Iarrived at the house the next night and went straight in. The kitchen was messy again so I began my routine clear-up, noting chocolate biscuit wrappings and a couple of empty custard cartons; I remember thinking I would have to address the matter of his diet. But I didn’t notice anything odd. Although I was quiet I was careless, revelling in the ease and naturalness of my new arrangements. I felt sure that wherever Arthur was in the house, he knew I had arrived. I loved the silence and distance of his company. I was looking forward to my next task; I planned to go upstairs and tackle the rooms there, knowing I might hear a murmur in the dark, catch a glimpse of his back through a doorway or feel the warmth of his breath at a spot where he had lingered for a moment. So the first thing I did was put on the kettle to make him some tea and then I began to go through the clean linen, sorting it into piles for the airing cupboard that I expected would be on the landing or in the upstairs bathroom. What was it that penetrated my optimistic mood? I didn’t hear a sound. But suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I knew something was wrong.
I found him on the hall floor surrounded by the papers he must have dropped when he tripped on the stairs. He had dragged himself to the wall and lay propped against it, his head back and eyes closed. I must have cried out. I heard him groan in reply, so at least then I knew he was alive. There were no obvious signs of injury, but how could I tell how badly he was hurt? I couldn’t tell if he had fallen from the top of the stairs or slipped on the last tread. Worst of all, how long had he been lying there? Should I give him water? Ask him to move his limbs, wiggle his toes and fingers? It was fourteen hours since I had left the house. Even in my consternation for him I was swamped with shame at my own negligence.
I crouched down and took his hand, and whispered, “Arthur, I’m here now. I’m so sorry. Don’t worry, Arthur. You’re going to be all right.” My voice was remarkably calm. “Don’t worry, dear,” I said, stroking his head. “Stay calm. I’m going to get help.”
He didn’t open his eyes but he groaned again and raised a hand to my arm and patted it gently as if, whatever the effort, it were important to him that I should be reassured.
I got to my feet and dialled from the telephone in the hall. My voice began to shake, but after I had asked for an ambulance and given his name and address, I managed to give all the other information I was asked: was he conscious, was he having difficulty breathing, had he vomited, could he move unaided. Was anyone else there?
“No. There’s just the two of us.”
“Right. Can I take your name, please?”
“Yes, please. I need your name to log the call and activate an ambulance request. Can you give me your name?”
“
“Are you all right, dear?”
“It’s Ruth. Ruth Mitchell.”
“OK, thank you, Ruth. Are you a relative? Ruth, are you Arthur’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“All right, Ruth, thank you. Ruth, your request for an ambulance is now in the system, and the ambulance should be with you within seven minutes. All right? You’re able to stay with Arthur until then, are you, Ruth?”
“Of course.”
I got some blankets and pillows and tried to make him more comfortable. Still he didn’t open his eyes. I opened the front door a little and then I sat down close to him, holding his hand, and waited. I heard the siren long before I saw the lights.
“Arthur, they’re here now,” I told him gently. “I can’t stay, dear. You know why. They wouldn’t understand, would they?”
He squeezed my hand. I kissed his forehead and left.
I made it with only a moment to spare, out through the conservatory and into the shed. I watched the sky above the roof of the house flicker with pale blue flashes but of course I couldn’t see what was happening inside. I sensed some commotion but I prayed they wouldn’t waste time trying to find the person who had called for the ambulance when the important thing was to get him to hospital. After a while the siren started up again. The lights bobbed and moved and then disappeared. As the wailing faded to silence, a stout woman appeared in the kitchen; it was the neighbour, I supposed, alerted by the ambulance. I could imagine her waving Arthur off and telling the paramedics that she would lock up the house. She began searching through the cupboards. After a few minutes she brought out the enamelled casserole dish that I’d scrubbed clean, put it under her arm, and left, leaving the house dark.
I let myself back in and stood quite still for while, shocked. In the space of a few minutes he had been taken from me. All I had wanted, entering the house half an hour ago, was to take care of him. I had been folding his clothes, thinking about what to do about his weight, wondering what he liked to eat, and picturing nourishing little suppers laid out for him in the dining room, but this seemed now to be over-weeningly ambitious and vain of me. From now on I would have to be much more protective. I would get him out of hospital somehow, and after that I would never leave his side. I had been slow-minded not to realize that this must have been what I meant when I had told Jeremy I was planning to be away for a long time.
I had been slow-minded, too, in failing to see that I was repeating my old mistake, concentrating again on the wrong things and allowing my attention to drift away from where it most properly should have been turned. All the time I had been fretting about his weight I had forgotten how unsteady he was on his feet; what notice had I taken of that, what safeguarding instinct had alerted me to the danger of a fall?
Would I never learn, was there to be no end to this accretion of guilt and the amassing of secrets I had to keep? A meaningless spillage of fruit and eggs on a bright day had blinded me to the presence of a living woman. Putting my faith in miracles and magic, I had let my uncle walk through the snow to his death. In the same hour that I had been concocting a ridiculously Gothic explanation for the torments of my mother’s life, my grandmother’s had slipped away.
It was in a biology lesson on the tapeworm when I was twelve that I saw for the first time the point of school. I was aghast to learn of the peril I was in. We were told how the tapeworm’s eggs lurked on dogs and cats and how a single lick from a pet (already less fluffy and harmless, already a little less beloved) might be all it took. One touch of a finger on the lips could do it. Disgust made monuments of us. We sat like stones while The Life Cycle of The Parasite spilled from Miss Lawson’s mouth and reeled through our heads like a horror film. Once the eggs were in you, you’d had it. This worm went to work in your gut, gobbling up whatever you put in your stomach. Its
