Jonathan Lee - High Dive

She laughed too long at this.

‘Simple physics,’ he said.

They talked about the electrical business he owned. She asked if he wanted the same again. He said, ‘Unfortunately I can’t stay.’ Despite never expecting him here, never expecting really to talk to him again, this felt very much like a fresh blow.

‘How’s all the planning for the PM’s arrival going, anyway?’

‘OK, yeah.’ A reprieve. ‘She’s asked — there’s all sorts of requests.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Special foods. Special drinks. Cameras.’

‘Cameras,’ he said.

‘They’ll be installing a load of them.’

‘Of course. But already?’

‘No, a week or so.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘I wonder if you’ll get to hang out with her, with Maggie. Probably her schedule’s pretty packed. You’ll need to locate a free window or two while she’s here. Catch up with her views on apartheid.’

‘Apartheid?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It looks pretty complicated.’

‘Once you know the score, it’s pretty simple.’

‘No! The schedule.’

‘Oh.’ He smiled. ‘Fair play.’

‘It’s changing all the time. There’s a lot of ifs and buts . Look.’ She picked up her jacket. She took the document out of her pocket and put it on the bar. Roy Walsh looked at it for a long while. She was grateful to have steered things back onto a subject she knew something about, territory where she could hold her own.

‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘You’re interested? I mean — you’re into politics?’

‘Me? No more than the next man. We’re all into it, aren’t we? It’s just a case of whether we know that we’re into it or not.’

This seemed to her like an intelligent thing to say. It reinforced an idea she had of him as someone whose intelligence came from experience rather than books. Again she felt very young in his company, and when she thought of Surfer John and, worse, the boys she knew from school, it was like they belonged to a completely different gender to Roy Walsh.

In the bottom of her pint glass, all lime and soda sucked away, her face looked like a big pale moon of things never done. Skiing, waterskiing, sailing, sex in water, sex where the guy takes you from behind. The baking of seasonal biscuits, jalapeño peppers, Michael Jackson live, sushi, body piercings, bungee jumps, skydives, waterbeds, yoga, a Coke float made with more than two flavours of ice cream. Argentina, Botswana, Cambodia, a whole alphabet of adventure. But it was a face with potential, she thought.

‘Shall I write down the name of the gym and the pool for you?’

‘Please,’ he said, standing.

When he’d gone she leaned against the bar alone, rolling the word please through her mind. She put the schedule back in her pocket. Possibly she was an over-thinker. It was something she’d been thinking she should address. A dark spot at the edge of her field of vision was swelling and shrinking.

When Surfer John returned from Camber Sands he presented her with a stick of Brighton rock. He thanked her and hugged her. He looked at her strangely. It was as if he was seeing something new.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

He asked her when she was free for the fancy thank-you dinner.

It had begun to rain outside, water rushing down the windowpanes in long wobbling lines, a heavy downpour that left her quite content.

TWO HOURS BEFORE Marina was due to arrive, Moose awoke open-mouthed. He began to try to climb out of bed. An orderly came and helped him stand.

Shaky legs. When he’d checked into this place, his legs had been strong. The hospital was bad for his health. There was no other conclusion. Blisters on the heels of his feet, nappy rash on his arse. No man should ever have to utter to his daughter the words ‘buy me buttock cream, please’. Making his way to the bathrooms, stooped and slow, he passed people whose eyes made him think of clouds and whose bodies made him think of bed sheets. Faces shining, suffering. An old lady on crutches. Child in a wheelchair. The damaged life in these corridors made God a senseless brute. What a team he’d become a part of! A group bound together by mistakes of the mind and body, errors and accidents and sharp turns for the worse. A four-cheese pizza would be wonderful. The sad tiled floor was unyielding.

The bathroom mirror told him he belonged. His eyes were bloodshot and a mask of pallor still clung to his skin. There was no mistaking it: he was in the kind of condition where it’s advisable either to thoroughly pull yourself together or to thoroughly let yourself go. The latter held all the allure. No more play-acting! Become a one hundred per cent mess! And meanwhile the rest of the world’s men could carry on pretending, grinning, lifting their chins; putting space between themselves.

Great palmfuls of water were required to dampen his hair’s enthusiasm for adventure. A few licks sprung up the moment he put down the comb. He shaved with an inch of luke-warm water lurking sunless and shallow in the basin. Listened to a man behind a pockmarked door straining to squeeze out a turd. Splashed his face, zipped up his washbag, went back to his hospital bed.

This morning Freya had visited again. She’d brought him a plant. He was grateful for the plant. A plant was a perfect gift. Earlier in the week an old diving friend had turned up with a whistle that made different types of birdsong when you blew it. One of the drawbacks of having a surname like Finch was that a surprising number of people, at Christmas or on birthdays, thought it appropriate or amusing to give you bird-related gifts. Singing bird clock (green). Singing bird clock (brown). You Can Toucan can-opener.

Sometimes he felt that close friends liked to turn him into a bit of a caricature, the hapless hotel guy who used to be good at everything he set his mind to and was now thrillingly, perhaps even transcendentally, mediocre. When he played along to the idea they had of the arc of his life, everything was fine. They loved him to act flat and be one of humanity’s genial, self-deprecating disappointments. But when he said something unexpected, something that was too harsh or too true or which he hadn’t thought through — maybe reminding them that they owned their own fair share of badly blown dreams — they treated him like he was a bit of a spoilsport. So these days he kept quiet. Kept quiet just as he had when Antonia and Brian from the hotel had visited this morning. He could see it in their eyes. They’d come with the specific purpose of ensuring that the heart attack hadn’t happened to them.

The plant from Freya was positioned on the faux-oak bedside table, sharing surface space with a water jug and a copy of the Guardian . The front-page headline read ‘PM’S POPULARITY SINKING’, but the poll referenced in the body of the article showed Thatcher holding on to a narrow lead over Labour. There was also a ten-page pull-out about the birth of Prince Henry of Wales. The baby prince looked tricksy, sardonic, chubby, blotchy, and would hopefully cheer up his sad-eyed mum. Freya had claimed the plant was a scentless plant but the cheerful lily-pad-like foliage had a distinctive peppery perfume. Every hour or two he’d sneeze, and sneezes hurt his heart, his back, his arms and his eyeballs. The pain often dwindled down into a small knot above his Adam’s apple, where with the aid of water it could sometimes be swallowed down.

Where was Marina? She was late, late.

On his third day ever at the Grand, after their shifts had ended at exactly the same time, he’d asked Marina if she fancied a drink.

‘Maybe some other time,’ she’d said. And then, when he pressed her a little: ‘You know, I’m not going to sleep with you.’