Page 16 of Maybe
“No. So you enjoyed working in geriatrics, yeah?”
I could picture him listening to old people’s stories of falls and coughs and worrisome headaches, before comforting themwith his calm, even voice as he outlined his plan. Much more than I could imagine him throwing a hissy fit and chucking surgical instruments across an operating theatre. Or coping with a department crammed with arrogant wanker colleagues like our father and Mustard Michael, day after day.
“More than working in A and E?”
“Yes, mostly.” His face lit up again. “But we don’t call it that anymore. TheEmergency Departmentis fun—you never know what’s coming through the door next. Hectic, but I’m learning loads, in between exam revision. Getting the surgical exams under my belt is my main aim this year. I ought to be back at it now, really, not wasting an afternoon.”
Fitz-Henrys don’t waste time. Christ, he sounded exactly like our father.
Isaac had always been conscientious. When I was bored or searching for mischief, I used to wander into his room to find him hunched over his desk, pen in hand, writing out revision cards in his neat handwriting. Even without Dad hassling him, he’d have been studious.
Once more, I checked the time. I really needed to go. Isaac’s tired blue eyes, set in a face that hadn’t enjoyed enough hours outdoors recently, watched me twitch. Stupid older brother instincts I thought I’d lost forever came back to the fore.
“You know that phrase—Jack of all trades—comes from Shakespeare? It was probably around before that in some form, but he’s recorded as using it.” Amazing what random shit from school my brain retained. Especially as I basically stopped paying any attention whatsoever after my mum died.
“I’m not surprised,” Isaac answered. “Shakespeare came up with all the good lines. But I didn’t, no.”
“That’s because you had to spend your time learning physics and chemistry shit. Ignoring the good stuff.”
He chuckled. “Not the most eloquent description of the complex sciences. Or Shakespeare.”
“True, though.” I leaned across the table, way more earnest than I’d intended. “Shakespeare, poetry, music, art. Dad used to brush them off as wishy-washy crap. He’d call them time wasters, but he was wrong. They carry you someplace else. And the jack of all trades line has another couplet to it which you never hear. It means…”
Embarrassed, I trailed off. The moment had passed anyhow, and I’d revealed more than I should.
“Means what?” he pressed.
“Nothing,” I scraped back my chair. “Listen, I need to be somewhere.”
A puzzled line appeared between his eyebrows. “Is that it again then, for another three months? A critique of my preferred beverage choices, a lecture on the advantages of studying social sciences over medicine, and then you bugger off?”
It should be.This family had let me down, over and over. I didn’t fit in, I never had, and Dad keeling over didn’t change that. Isaac was a product of it; he wasn’t that little nerdy boy anymore, just like I wasn’t a fun, cool older brother. Some paths were meant to diverge. The easiest thing to do now would be to walk away and not look back. Find somewhere else to busk, another anonymous corner, one where I wouldn’t bump into bloody Isaac.
The hurt expression in Isaac’s eyes dissolved that sensible little fantasy in the seconds I wasted rechecking the time. “I suppose you could come with me, if you like?”
In awkward silence, we waded through the tourists to Embankment tube station. By a minor miracle, a couple of seats were available, though standing in a packed carriage unableto speak to each other might have been preferable; I already regretted my impulsive invitation.
“Tell me what you were going to say,” he began, like I knew he would. Isaac hadn’t always been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’d buckets of tenacity.
Heat rose up my neck. It had been a throwaway comment, but now we were making a deal of it, and I was going to sound really sappy and pretentious and basically look like a show-off dick. Which you could get away with when you had achieved plenty to show off about, like Isaac. I’d invited him to join me on a trip to the arse end of the Tube line, to a part of London he’d probably always been too wary to step foot in, where I’d spent the last ten years barely surviving. Zero to brag about. Except for the one amazing thing waiting for me there, which I had a feeling was going to blow his mind.
Fuck it. Short of shoving him out onto the tracks at the next station, it was too late for regrets.
“Honestly, it doesn’t matter. I was only going to point out that, well, not many people know, but the jack of all trades quote actually has another part:jack of all trades, master of none. Oftentimes better than master of one.It was originally intended as a compliment. So, if you did like working in geriatrics or ED, more than surgery, where I guess you need to know a bit about everything and be good with people, then you should think about pursuing it. That’s all. Fuck what Dad would have thought.”
A silence followed that pronouncement while my toes curled in my shoes and Isaac studiously stared out of the window.
“I didn’t know I was going to be on the receiving end of careers advice this afternoon,” he said. “But thank you. Beats a skinny latte with Gerald.”
“Fuck off.”
His lips thinned as he fought an impulse to smile. We slowed into Bexley, two stops from mine. Sometimes, I walked the last bit to save cash, but I was already pushed for time. Covering the grubby station wall was an enormous, spray-painted cock and hairy balls, next to a sign sayingWelcome to Bexleyheath. “Nice scenery.” Isaac checked his watch. “We’ve been travelling on here for over forty-five minutes. Does this line go all the way to France?”
Bingo, he hadn’t ever been out this way. To be fair, why would he want to?
“Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to take a train. She used to demand a lackey closed the curtains when it passed through ugly industrial parts of town. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have brought a pair with me.”
He shook his head gently. Humouring me showing off again, to a guy who made physics flashcards for fun. We reached my stop. Clambering to my feet, I hitched my guitar bag onto my back. The rest of my gear was stashed at one of the cafés in exchange for giving the boss’s daughter acoustic guitar lessons during the school holidays. She was coming along a treat; we had grade four lined up for after the summer.
