He’d tried teaching her how to dive, but she was surprisingly inept. She kept freezing at the last second and bellyflopping. She laughed, but he could tell it hurt. Much later, because the pool was almost empty, she just sat on the diving board and swung her pretty legs. He was treading water below and they talked. Talked and talked, and treading water was so effortless he felt he’d never sink as long as he could keep talking to her.
‘A matter of weeks, Jack,’ his doctor had said yesterday, sitting by his hospital bed. ‘Or maybe months, but not six. Have you looked into hiring a home care nurse? Or entering a care facility? Or hospice care? I can help arrange that.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘What?’
‘My cough. It’s getting better.’
Jack could have done without the light banter about summer vacations immediately after the diagnosis. Like discussing what a great party it was going to be, what a pity you weren’t invited.
He poured a brandy and port, took it to the living room and turned the television on to PBS. Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis were sitting at the Oxford high table suspecting murderers, but Jack was visualising this: the children, all six of them plus their spouses, would arrive on Friday. The shocking discovery would be shared. They’d come straight in, no door knocking in this family. They’d notice how clean the house was and wonder if a cleaner had finally been hired. They’d walk around, calling: Mom? Dad? Grandma? Grandpa? Or in Danny, Donald and August’s case: Jack? Milly? Anybody home? After peeking into the other rooms, they’d peek into the master bedroom and at first they’d think they were asleep, all curled up. He was so enamoured of this scene, he edited it and replayed it, with different night clothes, times of evening, lateral poses. Perhaps the remnants of the wood fire would linger, covering any unpleasant odours. Stink would ruin the mood. Got to get it right. This reminded him of all those early imperfect ragged manuscripts, the ones he’d sensed containing a germ of genius. The way he’d tweaked them and carved them, chosen the perfect cover, the best quality paper, the right blurb for the back sleeve. Goddammit, he’d been the genius, not the author. Actually, the whole of life had been a rough draft, just waiting for his expert editing, his instinct for what people really wanted. If he’d ever got around to writing that damn novel, it would have been the best masterpiece in the history of literature. It would have, once and for all, pinned down his generation. More intellectual than Dos Passos, more perceptive about women than Hemingway. If he’d had time.
He remembered the fiasco last autumn after his heart attack and just before he lost his licence.
‘Come on, Milly,’ he’d said. ‘We’ll drive out to Hawk Hill. You always love that drive.’
All the way there, he’d kept rehearsing how he’d put on her favourite CD, and his too. The Harry James Orchestra, ‘You Made Me Love You’. Then when they got to the bit of Pt Bonita Road where nothing lay between them and the Pacific Ocean, he’d say: ‘Close your eyes a minute, darling. I love you, Milly. You’re the best.’ Then he’d close his own eyes too, and gun it. Shoot them both over the cliff, and sure it’d be scary and they’d probably scream, but then it would be over within seconds. He’d been very curious about what the car would do, mid-air. He hoped they’d remain in it, right side up. Not upside down. It would be terrible if one of them fell out of their seat while the other watched.
But at Corte Madera, Milly had started demanding they find a bathroom.
‘Just do it where you are. That’s the whole point of diapers.’
‘I do not pee in my underpants, and I do not wear diapers. Are you crazy? Stop the car now!’
He’d finally stopped the car at a café in Sausalito, and ended up ordering coffee and carrot cake for them both. By the time they’d finished, the urgency had drained away and he’d driven them home again. Milly hadn’t even noticed the cancellation of Hawk Hill. Just sang along with Harry James, happy as a clam, even prettily clapping her hands as if they were in a public place and people were watching.
Now Jack thought, Oh hell, why wait till Friday? The house was clean enough, damn it. At least the kitchen was. Let them think what they like. He waited till Milly left the kitchen and was making her way to the living room to watch the ten o’clock news.
(She used to be queen of the remote, till they got Comcast. Jack had taken three months to get the hang of the new remote, and was now the undisputed boss of the television, which meant now and then Milly left the room in disgust. Sex and the City was a good one to send her skedaddling.)
Milly sat down and Jack made his way back to the kitchen. Opened the bottle of pills and shook them all onto the cutting board. Quickly found the rolling pin and some foil. Covered the pills and began crushing.
‘Jack?’
‘What?’
The kitchen and living room were semi-open plan, so all he had to do was swivel his neck to see Milly sitting in front of the television. Her last evening watching television. His last, too. Quite nice to know; no more wondering when.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What?’
‘I said. What. Are. You. Doing?’
‘Nothing. Getting another drink.’
‘The news has started, honey. I need the volume turned up.’
‘I’m coming. Just a minute. How about some hot chocolate?’
‘What?’
‘I said, how would you like some hot chocolate?’
‘I thought you were making a drink.’
‘I meant a hot drink.’
He filled the kettle while he shouted to her. ‘Well?’
‘No thanks. It’s summer. Who drinks hot chocolate in summer?’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘Oh, all right.’
The kettle began hissing. He scooped the ground-up pills into two mugs, added instant hot chocolate and returned to the living room. How long would the pills take? He’d kind of like to watch the last episode of Brideshead Revisited after the news. He’d seen it before, of course, but forgotten how it ended. His hands were shaking, and it took several seconds to find the volume control. He sat on the arm of his wife’s chair and watched the world’s stories, told by a man in a violet shirt and yellow tie. When had that become acceptable? The man was an obvious homosexual. How wonderful! He secretly, since Dulcinea Press, took some credit.
Milly leaned into Jack, caught sight of his hands speckled with sun damage. Looked at her own skin; her hands belonged to an old lady. As did the white hair she spotted on the sleeve of her blouse. No connection to who she was at all. She wanted to say: ‘Okay, enough! Joke’s over now. Back to my real self, please.’ She wondered who would die first. She sighed, because it would have to be him, of course. He needed her, she mustn’t leave him alone. She’d see him out, tidy up afterwards. This made her feel tired. Obviously, she had imagined dying. For years, now. There was no end to the lovely dropping sensation when she did this. Yes, of course she was grateful for her life, but the strain of being Milly was too much some days. Could death be a sensual experience? For Milly, maybe yes. As for what happened next, well, Milly had decided to not accept non-existence for either of them. It was too final and terrible. Goodness’ sake, why believe in something that made your heart hammer in the middle of the night? What was the point in not believing that souls were immortal and more – that some version of heaven was a possibility? If the end result was a true mystery (and so far as she knew, no one had yet proven anything one way or another) and death came no matter what you believed, why not choose to believe the more pleasant version? To her, atheists like Jack were simply masochists and puzzled her exceedingly. A bunch of intellectual fools, embracing anxiety for no good reason at all.
Milly was not worried about losing her husband, because worrying would be a waste of time. She’d never lose Jack. The tenacity of Milly’s love was like the revolutions of the planets.
‘There’s the kettle, Jack.’
‘What?’
‘You are so deaf. I said, the kettle is boiling!’
