Free Chapman's Odyssey by Paul Bailey

couldn’t it? He looked about him at the little he had to see in his contained surroundings. There wasn’t much to stir the soul, but the will to go on living, to move again in the wide world, suddenly possessed him. He was elated. Yes, that’s what he was.
    — That’s my lovely nephew, Aunt Rose whispered. — I lived to be ninety-seven thinking the way you’re thinking. Keep going.
    Could he bear the idea – yes, even the idea – of reaching ninety-seven? He doubted it. All he wanted now was to be at home with Graham, writing a book that might or might not be his last. He had never imagined attaining seventy, let alone ninety plus. Besides, poor Rose was gaga at the end, with only memories of her earliest infancy to sustain her, if that’s what they did. After his final visit to her, at the Eventide Home in a tiny Sussex village, he had vowed to do what he had often contemplated doing in his tortured adolescence and beyond, should his faculties declare themselves redundant.
    — I won’t hear of it, Harry. Suicide’s the coward’s way out. Your time will come when it’s good and proper and not before.
    — You’re going to tell me to look on the bright side, aren’t you?
    — I could give you worse advice.
    — No, not you. That’s your sister’s province.
    — Leave her to heaven, Harry.
    — Yes, I will.
    He had to leave her to heaven, along with Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, if that’s where she was. If, if: the afterlife was replete with ‘ifs’. He knew, as sure as God made little apples, that she would appear to him again during his ordeal. She’d relished drama, and that relish was her terrible gift to him. How often he had tried to resist the allure of the last, coruscating word, the dramatic exit line. He could resist it now, surely, with infinity confronting him. Here was the exit of exits, and he would pass through it calmly. He found himself determined to do so.
    He waited to hear her contradicting him, but for once she was blessedly silent.
     
    — You certainly put up a fight, Harry. There, I called you Harry, said Dr Pereira. — You had to be sedated. Mr Russell didn’t want to force the equipment down your throat. You fought like a demon.
    — Did I? I’ve no memory of it.
    — We discovered a lump in your stomach. It might be harmless. We shall do further exploratory tests before we decide whether or not to operate.
    Harry Chapman, nodding, imagined Dr Pereira as Caravaggio’s gorgeous young Fruttaiolo in the Borghese Gallery in Rome. The curly-haired vendor, with his exposed shoulder, is holding a basket containing black grapes, green grapes, shiny red apples, redcurrants, a blushing pear or two and a plum tomato – the whole luscious ensemble decorated with vine leaves. Gone were the doctor’s white overall, his stethoscope, his doctorly demeanour, and in their glowing stead was the immortal youth with his imperishable wares.
    — I like your attitude, Harry. It’s good to see you smiling. I really admire your spirit.
    — My spirit?
    — A lesser man would have turned his face to the wall and given up hope. Stay cheerful, Harry.
    And with that Dr Pereira left his spirited patient’s bedside. The fruitseller lingered on for a moment or two and then followed his double out of the ward.
    He was joined, soon enough, by the regular trio.
    — Have you a poem for us, Harry?
    — I have, Marybeth, and I haven’t.
    — And what exactly is that supposed to mean, honey?
    — Well, there is a poem and then again there isn’t.
    — He’s at his mischief, said Harry Chapman’s Virgil. — He enjoys his puzzles, she added with what her cockney Dante acknowledged as uncommon shrewdness.
    — I shall need a little time to explain.
    They gave him that precious time – Nancy Driver, Marybeth and the quizzical Philip Warren – as they changed his linen, took his temperature, checked his blood pressure and rearranged him in the bed.
    He had to apologise, but this late poem of Nazim Hikmet