Come Not When I Am Dead (6 page)

Coningsby and I are sitting on the
back door step and I’m smoking a cigar.
 
We just saw a sad old, hunched-up rabbit with myxomatosis over by the
compost heap, I stamped on it’s poor old pus-ridden head to put it out of it’s
misery, nasty that is, horrible to see it back again.
 
And tomorrow will delight the shepherd
so the sky says, but it’s also heavy with piled dark grey clouds, layers and
layers of them.
 
The birds are
singing tra, la, la-ing away, the bedtime serenade.
 
And the sheep in the fields around me
baaing reassurance to each other through mouths full of grass.
 
It’s rude to talk with your mouth full.
 
And here comes the Major to see what I’m
up to, and all I’m up to is this.
 
He shouts “Oi” at me
“Oi yourself” I call back to him.
 
I
am here on my own, listening to the late evening noises and watching the light
fade through a musty palate of dusty colours, dimmed by dirty water.
 
I wish that grandma was in the sitting
room waiting for me by the fire, with her sherry glass in her hand and her feet
up on her stool, her cheeks soft as blotting paper.
 
But Coningsby and I are cosy and warm
and soft and she is wise and my friend and companion and comfort.
 
I finish my cigar and we go back in to
the house, sit back in grandma’s chair and I stretch my legs out and look at
the ceiling, the spread-out beige-coloured stained patch near the door,
reaching further out of it’s corner every time I look.
 
I make the room a little tidier, pushing
stools under tables with my foot.
 
I
rub briefly at
 
the jam stain on the
wall with my sleeve.
 
The house has
become gradually messier, but it’s a comfortable mess that I like,
it is my lair
I think as I lie down and
feel tiny crumbs of cat litter beneath my head.

There is no Jo noise upstairs, she’s
gone off somewhere for a couple of days.
 
She has only been here a week or so and already I would say that I’m
quite ridiculously fond of her.
 
It’s nice to have the house to myself again though I think as I listen
to the silence, and tonight Charlie is coming
 
for the whole night, and an electric
current runs through my body, wiggling it’s way dramatically all over the place
at the thought of it.
 
I am thinking, without any specific thoughts, how it will be perfect tonight,
there is nothing in my head but the warm expectation of perfection.

Poppenjoy is resting behind my head
now and Raffle Buffle is yowling at something outside in the garden from the
safety of the sitting room.
 
I love the
oddly shaped darlingness of this house, I love the feel of it and it is more
home than anything I could ever imagine in it’s whispered comfort.
 
I slide off my chair and lie on the
floor on my back, I open my legs and my arms and I move about a bit like a
maggot, my fingers in the rug, just feeling it all, I feel everything.
 
Then I realise that I’m not wearing the
dress that I meant to wear and that I should re-tie my hair up, there’s
Himalayan balsam sap in it from strimming.
 
I run upstairs shaking my head as I go, enjoying the excitement and
watching the sap fall on to the stairs as I race up, two stairs at a time.
 
I did my hair, changed my dress, looked
in the mirror and thought
you have
reached your potential this evening, you look very beautiful and very you.
  
I went and chose a cigar and
got back down on the floor.
 
I like
being able to smoke in the house now, grandma never liked that, ‘Fag Ash Lil’
she would call me.
 
The Major has
been nesting on the arm of a chair, but he suddenly flies across the room,
picks up the Zippo and flies off to the kitchen with it.
 
I jump up and chase him and get it back.
 
I am ready too early and now, with a
little empty time on my hands, I start thinking about Charlie, and when
something begins to annoy me about him I say ‘cheese’ because then I start
thinking about cheese and why people like it so much and why I don’t that much
and what cheese I prefer and why and before I know it I am distracted.
 
And you can only sweep things under the
carpet for so long, and then they start to show.

“She’s away for the night” he said to
the room, over at the corner, at the light shade, but not at me, and he sat
down in grandma’s chair
he always takes
the best chair
I think “and taken the children with her.
 
Come over here” he says and pats his
knees as if I were a dog.
 
I feel I
am being bossed, he’s just trying to be nice I suppose, but he is thoughtless,
I feel as if he’s ordering me around.
 
I don’t like it.
 
Sometimes,
and even though I’d been looking
 
forward to seeing him all day, I am churlish.
 
I didn’t sit between his knees, I knelt
on the floor near him, facing him, my hands on my knees and said “I hate hiding
about and you being paranoid and secretive.
 
Sometimes I’d just rather not see you at
all I think.
 
It’s horrible you
having a wife and family and me just having a bit of you!
 
Sometimes
!
 
It’s bloody crap.”
 
And my upset turned to aggression, I
don’t want to be aggressive, I just feel I have to protect myself.
 
But I had no idea I was this angry and I
feel my fury build and I can’t contain it, I can’t even try.
 
“Come on Gussie, don’t waste the time we
do have together with arguing, I know it’s not perfect, but we do very well
don’t we?
 
We have been like this
for how many years now? 4? 5?
 
Come
and give me a kiss” he wants it all his way.
 
I want to love him, I want to cover him
in kisses, I want him to fall at my feet and tell me how much he loves me,
cuddle me and tickle me and make me laugh and hold me tight like a squirrel in
a jacket to stop it escaping.
 
I
want it all to be lovely and perfect, but instead I say “why on earth did you
marry your wife?
 
She’s really
boring, she’s not at all good looking, she’s not interesting or sparky, she’s
not the sort of person any man would marry for love” and his face is darkening “she’s
the sort of person someone would marry for duty maybe, or because it fitted
with someone’s plan.
 
So, why did
you marry her?.”
 
I pause,
pretending I am giving him a chance and look at him, I am waiting for a reply,
I am spoiling for a fight, but he is quiet.
 
I can’t stop this “why?”
 
I am staring at his face, I am snarling.
 
He is shuffling and looking thundersome
and I thought
he’ll go now, well, good, I
want him to go, this is a stupid relationship, loving someone you can’t have
.
 
But instead, he stood up and he pulled
me close to him, he pulled my head to his shoulder, his hands covering my
ears,
 
I cannot hear and he breathed
in to my hair, he pressed his arms about my shoulders and he laughed “come on,
let’s not waste any more time, come and be lovely now.”
 
I could say that the wind is taken out
of my sails, but I know that this is my chance to be nice and I must take it.
 
I do want to be happy.
  
There is so much to be said, but I
feel I’m shouting in a hurricane.
 
I
am a dandelion head in the wind.
 
I
am magazine pages being burnt in the open air, fluttering gently off the fire,
and nothing much changes.
 
I go
through this every now and then, utter, utter frustration because I want more,
and then I think, ‘do I really?’ and then it doesn’t matter so much because he
is lovely and beautiful and sweet and kind, and because he looks new-born and
because we are elementally the same.
 
“I do try you know” he says “I want to see you as much as I can, and we
do pretty well don’t we?”
 
My anger
is quick and then it is gone, my body is weak for love or lust of him.
 
“I’m sorry” I say, and I really am “I’m
sorry for losing my temper and being horrible, it’s only because I love you so
much and it’s only because I want to see you more.
 
And it is stupid you know, you being
married to her, it’s just, stupid”
“let’s not go on about that again now.”
  
And that is how we never talk
about it properly
“well, I won’t, but it is stupid.
 
Charlie, can’t we ever be together?
 
I know about the children, but worse things happen, look, my parents
both died for heavens sake.
 
If you
and your wife don’t even get on it would surely be better for the children if
you had another wife that you loved?
 
Wouldn’t it?” I feel I am whining, I am a dog in the dark standing over
it’s dead master, I am lost and without direction and all ways are open to me
because I am alone
.
 
Love me, love me, tell me how important I
am to you, tell me you’d do anything for me, love me so much you explode
I’m thinking.
 
“My children are more
important to me than anything” bang! first punch in the face, I am a boxer
losing a match “I can’t do anything to hurt them or make their lives miserable,
and getting a divorce would hurt them more than either of us would know, you
know that.”
 
But I don’t know
that.
 
He is being calm and quiet
and trying to be gentle, but I think he is being stupid.
 
I mutter something about not doing me much
harm, my parents both dying “but you’re different Gussie, you’re strong and
you’re not like anybody else.
 
I
don’t know how it would affect my children and I’m not going to experiment.”
 
It’s an easy excuse to say someone’s
‘different’, it all seems too inexplicable and remote, it’s a conversation I
know that’s not worth having, I know how it will end, but I do carry on all the
same, I can try.
 
“It’s not just
that” I am holding my breath and willing myself not to cry, I hear a tremor in
my voice “I would love a baby you know.
 
I know it’s all a bit predictable I suppose, but I do, I want us to have
just a couple of little Charlies and Gussies running around us.
 
I want my own children now, I keep
thinking about it, it takes my breath away this wanting.
 
And you can’t give me children because
you’ve, well, you can’t have children any more.
 
So, what do I do?”
“I don’t know Gussie” he looks hurt and troubled “I don’t want to ruin your
life, I want you to be happy.
 
If
you’re not happy then you should tell me and, get someone else”
“It’s not as easy as that though is it?
 
Don’t worry, it will be OK, I’ll be OK, don’t think about it now, it’s
fine, it’s just sometimes it’s worse than others” but in my head I’m screaming
and throwing a plastic bottle full of water up against a wall until it smashes
and bursts.
 
I cuddle him and kiss
his temples, then I lean forward and rest my bottom lip in the nook of his
nose, above his nostril, it fits perfectly and I stay there for a moment.
 
And in this position I think that I’m
not tied to him,
 
I am single really
and if I want more, I should get more.
 
I think about how many times we go through this and nothing ever
changes.
 
I think about how many
times I have to remind him to appreciate me, appreciate what he has, and he
does, but then he forgets.
 
I don’t
want to keep reminding him. I don’t want to beg for crumbs like a useless
little dog under the table.
 

I let him settle me between his knees
and I have something to tell him, I change the subject and the clouds part and
the sky above them is blue.
 
“I have
our next vandalism crusade.
 
You
know the ugly woman with the things on her face who’s been so nasty about Jim
Johnson even though he let her have a vegetable patch on his land?”
“I do”
“let’s destroy her vegetable garden”
“Oh Gussie” he says and his eyes look tired but expectant now.
 
He
really is very beautifu
l I think, I love the long and slender shape of his
face and the way his hair highlights the depth of his eyes, I love the tufty
bits of hair by his ears, dark brown and grey, and the soft check shirts that I
choose for him.
 
He looks soft and
warm and silken as if a gentle heat’s rising from all over him.
 
“She deserves to be taught a lesson.
 
What do you think?”
“when?”
“tomorrow night”
“OK” he says through lips of soft butter.
 
Sometimes, when I’m very angry with someone for doing something horrible
or unjust,
 
I will take
revenge.
 
It’s not the sort of thing
that you can tell people about.
 
“They
should be punished” I said to Charlie some short time ago “that sounds rather
alarming, what do you mean ‘punished’?” and his little eyes looked frightened,
no, not frightened, but wary as if he had just met a mad person and he was half
turned, on the point of escape.
 
“Taught
a lesson” I said “they can’t go around doing such horrible things” and so,
testing the waters first, I told Charlie, that sometimes, just sometimes I
would creep out at night and let cattle into an anally manicured garden, or
take specimen plants out of pots and bring them home.
 
Or tip rotting fish over someone’s
drive.
 
“What would you do if you
got caught?”
“I wouldn’t, I make sure I can’t and I go in disguise”
“like what?”
“like wellies too big for me and lots of clothes under a too large boiler suit
to make me look fat, and I always hide my hair” and his little eyes shot about
in what for him was quick thinking.
 
“You live in the moment” says Jo to me, says Charlie to me, says Frank
to me.
 
And Charlie saying ‘what if
you got caught?’ is nothing to me, because I don’t think I can imagine horrible
consequences, I am trying now, but I can’t because it’s not real.