One look was all it took. He was dying. My novel flits back and forth – living, dying, old age, youth, sex, meaning, futility, hope, anger, rage, acceptance. Everything is there.
Now I’m standing next to the dead body of my father looking out the window:
Excerpt – Bodies in a Window
There was no point in talking to him on the phone. He lied. According to him everything was hunky dory. He just had a stomach upset. The doctor had given him some antacids that would sort it out. No problem.
Except there was a problem – a big fucking problem. My old man was busy dying.
The guy was in denial. At least that was how it seemed to me. He did not want to face up to it. I’m sure he understood what was going on – he just refused to admit it to himself. His way of dealing with his impending death was to pretend that it wasn’t happening. And that fucking doctor wanted shooting. Regardless of what my old man thought he should have been on the ball and at least made an effort to see if anything could be done. That was his job!
I was fucking fuming.
I think I knew what the diagnosis was the minute I walked in and saw him. Any fool could see. He was seriously ill.
Fucking imbecile. There were things that could have been done. He’d written himself off. Burying his fucking head in the sand. Selfish bastard
I was furious with him – furious with the system that allowed it to happen and doubly furious with the sorry excuse for a doctor. I was furious with myself too. I should have become involved sooner. I should have noticed way back at Christmas. Perhaps if it had been caught earlier? But why hadn’t the fucking doctor done something? It didn’t take a genius to know something was wrong. That guy needed shooting and no two ways about it.
There was nothing for it but to head off down the long haul all the way down to see him every weekend. I had to do whatever I could. I just hoped my little Morris Minor would stand up to the pounding. I couldn’t take time off work, so it had to be weekends. I’d have to muddle through and do it. It meant heading off after work on Friday and heading back Sunday night. It was a good five to six hours by car, with a clear run. But there was no choice. I had to put the family on hold and do it. Who knows – perhaps it wasn’t too late? Perhaps there was something that could be done? They worked miracles these days.
Amazingly, somehow the guy was still dragging himself into work every day. He hadn’t missed a single fucking day. He’d worked up in Fleet Street all his life and only ever had a handful of days off in the entire time he’s worked there. He had to be at death’s door not to go in. But this was different. He was at death’s door. He didn’t have anything as mundane as fucking flu – no – this was no ordinary flu – no upset stomach, no common or garden illness. Something was seriously wrong. You didn’t have to be a medical expert to see that. They must have known that where he worked. You’d have to be blind not to notice. The man was an absolute wreck.
I took a few days off to take him in hand. I could see that his bosses were nor worried about his health – just as long as he reported in and did the job they were content. They’d allow him to work his way into the grave. They didn’t give a shit about him – but his doctor should have known better – That kept coming back to haunt me – the medical practitioner must have been having some kind of joke. And he called himself a doctor? In my view he needed a good kicking. You only had to look at the guy to see there was something incredibly wrong. Antfuckingacids my arse! That poor excuse for a doctor was seriously out of order. I wanted action and I wanted it right now! He should have got those wheels rolling long ago. Someone had to do something about it and as there was nobody else that someone had to be me.
I went in. I took the old man with me. I needed to make some kind of impression on him too. He wasn’t facing up to things. It wasn’t fair. He was being selfish.
We had quite a scene in the doctor’s surgery. I blew my top. I wanted a proper diagnosis. I wanted a specialist and I wanted him right now! I wanted action and I wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was ready to punch the guy’s lights out. I think he got the message.
Dad didn’t seem at all embarrassed about my outburst. It blew over him like a dimly noticed breeze. He was very non-committal through the whole business. Nothing registered. He allowed me to guide him here and there to the surgery and just stood there while I harangued the feeble excuse for a medical practitioner keeping himself aloof from what was being said as if it wasn’t about him at all. He stood there blankly – not seeming to register what was going on. At work he was on the ball and in command but now he stood around like a bloody nincompoop not understanding what was going on. Some act. It was as if he put his brain in park.
It hadn’t been easy getting an appointment at that surgery. In the end I thought the best policy was to simply turn up. I was in no mood for shilly-shallying around. After a number of angry exchanges at the receptionist’s window, that upset the festering routine of the stuffy waiting room with patients craning their necks to catch what it was about, they didn’t often get entertainment like this in this part of the world, the family doctor had finally deigned to accept that there might be more of a problem than he had previously thought and agreed to see him. He really did not want a scene in the waiting room. It had nothing to do with the state my dad was in, in any way impacting on his conscience. He was not amused by the scene I had made and he let me know it by the way he petulantly examined my old man while I was standing there watching. He did it right in front of me, in a perfunctory way – like he didn’t have the time to devote any more than was absolutely necessary, as if my old man, who was a damn important guy in London, who ran a whole office and kept down an exacting job, was nothing more than an inconvenience, a piece of shit. There was not even the pretence of a proper examination or any show of remorse over his laxity. I had forced his hand and he felt put upon.
I suppose, to be fair, one look at dad told him everything he needed to know. But what irked me was that the guy did not seem interested. My old man was dying and he was almost infuriatingly offhand and dad just let him be like that without protest. This was someone’s life and he did not seem to give a toss. His whole manner stank. Everything he did was infuriating. After a cursory prod around of his swollen stomach and a peer into his yellowy eyes and red throat he pronounced his liver was swollen and asked him if he drank a lot. He didn’t. The guy was almost teetotal. I went ape-shit. Why hadn’t the dipstick done all this three months ago? I was worse than furious by now – I was steaming. It was obvious that the stupid man had simply written him off from the beginning. He didn’t care and still didn’t. My outburst was brushed aside. He wrote up his notes and dismissed us with an expressionless gesture as if we were of no consequence. There was nothing he could or would do. He’d send his report to dad’s specialist. Thank you – goodbye.
I was beside myself with pent up rage. I’m not sure how I managed to control myself. The only saving grace was that the lazy quack of a doctor agreed to organise a specialist appointment and that he’d assured us he would try to get one organised as quickly as possible. I think that was the only thing that prevented me from punching the supercilious prat right on the nose and strangling him to death in front of the receptionist – though from the look on her face she would have cheered me along, all the way.
I thought we were in for a long wait but miraculously there was a cancelled appointment the very next day. The receptionist rang up to inform us. Who the fuck cancels an appointment like that? – A life or death appointment? I figured someone had died before they got there. That’s how fucked up the system was. Unless you made a fuss and pushed it for all you were worth you got nowhere and dad had simply not pushed it at all. Consequently he’d been treated like shit. But then secretly I reckoned it was the receptionist that had pulled the strings. She obviously didn’t like her boss – Mr Sugballs, and had taken to us. It seemed to me that she liked the way I went for the bastard. I believe those receptionists have a secret cabal that operates behind the scenes. I wouldn’t give that shit of a doctor the slightest credit. Left to him we’d still be waiting for that appointment long after Dad had gone.
Looking back now I could see that dad knew all along. He just didn’t want to think about it, confront it or have to deal with it. He was probably pissed off that I had got myself involved. In his mind it would take its course and he’d go with the flow. In a strange way he had come to terms with it quicker than any of us. He allowed me to go through the motions but he already knew where this was heading. He had probably hoped that he could quietly go down without anyone being any the wiser or getting involved. Silly twat.
Bodies in a Window: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781986269544: Books