A Preparation for Death by Greg Baxter

Author:Greg Baxter [Jenny Han]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780141962580
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-08-06T04:00:00+00:00

8

I am going to miss Helen much more than she knows. She has become an ersatz wife. She is messy and poor, and has no interest in chit-chat. If I liked her music, I would throw myself at her feet and beg her to love me. Instead we operate in proximity but separately.

It is delightful to watch her morning rituals. Since she works different hours every week, I catch different episodes of it. And sometimes on weekends, if I am up writing, I can observe it entirely. It begins like a single bee sucking nectar out of a flower, delightful, beautiful, delicate, and gradually others arrive, until suddenly the sky is black with a swarm of them.

She wakes more than two hours before she must leave the house – the intent is to finally, for once in her life, not be late. First she goes upstairs to the kitchen and dining room, makes a cup of tea, and reads a book. She has good taste in books, and a broad appetite. She sits on a chair at the kitchen table, knees pulled up to her chin, and holds the book at a distance, sipping her tea, black, never removing the bag. Because the weather is warmer, she wears a vest top and boxers – in the winter she wore a thick black hooded jumper and check pyjama bottoms. Either way she is rather exquisite – not merely pretty but perfectly calm. When her tea is finished she goes downstairs to take a shower. This is where her schedule falls apart. She takes showers that last forty minutes. She says it is because she has lots of hair and must wash it completely. Sometimes she must wash it twice. The idea of her washing her hair for such a long time suffuses me with calm. I imagine she must wash every strand. I imagine she has no thoughts at all – that she becomes nothing more than the sound of a woman washing her hair, the sound of water on a body. When she emerges, she returns to the kitchen to read more and have another cup of tea and breakfast, which is usually a piece of toast. She already knows she will be late, but she must have peace with breakfast. Her hair is wet and thick and very black, and there are times I have wanted to put my hands on it – if only to lower my heart rate. Again she falls into a silence. When she is in this state, one must not speak to her. One feels that to make noise would be to shatter something precious. Then she will check her phone for the time, and slowly the swarm begins to gather. She jogs downstairs to put on make-up. This always takes longer than she expects, and then she must dry her hair. Because there is no socket in the bathroom, and no mirrors anywhere else but in the bathroom, she stands in front of

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