William Boyd - Ordinary Thunderstorms

“I heard a funny joke today,” Turpin said. “Didn’t half laugh. It’s good to laugh, clears out the system. Doctors will tell you that. A tonic.”

Adam stooped to tie his shoelace.

“There’s this woman social worker, see?” Turpin began. “And she’s talking to a little girl, pretty little chicken. And she says: do you know when your mummy has her period? — You heard this one before?”

“No,” Adam said, beginning to re-tie his other shoelace for good measure.

“It’s bloody good. Hilarious. So the little girl says to the social worker”—now Turpin put on a piping falsetto—“Yes, miss, I know when my mummy has her period. Social worker: how can you tell?…And the little girl says: because daddy’s cock tastes funny.” Turpin shook with laughter again.

It all became clear to Adam at once, in a flash of insight, what he could do, here and now, and how easy it would be. At the very least it would be some recompense, some rough justice, for all the grief Turpin had visited on his various wives and his little children. Adam quickly reached out, while Turpin was still rocking drunkenly with mirth at his joke, and slipped two fingers under the cuff of Turpin’s right trouser leg. He gripped it, holding it firmly, and rose suddenly to his feet from his crouching position. Turpin went up and over the balustrade so fast and fluently he had time only to utter a short bark of surprise, his hands grabbing vainly at thin air. And then he was gone, falling into the dark beyond the bridge’s lights. Adam heard the splash of his body hitting the water. He thought for a second about running across to see if there was any sign of him downstream, but Chelsea Bridge was awkward to traverse — he would have to vault two sizeable structural barriers on either side of the roadway — and anyway, it was dark and the tide was strong and surging and would carry Turpin away so quickly, he knew. Adam didn’t pause any longer, he turned and walked on towards Battersea. The whole moment had been so fast — a mere second — no cars had passed by, no one else was on the bridge. At one moment there had been two men; the next moment there was only one. So easy. Turpin was gone, Adam thought, as he walked away, and he didn’t feel anything, to his vague surprise, he didn’t feel changed in any way and he didn’t feel guilty. It was a simple act, a decision that had occurred to him spontaneously — bringing about an end to Turpin as if a roof tile had fallen on his head or as if he had been hit by a speeding car. A fatal accident. Adam strode calmly, steadily, on to Battersea and bussed home to Rita.

LIFE’S JOURNEY WAS VERY strange, Ingram decided, and it had recently taken him to places he never thought he would have visited on his personal itinerary from cradle to grave. He sat upright, now, in his hospital bed, leaning back against a fat pile of pillows, with his shaven, massively scarred head wrapped in a neat, tight turban of bandages. He had a drip in his arm and his left eye was covered with a black pirate’s patch — something he’d requested himself, to see if it would subdue the firework display that glittered and sparkled against the shifting grey mica dust that was all his left retina was currently supplying as vision. With light not coming in, the darkness seemed to quell the pyrotechnics. Only the occasional supernova or atom bomb blast made him flinch — otherwise he felt pretty well, if 3 out of 10 could be regarded as a norm: nausea, parched throat, out-of-body trances not being included in the audit. He could speak, he could read (out of one eye), he could think, he could eat — though he was never hungry — he could defecate (effortfully, meagrely), he could drink. He craved sweet, cold drinks — he asked all visitors to bring chilled colas — Pepsi, Coke, supermarket ‘own’ brands — he did not discriminate.

It was three days since his operation — the urgent ‘debulking’ of his brain — and he had been informed that his tumour had been removed along with the other tissue. His chemotherapy was underway and he could receive visitors. His wife, Meredith, had left five minutes before — trying to hide her tears but failing.

Currently, Lachlan McTurk sat heavily on his bed, helping himself to a toothglass of the malt whisky he had brought as a present.

“You’ll like this, Ingram,” McTurk said. “Speyside. Aberlour. I know you don’t enjoy West Coast.”

“Thank you, Lachlan. I look forward to it.”

McTurk topped himself up again.

“Who was your surgeon?” he asked.

“Mr Gulzar Shah,” Ingram said. He had popped in an hour previously, a tall, gaunt, softly spoken man with dark eye sockets, as if he had applied eye-shadow to them.

“Oh, very good man. Top man. Did he give you a final diagnosis?”

“Glioblastoma multiforme,” Ingram pronounced the words carefully. “I think that’s what he said.”

“Ah…yes…Hmmm. Oh, dear…Yes…”

“You’re wonderfully reassuring, Lachlan. Mr Shah said he wanted to wait for more biopsy results before he confirmed. But that was his provisional judgement.”

“It’s definitely something you don’t want to get, old son, is all I’ll say. Very nasty.”

“Well, I seem to have got it, by all accounts. I don’t have much choice.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“You’re my doctor, Lachlan — what’s your prognosis?”

Lachlan sipped his whisky, thinking, sucking his teeth.

“Well…If you follow the usual pattern you’ll probably be dead in three months. Don’t give up all hope, though. Ten per cent of glioblastoma multiforme sufferers experience remission — some have lived five years. Who can say? You might be the exception. You might prove medical science wrong: live a long, fulfilled life. It is a rare and virulent cancer, though.” Lachlan reached forward and patted his hand. “Exceptionally. Still, I’ll put my money on you, Ingram. At least five years.”

“Many thanks.”

There was a knock on the door.

“I’ll haste awa’, laddie,” Lachlan said in his best Rabbie Burns mode. He pushed the whisky bottle towards Ingram. “Do have a wee dram of this. No point in holding back, eh? Chin up.”

As he left he passed Ingram’s accountant, Chandrakant Das, coming in. Chandrakant was in an evident state of shock — he couldn’t speak for a while, his face pinched, his eyes moist, he gripped Ingram’s hand with both his hands, looking down and breathing deeply for a minute, composing himself.

“I feel surprisingly well, Chandra,” Ingram said, trying to put him at his ease. “I know everything is collapsing around me but I feel in sufficiently good health to want to enquire about the state of my finances. That’s why I asked you here. I do apologise.”

Chandra was finally able to speak. “It’s not good, Ingram. Not good, not good, not good, not good.”

Chandra explained. Calenture-Deutz shares were currently trading at 37 pence and heading south. Rilke Pharma had made a buy-out offer to the other shareholders of 50 pence a share but were reconsidering as the company rapidly devalued. Ingram had been voted off the board as chairman and CEO and it was only his ‘health crisis’ that was keeping the Serious Fraud Office at bay.

“But I didn’t make a penny from this fiasco,” Ingram said. “I’ve lost a fortune. So why are they after me?”

“Because your brother-in-law has absconded with £1.8 million,” Chandra said, anguished. “They can’t touch him in Spain so they’re after you. You obviously advised him to sell, they say. Clear case of insider dealing.”

“On the contrary. I explicitly advised him not to sell.”

“Can you prove it?”