‘Stephen, what a life you have led. You have filled every unforgiving minute and what a woman you have found in Elizabeth. You have led what they call a charmed life. What luck you have had, what opportunities, what sights you have seen. You are a lucky bugger, and you were probably due a sticky patch. And here it is. You must deal with it however you choose, and this letter is my gift to you, to let you know what you are facing, if everything else has failed. I am reading about dementia every day now, trying to cram while I can, and they say that in time you forget even the people closest to you. I am reading time and again of families where husbands forget wives, where mothers forget children, but, after the names and the faces disappear from your memory, what seems to hold on the longest is love. So whatever position you are in, I hope you know you are loved. Elizabeth will not send you away, we both know that. She will not lock you in a home, however bad you get, and however difficult things become. But you must persuade her that this is the right course of action. She cannot continue to care for you, for her sake or for yours. Elizabeth is not your nurse; she is your lover. Read her this letter, please, and then ignore her objections. I have left a page of suggestions tucked inside The Handbook of the Baghdad Archaeological Museum, on the third shelf to your right. I hope that something there should fit the bill.
‘Stephen, I am losing my mind – I feel it slipping away daily. I send you my love, dear man, a year into the future. I hope you are able to do something with this letter. I love you and, assuming you have done what you’re told and read this to Elizabeth, then, Elizabeth, I love you too. Yours faithfully, Stephen.’
Stephen puts down the letter. ‘So there we have it.’
‘There we have it,’ agrees Elizabeth.
‘Feels like we both should be crying?’
‘I think we both might need cool heads for a moment,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Crying can come later.’
‘And have we had this conversation before?’ Stephen asks. ‘Have we spoken about dementia?’
‘From time to time,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You certainly know something is up.’
‘And how long, impossible question I know, but how long until we’re not capable of having this discussion? How many windows like this do we have left?’
Elizabeth can fool herself no more, can keep Stephen to herself no longer. The day she knew must arrive is here. She has been losing him a paragraph at a time, but the chapter is done. And the book is close to its end.
Stephen, fully dressed and shaved, stands among his books. The urns and sculptures from his travels, things he found significant and beautiful, gathered over a lifetime. The awards, the photographs, old friends smiling on boats, boys at school dressed like men, Stephen on mountains, on desert digs, raising a glass in a far-off bar, kissing his wife on their wedding day. This room, this cocoon, every inch of it is his brain, his smile, his kindness, his friendships, his lovers, his jokes. His mind, fully on display.
And he knows it is now lost.
‘Not many,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Your good days are further apart, and your bad days are getting worse.’
