The Last Day of January

The very last day of January, and it’s still green outside, once the frost has gone in the mornings. This winter hasn’t been as bad as last year – thank goodness. But it’s getting colder now. He hates it. I have bought him thermal everything, but it’s not enough. It’s part of his brain injury that he feels the cold, but it’s also because he has been in Tucson for the best part of ten years, and their winter is a couple of days where you might need to wear a light jacket. I try to gee him along – I say, “look – the green shoots over there – they will be daffodils. And that’s a winter aconite – isn’t it pretty? It means spring is coming. It’s the most beautiful time to be in Suffolk. You’ll love it. And did you notice how much longer the days are already?” He tries really hard to look excited – he tries hard at everything. I crank the heating up to bikini level and try not to think about how much it’s going to cost.

I’ve got four hours on my own – in theory. Quite often they phone after an hour and ask me to come and pick him up from the day centre because he is agitated, which is their way of saying he is scaring the fuck out of them. So I might not have much time and something needs to be done about Marnie.

I light a cigarette and click through the photos on their website one last time. Will she go for it? The gothic architecture might swing things – it is impressively over the top. I’ve never seen chimneys like that before. And you can see they’ve put a lot of work into the landscaping. There’s a baby grand in the restaurant, and they have a library with intricate wood paneling. The bedrooms are a little bit Barbara Cartland – understandably – because that’s the kind of person they’re catering to, but hopefully we can get past that .

I pick up the phone.

“It’s called a Heritage Well-Being Centre For The Over Fifty-Fives”

She laughs as I hoped she would. I cross my fingers.

“…and Zachy’s mum was there; he said it was like a five star hotel .It has fantastic gothic architecture. You can see on the website…. I’m sending you the link. It’s an early birthday present from us both.”

I can’t afford it – we are living off my mortgage money. We have been ever since he came out of hospital. Someone’s got to do something for Marnie though, and she doesn’t have anyone else. Just us.

“Oh darling you can’t. You shouldn’t. I can’t. It’s very sweet of you, but I can’t”

“Why not? Why can’t you Marnie?”

She must.

Yesterday, her house was like a fridge – a very dirty smelly fridge, but it was her face that worried me most, because she’s never looked like that before – it was as if her bone structure had suddenly given up – collapsed – her skin sunken, grey, like those horrible wax death masks you see in museums. I think she’s going to die. She must go.

“I haven’t got any clean clothes”

“They will do that. It’s all included”

“I don’t feel well enough – dizzy, and so on and so forth”

“Are you still throwing up? “

“Yes, a bit. I’ll be fine though. Really.”

She buys meat and leaves it on the side, in the kitchen – for a week sometimes. It’s awful.

She must go there. She will die if she doesn’t.

“But wouldn’t it be a good place to get better? Nice and warm? You could just go to bed there for five days. Until it gets warmer, and then you can come home. It's going to be minus four tonight."

She pauses for a minute. I hold my breath. She has to go.

“No – really. I can’t now – I don’t feel up to it. I’ll take up your kind offer when I feel better perhaps – so sweet of you though”

There’s no point getting angry. I can’t force her.

“Will you get the doctor to come and see you at least?”

“Oh…. I’m not ill enough for that”

She has put on her fucking pony club voice. Jesus. Now is not the time. She will die. There is only so much I can do. Only so much I can say. I tell her to think about it, and that I’m going to shut my eyes for an hour.

I go upstairs. It’s so wonderful to be alone. I get so little of it nowadays. Momentarily I think it wouldn’t actually be all that bad if she were to just fall asleep one day, one afternoon; a cup of tea (earl grey, bone china – with a saucer) beside her. And then a log would fall out of the grate and she wouldn’t notice – she quite often doesn’t - and then the whole house would go up – Marnie and all her possessions – the first editions, the awards, the paintings – the whole grubby beautiful lot - one big glorious Viking funeral pyre.

When I come down again, I find an email to say she thinks, on reflection, she will take me up on it after all, so I go and get him from the day centre, and then straight onto the cottage to collect her, her laptop, and her Louis Vuitton weekend bag (which doesn’t fasten anymore). She is looking slightly better.

I have paid until Friday, and I just hope the snow doesn’t come, because I’m not sure what we’ll do next.