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David Obuchowski
Fever Tree
I’ve rented a hotel room on the second floor, which is on the third level. The room number is 484. Its single window looks out onto a weed-ridden and long-forgotten courtyard, inhabited only by a single moss- and lichen-covered wooden table, through the center of which sprouts an umbrella that rotates freely with the wind, like a pitiful, pointless, round weathervane. Its fabric has been beaten by weather, bleached by sun, and battered by animals. It bears the faded word FEVER on its flaps. It must have once said FEVER-TREE—as in the tonic—but now it seems to be advertising how near death it is.
I don’t need an umbrella—or a thermometer, for that matter—to tell me I’ve also got a fever. The severe chills make it obvious enough. I’ve had it for months, though I’ve no idea what it is. I take two ibuprofen when I wake, two more in the mid-afternoon, and another two before bed. It helps with the chills. More importantly, it helps me to ignore the problem. Or maybe I’m not really ignoring it at all. Maybe I’m its silent partner, secretly complicit in its success by not having it looked at by a doctor. Go on, bring me back to Jane.
Of course, it could be nothing more than a minor infection I can’t seem to kick. In fact, the odds are quite high that it’s not the thing, the word, the disease, the verdict, the diagnosis we all most fear.
Cancer.
It’s what killed my wife. There was no complicity there. No assistance. We fought it to the bitter end. I say “we,” as if I did anything but pray to a god I never believed in to please, please, please just spare her. It was Jane who did the real fighting. She took the drugs, absorbed the radiation, lost the weight, the hair, and did it all defiantly. There was never any self-pity in it. It was almost as if she scoffed at it. Hair? Go ahead and take it. Men lose it, others shave it off, and wigs are a dime a dozen. Watch me—I’ll grow it back. Weight? Go ahead, strip it off. People spend their savings to lose a quarter as much. Energy? There are worse things than having to spend more time in bed with people eager to serve me tea, biscuits, books. But the cancer called her bluff at every phase, taking her away bit by bit. Finally, after only four months—four months—she looked at me and said, “Cancer won’t win, but I can’t either.”
“Please,” is all I could say. It’s all I could ever say.
“We’ll call it a stalemate. A draw. I’m not going to lose, I’m just letting go. The cancer will take me,” and then she grinned, blinked, and added, “but I’ll take it with me.”
“Please.”
She never asked for more pain medications. She never asked for anything but extra blankets. And then, one evening, beneath all those layers, she slipped away.
It made no sense that someone so young and so healthy should die so quickly. Young, healthy people should be young and healthy. Not diseased and then dead. But then, I’m the fool who thinks that a hotel room on the third level should be on the third floor and start with the number three. So what do I know about what makes sense and what doesn’t?
Nonsensical or not, it happened.
It had started as ovarian cancer. Then it went supernova and the tumors appeared on every organ of her body. She had no family history of ovarian cancer, but she was at risk for it because she had HPV. It was something that she was diagnosed with not long after we were dating. I’d never had any symptoms; I had no idea. But it must have been me. It must have. But it didn’t seem like such a big deal. Some mild discomfort. Some awkward conversation. And then it was done. It was over. It was supposed to be over. But then, more than ten years later, cancer arrived. And we could only ask How? How could this possibly be? There were no clear answers. Only statistics and risk factors, which all seemed to be some clinical and polite way of talking around what I felt in my heart: that it was my fault. I apologized. Profusely. But my self-blame only upset her more. She had too big of a fight on her hands. She didn’t need to deal with my conscience on top of it. So she fought her illness, and I fought my guilt. Her fight was fierce and she still died. I surrendered immediately, and here I am in this hotel room, looking at the ruins of a courtyard, wondering how a room on the third level could begin with a four and sit on the second floor, and counting—counting the minutes until I can finally go to the pub.
“You Americans think the strangest things are strange,” Richard tells me after licking the ale foam from his upper lip. He chuckles. “Why should it be the third floor?”
I met Richard the first time I’d come to this pub a little more than a week ago. He was insistent that no one drinks alone. I resented him for it at first, but the resentment quickly turned to appreciation, and it’s now gone all the way over to dependence. I look for him as soon as I get here, I save a seat for him, buy him his first round so he’ll have to buy a second round, and then I buy a third to make sure he gets me back on a fourth, and so on.
“Because,” I explain, “when I walk through the front door, there are apartments right there. That’s the first floor.”
“No no no no,” he says emphatically, “that’s the ground floor.”
“Maybe so, but it’s still the first floor,” I say. I’m drinking a lager. Madri, it’s called. Spanish. It’s refreshing, which is my way of saying that it’s easy to drink a lot of them.
“Well it can’t be both now, can’t it? The first floor is the first floor and the ground floor is the ground floor!” he says.
“So why is my room number four-eighty-four? Why does it start with a four?”
“Am I fuckin’ Timmy Taylors?” he asks me.
“Timmy Taylor?” I repeat, trying to grasp his meaning.
“The fuckin’ landlord, mate!” he laughs. It’s a play on words. The beer he’s drinking is called Landlord and it’s made by a brewery called Timothy Taylor’s. I don’t love the stuff but he sure does. I go in for these Spanish lagers—Madri, San Miguel, Estrella Dam. Gin and tonics, too. Maybe I should switch to some drinks I don’t like so much. Tequila, rum, hoppy beers. Maybe that would help me slow down. Seems like every time I get a fresh pint, I take a sip and then the next thing I know, there’s nothing left of it. I can’t even remember drinking it. It just goes away. Like there’s a drain in the bottom of the glass and someone’s pulled the plug.
“My round. Another Madri?” Richard asks me. I look at my glass and it’s all but one small gulp until empty.
“Thanks.”
“All right,” he says and then he’s back to the bar.
As soon as he’s up, my mind turns to Jane and I remember the first time she took me to meet her parents, and the first time she’d taken me to a pub. I’d never been to England before. Never been to a real pub before—only the touristy facsimiles back in the States. Jane loved that I loved pubs. Loved that I was so eager to embrace a part of the culture. Of course, she wouldn’t stand for how much time I’ve been spending in them. Not now. The guilt rises. I’m thinking too much. I tap my foot impatiently.
“Madri,” Richard says as he sets my beer down.
We tap our glasses together, and I take a long sip. This beer will be finished in no time like all the rest.
“Instead of talking about the number on your door, we should be talking about why you don’t go back home,” Richard tells me.
“You mean the States? Or my house in Teddington?”
“Either.” He shakes his head. “Glad to have met you and all, but I just can’t see how livin’ out of some shite hotel in fuckin’ Peterborough helps.”
“I just want to be in a place I don’t know. It’s easier. I sure as hell don’t want to go back to the States. Far as the place in Teddington…it’s too much.”
“Sell it. Buy another. Buy something grand. Get a great view. Property!”
I shrug, but he’s right, of course. I have the money. When Jane and I married and I followed her back here, my company let me keep my job and set me up in the London office. We had two incomes, and no kids—though, that wasn’t for lack of trying. The money piled up. And then Jane died. I inherited her life insurance. Had we known we’d be unable to have kids, we’d have never taken them out. But we were hopeful. We thought our marriage and our move was the beginning. Instead, it was the end. And it brought with it a windfall of half a million pounds, as if I’d hit some jackpot. This is what I mean about the second floor and third level and four-eight-four room number: nothing makes sense.
“A new build—that’s what you want!” He’s getting himself excited now, as if he’s the one with a fully loaded bank account. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about the character and all that. But a new build. No damp. No mice-chewn wires. No pipes just waitin’ to burst. Way less hassle. A new build, I’m tellin’ you! And a nice car, too. German. An Audi. A Merc. You like German cars?”
I can’t help but smile. It’s his enthusiasm. I can almost pretend there’s something to look forward to.
“Looks like you need another round,” he tells me.
“Looks like it,” I agree.
“Your round.”
“My round,” I say. And then I realize I’m still smiling and I’m smacked with shame and gut-punched with guilt.
I stagger back in the direction of the hotel. It’s a long walk down unremarkable streets dotted with mobile phone stores, solicitors’ offices, and carry-out places that closed hours earlier. I pass a place that I’d call a sports bar, though even after more than a decade, I’m not sure if that’s a term they use here. I find myself pushing the door open, and soon I’m immersed in the music of ZZ Top and George Thorogood. There are video gambling machines and televisions mounted up near the ceiling at each corner of the place.
I take a perch at the empty bar. A woman comes over to me and asks me what I’m having in a quiet mumble. I look at the taps and don’t see Madri, San Miguel, or Estrella. Rather it’s Budweiser, Bud Lite, Miller Genuine Draft, Miller Lite, Coors, and Coors Light.
“I’ll have a gin and tonic,” I say. “Uh, double gin.”
She glances up at me as she shovels ice into a glass. That’s when I notice it’s Jane. I’m not surprised. She’s everywhere. She’s in the Morrisons—sometimes she’s shopping there; sometimes she’s the check-out girl. Sometimes she’s at the laundromat with her boyfriend. Sometimes she’s just walking her dog. The one time I flew back to visit family in the States after Jane died, she was the flight attendant, asking politely what I wanted to drink, telling me firmly it was time to raise my seat into its upright position.
Tonight, she’s tending bar at this awful place. Her hair is all wrong, and so are her piercings. She’s probably fifteen years younger. But it’s still Jane. There’s something about the curve of her lip, or the rise of her cheekbone, or maybe it’s the eyes. The chin? I don’t know. I’m not a visual person, I guess. All I know is that there was something so special about Jane’s face, something so beautiful, something that I’d never seen before. But ever since she died, I find it in others, in strangers. Is it her? Is it her spirit, her ghostly figure, overlaying on other living beings to give me a sign—to let me know she hasn’t abandoned me? Or is it to remind me that I gave her some minor STD that I didn’t even realize I had, and it killed her? Is she haunting me? Or am I just haunting myself?
She sets in front of me a glass containing three ice cubes and two inches of gin and a bottle of Fever-Tree.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“Cheers,” she says and then turns to watch something on one of the televisions.
I pour a bit of tonic over the gin and then take a sip. It’s sweet and it’s refreshing. I catch myself enjoying something for a moment and am quick to remind myself that I’m in this awful bar when I ought to be back in my bed, sleeping. I take another drink of it, lying to myself, telling myself I’m just finishing it in a hurry so I can get going. I knock back the rest. The chills are coming back. I need ibuprofen. I probably need a doctor.
“Scuse me,” I say.
Jane turns to me. “Another?”
“Please. No need to get me another tonic, though.” I pick up the Fever-Tree and show her that the small bottle is still more than half-full.
“Fresh glass?”
“No need.”
She tilts the bottle once, tilts it twice, and then looks up at me for a moment, and as if she’s mentally flipped a coin, pours another.
“Appreciate that,” I tell her.
“Cheers,” she says. And then she’s about to turn back to the television when she pauses and asks me, “You American?”
I nod, as if I’m admitting to something I shouldn’t have done. “Yes.”
“Here on holiday?”
“Ha, no.”
“I was going to say—strange place to go on holiday. So why you here then?”
Why is there a bar in Peterborough that feels like it ought to be in the suburbs of Atlanta? Why is my hotel room number four-hundred-eighty-four but it’s on the second floor, which is the third level? Why—
“Work?” she asks, trying to prompt me into an answer.
“I lived out near London for about ten years. I mean, I still do. But my uh, my uh, my uh,” I pour some Fever-Tree over the three shots of tonic as I try to decide if I’m going to tell her. I don’t like saying it. Not because it fills me with grief—I’m already filled with enough of that. But rather, because I don’t want her thinking I’m looking for pity.
“Your what?” she asks, and she’s grinning at how I’m stammering. She thinks it’s cute.
“My wife died,” I say.
The smile vanishes from her face. “Christ, I’m sorry!” she says. She covers her mouth and goes up on her tip-toes. Now it’s me thinking she’s cute. Of course, I hate myself for it.
“It’s okay,” I tell her.
“How long ago?”
“About a year.”
“Do you want to tell me about her?”
“I can,” I shrug.
“But do you want to?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. Sometimes I want to tell the world about her. Sometimes I keep her memory like a precious secret.
“What was her name?”
“Jane.”
“Jane,” she repeats. “Classic.”
I take a drink.
“How is it that she married an American?”
“Work. We worked for the same company. Met in New York. Fell in love. And I fell in love with England. So I asked if I could follow her back.”
She puts her hand on her heart. “Oh that’s sweet,” she says, stretching out the vowel as long as it’ll go. A thing I’ve noticed is that women find me entirely harmless because I’ve lost my wife. I might as well be a child. Or a dog.
“It’s the truth,” I say. And take a drink.
“You want another?” she asks me.
I’m about to laugh at the suggestion seeing as how I just started to drink my triple gin and tonic. But then I see that it’s all gone. Suddenly. Just like Jane.
“OK, yeah, one more.”
She gives me another triple and starts to ask me something else about Jane, but I hold my hand up.
“Sorry,” I tell her. “I don’t think I can talk any more about her right now.”
“No problem. Didn’t mean to push,” she says.
“You didn’t push. You didn’t push,” I reassure her.
I take another drink and I decide to do something I’ve never done before. “Actually, there’s one other thing about her,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“She looks like you. I mean, not identical. But, yeah. Like you could be sisters maybe.”
Almost imperceptibly, she withdraws a bit. She doesn’t have her guard completely up, but there’s certainly a caution flag.
I hasten to prove I’m not just making this all up as some sort of come-on, so I hold up my hand and say, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. I’m not just saying that. I’ll show you a picture.”
She relaxes a bit and leans toward me.
I struggle to pull my phone from my pocket, just as I’d struggled to pull from my pocket the ring, in its velvet-covered box, when I’d formally proposed to Jane. She leans over the bar and looks as I open up a photo album called JANE. Small thumbnail photos of her appear on the screen in reverse-chronological order. She is gaunt, sallow-skinned, hairless. I quickly scroll down to find photos of Jane in her prime. Faster and faster I scroll, and together we watch as Jane recovers, goes backward through all the terrible phases until she’s once again my healthy, beautiful wife. Finally, I find the perfect picture.
“There,” I try to say, “there,” but I don’t know if she can understand me because I’m sobbing.
I awake in my hotel room, shivering violently. I can’t recall if I took ibuprofen before bed. For that matter, I can’t actually remember going to bed. In fact, how I got back here is a complete mystery. Did I take a taxi? Did I walk? Was I assisted? I pull the covers up around me tightly. I hear a toilet flush, and then the running of water. I’m struck with fear as I realize that it was her—the bartender—who brought me back, and she must have stayed. I want to vomit. Not because of the impossible amount of booze I’ve consumed over the last 15 hours, but because I’ve been unfaithful to Jane. Not only have I been unfaithful, but I’ve also spread this unkillable infection to yet another person. I’ve set another accidental murder in motion. First Jane, and probably me next, and now this innocent bystander who in the dim light of a horrible bar and through eyes steeped in untold quantities of lager and gin, a bartender whose face reminded me of my wife’s. Another death waiting to happen.
I will have to tell her. I will have to admit it. The humiliation is nothing compared to what may very well be in store for her. She has to know. Perhaps the knowledge will be enough for her to save herself.
I brace myself for when she will come out of the bathroom.
But, then, she doesn’t.
Apprehensively, I sit up and look toward the bathroom. The door is open, the light is off. There’s been no one in there at al. I look around the room. There’s no sign of anyone. No one’s been here except me. No one’s seen inside this room.
Another toilet flushes. I hear the muffled sounds of talking. Water rushes from a tap, splashes in a sink. The walls are thin. I’m hearing the plumbing of a neighboring room. I’m relieved. I’m alone after all. And now my guilt and panic are replaced by embarrassment at my own lack of sense, at my own ego, at my indulgence in such dramatics. How could I have mistaken the sounds of neighboring rooms for a person right here in my own? And how could I ever have believed for a second that I would have been able to seduce that bartender? And even if I had, why did I believe that my depressingly common infection should have ever made a difference. HPV is ubiquitous after all, our doctor told us. So much so, it would be impossible to really pinpoint who she’d caught it from. Yes, it could have been me. Or, it could have been from someone else many years earlier.
I am a fool. I am losing the ability to think straight. I am drinking far too much. I am not processing the grief in a constructive way. I am making poor decisions. I am engaging in too much negative self-talk. I am developing bad habits. And I am cold. I am so cold. There’s something very, very wrong.
I wrap the duvet around my shoulders, my body, and I shuffle to the bathroom. I shake three ibuprofen tablets from the large, white plastic bottle into my shivering, shaking hand. I stuff them into my mouth and then chase them with unpleasant-tasting water from the faucet of the sink. I head back toward the bed where I hope to go back to sleep for many hours, but I pause in front of my lone window and see the badly damaged umbrella rotating slowly in the wind. The word FEVER moves into view. The umbrella continues to spin, taking the terrible word away. Of course, it will return soon enough. I pull the duvet tight around me and go back to the bed.
I pull my knees up to my chest and try to hug myself, try to warm myself, try to soothe myself. Soon, I tell myself, my fever will break. I will get more sleep. I will wake up feeling rested. I will be able to think more clearly. The fact that the second floor is on the third level and the rooms all start with four will seem entirely unremarkable. And I will finally make an appointment with the doctor. It will all be okay, I promise myself. There’s no reason to think it won’t be. And I’ll stop spending so much time in pubs and bars. I’ll check out of this noisy, clammy hotel. I’ll bear myself up and deal with the house—maybe sell it, maybe renovate it. I’ll start a fresh chapter. It’s what Jane would have wanted. I’ll look for a new job, or maybe I’ll dedicate myself to something else, something more meaningful. Art. Volunteering. I can start a support group for the bereaved. This is just the low point, I assure myself. It only gets better from here, I promise myself, better from here, I repeat to myself as I drift into a fever dream, and the world, like the umbrella below my window, spins on and on in the emptiness of space and a long-forgotten courtyard.
About the writer:
David Obuchowski is a prolific and acclaimed writer of fiction, long-form essays, and children’s books. Nominated for multiple awards as well as inclusion in prestigious anthologies, his non-fiction has been adapted for film and television, and his short stories have been published in dozens of literary magazines. The children’s book, HOW BIRDS SLEEP (a collaboration with Sarah Pedry), was published in 2023 by Minerva/Astra Publishing and was honored by the National Science Teachers Association & Children’s Book Council as an Outstanding Science Trade Book of 2023, and named among the best books of 2023 by the School Library Journal as well as Bank Street College.
Image: Still Life with Juniper Berries by Larry Homolka (1941-2002). Mixed media on paper. No size specified. 1993. By free license.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints Buttonhook Press, HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, and HIGH BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Art, supports writers and artists worldwide.
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