Pat Barker: Toby's Room

‘All right,’ she said, at last. ‘I promise.’

He closed his eyes then and let her settle him on to the pillows, which were damp with his sweat.

When she’d made him as comfortable as she could, she turned to Andrew, who’d been hovering, awkward and clumsy, by the door, his gaze fixed on Toby’s flushed and sweating face.

‘I’ll be all right now, if you want to get off.’

He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘I don’t want to, but I think perhaps I’d better.’

He went to stand by the bed. For some extraordinary reason she felt she ought to look away, but then, deliberately, didn’t. She watched him wrap one big red hand round Toby’s twitching fingertips.

‘Right, then, I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘What time?’

‘Nine-ish.’

‘Oh. Not till then?’

‘All right, I’ll try to get in for eight.’

Toby seemed about to say something else, but then shook his head.

She followed Andrew out on to the landing.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘here’s my telephone number. You will let me know, won’t you, if he gets worse?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, automatically, though she thought: I’ve just promised not to tell my mother and father. Why on earth would I tell you?

She stood in the darkness, listening to his footsteps going down the stairs, until she heard the click of the front door closing behind him. When she got back to the room, Toby’s eyes were shut, though she didn’t think he was asleep. Perhaps he wanted to avoid the rawness of undiluted contact with her, now that his friend had gone and they were alone. She looked down at him. There was a grey tinge to his complexion now, except for two patches of dark red on his cheeks that seemed to get more intense as she watched. The effect was ridiculous and even slightly sinister; he looked like a broken doll.

He’d thrust the bedclothes down below his waist. She tried to pull them up again, but he resisted. ‘No, I’m too hot.’

‘You’ve got a temperature.’

When she touched his forehead the heat frightened her, but a few minutes later he’d started to shiver and complained of feeling cold. She tucked the coverlet up around his chin, but almost immediately he started tugging at it, fighting to get it off. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

‘Has Andrew gone?’

‘Yes, just now.’

He nodded, but kept glancing towards the door.

‘He left me his telephone number.’

‘You won’t ring him, will you? He lives at home.’

‘No, I won’t ring.’

The port-wine stains on his cheeks turned him into a stranger. She sat by the bed, suddenly frightened, dreading the long night ahead.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said.

Bizarrely, he’d voiced her thoughts. ‘I think the best thing you can do is get some sleep.’

He lapsed into silence then, his eyes fluttering upwards behind his half-closed lids. Perhaps he would sleep. She sat back in the chair and gazed around the room. It was very much a student’s lodgings, right down to the cheap prints tacked on to the walls. Books were stacked on every available surface, sometimes spilling over on to the floor. In one corner, wedged between the wardrobe and the window, was a skeleton, wearing Toby’s hat.

A carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked out the slow minutes. She felt lonely, and she hadn’t expected that. She’d thought they’d be in this together, but they weren’t. Toby had vanished into his illness, leaving her to face the night alone.

As his temperature rose, he began to mutter, a jumble of words that made no sense. He seemed to think he was back at home, in his own room. Once, he even called her Mother.

She touched his hand. ‘It’s Elinor.’

‘Oh, yes.’ He managed a smile. ‘I’m glad it’s you.’

But then he started rambling and the muttering got louder. He seemed to be saying one word over and over again. She bent closer, getting the full blast of his rancid breath.

‘Toby, I can’t hear you.’

‘Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry sorry …’

‘ Shush. ’

She put a hand over his mouth, but the sorries kept streaming out of him. He must be apologizing for what had happened between them, at the old mill and later in his room. What else could it be? Without warning he threw the covers off and swung his legs over the side of the bed. She pushed him back, knowing if it came to a fight he was almost certainly, in spite of his illness, stronger than her. She couldn’t make out what he was trying to do. He seemed to be staring at something, not at her, something or somebody behind her.

‘Sorry, I am so sorry.’

‘Go to sleep, Toby. Please.’

Sleep was what he needed, but she wanted him unconscious as much for her sake as his. He lay back, defeated, and closed his eyes. At first, he simply tossed and turned, made restless by the tightness of his breathing, but then, at last, he slipped into a deep sleep, and she was able to relax, a little.

A sulky fire burnt in the grate, spitting whenever a flake of snow found its way down the chimney and hit the hot coals. The room was beginning to feel cold. She pressed a log down hard on to the embers, but the flames that licked round it would take an hour or more to get a hold. The chair she was sitting in had springs sticking through the cushions. She twisted and turned, trying to get comfortable, but nothing worked, and the coat she’d wrapped round herself was still wet from the long walk through the snow. Toby was clinging to the edge of the bed, leaving plenty of space on the other side. Without undressing, or even loosening her belt, she climbed across him, and curled up in the narrow space between his spine and the wall.

She pulled the damp sheet over her, convinced she wouldn’t sleep, not with those dreadful rattling breaths beside her, but after a while she did manage to doze off, though she was aware, all the time, of the other body beside her, kicking, turning, never still, not for a moment, always wanting more room, more room. Without waking, he rolled over towards her. She wriggled away, but he seemed to be following her, pressing in on her, until her face was only a few inches from the wall. And he was pouring out sweat. At last, she gave up, and went back to sitting in the chair, trying to persuade herself that the curtains were beginning to let in a little more light. Though the clock said it was only twenty past three: the dead of night, the hour when the grip on life weakens.

She lit the lamp and brought it closer to his face so she could see the colour of his skin. The extent of his deterioration was frightening. While she’d been dozing, he’d turned from a doll into a clown. She put a hand on his chest and felt the huge, dark muscle of the heart labouring away in its cage of bone. Somehow or other she had to get his temperature down. She looked around for something to put water in, but all she could see was the jug by the bed. There had to be bowls somewhere. She found one in a cupboard beside the sink, and another in the bathroom across the landing. She filled them with tepid water and carried them to the marble washstand beside the bed.

As she brought the wet flannel close to his face, he said, ‘No!’ loudly, almost shouting, and reared away from her.

‘We’ve got to get your temperature down.’

He withdrew from her then, from his own body almost, straining his neck and head back as if to disassociate himself from the sweating bulk on the bed. She began to wash him down, singing little snatches of songs: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do, I’m half crazy … How different this body was from that other one on the slab, and yet how alike too. The glow of his wet skin in the lamplight … All for the love of you .