Engineman - Eric Brown [38]
It had seemed natural that he should accept Ralph's invitation, almost ten years ago, to come and live in Paris on his discharge from hospital. Since then they had lived their own, separate lives. Bobby tended to absorb himself in his books and meditation, and Ralph...? Ralph read a little, watched a little vid-screen, drank. He seemed constantly depressed, apathetic, living only for a dozen bottles of beer daily and his shift at Orly, which he hated. They had both, at times, attempted to talk openly and seriously to each other, but Bobby's wholehearted acceptance of an afterlife had often run aground on Ralph's uncompromising atheism. They no longer had any common ground.
Bobby thought back to their childhood in Sydney, their father, a severely materialist nuclear scientist working on Australia's first fast breeder reactor programme. Their mother had died when they were too young to recall her, and their father had been over-strict, ruthless in his punishment for minor misdemeanours he considered grave. Ralph, the eldest and least strong-willed of the two boys, had kow-towed to his father, perhaps even subconsciously taken on board his secular world-view. Bobby, on the other hand, had rebelled, stubbornly studied religion, looking for the right one until he became an Engineman and discovered the creed of the Disciples.
Now his vision of yesterday tracked from the hall and moved into the kitchen. He watched the cooler door open and his hand take out a bottle of beer. Seconds later he saw the bottle rise to his mouth, tasted the sweet hopsy wash of it in his mouth even though his mouth today was empty. He soon remedied that, tipped his own bottle and felt it run tastelessly down his throat. Yesterday, he had turned and sat on the chair he was now occupying, and once again his present position and what he could see were synchronised.
Something flashed on the periphery of his vision: Ralph, in the hall, leaving his room and crossing to the bathroom. He saw only a glimpse of his brother, but it was enough to see that he looked thin and ill, far older than his forty-two years. Bobby told himself that suffering was instructive, but knew that this would be no consolation to Ralph.
Bobby had often contemplated taking his own life, but less so nowadays. He had considered suicide not because he disliked his life or was unhappy - life was to be experienced, and all experience was valid - but so as to be finally united with the ultimate. What had stopped him was the knowledge of how his death might effect Ralph. His brother would be unable to believe that he had taken his life to rejoin the wondrous continuum, but assume instead that his existence had been intolerable. Ralph felt guilty enough without being burdened with the thought that he had done nothing to ease what he perceived as the trials of Bobby's existence.
Yesterday at this time Bobby had finished his beer. He did the same now, and followed his vision from the kitchen and across the hall.
He selected three pins from the rack on the wall, inserted them into the player and walked across to his bed.
Bobby Mirren lay down and closed his eyes as he had yesterday. Welcome darkness came as he waited for the music to begin.
Chapter Seven
It was eight in the evening when Mirren awoke. The setting sun showed as a square of rouge filaments around the drawn blinds. He rolled onto his back and stared at the cracked ceiling. The air of the room was oppressive, sultry with the heat of the dying day. He became