Books From The Dead Man

I started getting books from the dead man when I was visiting my mother in hospital.
She’d had a big operation and I was going in twice a day to see her.
Just inside the hospital entrance, a small collection of second-hand books were advertised for sale on a three-tier bookcase with wheels.
It looked pretty lame the first time I went but, on my second visit, I’d pounced on two of Paulo Coelho’s. I gave one to Dana, my middle sister, and the other to Mum. All this for 70p and both in mint condition.
Next time I went in, there were a few cardboard boxes sitting next to the collection, in which I found an Iain Banks for me, a Disney for Eliza and an encyclopaedia of football for Samuel. All these for £1.20!
In mine, on the inside cover, someone had written ‘To you, Richie Boy, you selfish, fucked up pig!’ There was no signature or date, but it looked like the hand of a jilted lover; an angry female, I thought. It was hard to tell whether it had been written in yesterday or three years ago but I secretly hoped for the latter, although I have to admit that the idea of an old, decrepit flame scorching my arse in such a morose setting as this did tantalise me.
There was nothing wrong with the other books in that pack so I passed them on to a charity shop.
I couldn’t find any decent books the next time I went there but Mum seemed to be on the mend by this time so I didn’t feel too guilty about worrying about the books more than her. They were selling towels in the foyer (new ones, of course) so I got four for £24 on my way out.
Next day, I waltzed in through the automatic sliding doors and found Brave New World sitting alone on the top shelf of the collection. Again in mint condition, I couldn’t help pouncing on it. I shoved the 35p through the collection’s wooden box and strolled off to see Mum.
On my way, I flicked through the pages of the book to see if anyone had written in it, only to find on the last page just as I was pressing the button for a lift to floor D, ‘Your parties were shit, your attitude’s shit and you stink, Richie Boy!’
The first thing I did was look to see when this edition had been published. I gawped when I saw that it was a 2002 edition. That blew any chance of it being a harmless coincidence straight out of the water. I hadn’t thought to look around me for the culprit. I walked into the confines of the lift. The doors closed slowly and a shaft of light rushed in like a ghost just as they shut, which made me jump.
I sat next to Mum trying to make conversation at the same time as trying to match the writing to that of a past girlfriend but came up with nothing. That’s what happens when you chase after two rabbits. You get to eat neither of them. As I fiddled with Mum’s rental TV aerial, and now that I had taken a proper look at the shapes of the scrawl, it did begin to appear to be from the hand of a male; a very angry male at that.
Mum caught me in mid-reflection. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s going round that head of yours, hey?’ she asked me.
‘Ghosts are everywhere, Mum, but they’re not likely to want to chill out in the cancer section of a hospital, are they?’ I told her, but what I’d said hadn’t gone down very well in the ward. People affected by cancer don’t like their disease bandied about, but I’d said it louder than I’d hoped. ‘Richard!’ Mum scowled with eyes of sharpened steel straight at me. ‘You just don’t understand, do you?’
I didn’t have much in the way of denial on that count so I let her follow through. I certainly deserved it.
‘You can be a selfish, arrogant, uncaring pig when you want to be!’ This is Mum’s cue for a tear or two. ‘Why do you do this, Richard? Why do you say these things when you know the pain they cause?’
I shrugged my shoulders at her and lowered my head to hide my eyes but it was no good. My time in the ward that day was up.
The male visitors arched their shoulders at me and the females didn’t even look at me as I left quietly, waving back at Mum the once to say bye, just to show them I cared for her.
I flicked through Brave New World on the way down to see if I’d missed any gems of ink but there were none, only the remarks at the back.
I wondered if Mum was the perpetrator but this was unthinkable. Mums don’t do this sort of thing and, besides, she dotes on me as if I was newly born. Besides, it wasn’t Mum’s writing.
One person came into my mind. He’d been a friend during and just after the time I did the parties. That’s when everything went wrong and I was forced to pick a pocket or two. I thought it might be Ray because he’d lent me £2,000 in exchange for me running Charlie around town for him for a month but after two days, I’d snorted and sold the lot and then took the Austin back to France on the ferry with a dodgy batch of ecstacy for the Paris crew. It was a cruel thing to do but I’d burnt every other bridge in the country and my family weren’t being so giving at that time. There was no way I could have got hold of £15,000 in one week in Paris unless I robbed a jeweller’s, which I’d thought about often in my early days there.
I visited the hospital for the next three days but there were no more decent books and I wasn’t about to look for hidden messages in ordinary ones. That would be crazy.