There was an eeriness around the hospital after hours, without the bustle of new admissions and visitors. There was a sense of time simply passing and people simply waiting for the morning to come when things would begin again. It was as though the whole building had become a waiting room.
Despite the cold weather outside, I found myself uncomfortably hot as I hurried along the dimly lit corridors. The fresh snow outside had coated my boots and I left wet footprints on the newly polished floor. Even so, I wrestled my scarf off, my face already covered in a light film of sweat. I was almost pleased when I reached the waiting area on Collins's ward.
Almost.
'What's happened?' I asked Mark as soon as I saw him, before I'd even covered the ten metres still between us. 'Is he okay?' As soon as I'd spoken, I bit the words back and tried to rephrase them. We'd been summoned in the middle of the night; of course he wasn't okay. 'I mean...'
'He's lost consciousness. He's... in a sort of coma.' Mark folded his arms around his too-skinny frame. 'They thought we'd want to be here...' Taking a deep breath, he added, 'I've called Maureen and Joanne, they should be here soon. Thanks for coming.'
'Stop, I wanted to come.' I slipped my coat off and then hugged it to myself. 'Can I see him?'
The change from the Collins I'd spoken to that afternoon and the man lying in the bed in front of me was so great as to make them two different people. It now seemed unbelievable that he could have quoted classic literature only hours earlier. Now the only sounds in the room were the regular beeps of the heart monitor and the dreadful hushing sound of the ventilator they'd placed him on. It had been noticeable over the last few days that his body had been failing; now there seemed almost nothing left.
'The nurses said he might still be able to hear us,' Mark said now in an almost whisper. 'They said we could talk to him.'
I nodded but secretly wondered what on earth I could ever find to say to the person in front of me now. I'd often heard of people who had been to see the body of a loved one after they'd died and had returned saying how changed they were, how they weren't the person they'd known in life anymore. That was how Collins seemed to me now, a complete stranger, and I had no idea what I could say to such a man.
I was saved the problem of thinking right at that moment as, with a clatter of heels and a most incongruous screech, Maureen announced her arrival on the ward.
'Mark?'
I glanced across at Mark. 'I can go...' I offered. 'I'll... leave you here with...' Hastily, before he could protest, I backed out of the room. 'I'll get you a coffee,' I added, to which Mark responded with a weak smile.
In the waiting area, Maureen was being politely told off by a nurse for making such a noise. 'We have some very sick patients on this ward, they need their rest.'
'I know, my friend's one of them!' Maureen retorted crossly, her anger beyond even Joanne's control. 'And I want to know...'
I stepped in. 'Maureen, stop.' Turning to the nurse, I tried to soothe the atmosphere. 'She's with me, I'm sorry about...'
The nurse, one I'd not seen before, still seemed less than impressed with Maureen's behaviour, but nodded her approval that she could stay, before moving back to the front desk.
'What's happened?' Maureen demanded. 'Mark said we had to come but he didn't say why. Is Collins okay?'
I momentarily regretted volunteering to come out here and deal with this. It suddenly seemed as though Mark had the easier job, and I flailed as I searched for the right words to explain what had happened. The truth was that there was nothing to explain, nothing new anyway. Anybody with a brain must have known that this day would come. That it still came as such a shock was a memory which would stay with me for the rest of my life.
After several seconds of silence, Joanne spoke. 'Can we see him?'
Grateful to have been let off the hook, I nodded. 'Mark's with him now.'
If Maureen's reaction upon seeing Collins was typically overdramatic, it was also truer than the stilted way we lingered around the edges of the room. With a wail, she was at his side, perched on the bed beside him and holding his limp hands. Tears came easily to her and she made no attempt to stem them. In many ways, I was jealous.
'We should have come sooner,' Joanne remarked in an undertone as she took in the sight before her. 'I'm... sorry, Mark, I didn't really realise...'
'You came enough.' Mark shook his head. 'You were working, you were busy. And Maureen...'
The reminder of how Maureen had spent as little time with Collins as possible over the last few weeks made her display of affection suddenly seem cheaper, and I made my excuses to fetch the coffee. Now wasn't the time for recriminations.
I returned to find Mark on the payphone in the waiting area. He was slumped against the wall with the receiver to his ear, clearly mustering all his strength for the conversation he was having. I hovered a few feet away, trying not to eavesdrop and failing miserably.
'I wouldn't call if it wasn't urgent.' His words were clipped. 'Benny, come on, he was your roommate, he's your friend. I know it's the middle of the night, but... the morning might be too late.' There was a pause and he closed his eyes slowly. 'I'll see you in a few then.' He replaced the receiver and gave me a twisted smile. 'Benny's on his way.'
'That's good.' I handed him his coffee.
'Is it? I had to sweet-talk him into coming. One of his oldest friends is dying and he's complaining about being woken up in the night?' Mark shook his head wearily. 'What the hell happened to everybody, Cat? Benny, Roger... even Maureen... what happened?'
It was a question I had asked myself continually since returning to New York days earlier. That feeling of being a part of something special which I had treasured in the summer had vanished without a trace. Now the city seemed huge and terribly lonely. How Mark had survived in it for so long was a mystery.
'What about Stacey?' That was the other question that had been bothering me. I'd met the vivacious red-head only twice, but she'd seemed better than abandoning Mark at a time like this. Yet she'd been nowhere to be seen this winter.
It seemed Mark had all but forgotten about her and looked surprised that I'd remembered. The extra pain which the memory caused him made me wish I'd never asked. 'It didn't work out.' There were no prizes for guessing why.
Now, hoping to make things better in some way, I forced a small smile. 'Well, there's still me.' Shrugging, I added, 'If that's any consolation.'
'It is.' Mark nodded and then reached out an arm for me, pulling me against him. 'Come on. We should go back in.'
The hours passed painfully slowly at the hospital that night as we moved about restlessly. Conversations were stilted and awkward. The small room where Collins lay became like a prison cell and I had to leave on several occasions, craving fresh air and for the night to end. In more desperate moments, I wished I'd never come back here to face all of this. I wished I could have been more like Roger.
Benny's arrival at the hospital at three in the morning brought some brief activity into what was otherwise a monotonous and tense night. Seeing him reminded me that I still owed him rent money and I made a mental note to put it on my credit card before I returned to England. The likelihood of my ever being allowed to run up such a bill again was slight and I expected it would be confiscated and cut up as soon as I arrived back in Kent. At that moment, I didn't mind much. The thought that I could ever gain any pleasure ever again, particularly from something so frivolous as a shopping spree, was completely at odds with the situation at hand.
At four o'clock, as Maureen, Joanne and I sat unspeaking in the waiting room, Mark came out from Collins's room and sat beside me.
'I'm giving Benny a few minutes alone with him, in case there's anything he wants to say.' He nodded at us all. 'Then I thought we could all take a turn. You know... just...'
None of us replied because we knew what he was saying and it terrified us all. Even Maureen's hysterics had died down and now we sat silently, unable to express anything about this night to each other. I wondered if this was how it would always be, the five people who shared this night forever distanced by the experience. It wasn't a comforting thought.
Benny emerged a few minutes later and immediately stalked off down the corridor, obviously keen not to face anybody just yet. Without anybody speaking, Joanne stood up and took her turn. The three of us who remained continued our silent vigil until finally Maureen spoke.
'Roger should be here.' When neither Mark nor I responded, she persisted. 'He should be here. He's Collins's friend, Collins has done loads for him. He should be here.'
There was a long silence. Then Mark sighed. 'I know. He should.' There was little anybody could add to that and so we lapsed into our own thoughts again until Joanne emerged and Maureen took her place. The strip light above our heads was flickering and casting shadows across the corridor which only made the night seem more unreal than ever. For the rest of my life, that night would always seem half-dream, half-reality.
'I meant to say,' Joanne said at length. Mark glanced up from where he'd been staring at the floor. 'I heard from the private investigator this afternoon. He's found Collins's family. Do you think we should call them?'
Once again, we waited for Mark's thoughts on the matter. Finally. 'I think we should leave it for now. Wait until... after. There's nothing they can do anyway.'
Joanne nodded. 'Sure. In the morning then.'
'Maybe.'
Maureen returned to her chair, her face paler than usual and completely silent apart from her rasping breath as she held back sobs. Any uncharitable thoughts I had had about the way she had behaved recently evaporated as I saw the unbridled grief on her face. My own desire to run away from everything tonight had proven that doing the right thing wasn't always easy. It seemed that Maureen had learnt the error of her ways in the worst way possible and I couldn't dislike her anymore.
I looked at Mark. 'Do you want to...?'
As a delaying tactic, it was entirely unsuccessful. 'You go first.'
So, with my stomach fluttering anxiously as I wondered what on earth I could say once that door was closed behind me, I stepped into the room.
Collins had faded even in the last two hours, his life tipping steadily towards something very different. The change was astonishing and devastating. The room had become stuffier if possible, a growing heaviness in the air which I would recognise one day in the future as the end of life drawing near. With reluctance, I closed the door behind me and stepped towards the bed.
'Hello.' The word hung alone and ridiculous. The sound of my voice in such a clinical space was odd and it took me several seconds to try again. 'It's Cat. Of course, you knew that. Sorry.' Running a hand through my hair, I sat down beside him. 'I'm not very good at this. I don't know what to say.' I bit my lip. 'I suppose... I suppose thank you is what I should say. Thank you for everything. You've been one of the best friends I've ever had and I don't think you ever knew it. We haven't known each other very long and yet you've been there at some of the worst moments in my life and you've made it better. I think you've made a lot of people's lives better. And... I want to say thank you for that.'
Time ticked by after I finished speaking, punctuated only by the ventilator and the ever-slowing beeps on the heart monitor. Collins gave no sign that he had heard anything I said and a wave of self-consciousness crept over me. There seemed little else I could add to what I had already said to him, to the conversation we had had that afternoon. He had accepted his fate, he'd said as much, and so raging and crying over it now seemed decadent and self-indulgent. It wasn't what Collins would have wanted. There was only one thing he'd asked of me and I hadn't replied. His last wish.
'When Roger comes back,' I said now, in a hushed whisper, as though anybody would intrude upon these moments. 'I'll look after him. I'll... fix him. I promise.' Impulsively, I placed a kiss on Collin's cheek, trying to ignore the papery-dryness of his skin. 'Au revoir, mon ami. Bien dormir.'
I left the room without another word, easing the door closed gently, as though the noise could make any difference to Collins now.
'Okay?' Mark glanced up from his hands as I came into his eye-line.
'Yes.' I nodded, and for the first time all night it actually felt as though it might be true. Those few moments alone with Collins had brought a sense of peace with them, an acceptance of what was to be. I supposed it was something akin to the comfort religion could offer its believers and though I'd never truly believed in a higher being I could almost see the attraction now.
The hospital was slowly beginning to wake up now. There had already been a delivery of fresh laundry to the ward and the odd telephone had rung. The nurses were winding down for the end of their shifts, sharing the odd joke and beginning to tidy up their workstations. There was a sense of an end approaching. For my part, I was grateful; the night had been far too long.
And yet, when Mark came back out of the room less than fifteen minutes after I had, his shoulders slumped and his face drawn in an expression of sheer misery, it still hit me hard in the chest that the seemingly impossible had happened and Collins had gone.
