‘Eighty-nine. It’s a good age. And you were still you, right up to the end, weren’t you? No forgetting or confusion or pain. That’s as much as you can hope for, I think.’
I wonder, for a moment, whether he’s watching me. Whether he’s looking down, laughing at me talking to his empty shell of a body. Whether he’s with Bill, or his parents, or mine. And that’s what jolts me into action. I finish my tea and I force myself to put my warm hand on his cold one. It’s a shock even though I know what to expect. It doesn’t feel like him.
The first time he held my hand, we were dancing. Bill and Dot had taken to the floor and Arthur had looked at me a little shyly and tilted his head to ask, and I’d nodded, stepped towards him. We were clumsy together, no grace. But I remember the warmth of his hand, and the size of it, how my hand almost got lost in it, how he smelled clean and like comfort, and I remember feeling safe and protected. Now, in this bed we’ve shared for years, he is not himself. He is gone. His body, which carried him for almost nine decades, is useless and empty.
‘Oh, Arthur,’ I say, my voice catching.
And then I go downstairs and telephone the doctor, because I don’t know what else to do, who else to call. The receptionist says she’ll sort out the forms and send a doctor to certify the death, and tells me that once that’s done I should call a funeral director to ask them to move the body, and I thank her, but then once I’ve put the telephone down I find that I’m sobbing, great gulping sobs that keep coming and coming, likes waves. Because now it’s really true, and they will come and take him away, and what will I do then? Who will I be, without him?
The doctor’s visit is quick and sombre. It’s a doctor I’ve never seen. They’re always changing. When he leaves, he says how sorry he is and I nod an acknowledgement, not sure my voice will hold. Then I fetch the iPad to look up funeral homes in Broughton. There are two, and I call the first one. The man I speak to has a kind voice, and he says they can come for him in an hour’s time. Is that enough? I don’t know what to say because I want him gone and I want him here at the same time. I can’t bear the thought of that body that isn’t him being upstairs in the bed for any longer than necessary, but I’m not ready to be someone who lives alone. A widow. I sigh and say an hour is fine, and then I go back upstairs to tell him.
‘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.’