When he was off the machine for a few days, they moved him to the hospice. A harsh day of rain and wind. The ambulance driver helped the nurse with the stretcher. He was going to the same place where the Vet died. But the ambulance driver didn’t know who the Vet was.

That’s how it ended. You sitting there beside him. Some days. Any day you got a lift. And other days you stayed at home, sitting upstairs at the bedroom window, where you could see down the avenue. See who was coming and going.

Do you remember the time he broke your wedding present, Birdie? The lovely delph ornament: The Dancing Couple. The man in his tuxedo, and the lady in white, that twirled on the top of the wedding cake. None of your old cardboard shite. That was Belleek china. And he hammered the fucken thing to bits on the kitchen floor with the hammer from his Meccano set. Jesus, you were fit to be tied.

And black. And for some reason you said to him that if he didn’t stop breaking things on you, then you’d have to throw yourself into the sea. Your dead body would go floating in the dark salty sea, and what would he do when that was dragged out? He’d be sorry then, wouldn’t he? The poor little fellow screamed with fear. Oh yes, you had him to yourself that night. The Vet was out, like he always was, and no prospect of him home for hours. The old bottles of stout in the evenings didn’t last long with the Vet, did they? No. So there you were accusing Gussie of scalding your heart, and sending him to bed without his supper. A long night that, Birdie, wasn’t it? Staring at the old black-and-white television. Seeing nothing. Raging with yourself. Your body longing to touch him. Your body longing to enfold him for fuck’s sake, and hold him, hold him, hold him, from the moment you closed his bedroom door.

You went to the spare bedroom that night because you had long lost your appetite for lying awake half the night beside the snoring Vet and him reeking of whiskey.

But now look at yourself, Birdie! You can touch him now. All you like. Your face is only an inch from his big empty moon of a face. You can hold him now all you fucken like.

No wonder you didn’t want to go to the hospital after a while. No wonder you preferred sitting at home, on the bed upstairs, and staring down the long avenue at who was or was not coming or going.

Now if there are any messages, says the nurse, any letters, or little things out of the past that you could say to him, that would remind him of things, then you should try. Didn’t she say that, Birdie? She did. You should try. But when you did come to visit him, you’d close the curtains and sit beside him, not a squeak out of either of you.