The Waiting Room Beyond | John Travis
‘I’m really sorry, but you’re going to have to say that again,’ Cookridge said, unable to take it in. ‘You’re saying that when I was nineteen I was nearly murdered?’
The old man in white sitting opposite nodded. ‘In 1977, August 15. You were walking home from a nightclub because you’d missed the last bus, and you were walking towards a young couple. The man, who was about the same age as you, had his arm around his girlfriend rather tightly. In fact, you were rather worried about her, as she looked quite frightened. When you looked at her a second time the young man was staring at you, and the look of anger on his face was so intense it not only stopped you from asking if the girl was all right, but from looking at her or her boyfriend again. And a good thing you didn’t, because that young man had decided that if you so much as looked at his property again – because that’s how he thought of her – then he was going to stab you with the kitchen knife he had in his jacket. The next day, he saw what he thought was another young man looking at his girlfriend in a pub and he stabbed the man to death.’
‘Okay,’ Cookridge said, folding his arms. ‘What else?’
‘Well, there was the time in 1986 – July it was, the twenty-fourth. You awoke in the middle of the night convinced that someone was trying to break into your bungalow, but when you looked there was nobody there. Only there had been somebody there; the noise that awoke you was that of the intended burglar knocking the lid off your dustbin – you still had a metal one in those days – and when it clattered onto the ground he got cold feet and ran. There’d been quite a few break-ins around you during that time, which was why you weren’t sleeping very soundly.’
Cookridge remembered the incident well. With an increasing sense of anger, he looked at the man in front of him. Once again, the image of an elderly relative from childhood popped into his head. ‘Keep going,’ Cookridge said.
Reluctantly, the old man did. ‘Very well; Christmas, three years ago. There’s a stretch of pavement just outside your home which is prone to black ice in the winter. One morning you were late for the bus and hurrying towards that icy spot when you remembered the Christmas cards you’d left on your mantelpiece. Annoyed, you went back to get the cards. When you came back out in even more of a hurry than before, you marched across the path in a slightly different place, a few inches to the left of the icy patch. Had you had those cards in your hand when you first left home, not only would you have trodden on that patch of ice, but because the shoes you were wearing at the time had such a poor grip, you would have slipped and literally broken your neck.’
He’d bought the shoes because they were cheap, Cookridge recalled. He nodded for the old man to go on, but instead he shook his head. ‘Mr Cookridge,’ he said with a sigh, ‘while it’s perfectly normal to want to know what you’ve missed out on in life, and discover things about yourself that you were previously unaware of, I can’t help noticing that so far you’re focusing solely on the negative aspects, even though in a strange way everything you’ve enquired about so far has ultimately resulted in the avoidance of great misfortune.’ When Cookridge didn’t respond he continued. ‘Furthermore, I have a sneaking suspicion that any future enquiries you make will be treated in an identical manner.’
‘Hardly surprising is it,’ mumbled Cookridge, ‘considering where I am.’
Readjusting his robes, the old man said nothing.
After a few moments silence, Cookridge spoke. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he sighed. ‘The thing is, I want to know all of it – good and bad. I might as well if I’m going to be here some time,’ he added in an undertone. ‘But what if some of the things you tell me –’
‘Could have led you to better places than the ones you ended up in?’
Cookridge nodded. ‘Negative questions seem more appropriate somehow,’ he admitted. ‘For the time being at least.’
‘I see your reasoning,’ the old man said. ‘But on the other hand if you do have unanswered questions, I’d suggest now is the time to ask them. You might not have as long to wait as you think.’
‘Really?’ Cookridge said. ‘But I’ve only just got here! So what happens when I – leave here?’
The man smiled. ‘What indeed?’ he said, lacing his thin fingers together.
With time perhaps in short supply, Cookridge made a decision. ‘Oh what the hell,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I said I wanted to know all of it. It’s not like it can hurt me now.’ Looking straight into the old man’s eyes he said, ‘Okay, tell me something positive that could’ve happened but didn’t; the best thing that I missed out on.’
The old man raised his bushy white eyebrows. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’
‘Absolutely sure,’ Cookridge said. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Well, if that’s what you want… Let me see – ah, yes. Another Christmas, this one many years ago; you’d just started a job at a Law firm, and were invited to their rather dreary Christmas party…’
Moving closer to catch the man’s soft deep voice, Cookridge listened, wonderfully horrified as the narrative unfolded. When he’d finished, the old man appeared as serene as ever; Cookridge, on the other hand, felt like somebody had lit a fire under him.
‘Bollocks,’ he said, forgetting where he was. ‘No, I’m not buying that; it’s nonsense. Are you honestly saying that if I’d stayed at that party ten minutes longer I’d now be living in Switzerland?’
Despite Cookridge’s indignation the man in white remained calm. ‘If you hadn’t made your excuses and left early, you’d have had an extra glass of wine and bumped into a woman at the bar, and eventually asked her out on a date. And you very nearly didn’t do that when you found out how high up the company ladder she was. Not that she minded – in fact, she was the one who persuaded you to stay on at the firm, rather than handing in your notice and joining a lesser firm as you did the following Spring. And a few years down the line when the firm opened up an overseas branch in Zurich, the bigwigs decided that the woman who was now your wife would be the perfect choice to run things. So, you all went out there.’
‘Ah, now that’s another thing,’ Cookridge said, raising his finger in the air. ‘We all went – the four of us. I mean, I don’t even like children! And I’m damned sure I wouldn’t have taken on someone else’s! God, Switzerland,’ he said, stunned. ‘I’d love to go to Switzerland.’
‘I know,’ the old man replied.
Now that the anger and self-pity of the situation had played itself out, Cookridge felt deflated. ‘I’ve wasted my life,’ he said. ‘I’ve played it safe and because I have, I haven’t been anywhere, or done anything. I could’ve done things, you know – I’ve scrimped and saved enough over the years – but in the end I did nothing. And now I’ve ended up here. Before my time.’
‘Depends how you look at it,’ the old man said, stroking his beard. ‘ “Playing it safe” as you call it also prevented you from being stabbed to death in your teens. And to remind you of what I said a few minutes ago, you’re not going to be here much longer anyway.’
‘Great,’ Cookridge said. ‘Things just keep getting better and better.’
‘Maybe yes, maybe no. As I hinted earlier, who can say what will happen to you when you leave here?’
‘If we’re having this conversation, I’d say it’s fairly apparent what’s going to happen to me, wouldn’t you?’ Cookridge snapped.
‘And still he doesn’t get it,’ the old man said to himself. ‘Mr Cookridge, forgive me for saying so, but just because you appear to have made your mind up about things, it doesn’t mean you are right. Not all waiting rooms are the same,’ he said, looking deep into the other man’s eyes as he spoke. ‘Take a look around you.’
Cookridge did just that. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary to begin with, he opened his mouth to say so; but when he noticed the door at the far end of the room, the words died on his lips.
To say it was hard to comprehend was an understatement. ‘You mean my – It’s not –’ he sputtered. ‘I’m not going to –’ all at once, waves of relief flushed through him. But after a few moments, he found relief giving way to anger. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said slowly, ‘you answered all my questions – I only thought that happened once you were – but if I’m not, why did you tell me all those things? About Switzerland, and nearly being murdered? I’ll have to live with the knowledge of those things now for – however long I’ve got left. What the hell did you tell me them for?’
‘We had to talk about something while you were here,’ the old man said simply. ‘Might as well make it interesting. And I knew how you felt about Switzerland… as for nearly being murdered, I’ve found that’s the kind of thing most people do want to know about, the seamier side of life – I mean, everybody likes a good murder story, don’t they – ’
‘ – Mr Cookridge?’
Someone was shaking his shoulder. ‘Uh?’
‘I was just saying that I’ve called your taxi,’ the woman in blue standing beside him said. ‘It’s nearly time to go.’
‘Go? But I’ve only just – oh,’ Cookridge said, rubbing his face as he looked around. ‘Sorry. Just had the most ridiculous bloody dream. I didn’t realise I’d fallen asleep.’
‘If you did it was with your eyes open,’ the woman told him.
‘Daydreaming then. I was looking up at the clouds,’ he said, pointing out of the window, ‘all their different shapes. There was one that looked like a dragon, one that looked like Italy, and then I saw a cloud that looked like a face, with all these long, white wispy bits hanging down, like a beard. Put me in mind of an old Uncle I used to have.’ Looking away from the window he continued. ‘That must be when I nodded off, because the next thing I know I’m in a room with him, waiting to leave, and there’s a padlock on the door. That beard of his,’ Cookridge smiled, shaking his head, ‘He kept it right to the very end. Just before my mother died, she used to say that looking at him was like looking into the face of – strange isn’t it,’ he said, looking up at the Nurse, ‘the things you imagine at the end.’
‘Now we’ve had this conversation before,’ the Nurse chided. ‘You have to remain positive. Remission’s not –’
‘I was talking about my mother,’ he snapped. ‘Sorry,’ he said, reaching out for her hand. ‘It’s that dream. It’s shook me up a bit.’
‘An overactive imagination; that’s what comes from always having your nose in a book,’ she told him, giving his hand a squeeze. ‘Although that one can’t be much good if it had you staring out of the window.’ She nodded at the book in his lap.
‘It hasn’t really got going yet,’ he told her, patting the hardback. ‘I daresay it’ll pick up when it gets to the murder.’ Shuddering, Cookridge removed his hand from the Nurse’s. Putting it with his other on top of the book, he stared down at them in silence.
‘Well, here you are,’ the Nurse said, breaking the silence a few minutes later when the taxi appeared outside the waiting room. ‘No locks on the door here. You’re free to go.’
‘Yes,’ Cookridge said, getting to his feet. ‘Yes. I think I am.’
‘So,’ the Nurse asked, ‘what are your plans? Once you’ve got Christmas out of the way that is.’
He thought about it for a moment. ‘A holiday, perhaps,’ he said. ‘Haven’t had one in years. Somewhere with some real snow.’ He nodded towards the slush in the car park.
‘You could go to Italy,’ the Nurse suggested.
Cookridge shook his head. ‘Close, but no cigar,’ he said eventually, a slight waver in his voice.
Linking arms with the Nurse, they headed for the exit. ‘I shall miss our little chats,’ he said as the doors slid open. ‘Turns out I’ve led a more eventful life than I thought. You should hear what nearly happened to me in 1977.’
The Nurse gave him a funny look before smiling. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘And don’t come back.’
‘No,’ Cookridge said, looking past her to the waiting room beyond, an uncertain smile passing over his face. ‘I can’t be sure, but somehow I don’t think I will be.’
The old man in white sitting opposite nodded. ‘In 1977, August 15. You were walking home from a nightclub because you’d missed the last bus, and you were walking towards a young couple. The man, who was about the same age as you, had his arm around his girlfriend rather tightly. In fact, you were rather worried about her, as she looked quite frightened. When you looked at her a second time the young man was staring at you, and the look of anger on his face was so intense it not only stopped you from asking if the girl was all right, but from looking at her or her boyfriend again. And a good thing you didn’t, because that young man had decided that if you so much as looked at his property again – because that’s how he thought of her – then he was going to stab you with the kitchen knife he had in his jacket. The next day, he saw what he thought was another young man looking at his girlfriend in a pub and he stabbed the man to death.’
‘Okay,’ Cookridge said, folding his arms. ‘What else?’
‘Well, there was the time in 1986 – July it was, the twenty-fourth. You awoke in the middle of the night convinced that someone was trying to break into your bungalow, but when you looked there was nobody there. Only there had been somebody there; the noise that awoke you was that of the intended burglar knocking the lid off your dustbin – you still had a metal one in those days – and when it clattered onto the ground he got cold feet and ran. There’d been quite a few break-ins around you during that time, which was why you weren’t sleeping very soundly.’
Cookridge remembered the incident well. With an increasing sense of anger, he looked at the man in front of him. Once again, the image of an elderly relative from childhood popped into his head. ‘Keep going,’ Cookridge said.
Reluctantly, the old man did. ‘Very well; Christmas, three years ago. There’s a stretch of pavement just outside your home which is prone to black ice in the winter. One morning you were late for the bus and hurrying towards that icy spot when you remembered the Christmas cards you’d left on your mantelpiece. Annoyed, you went back to get the cards. When you came back out in even more of a hurry than before, you marched across the path in a slightly different place, a few inches to the left of the icy patch. Had you had those cards in your hand when you first left home, not only would you have trodden on that patch of ice, but because the shoes you were wearing at the time had such a poor grip, you would have slipped and literally broken your neck.’
He’d bought the shoes because they were cheap, Cookridge recalled. He nodded for the old man to go on, but instead he shook his head. ‘Mr Cookridge,’ he said with a sigh, ‘while it’s perfectly normal to want to know what you’ve missed out on in life, and discover things about yourself that you were previously unaware of, I can’t help noticing that so far you’re focusing solely on the negative aspects, even though in a strange way everything you’ve enquired about so far has ultimately resulted in the avoidance of great misfortune.’ When Cookridge didn’t respond he continued. ‘Furthermore, I have a sneaking suspicion that any future enquiries you make will be treated in an identical manner.’
‘Hardly surprising is it,’ mumbled Cookridge, ‘considering where I am.’
Readjusting his robes, the old man said nothing.
After a few moments silence, Cookridge spoke. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he sighed. ‘The thing is, I want to know all of it – good and bad. I might as well if I’m going to be here some time,’ he added in an undertone. ‘But what if some of the things you tell me –’
‘Could have led you to better places than the ones you ended up in?’
Cookridge nodded. ‘Negative questions seem more appropriate somehow,’ he admitted. ‘For the time being at least.’
‘I see your reasoning,’ the old man said. ‘But on the other hand if you do have unanswered questions, I’d suggest now is the time to ask them. You might not have as long to wait as you think.’
‘Really?’ Cookridge said. ‘But I’ve only just got here! So what happens when I – leave here?’
The man smiled. ‘What indeed?’ he said, lacing his thin fingers together.
With time perhaps in short supply, Cookridge made a decision. ‘Oh what the hell,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I said I wanted to know all of it. It’s not like it can hurt me now.’ Looking straight into the old man’s eyes he said, ‘Okay, tell me something positive that could’ve happened but didn’t; the best thing that I missed out on.’
The old man raised his bushy white eyebrows. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’
‘Absolutely sure,’ Cookridge said. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Well, if that’s what you want… Let me see – ah, yes. Another Christmas, this one many years ago; you’d just started a job at a Law firm, and were invited to their rather dreary Christmas party…’
Moving closer to catch the man’s soft deep voice, Cookridge listened, wonderfully horrified as the narrative unfolded. When he’d finished, the old man appeared as serene as ever; Cookridge, on the other hand, felt like somebody had lit a fire under him.
‘Bollocks,’ he said, forgetting where he was. ‘No, I’m not buying that; it’s nonsense. Are you honestly saying that if I’d stayed at that party ten minutes longer I’d now be living in Switzerland?’
Despite Cookridge’s indignation the man in white remained calm. ‘If you hadn’t made your excuses and left early, you’d have had an extra glass of wine and bumped into a woman at the bar, and eventually asked her out on a date. And you very nearly didn’t do that when you found out how high up the company ladder she was. Not that she minded – in fact, she was the one who persuaded you to stay on at the firm, rather than handing in your notice and joining a lesser firm as you did the following Spring. And a few years down the line when the firm opened up an overseas branch in Zurich, the bigwigs decided that the woman who was now your wife would be the perfect choice to run things. So, you all went out there.’
‘Ah, now that’s another thing,’ Cookridge said, raising his finger in the air. ‘We all went – the four of us. I mean, I don’t even like children! And I’m damned sure I wouldn’t have taken on someone else’s! God, Switzerland,’ he said, stunned. ‘I’d love to go to Switzerland.’
‘I know,’ the old man replied.
Now that the anger and self-pity of the situation had played itself out, Cookridge felt deflated. ‘I’ve wasted my life,’ he said. ‘I’ve played it safe and because I have, I haven’t been anywhere, or done anything. I could’ve done things, you know – I’ve scrimped and saved enough over the years – but in the end I did nothing. And now I’ve ended up here. Before my time.’
‘Depends how you look at it,’ the old man said, stroking his beard. ‘ “Playing it safe” as you call it also prevented you from being stabbed to death in your teens. And to remind you of what I said a few minutes ago, you’re not going to be here much longer anyway.’
‘Great,’ Cookridge said. ‘Things just keep getting better and better.’
‘Maybe yes, maybe no. As I hinted earlier, who can say what will happen to you when you leave here?’
‘If we’re having this conversation, I’d say it’s fairly apparent what’s going to happen to me, wouldn’t you?’ Cookridge snapped.
‘And still he doesn’t get it,’ the old man said to himself. ‘Mr Cookridge, forgive me for saying so, but just because you appear to have made your mind up about things, it doesn’t mean you are right. Not all waiting rooms are the same,’ he said, looking deep into the other man’s eyes as he spoke. ‘Take a look around you.’
Cookridge did just that. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary to begin with, he opened his mouth to say so; but when he noticed the door at the far end of the room, the words died on his lips.
To say it was hard to comprehend was an understatement. ‘You mean my – It’s not –’ he sputtered. ‘I’m not going to –’ all at once, waves of relief flushed through him. But after a few moments, he found relief giving way to anger. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said slowly, ‘you answered all my questions – I only thought that happened once you were – but if I’m not, why did you tell me all those things? About Switzerland, and nearly being murdered? I’ll have to live with the knowledge of those things now for – however long I’ve got left. What the hell did you tell me them for?’
‘We had to talk about something while you were here,’ the old man said simply. ‘Might as well make it interesting. And I knew how you felt about Switzerland… as for nearly being murdered, I’ve found that’s the kind of thing most people do want to know about, the seamier side of life – I mean, everybody likes a good murder story, don’t they – ’
‘ – Mr Cookridge?’
Someone was shaking his shoulder. ‘Uh?’
‘I was just saying that I’ve called your taxi,’ the woman in blue standing beside him said. ‘It’s nearly time to go.’
‘Go? But I’ve only just – oh,’ Cookridge said, rubbing his face as he looked around. ‘Sorry. Just had the most ridiculous bloody dream. I didn’t realise I’d fallen asleep.’
‘If you did it was with your eyes open,’ the woman told him.
‘Daydreaming then. I was looking up at the clouds,’ he said, pointing out of the window, ‘all their different shapes. There was one that looked like a dragon, one that looked like Italy, and then I saw a cloud that looked like a face, with all these long, white wispy bits hanging down, like a beard. Put me in mind of an old Uncle I used to have.’ Looking away from the window he continued. ‘That must be when I nodded off, because the next thing I know I’m in a room with him, waiting to leave, and there’s a padlock on the door. That beard of his,’ Cookridge smiled, shaking his head, ‘He kept it right to the very end. Just before my mother died, she used to say that looking at him was like looking into the face of – strange isn’t it,’ he said, looking up at the Nurse, ‘the things you imagine at the end.’
‘Now we’ve had this conversation before,’ the Nurse chided. ‘You have to remain positive. Remission’s not –’
‘I was talking about my mother,’ he snapped. ‘Sorry,’ he said, reaching out for her hand. ‘It’s that dream. It’s shook me up a bit.’
‘An overactive imagination; that’s what comes from always having your nose in a book,’ she told him, giving his hand a squeeze. ‘Although that one can’t be much good if it had you staring out of the window.’ She nodded at the book in his lap.
‘It hasn’t really got going yet,’ he told her, patting the hardback. ‘I daresay it’ll pick up when it gets to the murder.’ Shuddering, Cookridge removed his hand from the Nurse’s. Putting it with his other on top of the book, he stared down at them in silence.
‘Well, here you are,’ the Nurse said, breaking the silence a few minutes later when the taxi appeared outside the waiting room. ‘No locks on the door here. You’re free to go.’
‘Yes,’ Cookridge said, getting to his feet. ‘Yes. I think I am.’
‘So,’ the Nurse asked, ‘what are your plans? Once you’ve got Christmas out of the way that is.’
He thought about it for a moment. ‘A holiday, perhaps,’ he said. ‘Haven’t had one in years. Somewhere with some real snow.’ He nodded towards the slush in the car park.
‘You could go to Italy,’ the Nurse suggested.
Cookridge shook his head. ‘Close, but no cigar,’ he said eventually, a slight waver in his voice.
Linking arms with the Nurse, they headed for the exit. ‘I shall miss our little chats,’ he said as the doors slid open. ‘Turns out I’ve led a more eventful life than I thought. You should hear what nearly happened to me in 1977.’
The Nurse gave him a funny look before smiling. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘And don’t come back.’
‘No,’ Cookridge said, looking past her to the waiting room beyond, an uncertain smile passing over his face. ‘I can’t be sure, but somehow I don’t think I will be.’