Elvis - A Far Better Tune To Die To

Elvis - A Far Better Tune To Die To - Trisha Lee

“What a fucking waste,” said Lilly, pulling the hospital curtains closed around her.

“Shush,” snapped a voice from the other side.

Lilly startled.

“Sorry!” she said. She hadn’t meant to speak her thoughts out loud.

She looked at the bed, taking in everything for the first time. Fred lay under a starched white sheet, the standard hospital blue open-weave blanket thrown over him. His eyes were closed, his face stony grey, his breath rasping. There was an oxygen tube up his nose and an empty cannula sticking out of his hand where they’d stopped giving him fluids a few days ago. There was little point in giving him sustenance, now they were no longer trying to keep him alive.

Lilly had hardly recognised him when she arrived. She was about to argue with the nurse that they’d shown her to the wrong bed, to the wrong dying man, when she saw his name on the wall.

Fredrick Walker, 84.

A nurse must have brushed his fringe off his face, in a way he would never have agreed to if he wasn’t in a coma. Lilly smiled, imagining how if he had been conscious, he would have glared at the nurse with that sour look of disdain that Lilly had grown to hate. The look that made her feel worthless, like she had no place being in his life. The nurse had probably done it as an act of kindness, trying to make him look softer for his doomsday guest. But all she’d done was accentuate the cruel impact of cancer. Fred was a sleeping skeleton.

“What a fucking waste,” said Lilly, quieter this time. She stared at Fred’s striped pyjamas, the mottled skin on his arm, and his chest slowly going up and down. His feet formed two stiff rabbit’s ears under the bedsheets. They twitched from time to time and Lilly found herself staring at them, trying to guess when they would make their next move. In the 43 years that he’d been her mother’s husband, this was the only time she’d ever been alone with him. She had no idea what to say, no point of reference, no past experience to draw from. Not that he would respond anyway. Fred had never been one for conversation and today was no exception.

Lilly sat on a vinyl chair that someone had optimistically placed beside Fred’s bed in the hope that he’d get a visitor. She didn’t notice that her dress had ridden up, until the cushion stuck to her thigh. Painfully, she pried herself away from it, trying not to make a sound.

“Do hospitals provide chairs like this deliberately, to stop visitors getting comfortable?” she asked Fred, but he didn’t reply. Everything screamed in Lilly to run away, to get the hell out of there and never look back. What was she doing here? She didn’t like Fred. Never had done. Had hardly ever spoken to him. But no-one should die alone, and with Mum no longer around to sit with him, it was Lilly’s duty to be there.

Lilly pressed play on her phone and the hospital ward filled with the sound of Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel. Lilly watched Fred carefully, wondering if he’d respond. He didn’t.

She waited a bit longer.

Nothing.

She checked his rabbit ear feet for any sign of movement.

Not a single twitch.

“Well, they are so lonely, they're so lonely, they could die,” she sang along with Elvis.

Lilly stopped suddenly. What was she doing? That was all Fred needed, her rubbing it in that he was dying alone. She pressed forward to the next track - Jailhouse Rock.

“Let’s rock, everybody let’s rock.

Everybody in the whole cell block,

Was dancing to the Jailhouse Rock.”

Fred’s eyes flickered and for a moment Lilly thought she’d made a connection.

“Fred. It’s me.” Lilly leaned forward. There was a squelching sound of vinyl and a searing pain. “Ow! For fuck sake,” she shouted. Her thigh had melted to the seat again and was stinging viciously. She stood up, pushing the chair back with a loud scraping noise. Fred still didn’t move. He didn’t even do that aggressive shushing sound he used to make if anyone spoke while he was watching the telly. There was not a peak out of him.

“What a fucking waste,” said Lilly. Holding her phone to her chest, she began to dance slowly from one foot to the other, singing along with Elvis. She did Jailhouse Rock. Love me Tender, Hound Dog, Return to Sender and many, many more. As she sung, she watched to see if Fred would react. But there was nothing. Not a flicker or a twitch. Not the slightest acknowledgement that he realised anyone was there. It was all terribly, terribly sad, and for a moment Lilly felt sorry for him.

Then she remembered, Fred hated her singing. It had been so long since she’d sung anywhere near him, she had almost forgotten.

Fred used to play the piano in pubs and clubs, and one time, when Lilly was fourteen, she’d gone along with him and Mum and asked if she could sing. She had done an okay version of Paper Roses, but later that evening, coming out of the toilet, she overheard Fred saying to a crowd of people gathered around him, “You can always tell when someone can’t sing, cos they ask to do Paper Roses.”

Everyone had laughed, even Mum, and Fred had given her that sour look of disdain, that showed he knew she was there, that he’d said it deliberately to hurt her. When the others noticed Lilly, there’d been a horrible awkward silence. Reliving it now, Lilly could feel her cheeks burning and her chest tightening. She remembered sitting on the sticky floor of the pub toilet, tears pouring down her cheeks wanting the carpet to swallow her. The more she remembered, the more her voice went out of tune, until she was screeching the words.

“Don’t be cruel, to a heart that’s true.”

And then she caught herself, and stopped, hoping no-one had heard her. She’d had enough embarrassment with singing to last her a lifetime. Pressing forward to the next track, Lilly grabbed Fred’s cardigan from the bedside cabinet, laid it over the vinyl seat, and sat there in silence. Elvis’s Unchained Melody played in the background and Lilly stared at the husk of a man in front of her, a man who she’d never really known.

“Lonely rivers flow, to the sea, to the sea.

To the open arms of the sea.

Lonely Rivers cry, wait for me, wait for me.”

“What a fucking waste,” said Lilly, after an age of silence. “So many could have beens, or might haves, or possibilities and you didn’t notice any of them. You never tried to get to know me. To find out who I was. To be my friend. You could have played the piano at my wedding. You could have given me away. You could have taught me to sing so that you didn’t have to make snide remarks about me. What a fucking waste.”

The curtains slid apart, and a nurse stepped in.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Lilly realised her mouth was open mid-sentence and she quickly closed it, pretending she was about to sob.

“I’m fine,” she replied.

The nurse smiled sympathetically. “Nice music.”

“Is it alright me playing it?” asked Lilly. “He loved Elvis. I thought it might get a

response. He used to perform around pubs and clubs. He was always singing Elvis

songs.”

“It’s lovely,” said the nurse. “It will cheer up the other patients too.” She finished what she was doing and pulled a gap in the curtain. Then, just as she was about to step back into the ward, she turned to Lilly.

“They say hearing’s the last thing to go,” she said. “Be careful what you say in front of him. He will be aware of it.”

The nurse left, pulling the curtains closed behind her.

A cloud of guilt floated over Lilly as she wracked her brains, trying to remember exactly what she had just said, wondering how much the nurse had overheard.

It was time to make it better. To set things right.

“Sorry Fred,” she said, reaching for his hand and doing her best to sound like she cared for him. “When I said, what a fucking waste, I didn’t really mean it. Of course, your life wasn’t a fucking waste. I’m sure Mum got a lot out of you. And your two sons.” She stopped herself speaking out loud and continued the rest as a silent monologue to herself. “But your sons aren’t here now are they. They don’t really like you either. You’ve have hardly had anything to do with them. I mean of course they liked you, you were their dad, biologically, but you weren’t very forthcoming in any of our lives were you. I learn so much from my son. I get so much out of knowing him and his friends, and finding out what life is like for him, how he sees the world. You missed all of that with me, and with them. What a fucking waste. And now you are going to die, and it’s too late, and you never really got to know any of us.”

Lilly turned up the music, to drown out her sobs. It wasn’t that she was sad that Fred was dying, she really didn’t like him. But it was the utter futility of it that devastated her.

She started singing along with Elvis again. Knowing that Fred might be able to hear her was beginning to make her smile. Perhaps now he’d appreciate her singing voice, now there was not a paper rose in sight.

Lilly stayed by Fred’s bed for several hours that day, sometime singing in the best way she could, sometimes staring at Fred’s chest, slowly rising and falling, sometimes watching his rabbit ear feet twitch. Mostly though, she just worked through her silent monologue, all the things she wanted to say, but couldn’t. How she felt about the times both him and Mum had not been there for her. All the Christmas’s, Birthdays, Easters that she’d spent alone. How when a friend had died of cancer at the age of thirty-two and all she wanted was to go home for a few days in the countryside, she’d been told it wasn’t convenient. Too many moments to speak out loud and truth be told, she didn’t really want him overhearing all that. No-one needed to hear how horrible they had been as they took their finals breaths. Elvis was a far better tune to die to.

Lilly shivered. It was getting dark. The nurse reassured her that Fred had a few more days to go, so she felt okay about leaving him.

“I need to go,” she said to him. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll download more Elvis songs and I’ll do more singing. Then I’ll stay with you. They’ve given me a family room. So, I can be close, till the end. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? Bye.”

Lilly waited a moment, as if expecting Fred to reply.

He didn’t.

She waited a bit longer, not wanting to be rude.

Nothing.

So, she left.

It was the last time she saw Fred alive.

When Lilly thought back on it later, she realised that she should have known. Of course, he’d chose that night to die. The minute she promised more singalongs with Elvis, the poor guy didn’t stand a chance.