Come Not When I Am Dead (12 page)

He takes the calm with him, and the
assurance I felt briefly in the room, it disappears under the door after
him.
 
I sit for a while long and
think about all he said and I wonder about that tough side to him, it’s not
something I’d ever thought about before, he’s always so gentle and I imagine
two policemen holding a man up that Frank is pummelling in the belly, rather
too vividly.

I was heat tired
then from the fire and decided to go to bed, I climb the stairs one at a
time.
 
And then I turn and sit on
the sixth step up and face downstairs.
 
My hand holding my mobile and I will ring Charlie.
 
And the silence wraps itself around me
and chills me, prodding me with accusations, throwing unease in my face,
pushing me this way and that.
 
And
then, through the noise of my head I hear footsteps coming down the path and I
think ‘those are Charlie’s footsteps’ and then I think they can’t be because he
wouldn’t just turn up, and then I think how exciting it would be if he did, and
what would I say?
 
And why would he
just turn up after leaving me like that?
 
And I hold my breath and turn my head towards the door, waiting.
 
It opens and it is him.
 
He is standing big and beautiful in my
doorway, slightly sheepish and I think that once I would have thought he
doesn’t deserve me, but now maybe I don’t deserve him.
  
I am sitting on this step, like a
doll, boneless, with beans for a brain, looking lost and forgotten and he sees
me right away and as he comes towards me, his step making no sound, he whispers
“I’m sorry” to me, looking at me.
 
It should be me who says that.
 
And I am a tree, cut all around my trunk by a strimmer, and suddenly all
my leaves fall from all my branches in one moment and I make an ‘uh’ sound, but
no words, and I give him a diluted smile, and it’s not like in the films where
we run in to each other’s arms and kiss passionately, that’s always so
stupid.
 
He is a deep pool in the
still, dimpsy night and I am wandering past and what I need is water and I walk
in, I don’t jump in.
 
He takes a
little while, he is all emotion, he is all senses, he is all everything that is
careful and delicate and hesitant, he doesn’t want to break something that I
feel I may have already broken.
 
He
comes towards me and puts his hands out for mine.
 
I put my hands in his, and he raises me
up and draws me near and kisses my hair with one love kiss as he holds me
close.
 
My nose squishes flat on his
jacket as he hugs me, there is silence and then
 
“where have you been?” just a question,
not a fishwife rant.

I have been wrapped, strapped,
swaddled in beauty, in magnificence.
 
I am so much more than just alive.
 
I am exuding exuberance, beaming from me like a lighthouse.
 
I am bursting with love and sweetness
and just everything that is flamboyantly perfect. Have I told you before that I
am easily pleased?
We sneaked off, Charlie and I, like two thieves in the night and went to a
different river, a river where everything was excitingly new to both of
us.
 
Where shallow looking pools
were so deep they could swallow houses.
 
Where the water looked as if it were flowing fast, but it stayed still,
just moving gently on the surface touched by the breeze and we fished for
Salmon from late afternoon until late at night.
 
It felt like the best holiday
imaginable.
 
And we were timeless
and unhurried, with no demands upon us, no hurrying home to supper, no nervous
checking of phones, no ticking of the clock, clock, clock.
 
So many busy birds above us, schqueaking
to each other, secretively watching us from tangling branches, the burl of a
distant tractor rumbling across fields, the constant hum of creatures too tiny
to care about us.
 
The sun kissing
our bodies, reflections of our own tender love.
 
And high, white, passing clouds, cooling
us, and time just whispered away.
 

We separated when we first got there,
by-passing each other on the banks so as not to disturb each other’s
fishing.
  
I stood in the river
and watched him walk past me, with his concentrating, serious face, his tongue
held between his teeth, merging into the shadows behind him, falling into
silence and melting into sun-filled air and my heart almost burst through my
bones with love for him.
 
And it was
all so utterly beautiful, so fantastically perfect.
 
I was lifted on a cloud, high above us,
floating free and untethered, a buzzard watching for life, for death.
 
And every moment, every passing breeze,
every jumping fish, each bowing blade of grass was something to be treasured.
 
And after an hour or two of humming
songs and changing skies, choosing flies, I heard Charlie’s soft and deep, fluid
voice calling out to me.
 
I am still
as that round rock there with the water draping itself around it, touch me,
love me, feel me,
keep me with you
it
says as it loses it’s grip and flows off and on, lost in time and motion.
 
I am all senses.
 
I am listening for the direction of his voice, but a bull bellows a duotone
from the trees, a lamb cries insecurely from the other bank.
 
And then I have it.
  
I run as fast as my rod and my
waders and wading boots will let me, I am a muddle, a puddle, a rolling,
rambling, inelegant bundle of rubber.
 
Brambles straying across my path, I push through and they don’t cut
me.
 
Fallen branches trip me up but
I don’t fall.
 
My rod tip caught in
trees and magically easing out, a knife cutting a cake.
 
Uneven ground all conspiring to keep me
back, slow me down.
 
And there, in a
silvery haze of sunshine he stood.
 
Like a hero from a story book, bringing in his first Salmon.
 
I can’t really tell you how exciting
that is.
 
You catch your breath,
there is no breath, there is no life other than at the end of your line. You
are all seeing, all hearing, all feeling, every bit of your body working
together.
 
And you may not be aware,
but your concentration is immense, intense.
 
 
And the fish leaps and jumps, it pulls
and tosses itself furiously around and you ease it in, let it out, ease it in,
keeping that connection, your lives tied together by this thin, invisible
nylon.
 
And don’t let it tire, but
bring it in through butter, through rolls and rolls of oil and silken soft
water, through deep sighs and closed eyes and fond goodbyes.
 
And I just stood there surrounded by
burly thistles muscling, bombarding their way up to the skies and watched
him.
 
I am intoxicated by the sweet smell
of clover.
 
Silent I am.
 
Dear he is.
 
Big and strong and beautiful.
 
His darling face spread with an
unutterably happy smile and his little black eyes, deep, deep, deep as the
river, soul of love, pulling in that fish.
 
And then, there it lay, in all it’s finery, in his net.
 
Flop, plop, slop, curled up and
motionless, sated it looked “It’s this big”
“No, it’s bigger”
“It’s magnificent”
“It’s fantastic.”
 
And we are both
excited and admiring together, with each other in this utterly beautiful
moment.
 
Side by side, with my arm
around his middle.
 
I wish it could
always be like this.
 
And his fish,
strong and silver and shining in his net and then he let it go and off it
twirled, off it curled, a streak of silver and treasure, untold-of wealth.
 
And then it is gone.
 
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5 once I caught a fish
alive.
 
6, 7, 8, 9, 10 then I let it
go again.
 
Why did you let it go?”
“Because it’s not the 15
^th
of June.”
 
And I hug him again and hold him, my
fingers sinking through his jersey to his body and all the goodness from me
goes to him, I am electricity.
 
All
my excitement goes into him.
 
There
is no thin, invisible nylon going from him to me, there is a thick, thick cord
which nothing can break.
 
We are
gasps and triumph, we are exuberance and perfect, unknown, amazing
happiness.
 
We are together.
 
I would that this would last for ever.

And then
later on when all is dark around us, dirty grey, blackberry light around us and
we are stone.
 
We do not move.
 
We make no sound.
 
We are not seen, or heard or smelt or
felt.
 
And yet we are alert, vital,
our whole bodies filled with jumping senses and nerve endings, silver and
electric.
 
We breathe out our
busyness, we breathe in animal trepidation and inhuman quiet.
  
We are hidden by trees and down
wind of the otters that we’re watching, Charlie and I, lying on the grass which
makes no sound under our bodies.
 
We
are as unseen as sodden moss and wet rocks.
 
And like a flicker of light from the
moon behind trees, my finger strokes down his cheek a silent message of love.

Our
clothes, like our skin, are soft and silken, colours of the grass, of shadows
and moonlit reflections on the water, and quiet as a fox’s breath.
 
We are caressed by lichen.
 
And all we hear above the gushing,
frooshing, rushing of the river is a deer coming down the wood behind us,
tripping lightly, delicately, hesitantly on crisp leaves, layer upon layer of
brown and gold and moistureless leaf litter, twigs and branches.
 
She steps into my head, but I don’t turn
to look at her.
 
And now the otter
turning over a stone, clack, crack, turn back, to see what he can find beneath
and then he is gone, a sinuous, curving, shadow-black, athletic being, sliding
through the shallow waters and diving, fwoosh, in to the deeper, and all at
once, he is treasured memories.

There
are two tawny owls hooting their way through the silent skies now, calling to
each other for reassurance.
 
A barn
owl screams now from behind us, her voice sharp wire and a trout jumps high,
exuberant and flamboyant up from the river and skims himself, like a stone
across the surface, and touches the water three times in his journey to the
other side.
 
It is a foolhardy thing
to do when there are otters out hunting, but he is blissfully, foolishly
unaware.
 
We watch them and then are
filled throughout our whole bodies with rich, and unsullied delight.

We went into the hut when we were
cold, to a bed we’d made up of duvets and blankets and we made love.
 
I sat astride him, and looked down at
his beautiful face.
 
I can not
believe how beautiful he is.
 
How
utterly, utterly perfect he is and he filled me with such desire and such love
and such excitement and, himself.
 
And then we slept, all night, him by
my side, breathing into my face, feeling him alive and warm and mine.
 
I love him.
 
I do love him.
 
I love him.

It was a fine thing to wake up on the
floor, in the hut, in our blankets, together, the door not closed and the
splashes of little fish in the river below.
 
And then we made love again.
 
And then by 7am we were back in the
river.
 
You know how some people
feel when they walk into a beautiful church?
 
The solemnity and the sanctity of
it?
 
That’s how I felt then.
 
The day was so still, so beautiful, so
perfect.
 
I was filled with awe
through every little bit of me.
 
I
was filled with silent and respectful adoration.
 
I’ve never felt like that before.
 
Beyond anything else I was utterly swept
up by the magnificence of the scene.
 
I felt my insides leave me, go up and up and up and embrace it all,
swirl around until everything was mixed up together and just the same and then
come hastily back down to me and fit into place once more and leave me feeling
more whole than ever before.
 
The
river was so clear and I could see every stone around me.
 
The sun shone on me in respectful
kindness, and just the slightest breeze to cool my brow.
 
I moved so quietly, so carefully, so
stealthily.
 
I didn’t want to upset
the balance of this perfection.
 
I
didn’t want to muddy the water, or cast waves with clumsy feet or splashes and
my line landed with quiet and silken tenderness, part of me.
 
Part of something greater than me.
 
I really have never felt like this
before, and all of this I shared with Charlie.
 
It was more than perfect.
 
“We are very similar in lots of ways
aren’t we?”
“yes, we are”
“essentially, we are very similar.
 
We love the same things, the important things.
 
I’ve never met anyone else who is like
me, in any way at all, but you are, I love that Charlie.”
“We are very similar” he says as he takes my hand “and it’s very lovely, and so
are you” and his smile is a thousand kisses.

‘As I went a
walking, one morning in May, I spied a young couple a making of hay.
 
Oh one was a fair maid her beauty shone
clear.
 
The other, a soldier, a bold
grenadier.
 
“Good morning, good
morning, good morning” said he “Oh, where are you going my pretty lady?”
“I am going a walking by the clear crystal stream, to see cool water glide and
hear nightingales sing.
 
Oh soldier,
oh soldier will you marry me?”
“Oh no my sweet lady, that never can be.
 
For I’ve got a wife at home in my own country, two wives and the army’s
too many for me.”