affairs and beach stones

I - IV

THERE WAS PROGRESS this morning, I'm sure of that. For the first time in weeks, you spoke a word I could understand.

I was washing your body, which I do every Saturday and Sunday morning, when Pamela doesn't make her visit. She offered to send someone else at weekends, but I refused, telling her I'd cope. As always, I was using my softest flannel and my best soap, not the cheap white stuff from the Co-op but a clear, amber-coloured bar that smells of vanilla and leaves a creamy scum around the old washing-up bowl that I use for your bed bath. Wearing the scratched plastic apron I used to don for painting sessions at St Luke's, I pulled back the sheets to your waist, removed your pyjama jacket (you must be one of the few men left in the world to wear a blue striped pyjama jacket, complete with collar, breast pocket and swirling piping on the cuffs) and apologised for what was coming next.

I will not avert my eyes at the necessary moment, or at any moment. I will not look away. Not any more. But you never look at me as I tug down your pyjama botHarrys. Leaving you the modesty of the sheet over your lower half, once I've whipped the things from your feet (it's a bit like a conjuring trick, this: I rummage beneath the sheet and – hey presto! – produce a pair of pyjama botHarrys, fully intact), my hand, clutching the flannel, searches out your unclean places.

I talk all the while – this morning I remarked on the constant greyness of the sea, the untidiness of the garden, on what Harry and I watched on television the night before – and the sheet becomes damp, your eyes squeeze shut, and your drooping face droops even more. But I am not distressed. I am not distressed by the sight of this, nor by the feel of your warm, sagging scrotum, nor by the salty smell coming from the crinkled flesh of your armpits. I am comforted by all this, Louis. I am comforted by the fact that I am tending you, cheerfully, by the fact that you let me do this with the minimum of fuss, by the fact that I can wash every part of you, rub it all clean with my Marks and Spencer's Pure Indulgence range flannel, and then throw the cloudy water down the drain.

I can do all this without my hands shaking, without my heart- rate increasing, without my jaw slamming shut with such fierceness that I fear it may never open again.

That, too, is progress.

And this morning I was rewarded. As I was squeezing out the flannel for the last time, I heard you utter something that sounded like 'Eh um,' but – forgive me, Louis – at first I dismissed it as your usual inarticulacy. Since the stroke, your speech has been strangled. You can do little more than grunt, and I'd sensed that, rather than face the indignity of being misunderstood, you had chosen silence. As you are a man whose speech was once impressively articulate – charming, warm and yet erudite – I had rather admired your sacrifice.

But I was wrong. The right side of your face still droops badly, giving you a slightly canine appearance, but this morning you summoned up all your energy, and your mouth and voice worked together.

Still I ignored it, the sound you made, which now had changed to 'Whu om'; I lifted the window slightly to let the stale night smell out, and when I finally turned to you, you were staring up at me from your pillows, your sunken chest still naked and damp, your face screwed into a ball of agony, and you made the sounds again. But this time I almost understood what you said.

I sat on the bed and pulled you forward by the shoulders, and with your limp torso resting on mine, I felt behind you for the pillows, dragged them upright and rested you back on your nest.

'I'll get you a new jacket.'

But you could not wait. You blurted again, even clearer this time, with all the urgency you could muster, and I heard what you said: 'Where's Harry?'

I went to the chest of drawers so you wouldn't see my expression, and found you a clean pyjama jacket. Then I helped you push your arms into the sleeves, and I fastened