The Night Following (27 page)

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 baseboards 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 different
plane
you 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 perfectly au 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 as before, 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 beets 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 beets extended to anything that touched them.

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 of them 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.