You Are Not a Stranger Here - Adam Haslett [38]
Once, when he was a boy, his parents took him on a cruise ship, and after dinner one night his father and he stood on the deck, and Paul imagined what it would be like if he were to fall, disappearing into that vast, anonymous darkness. He can still remember how his heart thumped in his chest, how he clung to that railing that separated him from death.
Who could say all that has happened since then, or why?
As a man, he has pictured his own end so many times the thought arrives like an old friend, there to reassure him.
For an hour or more he sits, listening to the water. He is calm as he goes to the desk; calm, as he writes his note to Ellen.
I’ve been a burden long enough. I hope eventually you will remember the better times. Please forgive me.
A TAXI PICKS them up after breakfast and takes them to the station. They board the front car of the train, storing their luggage on a rack by the door, and then they find a compartment to themselves.
The overhead speaker announces the train will be held in the station for ten minutes, just as the schedule that Paul checked said it would.
Ellen roots in her handbag for something. Paul clutches the envelope in his pocket.
As she bends forward, her hair, parted in the middle, comes loose from behind her ears. He washed that velvet black hair the week they married, lying in the tub in her apartment, lathering her head as it rested on his chest. They would have three children, she said. There would be closets of toys and winter coats and summer holidays and a home to return to.
Enough, he thinks, and stops remembering. In Dr. Gormley’s waiting room, the coatrack would still persist. The beige watercooler. The dog-eared magazines. The humming. The air without scent. He sees Ellen, alone, walking the aisle of a supermarket, pausing, taking a can from the shelf. He feels incredibly tired.
From the window, Paul watches as the last of the passengers board at the far end of the platform. The rumble of the engine grows louder. He stands and bends down to kiss Ellen’s cheek.
“I’m just going to use the bathroom,” he says, and then can’t help adding, “You’ll be all right.”
“Sure,” she says distractedly, examining their tickets.
He moves quickly down the passageway. At the end of the car, he takes his bag from the rack and steps off the train. The conductor is standing there on the platform.
“There’s a woman in number twelve,” Paul says to him. “Could you give her this?”
The conductor takes the envelope from him with no apparent interest.
“I’ll see she gets it,” he says, putting the whistle between his lips.
MRS. MCLAGGAN IS just returning from the shops as he enters the lane. She does not notice him until he is there at the door.
“Mr. Lewis,” she says, glancing down at his bag. “You’ve come for a visit. How good of you, Albert will be so pleased.”
Again there is the high, rotting odor as they step into the hall, the terrier trailing behind. In the kitchen, he watches Mrs. McLaggan take her tins and vegetables from her cloth bag.
“Colder this morning,” she says. “The haar will be here soon. You won’t be able to see a thing in a day or two for all the mist and fog.”
The groceries put in place, she fills the kettle at the sink. “Albert enjoyed that yesterday, really he did.”
“How do you manage?” Paul asks. “Knowing he’s going to die.”
She arranges milk and sugar on a tray.
“It’ll sound odd, I know, but the idea’s not so peculiar to me actually. I used to nurse on a ward, you see. Before you were born, dear, during the war. They were desperate for people. Adverts up in all the shops about how the young women had to come south. I’d never been. A hospital outside Southampton’s where they put me. We got the ones who weren’t going back. Most were healthy enough, just lost a leg or an arm . . . There were others, though, dying ones.