ABSTRACT
Alice made her way into Margaret’s room a month later with heavy steps. It had become the refuge that home had once been. She had longed for the moment when she would get there. She sat down and found she was too full of tears to speak. Margaret said nothing but waited attentively as always so that after a while Alice found that she could talk and she began:
I went home and when I went through the front door there was that kind of silence that tells you that a house is empty. That’s funny I thought. Oliver’s car is outside; he must be here; where can he be?
I went to check his study just as I normally do and there he was ….
Sorry …. I managed to ring for an ambulance and the men were very kind. They were there in no time and they found me trying to do CPR. “It’s all right” one of them said. “We’ll take over now.” They got him into the ambulance really quickly and we went to the hospital with blue lights and sirens and in a daze I followed his stretcher into the Accident and Emergency department. They told me to wait in a special room. I will never forget that room: the torn leather on some of the chairs, the horrible red plastic of the row of hard chairs against the wall. There was no window and that bothered me. How 82would I know when the daylight came? I wanted to know what was happening but I dreaded being told. I don’t know how long it was but it wasn’t long. A young tired-looking doctor came and checked my name. Then he said “I’m sorry.” He didn’t need to say any more. I knew that Oliver was dead, probably before he left the house. Left the house. That sounds like a deliberate action doesn’t it? I found that I felt sorry for the doctor. Poor kid. He didn’t like the job of telling the poor wife, widow …. sorry …. He’ll have to learn though. It goes with the job.
They were very kind. They left me with him for as long as I wanted and they told me what I needed to do.
