what it was.
‘Was I wrong?’ he asked.
‘I can’t judge you,’ I answered. ‘It’s not my call.’
‘You know what you think though, don’t you?’
‘What I think doesn’t matter.’
He wouldn’t let it go. ‘It matters to me.’
I was surprised to find I felt so strongly about this woman, his wife, a total stranger. Whether he believed her or not was his business. Yet even though I knew that, I was angry with him. That he had taken Berris’s word over hers. That he had allowed Berris to ruin his marriage and offered no resistance whatsoever.
‘You should have believed her.’
Instantly, his eyes were filled with tears and he sniffed, looked away from me and sniffed again. A speck of blood appeared on the floor at his feet, then another. He cupped his hands below his nose as the blood began to pour.
‘I need a tissue,’ he said, and I jumped up and ran.
He was a difficult patient. He refused to lie down in bed and insisted he would clean up the settee and the floor himself as soon as the bleeding stopped. I helped him up the stairs to the bathroom, and when we got there he closed the door and locked me out. I cleaned up anyway, and when he came back down, holding a wad of toilet paper beneath his nose, and realized, he kissed his teeth.
I had to virtually force him to sit down on the settee (again he refused to lie) and to lean his head back to slow the flow. He seemed unsurprised; clearly this was not the first nosebleed he had ever had, and he was adept at dealing with it, in an obstinate kind of resentful way. He refused tea and coffee and paracetamol, insisting the only thing he needed was another drink.
I made it for him, fretting, convinced that more hard liquor, which he appeared to have been drinking non-stop since his arrival, was probably the last thing he needed. And when he took a mouthful, with his customary wince as it went down, I wondered whether he had some kind of alcohol-related illness or whether he was drinking more because he had some other medical problem and was of the opinion it no longer mattered what he did. Had he come to see me because he was putting his house in order while he still had time? As I had learned, the fact a person was too young to die did not buy them any more time. Was he dying?
I sat away from him, in the wicker chair opposite, watching, gauging that the bleeding had almost stopped, thinking his skin colour looked less natural, more like the pallor I was accustomed to working with, stupefied by the realization that the thought of Lemon dying hurt, genuinely hurt; that there was a chink in the armour of indifference that I’d been enveloped in for years.
I felt it.
But I was no closer to telling him anything. He had told me heaps. More than I had asked for. Much more. Yet, so far, I had shared nothing. He was right, you couldn’t just pick up a piece out of a story and present it on its own. Alone, it was worthless. But I had not spoken to anyone ever about that night, had never trusted anyone enough to tell them the truth about what happened with my mother. I hadn’t wanted to. And now that I did want to, it seemed an impossible task. He didn’t need to know about Sam and her family and the garages and Donovan. I wasn’t his kind of storyteller, taking everything back to the dawn of time, slowly building up to the point chapter by chapter. This man was indecent. The choices he had made were beyond understanding, but the heinousness of them, the shamelessness, his disgraceful honesty, made him the one. It was either him or it would forever be no one. It had to be him. Maybe the beginning was wherever I chose it to be. It did not have to be Sam’s spots, or meeting Berris. Maybe it had nothing to do with feet and where toes were pointing.
‘I’m an embalmer,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’
‘I prepare the dead, so their families can see them. I work on people who have died, black people mostly, as a freelancer. Most of the funeral parlours
‘Was I wrong?’ he asked.
‘I can’t judge you,’ I answered. ‘It’s not my call.’
‘You know what you think though, don’t you?’
‘What I think doesn’t matter.’
He wouldn’t let it go. ‘It matters to me.’
I was surprised to find I felt so strongly about this woman, his wife, a total stranger. Whether he believed her or not was his business. Yet even though I knew that, I was angry with him. That he had taken Berris’s word over hers. That he had allowed Berris to ruin his marriage and offered no resistance whatsoever.
‘You should have believed her.’
Instantly, his eyes were filled with tears and he sniffed, looked away from me and sniffed again. A speck of blood appeared on the floor at his feet, then another. He cupped his hands below his nose as the blood began to pour.
‘I need a tissue,’ he said, and I jumped up and ran.
He was a difficult patient. He refused to lie down in bed and insisted he would clean up the settee and the floor himself as soon as the bleeding stopped. I helped him up the stairs to the bathroom, and when we got there he closed the door and locked me out. I cleaned up anyway, and when he came back down, holding a wad of toilet paper beneath his nose, and realized, he kissed his teeth.
I had to virtually force him to sit down on the settee (again he refused to lie) and to lean his head back to slow the flow. He seemed unsurprised; clearly this was not the first nosebleed he had ever had, and he was adept at dealing with it, in an obstinate kind of resentful way. He refused tea and coffee and paracetamol, insisting the only thing he needed was another drink.
I made it for him, fretting, convinced that more hard liquor, which he appeared to have been drinking non-stop since his arrival, was probably the last thing he needed. And when he took a mouthful, with his customary wince as it went down, I wondered whether he had some kind of alcohol-related illness or whether he was drinking more because he had some other medical problem and was of the opinion it no longer mattered what he did. Had he come to see me because he was putting his house in order while he still had time? As I had learned, the fact a person was too young to die did not buy them any more time. Was he dying?
I sat away from him, in the wicker chair opposite, watching, gauging that the bleeding had almost stopped, thinking his skin colour looked less natural, more like the pallor I was accustomed to working with, stupefied by the realization that the thought of Lemon dying hurt, genuinely hurt; that there was a chink in the armour of indifference that I’d been enveloped in for years.
I felt it.
But I was no closer to telling him anything. He had told me heaps. More than I had asked for. Much more. Yet, so far, I had shared nothing. He was right, you couldn’t just pick up a piece out of a story and present it on its own. Alone, it was worthless. But I had not spoken to anyone ever about that night, had never trusted anyone enough to tell them the truth about what happened with my mother. I hadn’t wanted to. And now that I did want to, it seemed an impossible task. He didn’t need to know about Sam and her family and the garages and Donovan. I wasn’t his kind of storyteller, taking everything back to the dawn of time, slowly building up to the point chapter by chapter. This man was indecent. The choices he had made were beyond understanding, but the heinousness of them, the shamelessness, his disgraceful honesty, made him the one. It was either him or it would forever be no one. It had to be him. Maybe the beginning was wherever I chose it to be. It did not have to be Sam’s spots, or meeting Berris. Maybe it had nothing to do with feet and where toes were pointing.
‘I’m an embalmer,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’
‘I prepare the dead, so their families can see them. I work on people who have died, black people mostly, as a freelancer. Most of the funeral parlours
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