Ian stands in the hall outside Issy’s bedroom. A little hammer of tiredness knocks against the uppermost rim of his eye sockets, acid spurts from his stomach like a geyser and his thoughts are fuzzy. What to say? He is losing faith in the power of his own words. Perhaps he could sing a hymn. She likes hymns – ‘Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord’ or ‘Come, Ye Disconsolate’, something like that, perhaps. Or a poem. She likes them too – she used to read whole books of them, years ago. A poem pops into his head – one he’s heard so many times at funerals; the one about how death is nothing because it’s just like slipping into the next room. He glances at the door. Watching someone you love slip into the next room is not nothing. Perhaps the poem gets better; he tries to remember the other words, something about whatever we were to each other, we are still … call me by my own familiar name, speak to me in the way you always used … He can’t recall the rest. In any case, he doesn’t have the time to wait in the hall until he is blessed with the right words, not on a school day.
He edges Issy’s door open. Claire is lying on her side, facing the wall. He tiptoes across the carpet, kneels on the floor next to the bed and listens to the slow blow and draw of her breath.
He rests his fingertips on the top of her arm.
Speak to me in the way you always used.
‘Please come back, I love you,’ he whispers.