The Flatshare: A Novel

Move between wards like I’m haunting the place. Should I be able to focus enough to take blood from a vein when even breathing feels like an effort? It’s easy, though – blissfully routine. Here’s something I can do. Leon, Charge Nurse, quiet but reliable.

Notice after a few hours that I’m circling Coral Ward. Dodging it.

Mr Prior’s there, dying.

Eventually the junior doctor on shift says a morphine dose on Coral Ward needs countersigning. So. No more hiding. Off I go. White-grey corridors, bare and scratched, and I know every inch of them, maybe better than the walls of my own flat.

Pause. There’s a man in a brown suit outside the ward, forearms on knees, staring at the floor. Odd to see someone here at this time of the morning – no visitors on the night shift. He’s very old, white-haired. Familiar.

I know that posture: that’s the posture of a man Mustering Courage. I’ve struck that pose enough times outside prison visiting halls to know how it looks.

Takes a little while for it to click – I’m barely thinking, just moving on autopilot. But that white-haired man staring at the floor is Johnny White the Sixth, from Brighton. The thought seems ridiculous. JW the Sixth is a man from my other life. The one full of Tiffy. But here he is, so. Looks like I found Mr Prior’s Johnny after all, even if it took him a little while to admit it.

Should feel pleased, but can’t.

Look at him. Aged ninety-two, he’s tracked Mr Prior down, put his best suit on, travelled all the way up from the coast. All for a man he loved a lifetime ago. He sits there, head bowed like a man in prayer, waiting for the strength to face what he left behind.

Mr Prior has days to live. Hours, possibly. I look at Johnny White and feel it like a punch in the gut. He left it so. Fucking. Late.

Johnny White looks up, sees me. We don’t speak. The silence stretches down the corridor between us.

Johnny White: Is he dead?

His voice comes out husky, breaking halfway.

Me: No. You’re not too late.

Except he is, really. How much did it hurt to come all this way knowing it was just to say goodbye?

Johnny White: It took me a while to find him. After you visited.

Me: You should have said something.

Johnny White: Yes.

He looks back at the floor. I step forward, bridge the silence, take the seat beside him. We examine the scratched lino side by side. This isn’t about me. This isn’t my story. But . . . Johnny White on that plastic seat, head bowed, that’s what the other side of not-trying looks like.

Johnny White: I don’t want to go in there. I was thinking about leaving, when I saw you.

Me: You’ve made it to here. There’s just the doors, now.

He lifts his head as though it’s something heavy.

Johnny White: Are you sure he’ll want to see me?

Me: He may not be conscious, Mr White. But even so, I have no doubt he’ll be happier with you there.

Johnny White stands, brushes down his suit trousers, squares his Hollywood chiselled jaw.

Johnny White: Well. Better late than never.

He doesn’t look at me, he just pushes his way through the double doors. I watch them swing behind him.

Left to my own devices, I’m the sort of man who’d never walk through those doors. And where’s that ever got anybody?

I get up. Time to move.

Me, to junior doctor: On-call nurse will countersign on the morphine. I’m not on shift.

Junior doctor: I did wonder why you weren’t in scrubs. What the hell are you doing here when you’re not on the rota? Go home!

Me: Yes. Good idea.

*

It’s two in the morning; London is still and muffled in darkness. Turn on my phone as I jog for the bus, heartbeat thumping high in my throat.

Endless missed calls and messages. I stare at them, startled. Don’t know where to start. Don’t have to, though, because the phone buzzes into life with an unknown London number almost as soon as I’ve turned it on.

Me: Hello?

My voice is wobbly.

Richie: Oh, thank fuck for that. The guard is getting really tetchy. I’ve been ringing you for the past ten minutes. I had to give a long explanation of how this was still my one phone call, because you weren’t picking up. We’ve got about five minutes’ credit, by the way.

Me: Are you all right?

Richie: Am I all right? I’m fine, you big bellend, other than being mightily pissed off with you – and Gerty.

Me: What?

Richie: Tiffy. She didn’t say yes. That mad Justin bloke just answered for her, didn’t you notice?

Stop stock still ten yards from bus stop. I . . . can’t absorb it. Blink. Swallow. Feel a bit sick.

Richie: Yeah. Gerty rang her and started laying in to her for going back to Justin, then Mo went mental at her. Told her she was a terrible friend for not having enough faith in Tiffy to at least ask the question before assuming she’d gone back to him.

I find my voice.

Me: Is Tiffy all right?

Richie: She’d be a lot better if she could speak to you, man.

Me: I was already on my way, but—

Richie: You were?

Me: Yes. Had a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Richie, confused: Bit early in the year for that sort of thing, isn’t it?

Me: Well. You know what they say. Gets earlier every year.

Lean against the bus shelter. Giddy and sick all at once. What was I doing? Coming here, wasting all that time?

Me, belatedly, and with a rush of fear: Is Tiffy safe?

Richie: Justin’s still on the loose, if that’s what you mean. But her mate Mo is with her, and according to Gerty he reckons Justin won’t come back for a while – he’ll go nurse his wounds and come up with another plan. He tends to have a plan for everything – that’s part of his whole deal, Mo says. You know the prick was using Martin from Tiffy’s work to find out information about where Tiffy would be the whole time?

Me: Martin. And . . . oh. Fuck.

Richie: This was all about breaking the two of you up, man. Getting that YouTuber to film it all so you’d see it for sure.

Me: I can’t . . . can’t believe I just assumed.

Richie: Hey, bro, just go fix it, OK? And tell her about Mam.

Me: Tell her what about Mam?

Richie: I don’t need to be a therapist to figure out that you leaving Mam at court with Gerty and not going back to her place had something to do with all this. Look, I get it, man – we both have mummy issues.

Bus approaching.

Me: Not . . . entirely sure how this is relevant?

Richie: Just because Mam always went back to the men who treated her like shit, or found another version of the same guy, that doesn’t mean Tiffy’s the same.

Me, automatically: It wasn’t Mam’s fault. She was abused. Manipulated.

Richie: Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re always saying that. But it doesn’t make it any easier when you’re twelve, does it?

Me: You think . . .

Richie: Look, I have to go. But just go tell Tiffy you’re sorry, and you fucked up, and you were raised by an abused single mother and basically had to look after your younger brother single-handed. That ought to do it.

Me: That’s a bit . . . emotional blackmaily, no? Also, will she enjoy the comparison with my mother?

Richie: Point taken. Fine. You do you. Just sort it, and get her back, because that woman is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. All right?