The Night Following

by Morag Joss

  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 looked terrified, 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 for thinking. 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 to get 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 four
th 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 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 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.