Dead Men's s Boots

Lionel Palance was lying back on the high-banked pillows, breathing through a nebuliser which a second nurse, a male one, held to his face. His gaze passed over me without seeming to register me at all, but as it rested on Covington he smiled. His lips moved and made a muffled noise that might have been a greeting.

‘Hello, Lionel,’ Covington said gently, sitting on the bed. ‘Taking your medicine. That’s what I like to see.’

The nurse took the nebuliser away and laid it down on the night table.

‘Peter,’ the old man said, in his high, fragile voice. And then, ‘Taking – my my medicine.’

Covington nodded, pantomiming approval. ‘Yeah, I saw. And Kim’s going to read to you until you go to sleep. The Just So Stories, yeah? You’re still on that one?’

‘Noddy,’ Kim murmured. ‘We’re back to Noddy.’

Covington winced. ‘Noddy’s too young for him,’ he said, with an edge in his voice, as though they were parents disagreeing for the thousandth time about a child they had ambitions for.

Kim wasn’t cowed. ‘But he likes it,’ she said. ‘It comforts him.’

Covington raised his hands in surrender, I think more because I was there than because he accepted the argument.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘you’re going to have your story and you’re going to go to sleep, aren’t you? You’re going to be good now.’

‘All right, Peter,’ the old man agreed.

‘Goodnight, Lionel. God bless. See you in the morning, please God.

He recited this quickly, as though it was a formula.

‘Goodnight, Peter,’ the old man fluted. ‘God bless. See you in the morning. Please God.’

Covington stood up and made to move away, but the old man was still looking at him, still trying to speak although he’d temporarily run out of breath.

‘We played hi- hide and seek.’

The big blond hunk turned around and looked down at his nominal employer who was dwarfed by the ultra-technological bed as he was by the ultra-luxurious house.

‘Yeah,’ he said, with an effort. ‘We did, Lionel. We played.’

Covington walked out of the room quickly, without looking at me. I lingered, listening to the silence.