but some new shape of emptiness. I had no idea how to handle it.

And then Mr James went and died.

I worked nights as a hospital porter. I was very fond of this

old man called Mr James. I remember when he came in, all

smiles and confidence. I took to him straight away and he

did not look down on me just because I was a porter. He

was there about three weeks before it happened. I saw him

change from upright smiling person to wasted yellow shell

who could barely talk . . . . . . in just three weeks.

I saw his confidence leak away by the day.

He kept up a brave appearance to the medical staff and to his

wife and son. To me, he let his face show what he was loosing.

Perhaps he needed one witness he did not hide from. His medical

notes said "NR" - not for resuscitation, I got to see them because

I had to take him and his notes to Radiotherapy. At first,

on these daily journeys, me pushing his wheel-chair and him laughing

and waving his hands, we talked all the time. Then he became

increasingly quiet. In his last week he did not talk at all.

He died on a Tuesday night, several hours after his wife left.

I had gone in to collect his untouched night drink and he

whispered something. I leant over the bed and after several

breathless attempts he whispered:

"what's the point . . . . ."?

He was still whispering when I left.

Five minutes later his heart stopped. The young student nurses tried

to resuscitate him anyway, having not remembered they were

supposed to just let him go. I was at the front door and heard the

alarm go off. I checked which floor I was supposed to take the

resuscitation trolley to. My heart sank when I saw which room it was.

No surprise that he arrested but for some reason I did not want

him to die. I had a seen a lot of death at the hospital yet there

was something about his death that would not leave me alone.

"What's the point . . . ?"

It was weeks later that I worked it out . . . it was his fear that I could

not stand. He was not scared of dying, I do not believe that.

He was scared that it was all pointless and that fear consumed

him in the end. We did not spend hours talking about life and

death but something naked and painful passed between our eyes every

time I saw him.

His fear took me to some new grim place and I hated him for it.

Then the hate went away. Underneath my pity for his suffering I

found another feeling that the grim loneliness could not tarnish.

Somehow, I just knew it did not have to be like that.

I just knew . . . . . . . . . .without knowing how I knew.

I had already turned away from religion and therapy. I did not want

blind faith or slow excavation. I wanted to be knocked out by the truth.

Mr James and his rumpled death bed showed there was only

one place to look. Increasingly, I was on my own, I could think

of nothing else. . . . . . So I made a list . . . . . . . . . . . .