A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [61]
She didn’t want this on her plate. Not now. But he needed someone to talk to, and Mum was clearly not keen on the job. “What isn’t her kind of thing?”
He took a long, quiet breath. “I’m frightened.” He stared at the television.
“What of?”
“Of dying…I’m frightened of dying.”
“Is there something you’re not telling Mum?” She could see a stack of videos beside the bed. Volcano, Independence Day, Godzilla, Conspiracy Theory…
“I think…” He paused and pursed his lips. “I think I have cancer.”
She felt giddy and a little faint. “Do you?”
“Dr. Barghoutian says it’s eczema.”
“And you don’t believe him.”
“No,” he said. “Yes.” He thought hard. “No. Not really.”
“Perhaps you should ask to see a specialist.”
Dad frowned. “I couldn’t do that.”
She nearly said, Let me have a look, but the idea was gross in too many ways. “Is this really about cancer? Or is it about something else?”
Dad scrubbed ineffectually at a little jam stain on the duvet. “I think I might be going insane.”
Downstairs Jacob was squealing as Mum chased him round the kitchen.
“Perhaps you should talk to someone.”
“Your mother thinks I’m being silly. Which I am of course.”
“Some kind of counselor,” said Katie.
Dad looked blank.
“I’m sure Dr. Barghoutian could refer you.”
Dad continued to look blank. She pictured him sitting in a little room with a box of tissues on the table and some bushy-tailed young man in a cardigan and she could see his point. But she didn’t want to be the only person on the receiving end of this. “You need help.”
There was a bang from the kitchen. Then a wail. Dad didn’t react to either noise.
Katie said, “I’ve got to go.”
He didn’t react to this either. He said very quietly, “I’ve wasted my life.”
She said, “You haven’t wasted your life,” in a voice she normally reserved for Jacob.
“Your mother doesn’t love me. I spent thirty years doing a job that meant nothing to me. And now…” He was crying. “It hurts so much.”
“Dad, please.”
“There are these little red spots on my arm,” said Dad.
“What?”
“I can’t even bring myself to look at them.”
“Dad, listen.” She put her hands to the side of her head to help her concentrate. “You’re anxious. You’re depressed. You’re…whatever. It’s got nothing to do with Mum. It’s got nothing to do with your job. It’s happening inside your head.”
“I’m sorry,” said Dad. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Christ, Dad. You’ve got a nice house. You’ve got money. You’ve got a car. You’ve got someone to look after you…” She was angry. It was the anger she’d been saving for Ray. But she couldn’t really do anything about it, not now the lid was off. “You haven’t wasted your life. That’s bollocks.”
She hadn’t said bollocks to Dad for ten years. She needed to get out of the room before things really started to go downhill.
“Sometimes I can’t breathe.” He made no attempt to wipe the tears from his face. “I start sweating, and I know something dreadful is about to happen, but I have no idea what it is.”
Then she remembered. That lunchtime. Him running out and sitting on the patio.
Downstairs Jacob had stopped wailing.
“It’s called a panic attack,” she said. “Everyone has them. OK, maybe not everyone. But lots of people. You’re not strange. Or special. Or different.” She was slightly alarmed by the tone of her own voice. “There are drugs. There are ways of sorting these things out. You have to go and see someone. This is not just about you. You have to do something. You have to stop being selfish.”
She seemed to have veered off course somewhere in the middle there.
He said, “Maybe you’re right.”
“There’s no maybe about it.” She waited for her pulse to slow a little. “I’ll talk to Mum. I’ll get her to sort something out.”
“Right.”
It was the patio all over again. It frightened her, the way he soaked it all up and didn’t answer back. It made her think of those old men shuffling round hospitals with five o’clock shadow and bags of urine on wheelie stands. She said, “I’m going downstairs now.”
“OK.”
For a brief moment she thought about hugging him. But they’d done enough new things