In Loving Memory

In Loving Memory
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday March 1, 2014

I pull into the driveway of his brick bungalow and there he is, waiting for me. He’s propped in a folding chair in the sun, shielding his eyes with a soldier’s salute.

Three months ago we’d been strangers. “I want you to write what it’s like to grow old,” he’d emailed me, “always looking at life over your shoulder. My wife of 55 years has been taken from me by illness. Maybe one day you could visit her in the nursing home. She is in room 19. Her name is Ada. Warm regards, Carl, 87.

The following Sunday, I’d sat with Carl in Ada’s room, acutely aware that a bedrail was all that divided this sick woman from my well self. Carl held his wife’s limp hand and whispered fighting words in her ear, trying to replenish her health with his. “She’s not coming back to me, is she?” he asked. Three days later, Ada died.

Carl and I have kept in touch. Now he ushers me inside the three-bedroom home he bought for Ada in 1972.  Her shower caps are still strung along a makeshift clothes line in the laundry. A tray of her earrings is lying open on the kitchen table. The treasures of half a century of marriage compete for space on every surface. “She’s keeping her eye on me, so I haven’t changed a thing,” he says.  

I notice a framed photograph of Carl and Ada leaning against a navy-blue Mercedes saloon. “Aaah, my two darlings,” he says, “except one of them never got her licence. She loved being chauffeured around. I sold that baby two years ago – ‘Hearse or limousine’ I put in the ad. The postie bought it for his wedding.”

Carl leads me into his study. It’s crammed with towers of browning newspapers, old VHS tapes and a spaghetti junction of electrical oddments and gubbins. “Ada wouldn’t come in here!” he beams. A sign on the door reads Litter Den.

I ease a dusty book from a row on a shelf: How To Help Your Husband Get Ahead, 1954. On a dog-eared page Ada has underlined the chapter heading: Make Mountains of his Virtues, Molehills of his Faults. Carl snorts gleefully. 

I see she has folded a square of toilet paper to bookmark Chapter 9: How To Get Along With His Secretary.

We take our tea in the sitting room. “Ada had 57 falls before they told me I couldn’t look after her anymore,” he tells me.

“57? You counted?”

“I’m an accountant.”

We trade smirks. He turns to pour the milk, and I realise he is hiding watery eyes.

 “She left me behind, my Ada. What happens to us – the ones left behind? I’m 87, what’s my future? To die of a broken heart? How can I start again?”

Below a window looking over the backyard, there’s a 1960s credenza with sliding glass doors. It’s filled with cut crystal. Carl has printed on one of the glass panels with a black marker: Remember the good times you had with Ada.

Her favourite armchair squats alongside. The upholstered cushion is scalloped where she once sat. Draped over the headrest, a blue checked tea-towel is embroidered with a row of dainty tulips. I can still make out the indent of her head in the fabric.  

Carl has recovered himself and is rummaging around in a filing cabinet. With a  flourish he pulls out a plastic sleeve and lays a handwritten letter on the table. “Please read it to me” he says. “I want to hear her voice again.”

The letter is dated April 2, 1974. “My darling,” I read to him. “Once again, I have to resort to pen and paper to get my point over.” I scan ahead nervously, realising Ada has written in fury. I look sideways at Carl but he knows what’s coming and begins to chuckle: “Keep going, you swine!” he says to me and puffs out his chest proudly. “This one made me sit up!”

“I have never been sorry having married you. You have been a wonderful provider and a good husband, but lately you are becoming one of the biggest bast–ds I can think of.”

He slaps his thigh and cackles.  I’m shocked but giggling too at the secret mechanics of this marriage. And then Carl’s mirth is again overtaken by sobs. He leans into me and says: “Always kiss your man before you fall asleep – even if you have to force yourself through gritted teeth.”

It’s time to pick up the kids from school. He hands me a carton of eggs and stands waving in the driveway as I reverse onto the street. I wait until he turns and walks safely inside before heading for the highway.