer. Things weren't going too well for me at the moment, but surely the rest of society didn't have it right either, did they?

After a while I picked up the phone. I rang Carla's number. I thought she'd probably be out, driving her deliveries around. But she wasn't.

‘Gordon? I didn't think you'd call.'

‘I was wondering if you had any plans over the weekend?'

‘Nothing much. What'd you have in mind?'

‘A few drinks, maybe.'

‘Sure. Look, come over tonight if you want. There'll be a few of us around. No cocktails, though, just wine.'

‘That sounds fine.'

‘What've you been up to anyway? How'd you pull up after the party? You were really out of it when you left ...'

‘I know. I didn't pull up too well at all.'

‘No one did. There really
was
dishwashing liquid in some of those drinks.'

‘That explains many things.'

‘I know. I'll see you tonight, then?'

‘Okay. I'll be there.'

I put the phone down.

The afternoon was still waiting there. I got up. I put on some clothes and went out. It was a warm, sunny, winter's day.

I walked to the nearest corner store. I had eight dollars. I stood at the counter for some time, looking at the shelves. The attendant waited. I thought about him. He looked about my age.
He
was working.
He
could take it. What was different about me?

I looked at the shelves.

I thought,
fifteen years
.

Then I asked him to give me a pouch of White Ox tobacco. And, with it, two packs of cigarette papers, a bag of filters and a box of matches. He handed them over. He put his hand out for the money.

Eight dollars was just enough.