Last One at the Party Page 4

  Moira Stuart sat in the news seat, sweating and shaking. She had retired a few years ago, but had come back in as other presenters had fallen sick.

  This wasn’t a recording, she was live.

  She was painfully blunt.

  The Queen and all members of the royal family were now presumed dead or dying. The PM had died two days ago. There had been no overseas contact for four days. It could now be presumed that the entire world had succumbed to 6DM and that life as we knew it would cease to exist. There were no longer emergency services provision, or any sort of burial services, so people should take care of their dead in the best way they could. Government advice was still to burn the bodies. T600 was still freely available, but please remember to administer to children before yourself. She paused.

  ‘No one is immune to this virus. So, if you are sick and have children who aren’t … they will become sick at some point. There will be no one to take care of them once you are gone.’

  Her meaning was painfully clear.

  Her voice broke and she stared blankly at the monitor.

  ‘This will be the last news broadcast from the BBC, but we are going to leave the cameras running for as long as possible. All doors to Broadcasting House will be open and signage will point to the studio. If you are alive you can come to the studio and broadcast to reach others. Good luck.’

  She struggled to her feet and then, just as she was walking out from behind the desk she paused and looked back into the camera. She was crying.

  ‘It turns out we really do end, not with a bang but with a whimper.’

  James and I sat and watched the screen in silence for the next couple of hours.

  No one else came.

  Later, James’s headache got worse, so I gave him the morphine. He was pretty spaced out, and we were attempting to watch Die Hard again (fucking Die Hard) when he started to spasm violently. He jerked right off the sofa and then went fully rigid for a few seconds before foaming at the mouth and passing out.

  I sat open-mouthed throughout the entire fit, which lasted less than a minute, but seemed to go on for ever.

  When he finally lay still, I had no idea what to do. There was no one to call, no procedure to follow. I checked to see if he was breathing and his heart was beating and then I cradled his head in my lap and prayed to a God that I don’t believe in to let him wake up.

  And, as I held him and stroked his hair and whispered platitudes of hope that I knew were lies, I realised that I had never done that before; I had never cared for James when he was ill. I don’t think James had ever been ill. James was one of the most vital and alive people I had ever met. He was strong and vigorous and dynamic and all the things that I once was, but now seemed to have forgotten how to be.

  James had rescued me at a time when my life was falling apart, and had literally saved my life on the night when we first kissed.

  And now he was going to die, and I was completely unable to save him.

  Eleven years ago, at the same time as I was falling out of love with myself and in love with James, things at work were really falling apart.

  I had completely lost my ability to write.

  I was so worried about not having anything important or insightful to say that I couldn’t think of anything to write full stop. I had the worst kind of writer’s block, the kind where there is no block because there is nothing to block, your mind is just blank. I tried to give myself a talking to and get it together – it wasn’t like I was writing for the New Yorker or Huffington Post, just write the bloody article. But it was no good, my mind was empty. I missed three deadlines and was called in to see my editor. Maybe I just needed a break? A polite way of saying ‘take some time off or be fired’.

  I tried to talk to James about it on the train the next morning, but he was distracted and distant.

  Later that day he told me he wouldn’t be getting the train any more; his mate was going to give him a lift.

  The one constant star in my imploding universe was now rejecting me as well.

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  So, I did what any mature and level-headed person would have done in my situation. I panicked and ran away.

  I persuaded my best friend Xav that we needed a break, and booked us flights to Thailand. For three months. I was leaving my job in two weeks.

  I told James that same day. I don’t know what I was expecting. Him to beg me to stay? He hardly even seemed to register what I had said.

  The next fortnight was miserable. My editor had given me one last chance to write a gig review and it had ended in complete disaster, so he moved me onto reviewing albums for unknown bands on the paper’s website. I didn’t blame him. I was a mess, thrown into panic and uncertainty, desperate to leave and desperate to stay, unable to concentrate on anything and being forced to listen to some of the worst music I’d heard in years.

  I hardly saw James. He came in late, rushed out early, and was short and snappy with everyone in the office.

  I fell into a deep hole of despair, unable even to muster a smile, until most people couldn’t wait to see the back of me.

  Then, the day before I was due to leave, James stopped me in the corridor.

  ‘Sorry I’ve been a bit of an arse the last couple of weeks.’

  I shrugged. I barely heard him through the fog that surrounded me.

  ‘Things have been a bit tough, I’ve had to find somewhere else to live. I’ve left Emily.’

  My head shot up to look at him and then I jerked it back down to the floor again, petrified he’d have seen the desperation in my eyes.

  I tried to think of something to say, but it seemed like my writer’s block was affecting all areas of my life, and I opened my mouth but no words came out.

  Then Rebecca stuck her head out of the office.

  ‘James, Rob wants you.’

  I could have wept.

  ‘See you at your party tomorrow.’

  My party. My leaving party. I was leaving.

  Shit. I was leaving.

  I ought to have got an acting award for the show that I put on during my leaving do. I was bubbly and happy and laughing and witty and absolutely dying inside.

  I just wanted it to be over.

  My senses were so heightened I could feel James wherever he was, like my entire body had turned into a James homing beacon, ready to zone in on him at any point. Standing at the bar in a group of people, he brushed the small of my back, and my entire body spasmed in response. The imprint of his hand burnt into my skin.

  The evening dragged on and on until it was just James, me, and a drunken chap from accounts who just refused to leave.

  James met me as I came out of the toilet. He was holding my coat.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘What about Dom?’

  ‘Fuck him.’

  Outside in the cold night air I was suddenly sober and shy.

  ‘Do you have to rush home?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Let’s walk then.’

  So, we walked. I thrust my hands into my coat pockets, not trusting them not to creep towards him if I let them hang at my sides.

  We wandered through the back streets of London for over an hour and he made no move to kiss me. My jubilation turned to despair. I would leave for Thailand the next day and never have the opportunity to kiss this man, who I was deeply and ruinously in love with and whom I truly believed could be my future, and save me, and—

  ‘WATCH OUT!’

  I’d been so wrapped up in my own thoughts I hadn’t noticed the huge rubbish lorry bowling down the narrow street towards us.

  James grabbed me and shoved me against the wall, pressing against me with his body. The truck careened down the street, missing him by centimetres.

  My heart was hammering with shock and my mind was filled with images of a stinking death, so it took me a moment to register James’s body against mine. I could feel his body heat through our clothes, his breath warm on my cheek
. He put a finger under my chin and lifted my face so that it was level with his.

  Then he kissed me.

  Is there anything better in life than a really good kisser? That moment when you first kiss someone whom you’ve wanted to kiss for ages and you discover that your mouths were made for each other. That their lips fit yours exactly, that their tongue is just the right length, and that they know how to use it. Not plunging it down your throat, but teasing and darting in and licking the inside of your mouth in a way that is just so erotic that your knees go slightly weak and your breath gets short and you gasp with pleasure. And every time you gasp you breathe in some of them, some of their breath, like you are consuming their very essence. And how they use their hands to complement the kiss, cupping your face, then in your hair, now in that sweet spot in the small of your back where all the nerve endings meet, and then roaming over your bottom until you feel like you’re on fire and your whole world becomes that kiss and you are so completely wrapped up in it that nothing else registers.

  It was a perfect first kiss. The most perfect first kiss of my life.

  James came round after about twenty minutes, disorientated and crying again. He was scared and clung to me when I tried to get him a blanket. In the end, I managed to drag him into the bedroom and onto the bed. He was moaning in pain because of his head. I didn’t want him to have any more morphine in case that was what had caused his seizure, but in the end I couldn’t stand to see him suffering, so I gave it to him and he fell straight to sleep.

  I lay next to him and wept quietly.

  I wept for James because he was in pain and he was dying. And I wept for me because I was scared and selfish and didn’t want to be left alone in that frightening new world.

  When James woke up he couldn’t seem to move properly, so I propped him up on a couple of pillows. In a very small voice that I hadn’t heard him use before he told me he couldn’t feel his legs. I pulled back the duvet and he tried to wiggle his toes. Nothing. He tried to lift a leg. Nothing. I jabbed his shin with a sharp knife that I fetched from the kitchen drawer. Nothing. As we were concentrating on his legs, he whispered, ‘Oh God, oh no.’

  I looked up. A wet patch was forming and growing at his crotch.

  He looked at me.

  I smiled brightly.

  ‘Don’t worry. If we’d had kids I’d be used to this by now!’

  It was a bad joke on many levels, but he attempted a smile anyway, and I loved him for it.

  I dragged him out of his wet pyjamas, but couldn’t find any clean ones so I dressed him in a T-shirt and pants. I changed the sheets and put a plastic tablecloth that we used for parties underneath him in case it happened again.

  Afterwards I gave him more morphine and held him as he fell back to sleep.

  ‘I’m sorry … about everything … I love you,’ he mumbled before closing his eyes.

  I knew then what I had to do.

  I felt James stirring next to me at exactly 10.14 a.m. (damn you neon clock) on December 7th.

  Before he fully woke I got quietly out of bed and went to the bathroom. I scraped my hair back and then washed my face in hand soap so that it was blotchy and pale. I spent the next ten minutes groaning and fake retching while dumping cups of water violently into the toilet and flushing it repeatedly. There was nothing I could do about not having a temperature, so I just had to hope he didn’t notice.

  When I came out of the bathroom James was fully awake.

  ‘You as well?’

  I nodded, eyes downcast, hugging my tummy.

  The relief that washed across his face was so obvious it was almost funny. He flipped back the covers and I climbed in beside him. It was his turn to comfort me as I counted down the minutes to my next unnecessary bathroom visit.

  With each fake vomit his concern grew, but so did his not-so-secret relief that he wasn’t the only one dying. I didn’t blame him; no one wants to die, and they definitely don’t want to die alone.

  I also felt some reprieve in the knowledge that he was just as selfish as I was.

  By late afternoon I was staggering to the toilet every five minutes for increasing lengths of time (I had stashed a couple of magazines in there earlier). James was positively giddy that he wasn’t alone in his misery, but then his headache returned with a vengeance and I groaned my way to the kitchen to grab him a fistful of morphine.

  As soon as he was asleep, I rushed to the kitchen and drank two pints of water straight down. I was desperate for some toast, but didn’t want James to smell the cooking; plus, I couldn’t be certain how long he would sleep for. So, I had to settle for chunks of bread and cheese and ate them standing up at the counter. It still tasted bloody good.

  At 2.46 a.m. on December 9th I heard James mumbling next to me, but it was a good five minutes before I realised the mumbling was incessant and increasing in urgency.

  I reached over and turned on the light.

  He’d had a stroke.

  His face was collapsed on one side and he was dribbling and spluttering out of his sagging mouth. For a moment, I hardly noticed this because I was looking into his eyes; eyes like rabbits have in those anti-vivisection films. The ones where someone has the rabbit by the throat and you know that the rabbit knows what’s coming because its eyes become huge and frantic and dart back and forth wildly even though its head is clamped still.

  That is the look that James had.

  I didn’t know what to do, but I had to calm him. I cupped his face in my hands, put my forehead to his and, for want of a better description, I crooned to him. I whispered all the things that your mum says to you when you are scared and hurting. I shushed him, I petted him, I stroked him, I poured love into him in any way that I could. I enveloped him in all the love that I had once had for him, and every part of me willed him to feel it.

  It worked. His breathing slowed and I sat on the edge of the bed and held his hand until he could hold my gaze steadily. I got a towel, wiped away the drool, and propped his head straight on the pillow.

  Then I went to my side of the bed, got the neon clock, opened the window, and threw it out.

  I can’t be sure, but I think James smiled.

  I went to the kitchen and got the two packs of T600.

  I sat on the edge of the bed again and showed them to James.

  ‘Yeyth.’

  It was the last word he spoke.

  I changed the bed sheets for the final time. I stripped James and carefully washed him down before dressing him in the Christmas pyjamas that we had already bought to wear on a Christmas morning that we would now never see.

  I put on my own Christmas pyjamas, brushed my hair, and put on lipstick.

  I dissolved the T600 into two glasses of water and put one glass on my bedside cabinet.

  Neither James nor I ever mentioned my weird recovery from my fake illness. Maybe he didn’t notice. Maybe he didn’t care.

  I sat beside James with his glass of T600.

  I didn’t want to cry, but I did. Endless silent tears that I didn’t wipe away.

  James’s tears fell sideways off his slanting face.

  I held the glass up. He tried to talk, but couldn’t form words. His eyes were strong and clear though. I slowly spooned the liquid into his mouth, making sure he swallowed it all.

  Then I kissed him on his sagging mouth that was so different to the one I had first kissed eleven years ago.

  I wanted to tell him so many things before he died; how much I had once loved him, how much he had once meant to me, how sorry I was that things hadn’t worked out how we had both hoped they would, how I should have given him more and taken less, how I should have trusted him and been trustworthy myself, how none of the bad things that had happened to us were his fault, how much I wanted his forgiveness for any way that I had hurt him. How none of what had previously happened mattered any more.

  But I knew that I would only be saying these things to make myself feel better and that easing my guilty heart on his de
athbed was not the right thing to do. I may not have been the best girlfriend or wife when he was alive, but now that he was dying I could make up for that with one final act of silence.

  So, instead of pouring my guilt out onto him, I wrapped my arms tightly around him and sang love songs. Songs written by dead people that would never be played again. I sang until I couldn’t think of any more to sing, then I just sat with him in my arms and rocked him.

  By the time I finished singing James was sleeping deeply, his breath slow and short. Without realising it I began to match my breathing to his.

  In puff … out puff … in puff … out puff … in puff … out puff …

  December 10th 2023

  I lay with James for a very long time after he died. I don’t know exactly how long as I’d thrown the clock out, but long enough for the sun to come up and go down again.

  To begin with I wept slowly and steadily and thought I would never stop crying, but, after a long, long time, the sobs turned to sniffles and tears slowed to a stop, and then I simply lay there, unmoving, unthinking for the next few hours.

  I think I was too sad to be scared at this point. Being scared came later when the sadness eventually lessened.

  I stared at the glass of T600 on my bedside table.

  I didn’t drink it.

  I kidded myself that it was because I still had too many questions about what was happening, that I still believed there were others alive, that I still had people I needed to check on.

  I didn’t admit to myself that the real reason was because I was too scared to drink it.

  Even once I knew that I wasn’t going to take the T600 I still didn’t get out of bed. How could I leave James alone? His body was still warm beside me. When I got out of bed his body would go cold and that would mean he was really dead. When I got out of bed I would be leaving him for the final time. I began to cry again.

  In the end, simple physiology took over and demanded that I leave the bed before I wet myself.

  When I came back from the bathroom and saw his prone body lying there, I finally understood that James was gone, it was just the shell that had contained him that was left.