Thomas Maloney - Learning to Die

A defining characteristic of illness, in Dan’s past experience, was that eventually you recover. It takes longer than you hope — sore throats evolve into colds that evolve into lingering coughs, blocking out swathes of the calendar; a poisoned digestive system keeps making one more frenzied ejection — but you do recover. The prospect of recovery is sewn into the illness with silver thread.

Now he’s discovering the other kind, and the psychological flavour is unrecognisable. As different as au revoir and adieu . He’s bidding adieu capabilities he never even noticed possessing: kicking off his shoes; sidling between parked cars; opening childproof medicine bottles (the last a painful and symbolic affront). He feels a gathering sense of urgency even as his disobliging body slows down, and each passing moment carries the taint of impatience.

Brenda’s bus, having growled across the moors for half an hour, swings abruptly onto a side road. Suddenly you can’t miss the sea, into which the land here — an unstable marriage of flatness and height, a toppling table with a broken edge — seems to want to tip you. A brown expanse tending to grey, specks of foam, the horizon blurred. Suggestion of a distant ship.

Now comes the irresistible hiccup of joy as she catches sight of James slouched playfully against the bus stop, hair curling from a flat cap worn not quite straight. So this is his territory, his stronghold: the village leaning over the tidal beach, shedding houses every few decades; the cobbled lanes; his small room a student’s room, but a tidy one — bed, desk, bookshelf, coffee machine, flowers. From the window you can almost touch the sea. James tugs the curtain across it and they kiss, smiling so much their teeth collide. Blessed rightness of being together.

Now as a rule, Brenda doesn’t do blow-jobs — one-sided wastes of a fuck (ditto the tickly converse) — but today calls for a gesture, and she’s decided to make an exception. She unfastens his shirt buttons, slides lips to his chest, and resists, ignoring the slow burn of her own needs, when he tries to pull her towards the bed. Only when the insistent trickle of kisses reaches his stomach does the penny drop. He freezes, as if any movement might change her mind. A hyperventilating teenage boy getting it for the first time. He lasts about thirty seconds, and afterwards just stands there, looking dazed. She pulls his jeans up for him and they have a divine cuddle on the bed with their clothes on.

Later he takes her to a low, dark seafood restaurant about fifty yards from his room — there is only one, and it’s perfect. He behaves with exaggerated gallantry. He’s funny. Afterwards he leads her to a bench overlooking the village and wraps his coat round her, and they watch the lights benevolently trawling the horizon. She could get used to this. More drinks in his room. Then his narrow, creaky bed a nest of whispers and giggles.

The Mocks’ street slumbers heedless beneath a blazing pink mackerel sky, as Dan eases himself awkwardly down the step onto the pavement. He can barely walk without the sticks, but he can still ride.

He positions himself astride his bike, helmet balanced on the engine, one glove off to operate his phone, scrolling with ever-so-slightly clumsy flicks of his thumb. Some of these he will never hear again — his final listen has already passed by, unnoticed. A Springsteen album. A Beethoven symphony. The same with everything, of course. More and more things as he gets sicker. Last this, last that. The same for everyone. But this list of discrete, named experiences dangles its complacent orderliness before his eyes and drives the point home.

And yet here he is now, alive. He doesn’t normally listen while riding, but this isn’t going to be a normal ride. It’s a joyride. As the familiar names fly past, his eye catches Killing Joke. Perfect. He checks the helmet’s wireless internal speakers, activates the borrowed video camera perched on top, lifts the whole apparatus with some difficulty and slides it onto his head. Hits play on the phone, zips it into a sleeve pocket, pulls on his glove and throttles up hard. Wake these healthy slugabeds — ha! Strokes back the kickstand with his good leg. Joy already.

Out of town, asphalt flashing, surfing on a sea of inertial forces, Joke pounding into his brain like the grace of God. Somewhere in his mind, a dial has been adjusted. It’s not so much that the goods at stake have shrunk in value, but rather his life’s discount rate (Dan is up on his neuroeconomics) has rocketed. He accelerates hard out of a bend and feels the rear wheel twitch. His heart, somewhere under the leather and the storm of noise, is racing.

Brenda shifts, lets the inadequate duvet slip off her thigh and the cool morning air rouse her into wakefulness. James’ short, regular exhalations weave in and out of time with the soughing of the North Sea. She could just lie here and bask in her happiness, but instead she lifts her head to survey the little room. Cold light spills under the curtains and across the desk: two emptied glasses, a bottle, the vase of cheery flowers, a plucked leaf that James folded around her fingertip — ‘thy finger’s taperness,’ he called it, even though her calloused fingers with their bitten-down nails don’t really taper.

And the laptop. His mysterious book is one of the private territories that must be opened up if they are to share each other’s lives, to build an alliance. There are others, she acknowledges, but let’s start with the book.

She dismisses his proposal to have breakfast in the tearoom, and instead carries pastries and takeaway coffee back to his room and lays them out carefully on the desk. ‘You have the sea view, after all,’ she explains brightly, ‘and when you sit here tomorrow, writing your novel and feeling lonely, and the next day, and the next, I want you to think of our little breakfast.’ James looks doubtful but doesn’t argue. As he unplugs the laptop and transfers it to the bed, her eyes follow.

‘Talking of your novel,’ she says, ‘isn’t it time you told me about it? What’s the subject?’ James gives a reticent smile.

‘It’s difficult to explain.’

‘Try me. Where’s it set?’

‘It could be set anywhere,’ he answers, reluctantly, ‘but it happens to be set just up the coast at South Shields, and in East London, and on a cargo ship out there. A coal ship. In about nineteen ten.’

‘You must have to do a lot of research,’ suggests Brenda, ‘to get the details right.’ She glances at his bookshelf. There are books, but not that many.

‘To be honest,’ says James, with an odd blend of self deprecation and arrogance, ‘I don’t really bother about historical details.’

‘Then what do you bother about?’

Their eyes meet and Brenda thinks of the Harris hawk. Cornered. Suddenly the hawk eyes flash and he leans forward — he’s going to spill the beans.

‘Alright. Here goes. The ancient Greeks recognised at least four distinct bonds that we lazily throw together under the umbrella of love — you might call them desire, friendship, kinship and general benevolence. You might, but nowadays if you really mean it you’re supposed to use the umbrella word: love. We also cram under there the attachments you feel towards a cat, a song, a view. Ice cream. McDonald’s. You’re even told to love yourself, which must be easier for some people than others. With me so far?’

‘I think so.’

‘Now why would our language, our most triumphant achievement, the whole purpose of which is to draw distinctions, why would it fail us so badly when it comes to this diverse jumble of affections, which range from the cheapest, most trivial of whims to what most of us consider to be the profoundest feelings any person can have? Is it really just laziness, or something more deliberate?’