Come Not When I Am Dead (30 page)

I have found a very magical place,
under a Beech tree where the leaves are whirling and whirling above me and
sound like so many sinusy mammals.
 
The horizon before me is unbroken.

Before I sat down at the base of this
tree there was a squirrel on a dead and fallen branch playing look-out with his
orange head on his grey body, still as stone, staring at me.
 
I pretended to be looking at the 12
pheasants just beyond him, or the hare just beyond the pheasants so he wouldn’t
scamper off.
 
This is a magical
place, anything could happen here.

I hear the tiniest noise now to my
left, the tiniest creature that I can’t see muscling through the dead and
fallen leaves.
 
And now my squirrel
is back, to my right, and next to him, a sparrow.
 
My feet rest between dead nettle stalks,
headless and threadless and painless now, they tower amongst dead swirling
grass and empty sexless Beech-nut shells worn and used and pointing downwards
in their impotence.
 
Rocks show
their backs slowly and proudly through the crisp brown leaves and to my left
something is coming towards me, I turn my head towards the noise and it is
gone.
 
My tummy growls now in
triumph as I am King on my Beech roots and the sun lowers to my right, pinking
the sky and “what have I done?
 
What
have I done?” cry two birds, unfamiliar black objects flying high up past me.

I see the moon now, slinking it’s way
out from behind peach-coloured clouds.
 
And so many starlings, flish, flish, flish before it.
 
The grass on the horizon is becoming
blacker and the grass nearer me is Cyprus green and the soil, the colours of a
duck’s back, brown, black and blush and beige.
 
My tummy howling now and out of nowhere
yowls a motorbike.
 
A motorbike
haunting a dead road.

My bottom bones are uncomfortable on
my hard throne, my back aches against this ridged bark, and with my belly heavy
I move out to the grass and lie down on my back.
 
Two sparrows scream at me and another
joins them now and the black branches of the Beech above me tangle up in
confusion and they mislead me, tangling up to the sky, goodbye, goodbye.
 
I see no one here, I will see no one
here, I want to see no one here and the birds are coming back to me and the
pheasants are creeping out once more from the hedge line.
 
I am no threat.

The turned up soil I came across to
get here is littered with flint, broken, smashed-up bones they look like, but
the grass is fat and fertile.
 
A
tiny beech leaf has fallen on to this white, white, pure white page, I touch it
and it is softer than I thought it would be, too soon to begin it’s slow
journey to death.

I lie here on this uneven ground, on
this soil and close my heavy eyes and all this magnificence I let inside.
 
And when I wake up my hair is tangled
and tangled and wrapped around my head.
 
It is getting dark and the still night touches me right through.
 
I will be quiet.
 
I will make no sound.
 
And it is so cool here now, this night is
so touchingly cool, so fragrantly chill.
 
And I stand up and a million particles of soil fall to the ground.
 
The fields to my right are balancing
mist.
 
A white, grey, hazy heaviness
leaning down on them, feet from below pushing the top bunk up.
 
A nettle bounces up from where I must
have lain and stings my right knee and I bend down to rub it and then rub my
hands in the wet grass, sway them this way and that until they are totally
covered in the purest damp.
 
I am so
in love with this.
I stand still until the chill raises my hackles and ruffles my feathers and
then I head home, to my little house.
 
To warm rooms and mess and my kittens all waiting for me in soft and
golden light.
 
And then it comes
back to me…

‘
Do you remember
brother, that stainless morning
And how we went, hand in hand to the curling sea?
The long, slow curl of the over-curving rollers
The shining pause before the white surf broke free.

Do
you remember brother, we left her lying
Out of the way of the wind in a grassy dell
Far we followed the wayward butterflies flicker
While she gathered the frail dark poppies she loved so well.
’

The End.

When I got home I went up to my room
and lay on my bed.
 
I stared up at
the ceiling.
 
And then Coningsby
came in to the room crying.
 
There’s
something the matter with her, she’s sitting on the bed now looking just ‘not
right’.
 
I can’t work out what it
is.
 
She’s been snotty on and off for
ages now, but she had her two-monthly jabs last week and now she’s still
snotty, but it doesn’t seem to bother her.
 
She sat on my lap for ages, it was
beautiful, but she never does that.
 
“Coningsby will you be OK?
 
Will I be OK?
 
What’s going
on darling?
 
I sat her on my bed to
study her and she hasn’t moved.
 
She
looks very tired and I thought a minute ago that she was going to fall over
sideways, but she didn’t.
 
I’ve
tried Charlie again on his mobile, but no answer, I just wanted to say “she’s
not going to die is she?
 
She’ll
never die will she?”
 
I want him to
feel my need.
 
I just need
reassurance, because there’s something wrong here.
 
I know she’s almost 18, but she’ll go on
forever.
 
And my head hurts now with
worry.

I saw Charlie’s partner Andrew, who
took her temperature (which was normal), felt her all over and she felt normal,
weighed her and she’d only lost a little weight, then he suggested we did blood
tests.
 
He said it would only be 20
minutes to wait.
 
So Coningsby and I
went outside to wait, and it started raining, it was lovely, heavy, heavy,
rolling, bubbling, vrooshing thunder that came first.
 
Nearer and nearer.
 
It was exciting.
 
We stood outside, Coningsby and I, she
in her basket in my arms, both of us against my car and we watched the
downpour, felt it all over, whilst the street cleared of people.
 
I love anti social weather with an all-consuming
passion.
 
I love weather that means something.
 
“I love you Coningsby” I breathe in to
her flank.
 
And then Andrew called
us back in after 20 minutes and told me it’s her kidneys.
 
And suddenly the thunder came from
within and the heavy downpour from my eyes, and my head was shaking like a
mechanical donkey, “what do you mean?
 
Is that bad?” and I knew it was.
 
He told me that he was very concerned
about her sudden weakness and her relevant blood levels were very high, that
she must be pumped full of fluids.
 
“What do you mean?”
“We’d like to put her on a drip for 24 hours to flush the kidneys out.”
“No, I don’t want that, she’d hate it, it would be horrible, I’ll give her
fluids.”
 
And he didn’t say ‘it
doesn’t look good for her’ but I could tell he was thinking that, and I cried
and cried and I am crying still.
 

I took her home, on my own and every
hour I gave her 15ml of water.
 
I
syringed it into her mouth and she didn’t mind.
 
And then, during the night, she jumped
off my bed and she went to the water bowls and drank of her own accord.
 
She hasn’t been eating either for a day
or so, but she didn’t want any food.
 
She wet the bed, which has never happened before, but at least it means
she’s getting lots of fluids.
 
The
next morning I called Andrew and told him what I’d done.

When she went missing for 6 months,
15 years ago, I prayed to God ‘if you bring her back to me, I’ll pray my thanks
to you every night for the rest of my life’ I said.
 
And she did come back and so I did pray,
every single night, for 15 years so far and part of my prayer is ‘thank you for
letting us be together again, and thank you for letting her die of old age,
when she’s in the house, next to me, sleeping peacefully in her basket, let her
die peacefully, painlessly and happily’.

“What would happen” I ask Andrew “if
you took her in?” and he told me that she’d be on a drip and that might revive
her a little and then what would happen would be that they would have to change
her diet to a low protein diet and she’d be on a lot of medication.
 
“You’re doing the right thing” he said
“I would do just the same.
 
We have
to suggest fluids, but Gussie, she’s too old to fight it now and if she came in
here, she’d hate it, cats do, being cramped in a cage.
 
And if she did survive this, then just
the changing of her diet would probably kill her at this age.
 
And then she’d be on medication, it
wouldn’t make her better, just maintain her condition, maybe for days or weeks,
but she
will
die from this.
 
Some owners bring their pets in every
few weeks to be put on fluids, it’s not fair for them.
 
You’re doing the right then, but the
next thing to think about is her going, you don’t want her to suffer, and it
can be very painful at the end if they go into convulsions.”

That night Coningsby and I slept
together in the small bedroom, with the door shut, I never shut doors.
 
Coningsby didn’t sleep much, she walked
around and around the room, all around the outsides, and then she stayed facing
the corner for I don’t know how long.
 
She drank again and I still syringed water in to her mouth.
 
She is getting weaker.
 
I am with her all the time.
 
I put her on my lap and she likes that,
she looks up at me and she knows I’m there and she wants to be with me.
 
Occasionally she stands up and she
cries.
 

It is Saturday and I’m sitting out in
the garden with Coningsby, who I know is dying.
 
It’s horribly, horribly hot, but we’re
sitting in the shade.
 
I’m sitting
on the grass and Coningsby is in her basket.
 
She looks tired, looks like she’s given
up, but she’s still Coningsby.
 
She
is the greatest friend that I’ve ever had.
 
The greatest connection I’ve ever had.
 
If she dies I’ll be all that’s left.
 
I think she’s suffering now and I’m
taking her to see the homeopathic vet at 12.30 for her to be put to sleep.
 
She always looks after me and I always
look after her.
 
She’s trying to
cry, but sound won’t come out.
 
I
love her so much.
 
“I love you so
much” Joseph says to me
“I love you too.”
 

“Playing God is all very well, when
there is no choice, but she’s not quite ready and neither are you.
 
There’s nothing wrong with her going
quietly in her sleep” the vet said and I came away.
 
We will go out tonight, me and my girl,
we’ll go and spend a night out together.
 

Coningsby loves getting in her cat
basket.
 
As soon as she sees it, she
jumps in.
 
If I ever have to take
any of the other cats to the vets, she always gets in the basket too to make
sure they’re OK.
  
She has no
fear and she looks after everyone.
 
When I would go shopping for food, I’d come home and unload the shopping
and just throw the empty bags on the floor.
 
And then I would see that Coningsby
would be snuggled up in one of them.
 
I would pick her up in the bag, hold the handles and take her out down
the track, in to the woods and her little face would peer out from the top of
the bag, she loved it.
 
It’s making
me smile now.
 
Don’t leave me on my
own.

It is Saturday evening, I’m on the
step of the fishing hut with Coningsby on my lap in her open wicker basket,
she’s looking at the grass, looking at the river.
 
I’m writing this, smoking a cigar,
keeping my eye constantly on her and holding her with a hand every now and
then.
 
She is my darling and she’s
going to die, and I still don’t really believe it because she’s immortal.
 
She is padding from foot to foot
occasionally, her tiny little velvet feet.
 
Her beautiful fur is rich cream, the very richest from the top of the
milk and her ears are lavender mouse.
 
She is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
 
I think of how much I love her and it’s
a huge hot ball, hurtling through my body, taking up every single bit of
space.
 
I think of her dying –
but I can’t.
 
I think of missing her
and every bit of me turns to biscuit and I crumble and vanish.
 
I am a pile of crumbs on the ground, I
am useless and helpless, I have no strength, I have no defence for pounding
feet on the pavement.
 
I am an open
mouth, wide open, a big circle that takes over my whole face, and there are my
eyes, shocked and frightened.
 
I am
a bolting horse, with saddle slipping and stirrups bashing against my sides, I
am terrified and there is no escape, I will gallop until I drop down exhausted.

The fish are rising and I have no
interest.
 
A tawny owl is hooting
and I don’t care, I care for nothing and no one except Coningsby who is trying
to cry but she doesn’t have the energy and it is breaking me in two.
 
All my insides melt away and I am left
speechless and something with no name, no substance.
 
She turns to look at me, her one eye all
clouded from the ulcer all those years ago, so very precious.
 
Her other eye, strong gold, the colour
of the ball hurtling through my body “I will look after you Coningsby” and she
will let me look after her.
 
I want
to say “don’t die, please don’t die” but I know she has to go and that I can’t
keep her here and that for me to say something like that would be cruel because
I have to be strong if she dies.
 
She still looks after me as I look after her.
 
She is all I have.
 
You
must die if you have to
I am thinking and I promise that life goes on, and
on and on.

We look out at the same things, in
the same way and see the same.
 
We
see every single dock leaf and every single brown stain on that leaf, every
single discoloured puncture mark.
 
We see the same tangled, unruly grass.
 
We see the same foxglove curling and
writhing it’s way to our sky.
 
We
see the same Himalayan balsam and we see the same nettles, but they mean
nothing, they are just illustrations on a page of no importance.
 
I hear the tawny owl again but she can’t
because she’s deaf, but I could swear that she does now, I really think she
does now.
 
A big sea trout heaves
it’s silver body high over the water and pashes, bashes, splashes down again,
and a fraction of a second later her eyes go to that spot.
 
I hear a Little owl and I hear the rushing
of the river down to a pool some way down below and I don’t know if she hears
that.
 
And I know that soon she
won’t hear a thing.
 
Soon she won’t
see a thing or smell a thing and I’ll be all on my own.
 
I won’t be able to go home and cuddle
her.
 
I won’t be able to hold her
and smell her lovely, clean warm skin.
 
I won’t be able to put both my hands on her sides and say “I love you, I
love you, I love you.”
 
I won’t be
able to pray thanks for letting us be together, because we won’t be together.

It is Sunday evening.
 
She was put to sleep this afternoon,
gently and kindly and now I’m here without her, without the best friend I’ve
ever had.
 
And I have no one to hold
my hand and I have no one to turn to and ask for love.
 
I have lost love.
 
I do not deserve love.

I’ve left her at home, in my studio,
wrapped softly and gently and cosily in one of grandma’s floral sheets, her
body caressed, held and protected.
 
Her precious little face peering out from the top.
 
I didn’t cover her face, I want her to
be able to breathe, even in death.
 
Her eyes look different now, her ulcer eye has suddenly sunken in, it is
deeper in her skull, the other eye has fine and gossamer mist over it and I
half expect morning sunlight to shine through, and as I look at her, as I
caress her precious face with my hands, as I kiss, kiss, kiss her on her
beautiful soft, chisel nose, her face suddenly changes and it is not Coningsby
anymore, it is a soft, silken, velvet body, it is more glorious than anything
ever created, but it is just a beautiful shell and I see Coningsby disappear,
more and more by each fraction of a second, and her body is still warm.
 
“Don’t go.
 
Don’t go”.
 
I touch her paws, they are still warm
and soft and I can move them.
 
They
are not stiff and I know that when I get home she will be board, solid and
rigid and it will rip my insides from me.
 
It will bring my voice from my body.
 
It will choke me and burn me.
 
It will drown me in tears and whilst her
body will be stiff, my body will be soft and will release me of gravity.
 
I will fall and shout and scream and I
will hug myself because I am all I have, I will look at her and I will look
away from her.
 
Where is she?
 
She was to be with me for ever and here
she is, dead on a bed.
 
My mouth
fills with fluid, with sweat, with tears, a flood of hopelessness, a pain, a
pain through my eyes, through my soul.
 
Where is she?
 
And can I get
her back?
 
It wasn’t meant to be
like this.
 
“IT WASN’T MEANT TO BE
LIKE THIS” I shout at the ceiling, at the sky.
 
“It wasn’t meant to be like this” I
whisper and suddenly I am on my back, in the grass, I am crying and gasping and
my tears being pulled, wrenched out of me, it is violent.
 
Sounds, like a creature being eaten
alive are coming from me, and I see the sky above me, it is too far away.
 
I have never seen it so far away, it is
not the sky I know, it is not familiar, it is beyond my reach and I am a tiny
insect lost in the grass.
 
I am lost
and I am vulnerable.