Эндрю Миллер - Oxygen

At least the will was done, though she had wondered recently whether she might leave something to Una. She hadn’t been sure at first about Una O’Connell. A dreamy, rather self-contained sort of character. And it was hard not to resent the young. Their rude health. The feeling that one was being condescended to. But the girl had qualities. Good hands. A sweet, rather melancholy smile. And in her way she knew as much about the wretched cancer as Brando did. Alec could give the lawyers a call tomorrow (you had to be careful; she couldn’t stand the thought of disputes). Then when Larry came she must speak to them both about the funeral, which they wouldn’t have a clue about. Stephen’s had cost the best part of two thousand pounds, and that was twenty years ago. There were cardboard coffins now, biodegradable. She had even read that you could be composted, which might be amusing. Four parts vegetable waste to one part human. The boys would decide about the house. And what would they do with her clothes? Give them away? Burn them?

Last of all there were the goodbyes (numberless, they seemed, though that couldn’t be right). Goodbyes to the living and goodbyes to the dead – for the dead would go too, those she had been sheltering in her head, in memories. What made it so trying was not knowing how she would be from one day to the next, not being able to rely on herself, this slender stricken thing between the sheets, this body that Samuel Pinedo had once thought so lovely. Yet somehow she must do it, and as she slid back towards sleep she envisaged all those last thoughts and last acts like a line of delicate sun machines, those glass bulbs like the one Alec had had as a child with sails of light-sensitive paper on a pin which whirled beneath the glass when the sun shone on them.

‘Je te sauverai ,’ they said. ‘Je te sauverai, maman.’ And she let herself be comforted.

Alec dimmed the light of the lantern, then went inside to call America. The telephone in the kitchen was the farthest from Alice’s room – the least likely to disturb her – and the ten-digit number he needed was written on the cracked paint of the wall beside the telephone. His own number was just below it, and at the top of the list were the hospital number and Una’s home number. For a few seconds the receiver hissed like a conch shell, then began to ring. He counted fifteen rings and was about to hang up when he heard Kirsty’s breathless ‘Hello?’

‘Hi,’ said Alec.

‘Larry?’

‘Alec.’

‘Alec! Is everything OK?’

‘Fine.’

‘I was in the shower,’ she said. ‘I just got back from the centre. Wow, what a day!’

‘Zen?’ asked Alec.

‘Yeah. We’ve got this roshi over from Kyoto. Mr Endo.’ She laughed. ‘I think I’m in love.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Alec, laughing too, though quietly. He imagined her, with her wet hair pushed behind her ears, the colour of it darkened a little by the water.

‘He gave us our koans,’ she said.

‘Koans?’

‘The riddles.’

‘Ah,’ said Alec. ‘The sound of one hand clapping.’

‘That kind of thing.’

‘What’s yours?’

‘Gosh,’ she said, ‘I don’t think we’re supposed to tell.’

‘What happens when you find the answer?’

‘Well, you get a Buddhist name, and it’s like the first stage.’

‘Enlightenment by instalments.’

‘Don’t be such a Brit, Alec. I know you think it’s the Moonies.’

‘No I don’t,’ he said. ‘I envy you.’

‘How’s Alice?’

‘She has to rest a lot.’

‘Is Brando still coming?’

‘He’ll be here tomorrow,’ said Alec. He didn’t share the general enthusiasm for Brando. All that charm and authority. He suspected Brando did not approve of him either. The translator. The ineffectual son.

‘Larry’s just sick with worry,’ said Kirsty. ‘And it’s not as if he has much to take his mind off it.’

‘He’s not working?’

‘If he could just get back on the show…’

‘Dr Barry.’

‘I know it wasn’t Shakespeare or anything.’

‘I never knocked it. Is he there?’

‘He’s in LA. Some “business” trip.’

‘He said he’d call,’ said Alec.

‘Well, that’s Larry. But I know he wants to speak to you. He talks about you more than anyone.’

‘Really?’

‘I guess he thinks he should be over there. Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, why would he tell me what he thinks?’ The telephone bleeped like sonar. Alec heard her sniff and sigh. ‘Poor Alice. I really love her.’

‘Come on,’ he said, afraid that she would start something in him. ‘Do some Zen breathing. How does it work?’

‘Ella,’ she said, ‘are you on the extension, honey?’

There was silence, then a tiny, hesitant, ‘Yes.’

‘It’s your Uncle Alec. Calling from England. Say hello, honey.’

Alec waited. At last, a faintly lisped hello crossed the six thousand miles between them.

‘It’s night here,’ he said, talking to the girl. ‘A little while ago I heard an owl hooting at the end of the garden. Maybe you’ll hear it when you come for Granny’s birthday.’

‘She’d love that,’ said Kirsty. ‘Now put the phone down, baby, and let me talk with Uncle Alec. Come on, Ella, put it down…’ There was a subtle click. ‘She does that all the time. I really want to get her more help but it’s so darned expensive.’

‘Is she still borrowing stuff?’

‘Larry found one of my earrings in her booty last night. At least he knows where to look for them. She likes you, Alec.’

‘I haven’t seen her for a year.’

‘She remembers you.’

‘Has Larry picked up the tickets?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Why don’t you all fly together?’

‘I want to finish this course. I know it’s selfish but Endo’s too good to miss.’

‘You’re right,’ said Alec. ‘Solve your riddle. Then come.’

‘Have you tried scalp massage?’ she asked. ‘You use your fingertips to move the scalp over the skull, like you’re washing hair.’

‘Is that a Zen thing?’

‘Not everything’s Zen, Alec.’ She paused, trying to recall what she had been taught earlier in the day. ‘Well, maybe it is. Anyway, you should do it for Alice. It’ll make her feel good.’

‘Not if I did it,’ he said. He found the idea absurd to the point of comedy.

‘You’re not such a klutz.’

‘Thanks.’

‘How’s your Romanian guy? Or was he Albanian or something?’

‘Hungarian.’

‘Right. Didn’t you say he was some kind of old freedom fighter? A sort of Che Guevara?’

‘Something like that.’

‘I know it’s a lousy time for you, Alec. Larry’ll be there soon.’

‘The cavalry!’

‘I hope you two aren’t going to fight.’

‘Why should we?’

‘Well, brothers do. Remember Cain and Abel? But maybe you’re the one who can help him.’

‘Help Larry?’

‘People change, Alec.’

‘Do they? I thought they just got more like themselves.’

She laughed but didn’t sound very amused. ‘I guess.’

‘Has something happened?’

‘Just the usual. Give hugs to Alice.’

‘Sure. Kiss Ella for me.’

‘Get some sleep,’ she said, ‘you sound tired.’

‘I’m on my way,’ he said.

‘Take care now.’

‘You too.’

‘I know things are going to work out somehow.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m glad you called.’

‘Bye-bye.’

‘Bye.’

She rang off and Alec slowly hung up the receiver. Help Larry? This was a novel suggestion. A disturbing one! What had she been hinting at? What type of trouble? He tried for a moment (staring at the wall as though at a screen) to do what he had not done in a long, long while: to have a view of his brother’s life, an objective take on it, but he realized he simply didn’t have the information any more – certainly not the kind of private information that might make sense of an expression like ‘the usual’. But then, how did a knowledge of a person’s circumstances weigh against a knowledge of his character? A character in Larry’s case that Alec still believed he knew better than Kirsty, if only because he had known it first and was himself written into it. He knew what Larry was made of. Perhaps she had meant ‘help Kirsty’. People were forever calling out in confusing ways.