Nostalgia (Part 9)

“I trust you, Dominic; I don’t know why. I have no reason, except for your kindness today but I do trust you. This is just so hard for me to do. I have kept it close, too close, inside me for so long now that I am so frightened, terrified, of letting it loose. I am forty-three years old, Dominic, and I am so frightened of dying! I was twenty four when they diagnosed MS. They said that I would lead a normal life for many years. They said that that there was no cure. Other people said that I need not worry about it until I started to need a wheelchair; and carers. I do not need carers, fuck the carers, screw carers but you have seen me, Dominic; I need that wheelchair. The only reason I can go to work most days is because the company that I work for send a car to my house every morning and he brings me home every night at six. I haven’t been out in three months; not even with my colleagues at work. They are not willing to take responsibility for me anymore and the driver only works until six, Dominic. They give me six months to five years after I am consigned to a wheelchair; I already have four months in that sodding thing outside of the house! I do not want to die, Dominic; I am too young to die!”

I could think of nothing else to do; I put my arms around her and hugged her as tightly as I thought she could bear. Never have I been so lost, so bereft of ideas, so devoid of words to say.

“And that is not the worst of it. I cared for my children-to-be enough to not want them to suffer what a stranger now goes through; your fault, Dominic, I was alright as I was! I have no children, my parents are in fuckin’ New Zealand these five years past; about the only person who seems to care about me is my neighbour and she only gets my meat from the butcher in Clapham because, like me, she hates supermarket meat!

And ‘you’, the you that is not you, Dominic. Where is he? Fuck knows. Fuck cares! I really thought that he understood; perhaps for a time he did. But then, if I went through a bad patch, he became less and less attentive with each bad patch that I went through. Oh, he’d do the washing and the ironing and the cleaning and the cooking but when I only wanted love, Dominic, where was he? I couldn’t take the sex, it was just so debilitating. But love? Love is not just sex, is it? You can love without sex, surely, at least for some of the time? Is love too much to ask from the people, that person, that profess, or professes, love? Is love like an old dish cloth; when this one is worn out, you just buy a new one!

The only thing that frightens me more than dying is that I will die alone. Please promise me, Dominic, that you will leave me your telephone number, so that I, or somebody, can call. I, or somebody, will only dial you as a last resort; if no-one else can come. Please don’t let me die alone!”

I tried to hug her as if she could never be alone; I doubt that I succeeded, but I was shocked to hear her eventually say: “Get me a half bottle of brandy; I think I’m going to need some of it!”

What could I do, diary, I took her keys from the lock and went to the corner shop and bought some brandy. On a whim, seemingly senseless, I bought some cigarettes, a small lighter and some chocolate as well.

I could not find any brandy balloons in the cupboard from which I had earlier retrieved the beer glass and so I settled for two shot glasses, although it seemed a crime to drink brandy out of glasses emblazoned with the Luxardo logo. Carrying the two glasses in one hand and the bottle of brandy in the other, I made my way into the garden.

“They only had disgusting cheap stuff in halves so I got us a bottle of Remy instead,” I said. “I couldn’t find any brandy glasses in your cupboards either so I hope shot glasses will do.”

She had already removed the pizza box from the table and placed it under her recliner and I sat the glasses on the table and tried to find the little tab to remove the foil from the stopper on the bottle.  I found it surprisingly easily with my nail and uncoiling it between my thumb and forefinger, removed the cork and poured two generous measures of brandy. Perching the bottle on the small table, I moved my recliner away with a leg and sat down on the grass. I handed her one of glasses. Picking up the remaining glass, I lifted it up to meet hers.

“Sláinte!” I said.

“Gaelic too?”

“I am afraid that I know a drinking toast in just about every European language except Hungarian; it comes from a very mis-spent youth,” I replied.