On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory (19 page)

I didn't understand what he was saying. Yet I could see he was still concerned with his experiment. After a moment I mentioned some small discrepancies which earlier, naturally, hadn't occurred to me as such.

“You told me that right from the start there'd been no deviations. But a couple of the phrases you've used don't seem to bear that out. ‘You come here every afternoon and we always hold this selfsame conversation.' ‘That's what you always say.' Well obviously expressions like these can't have been there from the word go. Can they?”

“No that's true,” he said. Again speaking slowly. “Sharp of you Casement. What's more—we've never spoken of such anomalies till now.”

“So …”

Yet then his optimism faded; and that was somehow more pathetic than anything I'd so far witnessed in this place.

“Oh but it's a trick,” he said, “it has to be a trick. And when they think they've raised my hopes sufficiently—it's like I told you earlier—then they'll return me to my normal groove. In a second or so Casement you will start to scratch. I shall speak the one word: ‘Fleas.' ‘Oh God!' you'll say and then we'll both be back on track.”

We waited for a minute in a state of shared suspense: me wholly determined not to scratch—him equally determined, I felt sure, not to supply any explanation. But as we waited I began to want very much to scratch; and in several different areas too. Yet feasibly this could have been nothing but the power of autosuggestion. (Or maybe
not
so feasibly: in view of the room and its insect-ridden verminous condition.) At any rate I asked at last: “Why is that relevant? Anyone who cared for you enough?”

Then before he could answer: “Is that a question which I normally put?”

He shook his head.

“Enough to do what?”

“Take my place.”

“You mean when they die?”

“
Naturally
I mean when they die!”

The return of his contempt reinvigorated my own. “And you would actually let them do it? Your mother? Your sister? Or in fact
anyone
? You would actually let them take your place?”

“Oh yes oh yes oh yes! I'd almost forgotten: the unfailingly superior Daniel Casement; still so very much holier-than-thou at every turn! May I
respectfully
suggest something: that until you find yourself totally in somebody else's position you will strive always to do your poor limited best—hard though I realize this is going to be—simply to refrain from expressing an opinion? May I suggest that?”

“But even your mother or your sister!” I repeated, as though I hadn't heard a single word of that. Well it stood to reason: I wasn't a saint: if he must go on provoking me he surely couldn't expect me not to retaliate. It was the age-old pattern reasserting itself.

Yet I experienced some sort of mild remorse. It was partly true what he had said: you did have to walk that mile in another man's shoes. (In fact wasn't this one of the several platitudes which I had shared with Clem?) “You mean it's just as easy as you say? One dead soul can get another out, set another free? Then why haven't people drawn up some kind of rota system? Why does anybody have to spend more than an hour or two in hell? I'm afraid I really don't understand the logic.”

Yes everyone following the example of Christ, I thought, and taking on the sins of his brothers—
And he descended into hell
—be it of course ever so briefly and ever so superficially. But at least they'd get the merest taste of it. Even if they could wave quite cheerily at Old Nick as they were doing so: “Just passing through you know … just passing through!”

“
I'm afraid I really don't understand the logic
… That's the way you used to speak in school.”

Withering, withering! The bitterness seemed once again to have grown fixed.

“Which only goes to show,” I said, “I'm still the same regular guy I always was.”

“The same arrogant bastard who can't believe there's anything—anything whatsoever—on which he can't become an overnight authority. His first day in town and he expects to be an expert!”

“Hell's teeth,” I shouted. “All I did was come here to apologize! After all this time don't you ruddy well know that?”

But now at least he did appear to be accepting that I was no longer just a ghost or a projection; that I was indeed the genuine article. I wondered if this meant the false one would automatically return tomorrow or whether there'd simply be a vacuum that would require to be filled some other way.

“All I wanted was to offer you my apology,” I said again, more levelly. “The thing is—I've had you on my mind.” Since when? This afternoon? Yesterday afternoon? I hoped I wouldn't need to be specific.

“That's nice,” he said.

Sarcasm had always been his strongest suit.

Though after I'd heard that he was dead … I'd had him on my mind then too. For weeks undoubtedly; maybe months. I'd despised him but at least I'd thought about him. Felt sorry for things; wished I could have played them differently. Had felt that rather odd mixture of contrition and contempt.

But then bit by bit, of course, I had forgotten.

Had probably done my utmost to forget.

He asked now: “And what am I to do with your apology? Tell me Casement. What would you
like
me to do with it?”

“Accept it I suppose. Then try to forgive me for the way I behaved.”

“Ah yes. I see. So suddenly everything will be all tickety-boo?”

I didn't know what else to say. I was very much on my own here.
Again
Richard or somebody—couldn't you possibly have primed me just a little?

“
Apologize?
” he said. Quite equably. As if meaning only to analyse the etymology. “But I must confess there's one thing about that concept which never ceases to mystify me.”

I waited.

“Well in this case. How could anyone have the gall to imagine any apology appropriate? Let alone adequate? How could he believe himself
able
to apologize? In any way meaningfully? Sufficiently? Candidly, this problem perplexes me.”

He lost that air of purely academic curiosity.

“Oh yes. Knowing you of old of course. How
could
I be perplexed?”

So once again I had to struggle to preserve my cool.

“At any rate I've done what I came here to do,” I said. “And I'll repeat it if you like. I'm really sorry for the cruel and thoughtless way I treated you.”

Also I'm really sorry for the way you magnified it out of all proportion. You were crazy and unbalanced, must already have been deeply disturbed to let it get to you as you did.

But I suppose I know absolutely nothing about the things that made you what you are. And if I really understood the nature of those influences and the nature of the personality they molded …
well isn't understanding tantamount to forgiving? (And you can't possibly be a lesser soul than whoever it was who said that—wasn't it a Frenchman?)

“Also,” I remarked, “I'm sorry that I appear to have taken up your time so needlessly throughout these years. Your ‘greatest earthly torment'; that must have been difficult to cope with.” Oddly I wasn't being ironic: I found quite suddenly that I had insights into just how difficult this must have been. “But do I need to stay here any longer? You could be snoozing, whilst the hawker remains quiet.”

There was a further marked pause.

“No perhaps you don't,” he said—and again the sheer novelty of it seemed for the moment to have brushed aside recrimination. “All this is new. We must put it to the test!” His voice became a whisper. “
Now!
” he said. “
Immediately!
Stand up and go!”

The whisper suggested I should accomplish this so stealthily my exit might—just possibly—escape everyone's notice. Even if only for a while.

But, paradoxically, now that I
might
be able to escape—just possibly—might be able to escape both him and his surroundings and fill my lungs again with comparatively fresh air, I felt reluctant to appear in too much of a hurry. Despite his own sudden urgency. Or even actually to
be
in too much of a hurry. My recent insights seemed to have enfeebled me.

“Except before I do go, how about your briefly helping me to try to understand the logic? Even on my first day. After all. You were once supposed to be a teacher weren't you?” This was meant to be said lightly but contrary to my best intentions (and I was now willing to believe that—yet again,
just
possibly—he too might have some mildly good intentions) it didn't come out in the slightest as it should have done. It was no good. He wasn't at all like Isabella. We were never going to take to one another.

He gave a lengthy sigh. “I haven't mentioned this but if you've killed yourself only somebody who's done the same can ever set you free.”

Oh sweet Lord! And you'd even wish
that
upon your mother and your sister!

“Because suicides,” he went on, “are the only people—apart from the irretrievably evil—who can be shown the pathway into hell. Indeed
must
be shown the pathway into hell. Also, like I said earlier, it needs to be someone who loves you, loves you with the sort of love I think that you and I have never experienced or maybe even heard of … outside of the cinema … because …” Yet it seemed to me he couldn't say the words.

“Because in order to release you the other person must agree to stay behind?” Well yes he'd already intimated as much.

I reckoned that my own idea of a rota system would have been better. But I knew the type of response I'd get if I repeated it. I said merely, “I would have thought that, anyhow, anyone who came here had to stay behind.”

I had no notion what made me come out with that, except for the fact of my being distracted by endeavours not to answer his comments upon love. But having said it, and somehow having belatedly heard it, I instantly felt faint. I had to grab the edges of my chair—and even at that moment realized there was something nasty hanging from its underside. Felt faint … because until this very point the thought hadn't occurred to me: that once you were here that was it. No way out. You had to stay.

But his response brought with it greater reassurance than anyone could have imagined. Possibly hard to believe: I could almost have hugged him. Yet now only ‘almost'; it wasn't like with Clem. However, my faintness was forgotten and my gratitude immense.

For he hadn't been obliged, even, to give
any
response. Not so far as I knew. He could have let me suffer.

“No. Don't ask me why. There are those of us who are condemned to stay. There are those of us who turn up merely on a visit.”

He smiled unpleasantly.

“I'm afraid, you see, that I don't understand its logic either.”

“And you're saying I'm just a visitor?” Desperately I needed confirmation. (Already!) “But how would you know that?”

“Because otherwise you'd have been met, provided with quarters, kept under surveillance. Prince Charming on the door wouldn't have allowed you to come up here unescorted.”

He paused to subject his no doubt flaky scalp to a second vigorous scratch. You'd not have been surprised to see those fingernails draw blood. “In any case I think by this time you are usually gone.
Invariably
gone. That oaf next door will soon be starting up again.”

“Maybe he won't.”

“Thank you for that abiding piece of comfort.”

“I mean—who knows what might not happen now?”

“Yes that's clearly anybody's guess and very wonderful to think about.”

“Are you in fact … are you sentenced to remain in this place for all time?”

“Yes.”

“No slightest chance of a reprieve? As you've said—you're not an expert. Mr Tibbotson I could start agitating for a complete review of your case. I could couldn't I? I know people who might help us—people in high office—” I was actually thinking only of Richard—well, apart from my grandmother that is—although naturally I wasn't at all sure on what level of the hierarchy Richard functioned. But at least he'd be able to advise me and point me in the direction of the people I should really be talking to.

And then of course there would be Brad.

Excitedly, unthinkingly, I laid my hand upon the teacher's bony knee—and then realizing what I'd done needed forcibly to stop myself recoiling from the contact.

“
What
people in high office?”

“I don't know. We're going to get you out of here Mr Tibbotson!”

“Oh please go away,” he said—now suddenly sounding not just weary but exhausted. “I can almost begin to think you may mean well.”

“I do. I swear I do.”
And always have
, I thought, but couldn't say it, since obviously there had been times when—stupidly, selfishly, unseeingly—I hadn't.

“And since this is possibly the last time we'll be seeing each other I'm inclined to say that I forgive you for what's passed—why not?—indeed, I think I no longer possess enough energy
not
to.”

His tone was grudging but I still felt touched.

“Thank you sir! Oh thank you sir!”

I tried to shake his hand. But this remained limp and unresponsive.

“And since, too, that's the only thing you truly wished to hear, you may now go on your way rejoicing. You leave me marginally better off—no matter if it doesn't last, this break in the monotony. Such a thought should also make you slide down the banisters and sing out gaily as you go. Might even bolster your self-confidence a little which was always where your problem lay. You see—I even make a joke. So just go in the happy knowledge that I made a joke and allow me, as you said, to maybe take a snooze.”