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I WAS ONLY IN A CHILDISH WAY CONNECTED TO THE ESTABLISHED ORDERMadeline, my wife, never used to wear a watch. She does now,I am told. For a long time, in a very inexact way, I had kepttime for her. There was the time before we were married andthe time after. There was the time before I was hospitalized and thetime after. There was the time she needed me and the time after. Andthere is now.
Let us go then, you and I,
You get promoted. There are more art galleries. She gets promoted.There are more museums. You drink strong coffee, almost professionally,in the inner city area. She encourages you to submit the poemabout her for publication. She tells you she has never met anyone whowrote poetry. You suspect that it is just that she has never met anyonewho admitted it. You think everyone writes poetry. The poem abouther is published. You share a kind of delight.
If you are voluntary, they let you keep your own clothes. This was themost obvious difference between the first and the second time. Anotherwas that I did not know how I got there the first time. I wasthere when I woke up. I was lying on a bed with tubular steel railingaround it. My pajamas, the sheets and the pillow cases were a standardblue, all with a Department of Health logo on them. The bednext to me was unmade. The mattress was covered in vinyl and hadbrass eyelets over which there was a thin metal gauze. Two beds downfrom me a man lay on his front, trying to fit all of his face on the Departmentof Health logo on his pillowcase. He wore blue pajamas too.We were not voluntary.
“Let us go then, you and I When the evening is spread out against the sky.”
But she did not join in as she once had.
“Let us go then, you and I . . .”
“Shut up.”
“Let us go then, you and I . . .”
Nothing.
“Let us go then, you and I . . .”
She stopped the car abruptly so that it jerked forward after the enginehad stopped. We were as close to the lake as the car could go.Madeline leant over to the backseat, opened the mouth of the emptycanvas bag with an outward stretch of one hand and scooped up thekittens with her other hand. She moved so quickly. The side of herbody touched my face. I could suddenly smell the perfume she usedto wear so long ago. She was wearing it again. She handed me the canvasbag with the kittens inside and reached over me to unlock the passengerdoor. Then she spoke.
Let us go then, you and I,
The sweet features of my personal failings, once just hinted at, hadgrown too pronounced for her.
From the outside the building is spacious; yet, from the inside, thewalls creep up on you. They crept up on me. So did Hugh Brasnett.Hugh’s bed was two away from mine. He was the young man, notmuch older than Andy, whom I had seen earlier lying on his front tryingto fit his face on the Department of Health logo on the pillowcase.
“I was only in a childish way connected to the establishedorder;
“That was beautiful,” Sarah said.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Reasons I Won't Be Coming"
by .
Copyright © 2006 Elliot Perlman.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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