In which I yearn for better things
CANDID, CONFESSIONAL, CONTROVERSIAL
Before David left after Christmas, I tried one more time to have a meaningful conversation.
‘What did you mean when I asked, “Why don’t you look after your health?”, and you replied,
“It’s a double-edged sword.”’
He mumbled, something about it being ‘difficult’, and he can’t put it into words.
As he left, he gave me a hug and said, ‘I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you.’
Me: ‘You just seem so quiet and miserable.’
‘I’m not!’
‘You come across that way.
You don’t laugh, or have any conversation, you cough all the time but still smoke constantly.’ He had kept me awake every night coughing. I had offered him a glass of Pellegrino, but he proudly hasn’t drunk water since 1972.
It was his contrariness, his devil-may-care attitude that first attracted me to him in 1983. Now, it’s just annoying. After breakfast, he put his teeth in with a click (he has a partial top set). They had spent the night in a coat pocket.
Me: ‘Aren’t you supposed to soak them in something?’ Jesus, I even soak my diamond earrings in antiseptic overnight.
Him: ‘No, they don’t need that.’ You see?
Anyway, I locked the door after he left and swore to myself: ‘Never again. Never again. He won’t change.’ He just isn’t capable, and to torture him to try to get him to come up to my standards, to be witty and funny and helpful and go up stepladders is a complete waste of my time, and his.
After our lunch at Middleton Lodge, I had gone in to the shop and bought a terracotta pot planted with paper-white daffodils as a gift for Nic’s mum. While I paid, he picked it up. In the car, he was panting. ‘It was the lifting. It affected my stomach.’ Gone was any vestige of an idea he might help me renovate my new house, the Vicarage.
I sent him a text the day he drove back to London. ‘I wish you would look after your health.
You don’t seem well at all. Let me know you got home safely.’
He replied: ‘Just got in. You are right. I’m not well.’
Me: ‘I want to help but you are so defensive. You don’t want to talk, which is your right, but it makes it difficult.’
Him: ‘I have to decide to change. You are the only person in my life who is worth doing it for.’
He texted to say his mattress topper had arrived*. He said he had been following its progress across South London for two hours. Not that busy, then.
‘I will go to sleep thinking of you.’ I told him I had returned his N Peal cardigan. ‘It’s too small, as you seem to have doubled in size, like dough.’
On New Year’s Eve, I got an email from the Kennington Tandoori. I have only ever ordered a takeaway from them once. Nic texts to invite me to an 80s night. I say no: I was there for the actual 80s. I wore leg warmers on my arms. I went on tour with Adam Ant. I met David.
From my family, so soon after my sister’s death? Nothing. Not even news about her funeral, or, ‘How are you doing?’
From David?
At 11.33pm he sent this:
‘Hi, good riddance to this year. My boiler stopped working yesterday, fortunately the flat is well insulated so it’s cooling down slowly. Plumber doesn’t open until 2/1. Anyway,
Happy New Year. Xxxx’
Will 2024 finally, finally be my year? So much loss last year. I didn’t think I could live without Gracie, her fat rump next to me on the pillow. Losing Benji, who always whickered when he heard my step, huge eyes shining. My beautiful sister who was so sweet and trusting, who never said a bad word about anyone.
Surely this coming year will be better. It has to be. For all of us. *His gift to me of a luxury sleep/ wellness hamper cost £210. His mattress topper was £199. So he wins by £11. Does everyone do this – google what gifts cost and compare who spent more?
I say to David, ‘I want to help you but you don’t want to talk’