So he came to his parents at Brighton for the last time, they had given him new blood and six weeks, though he did not know about the time, only June, they had him lying prone for the whole journey, to a home which he did not particularly think of as his parents' home, no doubt, since they had moved, retired, but some at least of the furniture must have been the same, surely, home to him, and his parents were there, the dog, his brother.
His father talked to me, walking round the garden of the bungalow on that windy down, the flowers growing so healthily, saying how Tony had asked them to come up and see them a few weeks before, at the new house on the site near Chester, and had told them how ill he was, perhaps that he was not going to recover, he had successfully kept from them what it was, until then, though they knew it was very serious, but not that serious, he had kept it from them, what nature of deception is that, I wonder, what are the morals of that? I should try to work that out some time, I should try to understand. His father, yes, walking, his greenhouse, the flowers, prizewinner he was, they were, but, Ah, he said to me, Can you understand it, can you understand why his mother had to go through such pain bearing him, only for this to happen now? Later, much later, was it when we were having a baby ourselves, June told us how the mother had been in labour three days was it, or more? Some long time, his birth had been a very difficult one, his dying now no less so, more so, now. Just in the few weeks since we had last seen him he was grossly altered, distressingly, his face had shrunken, lost much of its flabbiness, rotundness, life, the skin was now tighter so that it was shocking, yes, to recognize him, now, from what he had been, then. This diminution made features stand out more, which were not that noticeable before, his eyes stood out, stared, fixed you, I slip into the second person, in defence, stared for longer moments than you wanted, than I did want, yes. And his teeth, I never remember seeing Tony's teeth before, they were there, of course, in that fleshy mouth, but now the mouth was not fleshy, the flesh was gone, not gone, but tautened, disfigured, and the teeth were there, their roots showing, the ones at the sides, molars, incisors, gaps visible between them which were unexpected, not that any were missing, as I remember, but there were gaps between, perhaps the gums were shrinking, too, withdrawing, perhaps it was affecting the gums, that the teeth should appear so unnaturally, I do not know, but it was affecting him everywhere, I seemed to think, now, from the way he looked, his skin too was yellow, where it had been white before, a pallid, unhealthy colour, then, when he was healthy, now it was as in jaundice, I imagine, the kidneys affected, is it, I don't know, or the liver, how little I know about medicine, the body, anything, ah. All I had ever seen of his illness was in his face, why should I have seen more, now his face was gone, except for the eyes, the eyes were his still, intelligent, staring, when he did concentrate enough to look at me, but in a new setting. His hair was unkempt, yes, that's the word, why should he bother to keep up that sort of appearance when all the other appearances were not being kept up as a result of this gnawing inside him, by this excruciating pain, yes, and now he really looked like a man who had undergone months of pain, fear, to me, perhaps he had kept it hidden from me, from others, until now, not from his wife, I'm sure, he could be himself so much with her, yes.
In that same front room of the bungalow, their home now, again, the child's bed now, he was perhaps too big for a cot, by now, in the one room, they had bought a tape-recorder themselves now, he had they said recorded conversations, tried to write things as well, poems, against this unwelcome shortfall. It stood on a dressing-table before the window, the tape-recorder, opposite to the bed, his feet towards it. June went about her business, the boy about his, running in once to stop suddenly at the sight of us two solemn by the bed, then as suddenly go on playing, he was playing games by himself, the boy, running into rooms, saying something in his invented language, running out again.
At some point on that visit, it was the last visit, I offended them, his father, I think, someone, everyone perhaps, by taking exception to the news that a Vicar had been visiting Tony fairly regularly since he had come down here this last time. I remembered what he himself had said about the priest preying at the radiotherapy unit, I remembered Byron dying in Missolonghi, saying he would have no weakness now, not give in to the blandishments of religion, no Pascal's wager for him, no, he said to Trelawney, something like that, I do not remember the exact words, Byron's words, I doubt there was anything about Pascal, he was later, was he later? And I was not going to allow Tony to back out now, it would be a negation of everything he stood for, I thought, for which I stood, too, I could not allow that, it upset me, this I certainly could not understand, stand. The father was I think offended, perhaps he did not know the things his son stood for, to me, everything we know about someone is perhaps not the same, even radically different from what others, another, may see or understand about them, him. What use are such generalizations? I told Tony of my reactions, I think, when he told me, I do not remember this clearly, or his father, but June explained that the Vicar was visiting only as a friend, a new friend, socially, really, they did not discuss religion, or hardly. And now I think about it I reacted in just the same way as Tony himself had to the religious funeral of his friend, what was his name, some years before, the man who hanged himself, as an experiment, was it an experiment? Just the same, I was reproducing the reaction, in this case, it was rather upsetting, with him lying there, unable to talk really, wanting not to upset him, but not to let him go back on anything, either, he was finding talk very exhausting, lapsing from time to time, his eyes closing, then, when I thought he had gone off to sleep, and was going to leave him, he would know, would wake again, keep me there, by the bed, not that there were not long periods when he did sleep, or lapse into semi-consciousness, whatever, and then we walked outside, talked, his brother and father were repairing a car at one point, I think, or was this on another occasion? Visits run together, the trivial with the important, our life with his dying.
Meals without him, for the first time, his were taken in, I do not know what he ate, whether it had now affected his chewing, his digestion, whether he had to have special food, at that time, though it seems probable, it affects everything, in the end, this was the end, an end.
When we did leave, that Sunday evening, we said we would come down again the following Sunday, it was the earliest we could, I think, though I think we knew, June had told us before that visit, that he was liable to go at any time now, for the first time she had accepted that it was going to happen, though she said that right until the end she would continue to hope for a miracle. It was obvious to me that even if he was still there the following week, he would be less able to talk, at the rate he was deteriorating, disintegrating, so the last thing I said to him, all I had to give him, alone with him, with my coat on, about to go, the car waiting outside to run us to the station, staring down at him, facing those eyes, he staring back all the time now, it must have been a great effort for him, yes, and I said, it was all I had, what else could I do, I said, I'll get it all down, mate. It'll be very little, he said, after a while, slowly, still those eyes. That's all anyone has done, very little, I said.