Me?
Unbelievable.
Tom had been dead right about everything, which made an
astonishing change. He’d known and had tried to steer me away from danger even
when I’d been determined to blunder into it three sheets to the wind. He’d
tried to protect me and had done so by taking on my arch-nemesis –
namely, my own stupidity.
He’d done that for me?
Incredible. You think you know someone, you think they’re a
bit of a dickhead, then out of the blue they go and do something like that for
you.
Wasn’t life a rollercoaster?
And wasn’t Tom a friend? A true friend.
Well, I’d not let him down again. I’d see to it that I never
did anything to disappoint him again and repay him with the sort of friendship
he’d shown me. Starting right now. Because right now was when Tom needed me
most and I’d ensure he never had to go looking again.
“How is he, sister?” I asked the nurse, when me and Norman
arrived at the hospital.
“Who?”
“Tom Castelli. You brought him in probably half an hour ago.
He’d been run over,” we had to explain when she didn’t immediately know off the
top of her head who we were talking about.
“Are you his family?”
“No, we’re friends and colleagues. We were at the party with
him.”
“I see,” she glared. I didn’t know what it was she thought
she saw but I suspect it was me and Norman pouring booze down Tom’s throat and
shoving him in front of the traffic.
We had to wait for another three hours until his brother
arrived before we got someone on the inside and thankfully things weren’t
anywhere near as bad as we’d first feared.
“He’s broken his left arm, his left leg and his hip, and
he’s cracked a few ribs and lost both of his front teeth.”
“Thank God for that,” Norman had honestly said. Yeah, what a
result!
Still, that little insurance windfall was a million times
better than a broken back, which was what Norman had first reckoned, filling my
head with images of quadriplegics, breathing apparatus and life support system
being accidentally unplugged by headphone-wearing Costa Rican janitors.
I don’t even know where Norman had got Tom’s broken back
diagnosis from and asked him why he’d told me that. Norman said the police or
the hotel porter or a barman had told him “or something like that,” earning
himself a matronesque telling off from a nearby nurse for propagating
“unnecessary scare stories”.
“I’m very sorry sister. Sorry Andrew. I’m… just… … sorry.”
Norman was embarrassed and after my initial anger had
subsided I actually felt for him. After all I myself had already phoned Sally
and told her the same so I’d been just as irresponsible, hadn’t I?
Anyway, the relief over the news of Tom’s true condition was
tempered by the reality that he’d still done a pretty decent job on himself,
broken back or not, and that he was going to need weeks, if not months, of care
and rehabilitation.
“I’ll be there for him,” I promised his brother. “I don’t
care what it takes, I’ll see that Tom will walk again, even if I have to
convalesce him myself.”
Fortunately, the hospital said they had nothing else on at
the moment so they’d do it if I wanted, letting me off the hook somewhat and
setting Tom’s brother’s mind at ease, though I still promised to do my bit.
“Anything he needs, anything at all and he’s got it,” I
reassured him.
I figured it would be a long, gruelling and doubtlessly
painful process getting him back on his feet. A broken leg and a broken hip?
Plus a broken arm, so that he couldn’t even support himself on crutches. Tom
was going to have to use a wheelchair and there was no getting around that.
Mobility would be a problem for him so I’d be Tom’s legs for the next few
weeks. If he needed shopping, pushing around the park, taking to the pub, or
just a bit of good old-fashioned company, I’d be the thorn in his side.
“Swimming,” Norman had said. “They say that’s very good for
recovery. Gets the muscles working without putting a strain on the bones.”
Then that was it. I’d take Tom swimming every morning for as
long as it took him to walk again. I didn’t care if it meant going around his
flat and dragging him out of his malaise, I’d do this for Tom just as he’d done
what he’d done for me (mentioning no specifics). I’d be his best friend and
most gruelling taskmaster. I’d get his legs stronger than ever and be there for
him when he took his first tentative steps. I’d support him every inch of the
way and Tom would hate me for the relentless bastard I’d become, but eventually
I’d coax a few steps out of him and once I had those, I’d get some more.
We’d stand together, walk together and eventually run
together again.
They say it sometimes takes a disaster to unlock your true
potential and this would undoubtedly be the case with Tom. And with me, come to
that.
If I could just get him running, who knows what we could
achieve together.
Walks for peace?
Coast to coast?
Ben Nevis?
Or most testing of all, the London Marathon? What an
accomplishment that would be! From virtual cripple to marathon runner in a
single year. It would be like one of those stories of hope and courage that
they featured on the news. Like Michael Watson or half the cancer wards in
Britain; they all empty out come Marathon time and every one of those brave,
courageous heroes was an inspiration to others. Tom could be an inspiration.
No,
we
could be an
inspiration.
From death’s door to marathon winners… all right, maybe that
was taking it a bit too far. From death’s door to marathon
heroes
.
Tom and Andrew, best friends and icons of hope for a new
generation.
I’m relieved to see there doesn’t
seem to be any lasting animosity between Andrew and Tom. I guess they must’ve
talked it through when Andrew went up to visit him last week because they seem
to be getting on together again now that Tom’s been released, though Andrew can
still be a little testy from time to time. Only this evening, Tom phoned for a
chat and Andrew refused to speak to him complaining that he was “having his
dinner!” Still, he has done lots for him these last few weeks what with all the
shopping, visits and errands. Tom was particularly taken by the rails Andrew
fitted to the toilet wall in his flat but when his landlord went round and saw
them last night he said the cracked tiles would come out of Tom’s deposit. Some
people are just rubbish, aren’t they? Anyway, the two of them are getting on
well, which is good, though I’m not sure Tom’s particularly keen on running any
marathons with Andrew, which is just as well because there’s as much chance of
Andrew running in the London Marathon as there is of me fitting into a size 12
dress seven months from now.
That’s right dear diary, Andrew’s no longer the only one
eating for two. I am with child. And I can’t stop smiling about it. I’ve heard
enough people say you should never tell anyone until you’ve had the twelve week
scan, to make sure, God willing that everything is okay but I guess it’s only
fair I let Andrew in on it. After all, he’s the one that’s going to have to get
up in the middle of the night to change the baby’s nappy. Oh yes he can forget
about Ben Nevis, the London Marathon and all the charity treks he likes, but
there’s one set of rashly-made promises he made a few years back that he’s
going to be held to.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, because I don’t
want to. You go and run a fucking marathon if it’s that easy, I’ll watch you on
telly.”
“Tom, that’s hardly the spirit that made this country great.
You have to rise to the challenge, seize the day and all that. Look at Douglas
Bader and what he did. Running a marathon doesn’t even compare.”
“Yeah well, for your information Douglas Bader flew planes
before he had both his legs blown off. He didn’t take it up as a hobby
afterwards so why should I take up running?”
“You get a medal at the end of the race.”
“Yeah well, I could get one on eBay for ten quid if I wanted
one that badly. Wouldn’t have to run twenty-six miles to get it either. Tenner
in an envelope and thank you very much. That’ll look lovely on the bog wall
next to my OBE.”
“There’s just no use talking to you,” I dismissed, “you’ll
never get it.”
“Get what?”
“Get what it’s all about.”
“Get what what’s all about?” Tom said, then thought about
it.”
“The point of life,” I informed him.
“There’s a point? No one told me. So what is it?”
“To make your mark, to make a difference.”
“Believe me, me running around London in the back end of a
panto horse with you ain’t going to make a stroke of difference to no one,
least of all Douglas Bader, so we can kick that plan into touch can we?”
“Whatever,” I grumbled, annoyed at how he hadn’t even
thought about it before dismissing it so easily.
“Anyway, what do you want to go running around all over the
place for when you’ve got a kid on the way. You want to go running around after
anyone, you should go running around after Sally. How far’s she up the stick?“
“A couple of months,” I told him, opening one of the bitters
I’d brought with me and pouring it into a glass.
“I didn’t even know you were trying for a baby?”
“Funny that, neither did I,” I replied. “It had been
mentioned a few times over the last few years but we’d never actually agreed on
anything. Sally said she wanted to try this year but then it just happened
naturally. An accident. Oopps, look out mate, you’ve just made a little
person.”
“Come off the pill then did she?” he asked, leaning forward
out of his wheelchair and reaching for the pack of beers. I passed him a can
and he cracked it open and poured it into his own glass.
“No, I don’t think so. She says she might’ve missed a few
days here and there over Christmas when she had a bit of a dodgy belly but
nothing you could really call deliberate.”
“Think it’s yours?”
“What sort of a question is that?”
Tom took a big swig of beer to leave himself a fluffy
moustache and just shrugged.
“Of course it’s mine, whose else is it going to be?”
After a thought Tom suggested his mate Martin, who drank
down the Duke of York.
“You never know. Sally’s only flesh and zips like the rest
of us. And who’s to say Sally hasn’t been keeping her hand in while you’ve been
gallivanting all over the place after Elenor?”
This was fair comment so I let it slide, despite taking
exception to the term “gallivanting”.
“Sally’s not like that,” I told him.
“We’re all like that,” he replied. “And it’s always the
quiet ones you should always watch out for.”
“Sally’s anything but quiet. If only. Anyway, what’s it to
you? Worried it might be yours?” I asked, turning defence into attack.
“Mine? Where d’you get those cards from?”
“Well, you are the only other person I know of that’s… you
know… been with her, other than me, that is. How do I know you’re not knocking
her off behind my back?”
“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”
“True, but the point still stands.”
“Look, I know you’re only joking here, but I just want to
say this straight off the bat so that this doesn’t all fester in that sick mind
of yours and see you coming round here one stormy night to bang on my windows
and demand an answer.”
Tom took a long sip of beer and lit one of his cigarettes. I
almost instinctively asked him if I could have one, but I decided to stay given
up for a little while longer. At least until I’d heard what he had to say.
“I am not, and have not, slept with Sally since you got
together with her. I had a couple of dates with her back at Uni, as you well
know, then she hooked up with you. These days,” he said, then shook his head
and snorted, “these days Sally wouldn’t touch me with bucket of cold water if I
was on fire, so no, unless girls can get it from car seats, I’m pretty
confident Sally’s baby isn’t mine.”
“What did go on with you and Sally back at Uni?” I finally
asked, catching him unawares. “Come on, it was a long time ago. What’s it
matter now? So what was it?”
“Has Sally never said anything about it to you then?”
“No, nothing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Tom, she never said anything.”
Tom paused to reflect through several deep drags then
flicked his ash in the ashtray balanced on the arm of his wheel chair.
“Well I ain’t going to say nothing either then,” he informed
me. “Nothing happened anyway. I don’t know what you’re on about,” he added
suspiciously.
“What did you do? Did you… you know?”
“What?” he asked.
“You know?”
“No, what?”
“Look just tell us you bastard!”
Tom stared at me and shook his head.
“If you really want to know, but you’re not going to like
it,” he admitted, angling his eyebrows. He waited the longest possible time
before he continued. “We had a foursome,” he shrugged, stunning me to my core.
“You mean, like, with another couple?”
“Yeah; Sally, me and another couple of geezers,” he nodded.
“It was just one of those things, we’d got really drunk and Sally had taken an
e
and it was her idea. She said she
wanted to be shagged by three blokes at the same time so she asked the guys
next door if they wanted to join in. To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy it, I
just went along because of her but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
This was considerably worse than I’d been expecting. I
thought it might’ve been something Tom had done, or failed to do, but Sally and
three guys? It was all too much, way too much, but try as I might, there was no
putting the cork back in the bottle now.