‘Is it?’
The last kettle boil, he thought. He watched himself think this.
While he carried the two mugs of carefully stirred hot chocolate, and while the news presenter talked of earth quake victims in Peru and single mothers in Brooklyn, and while two teenage boys raced cars outside this house, Jack felt a sudden loss of balance and a strange, almost anaesthetic tingling at the top of his arm. He dropped both mugs.
‘Oh brother, Jack. What a mess! You sit down, I’ll clean it up.’
But Jack could not move forward. Or talk. He thought: But it hardly hurts at all. How funny. And he was cranky – did he give permission for this sequence of events? What the fuck? That chocolate was going to stain the carpet. He just had it cleaned last month, damn it.
And now his knees were buckling, a weakness travelled up his body and it felt almost nice to crumple up and sink.
‘Jack? Jack! Darn it, Jack. Get up this minute.’
Jack was dying again.
‘If you’re messing with me, Jacko MacAlister…’
A sulk just rising to the surface, her eyebrow almost cocked, lips almost pouting. Two year-long minutes passed during which, behind closed eyelids, Jack watched a slide show of his life. It was so cliché, he smiled. A sort of This is Your Life, or a movie preview. The highlights, plus some other weird stuff. But this meant it couldn’t be the end, right? Too corny to be anything as serious as death. But there they were, except not in chronological order, and some images of no particular importance at all. Colette’s green dress with the low neck, the feel of that silky fabric. That green Hillman, and pouring water into the radiator on the old Highway 5, near some chicken farms. The chicken enchiladas with black olives he ordered when they’d gone to Cabo San Lucas at last. Pregnant Milly when she was Billie, in her bra and underpants, laughing so hard she sprayed her beer all over him one humid summer night. The wake behind the ferry, the taste of Chardonnay brisk on his tongue and Cheryl’s hand in his. Then her hand became attached to buxom Lizbeth, and she asked him to dance. Shouted, dance with me! His mom was shouting at him about the ice chest, because he left the door open and all her ice cream melted. Jacko! I’m going to tell your father when he gets home. The phone call earlier today, with his daughter. The irritation. Then that same daughter as a newborn, the surprise of her. Charlie, limp and blue in that dinosaur sleeper, but this time when he shook him and shook him, Charlie opened his eyes and smiled. And then laughed, that infant chuckle. Then his sister, Ivy, and himself giggling, playing hooky from Mass, sneaking out St Mary’s side door and running down the sidewalk to the store and stealing beef jerky. The taste of the jerky, tough and salty, softening on his tongue. And the jerky became the jerky from the store at Dogtired Ranch; washing it down with cold beer. Cold rain, raining on the night when Louise drove away to live with that weirdo, Coffee Enema Bob. It poured and poured till the fish pond flooded over. And the heat spell the summer the fish pond dried up and the tar on the road outside their house bubbled up. Sitting in the dirt and nudging potato bugs till they rolled into balls; rolling white bread into beads and the crust into a snail shape before shoving it all in his mouth; chewing the liquorice weeds that grew on the corner of Railroad Avenue and Verano. Telling Milly that Dulcinea was the perfect name for his publishing company, and her look of admiration. Opening a bottle of cold champagne on the deck, and a yellow jacket drowned in his glass, and Milly poured him another. The way the deck had aged, and the way it had looked in the beginning, so solid and smelling of resin. Three times, that deck had been renewed. The way he felt when he bought the house lot, choked with blackberries, and he’d sketched ideas for the architect in his yellow pads. As if he was God. But wasn’t it the best house in the world?
It was enthralling to watch. The longer he watched the more his heart swelled, and he’d cry if he could. He was falling in love with his own life. His chest was positively swollen with love. Jesus Christ! Every minute, so dear, so familiar, so…particularly his. He’d definitely buy a ticket to see this movie, in 3D. And to hell with the expense, he’d get a giant bucket of popcorn and Coke too.
‘Jack, that’s enough now. Knock it off, Jack. Jack?’ Defiantly and tearfully.
Milly closed her eyes tight, tight. Opened them, but did not look at her husband’s face. Her mouth was twisted, as if tasting something repulsive. All her life, she had to wait till events were hours – days – old, before really comprehending them. She literally could not feel the truth of the present. And so part of her was still watching the television, waiting for the commercials to be over and the news to come back on. Thinking about how to clean that hot chocolate up, and about her granddaughter’s twentieth birthday later this week. The plants in the bedroom that needed watering. The dogs that needed letting out before bed. Unless they were dead, of course. She wanted to turn the volume down again because the commercials were so irritating, but the remote control…well.
‘Jack,’ she said automatically, but stopped herself telling him to turn the volume off.
Then she clumped her walker frame to the wall socket, leaned over and pulled the television plug out, almost falling over.
‘For heaven’s sake!’ she said with disgust, but then her voice frightened her, with no Jack to hear it. The movements of her own body scared her, with no Jack to witness them. The side of her facing Jack sensed a void now; her skin felt a chilliness. She made her way to him, quickly, as quickly as she could, with little whimpering noises, because something in her was lurching towards him. As if he was about to disappear from sight for ever, unless she could reach him in time. The ball was still in her court, right?
‘Hey! Jack. Wait for me, Jack.’
There he lay, on his front, his face half hidden and pale. She didn’t cry or make a sound, but her face crumpled. She looked the least pretty she’d ever looked, including the times she was straining to push out babies, and the time she’d screamed that she hated not just her husband, but her husband’s guts.
I hate your guts!
The living room was suddenly jam packed with the ghost-strangers rushing silently to other rooms, except the fat old lady who might be Louise and the small boy who might be Charlie. The boy sat on the arm of the chair and the fat old lady was so close, Milly felt the gravitational pull of her soft bulk. There was a rasping sound suddenly, and she held her own breath to listen closer. Jack turned his head slightly and opened one eye. Milly screamed a tiny scream, and the room gradually seeped back. Fat lady and boy, gone.
‘I’m calling an ambulance. Stay where you are, sweetie.’
‘Don’t.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t. Call. Blance.’
‘But…’
‘Justa. Spode. E. Pi. Sode.’
Milly helped Jack lever himself up using her walker. Everything in his body hurt, but in a distant surreal way. Sensations were difficult to interpret. What was that throbbing in his chest…pain? Had pain always felt like this? Strange, strange, strange. An hour later, they were both in bed. Tuesday was finally done. It had seemed very long, yet here they were already, at the end, false teeth taken out again, remaining teeth brushed, non-existent dogs ignored. They snuffled their goodnights and curled up away from each other. Just a light blanket over them as the night was still warm. Buttocks comfortably snuggled against buttocks. They did not kiss goodnight. Milly’s sleep was light and fragmentary, a smooth flat pebble skipping over turbulent water, but Jack’s sleep was sudden and deep. He considered the view, then jumped off the diving board into the cold green Pacific, sunlight pouring down, and echoes filling his ears. As he exhaled for the last time, Milly turned towards him, unaware he was no longer dreaming, and she kissed the spot between his shoulder blades. She often delivered this belated kiss, and actually so did he. Sometimes.
Seven hours later, Milly woke.
‘Jack. What time is it?’
‘Jack!’ in her most nagging tone. ‘I said. What. Time. Is. It. Feels like we slept too long.’
‘Jack! Oh God, Jack. You’d better not be. Wake up!’ She sat up in bed.
‘How dare you! Did I say you could? You get back here right now, do you understand?
Curled on to his side, Jack’s mouth was pulled by gravity into a half-smile. Milly slumped, defeated. The birds outside suddenly seemed too loud, as if they’d entered the house. She carefully leaned over him to double check. Bastard! Then she got back under the covers, and without another thought went to sleep. She slept and slept and slept. Every time her mind approached consciousness, she slid back down under the safe dark cloak, where everything was as it had always been and she was asleep with her Jack who had driven her crazy most of her life and could not be allowed to leave it. His body was the only body her body knew. She’d never fallen asleep beside another man. His Old Spice and scratchy chin were still there, but just silence where there used to be snores sounding like a rubber ball bouncing, and farts lasting minutes.
Eventually a painful need to urinate forced her to leave Jack alone in bed. She did not look at him. In fact, she had on her You’ve really blown it this time, I’m not speaking to you face and went to unlock the front door, flick each venetian blind open, collect the newspapers from the driveway, make herself a cup of coffee. She moved as creakily as ever, but efficiently. Then she went back to bed.
When she next woke, it was to the sound of crickets about three thirty in the morning, and as she calculated this fact, she realised she hadn’t eaten for almost forty hours. She clanked and creaked with her walker, down the hall to the kitchen. At the refrigerator, she felt for the bacon, eggs, butter, milk and cheese and cooked an extravagant omelette, oozing with cheese and crispy bacon. She’d always had a greedy appetite. Then she dumped all the greasy plates and cutlery and frying pans into the sink for Jack to wash, because he’d been such a bad sport, staying in bed and missing this midnight feast. Typical. It was all right when he planned a party, but let someone else take charge and he just wasn’t interested. And who did he think was going to clean that hot chocolate off the carpet?
She suddenly sensed the shape of her life, as if it was in the hall just behind her, over her shoulder. A physical object. There she’d stood in her life before Jack, and now here she stood, Jack-less again, as if those decades in between had shut up like an accordion no one wanted to play anymore. She felt light, hardly knew herself. She was still angry, a bit. How dare he! She closed her eyes and saw him heading out the front door in some eternal weekday morning, yellow Brooks Brother’s shirt, his old leather briefcase swinging. Kissing her quickly on the lips, tasting of coffee and smelling of Old Spice. See you later, hon. That old distracted goodbye of his seemed to echo over and over. It took so much for granted.
She curled up under the quilt on the sofa and drowsily watched the sky turn grey, then light grey, then a bold blue with birds, clouds, cars passing. She almost drifted back asleep, when the phone rang.
‘Hello?’
‘No, you didn’t wake me. Not really. What do you want, Sam?’
‘Oh yes. Your father’s home.’
