Come Not When I Am Dead (17 page)

There were no
cars there when I got to the river.
 
I was remembering standing outside the headmistresses office at school,
knowing I’d done something wrong, but not knowing what it was.
 
Not knowing how to prepare myself for
it.
 
It’s that that I dread, a
coming storm and having to look after myself.
 
I walked up and down the river and saw
nothing of either of them.
 
It’s my
fucking river, not Charlie’s.
 
And I
walked along the beach with no name to see if there was blood, or a big sign up
saying ‘fight happened here’.
 
There
is nothing.
 
There was nothing.
 
No birds to whisper a tune of death or
violence, but two otters leapt into the river and swam away from me.
 
A heron shrieked at me and heavily
heaved himself up, up, up into the skies.
 
And a fawn tucked away in the fallen branches, silent and sweet waiting
for it’s mother.
 
As soon as I
could, I got back to my car and drove until I had reception and phoned
Edward.
 
But it went straight to
voicemail.
 
I phoned Charlie and he
did have reception but I think he cut me off.
 
I rang him again and then it went
straight to voicemail too.

When I got home I went up to my room
and lay on my bed.
 
I stared up at
the ceiling.
 
And then Coningsby
came in to the room crying.
 
There’s
something the matter with her, she’s sitting on the bed now looking just ‘not
right’.
 
I can’t work out what it
is.
 
She’s been snotty on and off for
ages now, but she had her two-monthly snot jabs last week and now she’s still
snotty, but it doesn’t seem to bother her.
 
She sat on my lap for ages, it was
beautiful, but she never does that.
 
I hugged her close to me.
 
“Coningsby will you be OK?
 
Will I be OK?
 
What’s going
on darling?
 
I sat her on my bed to
study her and she hasn’t moved.
 
She
looks very tired and I thought a minute ago that she was going to fall over
sideways, but she didn’t.
 
I’ve
tried Charlie again on his mobile, but no answer, I just wanted to say “I don’t
care about you.
 
I don’t care about
me.
 
But it’s Coningsby.
 
she’s not going to die is she?
 
She’ll never die will she?”
 
Nothing else is important now.
 
I don’t care about any of it.
 
But I need him to feel my need.
 
I have to have reassurance, because
there’s something wrong here.
 
I
know she’s almost 18, but she’ll go on forever.
 
And my head hurts now with worry.

It is the next day, Friday.
 
I have heard nothing from Edward and
nothing from Charlie.
 
There are
Edward’s clothes on my clothes horse and his shoes by my bed, his smell in my
room, but he’s not here.
 
I took
Coningsby to the vets this afternoon, and I saw Charlie’s car leave the car
park as I drove in.
 
Why can’t he
feel what I can feel?

Coningsby is very ill.
 
It’s her kidneys.
 
It is not good.
 
I’m frightened.
 
This is real.
 
I know that this is real.

Saturday.
 
Coningsby is a lot worse.
 
I
know she is dying.
 
I’m so
frightened.
 
I’m so very, very
frightened.

In the evening
we went to the river, just me and her for a lovely outing, like we used to do,
something exciting.
 
We sat on the
steps together watching the fish and just being together and then spent the
night in the hut.
 
I know she is
going to die.
 
I don’t want to lose
her.
 
I’m so frightened of losing
her.
Sunday.
 
Coningsby was put to sleep
this afternoon.
 
I have lost
her.
 
I have lost love.
 
I have lost my best friend.
 
I feel my power has left me and I am a
shell.

I am with Charlie by the river.
 
I am half the person I was.
 
I am not even half, I feel a fraction of
the person I was.
 
Hurt and empty I
feel.
 
He is looking after me, we
are trying to understand what happened.
 
I am trying to be real.
 
He
is trying to forgive me.
 
I do not
have that forgiveness in me.
 
I
cannot say “what happened with Edward the other day Charlie?” because I don’t
have the right to ask.
 
I expect to
be trampled upon, I would trample on me, but only to teach me a lesson.
 
“It was a terrible breach of trust” his
words fall like boulders into shallow pools, his face looks straight ahead and
his eyes turned away from me, looking deep down in to the river.
 
I held his hand on his knee, he did not
hold mine but neither did he take his from me.
 
There is a way, to understand or to feel,
I understand only too well but I don’t know if I feel.
 
“But Charlie, you are married.”
 
I am quiet and trying to lull him in to
loving me once more “you are married and I haven’t got anyone.
 
I want love and companionship and I want
a baby.”
 
I don’t want
companionship, I don’t think I do, that was a lie.
 
I’m choosing my words carefully, but
they are still wrong.
 
“Have you
tried with him?”
“No.
 
I promise I haven’t.” that is
the truth.
“You went out of your way to deceive me Gussie, you’ve been lying to me, but
you
came into this relationship with
your eyes open, you knew about my wife.”
“I know” I am ripping my flesh open and spreading my insides for him to see, to
sully and destroy and trample upon so that he will feel better.
 
I don’t care about me.
 
“How can I trust you again?” he says to
me
“I don’t know.” I see light, I am hoping he will forgive me, I am hoping he
will love me again.
 
“It will take a
long time to heal, you have done a great deal of damage.”
“I know.”
 
I have no right, I told
you that, to make a point “will we be OK though?”
“You are a child” he says to me “have you no understanding at all of what
you’ve done?”
 
It is time for me to
be silent again.
 
And the river bank
has become a theatre.
 
I look down
too and I look away and my body moves slightly away from his and his hand turns
on his knee and lightly holds mine.
 
We were silent, our shoulders touching, swallowing, swallowing,
swallowing my saliva, trying to make no sound.
 
“I
am
sorry”
“but I still don’t think you understand, do you?”
 
and I don’t think I understand, but I
understand this, that I don’t want to have to go through this again and I will
not be in a position like this again.
 
This, I do not like.
 
“I’m
sorry about Coningsby” he said to me and I put up my hand for him to be silent,
I cannot talk about Coningsby.
 
“I
had no idea what was going on.
 
I just
couldn’t speak to you, I wanted some time to think.
 
But I didn’t know that you needed me”
and he put his soft and warm hand around my shoulders and I leant into him and
buried my face there, pushing my eyes against the coarseness of his jacket,
biting his collar “please love me again Charlie.”
“I do love you, that’s the problem.”
 
We made love there, as we lay, his body merging into mine, filling me
with him.
 
His love pumping into
me.
 
Our love was furious and wild
and desperate as if our bodies were being torn from each other.
 
Needing each other.
 
Let it go on and on and this love I feel
from him never end.
 
And then
afterwards we got dressed in silence, with shy smiles towards each other.
 
“I love you.
 
I’m sorry”
“I know you are.”
 
We brushed ourselves
down and tried to pretend that it was a normal day for us, and with him smiling
as much as he can smile now, we walked upstream.
 
I do understand more.
  
I understand that although he
can’t always say what he feels, he feels it none the less.
 
He feels as much as me, more than me,
but his inability to communicate his emotions isn’t for lack of them.
 
I will take care of him and I will take
care of us.
 
And then suddenly I
realised that I
was
sorry, and I
understood that I had almost destroyed something that was more precious to me
than… that was precious to me.
 

Hand in hand we walked past upper
bend pool, past otter pool, past the owl pool where I released Bill, past the
pool with no name and the nice beach.
 
Our feet in time to each other, me unfamiliar to myself in my restraint,
damning myself, blaming myself, and then when we got to the next pool, almost to
the top, through our healing silence, we heard a cough.
 
We both stood still, frozen on the
spot.
 
Then we trod on carefully,
chibber, chibber, chibber go my insides, and as we crept nearer to the river
bank, we saw two men, in waders, hunched up, backs bent, bodies forward,
laughing, looking down at something.
 
They shouldn’t be there.
 
One
of them held a torch and the other had something I couldn’t make out at first,
I was squinting and slowly moving forward, getting angrier and angrier.
 
Pent-up fury seeping through my pores.
 
The one man had a pitchfork and they
were examining a salmon, thrashing away on the prongs, blood drip, drip,
dripping from it’s body into the water.
 
Count the drops.
 
And Charlie
said “shit” under his breath.
 
“Fucking bastards” I said softly, desperate to express myself, my whole
body filling with heavy black fury.
 
“Leave them Gussie” I felt his hand tight on my arm, his fingers
pressing in to me, one, two, three fingers, trying to draw me back, “they’ll be
trouble, they’ll probably leave it at that” and I did want to do as he
said.
 
I wanted to be good but I
felt like screaming.
 
I needed to
hear my voice.
 
I needed to feel
passion, and I shouted, at the men, at anyone else who was there.
 
“OI!!!
 
What the hell do you think you’re
doing?”
 
I shed my ungainly skin of
repression, and a hundred skinheads all around me, a ghostly goading guard.
 
“What’s it to you? The fat one with the
torch said, too fast, can’t contain it and they mumbled something to each other
which I didn’t hear over the conspiring murmur of the water, silver and
athletic, a friend, definitely a friend, “It’s my river”
“we’re just catching our dinner” the other one said
“well, catch it at Tesco, but piss off from here” and I felt more pressure from
Charlie on my arm, three finger tips I felt, one, two, three.
 
And all I really wanted to say was
please love me Charlie, please never leave
me, please don’t punish me.
 
Look
after me
.
 
He was trying to draw
me back again, draw me out of it all, looking after me but his drawing me back
was pushing me on.
 
I am lost.
 
Think, think, think, I cannot think.
 
“You on your own?” said the first man,
so disgusting,
so disgusting
“piss off” I am ready for a fight.
 
Coningsby is dead.
“You shouldn’t talk to people like that you know, you stupid posh bitch” and
there is no need for that and storm clouds clacked and lightning struck, and
the men started wading, wide legged across the river, as in a dream towards my
voice.
 
Noise, splash, blooshing of
the river, torch light everywhere but not on me.
 
They got to the bank, and before the fat
one had time to direct his feeble light at me, I kicked out at his face.
 
My boot heel in his mouth.
 
It was too lovely.
 
I was the giant on the bank and they
were rats trying to overthrow me with their numbers.
 
They stood below me in the river and
there was no way I was going to let them up towards me, frantic I was.
 
And Coningsby was in my head and Charlie
was in my head and my stupid affair with Edward and then all I knew was
kick them down, kick them down, kick them
down
.
 
Give me power.
 
Give me air.
 
Their hands trying to catch my legs,
sliding off my mud.
 
My boot almost
came off.
 
I was making them tired
and I thought
what part of me is playing
this part of my life?
Is this
real?
 
Am I spoiling for a fight? Am
I scared of getting beaten up?
 
Am I
a lover or a hater or a fraudster?
 
When do I feel?
and then out of the blue, a voice “you’d better just
clear off” it said and all of us were silent, I had forgotten he was there “Oh,
la di dah” they said “who’s you then?
 
You gonna make us?”
“Fuck off you stupid gits” I shouted.
 
I was a pole cat, a pine marten, a weasel and a stoat, bastards stabbing
at salmon in the river, stupid bastards, and the knife in it’s sheath hanging
at my belt was my teeth and my claws, I was wild-eyed and furious, I was
everywhere and covered in prickles, covered in poison, I was a nasty little
thing that really, no one would want to come near.
 
“Oh, fuck off, we’re going” they talked
to each other as they collected themselves, but I couldn’t hear what they said
and then, they went.
 
Just like that.
 
All and then nothing.
 

I stood on the bank, watching their
torch light disappear, listening to their frooshing through the river get quieter
and quieter, I heard stumbling and then a laugh, but they were going, going,
gone.
 
And Charlie was there, by my
side “you’re a skinhead Gussie”
“I don’t find that an insult” I am the cat that walks alone
“It’s not meant to be, I mean you’re a scary, feisty thing and I’m proud of
you.”
 
But I am bad.
 
And there is silence and I held my mouth
together and raised my head in a short bob as acknowledgement but that was it
and I turned around to leave the bank, but I turned away from him.
 

The grass never grows that well in
this part of the field.
 
Even in
high summer it is short and straggly and I am focusing on one long, tough and
yellow grass stalk.
 
I am looking at
old, hard sheep pooh and the black soles of my wading boots.
 
I am remembering when Charlie and I had
sex here one time, in the middle of the field, and then, as I lay on the
ground, on my back, in this same short grass and he stood to pull up his
trousers, we saw a body come through the mist towards us and I scurried behind
his legs to get dressed.
 
Scrabbling
like a feral cat, get out of the way, get out of the way and my legs are moving
too fast for my body, my eyes fearful and all-seeing.
 
Has he seen us?
 
I don’t know, but there was no question
of trying to kill him.
 
I am worlds
and worlds away and years and months away, I am swaying from my pivotal point,
shaky and too high.
 
I am sick and
tired of my high horse.
 
I am a
trout on the river bank, flapping and flipping, trying in vain to flick myself
back to the river.
 
And no one will
lift me and return me before I drown in air and utter hopelessness.
 
“I definitely need a cigar now” and I
was shaking.
 
I am a terrier
sometimes, a jack Russell, I am a whirlwind and I get swept up and carried off
by myself.
 
I am not full of the
milk of human kindness.
 
“Do you
think they’ll go now?” my adrenalin had died down and I became worried, I was
ashamed of my worry.
 
I am terrified
of being taken by surprise, being overpowered, being defenceless.
 
“Do you think they’re waiting for us by
the car?
 
Do you think they’ll slash
our tyres or follow us or something?
 
I think we’d better go.
 
I’ve
got my hunting knife, what knife have you got?” and Charlie held out his empty hand
to help me up, sad, sad eyes he has, eyes with sad, frightened, confused love
in them, swimming with sharks not dolphins.
 
I’m sorry Charlie, I am sorry.

We started walking back, quietly,
under cover of the trees, we would see them (if they were there) before they
saw us.
 
Charlie whispered stories
to me of street fighters, bare knuckle fighters and dog fighters “how do you
know?”
“People tell me when they come in to surgery, but the dog fighting is bad,
we’ve had to look at a few recently and put them down, it’s a nasty business”
he says as we stumble and bumble over bumpy ground, going too fast in the dark.
 
Hurry up, hurry up.
“Charlie, you’re frightening me” stupid baby I am but I cannot help it and he
put his arm around my shoulders and drew me closer to him.
 
I hoped our dismal whispers would end
and I tried to summon nice thoughts in to my head.