The Bellwether Revivals (26 page)

Crest was still snickering when Eden appeared from behind the bushes, strolling towards them. He gave a genteel wave of his hand. The sun was behind him and it presented his thin shadow over the ground, shortening with every step he took in their direction. It seemed he’d made an extra effort with his clothes: aviator sunglasses, a yellow cotton polo shirt with a white jumper tied around his shoulders, and navy slacks. His hair was gelled back, parted at the side. All of this gave him the air of some old-time movie star, out for a stroll along the boulevard, though his body still had the ungainly profile of a folded-up parasol. He walked
right up to the bench and stood in front of them, levering his sunglasses to rest in his hair. ‘Hello again, Oscar. Isn’t it a wonderful morning?’

‘I suppose.’

‘I hope you don’t think this is bad taste. Didn’t consider the irony of it ’til after we spoke.’ He gestured to the jury of headstones that stood all around him. ‘You aren’t offended are you, Dr Crest?’

‘It’d take more than a bad joke to offend me, kid.’ With considerable effort, Crest got up to greet him. They shook hands tentatively.

‘What should I call you?’ Eden said.

‘Anything you like.’

‘I think I’ll stick to Dr Crest.’

‘Fine by me. Shall I call you Eden?’

‘That’s the only name I’ve got.’

‘Alright then.’

Oscar watched the two of them. They were examining each other the way chess players do across the board, the way presidential candidates do from their podia—presenting their nervousness as amusement. Thin smirks drew across both of their faces. There was quiet again, until Eden said: ‘You look rather cold.’

‘I’m alright. Just a little tired of waiting.’

Eden took a deep breath in through his nose and held it there. His nostrils closed over like the stops on a clarinet. Then he released the pent-up air from his mouth with a satisfied sound—
ppaahhhh
. ‘It’s always so quiet here. Really clears out those cobwebs.’

‘You’re too young for cobwebs,’ Crest said. ‘You want to see cobwebs, take a look in here.’ He tapped his temple with a pointed finger. He was about to say something else, but suddenly he was stumbling on his feet. ‘I’m sorry, excuse me, I’m feeling a little dizzy.’ He sat back down on the bench.

‘Are you okay, Herbert?’ Oscar asked.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m alright. But I think we need to speed this up a little.’

‘Good idea,’ Eden said, and turned to Oscar. ‘Would you mind giving us a moment alone? I’d like to examine him.’

‘Examine him?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not his doctor, Eden.’

‘I’m well aware of that, thank you.’

‘I don’t think I should leave him,’ Oscar said. ‘I told his nurse I’d look after him.’

‘He’ll be fine with me. I’m here to help him, not harm him.’

Oscar waited for the old man to nod his approval.

Crest gave one slow, solemn blink. ‘Go on. Do as he says.’

There was another row of benches on the other side of the cemetery, with a clear enough view for Oscar to keep his eye on things. ‘I’ll be over there if you need me.’ He left them to face each other, feeling nervous about it, like a fist-fight might suddenly break out between them. By the time he got to the other benches and looked back across the lush grass of the graveyard, Crest had removed his hat and Eden was standing over him with two hands held against the old man’s shoulders, staring down at the scar on the top of his skull. Eden stayed there, holding that position for several minutes, as if scrutinising every line and freckle on the old man’s head. Then Crest seemed to fall into his arms. His body was a deadweight and Eden took the burden of it, carefully turning the old man around, lying him down flat against the bench. For the slightest moment, his head hung limp from the edge until Eden moved to cradle it in two hands. He crouched down on his haunches beside Crest and, with the dispassion of somebody testing the air in a football, began to knead his skull with the tips of his fingers.

Oscar didn’t know whether to go over there or not—the old man didn’t seem to be in any discomfort—but he watched Eden
carefully. There was nothing sinister about what was happening. In fact, the whole process seemed almost brotherly, just one man tending the bedside of another. Eden’s hands prodded and pressed around Crest’s head. There was no sound but the wind in the trees, and the murmurs of couples as they went arm in arm through the cemetery, stopping to read the epitaphs of sisters and mothers, husbands and fathers, wives of the above.

It must have gone on like this for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, until Eden rose from his haunches and turned Crest back into a sitting position, supporting his head the way you might hold a newborn’s. Crest’s body regained its stiffness; he flexed his elbows a few times and slowly rolled his head on his neck, a full rotation. He replaced his hat and sat there, saying nothing. Eden turned around. Bringing his fingers to his lips, he sounded a wolf-whistle that made the birds explode from the hedges in frightened packs.

Oscar took his time. He wasn’t going to come running just because Eden demanded it. He got up and tied his shoelace on the bench, then the other one, even though it didn’t need retying. Labouredly, he moved his feet through the long grass. The first thing he noticed when he got over there was that the old man’s forehead was no longer sweating.

‘Here’s the situation,’ Eden said. There was something very businesslike about him now—no more kidding around, no more cursory chat. ‘Obviously, this man is very ill. You don’t fool about with cancer. I’m going to need some time to think about this.’

‘What’s there to think about?’ Oscar said.

‘I—’ Eden paused. His self-confidence seemed to falter. That looseness in his shoulders, that movie-star brashness was starting to abandon him. ‘I’d like some time to think about it, that’s all.’

‘Time isn’t something I have much of, kid,’ Crest said. ‘You gonna help me or not?’

Eden straightened the tied-up sleeves of his jumper. ‘Look, it’s going to be very difficult. These aren’t broken bones we’re looking
at here. You have a GPM tumour. It can’t be fixed with a paean and a few towels like my sister’s leg.’

‘Are you saying it’s beyond your capabilities?’ Crest asked.

‘No, no, I didn’t say that.’ Eden wagged his finger. ‘I can do it, I just need a bit of time to think over the details.’

‘How long?’

Eden removed his sunglasses from their perch in his wiry hair. Holding them by the hinges, he studied the lenses for smears, blew on them, wiped them with his jumper, and placed them back over his eyes. ‘Two weeks,’ he said. ‘Let me get the Lent term over with.’

‘I think we can manage that,’ Crest said. ‘Provided I can stick around that long.’

‘And what then?’ Oscar said.

‘I’ll let you know.’

‘Now you’re starting to talk like a
real
doctor,’ Crest said.

‘There’s just one caveat,’ Eden went on. ‘Are you still taking your medication?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll need you to stop taking it.’

‘Right away?’

‘No, not yet,’ he said. ‘But you have to be ready to stop when I tell you to.’

Crest raised his eyebrows at this. He thought about it for a few seconds, rubbing at his jaw, leaving red fingermarks on his skin. ‘Y’know what? That’s fine. It makes me nauseous anyway. But you have to do something for me in return.’

Eden sniggered. ‘Aren’t I doing enough already?’

‘I want you to promise me a sit-down when this is over.’

‘A sit-down. You mean, you want me to lie back on a couch and tell you about my childhood.’

‘No. I’d just like to talk to you some more. Get to know you.’

Eden shrugged. ‘Okay. Fine. As long as I don’t have to look at ink-blots or tell you about my dreams. I’m not shy when it comes
to talking about myself. You can have as many sit-downs as you want.’

‘Good.’

‘In the meantime, go back to London and rest. I’ll be in touch.’

Crest tried to stand up again but Eden waved him back down. ‘Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.’ He smiled and shook the old man’s hand cordially. ‘You know where to find me, Oscar.’ And with a casual flick of his finger, he pushed the sunglasses to the bridge of his nose, and walked away, along the same worn path from which he came. They watched his lean body strolling into the distance until it vanished behind the bushes.

‘Well, that was a trip,’ Crest said. ‘He doesn’t like
you
much, does he?’

‘Not lately, no.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’ The old man got to his feet with a groan. ‘A guy like him has a hard time keeping friends. Reminds me of some of the guys I used to know back when I was at King’s. Most of them ended up on the trading floor. He’s got the same ugly confidence about him.’ Crest sniffed. ‘Shall we go?’

They walked back towards Mill Road, and though Crest made only gradual progress with each tired step, he no longer needed Oscar to help him stay upright. His skin seemed more opaque, and his breaths were stronger and more apparent in the air.

‘Andrea’s not going to be pleased about you stopping your medication,’ Oscar said. ‘You’re not really going to, are you?’

‘Way I see it, I’ve got to follow orders.’

‘Why?’

‘To keep things black and white, that’s why. I don’t want to give this guy a get-out-of-jail-free card for later. I don’t want to give him the chance to say:
It didn’t work because you carried on taking your medication when I told you not to
. They reached the end of the graveyard where the grass turned to shingle and a dainty little church stood by the roadside, half-buried in weeds and overgrown trees. The quiet suburban neighbourhoods of Cambridge
continued as normal, seeing and hearing no evil. ‘Funny what he said about my tumour, though, huh?’

‘He seems to know these things somehow. I don’t know how he does it.’

Crest stopped. His exhalations swirled around his face. ‘Thing is, I have a G-B-M—glioblastoma multiforme. G-P-M? I don’t even know what that is. That’s not even
anything
.’

‘So he was wrong for once. That’s good. He’s slipping.’

‘Yeah, but that’s not what bothers me about it. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when I was talking with your girlfriend at breakfast, I think I might’ve said G
-P
-M—a slip of the tongue. My mouth was all dry with the bacon.’

‘Oh. Are you sure?’

‘I thought she’d correct me, her being a med student and all, but she didn’t. That’s why I remember it. Now her brother just made the exact same mistake. You think that’s a coincidence?’

Oscar felt too shaken to answer.

‘Yeah,’ Crest said. ‘I don’t either.’

There was a time when Oscar would sigh at the very thought of Cedarbrook. He’d arrive at its black trellis gates in the winter to see the bare wisteria vines on the brickwork and the dour lights behind the early morning windows, and a heaviness would gather in his belly. He’d traipse towards the entrance, knowing the next five, eight, sometimes twelve hours would be nothing but a chore. The tang of iodine in the staff bathroom would make him cloudy-headed and he’d try to settle himself with a strong cup of tea before clocking on, and somehow it would never taste quite right—as if the milk was on the turn. But now he almost looked forward to work every day. He found himself enjoying the stroll along Queen’s Road towards Cedarbrook, seeing the wide face of the building on the horizon like the genial smile of an old friend. He felt that Cedarbrook was the only thing about his life that was changeless—for all the headaches it gave him, and however exhausted he got from its routines, at least it could be trusted to remain that way forever. There was something to be said, after all, for predictability. There was comfort in seeing the same old fuzz-lipped women in the parlour every day, with the porridge stains
on their dressing gowns and their balled-up tissues stuffed into their cardigan sleeves; and the bow-legged old chaps with their dogmatic way of reading broadsheets with magnifying glasses, column by column. He saw more of these people than his own family, and knew more about the day-to-day progress of their lives—sometimes he wondered if he even cared more about them. They were a cast of elderly relatives he was grateful to have adopted.

Most of all, Cedarbrook was a good place to hide. In the last week and a half, Oscar had taken on as many shifts as he could manage, because being at work gave him the perfect excuse to tell Iris when she called and asked why it had been so many days since they’d seen each other. ‘Well, okay, but don’t work yourself too hard,’ she said, the first time she called. ‘I know you need the money, but it seems like I haven’t seen you in ages,’ she said, the second time. ‘I’m starting to think you’re avoiding me,’ she said, the third time.

On Saturday evening, he saw her number flashing on his mobile but chose to ignore it. He ignored her text messages too. He listened to the voicemail she’d left for him: ‘Oscar, what’s going on? You’re not even answering the phone now? I miss you. I’m worried about you. I’m sort of afraid you’ve forgotten about me. You’ve met someone else? Is that it? Oh God, please ring me. Are you angry at me?’

‘Angry’ wasn’t the right word. He felt betrayed by her, deflated and suspicious, and those feelings had grown into resentment. He wasn’t sure he could trust her. When he saw her again, he knew he’d have to pay close attention to his words, worry about what he might let slip, in case she reported it back to Eden. And that made him think of all the times they’d lain together, held each other, walked through the Cambridge streets to each other’s rooms, speaking with the kind of abandon that now seemed dangerous. He couldn’t think of lying next to her, redolent from sex and second-hand smoke, with that same comfort he’d always felt
with her before—the assurance that there was nothing in the world that he couldn’t say to her. She had cheated on him—that was how he felt—not with her body, but with her spirit, her allegiance.

All of this must have shown on his face when he went to see Dr Paulsen that Friday. Though Oscar had been up to the old man’s room many times in the last week or so, he’d managed to keep his disconsolation to himself somehow, held a cheeriness in his voice and a bounce in his step so nobody would notice the deflation of his heart. But that evening, Paulsen was lying flat on his bed in the dark, pillows and duvet strewn on the floor beside him. The curtains were drawn, and the only light in the room came from the Maglite torch that he was shining towards the ceiling—a ghost-white disc moving across the swirls in the Artex like a giant ophthalmoscope. The beam swung towards Oscar’s face, and he squinted against the brightness of it. ‘Turn that thing off, will you?’ he said.