It seemed to Evelyn that Grace hardly spoke to her anymore. They had never found it easy to communicate but for the past four months, since Uncle Les had been in and out of hospital, first with a collapsed lung and pneumonia and then with what the doctors called “complications,” it had got worse. She could sense Grace turning away from her whenever she came into a room, she could feel how wide a berth she was given whenever she got up from her chair. If Grace was in the kitchen and Evelyn entered, Grace would leave. If Evelyn was there, Grace wouldn’t come in. It was if she could not have borne so much as an accidental brush of her mother’s hand. Evelyn longed for her hand to be touched, or to be allowed the lightest caress of her daughter’s hair or her shoulder. It would have helped her to “see” her, perhaps.
But it was many years since they had embraced each other. That was fair enough, there was no call for grown women to go around hugging and kissing each other all day, but Evelyn and her Mam had occasionally given each other a peck and a pat and it had probably done them good. But Grace had never been that kind of child.
Evelyn sighed and put down her knitting. Uncle Les looked forward to their weekly visits to him in hospital on Wednesdays, the shop’s half-day, and Grace should have shut up below and come up by now. If they had a quick early dinner they could make it to the half-past-one bus and that meant an hour and a quarter with him before all visitors had to leave at half past three. If they missed the bus going, they had barely half an hour. But more and more often Grace would slip away after shutting the shop and not come up for her dinner until it was past quarter to one. When Evelyn had asked her where she got to, all she would say was she hadn’t noticed the time. Any further questions were met with a sullen silence, not that Evelyn really needed to ask any; the smell of cigarette smoke and strong drink on her were explanation enough.
The other thing that worried Evelyn constantly was Grace’s attitude to Uncle Les. When he had first been taken ill, Grace had made it clear she didn’t care. He’s as tough as an old boot, that one. Don’t let him fool you, he’ll see you buried, she had said harshly. It was only after that first month, when he suddenly relapsed and then deteriorated, that she had begun to take any interest in how he was, wanting to know from day to day if he was out of danger or not. For about three weeks it had seemed to matter to her whether he lived or died. But then when he had been declared on the mend but facing a long, slow recovery, she lost interest again.
In fact, for the past four or five visits, she had spent at the most a few minutes at the bedside, keeping her coat on and refusing to sit down, before announcing that she was off for a walk and would come back for Evelyn at the end of the visiting hour. It was a blessing that Uncle Les had been too ill to take offence, but he was getting stronger now and Evelyn did not want him upset by Grace’s attitude. Grace just didn’t seem to recognize how much they owed to Uncle Les, and how much they still relied on his goodwill.
Just then she heard Grace’s solid tread on the stairs. Evelyn sighed again, got up, and went to the kitchen. There were potatoes to mash, and with a bit of luck the sausages in the oven wouldn’t be burnt quite to cinders.
On the bus, Evelyn squeezed into the window seat and Grace planted herself beside her, breathing hard. She sounded hot and heavy, but it was only May and there was a cool, fresh wind. Grace pulled in her breath and held it. Evelyn felt the tension in her and reached out to place a hand on her arm.
“Are you all right, love?” she said. “You sound a bit puffed.”
“I’m all right,” Grace said, shifting away from Evelyn’s touch.“Indigestion.”
“I’m not surprised,” Evelyn said with a forced chuckle. “By the time you were sat down to your dinner you’d barely five minutes to eat it.”
Grace had no reply to that and they travelled on in silence. The bus dropped them at the hospital gates. It was at least another five minutes’ brisk walk across the hospital grounds and down several echoing corridors to the Respiratory Diseases ward. Evelyn knew better than to take Grace’s arm so as usual she kept at her side by concentrating on the sound of Grace’s feet, waving her white stick to and fro ahead of her as she went. Today, Grace’s loud breathing mixed with the sound of her footfall. Her indigestion did seem to be troublesome. Maybe this would teach her not to cut it so fine on Wednesdays in future. Evelyn was about to suggest that she really needed to give herself a bit longer to digest her meal when Grace stopped dead.
Evelyn was alarmed. “Grace, what’s up? Are you all right?”
There was silence for a moment. “Aye, stop fussing, it’ll pass,” Grace growled. From the direction of her voice Evelyn knew she was either crouching on the ground or doubled over. “It’s just a stitch in my side.”
Sure enough after a short while Grace said brightly,“Come on, then. Let’s get it over with.”
“Oh, Grace, you are unkind about your uncle,” Evelyn murmured. But she was pleased that Grace sounded more like herself, even if it had to be a rather short-tempered self.
They reached the ward after the usual squeaky walk along the polished linoleum floors and brick-lined corridors. When they got to the bedside Grace muttered that Uncle Les was asleep. She almost pushed her mother into a chair and said she would be back at half past three. Evelyn opened her mouth to protest, but changed her mind. It might not be such a bad idea if Grace took herself off, since she was clearly in a nasty mood. She didn’t quite trust her not to make a scene and that was the last thing anyone wanted, especially around sick folk lying in a hospital ward.
After a minute or two, Uncle Les woke up. Evelyn knitted away, addressing remarks to him, which he answered sleepily. She was quite content not to have to make too much conversation, and she wondered to herself how many more Wednesday visits would be required. She noticed that his voice sounded stronger and he hardly coughed at all. There had been mention of a convalescent home in the countryside for a month’s recuperation, which would certainly be a difficult journey for her and Grace by bus.
When Uncle Les drifted off to sleep again she tap-tapped her way with her white stick to the end of the ward where, as she expected, a nurse came out and greeted her. Yes, she confirmed, Doctor was very pleased with Mr. Hibbert and fully expected that another week should see him strong enough to leave hospital. A spell of convalescence in a wellrun establishment such as the Maud Braddock Memorial Home for Invalids would be just the thing. A few more weeks of fresh air and not overdoing things would put him properly back on his feet. Evelyn nodded and turned to go back, waving her stick in front of her.
“I’m just due to do my rounds,” the nurse said.“Here’s my arm, if you’ll allow me?”
Without waiting for a reply she took Evelyn’s arm and tucked it cosily under her own, and led her slowly back up the ward. As they went, she spoke in a gentle voice to Evelyn about the flowers placed here and there. Mr. Crowe had orange chrysanthemums, but the lovely scent came from the simple lilies of the valley in a little vase on Mr. McIntyre’s bedside table. His wife had brought them from the garden. Evelyn squeezed the nurse’s arm.
“I had lilies of the valley for my wedding posy. Over twenty years ago. Oh, I can see that posy now! Lovely, it was.”
The nurse murmured sympathetically.
“Aye, and the wallflowers in the gardens out yonder,” Evelyn went on, “they’ve a grand smell, too. I walked past them from the gate.”
“Yes, I saw they were out. Lovely colours.”
“Aye, they’re bonny-lookin’. As I remember.” She turned and smiled at the nurse, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Oh, dear, I am sorry!” the young nurse said. “I’m so thoughtless. Only with you coming every Wednesday, I got to thinking if I couldn’t see, what I’d want would be somebody letting me know what there was to see. Then I might sort of see it in my head. Only maybe it’s not like that at all. Oh, I’m ever so sorry if I’ve offended-”
“Nay! Nay, go on with you! You’ve got it spot-on. I’m not used to it, that’s all, somebody thinking about it that way. My Grace, now, she…” Evelyn fished her handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes. “She’s just not a big talker, I suppose. Well, thank you, lass,” she said. “Thank you ever so.”
They had arrived back at Uncle Les’s bed and the nurse helped Evelyn back into her chair. “You’re right welcome. You’ve another fifteen minutes,” she said. “We’ll miss you when Mr. Hibbert goes.”
Evelyn beamed. Then the nurse leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “Sister was saying your smile lights up the whole ward. You’re an inspiration, you are. Take care now.”
It seemed impossible to Evelyn that she might inspire anyone, but she went on smiling at the compliment, and turned her attention again to entertaining Uncle Les with snippets of news.
When Grace arrived back sullenly at a quarter to four, Evelyn was waiting for her under the porch of the entrance to the ward. It had begun to rain. Grace marched back to the bus stop so fast that Evelyn had to call out to her to slow down. Not a word was exchanged on the journey home. On the bus, Evelyn pondered the words of the nurse, wondering about the sympathy that had come from the young woman so naturally, as if she were filled with it and it overflowed. Where did it all come from? She knew it was wrong of her, but she couldn’t help hoping that even a little of something similar was lodging somewhere deep in Grace’s heart, and would come out one day. Then she immediately felt guilty. The nurse probably had a mother waiting at home ready to notice that her young daughter looked tired or troubled, or had done way, or had a new glow about her. It wasn’t Grace’s fault.
Sleep came in the end. It always does. It’s not sleep itself that’s the problem, it’s when you sleep; Arthur and I both knew well enough by now how determined people were to prevent us from sleeping at times it was inconvenient to them. But of course they couldn’t stop us any more than we could stop the dreams that came when we did.
That first night alone and waiting for him, I had a dream that began in water, dark water flickering with iridescent, darting fish, though on reflection it might have been a dark sky alive with butterflies. Whether air or water it was warm, and in it my breath softened and slowed and I swam or floated towards a bumpy-looking ledge that turned out to be the distant line between a lake and a sky just beginning to blaze with light; as I came nearer, the horizon split against the rising dome of the sun.
The dream woke me as if a torch had been shone into my eyes. I got up to get a drink of water and I stood in the kitchen listening to the kind of low noise all kitchens make, not really a sound at all. Every kitchen’s undercurrents are the same and different, and kitchens smell the same and different. Here it was milky, sweetish. I wandered out to the back garden. The fresh air rushed at me and I plonked myself down on the terrace steps. It was so cold and lovely.
I was shivering. I was in need of food, too, I realized; my stomach began to grumble. Though I knew I should go in and get warm and find something to eat, I went on sitting there, looking up at the sky. I wondered what it would be like to be in a house near running water and surrounded by mountains so that every night would be filled with flows and echoes. I could hear the emptiness up there, and it made me think of flying, not with great flapping wings but in the way the gift of flight is bestowed in a dream or by magic, when the wind streams under you and you soar without effort simply because you have been granted the belief that you can. I closed my eyes and felt myself flying close to the top of a hillside invisible in the dark but there all the same, rising from a gleaming stretch of water.
Before it grew light, and now thinking practically of Arthur’s return, I went back upstairs. I chose quickly from the wardrobe, not taking time to assess its contents carefully. The clothes were obvious, anyway: sensible, not ugly but certainly not alluring or attractive. There was something so habitual and plain about them it seemed impossible they had ever been bought new, or chosen at all, never mind with pleasure; it was difficult to discern anything in them that would cause them to be selected from among others. I put on olive green slacks, a cream sweater, and some slip-on shoes. I looked like nobody, or anybody. I didn’t mind. For years I had been heading the same way myself, towards a capitulation to the expectation that women past a certain age dress only for weather, convenience, and disguise. It was obvious to me that it had been decades since Arthur had either been asked for or offered an opinion of Ruth’s appearance.
I didn’t know when to expect him, of course. My safest course was to wait out each day in my usual way, but with extra caution; probably he would not return alone and they might barge in while I was asleep. So when dawn came, I made my way up to the attic. The air was pleasantly thick and warm. I was so tired I could have bedded down on the bare boards but I was pleased to find a pile of curtains and some rolledup rugs. I arranged them into a kind of nest and settled down, dragging a dusty white net curtain around myself so that it covered me completely. I held it to my face until it was wet and salty. Then I opened my eyes and pulled the cloth right around my head and held it taut so I couldn’t blink. I stared through its gauzy whiteness. The sun from the skylight glimmered through, a cloudy bright rectangle in the flat, milky shadow of the sloping ceiling. I breathed in and pretended I was in the countryside in a field full of flowers, looking up at the sun just after it has rained. Over the white nylon I ran a finger down my nose and over my cheeks and across my lips, which were smiling now. My musty smooth curtain was a new white skin come to cover me up so nobody would know what I was like underneath. I fell asleep, and the day passed.
When I got up again I was restless and could not settle to anything. I knew he would not come at night, but still I tried to kill time by measuring my every move in little units of anticipation, awaiting his return. I stripped his bed and changed the sheets, smoothing my hands over the pillow just where his head would, very soon I prayed, leave a soft dent. I opened the bedroom window with some funny idea that he had flown away and now he’d be able to get back in, like Peter Pan; if I were to go down to make tea, he would alight on the floor above me in the moment between my filling the kettle and opening a bottle of milk. If I counted the strokes as I brushed my hair, he would be here before I reached a hundred. If I started to sing to myself in a low voice, affecting a nonchalance I didn’t feel, it would summon him back, and the opening of the door would be the first sound to interrupt this meandering, patient song of mine.
By the next morning I was worried. I spent all day in the attic, unable to sleep. So I heard everything as I lay there: the arrival of a car, the front door opening, people talking, and after a few minutes a woman’s voice more insistent than the rest. In all the noise and movement I could not make out a sound from Arthur himself. After a while the house grew quiet again, and I slept. When I woke, I guessed it was around three o’clock in the afternoon. Maybe they had put him to bed. I thought of him in his room, wakeful, curious, perhaps still afraid. I willed him to turn over and close his eyes, not to fight sleep, and I fancied I heard a little whine, the kind an animal makes when it knows that the time for choosing to fight or to give in has passed, because either it is already defeated, or it is safe. Then I fell asleep again.
27 Cardigan Avenue
Dear Ruth
I’m back. I couldn’t wait to get back.
I’d forgive you for thinking me slow to catch on-well, I have been slow-but I’ve got it now. I’m getting to the crux of it now. I can think clearly here. You’re here, but only here. You’re nowhere else. Not in the hospital. I missed you terribly.
The hospital-it’s a zoo in there.
The ward was hellish. I came to thinking how could this get any worse-then it did. Mrs. M swooped in and perched like buzzard refusing to budge because, she said, somebody had to catch the doctor and explain the situation. She said the nurses don’t pay attention to anything these days much less pass it on to the doctors-all this according to The Great Tony. I was lucky, she said, to have an NHS insider like Tony on my case. You need somebody who can get to the right people, knows their way around the system.
She brought a book for me, something somebody had given her but it wasn’t her kind of thing. An anthology. She didn’t know till recently I was a poetry fan, she was surprised to find the house swimming in it or she’d have passed it on before.
Doctor didn’t come all morning, so finally she went. I had a squint at the book, it didn’t do anything for me either.
Poetry isn’t like water or air. You actually don’t need it to live. I can hear you disagreeing, but it’s a fact. Poetry’s more like the wine or perfume in a life. It’s nice to have, but you can get along all right without. You can manage with just having everything plain, or at least you can until you’ve acquired the taste for the more rarefied, then it’s harder. But as long as you’re getting along without anything fancy, you don’t see that you’re missing much.
All right, you’re frowning at that. But that’s me. Ordinary and plain. It’s my history, I suppose. There are some histories you couldn’tsqueeze a poem into sideways and that was mine, not that I’m complaining. Good people, my parents, though of course you only knew Dad and he wasn’t the same man after Mum died. All that’s history, too, in the background-nobody really remembers.
Funny word-I’m thinking about words-the background. My background-when was it? Where is it now? Overdale Lodge? Or before we met? Or after? When does anyone’s background stop and their foreground begin? We were married all those years, isn’t that a background in itself, does it blank out what came earlier, does whatever comes after meld into it and get lost, or does it stand out sharper? Maybe we’re just a fuzzy pair of figures somewhere in a painting, so small and on the edge that only we know we’re there at all. Nobody else really sees us.
But it’s still ours, our life-no matter it’s just a collection of dots in one corner of a picture, no matter we’re background figures, no matter how many people miss that we’re even there.
But you can’t set it down, not even our little life, nobody can-not in a picture, not in words.
I just wish I could.
I remember the kind of pictures you liked. The ones you said were like film sets if only they’d known how to make films then. In the Renaissance. We watched that thing on TV, remember, about how they painted them to make your eye go straight to the little golden figures cavorting about in flowers without a stitch on, and next onto the tumbling green cascades and ruins and peacocks, and then to the blue distant forests and mountains and sky. Was the order of the colours meant to calm you down or something, make you think deep thoughts? Maybe that’s the kind of background you need for poetry. Or for cavorting.
I’m no poet and I never was a cavorter. Obviously. I see now I may have let you down there.
I’ll think further on it all, now I’m back safe. Finally saw a young fella purporting to be a doctor about five o’clock yesterday, told him I was taking myself off home for some peace and quiet. He lookedterrified, clearly couldn’t deal with me, he went and fetched a nurse at least twenty years older than he was.
Two against one-VOICES RAISED in objection-and they told me I was shouting!!! Leg condition needs to be stabilized, hospital best place, support yet to be arranged for return home etc etc.
In the end I had to mention most important point-ie getting back to you, dear. I said all support necessary was waiting at home, thank you very much, and further interference neither required nor welcome, please give your time and attention to those in greater need, I’m aware there’s pressure on resources.
Predictably this threw them quicker than you could say Psychiatric Assessment, in fact it proved to be a proper old poke into a hornets’ nest. People wandered through with clipboards and forms-not about me, it was all about a Care Programme, social services, community nurses, meals on wheels, whole shooting match. And that was only the start, there was this or that or the next thing they couldn’t do till tomorrow or day after or until so-and-so got back from holiday. I got so tired hearing them go on and on I fell asleep. I’m sure they slipped me something.
Fooled them, however! Was awake nearly all night as usual and up and dressed and ready to be off when staff were changing over this morning. There’s even a taxi rank outside, I didn’t have to navigate the bus routes.
Couldn’t escape the welcoming committee, though, Mrs. M and Co-taxi not home two minutes and there they were. They must’ve had the place staked out. But now I’m back I’ll go on thinking about it all. The pictures, the words. Where your life gets put, if you’re not very careful, by other people. What you’re meant to do with all the things you remember. Should I be worrying that maybe I remember some things that aren’t true, and forget others that are? Does it matter, if nobody would know but me? I only want you to know. I want to talk to you.
I’ll have a sleep now and think about it all later, towards the time when the sun’s setting. That’s when I wake up and that’s a good time forthinking. Thoughts pop up out of the dreams I have, though I don’t remember the dreams.
I want to hear from you on these and other subjects, when I’m more myself.
When I’m less myself, is what I should be saying.
Affectionately
Arthur
Where’s the harm in it? By staying here I can give him, in this discreet way, the help he needs. If I’m now Ruth, does it matter? He’s happier, and he’s clean and eating again. Considering what I’ve taken away from him, some small measure of well-being is little enough to be giving back. And since that’s all I do give him, how could I take that away again?
I can’t risk an appearance so I can’t do much about all the visitors. I feel like writing to the damn nurses and the neighbour to say that while he may seem to them to be losing ground, actually he is being restored to life. But why would I owe them any explanation? And would they understand it? No; I would have to write it like a sick note composed to veil the whole truth. “Please make allowances for Arthur if he does not seem quite himself but he is more himself than ever and should be excused.”
It can’t be done. I would have to puzzle over it, pondering what it was they needed to know and how they needed it said, and concoct some version of his condition that would both satisfy and conceal. I would have to write with insincere respect for an established belief that I have long known to be false, which is that when people die, they depart; I would have to write it as someone other than Ruth, and that’s impossible.
27 Cardigan Avenue
Dear Ruth
Your Della phoned. This story of yours, am only now appreciating the scale. Of your ambition, I mean. Della wonders if time is now right to ask if I would let them put some of it in their next “Work in Progress” collection, they do one every two years.
What do you think of that?
She also said you had just about finished it. Well I haven’t come across anything beyond page 93 so where did she get that idea from? She said you were planning to read something from the second half to the writing group, they thought you might have had it ready for them that day. You know, the day it happened.
Also I keep finding poems. Folders and envelopes marked with year of composition. Wish you were a more meticulous filer. I claim, if I may, a little credit for meticulous filing, and like it or not you have to admit it would have done you good if a little of my example with cheque stubs, bank statements, and paperwork generally had rubbed off on you.
I’m no fan of Della’s as you know, and common sense prevailed just in time, the phone was still in my hand. I was on the point of telling her about all the poetry I still haven’t gone through, but I stopped myself just in time. Nearly said would she come round and be here with me when I read them, as if poems were a bit of a hazard, too risky to read on my own. Most of them I won’t understand anyway. I banged down receiver just in time.
By the way I like the story. At least I understand it.
I suppose you would have told me about it once you’d got a bit further on.
Re: poems. I do like this one. When did you write it? What else did you think that day, what else did you say that day, and where has all that gone?
Green bird sits
Looking at me
From the green shelter
Of the lilac tree.
Doesn’t it know
Doesn’t it see
How much I wish
That I were he?
Shouldn’t that be “was him” in the last line, strictly speaking? I can see it wouldn’t rhyme then, but Della says rhyming’s not necessary.
Couldn’t fathom what bird you were describing, either. I finally tracked down the big bird book. When did you stick that and other works of ornithological reference in the attic, by the way, because I don’t recall so much as a by-your-leave.
Now don’t take this the wrong way. I’m just trying to help. Only I don’t see what harm it could do to know what bird we’re talking about. “Green” isn’t much to go on. I’m sceptical, moreover, that you were sure it was a “he,” but it would narrow it down a bit. Male and female plumage differ, as I know I have pointed out to you in the past.
Main possibilities are these (in order of likelihood acc. season, distribution of species, and population numbers, figs. as calculated by RSPB survey 1988):
Greenfinch
Willow warbler
Wood warbler
Goldcrest
Siskin
I grant you’re the poetry buff but you’d concede I have the edge where ornithology’s concerned.
Do you remember, many’s the time at Overdale Lodge I was first toget the binoculars out? It became a bit of a joke! Mr. Mitchell and his binoculars!
I still maintain that as long as a teacher commands respect then he can take a little friendly standing joke against himself, in fact it shows he’s human.
Education by stealth, we used to say, remember? Give the opportunities to all, and some will partake. Oh, we didn’t expect to convert the kind of town kids we took to Overdale in the space of a week, but many’s the hardened case was interested in learning how to use the binoculars. Many’s the tough nut who was pleased to learn something about the lesser-known native species. Education by stealth.
At least in those days we managed to get them as far as Overdale. All that’s gone and it makes my blood boil. Give the opportunity to all and some will partake, that was a good enough philosophy in our day and it still should be. Horses to water.
Overdale has been on my mind, since looking out photos etc etc from old times. I put one up, where Della’s memorial left a hole in the wall.
Class 3C Aug 1973 it says on the back in your writing. Our fourth year, a year after we got married.
The kids in that picture are nearly fifty now. I wonder who that lanky fellow with all the dark hair and the sideburns was, he looks oddly familiar!? Clue-the one with the binoculars round his neck!!
You don’t look any different.
I was looking for the lilac tree in the garden, thinking of your poem. It’s over by the shed. It’s the white kind, not the lilac lilac. No bird in it of any colour in the middle of the night, but I looked at the blossom for a while. It’s turned brown, as if it’s been under a grill. I do notice some things.
Your touches around this place, I notice them, too. Thank you. You don’t know the difference you make. I never have been much good at telling you, have I? Maybe that’s something that will change.
With affection & gratitude
Arthur
I don’t know what to do about his letters. He writes page after page every night now and leaves them around the place, sometimes whole sheets scrawled on both sides but most often scraps, disjointed bursts of words thrown down and torn off and shed everywhere like fallen leaves. On these clear warm nights I open windows and doors, and in the currents of air and the tread of our feet they drift and mass against skirting boards and in the corners, so we walk the house as if following each other along a festooned path whitened by moonshine and rustling in a night breeze. I pick them up after him and stack them tidily so at least he’ll know I’ve read them.
Things may settle after a while. I won’t leave. I’ll look after him as before, and I’ll go on letting him know I’m here, by quiet observances and little signs: a footfall, a murmur, dishes done, floors swept, and windows opened to the moonlight. I hope it’ll go on being enough. We’ve got it working nicely now.
27 Cardigan Avenue
Dear Ruth
I think the time has come to acknowledge that we’re on something of a different footing now, you and me. A differentplaneyou would say, going for an airy word over a solid one, but footing will do for me, always preferred terra firma, and that being so, let’s be clear about one thing. Which is-in one important way, of course, we’re not on any footing at all.
Because I know the reality of the situation, you only have to go back to my first letter to see that. I would hardly be talking about the flowers at the funeral if I didn’t, would I? By the way, that woman who got me writing the letters in the first place, she’s dropped off the radar, come to think of it. Thank God, one less. Can’t remember her name, doesn’t matter.
Also, I have been to the spot where it happened, some weeks ago now. Seen it with my own eyes. The Great Tony and Mrs. M took me, they doubted the wisdom etc, but I made them. And I made the police show me the photos of the bike. After, not before, I’m talking about. Plus I could hardly have gone through all the church and cemetery rigmarole and come out the other end not knowing the reality of the situation, could I? Strikingly obvious.
But you and I both know that doesn’t alter the other and equally obviously striking fact. Doesn’t mean what’s happening isn’t happening. You have come back.
Things are always happening, whether you know they are or not.
A thing can be true even if you don’t understand it.
I must say, that’s a very “you” remark! Doesn’t sound like me at all. Occurs to me I’ve been making your kind of remark a lot lately, because you weren’t here to say them anymore. Or so the Mrs. M’s of this world would have us believe.
And that’s the point isn’t it, that IS the point. You see? I’m perfectlyau fait with the realities. But at the same time I’m quite au fait with the other reality, ie YOU ARE HERE.
You are here. Even if you aren’t actually saying anything.
I KNOW YOU ARE HERE. I have not taken leave of my senses, despite what Mrs. M and The Great Tony and bloody nurses might say. I am sick and tired of their opinions and interference. Narrow minds.
You may have noticed I’m doing more to protect myself from that kind of thing. I have to. I can’t have all and sundry turning up. Between them they’re capable of pushing a fellow close to the edge. It wouldn’t take much more than what I’m already putting up with to tip a sane person right over.
What they have all proved themselves consistently INCAPABLE of doing is grasping what’s really important. THEY refuse to see certain things, NOT ME!!! Something IS happening in this house and whenever I mention it, they purse their lips and start up again about leg bandages and casseroles and fluid intake and letting visitors in. All diversionary tactics, of course.
I won’t be put off.
Arthur
PS You could always leave me a few words, you know, just so I’ll be CERTAIN. I’m leaving this letter out. You could add a word… that would shut up THEM and any other doubting Thomases, this world is full of them!
27 Cardigan Avenue
Dear Ruth
Well. It didn’t seem so very much to ask. Still doesn’t. Just a word, plus signature would have done. Nurse showed up yesterday, saw her coming up drive, was just in time to hide. But legs more troublesome so I reconsidered and let her in.
It was the English one so no escaping the interrogation. The Pole at least just gets on with legs.
Not feeling very chatty today?
Not feeling like getting dressed today?
I’m not too busy today, would you like a hand getting dressed? Can I help you find some clothes? What did you have for breakfast today? Shall I get you a cup of tea?
Next thing she does amounts to assault. She’s sly about it of course, doesn’t let it LOOK like that.
She’s fiddling away at legs and she says, I just need to move your coat so I can get to the problem area here, oh look your papers they’re about to fall out, can we put these somewhere or maybe you want to hold them-voice dripping saccharine of course-and she GRABS THE PAPERS STICKING OUT OF MY POCKET.
I’m not so frail on the pins I can’t jump up, bandages or no bandages, and I told her where to get off. I told her these weren’t JUST PAPERS they were original writings, PRIVATE LETTERS TO MY LATE WIFE and her ORIGINAL WRITINGS. She missed the point but it was enough to see her off.
Later on:
here’s the POINT.
You’re not my late wife, you’re my wife. And very glad I am about that. Thank you dear, especially for the efforts you’ve been making since what happened to you in April.
I haven’t thought to ask if you get impatient in the same way asbefore, or if all that kind of thing changes after a person isn’t any longer-you know, any longer here in the usual way, present in their earthly body. It seems to me you’re everywhere, and always busy-so the spirit doesn’t seem to need to put their feet up for half an hour with the paper. You see I DO notice things!
With a grateful kiss
Arthur
After his return from the hospital I lost track, somewhat. It was as if I were waking from a dream of my life and realizing that the passing of the years had not been real. Time reeled me back and set me down at a stage that more properly belonged in childhood or adolescence, though I had not experienced then, nor at any period in my life since, what I was now feeling. I think it was adoration, simply.
My life now pivoted on a single fulcrum. Arthur’s appearances and absences and habits were my entire study, all their tiny modifications and variants, the balances and counterbalances governing my every move. A sudden disappearance to the sitting room might mean he wanted me to change his sheets. A discarded sweater would prompt me to open windows. I scrutinized every act for clues that would enable me to preempt his desires, laying out the minutiae for interpretation: salt left on the side of his plate, three not two wet bath towels, a cup of tea left unfinished: what did these tell me? With diligent sycophancy I amassed scraps of data and archived them in my mind in lists of every aversion and predilection.
I began to concern myself again with his weight. Every night by candlelight I laid out his meal in the dining room and on my way back to the kitchen I would swing my hand gently across the wind chime in the hall to let him know it was time to eat. He didn’t always come down very promptly, and he didn’t have much of an appetite. Occasionally I had to sound the wind chime again, rather insistently, but I was determined he should not let his dinner go cold. He was a conservative and fussy eater, even a suspicious one. When he finished what I had given him I was grateful, as if a delicate creature had fed from my hand; if something remained untasted, my displeasure was intense. It called for patience. Gradually I learned his likes and dislikes. He left beetroots right in the middle of the plate along with some potato and a piece of ham that were stained bright pink with them. I concluded that his loathing of beetroot extended to anything that touched it.
I was both watchful and exhilarated, nervy and tearful, and also astonished to find that living in such a state of anxious devotion was quietly satisfying. But I did not want to be satisfied, I did not want to be rewarded. He could never forgive me for what I had done, of course, but the thought that he might allow me to comfort him reduced me to tears, and then I was ashamed at having been moved by the idea of my own gratification. I craved only his permission to enter the circle of his grief and the chance, thereby, to prove it not utterly unyielding, its widening rings not unstoppable.
During the day I stayed up in the attic, sleeping or drowsing, and often brooding about the nurses I could hear downstairs. They had taken to arriving in pairs so that, I had no doubt, one could attend to Arthur while the other snooped around. I resented their unearned and undeserved power to administer to him. I imagined their irreverent hands on his skin and fumed at the squandering of such a privilege; they were ignorant of the value of what they were being allowed to touch.
If I had happened to sleep through until the evening, I could tell as soon as I woke that they had been in the house. From the top of the stairs, the eddying of Arthur’s lately unheeded protests tautened the air; I would follow the wraith of his spent distress wafting from room to room. The wrong doors would be hanging ajar, chairs disarranged. I could also tell at once where in the house Arthur had chosen to lie to recover from their invasions. He didn’t make any noise; I knew his whereabouts from waves of silent keening, as if from someone contemplating his wounds after the aggressor has moved casually on. This was when he would be at his quietest and most elusive. Not until I had got to work and begun to wash the memory of the intrusion out of the place would he be able to stir. Then I would hear him come back to life, creaking along the landing to the bathroom in his slippers, dropping papers, whistling birdcalls above the noise of running taps.
The nurses also kept leaving letters and forms and leaflets to do with evaluations and qualifying for things such as transport and home care. There was no end to it. On most of them they had already done the filling-in except on the line awaiting Arthur’s signature, which they fenced at each side with bright red crosses. Arthur left these out for me, next to his letters, and after I’d read them I tore them up and threw them away, as he clearly intended I should.
27 Cardigan Avenue
Dear Ruth
Was caught going down for drink of juice around 4 pm. Mrs. M hovering at the front and she sees me through the door. She’s got a saucepan in one hand, MAD look on face, frantic bitch. I’d ignore her as usual, only she starts calling out and banging till I fear for the glass, pays no attention when I shout at her to go away. So I open door to shout again and make sure she hears. Doesn’t even look at me, barges past to the kitchen, she’s says she’s got something hot for me and she has to put it down before it burns her hands. Transparent ruse to get in and nosy around.
Anyway once there-oh, transformation, face lights up. Sniffs. Sticks bosoms out, actually wiggles them (sorry you have to hear this dear, but you ought to know the kind of woman she is). Then she says, Well, you ARE full of surprises! I’m impressed!
She says, Obviously you’re getting somebody in! and then, smirky smirky-Naughty of you keeping it dark, I haven’t seen anybody coming or going.
And does she have to remind me-finger wag wag-all I had to do was ask her for a hand, I needn’t have gone to the length of paying someone. I don’t answer, just look in her saucepan.
Brought you some soup, she says.
Some soup. Smells of sausages boiled in grass. I make no comment. Wait for her to leave, but no, hands go on hips and speech coming, I can tell. She just wants to help and Ruth wouldn’t like to see me like this and no good just giving up and just makes you more miserable hiding yourself away etc.
Still, she says, looking round again, she won’t scold anymore, as this is a VERY GOOD START.
I tell her yes, I have got somebody coming in. And I’ve told you that till I’m blue in the face, I add. And I’ve told the nurse, I’ve told all ofthem including the foreign one, what’s her name, something like Clinger but it can’t be that. I’ve been telling you all for weeks somebody’s coming in and none of you listen to a word I say.
SHE’S coming in. RUTH’S coming in.
All I get is her Oh-we’ve-been-here-before face.
Now look, she says. Don’t undo all this good work (waves hand around kitchen like she’d done it herself). Don’t keep on with this silly talk. She moves in close and her voice goes quiet (I think it’s because she thinks you might hear). Arthur, I’m speaking frankly now. You know this is silly, I know this is silly. But these people are trying to help you and they’re getting the idea you’re mentally ill. Arthur, you are your own worst enemy.
Ruth, if her and her ilk won’t listen, why should I care? It’s none of their business. So I tell her that, but does this have desired effect? Oh no, we’re off again.
She wants to get off the silly talk and back to sensible talk. If I won’t tell her who I’ve got coming in, how much, may she ask, am I paying her, my mystery cleaner? She says, probably over the odds, because people have no qualms about asking what they think they’ll get away with, it’s criminal, there are people round here who get away with mur- oh, pardon me, she says. Oh, dear, poor Ruth… I didn’t mean…
Well? Didn’t mean WHAT? Get away with MUR??? HAH!! You tripped yourself up there, Mrs. M!
She says, Well, clearly I’ve caught you at an inconvenient time. I’ll call for the pan tomorrow.
I go to front door and open it.
I’ll say good afternoon then, she says. Good afternoon!
And I’ll say fuck off then, I say. Fuck off!
She pretends not to hear.
I know you heard me, though. You were pretending it wasn’t funny. You were trying not to laugh. You never liked the woman, did you?
Still, you might have left a word. On the letter. I’m going to leave all the letters out so you can’t miss them. Just add. a little note, then we’ll really show her.
Arthur
Later: That window cleaner turns up right outside kitchen window, radio on, blaring. That lump of rag he uses is filthy, how’s that supposed to get anything clean? Looks like he’s wiping the windows with a drowned squirrel.
He’s very cheery. Thinks I’ve forgotten about last time. Shouts at me, am I keeping well? Say nothing, no point wasting words on the likes of him. I walk into conservatory so he gets full view, raincoat plus legs-I point down to my bandages. He says something, makes some gesture I don’t get. So I open the door and tell him to fuck off, too. Leave him in no doubt.
PS Should have stayed in bed, going back there now.
PPS Leave me a sign.