How the Dead Live by Will Self Page A

admit into his life chess ones. Hedley, the last man who ever touched me intimately – saving Dr Steel, but then he’s barely human. More of an animated scalpel.
    Hedley. Together we would lie in the flat in Brooklyn I borrowed from Esther – ‘Darling it’s rent-controlled – so I can’t be assed to rent it!’ – naked on the bed, like two parentheses indicating the presence of passionate language, of sex. Of course, he’d never leave his wife. His invalided wife. I mean to say, he’d leave her – in order to come to me; but he’d always go back again. Back to put her on the machine (she is-was? – a diabetic), or take her off the machine, or give her a shot. I asked him once if, given that he had a mountain of cash in the bank, he couldn’t arrange for her to have a kidney transplant. He looked the most flustered I’d ever seen him, more abandoned by his reason than when he orgasmed. He said something about tissue types, rejection, unavailability, unsuitability – but I didn’t believe him. Like I say, the house was cheap; and more than that I think he actually wanted her to be housebound, wanted her there whenever he eventually came home. What a psycho. Good riddance.
    Eight o’clock, and outside small birds are going ‘cheep’. I can hear cars grinding into motion and the relentless stutter of lorries on Kentish Town Road. Hard to believe, as I lie here listening to the Today programme, that six weeks ago I would’ve been leaving with them. The Italians call this kind of cancer ‘the whirlwind’, because it blows down on the person and winnows them right out, like a husk. It’s blown away all my precious routines, my rounds of errands, my staggered sociability, my little trips – all gone. And with them the people.
    No need to see Susie Plender any more – although she’s called, naturally. No need to see Emma Gould either and hear about her latest man-trapping escapades. She’s not a fifty year– old woman – she’s a tethered goat. No need to see Jack Harmsworth, my alcoholic bibliophile friend – although him I could bear the most. Like Natty, I guess – addictive personalities are peculiarly restful to the dying, because like us they operate within tiny windows of temporal opportunity. And no need to call Mr Weintraub. No, actually I must call Weintraub, or get Charlotte to. I must sort out this tax business before – before – well, let’s just say it has to be dealt with. No need to see Tim, my boss, although the sweetie did come and visit me in the hospital last week. He was terribly uneasy and his wife, Lola, a squint-eyed Spaniard, kept looking around the ward as if she could see something we couldn’t. Something terrifying.
    Nope, no need for any of them. Hedley’s history. Yaws is dead. Kaplan – well, Kaplan, there lies a tale. Anyway, I don’t expect to be hearing from him, oh no. It’ll be Natty and Charlotte and Steel and Deirdre from now on in. Not that Deirdre’s here for the duration; I can hear her next door passing the careful baton as I muse.
    ‘Here’s my time sheet, Mrs Elvers. Your mother had a very quiet night.’
    ‘Did she?’ You note there’s no move to informality from my stuck-up daughter.
    ‘Well, I say quiet, but in truth I have to say she’s . . . she’s . . .’
    ‘Fading fast?’
    ‘I – I wouldn’t want . . . it’s . . .’
    ‘Please, Mrs Murphy, please – don’t be afraid to express an opinion.’
    ‘She does appear to be in a rapid decline. It happens quite often – when a . . . terminal patient comes home.’
    ‘I see. Is your colleague here yet?’
    ‘No –’
    ‘Errrr!’ Yes she is, and hesitating for admittance – but no:
    ‘Hiya.’ It’s Natasha, come for her get-up, I daresay – well, I did tell her to – and:
    ‘Errr.’ A bit less insistent, that – it’ll be the Murphy-substitute, another certain woman of a certain age in the slick, professional housecoat of death. Their Father’s house has many