Morag Joss - The Night Following

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 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.