andhelplessly. He said we had to wrap his body in plastic so the badgers would not disturb him, although how he knew such a thing about burials I’ve no idea. There were some rolls of polythene in the shed left over from the work on the barn roof, but I could not bring myself to fetch one. Then I struggled to help Mark fold the awkward sheeting over Bru’s stiff legs, couldn’t find the end of the tape to seal it over his dry muzzle, couldn’t control the scissors. I heaved from the bottom of my stomach; I did not know death smelled so rancid. We buried Bru at the top of the garden, the non-judgmental member of our family, who loved us unconditionally and who healed us, just by being between us.
Bru’s death felt catastrophic to me. Inside the house, in the daytime, on my own, his loss tripped me up at the bottom of the stairs where he used to wait for us in the morning and got under my feet in the kitchen when I was cooking; the loneliness got under my skin when I sat in the silence and listened for him barking to be let back in.
In the evenings, there were just the two of us again, our only company the unspoken memory of nights in West London with the front door double-locked and the security lights on in the driveway going on and off for no known reason.
Outside, at night, it was fear which rustled the hedges and slammed the stable door unexpectedly behind me.
‘It’s as if someone has poisoned everything,’ I said. ‘Just to know there are people out there who hate us that much.’
However much they hated us, Mark hated them even more in return. I had never seen hatred in his eyes before that time.
Someone told me once how quickly it becomes difficult to picture the dead. That has not proved to be the case for me: the dead are with me always – but the living? Angie I can see clearly, her absence is so painful that her presence in my mind is almost tangible. WithMark, I struggle to recall his face. There remains an Impressionist’s portrait of him, or maybe a Cubist version, with disconnected parts of him, lying against each other in conflict on the canvas: the hint of his half-Greek missing mother in the sallow complexion, the thick, dark hair, the straight lips where I used to rest my fingers, those eyes, those deep-set, brown eyes. But these things do not make a face, maybe because he has not visited me once since the funeral, maybe because I fear what I may see reflected in those eyes. I cannot hear his voice either and I dare not imagine what he might say if he were to speak. And then there’s Sister Amelia who I can see and not see. Her hologram is always flickering just out of reach; she conjures herself up whether I want to remember her or not.
I pull the blanket up over my head and hide.
B oy stands at the kitchen door and says something about needing to check the monitor. He doesn’t exactly knock, but at least he hesitates – unlike the others. ‘Boyish enthusiasm’ springs to mind, a cliché, but true in his case, I imagine. His eyes smile a lot, even when he is supposed to be looking serious, and he has thin, dislocated limbs a bit like a yearling. He must be over six foot, but even so he can’t quite reach, so he drags a chair across the room to the corner where one of the cameras is mounted, climbs up and removes a wire.
‘I thought you might want to know,’ he begins, ‘that the shrink has called. He was asking if your medication needed to be increased.’
‘The answer is no,’ I tell him, biting my black fingernails.
Still on the chair, he looks down at me, the battery in his hand, his head at a ludicrous angle against the beam, squashing his spiky blond hair. ‘It’s just that if they think you’re not taking it, then they’ll move to a patch or injections. You’re still sectioned, and apparently they can do that whether you want it or not.’ He pauses and turns his attention back to the monitor, as if a little embarrassed. ‘I thought it was your right to
Bru’s death felt catastrophic to me. Inside the house, in the daytime, on my own, his loss tripped me up at the bottom of the stairs where he used to wait for us in the morning and got under my feet in the kitchen when I was cooking; the loneliness got under my skin when I sat in the silence and listened for him barking to be let back in.
In the evenings, there were just the two of us again, our only company the unspoken memory of nights in West London with the front door double-locked and the security lights on in the driveway going on and off for no known reason.
Outside, at night, it was fear which rustled the hedges and slammed the stable door unexpectedly behind me.
‘It’s as if someone has poisoned everything,’ I said. ‘Just to know there are people out there who hate us that much.’
However much they hated us, Mark hated them even more in return. I had never seen hatred in his eyes before that time.
Someone told me once how quickly it becomes difficult to picture the dead. That has not proved to be the case for me: the dead are with me always – but the living? Angie I can see clearly, her absence is so painful that her presence in my mind is almost tangible. WithMark, I struggle to recall his face. There remains an Impressionist’s portrait of him, or maybe a Cubist version, with disconnected parts of him, lying against each other in conflict on the canvas: the hint of his half-Greek missing mother in the sallow complexion, the thick, dark hair, the straight lips where I used to rest my fingers, those eyes, those deep-set, brown eyes. But these things do not make a face, maybe because he has not visited me once since the funeral, maybe because I fear what I may see reflected in those eyes. I cannot hear his voice either and I dare not imagine what he might say if he were to speak. And then there’s Sister Amelia who I can see and not see. Her hologram is always flickering just out of reach; she conjures herself up whether I want to remember her or not.
I pull the blanket up over my head and hide.
B oy stands at the kitchen door and says something about needing to check the monitor. He doesn’t exactly knock, but at least he hesitates – unlike the others. ‘Boyish enthusiasm’ springs to mind, a cliché, but true in his case, I imagine. His eyes smile a lot, even when he is supposed to be looking serious, and he has thin, dislocated limbs a bit like a yearling. He must be over six foot, but even so he can’t quite reach, so he drags a chair across the room to the corner where one of the cameras is mounted, climbs up and removes a wire.
‘I thought you might want to know,’ he begins, ‘that the shrink has called. He was asking if your medication needed to be increased.’
‘The answer is no,’ I tell him, biting my black fingernails.
Still on the chair, he looks down at me, the battery in his hand, his head at a ludicrous angle against the beam, squashing his spiky blond hair. ‘It’s just that if they think you’re not taking it, then they’ll move to a patch or injections. You’re still sectioned, and apparently they can do that whether you want it or not.’ He pauses and turns his attention back to the monitor, as if a little embarrassed. ‘I thought it was your right to
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