Luke Williams - The Echo Chamber

Perry beckoned me with a trembling hand. In a rasping voice he commanded, ‘Take me tae the carnivorous plants.’

‘Me —?’

Mr Rafferty spoke quietly. ‘He can’t make it past the African palm.’

‘We don’t have the time,’ I said, ‘I’ve got something important to talk to you about.’

‘Don’t refuse the old veteran. Go ahead.’

‘Take me,’ said the cripple.

Annoyed, I put my hand on the armrest. ‘Perhaps another time,’ I said. But Perry had shuddered into motion, saying, ‘Dinnay let the fronds get in my road.’

I strode in front. ‘The plants, they’re a worry,’ he said. ‘I used tae cut them back. But since this —’ he kicked feebly at the metal frame, ‘you might as well no bother.’

‘A shame,’ I said. ‘Which way is it?’

‘Round tae the left. Behind the great palm … Hang up.’ The chair swerved off the pathway and collided with an iron pillar. As I righted him, Perry said, ‘What a beauty!’ We were before the palm, which reached massively upwards, its trunk rising column-like almost to the roof.

The cripple said, ‘It’s older than you.’

‘Come, where are we going?’

‘Hang up a minute.’ He wanted to talk. ‘If I dinnay bring out the tree surgeon soon, it’ll die like the rest. Christ almighty. Look.’ The palm pushed its fronds vigorously against the roof; and yet on examining the ribbed and flaking trunk, I saw it was lesioned in many places and supported by iron bars. Its growth had been carefully manipulated by the hothouse gardeners.

‘Old Mister Sandor —’

‘Let’s get on.’

I parted a thick leaf-curtain. On the other side we came to a bank of flowers with gaping pink mouths. They appeared ravenous. Perry took out a matchbox and slid open the lid. For a moment I mistook its contents for sultanas, then I recoiled — the box was filled with dead flies.

‘They destroy themselves on the window panes in my room,’ he said and emptied the box into his palm. Taking one after another delicately by its wings, he began to drop them into the long-lashed flytraps, which closed lazily around their prey. I watched amazed for several minutes as, swaying gently from side to side, with a kind of fierce pleasure, or so it seemed, the cripple’s plants set about digesting the flies.

‘How do you like that?’ he asked.

‘I must be getting back,’ I said, parting the leaf-curtain.

As we made our way along the path, Perry muttered to himself, coughed, jerked to and fro in his battery-powered machine, cursed the hospital management. ‘It wasn’t like that in Mister Sandor’s day,’ he breathed.

‘Watch the stones,’ I said.

Perry talked on, and my sense of hearing started to leave me. His voice seemed very far away. In a few minutes every sound was deep and unclear, like noises underwater. No doubt because of this my eyes were active. I was looking at the chaos of fetid undergrowth, which restricted the chair’s movements. It had not always been this way. At one time the flora had been ordered and cut back, regulated by the great steam heaters, the sprinkler system, the complicated mass of blinds and pulleys. Now it was overgrown, prehistoric. It smelled of decay.

By the time I got back to the pond Perry was no longer with me; he must have taken a different path. I noticed Mr Rafferty had fallen asleep. Bubbles formed between his slightly open lips. I wanted to wake him; it was getting late and I didn’t want him to grow tired, in which case he would surely refuse to answer my questions. Nevertheless I let him rest for a while longer. I was thinking of the venus flytraps, as I had left them a moment ago, potent and gorged, and the funeral chord sounded again, stronger than before. Could my grandfather hear it in his sleep? Could Perry, wherever he was? I didn’t think so. Every other sound had disappeared. My sense of vision loomed enormously. I sat there gazing at the falls. I began to study its appearance, as though I’d never seen a waterfall before, its thousand glistening surfaces, the spray or mist rising where it struck the pond. The chord became gradually quieter, and I grew more and more content. Everything appeared dense and still, in particular the falls, which looped down now in a continuous silent flood and seemed made not of water, but, impossibly, of ice.

Some time later my hearing returned. I leaned over and whispered in my grandfather’s ear. There was a hatching of froth on his chin. Had he been dribbling? It was likely. To wake him seemed cruel, but I shook him anyway. He didn’t stir. I thought about what I would do if my hearing deteriorated again. I shook him violently. His gaze roamed upwards, then his eyes fell on me and glazed over. I saw a dark patch at the end of his shoe, where he had let it dip into the pond.

‘Did you have a good nap?’ I said, finally. He told me that he was too hot. My grandfather’s answers are often beside the point. ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘There are certain things I’d like to talk to you about, things which are important to me, which only you can help with.’ He stared at me in astonishment. Perhaps he wasn’t yet fully awake. I waited several minutes then asked if he knew who I was. After a short pause he spoke my name.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Shall we go to the park?’ I was trying to be clear. I asked him if he understood. He did not look like he understood. After several minutes, he said, ‘My toe is wet.’ He hadn’t understood a thing. Or perhaps he was being difficult because I had disturbed his sleep.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘We don’t have to go anywhere, if you don’t want to. Let’s chat here.’ I paused. Then I said, ‘Tell me, do you remember when we first met, when I came to visit you, here in the hospital? Do you remember how I was in those days? And Father, what kind of state of mind was he in?’ I asked several more questions. Mr Rafferty waited for me to finish. Then he opened his mouth and spoke. But I couldn’t hear him clearly.

I looked up at the roof. It had started to snow. I saw shadows flitting across the glass, projected by the streetlamps.

After some time I said, ‘Mr Rafferty?’

I won’t narrate this duet in full. Suffice to say there were further misunderstandings. Perhaps my grandfather answered my questions, but I think not. I think he was being deliberately obtuse, since at one point he took his yellow goggles from his pocket and began to fiddle with the elastic. Did he think I was going to take him swimming? It must not be forgotten that all this time my ears were of more or less value as sense organs. And my mind kept returning to the flytraps. It was odd to think of vegetative matter eating insect-life. And it was even odder when one thought of Perry feeding them with sweepings from the window panes of his room. Could the old cripple’s plants not fend for themselves? Perhaps the air in the hothouse was not fit to sustain flies, and the plants, like zoo animals unable to hunt their prey, relied on human offerings.

Outside, in the hospital grounds, snow was falling silently. In each band of orange lamplight the flakes sifted gently down. We walked along the path by the perimeter wall. I had given up my quest to have Mr Rafferty help me with my history. He was intent on stepping in the snow, which was starting to settle. Now both his feet were wet. I put my hands in my skirt pockets. But for the noise of the traffic and the crunching underfoot, all was quiet. The graze on my grandfather’s upper lip had turned crimson. As we approached the front door, he stopped and said, ‘Is it both ears?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Are you deaf in both ears?’

I nodded, taken aback.

‘How long has it been going on?’

‘Well, it’s happened several times before.’

‘Have you seen a doctor?’