The Bellwether Revivals (38 page)

He was not exactly surprised to see Eden standing there—he had such a knack for the unexpected that it felt somehow inevitable—but the shock of Eden’s voice was enough to make him check his stride a little. He brushed past him, into the narrow porch, and put his key in the lock. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, I thought I’d come and see how you’re getting on. It’s been ages since I saw you.’ Eden must have realised how implausible this sounded; his expression caved in. ‘Just trying to be cordial,’ he said, grinning. ‘I have something I need to talk to you about. Can we go inside?’

Reluctantly, Oscar opened the door and turned on the landing light. The heel-worn carpet of the stairway felt soft under his feet as he scaled the two flights to his flat, Eden following behind him, fingers squeaking on the balustrade. He felt uneasy walking ahead, sensing Eden’s presence behind his back like ominous weather.

The lights were still on in the flat; he must have forgotten to switch them off.

‘Have a seat,’ Oscar said. He gestured to the armchair, but Eden went right over and perched on the edge of the bed, placing his carrier bag on the rumpled duvet beside him. Saying nothing, he removed his cardigan, balled it up and clutched it between his knees, then spent a long moment studying the flat: his eyes flitted from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, object to object. ‘Don’t you know it’s polite to ask your guests if they’d like a drink?’ he said finally.

Oscar hung up his jacket. ‘I don’t have much to offer you.’

‘Water is fine.’

He rinsed a glass and filled it from the tap. Eden took it, taking a small sip, and set the glass down on the floor beside his dirty canvas shoes. ‘This isn’t about my sister. Not directly, anyway. I’m sure you think I’ve been avoiding her.’

‘You shouldn’t presume to know what I think, Eden.’

‘Right. But you
do
think it—you both do—I can tell by the way you’re looking at me right now. All righteousness and consternation.’

‘Well, I think it’s fair to say your absence hasn’t gone unnoticed. And not just by me.’

‘Has she been upset?’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Well then—’ Eden pinched at the creases of his trousers. ‘I don’t see what the problem is. She’ll see plenty of me once she gets out of that place. Have I ever told you about my condition?’

‘Your condition?’

‘Nosocomephobia. Fear of hospitals.’

‘I thought you meant your other condition.’

‘And what condition would
that
be?’

‘I’m not sure yet. I’m waiting for a professional opinion.’

‘You know, you needn’t behave this way towards me, Oscar. I’m not your enemy. We both want the same thing.’ Eden began to straighten out the wrinkled plastic of the carrier bag attentively; Oscar could only see the loosest outline of whatever was inside. ‘It’s true, I haven’t been to see Iris, and I do feel a certain pressure about that. But, it’s not for the reason you think.’

‘There you go again. Presuming to know what I think.’

Eden smiled. ‘You want to hear me say it?’ He picked up his water and took two small sips. ‘You want me to say I haven’t been to see her because now she’s back in hospital it proves that I’m—that I’m some kind of fraud. At the worst, a kind of failure.’

‘Well? Aren’t you?’ It came out exactly as Oscar intended: dry, nonchalant.

Eden didn’t blink. ‘No.’

‘Right. It must be a coincidence.’

‘Look, I can’t explain it, I’ll admit that. But if you want my honest opinion on the matter—’

‘You really think you’re still entitled to an opinion?’

‘Well, I’m still her brother. That counts for something.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

Eden gave a tiny noise from his throat, like a valve being released on a tyre. ‘I haven’t been to visit her because I want her to get better, that’s all. And I’m very aware that seeing me right now wouldn’t be the best thing for her rehabilitation. And anyway, where do you get off lecturing me on this? We’re talking about my sister here. I’ve known her a lot longer than you have.’

‘
Oh
. You’re keeping away for
her
sake.’

‘Yes. Exactly. It’s for her own good.’

‘And here I was thinking you were ashamed to face her.’

Eden stayed quiet for a second, gazing at his shoes. He lifted
his head gradually. ‘Why should I be ashamed? It’s not my fault the surgeon was inept. If he’d done his job properly, she’d be fine by now. And if I’d got to her first then all of this would be—’

‘You’re really something, aren’t you, Eden?’

‘Yes. Actually, I am.’

‘You still think you healed her. I mean, you
really
think it.’

‘I don’t just think it. I know it.’

There was nothing Oscar could do but shake his head and stare back with disbelief and pity, and hope somewhere in Eden’s mind all of this might register. ‘I’ve never met anyone so arrogant or deluded in my whole life. I’d like you to know that. For the record.’

‘Noted.’ Eden smirked. ‘But given the calibre of people you associated with before you met my sister, I’m hardly surprised.’ He stood up, dredged the water from his glass, and set it down on the bedside table, noticing the picture tacked to the wall above the alarm clock: a snapshot of Iris posing outside the rectory in a T-shirt and denim shorts and big Sophia Loren sunglasses. Jane had taken it weeks ago and given it to him; he’d put it up there on the wall so he could wake up to it every morning. ‘Anyway,’ Eden said. ‘I didn’t come here to get into a debate with you about this.’

‘Then why did you come?’

‘Because you owe me a favour.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Yes, you do, Oscar—you owe me big time. If it weren’t for me, you’d never have met my sister in the first place.’ Eden went back to the bed and picked up the carrier bag. He turned with a kind of pirouette; the bag spun with him. He held it out by the handles. ‘I need you to keep hold of these for me. That’s the favour.’

When Oscar opened the bag, he saw a collection of black rectangular cartridges in clear plastic jewel cases. He recognised them. They were the miniDV cassettes he’d used to film Crest’s sessions in the organ house. There were fourteen in total, each of them labelled with Eden’s slanting cursive:

‘What am I supposed to do with these?’

‘Put them somewhere safe. A deposit box at the bank would be best, but they’re expensive. Perhaps you have a safe at that nursing home of yours? I’m trusting you to think of somewhere suitable.’ Eden crouched to retrieve his cardigan from the floor. He dusted it down and put it on. ‘Don’t worry. Jane and Marcus have copies too. Didn’t give any to Yin because, well—that’s another matter. We’ve had a little falling-out. But it’s not like I’m trusting you to look after the master copies or anything.’

‘So why
are
you giving them to me?’

‘Just a way of fireproofing. Spread the valuables out. That’s what they used to tell us in fire safety at prep … Anyway, there are two sets in there. One’s for you, the other’s for Dr Crest. I need you to send them off to him tomorrow, first thing.’

‘Send them yourself.’

‘I would, but he doesn’t give out his address so willingly. I find him very peculiar on the telephone. He’s rather suspicious. The man is really quite difficult to understand.’

‘I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.’

Eden didn’t look amused. ‘Be that as it may, he said you’d take care of it.’

‘I’ll send them tomorrow.’

‘Good. He’s very eager to watch them. Don’t keep him waiting.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No.’ Eden pursed his lips and waited, pushing back his cardigan sleeves. He pointed to the bookshelf where Oscar’s telephone
sat with its cord in an unsightly tangle, and where the tiny red bulb of his answer machine was blinking. ‘You should really check your messages more often. What if it’s good news?’ He placed two hands on Oscar’s shoulders, gripping his collarbones, peering down into his face. Then, with a click of the door latch, he was gone, and the flat felt suddenly empty. The only movement was the persistent red flash of the machine against the wall.

The message went like this: ‘Call me, kid. Call me as soon as you pick this up. It’s Herbert. Just—just call me back, okay? There’s been a development.’

The next morning, Oscar stood in Jean’s office at Cedarbrook, waiting for a fax to come through. He had the telephone clutched to his ear, and Crest was talking away on the end of the line. They’d spent the last twenty minutes back-and-forthing about technical matters; about which buttons to press and which numbers to dial, and it was all starting to get chaotic. He wasn’t due to start his shift until eight, but Jean had already passed by the corridor a few times to remind him that she wanted her office back sooner rather than later.

‘Hey, I think it’s sending.’ Crest’s voice rose with delight. The fax began to bleat out electronic cat-fight noises, and the blank paper fed through the machine and came out printed in greyscale: four near-identical square images, each of which housed a black-grey oval with a white daub at its centre.

Oscar had never seen a brain scan before. It seemed to him like four little weather charts promising torrential rain. ‘What am I supposed to be looking for?’

‘The grey stuff, that’s my brain tissue,’ Crest replied. ‘The white stuff in the middle—that’s the cancer. What you’re looking at are my last four MRI scans. The picture on the bottom right was taken a few days ago.’

Oscar squinted to focus on the images. In the oldest scan there was a large white glob in the centre of the brain, about the size and
shape of a hazelnut. The newest scan seemed to be darker overall, but how much could he really see from a fax machine printout anyway? It was hard to tell black from dark grey, and light grey from white.

There was a rustle on the phone as Crest transferred the receiver to his other hand. ‘Take a look at the two pictures on the bottom row. They were taken a month apart: the newest and the second newest. You following me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘See any difference between them?’

Oscar studied the two scans closely, the way he would study the wordsearch in the back of the paper at breaktime. In each of them, there was a cluster of tiny white spots at the centre of the brain, covering about the same area. ‘Not really.’

‘The white splotches—they’re the fingers of the tumour. That’s the cancer left behind after surgery. They look about the same size to you?’

‘Yeah.’

Crest paused. ‘Well, there you have it, kid. The tumour’s stopped growing. Millimetre for millimetre, it’s not getting any bigger.’

‘Jesus, Herbert. I don’t know what to say.’

‘Just don’t say congratulations—
please
. That’s what the consultant said. Dumbest thing I ever heard come out of her mouth.’

‘I thought you’d be thrilled.’

‘Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about it. But congratulations are a little premature. This is just a plateau, that’s all, not a remission.’

There was something different about Crest this morning. He was playing the whole thing down, as if a good night’s sleep had given him a sober new perspective on the matter. Last night, when Oscar had called him back, swing music had been pounding in the old man’s apartment—a huffing, exuberant brass section that distorted in the earpiece, with Nat King Cole singing along brightly.
‘Hang on, Oscar, hang on, I gotta turn this down,’ Crest had said, almost shouting over the music. A gentle fizz had settled on the line. He’d underplayed it, but there’d definitely been a kind of elation in the old man’s voice as he’d told Oscar the news, talking him through the details of his last appointment with the neurosurgeon, describing the tests, the bloodwork that had been taken, the scans that he’d been put through. He’d enthused about the look on the surgeon’s face when she announced the news—‘gleeful and bemused’ was how Crest had described it. And he’d insisted on faxing over the scans so that Oscar could see them. But this morning, Crest seemed more pragmatic about the situation.

‘So do you actually
feel
any better?’ Oscar asked. He folded up the scan and put it in his pocket.

‘Well, that’s hard to say. On the one hand, it still takes me an hour to get myself dressed in the morning, and on the other, I have fewer headaches, fewer seizures, fewer dizzy spells. I’ve got more energy, but could I run to the post office and back? Hardly. I used to do a lot of running, you know. Five miles a day.’ Crest allowed a moment to pass, and Oscar could hear the London traffic rolling by his apartment. ‘Look, kid, I meant to bring this up last night but it got kinda late and I didn’t want to get into it, and I guess I was a little reluctant to tell you about it. I arranged to see the boy again.’

Oscar had been waiting for him to mention it. ‘Yeah, I heard,’ he said.

‘You did?’

‘These things tend to filter down.’

‘I didn’t mean to go behind your back. We’ve all been doing enough of that lately. That’s just how it worked out.’

‘It’s okay.’

Crest sighed. ‘First off, I wanted to get a look at the tapes again, that was all. But once I had him on the phone—I don’t know—I guess he was talking in a way I hadn’t heard him talk before. He seemed depressed about something. So I asked him what was up,
and he said he was feeling down because his sister was in hospital. I said, Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, what happened? And he said she’d broken her leg again. That’s when I realised: the kid was reaching out to me.’

The gardeners were firing up the lawnmower outside now, and Oscar was aware of Jean walking by the office.