Death be Not Proud (3 page)

“At least,” Dad said, balancing on the edge of the sofa arm, adjusting his position as it creaked under him. “Emma had just won the inter-house tennis tournament at school and developed sunstroke.”

I was surprised he remembered that; I'd been forced to spend the rest of the blazing summer day in bed with the curtains drawn and a cold flannel on my head. I knew Mike Taylor as a doctor of some kind, and he had ruffled my hair and tugged my thick rope of a plait when last we met, congratulating me on my win before I succumbed to the effects of the sun. He had been easy going with an open, approachable manner, and nothing seemed to have changed. I sat in one of the old armchairs, the high sides and padded wings supporting my back and arms which ached from the unaccustomed exercise. He sat on the sofa, stretching his arms across the back and crossing his legs, revealing lively red socks. I eyed him guardedly. My mother called from the dining room, and my father went to help with the tea. He had lit a fire and curious flames tentatively explored the kindling; I watched them.

“You've been busy since I last saw you,” Mike said cheerfully.
Ah, so this wasn't a social call; I thought as much.
“You've been in the States, Hugh said. What did you make of it?”

I cut straight to the point. “What did they tell you?”

He cocked his head on one side and eyed me speculatively beneath thick eyebrows, their colour long gone.

“They're worried about your emotional state.”

I blinked at his bluntness.

“Oh – yes.”

“Do they have any reason to be worried?”

“No.”

“You've had a bit of a rough time out there, I believe – the attack nearly killed you; is that right?”

I kept my tone quite even.

“Yes.”

“And then something else happened, your mother said?” He stroked his top lip, waiting, but I said nothing; he didn't need to know about the bear, or anything else that followed. “Not bad going for one term, all things considered. How are you feeling about that, then?”

“Oh
please
!” I rolled my eyes.

“That's too obvious a tack, is it? I'm out of practice,” he said ruefully, running his hands through his shock of white hair, his scalp bright pink where the dense thatch thinned. “Well, I said to your parents I'd give it a try.” He grinned. He must be in his sixties, his good looks grizzled by time.

“You must have had a good doctor to get you back on your feet so quickly,” he went on. I viewed him suspiciously.

“Did my parents say that?”

“Well, no,” he admitted, “but they did describe your injuries in some detail, so it doesn't take a brain surgeon to work it out – which is a good thing, because that's not my line; stands to reason. A
Dr Lynes
, I think Penny said.”

I recoiled at the mention of his name.

“Yes.”

I looked away. The new-lit fire snapped and hissed greedily as the damp wood began to catch. The vigour of the flames made me feel tired.

“He must be good. Does he work at the university?”

I knew what he was trying to do in engaging me in conversation, drawing me out until he could delve deeper, penetrating the darker recesses of my mind; but it took less effort to go along with the pretence than to oppose it.

“Yes, Matthew heads up the medical faculty there.” I felt a swell of pride for him but I tried not to let it show in my voice in case it spilled onto my face, and then goodness only knows where it would end, and I didn't want to cry – not in front of this near-stranger.

“Matthew…
Matthew
Lynes?” he said sharply. “Matthew Lynes treated your injuries?”

I sat up, alert to the changed tone.

“Yes. Why, have you heard of him?”

“It can't be, it was
years
ago, but… the name,” he said, almost to himself. He looked at me. “What is he like – describe him.”

I struggled to find words to capture him. “He's quite tall, slim, blond, reserved and quietly spoken… he has very blue eyes…”

“Very good-looking? Or, he was,” he interrupted.

“Yes, he still is – very.” I blushed, wondering why he shouldn't be.

He stared at me curiously. “How old is he, roughly?”

I frowned, “Early thirties, I think.”

He dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. “Hah, well, obviously not the same person, then. That would've been quite a coincidence, though,” he mused.

“So you knew someone by the same name?” I probed.

He sat forward on the sofa, the old feather seat squishing under the pressure.

“Yes, some thirty years ago, it must be. I had a difficult op to perform – still the early days of some forms of cardiothoracic surgery, you see. We'd run into difficulty, and the only person who'd performed this particular procedure – pioneered it, actually – was in the States. Well, I had the patient on the slab – chest open – you're not squeamish are you?” I shook my head. “Heart failing as we watched, and we had nowhere else to turn. So we called this young chap up on a sort of improvised video link – very grainy picture, but it worked. It was the middle of the night there and he talked us through it – didn't bat an eyelid, very self-possessed, very calm for his age. Remarkable man. Only in his late twenties, early thirties, I'd say, but years ahead of the rest of us. Wonder what's happened to him?”

My heart leapt erratically and I stared at the man sitting in front of me. Even with my dodgy maths I could work out that Matthew would have been a young child at the time Mike referred to, yet I had never believed in coincidence.

“Remarkable chap,” he said again, shaking his head. “What a coincidence – that name. Still…”

I made an attempt to appear politely indifferent, but really my mind was in turmoil. It made no sense whatsoever, yet that made it all the more plausible. Matthew never added up, and here – in this chance meeting – I had the first indication other than my own observations, that my growing suspicions might be right after all.

My face cracked into a smile. “Yes –
what
a coincidence,” I said brightly. “Gosh, I'm hungry – it must be breakfast time; would you like a cup of tea?” I stood up. “So, what are
you going to report to my parents?” I asked, blithely, showing him the way.

He beamed. “Oh, that you're a basket case quite definitely, young lady; no doubt about it,” he replied, genially.
He had no idea…

I smiled at his joke. “And that's the medical term for it, is it?”

“From a cardiothoracic surgeon's point of view? Quite probably!”

 

I couldn't wait to leave them all drinking tea and chatting. I knew that as soon as I left my parents would press him for a medical diagnosis, and I felt confident now that he would give them what I wanted. I made my excuses, grabbing toast and a mug of tea for appearances' sake and retreated to the sanity of my own room where I could filter out the information I had gleaned.

How many blond, unusually attractive and highly skilled American surgeons with his particular name could there be? And thirty years apart? That would make him in his sixties now and that would hardly describe the man
I
knew – not by a long stretch of the imagination. I thrummed my fingers on my desk as I thought, pleased that at last I had the flexibility in my hand to do so. Matthew's translation of the Italian medical treatise lay on top of the journal, and I opened it halfway through. His beautiful script – so unlike a typical doctor's scrawl – antique in style, and quite different to anything I had seen outside historic manuscripts. I closed the book, tapping its front cover, and thinking while my tea cooled enough to drink.

A thought struck me and I seized my handbag, emptying it of trivia onto my bed. I found my bank card and stuffed it
in my back pocket. I gulped the hot tea, sending it scalding down my throat, before hurrying downstairs and through the front door without stopping to say goodbye.

The fog had partially lifted by the time I tracked down a computer shop, but the day remained grey and lowering, the damp sky clinging stubbornly to the rooftops. It didn't take long – I knew what I wanted – my eyes glazing as the salesman started to point out all the irrelevant details of the laptop in front of me. Exasperated, I pushed the bank card towards the dazed man, thanking him and leaving the shop before he could tell me about its superior memory. As long as it was better than mine, I really didn't care.

I took it straight back upstairs to my room, grinding my teeth in frustration every second it took to load, drawing Matthew's scarf around my neck and feeling him closer to me now than I had dared for the last week. Only a vague idea presented itself but, in terms of regaining my sanity, whatever I did must be better than the indeterminate state in which I remained suspended.

Using my mobile to connect the laptop to the internet, a search of his surname brought an overwhelming number of results, none of which looked promising. I thought for a second and then typed in his first name as well. There were innumerable references to “Matthew” and various ones to “Lynes” – some in other languages – but the two names did not occur meaningfully together until the mention of his appointment to the college in Maine issued by the Dean some six years ago. I continued to scroll down until – on the eleventh page – I stopped. On impulse, I clicked a link to a site specializing in archival material – sports memorabilia and its ilk – mostly from the USA. I typed in a search and watched as a photograph of a yellowed newspaper sheet
appeared, the foggy picture inserted in the tight type of a previous century. The headline seemed clear enough – “Triumph for Top Team”. I smiled at the use of the well-worn alliterative title, then peered at the article more closely, wondering how on earth anybody could be expected to read it. I tapped the “Magnify” icon in one corner, and the page enlarged. I read the caption under the photograph:

I pulled the cursor over the photograph and right-clicked “Magnify” again… and choked. Behind four other young men and looking as if he didn't want to be there – stood Matthew. A little taller by perhaps an inch or two, his fair hair and distinctive good looks set him apart. Even the sepia photograph aged by time and corroded in quality, could not disguise the attraction that exuded from him, nor extinguish the fire that he set ablaze within me.

“What on earth…!”
I exclaimed out loud, then breathed deeply to calm my scratchy nerves, and searched for a date on the paper: 1932.

I began to laugh and then found I couldn't stop, hysterical tears blurring the image in front of me. Confused by intermittent sobs and barks of renewed laughter, I wiped my eyes and blew my nose, carefully checking the article, the date and the photograph once more, noting in the text that he had been given an age of twenty-four, and the accolade: “an outstanding sprinter and athlete of our time”.

“And the rest,” I thought – and
all
the rest. If this was indeed Matthew – and I saw no reason to disbelieve it other than the date – he must be around a hundred years old now.

“Yeah,
right
.” I started to describe the boundary of my
room in short steps, shaking my head periodically to clear it, like a dog with ear mites. “This is so weird,” I said to the mice in the walls to whom I had habitually talked as a child. “Oh come
on
; he's an anomaly, sure, but a
hundred-year-old
anomaly? Is that rational? Is it
reasonable
?” As usual, the mice remained passive. “Fat lot of good you lot are.” A thought struck me. “He's not a ghost, is he? No – no, he can't be; he's too
alive
. Who are you, Matthew?
What
are you? Come on – talk to me, for goodness' sake – this will drive me insane!”

A rattling on the door made me jump.

“Emma, who are you talking to? Can I come in?” The door-handle turned impotently in my father's impatient hand. “Emma – let me in;
now.
”

I minimized the page on the screen, at the same time calling out to him, “I'm fine – hold on a mo, I'm just changing.”

I grabbed the big auburn knitted jacket and pulled it over my top, hoping he wouldn't notice the minimal change in attire, and turned the key in the lock. He pushed the door open, and looked around the room as if expecting to find someone else sitting there, then at my face, which burned. He peered suspiciously at me.

“Who were you talking to?”

Picking up my hairbrush, I ran it through my hair, hoping the action would lend a semblance of normality.

“Only the mice, Dad – you know – they're great listeners.”

He grunted; I had spent many hours in angst-ridden solitary conversation with the mice before leaving home for university, and it was something of a family joke.

“As long as you are all right. Your mother wanted you to know that lunch is ready; we'll expect you in five minutes.”

“Great – I'll be down in a moment.”

Taken aback by my enthusiasm, he paused before leaving
the room, checking it out once more, his thick eyebrows drawn together. My heart galloping, I saved the link as a bookmark and shut the screen of my laptop, before joining him on the stairs.

I ate lunch with them around the family table with more gusto than I had shown for a long time. My mother couldn't disguise her relief.

“Darling, you're looking much better. Did your chat with Mike help at all?”

I thought about our exchange and answered with absolute honesty.

“It was a revelation – thank you so much for inviting him over.” I felt a smile come from nowhere, and she smiled back.

“Are you
sure
you're all right? You seem a little flustered, and Mike did say that the effects of shock can last for some time;
acute stress
, I think he called it.” She exchanged glances with my father at the other end of the table.