After You

Chapter One - To Build a Home

   "Later. Soon. Tomorrow. Another time. I thought we'd have forever. I was wrong."
- Rhys

It was the last time I saw you; laid out on a bed, sheet tucked up under your chin; grazing the tops of your bare shoulders. It was you, but you didn't look like you. Your face was a patchwork of dark bruises where you'd been hit by the car. The nurses had cleaned you up before they let me go to you, but I could still see dry blood. It was in your hair. The sandy-blonde was gone. Instead, your hair was almost pink. It was ridiculous, I thought, as I looked down on your body. It was the final time I'd see you, and you had pink hair. My big, hulking husband; my laddish lover who watched endless football, played computer games late at night, had regular boys' nights, and complained when I served broccoli with dinner; you had pink hair.

"It's so bitter!" you'd complain.

"It's good for you," I'd counter.

"No,' you always insisted. "It causes bloating, and it tastes disgusting."

"Stop being a big baby," I'd tell you, because it was only a harmless little bit of veg. Then you'd tell me – you always did, despite that fact that you'd repeated yourself a dozen times over – that broccoli was a special food; that some people were born with an innate distaste for it. That to you, it was unbearably bitter; that science said it was okay to leave your vegetables, because you were born that way.

A man who was so thoroughly male, who refused to eat some innocuous green veg, shouldn't have to spend his final moments before his wife, with pink-tinged hair. Shouldn't have to die at all. Too young. Too soon. Too full of life and dreams we hadn't had a chance to make real.

I asked if I could clean you up a little more before I left you. "Make you look more like yourself," I'd said, when enquiring with the sympathetic nurse. She told me I couldn't, of course. That the police would need to investigate, what with you having been hit by a car. She said I shouldn't "tamper" with you. I'm pretty sure she was going to say, "With the body" but she caught herself in time, and said, "with him", instead.

That's you now, Rhys. You're "Him". You're "Rhys," or "Him," or "Mr Townsend". You're not really a "You" anymore, because you're dead. But I can still feel you, even though you're not here. Even though you didn't look right the last time I saw you. Even though I won't get to feel you touch me again; won't get to hear your voice. You're still here, with me. You promised.

"We'll be shagging each other in our nursing home," you once told me. Do you remember? When we were on our honeymoon? We'd just has sex. You held me close – my head upon your chest – and you told me that being married was great, because you knew you'd have someone to have sex with for the rest of your life.

"I WASN'T WRONG, WAS I, MERRY?"
But what about me? I haven't got anyone to have sex with now!

I don't let you answer. I'm appalled. You've only just died, for Christ's sake. Disgusting, unfeeling wife! I need to stop thinking for a moment. I need to switch off; get myself in order, otherwise I'll go mad.

Tabby saved me from my own chaotic thoughts. She nudged me in the arm.

'We're here,' she said, in a hushed, strained voice. I glanced out the window of the cab. Our flat. I let her direct me inside; let her usher me about. I needed to be blank for a while, and mindlessly following someone else's instructions allowed me to do that. But then it got late. The sky turned a beautiful burnt pink – just like your hair, I thought to myself, as I glanced sightlessly out of the window – and Tabby started to talk about us "getting some sleep".