Read Online The Irresistible Inheritance Of Wilberforce by Paul Torday - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paul Torday
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nothing and said to Colin, ‘I’m so sorry. I think this bottle might be corked.’
‘Tastes perfectly all right to me,’ remarked Colin.
Perfectly all right! The wine I served was never ‘all right’. The wines from my cellar were amongst the rarest wines, the finest vintages, that had ever been assembled under one roof. The Cheval Blanc 1953 was over fifty years old now, one of the few clarets of that age that could still be drunk, which had not yet oxidised. It was another wine of which I now had only one or two more bottles left. I took Colin’s glass from him and opened a bottle of Fitou. It was the only other red wine in the kitchen that would be close to room temperature - an oddity that I had found in the undercroft that must have been one of Francis’s more recent and whimsical additions to his collection. I poured both glasses and the rest of the bottle of Château Cheval Blanc down the sink. Then I refilled our glasses with the second wine. It tasted much the same to me, but I said nothing.
Colin sipped his wine and said, ‘Quite a jolly red wine. A bit more taste to it than the first one, though there was nothing much wrong with that.’
I bit my lip, said nothing and waited for Colin to tell me why he was here, because I could not remember.
‘I took your test results to a neurologist friend of mine. He’s had a look, and I’ve discussed some of your symptoms with him,’ said Colin.
‘What symptoms?’
‘You have quite acute ocular ataxia, and gaze-evoked nystagmus.’
‘Do you want to put that in English?’
‘You can’t control your eye movements, some of the time. You’re doing it now.’
‘No, I’m not,’ I said, but I could not withdraw my gaze from the ceiling when I spoke.
‘Another thing is: you seem to have these periods of mental confusion. I think I interrupted one when we bumped into each other outside, just now. Do you find that you have vivid memories of places you have never been, or people you have never met? Do you sometimes imagine yourself to be someone quite different, Wilberforce?’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said, but we both knew I wasn’t telling the truth. There was something on the edge of my memory all the time these days: a rain-slicked street at night that I didn’t want to go down, but found myself walking along despite myself. Where was that? It wasn’t Newcastle, or even London. It was somewhere warmer and, at the same time, somewhere with thinner air.
‘You talked a lot in your sleep about Colombia, when I came in to look at you the other day. Do you remember that?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Maybe I remember something - a dream I must have had.’
Colin sipped at his wine again. My glass was empty. Colin said, ‘Go on, pour yourself another drink. You can’t do yourself much more harm than you already have.’
I felt fear inside me. Colin wasn’t lecturing me any more. He was preparing me for some news I wasn’t going to like.
‘Wilberforce,’ said Colin gently, as I poured myself a second glass of Fitou, ‘we think you have a condition called Wernicke’s encephalopathy.’
‘Werner’s what?’
‘Not Werner’s - Wernicke’s. It is a by-product of excessive alcohol intake. It causes a failure of thiamine production in your liver.’ Colin folded his arms and looked at me, as if to say: You see what you’ve done?
‘Oh dear,’ I said, because I seemed expected to say something. ‘What does that do?’ I didn’t really want to know, but I knew Colin would not leave until he had told me.
‘Your liver produces thiamine, which is converted into a chemical called thiamine pyrophosphate. It’s a crucial component in nerve-impulse transmission. If you have Wernicke’s encephalopathy, which we think you have in a well-developed form, your liver stops producing thiamine. You may develop some quite distressing symptoms.’ He paused, but I said nothing.
‘You will experience sensations of hypothermia. Your taste and
‘Tastes perfectly all right to me,’ remarked Colin.
Perfectly all right! The wine I served was never ‘all right’. The wines from my cellar were amongst the rarest wines, the finest vintages, that had ever been assembled under one roof. The Cheval Blanc 1953 was over fifty years old now, one of the few clarets of that age that could still be drunk, which had not yet oxidised. It was another wine of which I now had only one or two more bottles left. I took Colin’s glass from him and opened a bottle of Fitou. It was the only other red wine in the kitchen that would be close to room temperature - an oddity that I had found in the undercroft that must have been one of Francis’s more recent and whimsical additions to his collection. I poured both glasses and the rest of the bottle of Château Cheval Blanc down the sink. Then I refilled our glasses with the second wine. It tasted much the same to me, but I said nothing.
Colin sipped his wine and said, ‘Quite a jolly red wine. A bit more taste to it than the first one, though there was nothing much wrong with that.’
I bit my lip, said nothing and waited for Colin to tell me why he was here, because I could not remember.
‘I took your test results to a neurologist friend of mine. He’s had a look, and I’ve discussed some of your symptoms with him,’ said Colin.
‘What symptoms?’
‘You have quite acute ocular ataxia, and gaze-evoked nystagmus.’
‘Do you want to put that in English?’
‘You can’t control your eye movements, some of the time. You’re doing it now.’
‘No, I’m not,’ I said, but I could not withdraw my gaze from the ceiling when I spoke.
‘Another thing is: you seem to have these periods of mental confusion. I think I interrupted one when we bumped into each other outside, just now. Do you find that you have vivid memories of places you have never been, or people you have never met? Do you sometimes imagine yourself to be someone quite different, Wilberforce?’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said, but we both knew I wasn’t telling the truth. There was something on the edge of my memory all the time these days: a rain-slicked street at night that I didn’t want to go down, but found myself walking along despite myself. Where was that? It wasn’t Newcastle, or even London. It was somewhere warmer and, at the same time, somewhere with thinner air.
‘You talked a lot in your sleep about Colombia, when I came in to look at you the other day. Do you remember that?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Maybe I remember something - a dream I must have had.’
Colin sipped at his wine again. My glass was empty. Colin said, ‘Go on, pour yourself another drink. You can’t do yourself much more harm than you already have.’
I felt fear inside me. Colin wasn’t lecturing me any more. He was preparing me for some news I wasn’t going to like.
‘Wilberforce,’ said Colin gently, as I poured myself a second glass of Fitou, ‘we think you have a condition called Wernicke’s encephalopathy.’
‘Werner’s what?’
‘Not Werner’s - Wernicke’s. It is a by-product of excessive alcohol intake. It causes a failure of thiamine production in your liver.’ Colin folded his arms and looked at me, as if to say: You see what you’ve done?
‘Oh dear,’ I said, because I seemed expected to say something. ‘What does that do?’ I didn’t really want to know, but I knew Colin would not leave until he had told me.
‘Your liver produces thiamine, which is converted into a chemical called thiamine pyrophosphate. It’s a crucial component in nerve-impulse transmission. If you have Wernicke’s encephalopathy, which we think you have in a well-developed form, your liver stops producing thiamine. You may develop some quite distressing symptoms.’ He paused, but I said nothing.
‘You will experience sensations of hypothermia. Your taste and
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