SHE

SHE came to see me yesterday. I said to the charge nurse ‘I thought I was not allowed visitors’
He said ‘But this is your wife – your next of kin’
‘She’s no kin of mine I exploded’ He just smiled and showed her in.

She sat down and just looked at me for a while. ‘I suppose you thought that was clever’ she finally said.
‘No, it would have been clever if I had done the job properly’ I retorted.
She started to eat my grapes, and spit the pips into a Kleenex! How gross is that!
‘Do you mind!’ I expostulated, ‘Those grapes have been sent by a friend’.
She sneered. ‘I suppose you mean that ex Animal Rights Activist and part-time writer – the one that got you into all this Blogging business. Well, I will have a few words for him, if ever I meet him’
‘What are you talking about, woman’ I said, tiredly.
‘Well it’s all this blogging stuff that got you into this state. All those weirdos you link up with on the so called ‘information highway’. She sniffed, ‘If you ask me it should be called the ‘information dead-end – for no hopers.’
I maintained a dignified silence, although I was appalled to see R.J.’s grapes had almost gone. And then I had a thought – ‘Wait a minute, you talk about me, but aren’t you and that Swedish tart doing the same thing with your… what is it… ‘Sisters under the Duvet’?
She wiped the last of the grape juice off her chin. ‘Not any more, kiddo – she’s on her own now’
‘You mean you’ve kicked her out?’ I cried.
‘No – she can stay as long as she pays me rent but I want nothing more to do with the crazy bitch. The blog thing was her idea anyway’
I considered this information. ‘Why have you come here?’ I asked at length.
She began to repair her lipstick. ‘I want to raise money on the house. You can get one of those ‘Reversion’ things… you know… releasing equity or something, they call it.
I was aghast. She went on, calm as you like, ‘Anyway, since the house is in both our names I shall need your signature.’
‘Not on your life’ I shouted.
‘Shush, don’t get yourself excited dear – you know it isn’t good for you.’ She admonished. Getting up to go, she continued, ‘Oh, and I have seen Foggatty; you’re only going to get out of here if I undertake to be responsible for you – look after you’, she added with a grim smile. ‘Think it over, darling’ she called over her shoulder, as one of the nurses let her out of the ward.

I sank back in my chair, my mind numb. Has it really come to this?