Towards Zero

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort.’

‘But—’

‘Do you think I can’t bear a bit of pain and sleeplessness?’

She smiled in a gentle, slightly superior way.

‘Doctor said you could have something.’

‘I don’t care what doctor said.’

She straightened the covers and set a glass of lemonade a little nearer to him. He said, slightly ashamed of himself:

‘Sorry if I was rude.’

‘Oh, that’s all right.’

It annoyed him that she was so completely undisturbed by his bad temper. Nothing like that could penetrate her nurse’s armour of indulgent indifference. He was a patient—not a man.

He said:

‘Damned interference—all this damned interference …’

She said reprovingly:

‘Now, now, that isn’t very nice.’

‘Nice?’ he demanded. ‘Nice? My God.’

She said calmly: ‘You’ll feel better in the morning.’

He swallowed.

‘You nurses. You nurses! You’re inhuman, that’s what you are!’

‘We know what’s best for you, you see.’

‘That’s what’s so infuriating! About you. About a hospital. About the world. Continual interference! Knowing what’s best for other people. I tried to kill myself. You know that, don’t you?’

She nodded.

‘Nobody’s business but mine whether I threw myself off a bloody cliff or not. I’d finished with life. I was down and out!’

She made a little clicking noise with her tongue. It indicated abstract sympathy. He was a patient. She was soothing him by letting him blow off steam.

‘Why shouldn’t I kill myself if I want to?’ he demanded.

She replied to that quite seriously.

‘Because it’s wrong.’

‘Why is it wrong?’

She looked at him doubtfully. She was not disturbed in her own belief, but she was much too inarticulate to explain her reaction.

‘Well—I mean—it’s wicked to kill yourself. You’ve got to go on living whether you like it or not.’

‘Why have you?’

‘Well, there are other people to consider, aren’t there?’

‘Not in my case. There’s not a soul in the world who’d be the worse for my passing on.’

‘Haven’t you got any relations? No mother or sisters or anything?’

‘No. I had a wife once but she left me—quite right too! She saw I was no good.’

‘But you’ve got friends, surely?’

‘No, I haven’t. I’m not a friendly sort of man. Look here, nurse, I’ll tell you something. I was a happy sort of chap once. Had a good job and a good-looking wife. There was a car accident. My boss was driving the car and I was in it. He wanted me to say he was driving under thirty at the time of the accident. He wasn’t. He was driving nearer fifty. Nobody was killed, nothing like that, he just wanted to be in the right for the insurance people. Well, I wouldn’t say what he wanted. It was a lie. I don’t tell lies.’

The nurse said:

‘Well, I think you were quite right. Quite right.’

‘You do, do you? That pigheadedness of mine cost me my job. My boss was sore. He saw to it that I didn’t get another. My wife got fed up seeing me mooch about unable to get anything to do. She went off with a man who had been my friend. He was doing well and going up in the world. I drifted along, going steadily down. I took to drinking a bit. That didn’t help me to hold down jobs. Finally I came down to hauling—strained my inside—the doctor told me I’d never be strong again. Well, there wasn’t much to live for then. Easiest way, and the cleanest way, was to go right out. My life was no good to myself or anyone else.’

The little nurse murmured:

‘You don’t know that.’

He laughed. He was better-tempered already. Her naïve obstinacy amused him.

‘My dear girl, what use am I to anybody?’

She said confusedly:

‘You don’t know. You may be—someday—’

‘Someday? There won’t be any someday. Next time I shall make sure.’

She shook her head decidedly.

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘You won’t kill yourself now.’

‘Why not?’

‘They never do.’