‘Someone’s coming to get you, Arthur,’ I say, sitting on the edge of the bed and touching his hand again. I didn’t touch him enough. He said that, sometimes, in the early years. That I wasn’t very affectionate. But we’re all different, aren’t we? And it isn’t always easy to change. He hasn’t said it for a long time.
I catch a slightly stale smell and go to open a window wide. The wind catches the curtain and drags the edge of it outside. I don’t pull it back in.
I look at the cold cup of tea I made for him on the bedside table. Couldn’t bring myself to just make the one. I think of all the tea we’ve drunk, how he’d always say that I made the perfect cup, just how he liked it, though I never did anything special. He was grateful, appreciative. Not just about that but about anything I did for him. About me agreeing to be his, I think.
A memory creeps in. I watch it like a film playing behind my eyelids. We were in our thirties, and he still looked hopeful and fresh. We were in the kitchen of our first house, cooking together. Him chopping leeks and onions with a sharp knife, me peeling potatoes. The radio was on, playing one love song after another. A breeze snaked through the open window. He put his knife down and washed his hands before wiping his eyes.
‘Onions got you?’ I asked.
He nodded. Came over to stand behind me, circled my waist with his hands. And then his hot breath was on my neck and he was kissing me, trying to turn my body to face his. Did it just come over him, this sudden lust? I let him turn me, let him kiss my lips and my neck. He reached for the front of my dress, started undoing the buttons.
‘Not here,’ I said, clumsily trying to do them back up.
He was faster than me, more nimble. ‘Here,’ he said, and his voice was urgent, and I almost laughed.
His hands were everywhere, roaming, and all I could think about was the potatoes, lying there behind me, half peeled. Arthur pressed his erection against me and groaned, low in my ear. I wanted him to stop, but I didn’t say, not at first. ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ came on, and it was the first time I’d heard the Beatles, and it felt like a change was coming. Or does it just feel that way now, looking back? I almost tumble out of the memory, then, but not quite. Arthur lifted me and carried me through to the front room where he laid me on the sofa before yanking the curtains closed.
I was naked before I found my voice. ‘Stop,’ I said.
He pulled back, looked at me with eyes that were glazed. ‘What is it?’
I felt silly, cold. I reached for my dress on the floor and covered myself with it.
‘I just… I’m not in the mood,’ I said.
He kept looking at me, as if he was trying to work something out, and then he pulled his trousers up and disappeared upstairs without a word. When he came down, I was dressed and back in the kitchen, the potatoes peeled and chopped. I hoped he wouldn’t bring it up.
‘You can’t just push me away all the time,’ he said.
‘No,’ I agreed.
He was right, I couldn’t. And yet.
‘I love you, Mabel. You’re my wife. I want to make love to you.’
‘I know. I…’
What? What is there to say?
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
I looked at him, and there was a muscle twitching near his jaw. For one awful second, I thought he might hit me, and then I came back to myself and remembered that he was Arthur, and he would never.
I think about the words I’ve wanted to say to him every day we’ve spent together. Perhaps his death has dislodged them, but no. They’re still stuck. I would say them to him now, if I could. It would be better than nothing.
‘I love you,’ I say.
It’s a funny kind of truth. I didn’t love him, at first, but I grew to. Not passionate love, not the kind of love people talk about dying for, more a love built brick by brick. A love made of appreciation, and shared grief, and kindness. He was a good man. Such a good man.
When the doorbell goes, it feels too soon. I tell him where I’m going, that I’ll be back but I’ll have them with me, and they’re going to take him. I know he isn’t there but I can’t help giving him a running commentary, all the same. I speak to him as if he’s a child. As I would have spoken to a child.
‘I’m here, Arthur,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t forget.’
Two men, both in their thirties, I’d say. They introduce themselves as Steve and Mark. One tall and slim, one short and stocky, like a comedy double act. They are polite, respectful. They tell me how sorry they are. This is their job, and they do it well. But I can’t imagine why anyone would choose it. How it would come up on anyone’s list of desired occupations. Perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s more the kind of job you find yourself in, that you fall into.
I busy myself, making them tea though they tell me not to worry. I find some Hobnobs in the cupboard. When they are ready to take him, they ask if I’d like to say goodbye, and stay downstairs to drink the tea to give me a bit of privacy.
Climbing the stairs feels like a gargantuan effort, but I haul myself up. Go back into the room. Will I ever walk in here without thinking of his body lying here? Will I ever just think of it as our bedroom – or my bedroom – again? I don’t want to move house, but I don’t want to be haunted by this memory either.
‘It’s time,’ I say. ‘They’re going to take care of you. You’d like them. They’re smartly dressed and clean shaven.’
It all feels too quick, after the slow eking out of the years we’ve lived together. To be saying goodbye, like this, when just yesterday we were shopping for fruit. In the kitchen, in the fruit bowl, there’s a mango that will never be eaten. I will let it sit there, and rot, and then I’ll throw it away. Will we have buried him, by then? Will I be coping? I lean down, kiss his forehead.
‘They were good days,’ I whisper, echoing our last conversation. ‘So many good days.’
I go back down and tell them I’m ready, and I stay at the back of the house, in the kitchen, while they carry him out. One of them has taken a Hobnob and there are a few crumbs on the side, so I get a cloth and wipe it down. There are things to do, and they leave me with a little folder with various forms and leaflets in it, but I can’t think about that yet. I can only think two things, two separate thoughts, one and then the other, then back to the first.
I should never have married him.
I am on my own.
4
It is quiet after they’ve gone, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel jumpy, unable to sit down. Is that adrenaline? I open his drawers, look at his underpants and socks, neatly paired. See him standing here, right where I am, choosing socks from the drawer and resting his right hand on the chest while he pulls on the left one, before switching over. How is it possible that I’ll never see him do that again?
I’m still in my nightdress and slippers, and I’m tempted to slip back beneath the covers but part of me is frightened of getting into the bed where he died. I don’t believe in curses or ghosts or anything of that nature, but the thought of lying where he died makes me shiver, so I go through to the spare room, the room we made nice for the guests who never really came after it was clear there would be no nursery. But no. That isn’t right either. I take a deep breath and return to our bedroom, stand at the end of the bed. Shortly after we got married, we had a conversation about the ‘what’s mine is yours’ part of the vows. Arthur said he wanted us to share everything, that he didn’t want us to have anything that was just his or mine. I said that was silly, that there were always going to be things we each had, and when he asked me for an example, I said sides of the bed.