The Last Darkness (6 page)

Martin Rifkind appeared at the end of the corridor. He was a lean muscular man in a white coat. He had a large skull, a dome. It was the first feature of the man anyone noticed. Across this
duomo
lay a frail latticework of white hair. Years of bedside visits had given him a friendly manner.
I'm more than your doctor, I'm your chum
. Nothing happened in this small hospital without his imprimatur: he was cardinal, chief physician, God. Lou Perlman had met him a couple of times in the past. He was one of Colin's people. Lou had always felt distanced from the coterie in which Colin moved – they were all too bright, too classy, or just too obviously
ambitious
. They favoured sleek places and smart cocktails and holidays at expensive bijou hotels on the lesser-known islands of the Caribbean.

Rifkind held out a hand and Perlman shook it.

Rifkind said, ‘It must be, what, a dozen years?'

‘Who counts time any more? It's too depressing.'

‘I remember, it was the anniversary …' Rifkind paused in mid-faux pas. ‘Ooops.'

Perlman listened to the word ‘anniversary' reverberate in his skull and he remembered that night, oh Christ did he remember that night. The twentieth wedding anniversary of Colin and his wife, a hundred guests, tuxedos and glittering dresses and fancy jewels. The room was gleaming, brilliant,
wonderful
. But the humiliation … He'd begun drinking before his arrival because he was nervous, he didn't want to attend, and when it came to alcohol he was an utter lightweight who rarely drank. It roared immediately to his brain and distorted all his notions of time and propriety.

He remembered sitting at the head table, one of the anointed. He remembered rising at some point, unbidden, to make a toast to the happy couple. Spilling things. Coffee pot, milk jug, ashtray. Getting his feet tangled together and listing forward and clutching table linen and thinking he was on the
Titanic
and here's the iceberg coming. He remembered the anniversary couple turning to look at him.
Aghast:
that was the word for their expressions.

Pished out of his skull, Lou raised his glass in the air and tried to make a joke, while the room swivelled and the punchline deteriorated in mid-structure, and when he jerked his arm upwards to emphasize the sincerity of his toast the glass shot out of his hand and zoomed like a missile across the table and struck Colin in the forehead and rebounded, spilling globes of liquid into Rifkind's lap, and then Lou had staggered out into the garden, bending double, boking vigorously into a bed of violets and pansies for all the guests to hear. And then Colin was bending over him and saying,
You're humiliating, a fucking total embarrassment to me, this was an important night for us, arsehole, I'm sticking you in a taxi and you're out of here and no goodbyes …

Perlman looked at Rifkind. ‘That was quite an evening, Martin, eh?' And he tried to laugh it off, a drunken misadventure, a silly wee thing, tut-tut pooh-pooh.

‘Ah, we all act daft sometimes,' Rifkind said. ‘Even doctors like me have been known to consume a cocktail too many. Hard to believe, right?'

Too too kind, Perlman thought. I behaved disgracefully. ‘Never drink on an empty stomach. So they say.'

‘Plays havoc with the system all right,' Rifkind remarked.

Perlman looked at his watch. He wanted to see his brother and get out of here. Things to do. ‘Can I visit him, Martin?'

‘For a minute.'

‘How is he?'

‘He'll get over it in time, Lou. But his heart won't take another hammering. Go in room nine. Two doors down. Just keep it short.'

Lou Perlman entered the room. He realized he rarely saw his brother. Once a year, maybe twice, if that. A shame. Colin Perlman, handsome but pale and weary-eyed, head held up by a bank of pillows, offered a tiny smile.

‘Well well, wee brother,
le gendarme
,' he said.

Lou Perlman approached the bed. Colin was attached to an IV drip. A machine monitored his heartbeat. ‘So, Colin. How do you explain this state of affairs?' Lou gestured with his hand.

‘Explain it?' Colin Perlman had Etta's blue eyes. He had a few fair strands in his thick grey hair. His face was square-jawed the way Etta's had been, his nose straight exactly like hers. ‘I was jogging along minding my business, when out of an orange-coloured sky –'

‘I know the song,' Lou said. ‘Flash. Bam. Alakazam.' Etta had played it constantly on her old record-player, he remembered. But who the devil had been singing it?

Nat King Cole: got it.

‘It was like a bloody stake going deep into my heart, Lou. The pain was … utterly fucking
appalling
. I was suffocating. Blacked out. Rifkind says if I hadn't been treated so quickly you'd all be putting me in a box. Me, the fit one. Addicted to gymnasiums. I don't smoke, I get a serious heart attack. You smoke like an old blacksmith's forge, you get off scot-free.'

‘So far,' Lou said.

‘I had chest pains a couple of weeks ago. I thought heartburn. Wrong? I hate feeling this weak. That quack Rifky tells me I'll still have a quality life. Mind my diet. No fats, no butters, no cream. Alcohol? One tiny glass of vino on special occasions, thank you very much, doc. Oh, and don't overdo things. I'm supposed to walk with a bloody stick and pat the heads of all the nice geraniums I've grown and thank my lucky stars for the
quality
of my life? Well, fuck, I doff my hat to the constellations.'

Lou said, ‘Bad shite happens to everybody.'

‘Not to me it doesn't. This is a bitch.'

Lou gazed at his brother. Everything Colin touched, abracadabra, pure gold. He could take donkey droppings and turn them into doubloons. He invested money, it multiplied tenfold, twenty. He was a respected member of the Jewish community, not just in Glasgow, but in London, New York, Los Angeles. He went to the finest tailors. He flew first-class. He probably didn't even
realize
there was a rear cabin where all the
shlukhs
sat. He'd been kissed by a benign God.

One heart attack later, he knew he was mortal after all, and he didn't enjoy the discovery that, despite his good fortune and intelligence, he was exactly like everyone else: doomed. Those well-honed muscles in arms and legs, what good were they to him if his heart was a joker?

Lou touched the back of his brother's hand, and he felt a certain sadness that had its source in the understanding that they'd come from the same womb and seed, they'd grown up together, they'd seen their parents die; they were past middle age, and when it came to the blood of family they were the end of a specific line. There were no young Perlmans to carry on what Etta and Ephraim, fugitives, had begun. There were aunts and uncles, and a clamour of cousins, but that wasn't the same thing.

He turned his face to the window: the light outside was gloomy. More frail snowflakes fell. He thought: I've never told my brother I love him. Not in those words. Do I love him the way I should? He admired him, sure, and – God forgive him – envied him too. Not for his material wealth, flash cars, good suits; he wasn't lured by material items.
Stuff
was always replaceable. But love was just a damn tough card to play. The heart was reticent, the tongue lead.

He skipped around these thoughts. ‘Do you remember that guy who hung himself when we were kids?'

Colin Perlman shook his head slowly. ‘What guy?'

‘He was a local milkman. Kerr … I think that was his name.'

‘I have absolutely
no
recollection of any Kerr. Is there a point to this, Lou?'

‘No, not really, just …' But yes, yes, there is, I'm searching for common ground. Fraternal glue. The shared history of brothers remembering childhood. You told me about the word
suicide
, Colin, how could you forget that?

‘You're waxing all nostalgic, Lou. Is this some age thing?'

‘Must be, right enough.'

Lou Perlman was uncomfortable. Trying to bond, and failing. Why did it always have to be this way with Colin? ‘I'll come back and see you tomorrow,' he said.

‘Of course you will. But in the meantime make sure you keep the streets safe for respectable folk.'

‘I try.'

‘You do your best. You always did.'

‘So did you, Colin. Except your best always seemed that wee bit better than mine.' No, Lou thought. Oh shit, why take this flight path? It was the wrong way to go, it invariably led to memories of childhood, to the old feeling that Colin had been Etta and Ephraim's favourite, and Lou some kind of afterthought, a footnote to the Perlman family. But was there a hard truth in that? He couldn't remember either his mother or father favouring Colin with specific gifts or treats. Maybe the feeling had its origin in the fact that greater things were always expected of Colin, because he was the sharper one, the gifted one – and Lou was the plodder, more persistent than brilliant. One time, Etta had said:
Colin, I think you'll do something with words, a journalist maybe, write for a newspaper. And you, Lou, you'll be a schoolteacher, I can see it
.

Prediction obviously hadn't been Etta's metier.

Colin said, ‘You didn't have to be a cop, Lou. Who forced you? Who said sign on the dotted line and you'll be a policeman?'

‘True. I might've been a businessman like you.'

‘Don't knock it. I offered you the chance. Come in with me, I said. Make some real cash. But no, you always gave me the feeling that you looked down on what I did for a living, you didn't approve of what you once called get-rich-quick schemes. You had other … let's say, honourable motives.'

Honourable, Perlman thought. Was that the word? ‘I never disapproved of what you did for a living. I never really understood it enough to approve or disapprove. And I don't remember ever describing anything you did as a get-rich-quick scheme, you're twisting my words –'

Colin shook his head. ‘I don't think so. You didn't want to get involved. No filthy old capitalism for you. You didn't have the spirit of acquisition about you, Lou. You were never a swashbuckler. You lacked that buccaneer element –' He contorted his face, didn't finish his sentence.

Lou asked, ‘You in pain?'

‘A twinge. Do me a favour. Send Rifkind in.'

Lou moved quickly to the door. He opened it, called out for Rifkind, who came down the hallway.

‘He's in some discomfort, Martin.'

‘I'll deal with it.' Rifkind entered the room and shut the door behind him. Lou Perlman walked back into the reception area. I've got an unidentified dead man on my hands, he thought. And I've got a brother who's just had a heart attack and I don't know too much about him either. The mysteries of people. What secrets they stash.

The outside door swung open just as he moved towards it. He saw her in the frame, dark against the morning sky and the pale snow, and his heart reared.

He wasn't conscious at once of the man who stood directly behind her, holding her elbow, he was transfixed by the sight of her, and anything on the edges of his vision faded to black. And then he was flustered, wishing he'd brushed his hair properly, that he was better-dressed, manicured and groomed, instead of looking like a bloody
nebbish
.

‘Lou,' she said, and his temperature rose.

Was he blushing?

When she approached him, in long plum-coloured coat and scarf, and stepped into his embrace, he thought:
I showered, shampooed, I'm fine
. But does my clothing smell of mothballs? He remembered the photograph of her he'd hung in his house, right next to the picture of Ephraim and Etta, and how, guilty and ashamed, he'd taken it down, and removed it from the frame, then rolled the picture into a tube and stuck it in a drawer. I should've kept it on the wall where it was. I wasn't brave enough to face my own delusions.

She felt light in his arms. Delicate. He longed to kiss her, not some polite little dab on the cheek or forehead, but open-mouthed and passionate. He was in the grip of an absurd fever: how long was he destined to carry this yearning? There was no future in loving your brother's wife – and if this wasn't love then it was one hell of a counterfeit, and built to last. He trembled as he let her slip out of the embrace. Did she know? Had she suspected over the years? He imagined his face gave everything away, even to passing strangers. Apparently not. Somewhere along the way he'd become adept in the craft of camouflage.

‘I'm so glad to see you, Lou,' she said. She had her long hair pinned up under a beret that matched her coat. He imagined undoing the pins one by one, slowly.

‘I didn't expect,' and he let the sentence wither. You twittering
dunderheid
. She robs you of speech, for Christ's sake. She infiltrates you and steals your power.

‘Did you see Colin?' she asked.

When he looked into her dark eyes he thought of reincarnation. Could they meet under different circumstances in an afterlife of sorts? It would have to be corporeal – none of that airy-fairy disembodiment kack – because his feelings were instilled with a serious carnal longing. God have mercy on me, he thought; sometimes he'd imagined her in his bed with thighs spread and that long brown hair falling over breasts he wanted to kiss. Honourable Lou Perlman: aye, right, maybe in some respects – but was it honourable to lust after your sister-in-law and envy your brother because he was married to this woman?

‘I saw him,' he said.

‘What do you think?'

He noticed a wifely concern in her eyes, and understood – as he always did – that his longing was useless. She loved Colin. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever would. ‘He'll be all right.'

‘Rifkind says he'll have to take things easy. Can you imagine him pottering round the house?'

‘No, I can't.'

‘Neither can I.' She smiled sadly, and Lou Perlman was lost once more in her face, drawn into her smile and sent spinning through the tunnels of his emotions. Even at fifty her face seemed unworn. She had the lush mouth of a torch-singer in an after-hours club. She looked as if she knew deep secrets. There might have been blemishes, faint lines at the corners of the lips, even some slight slackening of flesh at the throat – but he was blind to her faults. She was still the girl he'd first met years ago, the astonishing girl hanging on Colin's arm, smart and exotic and vibrant, her presence suggestive of blue ocean voyages and tropical jaunts and rum drinks. And sophistication. Paris. Florence. Milan. She'd studied art in these glam places.