by Edward Docx
Then I turn and I start to swim, the water arcing off my arms and glittering in the light. And I swim a little harder, out past the pontoon. I don’t have a bright-coloured cap. No cap at all. And the passenger ship is coming. Lots of boats passing this way and that. But there’s a way across – maybe – if I time it right. And I’m swimming easy now and everything sparkles and dances in the water – the beauty of the day and the blue sky. And I’m swimming forward, kicking my legs. And I can feel the sun and the rhythm of my breathing. And I’m swimming across the lake. I’m just swimming away. I’m just swimming.
EPILOGUE
My dear Louis,
Writing to you is the easiest and the hardest. I saved it to last.
It’s easiest because you know me the best. And you know how happy I am and how lucky I feel and all the careful consideration and thinking that has gone into this decision. Which is the right thing to do. So definitely don’t feel bad on that score. I know you won’t. Give it a year and you’ll be like all the others we met: it’s a great idea! (BTW: if, in time, you felt able to share our experience as widely with others as they shared with us, then I think that may help lots of people; as with so much these days, Britain seems to be in a strange confusion on the issue . . .)
I want you to know that these last days have been among the happiest in my life – I’m not just saying that. The ferry, the Champagne chateau, the campsite conversations, the cave, taking the chequered flag, our excellent dinner (notwithstanding the deserved denunciations), our midnight walk by the Rhine – and yesterday afternoon eating strudel on the roof-garden looking at the mountains when even R and J stepped at last into reality. (Reality: the hardest thing in the world to deal with.) We’re so lucky to get that time and in this warm late summer sun! Makes me want to believe in God. (Kidding.) But what I said in the van is totally true – I am actually grateful both for the disease and that this way of ending it is available to me. We all die. It’s not really a problem – not at my age – though of course there is such a sadness inside me that the great dream is over. (And it does feel more than ever like a fleeting dream . . .) And yet I believe I am dying in the best possible circumstances. This is the truth, I promise, and you can know it when you feel sad.
But of course I don’t want you to think of just these last few days, Lou. I want you to think of our whole lives together. Think of when you were little. Think of Mum. Think of the fun and laughter and the silliness we had. Think of when we played and ate together and went on trips. The bathtimes. The bedtimes. Swimming in rivers and lakes. All that we have been and done together. All we have said. Whatever moments that have stayed in your mind. If we live on anywhere, it’s in the minds of those we knew and those we loved most of all. So – actually – don’t feel sad. Or not too often!
Yes, keep the best of me from whatever you remember of our lives together and take it with you in your heart on your travels.
I’ve come to believe that a reliable gauge of a person is how much soul they put into their lives – their capacity for offering and responding to the deeper feelings and thoughts and desires. There’s a world of difference between the people who think and feel and enquire; and the people who set themselves against enquiry and thought. The people whose hearts are open and generous and the people whose hearts are closed and calloused. The richer the interior life, the more beautiful the exterior life; attend to one and the other will flourish. Apart from that, Louis, be sure to feast on nature’s great beauty and humanity’s great genius. Treasure your friends, read as much as you can and take the braver choice when there is one.
Your mother taught me two things which I wanted to pass on. (I know she taught you a million more.) The first is to try and see – as she would say – the person behind the behaviour. Those who understand the architecture of how we come to be as we are experience a great liberation and insight. Your mother taught me psychology late in my life and like everything, so much of it is nonsense – but in amidst the rubbish, I found a lot of wisdom and understanding that I wished I’d known when I was a younger man and ‘a prisoner of my own personality’. (Her phrase.) How can you know anything if you don’t know yourself? The second is to be strong. I don’t mean not to lie down in despair from time to time – no, I think secretly all human beings do this in their lives; we all make a mess of things; we all inflict suffering and suffer in return; and the world is brim-full of tragedy, misery and misfortune. I mean be strong in that – even in your bleakest moments – you should believe that you have the resource within you to go past the test, to out-think, to out-feel, to out-last. Strong in that you should know that you will somehow find this resource again even if it’s not obvious how or when. Let no one define you and nothing defeat you. My father and his father were the strongest men I ever met in this way – their resilience and their stamina and their determination. You’ve got all their strength inside you, I promise you that. Without the bad bits, I hope. Or not too many!
Writing to you is the hardest, too, because I love you so very much and without shadow or complication. So I want to thank you for all you have given me, Louis . . . so much, so much. When you were little, a kiss from you was more than all the joy in the world. We had a game, I don’t know if you remember, where I would pick you up and you would take me in your tiny arms and squeeze my face to yours and say daaaa . . . dy. There has been no happiness greater than that for me. It’s what I will be thinking about when I drink the cup we must all drink.
More than this though, Lou, you made me a more noble man and restored a lot of dignity that I felt I had lost. You’ve been the main pleasure and the purpose of my later life. And your company these last years has been my great gladness. Most of all, you have helped to heal the division in our family. Look after your brothers as I have asked them to look after you – but be sure to ignore their advice. I’m half joking.
One more thing – choose your life partner carefully and be sure that you love her – it’s the biggest decision we make and love goes a lot further than anything else we humans have yet discovered when it comes to the crunch, which it always does one way or another. No two human beings who lived together yet avoided the crunch unless they avoided themselves.
I need to sleep despite myself.
So just this: to say you should keep writing your secret book if you can. Even if it takes you another ten years!
And also this: to say at the last that you’re everything that a father could hope for in a son and more. You are my clever, perceptive, beautiful boy with a musical heart and a poet’s soul. You are my spirit’s joy and my heart’s pride. My great companion. And I send you my kisses and wish you always courage and the tempered surety of your father’s love to travel with you wherever you go and however you feel.
I love you, Lou. Always and for ever.
I love you.
Dad.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks are long overdue to the people at the Oxford Motor Neurone Disease Care and Research Centre. The patients who generously took the time to tell me about their experiences with such openness. Professor Kevin Talbot whose expertise and insight was invaluable. And the truly wonderful Rachael Marsden whose compassion and generosity of spirit would surely qualify her for honours if only the world were just. Similarly, I owe an un-payable debt to the people who have shared with me their deeply private experiences of Dignitas, even when my questions were painful; in particular, Lesley, for her dignity and her profound humanity.
In terms of the writing, my thanks to my agent Bill. And to my editors: Kris for his assiduousness and advocacy and Paul for his ticks and Cleaver Square wisdom. Likewise to Lucie and Nicholas and all the brilliant folk at Picador. I am grateful to Rachael and Olivia. And for their thoughts on the early pages – to Leo and Kate. I’m indebted to Mark, my boon companion in the labyrinth. Thanks also to Richard for the various hiding places and for a quarter of a century of enthusiasm and friendship. Thanks and solidarity to those of my long-suffering
siblings who read, listen, revolt – Hec, Goose, Hugs, Bebs, Widge and Chubb. My heartfelt gratitude to Elisa, who probably helped more than anyone else in making this book a reality. And, of course, thanks unending to Emma who is the sine qua non of my every day.
Finally, in remembrance of MH, philosopher-poet and on-the-road friend. I still hear your poem, Matt, just the way you read it – that day in Saint-Siffret.
EDWARD DOCX was born in 1972. His previous novels are The Calligrapher, Self Help and The Devil’s Garden. He lives and works in London.
©EdwardDocx
www.edwarddocx.com
Also by Edward Docx
THE CALLIGRAPHER
SELF HELP
THE DEVIL’S GARDEN
First published 2017 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2017 by Picador
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ISBN 978-1-4472-8177-1
Copyright © Edward Docx 2017
Cover design: Katie Tooke, Picador Art Department
Author photograph: © Charlie Carter
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