I took two plates into the living room and set one down next to him. He didn’t even look at the food, just continued staring into space, as if his outburst had never happened.
I tried not to panic: it was relatively new and he’d been through a lot. How trivial that sounded – he’d nearly died and he was a long way from recovering – even all the doctors still failed to agree on how full that recovery would be.
I couldn’t stand the silence. Eventually, I turned on the TV, something I rarely did when I was by myself. I had to change channel several times before I found something that didn’t have news programs or anything to do with Afghanistan. We ended up watching something about meerkats in Africa: very educational – neither of us heard more than half a dozen words, and Sebastian didn’t touch his food.
“Do you have any beer?”
“Oh, no, sorry,” I stuttered. “I could open some wine?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’ll do.”
I opened a bottle Chianti and watched him drink three glasses, one after the other. He would have finished the bottle if I hadn’t taken it into the kitchen.
“Caro, what are you doing with the fucking wine?”
No. I wasn’t having this. He wasn’t going to drown his sorrows in a bottle.
“You haven’t eaten anything, and you have to take your pain killers, Sebastian. So, no, the wine stays in the kitchen.”
He exploded. Swearing at me, shouting and yelling. Who the fuck did I think I was? Who was I to tell him how to live his life? And on and on.
I hoped that when he’d finished, he’d have got some of the poison out of him, but he soon reverted to the cold silence that hurt the most.
By about 9 pm, his face was gray with tiredness.
“Should I show you where the bedroom is?”
“It’s a fucking bungalow, Caro,” he said, “how fucking difficult do you think it’s going to be? I’m not a fucking moron, even if I am a cripple.”
“Sebastian…”
But he didn’t want to listen. He pulled himself off the couch, gasping as pain lanced through him, and he clenched his teeth.
After a false start, where he crashed into the spare room, he found his way to the bedroom. I gave him a few minutes, then followed. He was lying on his good side, facing away from my side of the bed.
I brushed my teeth and slipped in next to him, carefully curling my body into his and enjoying the moment when my arm rested across his waist, feeling his bare skin again after nearly three months.
He shifted minutely.
“Don’t,” he said.
I pulled my hand back as if stung.
He didn’t want me to touch him? He didn’t want me to touch him.
I’d learned during my first marriage that it is possible to cry without making a sound; I didn’t think Sebastian would take me back to those years. And that was more painful than anything. I lay next to him as the tears slipped silently down my cheeks.
Over the next few days, things got worse. He had no interest in anything: I had to nag to get him to shower or change his clothes, and he refused point blank to shave, so his beautiful face was covered in a light-brown stubble that was unfamiliar and unwelcome.
He ate little, preferring instead to work his way through my small collection of wine, and cut off any attempt of mine to stop him.
He barely spoke to me. His usual responses included shouting and yelling, or just ignoring me. He didn’t read, he didn’t watch TV: he didn’t do anything except drink.
My friends wanted to come and visit. Tentatively, I suggested it to him, thinking he might be persuaded into making an effort for them, if not for me.
“Yeah, they want to come see the fucking war cripple,” he sneered, “make them feel good, like fucking charity. What’s the matter with you, Caro? Do I look like I’m ready to see anyone?”
“Sebastian, they’re my friends. They want to meet you, and they want to see me. You don’t have to put on a performance for them.” Even though that was exactly what I’d hoped.
He shrugged, and said that if they came, he’d stay in the bedroom.