Free The Museum of Doubt by James Meek

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    You’re being sentimental. It won’t seem that way if you learn more. You talk about just the same things in Mercian as in English.
    Then why am I bothering to learn it?
    Why are you?
    Because I don’t think it is just the same.
    She liked that. She had to kiss him.
    The two of them went into hospital with Cate’s dad next day. He was in a lot of pain. The hospital smelled of pain, or of the notice of pain, the smell of disinfectant and pharmaceuticals and sterilised rubber that took on just the form of what it was trying to hide. The doctors were guessing. They couldn’t bring themselves to say so, but they wanted the three of them to know they were guessing. There was body language of not having a clue and being gutted about it but that was the way it was with the human body, it was so complicated it was amazing anyone ever got beyond the cell-splitting stage. Towards the end of the day they said they were going to have to operate. Cate and Adam went in to see him together and sat down beside him on the same side of thebed. He looked at them, purged of all surprise. Cate held his hand and Adam put his hand round Cate’s waist and the other on Cate’s dad’s thigh for a moment, then took it away. After the Mercian for machine gun and brown lung it didn’t seem strange that Cate’s dad had been surprised before. Waking up in your bed at home in your own flat in the morning, that was surprising. Cancer was the hand that ended the surprise. The whip. He was a brave soldier.
    Cate’s dad was dying. He was ready for it like someone who’d been waiting too long in too many offices for his name to be called. Not jumping up in relief and running to the woman behind the window any more but fed up with processes of any name or colour and wanting them all to be over and just to sleep. He was whispering to Cate in Mercian. He saw his hand tighten on hers. She turned round and looked at Adam.
    What’s he saying? said Adam.
    He’s talking about my mum. He says he sees her.
    Sees her.
    He says it hurts a lot.
    Tell him he’s going to be fine.
    Why?
    I can’t think what else to say.
    You tell him.
    What, in Mercian?
    He does speak English, remember.
    Mr Finzy, said Adam, leaning forward, you’ll be fine.
    Cate’s dad closed his eyes, turned his head towards Cate and whispered in Mercian again. The doctors came and took him away. He died the next day, after surgery, without coming round.
    They were in a small room in the hospital set aside for hearing that people had died. Adam tried to hide his anger in the cryingof Cate and the holding of her. She’d folded into his arms so quickly, as imagined and laid down: she hadn’t noticed. But she had.
    You’re angry, she said.
    No, of course not.
    He wasn’t trying to hurt you.
    I know.
    You used to tell us you wanted us to speak Mercian while you were there. So we did.
    I’m not angry. Honest.
    Don’t be angry.
    I’m not. But he could have told me to look after you.
    Was that what you wanted him to say?
    No.
    You mustn’t think he didn’t like you.
    He could have said something. I don’t know, goodbye.
    After you’d told him he was going to be fine?
    He could have told me to look after the dog. Adam was angrier now. Cate’s dad hadn’t mentioned him to her in Mercian either.
    Do you know how to say goodbye? said Cate.
    Yes.
    What is it?
    Adam couldn’t remember.
    What’ve you been doing with that book open on your desk all this time?
    Y tess ley.
    That’s not enough.
    I thought it was.
    You know what I mean.
    He got up the next morning and stood naked at the table. Rain spat across the window and wind shook the glass. Heclosed the Mercian book and put it up on the shelf, on top of an album of Picasso paintings someone had given them for a wedding present. He turned round. Cate was sitting up in bed looking at him.
    You learned it when you were growing up, said Adam. It was easier. You didn’t have to study it. You just picked it up. It takes so much time.