Chapter 3
ELSA
‘Cooee, only me,’ calls Aleks, arriving at the bottom of the stairs as she does every weekday morning around this time.
‘Good morning,’ I reply, always warmed by the sight of her, resplendent today in a long padded jacket and colourful scarf despite the clement weather.
‘It’s beautiful today, huh?’ she smiles, taking off her outerwear and hanging it on the newel-post.
‘The tulips are bursting with life now,’ I reply, the yellow tulips in the garden square not dissimilar to Aleks – bold, upright and cheerful.
‘How is he this morning?’ she asks, rolling up the sleeves of her sweatshirt and entering the bedroom where Bill is coming round from his morning nap.
‘He was quite animated at breakfast, recalling something of our days at art school as if no time had passed at all.’
‘Good,’ she says, placing a hand on his shoulder, knowing that not every morning is as positive.
‘Elsa?’ Bill asks groggily on waking.
‘It’s Aleks,’ she replies, her voice confident and calm.
‘I’m here too, my darling,’ I reassure him.
I can tell from his tone and bodily tension that this is one of a growing number of instances when he has woken with no recollection of where he is, despite being in the bedroom he’s known for over forty years, despite being surrounded by objects from even further back that we’ve made or collected from afar over the years.
‘Elsa,’ he sighs, a faint smile in his eyes, as I sit in his line of vision on the armchair overlooking the garden.
While my whole body aches at the sight of the man I’ve loved for over fifty years, reduced to a shell of himself, I’m still so grateful that he’s here with me and remembers my name, that despite his decline, our connection, the energy between us, hasn’t been lost.
‘Where am I?’
‘You’re at home,’ says Aleks, stroking his soft grey hair, still so thick and falling over his face as it’s always done.
I get up to squeeze his hand; he squeezes mine back.
‘Let’s get you up and moving,’ Aleks says briskly, and she pulls back the duvet to reveal his body, once so lean and wiry, now toneless and weak.
Moving to the side of the bed, my eyes meet Bill’s, and a sparkle reassures me he is still amused by Aleks, that he remembers the joke we shared when she first started.
We’d laughed that Aleks, while truly marvellous, had no understanding of the pace of an artist’s life, that Bill would much prefer to remain in bed most of the morning rather than be hoisted up and be made to dress and shave.
Unaware of the moment between us, Aleks helps Bill put on an old red cardigan he wore religiously in his studio at the bottom of the garden.
The studio was once a hive of activity, where he produced ceramics that sold in galleries all over the world, and I worked my loom.
Now I see it from the French windows, unattended, the ivy creeping over the door.
As Aleks helps my husband walk from the bedroom to the living area, I catch sight of Bill and myself in the hall mirror.
I reel at how hollow Bill looks and how tired and bedraggled I’ve become.
Inch by inch we move past a photograph taken a few years after we met, just after graduation from art school in London when Bill was starting out as a ceramicist and I as a weaver.
We’re in a park, Bill lying on the grass, his legs outstretched, perched on an elbow.
I’m sitting next to him, in a big floppy hat, making a daisy-chain, no doubt for Bill to eventually wear.
It’s a picture of youth, of hope and happiness. A picture of the beginning of love.
‘What are we watching today?’ asks Aleks, after she’s made Bill comfortable on the sofa, flicking through the channels of the television. ‘This Morning, Politics Live, an antiques show?’
‘How about an old Western?’ I suggest, and Bill’s face lights up.
‘Western it is,’ says Aleks, finding something suitable.
With Bill comfortable, Aleks tidies the bedroom and cleans the bathroom, singing in Polish as she does, while I set about making lunch.
‘Mackerel salad for lunch, your favourite,’ I tell Bill.
‘Just like the first time we had it with my parents.’ My mother had made mackerel salad and the four of us had enjoyed it together, my parents telling Bill all about what a whimsical child I’d been growing up in Rotterdam, and us chatting merrily about our life together in London.
Not for one minute could I have imagined, as we sat round that table, that I’d still be making it for Bill after more than fifty years together.
Nor could I have imagined the depth of connection the years would foster, or the heartache it would lead to, knowing that at some point the unimaginable will happen: that our time together will end.
As I rinse a potato under the tap, the dirt falling away, my thoughts drift to Fran, of how her usual relaxed brow was so pinched today and her shoulders frozen.
Listening to her worries spill over reminded me of just how much I love listening to others, something in recent years I’ve had less time to enjoy.
I’m drawn from my thoughts by the sound of Bill calling.
‘Aleks,’ I call and she’s there in a heartbeat.
I wish, not for the first time, that Aleks was able to do more than the twenty or so hours that she currently works, but she and I both know caring for Bill doesn’t provide the long-term stability of her job at the care home.
The idea that we’d find someone else, who would fit into the household as Aleks does, seems too improbable to contemplate, despite needing the support.
‘Perfect timing; the bathroom is shining bright for you,’ she says, linking an arm through one of Bill’s as I take the other.
‘Up we get then,’ I say, grateful beyond words for Aleks’s capable, bright nature, filling our home with vibrance and life, the guilt I used to feel for asking for help now far in the past. And yet, at the same time, her very presence makes me more fully conscious that my husband won’t be here for ever.
And as much as his future demise is real, it’s also entirely inconceivable – inconceivable that one day he will be gone, leaving me to continue alone in a world I can’t remember or imagine without him.