Wheelchair: Antarctica. Snow and Ice

By Garrick Jones

You can never judge an academic book by its cover. Simon Dyson, a quiet assistant professor, is a man of hidden depths. To the world he presents as a harmless, innocuous, shy and retiring intellectual. However, the man who lurks behind that public persona is far more interesting ... and dangerous ... and driven.

'Wheelchair' is a slow-burn contemporary psychological crime thriller about a man who suffers from both OCD and PTSD, a man who is unwittingly caught up in a cross-border war between rival crime gangs—a conflict that almost leads to his death, and more than once.

It's a study of compulsion and of disability, and of the many faces of emotional dependence and sexual compulsion. It’s about how some men cannot just love or make love because their hearts or their bodies lead them to it, but who can only connect emotionally and physically through self-imposed rituals which involve struggle or self-abasement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Sep 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781922440396

Garrick Jones

Garrick JonesFrom the outback to the opera. After a thirty year career as a professional opera singer, performing in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, Garrick Jones took up a position as lecturer in music at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Australia.Brought up between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, he now lives in the tropics in peaceful retirement.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Simon

I’d read somewhere people say a near-death experience is inevitably life-changing—somehow existential. Existential—and I don’t mean to be patronising—means affirming or implying that something is …

No need for an object on the end of that hanging sentence; philosophy is all about conjecture—each man or woman will supply his or her own noun or phrase. In my case, the thing that was to be affirmed or implied was my existence. As I was a non-believer, I’d always imagined death would be just like turning off a light switch. One moment all movement and light, and then the next zilch.

I didn’t know if I was dying or not; my present reality was under review. I was having an out-of-body experience, one in which my body and my mind were fighting over who had the greatest right to be heard. My body seemed to be screaming at me in terror, trying to tell me how badly injured I was—not like one of my normal past-life injuries, something more substantial. My mind, however, blocked out my body’s messages, drawing pictures for me. It drew my body naked, splayed out over a large, bloodied canvas, looking for all the world as if it had been ripped apart, and then the pieces put back together by someone who’d never seen the pattern for a human being. I felt sad. All my fragile body parts were mismatched, joined together by drawing pins driven through nerve endings.

I quickly ran through dates in my head: 1810, founding of the University of Berlin; 1815, Jane Austen publishes Emma; 1824, first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth; 1836 … okay, my mind was working—I told it to shut up, and then I began to reach out for my physical being. I felt no pain, but knew I was in agony and my body was broken.

Mr. Dyson? Can you hear me, Mr. Dyson? My name is Sandor. I’m a paramedic with the ambulance service … Simon? Can you hear me, Simon?

The voice dimmed. I’d decided that I didn’t want to know how hurt I was. I’d closed my inner eyes—the ones behind my eyelids—and then blocked my ears, slowly disconnecting myself from the unease of the reality in which I’d floated for a few seconds.

If I was going to die, then so be it. But, as I had no control over whether I’d either wake up at some later stage to find myself in a sea of disquiet or to have simply disappeared into some great void, sleep and/or unconsciousness seemed the most viable option. Farewell, you brown and pleasant land … I started to say in my mind, laughing at the absurdity of a paraphrased memory of better prose.

Simon, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand …

The voice floated at the edge of my awareness. I hoped I’d smiled before I let go. In one way or another, I knew what was coming next was the start of a journey—one with two possible destinations.

The first, into oblivion—I’d know nothing about what the arrival platform would look like because I’d be dead.

The second made me afraid that when I did get off the train then I’d wish for the first.

1. SIMON

Okay, I was alive.

Unless the world on the other side was a black joke designed by whoever was running the show, I knew I hadn’t died because I woke up in a hospital room, and I could smell something familiar.

I’d been lying doggo for a few minutes, trying to get my bearings and to work out what was wrong and where I was. Someone was taking my blood pressure and fiddling with tubes. I’d immediately wondered why someone was doing it manually because I’d felt the automatic pressure cuff inflate a few minutes earlier while the person was checking my pulse. Didn’t hospitals have gizmos for all these things these days? Automatic patient monitoring? But then, I caught a whiff of lavender talcum powder and a gruffness in the sound of her voice as she cleared her throat. I suspected the person taking my blood pressure manually was a nurse, rather than a doctor.

I could just imagine her—in the day she would have been a matron, or a ward sister. One of the Hattie Jacques types from the Carry On movies. She was old-fashioned and thorough, and I already liked her for it, even though I hadn’t seen her.

I’ll be back in thirty minutes to check on him again, she said to someone else in the room. If he wakes up or stirs, press the green button on the wall behind his bed.

Okey-dokey, gotcha, gorgeous.

And you can stop that gorgeous nonsense as soon as you like. I’m old enough to be your grandmother.

Maybe I like older women?

And maybe I like men old enough to have hair on their chests.

There’s plenty where it counts, he said. I could hear the smile in his voice.

Really? On the blokes who pay you, you mean? They both laughed. I guess this means you’d like a mug, a drop of milk, one sugar and strong.

Yes please, Lavinia, Marvin replied, and then flipped a few pages of his book, which I knew was probably perched on his lap. He never went anywhere without one. He began to hum softly. The sign that he’d taken a pencil from behind his ear, had pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose, and had begun to read once more while underlining passages and making margin notes.

Marvin Wills was like a kid to me—a surrogate son. Biologically, it was just possible—he was twenty-two and I was thirty-eight—but improbable. I hadn’t fathered any children that I knew of, neither did I remember any occasions when that improbability could have happened. Although I refused to define my sexuality, I hadn’t played around with members of the opposite sex. Call it what you will, but I refused to put a label on myself. Having an official job title at the university irked me enough. Labels—I hated them—especially when it came to me.

It was Marvin who’d taken to me, rather than the other way around, one cold, rainy Thursday night in 2005 at Manny’s food van down in one of Sydney’s seedier districts—poor working class is how they used to describe the area. But nowadays it was mostly doss houses, backpacker hostels, and empty buildings, with greedy developers waiting for council approval so they could bulldoze the whole neighbourhood and put up tall ugly buildings of glass and steel. I still worked there once a week, handing out hot meals and chatting to the homeless, needy, and dispossessed. I felt I needed to give something back. I’d been a street kid myself, graduating, with help from patrons, to a solid education at a private school, two university degrees, and ending up where I was now as associate professor in the same university’s history department. It’d been the look on the scrawny kid’s face as he’d held up his scraped-clean paper plate, and his play-acted, Please, sir, may I have some more? that had got to me—really got to me, I mean, as opposed to the level of vulnerability I usually exposed on my nights on duty, which appeared to be steel-faced and hard-hearted, but polite. I hated letting people get inside.

Give me the right quote and I’ll see what I can do, I’d said, half-joking. He’d reached into his backpack and pulled out a trampled-looking Penguin classic edition of Oliver Twist, handed it to me, and told me the page number. Please, sir, I want some more was underlined in pencil. In the margin, in small, neat writing was written, He’d have done better had he asked more politely. When I’d asked if he’d made the margin note, he’d thrust his plate forward, shaking it, and said, Food first, answers later.

It had been eleven years ago Marvin had come into my life. He was now twice that age. He’d lived in one of my spare rooms for half his lifetime, breezed through high school and university, where he now worked alongside me as my research assistant. I’d become, like those in my own life, his patron—except my version had required nothing in return apart from his friendship and company.

Listening to his hum and the soft scrape and whisper of his pencil as he underlined and made margin notes, I saw him in my mind’s eye. It made me smile, for I truly loved him, as far as that emotion allowed me to. Longish, scruffy hair—I’d argued that, for a tenth of his one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar haircuts, I too could make it look just like he’d fallen out of bed (and in a few seconds, as opposed to his normal two-hour visit). He cultivated the dérangé style, as the French call it. Hundreds of dollars spent on Yves Saint Laurent spectacles, designer stubble, and expensive clothes that, despite their price, looked like they came from the op shop.

You’re awake, he said softly. I’ve watched you sleeping since I was a kid. I know when you pretend, you know.

I heard him put his book down and cross the room. His expensive leather-soled shoes scuffed over the floor, rather than squeaked—he dragged his feet. The fact he’d worn them and not sneakers told me something either had happened or was about to happen; some situation in which he could not be patronised by the way he normally dressed. Fashionable street-kid look, which combined expensive track shoes and Ermenegildo Zegna suits, nasty combo to my aesthetics, but universally noted these days as a signifier of the ancient term hip.

Don’t press the green button, I croaked.

What? He leaned closer to me, so close that I could feel his breath on my ear. You’re mumbling. Say again?

Don’t press the fucking green button!

He laughed and kissed me loudly right on the ear with a deafening smack. How do you feel, Simon? he asked.

Although I’d opened my eyes, I could see nothing. I raised my eyebrows and wiggled my cheeks. Bandages.

What happened?

You don’t know?

I tried to shake my head but it hurt too much. No, nothing. I don’t remember anything.

Holy fuck, Simon.

He’d called me by my name twice now. Things were serious. He usually called me Quincey, like the few other friends I still knew from my days on the streets. Quincey because I’d go pink when the heat was turned up, like the fruit when you cooked it.

"What happened, Marvin?"

I’m not allowed to tell you.

What do you mean, you’re not allowed to tell me.

The cops are waiting until the doctors say it’s okay to interview you. Until then, we’ve been told not to tell you anything—just that you’ve been in an accident.

I started to run awareness tests on my body while I took in that piece of news. I was like that. I would go quiet for what people thought was an inordinate length of time while I processed information, weighing up what my response should be in any circumstance and whether I needed to hedge my bets. The few people who knew me were used to it. Others, until they got to know me, thought that I was somehow special. Right now, I was drifting in a sea of drug-induced laziness and indifference to my well-being. I could sense the precipice of pain right at the edge of my awareness; it was almost tangible. It felt like if I took two steps, on the third my foot would not touch solid ground and I’d plunge headfirst into agony. Morphine—it had to be morphine.

How bad am I?

They’ve done one operation. You lost a lot of blood, mate. They had to open you up, but nothing vital had to be removed. You’ve ripped nearly every tendon in your left leg and arm, and you’ve also got compound fractures in both the tibia and calcaneus of your right leg. That’s what they’re going to fix up next. It was so like him to use the correct anatomical terms, rather than the big bone in your leg and your heel.

While I took in the list of my injuries, I’d still been thinking about what he’d said earlier. If no one’s allowed to tell me anything, why are you here? It made no sense—mind you, nothing did right at that moment.

Next of kin, he replied. For some stupid reason you put me down as your emergency contact and as next of kin. They had to let me be here.

Oh, Jesus, I hurt, Marvin, I said.

No bloody wonder, Simon. From what the doctor said, you’re lucky to be alive. When I first got here you were still in the A & E. I could barely swallow when I saw you. You were covered in blood …

You need to tell me, right this fucking minute, what happened to me!

He shushed me. I’d raised my voice. Listen, that skinny bloke, your friend Margaret’s assistant is here. They’ve been yelling off and on at each other and the cops over the phone for the best part of four days.

Margaret de Silva was my solicitor. She also had my enduring power of attorney. Yelling over the phone meant Carsten, the young fellow who ran her office for her, had called her on her holiday in Italy. Doubtless the argument was about whether the cops could interview me or not.

Four days? I moaned. The last thing I remember was getting a taxi back from the greengrocer’s on Saturday morning … have I really been out to it for four days?

In and out. Moaning one minute, trying to thrash and scream your head off the next. They had to give you something to knock you out until the swelling in your head went down.

Swelling in my head? Four days? I must have been king-hit or something. Wait, that wouldn’t explain the pain I was holding at bay in my guts and down my right leg. My chest hurt like bejesus too … I must have fallen from something, or been hit by a truck. I couldn’t remember anything. I filed the facts away. More would come, and then there would be connections, and finally comprehension.

Don’t panic. No brain damage, just a concussion they told me. They wanted to keep you sedated because of that and your emergency operation. I’ve never seen you look so peaceful, he said.

There was a bitter-sweet sound in his voice. Sometimes his concern for me and my weirdnesses made me want to run and hide. This time I felt a twinge of guilt—and sadness. Even with the person I cared about most in the world I could be distant and awkward physically. He loved movie nights at home, as I’d invariably fall asleep halfway through and wake up with my head on his knees and him lazily running his fingers through my hair.

Burma? I asked.

He’s fine. I’ve moved back in to look after him.

Burma was my cat; or rather, I was his person, as he’d also, just like Marvin, adopted me. He’d arrived one day in the middle of a storm through a partially opened window, wet and bedraggled, and with a mouse between his teeth, which he’d spat on the floor at my feet and then meowed at me. How could I resist? He was a hybrid. A cross between Siamese and fat black—that was my technical name for the other part of his heritage. I called him Burma because … I don’t know. He just looked like the name.

You’ve moved back in? But you only moved out two months ago. What about the girl? Shirley …?

Sheena, he corrected. She’ll survive. I told her I’m staying until you can look after yourself. Besides, I’m too used to you telling me to fuck off, which means I can’t cope with her constant attention.

I chuckled but it hurt.

Put my hand on your head, I said. I could hear his unspoken why? but he did it with a sigh. I ran my hand around the back of his neck and pulled it down so I could kiss his forehead. He pretend-spluttered, but I knew from the slight laugh in the sound he was secretly pleased.

Keep your dick in your pants, Dyson, he said.

Too young, too skinny, and too meek and mild for me, Wills.

Sick bastard.

You know me too well—

Raised voices from the corridor outside the room signalled the end of our chat was getting near. I still had no idea what had happened and why I was in hospital.

"Simon, stay quiet. Remember, keep it to yourself," Marvin whispered urgently, leaning across the bed, his head just next to mine.

Now I was worried. That was the phrase every street kid knew. Keep it to yourself meant just that; say nothing unless your life depended on it.

The nurse who was here is bringing me a coffee and then they’re going to prep you for theatre for another operation. No one apart from me and Carsten and the hospital staff will be allowed anywhere near you for days. You and me, Quincey, we’ll sort it out between us.

Marvin?

Yes?

I know you’ve been told you can’t tell me anything. But, it’s me, Simon! You know, the guy who pulled you from the streets and who looks after you! The man who’d cut off his arm for you and walk across town on his bare knees to get milk for your coffee? I hated emotional blackmail, but the pain was getting to me, and I was losing my ability to choose my metaphors and to evaluate how I should behave. I’ve obviously had some sort of catastrophic accident … can’t you at least tell me what sort of accident? What is it you’re not telling me?

Ah fuck me! he said, and then he let go of my hand and began to pace around the room. I recognised it as his way of sorting out difficult decisions. He stopped after a few moments, stock still, and then returned to the bed. You were in a car accident, Simon.

Someone ran over me?

No, you were behind the wheel of a car. You were driving …

That’s impossible. What’s the date today?

It’s the first of September.

I have no memory of how I got to be here, Marvin. But one thing I do remember is I booked my car in the garage on the twenty-sixth of August to have the shock absorbers replaced. It wasn’t due to be ready for two weeks. So, tell me, was it a hire car or was someone else involved? Someone I know and that’s why you’re not telling me?

I’ve told you I can’t say anything.

Despite desperate screams for attention from my shattered nerve endings, I was getting angry. Had I lost control of whatever car it was I was supposed to have been driving and someone was killed?

Press the red button, Marvin, I said through gritted teeth.

What’s wrong, Simon? That’s the emergency button. What’s wrong?

I could barely hold back from screeching at the top of my voice. Whatever painkillers they’d filled me with had abruptly lost their ability to block the agony.

Wait! I said, forcing myself to stay in control for just a minute longer. Just before you call for the doctor, do one thing for me please, Marvin. Call Joe, kiddo, can you do that? I need to speak to him after surgery and before the police come in for their questions.

Joe was a copper mate of mine—we’d been on the streets together as kids—him and his brother Alan. Joe and I boxed together at a gym whenever I felt the need come upon me—it wasn’t for the fisticuffs, they were the curtain raiser to wrestling on the canvas, and then … well, you know. I liked it rough, the rougher the better, and the tougher the guy, the more I liked it.

I could feel Marvin reaching over me, his hand hovering over the red emergency button at my bedside. I’d been in hospital enough to know the layout. That’s the problem, Simon. Joe’s gone missing. No one knows where he is.

Well, get a hold of Alan. He’ll know where he is, I said.

Quincey, I’ve been given the rough end of the stick by the coppers. They’ll have my balls if they know I’ve told you this, but it’s more complicated than that. Not only is Joe missing but it was his car you were driving when you had your accident. And, I can’t call Alan. He lifted up one side of my bandage to look at my eye. Jesus, your eye looks like a blood orange.

The light dazzled me. Why can’t you ring Alan?

Because he’s dead. And the reason the cops want to speak to you so urgently is they think you’re the one who shot him.

The sound of the emergency buzzer and shouting from the corridor were the last things I heard before I succumbed to the pain and passed out.

2. MARVIN

Marvin Wills was who he was because of Simon. He’d never been scolded or told what to do or how to behave. It had been a process of osmosis, of learning by example. Even now, the key inserted in the front door, his forehead touching the centre door panel, and his palms pressed against the doorjambs, he couldn’t avoid repeating the mantra in his head—the two sentences that Simon had said to him at the doorstep when he was eleven years old and about to enter this, his new home, for the first time.

This is your sanctuary. This is your home. No one will ever touch you or hurt you or tell you what to do on the other side of this door. It is where you will be safe to become who you want to be.

He hadn’t understood the full enormity of those words until much later in life. But every so often fears and demons from his past would sneak up unannounced and bite him on the bum when he least expected it. More than once, reciting the mantra at the doorway had helped him leave some baggage at the doorstep.

Marvin closed the door behind him and walked into the living/kitchen area. Simon had bought the house because of its open plan. He wanted to be able to stand in the kitchen and check the living and dining areas to make sure everything was just so, secure in the knowledge all his bits and pieces were in their proper places.

A large, squat and square black shape meowed at him and then ran across the countertop and crawled up onto his shoulder. Ouch, Burma! He knew he said it every time; it was one of his own rituals. Ouch, my big man. This time softly, extending the words while gently nuzzling the black fur next to his chin and stroking the animal’s soft, shiny coat.

What happened next was always the same. He lifted Burma into the air, his hands underneath the cat’s front armpits. Hey there, handsome! Who’s your favourite fella? he’d say. Burma invariably meowed and then wriggled in his hands, his cue to Marvin to place him on the kitchen floor and go to the pantry. Later, after eating, if Marvin was walking around the house, Burma would wander behind him like a shadow, or if he was working at his desk, sit at his feet and chew his toes. I swear you’re more like a dog than a cat! Marvin liked to think their cat chuckled at this oft-repeated phrase—he did himself. Another ritual. Life in their home was full of them.

They’d rubbed off on Marvin. How could they not? Simon’s life revolved around rituals. Tasks to be performed at certain hours of the day—on the dot—or in a defined order, or even stunningly complex things, like for example where Simon placed his feet relative to the kitchen bench when preparing food. Marvin had fairly soon found the rituals comforting and familiar. He’d never had a routine as a street kid, and although Simon’s rituals could be sometimes over excessive, several of them gave Marvin a sense of security, of belonging.

Simon had OCD—although you’d never hear him admit it.

Marvin stood in Simon’s bedroom and pressed at the edge of the wardrobe door. It flicked open, only a few centimetres, but enough to get his hand in to open it completely. Pressure closings—another of Simon’s neat design features. He stood on tiptoes and reached into the long storage space over the hanging area to retrieve Simon’s gym bag.

The first time he’d seen the inside of the wardrobe he’d been amazed. Where are all your clothes? he’d asked. Don’t own what you don’t need, had been the reply, it’s only baggage otherwise.

Right now, there were three pairs of jeans on wooden hangers, four business shirts, two suits, and a tuxedo in an empty-looking hanging space probably three metres wide. Each of the garments was grouped, each group equidistantly placed from the next group, the tuxedo hanging in solitary splendour at one end. Simon had T-shirts, polo shirts, and sport shirts—seven of each, and one of each in the same seven colours. Violet T-shirt, violet polo shirt, violet sports shirt; indigo T-shirt, indigo polo shirt, indigo sports shirt … and so on. Each collection sat squarely in the middle of its own space in an open-faced teak shelf-unit at the right-hand side of the wardrobe. It looked like a showroom display in an outrageously expensive and exclusive menswear shop.

He glanced at his watch. By now, Simon had been in theatre for two hours. They’d told Marvin the operation would take six or seven hours, and that was only if they decided not to rewire his splintered ribs. By some miracle, none had pierced his lungs. If the operation on his leg took too long, they’d reschedule his ribs for another day.

Simon won’t be out of hospital any time soon, Burma, he said, bending at the waist to rub the cat’s ears. To Marvin’s knowledge, Burma was the only other living being who’d ever crossed the threshold of Simon’s bedroom door. He sat between Marvin’s feet, batting at the toggles in the tongue of his penny-loafers.

Marvin smiled at the collection of shirts. Each type layered in the same sequence of colours in its own little compartment. From violet to red, following the spectrum. The only time they’d ever argued in the eleven years they’d lived together was when Marvin had posted a tiny Gay Pride sticker on the inside facing of the wardrobe door. He’d done it as a joke, but Simon had really lost it. It was a few days after Marvin’s twenty-first birthday, and although Simon’s sexuality (whatever it was) had never been openly discussed between them, Marvin had thought he should show some solidarity and also give Simon the opportunity to discuss his private life.

For the last time, stop trying to define me! Simon had shouted at the end of an acrimonious exchange.

Whatever, Simon! I’m just trying to be your friend. It breaks my heart to see you so lonely. I want you to be happy! Simon had stormed out of the house and then returned at three in the morning with ripped clothing, a black eye, a bruise on his chin, a split lip, and an angry, but satisfied, grin that dared Marvin to say anything.

On a shoe rail at the bottom of the hanging space were four pairs of shoes. Black day shoes, black formal shoes for the tux and for the best suit, brown day shoes, and a pair of dark blue canvas pumps.

Marvin had started buying Simon’s clothes just after he’d turned eighteen, seven years after moving in, and having come to the point of understanding him better than anyone else. He’d come to terms with his obsessional, ritualised behaviour and had made an inner decision—one Simon had been happy to go along with—that from now on, he’d be the one to dress Simon—and himself—with his birthday present: his own bank account and a platinum American Express card. His account was regularly topped up, his card paid off in full every month. He’d never asked where the money came from. Simon had funds—he never wanted to talk about it.

Marvin was economical, keeping records of his spending in a journal, with notes explaining each purchase. It was what made him a good research assistant, he argued with himself, his ability to be methodical and to keep good records. Perhaps he had more OCD himself too than he’d allow himself to admit. He’d felt uneasy about the card. It had no limit. He listed every purchase in his journal, its purpose and where each item had been bought. If anything ever happened to Simon, he didn’t want anyone to even think of accusing him of ripping off his friend.

Six plain white Ts, Marvin mumbled, checking his list of things to take to the hospital. They were in a box on the top storage shelf, which always held exactly twenty-four Bond’s raglan-sleeved white T-shirts. If one or two were used, the supply would always be topped up. Even though Marvin had moved out to live with his girlfriend two months beforehand, he knew the same rituals would have been completed. He lifted the lid from the box and ran his hand down the side of the stack of Cellophane-wrapped shirts, without bothering to count, he knew there would be two dozen.

Sick of trying to play with his shoes, Burma had disappeared. Marvin heard him meow in the work room. It was a come-scratch-my-tummy mewl—one that changed in intensity as the cat writhed on his back and stretched, waiting for tummy rubs and fingers to claw. Marvin followed the sound and then stood in the doorway, watching the cat’s antics for a few moments before giving in, gingerly moving to the craft table and running his stiffened fingers through the fur on Burma’s belly. The cat purred like a lawnmower and drooled. Heya, big fella! Miss me? I sure as hell missed you while I was away.

He’d only moved out to be with Sheena to try to make Simon socialise a bit, to connect with some other people, to make new friends. And now he regretted his choice. He loved Simon, he was the only family he had, and although he really liked Sheena, she was too untidy. She ate irregularly and awful food, she fawned over him—he really hated that. But her worst crime was the large smelly wicker clothes basket that sat in the corner of her bedroom until it was full to overflowing before she’d embark on a monumental washing spree. Despite all of that, there was something comforting in the feeling of another person’s arms around him, the touch of their skin, the light in their eyes when they saw him. He wanted all of that for Simon instead of his infrequent forays off into the dark of night, returning bruised, no longer horny—Marvin had recognised that look on his face, most blokes had it when they were desperate—but affable for a few weeks after.

Burma escaped from his ear rubs and jumped onto the top of the long storage unit that ran along the length of the wall. It was multi-compartmentalised, and again, regimentally filled with colour co-ordinated sheets of cardboard, plastic bits and pieces in clear Perspex boxes, art supplies, paints, brushes, magazine collections rigidly stacked in exact twenty-centimetre piles and precisely lined up with the corners at a one-millimetre tolerance of deviation from ninety degrees. Apart from his university job, Simon’s hobby/business was precision, hand-crafted models for collectors that had deep pockets. They were mostly model railway fanatics who didn’t mind paying top dollar for perfect houses, cars, people, whatever they needed for their landscapes. Simon’s work was incredible. He only worked in Z gauge—1:220. His models were tiny, but fastidious in their detail, and they cost a lot. Marvin knew. It was he who drew up the invoices to Simon’s instruction. One recent perfect replica of the old, now-demolished, Pennsylvania Railroad Terminal in New York, which had taken Simon a year and a half to build around other projects, had been shipped to the buyer in the USA by private jet the purchaser had sent to collect the model. The invoice had been for thirty-four thousand US dollars.

His phone rang. It was Lavinia, the nurse at the hospital. She’d rung to tell him Simon wouldn’t be out of theatre for another seven hours, perhaps longer. There were unexpected problems that hadn’t shown up on the MRI images. The rib operation would have to wait for a few days until he recovered a bit from the surgery on his leg. Marvin glanced at his watch and began to plan out the rest of his day before he returned to the hospital.

He’d have time to pop into Sheena’s to see how she was, perhaps get a bit of loving while he was there—although he doubted it, she was still really annoyed with him for moving back home to look after Burma. After that, he’d call in to a few shops at which he and Simon were welcomed and regular customers to buy a few pairs of pyjamas. Then, on to the university. He’d need to go through Simon’s work emails, arrange with his head of department for his lectures to be rescheduled or taken over by someone else. Now he had some idea of how long Simon would be off his feet, there was much the HOD would have to organise. Still, he’d be able to fetch Simon’s laptop from his office so he could keep abreast of things, communicate with post-grad students on Simon’s behalf, perhaps take dictation and write emails—like any top-class research assistant should. Lavinia had promised him that despite hospital rules for restricted Wi-Fi access, he’d be able to set up in the corner of Simon’s room for a few hours every day, as long as the patient was allowed to get rest and to heal undisturbed.

He picked up a few things from the work room to keep Simon occupied. A catalogue from a German firm of historical railway buildings, a large volume of Australian architectural plans from the early 1900s, and Simon’s most thumbed over crafting possession: his fan of Pantone colour swatches. Those three things would keep him occupied for countless hours.

As he was about to leave the room, he hastily grabbed Simon’s tube of pick-up-sticks and a large box of miniature multi-coloured construction blocks. Tipped onto the bed, sorting them out into colours and then into sizes would give Simon an hour or two of distraction.

After that, he went to the office they’d shared while he’d lived at home and took two newly arrived purchases from the bookshelf. This household kept Amazon afloat, he swore it. The Condition of England by Masterman and Boulton, and Social Statics, or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed by Herbert Spencer—they’d keep Simon in a lather of worry for weeks, whether the author came to the same conclusions as he had done in his own PhD thesis, or whether there were further proofs to argue. Simon’s dissertation had already been submitted and successfully defended. Marvin had heard that an honoris causa was on the books. It was just a matter of time before Simon heard. There was a special graduation ceremony in December, just before Christmas. It was a foregone conclusion that the PhD would be awarded in just a few months from now.

As he was about to leave, he picked Burma up from where he was stretched out in the middle of the hallway, blocking any ability to move through the house without stepping over him and the incurred risk of having his feet or legs snagged by pat me claws. He stroked the cat’s head and whispered that he’d be back late that night.

On an impulse he opened his former bedroom door. He’d been staying in the guest bedroom since Simon had been admitted to hospital, making trips back to Sheena’s and gathering bits and pieces. He hadn’t wanted Simon to assume he’d come home for good, that was until today when he’d learned of how incapacitated Simon would be once he got home.

His hand froze on the handle and his heart sank in his chest. On the edge of his bed, in the doona cover, was the clear impression of his own backside, the place he’d last sat while he’d fastened the straps on his backpack on the day he moved out to live with Sheena. Simon was so fastidious he’d have normally had a meltdown had anything been left so imperfect. It was in that moment that Marvin really realised the magnitude of the bond between them. Mr. Perfection had left that impression there on purpose, the last tangible proof Marvin had lived with him. No doubt, Simon had stood many times in exactly the same place he was standing now—knowing him, it would have turned into a ritual, most likely one that took place every night on his way to his own bedroom.

So much for his plan to push Simon out into the world to meet new people, to move in new circles. All he’d done was to break his friend’s heart—not that Simon would let anyone ever know what he felt.

Marvin slowly closed the door, leaned against the hallway wall, and rubbed his eyes. His mind was full of images of Simon as he’d discovered him when he’d arrived in St. Pat’s emergency department—bloodied and broken, tubes and wires sprouting from every which where.

It was Burma rubbing at his legs and meowing for attention that finally allowed him to feel the fear, the fear that had flooded through him, but which he’d pushed aside when he’d arrived, breathless and beside himself with worry, at the hospital. He’d no idea what he would do if Simon had died.

He put his fist in his mouth and began to sob his heart out.

3. SIMON

Perhaps you could start off by telling us how you know Sergeant Marten, Mr. Dyson?

The detective who had been assigned to question me, and who was probably going to lead the investigation, leaned casually on the frame at the end of my bed. Kenning? Kenton? What was his name again? Ah, yes, Kelmore. Young, go-getter, spikey haircut