21 January 2000

It’s nine o’clock in the morning and I’m in the music room, drinking a large, a very, very large, glass of whisky and I can’t think what to do. Ellen died last night. I was sitting with her and I must have napped for a while because her feeble coughing woke me. I watched her face for hours and then, one moment, I knew she was dead. I didn’t see her die. I reached out and touched her hand and it was cool, not cold, but cool. It was four in the morning and I didn’t know what to do then — so I stayed with her in case in some way she needed me - and now I don’t know what to do. The doctor is here in the library with Ellen. I keep thinking of my conversation at the hospital — ‘You see, I haven’t said everything I want to.’ But I think I did, I think I did.

A couple of nights ago, when her mind was flying, Ellen focused on me for a few minutes, seemed to know who I was. ‘You know what one of my best memories is?’ she asked. ‘That afternoon when we were in Zanzibar, in Nungwi — remember?’

I nodded.

‘Sitting in the beach bar, looking out over the beach. We had crab legs and wine for lunch, sat and watched the tide come in.’

I remember that afternoon. Heliotrope Ellen, tanned by equatorial sun, eyes hidden by sunglasses, sprawling, a leg over one chair arm, a straw hat shading her remarkable face.

When I asked the barman for another bottle of white wine she looked at me and smiled, took off her hat and threw back her head, willing the sun to wash over her.

And now I don’t know what to do. I’ll never sit with her again as she frowns over thirteen down, as she barks with laughter at ever-mounting evidence of human foolishness, as she rubs absentmindedly at the flat skin covering her ribs. I miss her so much already. What am I going to do? I know I’m going to get very, very, very drunk for as long as it takes to stop hurting this much.

A few weeks ago I read Ellen a poem she wanted to hear and I thought when I was reading it that I’d never forget the last lines. Now I know I shan’t.

She took her need away, I thought her selfish
But stronger than God and more beautiful company.

Always.

JOHN

It was a black nurse who shook my shoulder and woke me from the mouth-heavy, slack-boned sleep of anaesthesia. I looked up and saw her face as if through grease and thought she was Hyacinth. Thought I’d woken up in my bed at Tommy’s waiting for the pickaxe of pain to smash through my bewilderment. I tried to lift my arm to push the pain away but my movement was so drugged that the nurse thought I was reaching for her hand and she took mine in both of hers, mouthing, ‘What’s your name?’