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.‘They’ve asked me to play the piano, you know.’It seemed unlikely.He hadn’t played for years.I looked at his stiff white fingers.Was he imagining it? Had he been telling jazz stories to impress them? ‘That’s nice of them,’ I said, for want of anything better to say.‘You must be joking.They’re all potty.’One of the staff passed us, carrying a bag of linen.‘Feeling better this afternoon, Tommy?’ she called out.My dad flashed a compliant smile.‘All at sixes and sevens this morning, weren’t we?’ she said loudly.‘But we’re all here for you, that’s all that matters.’I smiled at her too.She winked at me.I didn’t ask what had happened.She carried on towards the lift.We sat in silence for a moment.I wished I knew the best course of action.I wished there was a sign.One minute everything was normal – by which I meant the same as a recognisable and non-frightening past – the next, everything was strange and alarming.Then words came out of my mouth, as if from nowhere: ‘Mum’s doing much better.Feeling stronger.She’s been thinking of getting you back to the flat with her.’He immediately took my hand.His palm felt cold.I was aware of his bony fingers as they squeezed mine, and the power I seemed to be wielding.‘Thank you,’ he said.‘Thank you.’Chapter 16In May 1971 my dad’s father – my grandpa – died in hospital following a car crash.He was seventy-one.He held the steering wheel with the same white matchwood hands.I was in the car when we crashed, together with my grandma.My recollection of it is as vivid now as when I described it in Patient.We were on our way to the swimming pool in Dumbarton in my grandpa’s bottle-green Mini.My grandpa was driving.My grandma was in the back.I was in the front passenger seat, my feet up on the dashboard, my trunks rolled up in a towel held across my chest.We approached the traffic lights at the big crossroads.The lights were red but my grandpa just seemed to accelerate rather than brake.Behind me I heard my grandma shout, ‘Will!’ When I came round, there was a crowd around the car.A tiny trickle of blood was on my ear.I touched it with my fingers.Hundreds of small crystals of glass like transparent cane sugar were all over my lap.The car wasn’t in the middle of the junction – as it would have been if we had continued in a straight line – but pushed over as though we’d turned left but sideways.There was a double-decker bus stopped too.My grandpa wasn’t speaking.He was still in his seat but he looked floppy and awkward, like a discarded puppet.The bus had hit his side of the car on the junction, side on, and pushed us some distance.The steering wheel was very near me, touching my leg; it seemed odd to have the steering wheel that close to me, as though it had been positioned in the middle of the dashboard for use by either the driver or the passenger.My grandma was lying on her side on the back seat.She was saying something to me.Her shoulder seemed tucked behind her back.An egg yolk was dripping off the seat and there were peas on the floor.I couldn’t tell how much time had passed.It felt like a minute but it must have been a while for the ambulance to have already got there.A woman I’d never seen before helped me out with an ambulance man.I was barely marked.My grandma had dislocated her shoulder.We had to wait while they cut my grandpa out.The sparks cascaded into the grey afternoon light.In the ambulance, he opened his eyes for a second and said everything would be all right, but then he closed them again.He was very pale.The liver spots on his balding head stood out.His fine wispy white hair was messed up like he had been sleeping on it.He didn’t have his glasses on any more which made him look less like him.I didn’t see him again after that.I remember the phone call several days later when I was back home in London and the hospital said my grandpa had died.They said the cause of death was pneumonia and a broken ribcage.I wasn’t sure what a ribcage looked like; I wondered if it was like a bird-cage.Every Sunday morning my dad used to shut himself in my mum’s study just before 11.30 a.m [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]