Why I have no sympathy when my husband is ill
My husband is ill. Again. He has a very bad cold and has taken to his bed. This does not bring out the best in me. For one thing, there is no slack in (what one could only very generously term) our system; it can’t cope with train strikes, bad weather or the indisposition of any one of the myriad parties who form the weekly patchwork of childcare that we flailingly cobble together every Sunday and only barely accommodates school holidays. No one, absolutely no one, can afford to be ill.
And for another, I have no sympathy. For anyone. One side of my family comprises doctors, who naturally don’t believe in treatment for anything short of compound fractures or cancer; the other side is Irish peasant stock, genetically programmed to labour in fields or childbirth until they die quickly and silently of drink or their prolapsed reproductive systems falling out. When I am ill, I am so furious with myself that the wrath pulsing in my veins burns away whatever virus has had the temerity to inveigle its way into my bloodstream and I am up within 48 hours max. So, compassion for
Text messages issue forth from the sanatorium: ‘Tea pls’, ‘Need ham sandwich’
grown men felled by mild illness is not my strong point. I bring tablets, I bring cough linctus and I suppress the urge to stand by his bed and shout, “You whinging milksop! Get better! Hurry up! God help us if there’s a war,” and that’s it. The only good thing about it is that I get the bed to myself. He’s in the spare room. I refuse to sleep next to anyone who taps eight new seams of phlegm a night.
But if the illness is bad, recuperation is worse. That’s when his strength to object – and my husband lives to object – returns. He notices the use-by date on the linctus. “2014?” he says. “They’re just a suggestion,” I say. “Like on yogurt.” “You’re trying to kill me,” he says. “No, I’m not,” I say. “And when I do, it would be by much more direct and satisfying means, I assure you.”
The texts issue forth from the sanatorium ever more frequently. “Tea pls. Don’t forget to steep bag for four minutes.” “More balsam tissues.” “Need ham sandwich – two spoons pickle. Cut diagonally.” Scorn pain, said Seneca. Either it will go away or you will. I decide this is unnecessarily verbose. “Go away,” I text back. “Go away.”