Chapter 6
Tim and Paul were left waiting for another three days, helplessly watching as Richard grew weaker and weaker, at once longing to go and find Flacco to see if he'd had any success and loath to leave Rich's side.
Paul had brought his bedside table in and placed it at his side of Richard's bed to give them more space and both were now strewn with equipment from the, it seemed, near bottomless medical bag.
They continued to make four-hourly observations of his temperature, pulse, breathing and blood pressure, but it only depressed them all the more to see the lines fall ever further to the bottom of their makeshift chart. It made it very difficult to pretend that they were not slowly losing their friend.
As the sixth day since Bob's terrible prognosis drew to a close Richard's friends sat fearfully beside what could only be described as his deathbed; Flacco had evidently failed.
Richard was barely breathing, his heartbeat was only just about detectable with a stethoscope. He couldn't be much longer for the world.
He had long since stopped drifting in and out of consciousness falling into some kind of deep coma, and Tim and Paul could but hope that he was at some level aware of their presence. That he knew that he wasn't alone.
Even when Flacco did reappear, triumphantly holding aloft a syringe containing the antidote, he was stopped in his tracks by the hushed, oppressive atmosphere in the room.
"We're afraid you may be too late," murmured Paul looking up with an expression of deep despair as he entered. Nonetheless Tim quickly rolled up Richard's sleeve to allow Flacco to administer the cure.
He then stood back, feeling slightly out of place, as they all gazed down at Richard's failing body, scarcely daring to hope that he might yet now recover.
His two friends watched, gripping his hands tightly in theirs, as Richard breathed in and then sighed an exhalation. Holding their own breath they waited a moment more for a further inhalation that never came.
"He's stopped breathing," said Paul somewhat redundantly; they could all see that for themselves, but some things were so important that they deserved acknowledging anyway.
Frantically Tim scrabbled for the stethoscope and inserted the earpieces, pressing it against Richard's chest, listening intently. He moved it from one side to the other in the fraught search for a heartbeat he knew deep down he wouldn't find. Indeed all he heard was silence. And it was an audible silence; the sound of the absence of a sound that should have been ever present.
"NO!" Tim screamed, knocking over his chair in his haste to get up. He placed his hands one on top of the other over Richard's heart and started chest compressions; he couldn't die now! Not when they had come so close!
With one hand tipping his head back he pinched Rich's nose between his fingers and locked his lips to Richard's forcing air into his lungs. He broke off to take another breath and tried again.
"It's no good Tim. He's gone," said Paul quietly, a part of him unwilling to stop him just yet in case he was wrong and Tim was right.
"Come on Richard!" Tim urged, as he desperately went back to trying to restart his heart, "Come back! You can't give up on us now mate! We've given you the antidote, you can get better!"
But as the minutes dragged by it became increasingly obvious that there was to be no reprieve, no miraculous resurrection. Richard was truly dead.
Paul put his hand on Tim's arm comfortingly. "It's alright Tim, you can stop now," he said, his voice scratchy from choking back tears but Tim roughly shrugged him off.
It was soon clear that, while Tim's attempts to revive Richard were obviously futile, he was going to carry on regardless, probably until he injured himself with the effort or collapsed from exhaustion, so out of sheer desperation Paul jumped from his seat and all but tackled Tim to the ground where the pair of them lay sobbing in each other's arms.
Standing discreetly by the doorway Flacco and Ross looked on in sorrow as Tim and Paul gradually pulled themselves together and once more took up their positions on either side of their fallen mate. Without a word they bowed out of the door leaving the two friends to grieve in peace.
Gently, in turn, Tim and Paul pressed a farewell kiss to Richard's forehead, then crossed his hands upon his chest before pulling up the topmost blanket to respectfully cover his now eternally peaceful face.
After a long moment of mournful silence Tim suddenly rose and left briefly, coming back carrying two tall red candles in small candle holders which, after clearing a space among the medical paraphernalia, he placed reverently on the bedside tables beside Richard's shoulders and lit them from a single match. He also lit a stick of incense which he carefully added to one of the candle holders.
Paul was surprised but didn't let it show on his face; he didn't think Tim was at all religious but some kind of ceremony did seem appropriate and might even be of benefit to them.
Tim turned off the main light and the room darkened, the only light now being emitted by the candles. Tim resumed his seat and consciously made himself settle back in it letting his shoulders drop with a deep sigh.
"I'm going to sit up with him tonight," he said in hushed tones, "but don't feel you have to if you don't want."
Ah, so that's what he wanted. Paul smiled sadly, "No it's alright, I don't mind holding vigil with you."
At first they sat in companionable silence for several hours, each in their own way still trying to process the grief and loss they felt.
After a while, when the silence became awkward, they started to reminisce, diverting each other with memories of happier times and even started to sing one of Richard's favourite songs. However almost as soon as they began they became all too aware of the harmony that was missing and tailed off as it struck them that they had never really appreciated before just how much Richard had contributed to their friendship, not just as the butt of their jokes, but in his own right.
The camaraderie died away as they suddenly realised just what it was they had lost with his death and they once more regarded the covered body with a solemn, slightly guilty, silence.
"We should have treated him better," sighed Tim, his eyes welling with tears again.
"Hey," said Paul consolingly, "it was just how the relationship was, we all teased each other, he knew that and returned our teasing on occasion." But even as he said it the words sounded hollow even to his own ears.
"Paul, you and I both know that wasn't really how it was. It was us against him. He only joined in if he thought one of us would back him up, the fact that sometimes, on a whim we would, doesn't change anything."
"Do you think he would have wanted us to treat him with kid gloves? I only treated him exactly the same as I treated you. And you did the same. We were all equals."
"I think it was how he reacted that was different; he never could get his head around the fact that it was all a game to us, just a way to pass the time. He always took it to heart. And I don't think we could ever have convinced him otherwise."
"That wasn't our fault…" Paul began, uncomfortable with the undercurrent of accusation running through Tim's words.
"We could have taken it into account though!" Tim snapped, rising from his chair, his voice fractionally too loud. He forced himself to calm down, now was definitely not the time for an argument. He settled back in his seat trying not to meet Paul's eyes.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout."
"No, you're right, we should have treated him better, but self recrimination isn't going to do us any good. What's done is done and as much as we may like to we can't take it back.
I'm sorry to have to say this, but if he had recovered I doubt we would have felt this regret much less acted on it; things would have gone back to the way they were because it would have been easier that way. It's no excuse but I believe it to be true.
Look, we may have lost Richard but we have to go on, I won't pretend things will be the same without him but he wouldn't want us to give up."
"But the task is pointless out here…!"
"It was always pointless. Even before we were stranded in space it was pointless; we simply created our own point. We escaped from the company's stranglehold by being forgotten about along with all the stuff we catalogue, and even when they wanted to they failed to destroy us.
The cataloguing is just an incidental task, just something to get us out of bed in the morning, but really we know we have the run of a very interesting ship full of interesting artefacts and friends to share them with."
His face creased with grief as he looked down at the shrouded figure and remembered the reason for this little speech, but pressed on.
"We still have each other and we have Flacco, whenever he wants to grace us with an appearance, and I'm sure we've only scratched the surface of the collection. It doesn't matter if what we do ultimately doesn't matter, it matters to us."
Just at that moment, as if by some cosmic cue, the light of some distant star flooded through the room, heralding the morning and leaving them blinking in the sudden brightness.
"What are we going to do now?" asked Tim, "I mean we can't just leave him here."
Paul forced himself to think practically. "Well if we were still under the China Sea we would've had to give him a sea burial, probably using one of the torpedo tubes."
"We can't do that out here!" exclaimed Tim.
Paul looked puzzled, "Why not?"
"Drifting all alone through space for ever," he shuddered.
"Tim, he's dead, he has no capacity to care anymore."
"No, there must be something else."
Paul didn't know why, probably something to do with the heightened emotions, but he blurted out with a slightly hysterical laugh, "We could always stuff him and add him to the collection."
He clapped his hands over his mouth as Tim gave him a disapproving look. "That's rather cold Paul." Then Tim saw the light of inspiration in his eyes.
"Cold! That's it!"