BooksBarbecue
Back Limelight
Chapters (49)
  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Also by Graham Hurley
  4. LIMELIGHT
  5. Copyright
  6. Dedication
  7. Epigraph
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. TEN
  18. ELEVEN
  19. TWELVE
  20. THIRTEEN
  21. FOURTEEN
  22. FIFTEEN
  23. SIXTEEN
  24. SEVENTEEN
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. AFTERWARDS

‘This is about what’s gonna happen down the road,’ he’s saying. ‘And in most respects, it’s fucking perfect. This place is a waiting room. Most people have come here to die. Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely, and I’m sure they’ve made the perfect choice, but imagine the way we’re all gonna be in ten years’ time, in twenty years’ time. It’s Johnson’s England writ small. There’ll be blowback from that body on the beach, I guarantee it, and how this place copes will tell us all a great deal.’ He pauses. I can hear a voice at the other end, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. Then Mitch is back on the line. ‘You heard it here first, my friend.’ He’s not laughing. ‘Stay tuned, eh?’

THIRTY

By the time I get down in the morning for breakfast, Mitch has found what he’s after on YouTube. Quarter past eight in the morning is a little early for hardcore footage like this, but it seems I don’t have a choice. The video comes from a hospice appeal in California. The featured patient is a forty-six-year-old former university lecturer, married, with three children. He was, we’re told, a marathon runner before MND ambushed him and took him down. He’s now been in the hospice, which is in Palo Alto, for just over a month, and looking at the footage, Mitch suspects he’s nearing the end of the road.

The sequence we watch is heartbreaking. The patient’s name is Adam. He’s sitting in a wheelchair, trackie bottoms and a white T-shirt, his thin body twisted, his knees clamped together, his head at a strange angle. The challenge is to transfer him into a seat at the table and, according to the voiceover, Adam is determined to achieve this simple manoeuvre by himself. It’s obvious, though, that this will be impossible. Two attendants, one of them male, hover on either side of the wheelchair, ready to catch him as he falls, while a third figure – evidently a nurse – kneels in front of him. She’s concerned about Adam’s throat.

‘It’s beginning to constrict,’ Mitch mutters. ‘That’s what happens.’

‘Constrict?’

‘Barely function. You can’t swallow. You can’t even breathe properly.’

This appears to be the case, and what makes it worse is that Adam can’t talk, either. Whatever he’s trying to say comes out as a long slither of grunts and other half-formed noises. Finally, the doctor realizes he needs water. His throat is burning. Please put the fire out.