State We're In by Adele Parks Page A

if he was disgusted or impressed.
    The nurse turned back to Dean and held up a small portable pump. ‘And this holds enough painkillers for twenty-four hours. It gives a continuous dose. Should I put it on the bedside table or tuck it under your pillow, Eddie?’
    â€˜On the table. Thanks.’
    The words were barely out before Eddie closed his eyes. Relief seemed to flood through his entire body. Dean stood up and followed the nurse as she walked away from the bed. When he thought he was out of Eddie’s earshot he asked, ‘Did you give him something to make him sleep? Is there a sedative in that?’
    â€˜No. Sleep is natural right now, at this stage. The miracle is that he’s awake at all.’ The nurse paused, allowing Dean a moment to compute what she was saying. ‘If you have any other questions, the doctor or the palliative care team will be able to answer them.’
    Dean did have one more question, the only one he needed an answer to, but the doctors and the palliative care unit couldn’t help him.
Why did he leave us?
The question threw itself around his head like a small orb ricocheting around a pinball machine.
Why did he leave us?
The words raked around his head, scratching up pain and distress. He strode back to Eddie’s bedside and burst out, ‘Why did you leave us?’
    â€˜I was not prepared to take that particular bullet, son.’
    Dean jumped back a foot, nearly knocking over the catheter as his father rasped out his reply. He had thought Eddie was asleep.
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜This is a shit way to die, but it’s better than dying through living an ordinary life. A slow death of just doing nothing, being nothing.’
    Dean bristled with resentment. ‘You were a husband and a father. That’s not nothing.’
    Eddie winced and motioned weakly to the water on the bedside table. Dean reached for the beaker and helped him take a sip.
    â€˜Are you a husband?’ Eddie huffed. His chest was actually rattling; Dean had always thought that was a figure of speech, not a grim reality.
    â€˜No,’ Dean admitted.
    â€˜Or a father?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Well you’re not in a very convincing position to argue from, are you?’
    Fury flickered through Dean’s body like a flame. He flung himself back into the plastic chair. ‘Thing is, I’ve always avoided becoming a husband or a dad. I’m pretty sure I’d be lousy at it. I didn’t have a role model, you see,’ he snapped sarcastically. Eddie’s eyes met Dean’s, just for a moment, but neither of them could stand the pain and they both looked away quickly.
    â€˜I just wanted more,’ whispered Eddie.
    Dean was furious. With Eddie and with himself. Of course Eddie Taylor was not able to offer up anything healing and comforting. How had he allowed himself to be such an idiot to think he might? He was ‘not prepared to take that particular bullet’; just a poetic way of saying he’d decided to do what the fuck he liked. His father was a selfish bastard. It was as simple as that. Well, at least there was some comfort in the fact that Dean had been right all these years: people couldn’t be trusted. They’d let you down. Over and over again.
    So what had he done, this father of his? What had he achieved that was so extraordinary? Something, please God, something that could go some way to justifying all the hurt. Perhaps he’d written a great novel. A piece of literature that had changed the world; its beauty so sorrowfully exquisite that the words would be quoted for generations to come. But Dean knew this was not the case. He’d have heard. Nor did this man look like the type who had built hospitals in far-flung African villages. And it seemed unlikely that he’d made millions through business ventures because he was here, in an NHS hospital, wearing cheap nylon pyjamas. Dean would have read it in a