The time-keeping war was conducted with maximum politeness and without acknowledgement that it existed. I simply synchronised our two clocks and my watch with the B.B.C. time signal every morning, and paid up with a smile when I was late. Mrs Woodward gave me a warmer welcome at ten past six than at ten to, but never arrived a minute after nine-thirty in the mornings. Neither of us had let on to Elizabeth how acutely the clock was watched.
Mrs Woodward was spare and strong, with a little of her native Lancashire in her voice and a lot in her character. She had dark hair going grey, rich brown eyes, and a determined jaw line which had seen her through a jilting fiancé and a work-shy husband. Unfailingly gentle to Elizabeth, she had never yet run out of patience, except with the vacuum cleaner, which occasionally regurgitated where it should have sucked.
In our flat she wore white nylon overalls which she knew raised her status to nurse from home help in the eyes of visitors, and I saw no reason to think any worse of her for it. She took off the overall and hung it up, and I helped her into the dark blue coat she had been wearing every single day for at least three years.
‘Night, Mr Tyrone. Night, luv,’ she said, as she always said. And as always I thanked her for coming, and said I’d see her in the morning.
‘Did you have a good day?’ Elizabeth asked, when I kissed her forehead. Her voice sounded tired. The Spirashell tugged her chest up and down in a steady rhythm, and she could only speak easily on the outgoing breaths.
‘I went to see a girl about a horse,’ I said, smiling, and told her briefly about Sandy Willis and Zig Zag. She liked to know a little of what I’d been doing, but her interest always flagged pretty soon, and after so many years I could tell the exact instant by the microscopic relaxation in her eye muscles. She rarely said she was tired and had had enough of anything because she was afraid I would think her complaining and querulous and find her too much of a burden altogether. I couldn’t persuade her to say flatly ‘Stop, I’m tired.’ She agreed each time I mentioned it that she would, and she never did.
‘I’ve seen three of the people for the Tally article,’ I said. ‘Owners, owner-trainer, and stable girl. I’m afraid after supper I’d better make a start on the writing. Will you be all right watching television?’
‘Of course...’ She gave me the sweet brilliant smile which made every chore for her possible. Occasionally I spotted her manufacturing it artificially, but no amount of reassurance seemed able to convince her that she needn’t perform tricks for me, that I wouldn’t shove her back into hospital if she lost her temper, that I didn’t need her to be angelic, that she was safe with me, and loved, and, in fact, very much wanted.
‘Like a drink?’ I said.
‘Love one.’
I poured us both a J and B with Malvern Water, and took hers over and fastened it into a holder I’d rigged up, with the bent drinking straw near to her mouth. Using that she could drink in her own time, and a lot less got spilt on the sheets. I tasted appreciatively the pale fine Scotch, slumping into the big armchair beside her bed, sloughing off the day’s travelling with a comfortable feeling of being at home. The pump’s steady soft thumping had its usual soporific effect. It sent most of our visitors fast asleep.
We watched a brain-packed quiz game on television and companionably answered most of the questions wrong. After that I went into the kitchen and looked at what Mrs Woodward had put out for supper. Plaice coated with bread crumbs, a bag of frozen chips, one lemon. Stewed apples, custard. Cheddar cheese, square crackers. The Woodward views on food didn’t entirely coincide with my own. Stifling thoughts of underdone steak I cooked the chips in oil and the plaice in butter, and left mine to keep hot while I helped Elizabeth. Even with the new pulley gadget some foods were difficult: the plaice broke up too easily and her wrist got tired, and we ended up with me feeding her as usual.
While I washed the dishes I made coffee in mugs, fixed Elizabeth’s into the holder, and took mine with my typewriter into the little room which would have been a child’s bedroom if we’d ever had a child.
The Tally article came along slowly, its price tag reproaching me for every sloppy phrase. The Huntersons, the Ronceys, Sandy Willis. Dissect without hurting, probe but leave whole. Far easier, I thought resignedly, to pick them to bits. Good for Tally’s sales too. Bad for the conscience, lousy for the Huntersons, the Ronceys, Sandy Willis. To tell all so that the victim liked it... this was what took the time.
After two hours I found myself staring at the wall, thinking only of Gail. With excruciating clearness I went through in my mind every minute of that uninhibited love making, felt in all my limbs and veins an echo of passion. Useless to pretend that once was enough, that the tormenting hunger had been anaesthetised for more than a few days. With despair at my weakness I thought about how it would be on the next Sunday. Gail with no clothes on, graceful and firm. Gail smiling with my hands on her breasts, Gail fluttering her fingers on the base of my spine.
The bell rang sharply above my head. One ring: not urgent. I stood up slowly, feeling stupid and ashamed. Day-dreaming like Madge Roncey. Just as bad. Probably much worse.
Elizabeth was apologetic. ‘Ty, I’m sorry to interrupt you...’
How can I do it, I thought. And knew I would.
‘My feet are awfully cold.’
I pulled out the hot water bottle, which had no heat left. Her feet were warm enough to the touch, but that meant nothing. Her circulation was so poor that her ankles and feet ached with cold if not constantly warmed from outside.
‘You should have said,’ I protested.
‘Didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘Any time,’ I said fiercely. ‘Any time.’ And preferably twenty minutes ago. For twenty minutes she’d suffered her cold feet and all I’d done was think of Gail.
I filled her bottle and we went through her evening routine. Rubs with surgical spirit. Washing. Bed pan.
Her muscles had nearly all wasted to nothing so that her bones showed angularly through the skin, and one had to be careful when lifting her limbs, as pressure in some places hurt her. That day Mrs Woodward had painted her toe nails for her instead of only her finger nails as usual.
‘Do you like it?’ she said. ‘It’s a new colour, Tawny Pink.’
‘Pretty,’ I nodded. ‘It suits you.’
She smiled contentedly. ‘Sue Davis brought it for me. She’s a pet, that girl.’
Sue and Ronald Davis lived three doors away: married for six months and it still showed. They had let their euphoria spill over on to us. Sue brought things in to amuse Elizabeth and Ronald used his rugger-bred strength to carry the pump downstairs when we went out in the van.
‘It matches my lipstick better than the old colour.’
‘Yes, it does,’ I agreed.
When we married she had had creamy skin and hair as glossy as new peeled conkers. She had sun-browned agile limbs and a pretty figure. The transition to her present and forever state had been as agonising for her mentally as it had been physically, and at one point of that shattering progress I was aware she would have killed herself if even that freedom hadn’t been denied her.
She still had a good complexion, fine eyebrows, and long lashed eyes, but the russet lights had turned to grey in both her irises and her hair, as if the colour had drained away with the vitality. Mrs Woodward was luckily expert with shampoo and scissors and I too had long grown accurate with a lipstick, so that Elizabeth always turned a groomed and attractive head to the world and could retain at least some terrifically important feminine assurance.
I settled her for the night, slowing the rate of the breathing pump a little and tucking the covers in firmly round her chin to help with the draught. She slept in the same half sitting propped up position as she spent the days: the Spirashell was too heavy and uncomfortable if she lay down flat, besides not dragging as much air into her lungs.