The House of Special Purpose Read Free Page A

shelf in her parlour.
    ‘A very clean man,’ she told me, pursing her lips and nodding in approval. ‘That’s what Mother always said about him. Fastidious in his ways.’
    My morning routine never changed. I would wake at half past six, wash and dress, and step into the kitchen by seven o’clock, where Zoya would have tea and toast and two perfectly poached eggs waiting for me on the table. She had a miraculous technique for preparing the eggs so that they retained their oval shape outside of the shell, a talent she put down to creating a whirlwind effect in the boiling water with a whisk before plunging the albumen and the yolk inside. We said little to each other as I ate but she would sit at the table next to me, refilling my mug of tea when it ran low, taking my plate away the moment I had finished and rinsing it beneath the tap.
    I preferred to walk to the museum, regardless of the weather, in order to take some exercise. As a young man, I was proud of my physique and I worked hard to maintain it, even as middle-age approached and I became less enamoured by my reflection in the glass. I carried a briefcase and Zoya placed two sandwiches and a piece of fruit inside it every morning, alongside whatever novel I was reading at the time. She took such good care of me and, through the nature of daily repetition, I rarely thought to comment on her kindness or offer her my thanks.
    Perhaps this makes me sound like an old-fashioned creature, a tyrant making unreasonable demands of his wife.
    Nothing could be further from the truth.
    In fact, when we were first married, in Paris in the autumn of 1919, I could not bear the idea of Zoya placing herself in a servile position towards me.
    ‘But I am not waiting upon you,’ she insisted. ‘It gives mepleasure to take care of you, Georgy, can’t you see that? I never imagined I would have such freedoms as this, to wash, to cook, to maintain my own home as other women do. Please don’t deny me something that others take for granted.’
    ‘That others complain about,’ I replied with a smile.
    ‘Please, Georgy,’ she repeated, and what could I do but accede to her demands? Still, I remained uneasy with this for some years, but as time went by and we were blessed with a child, our routines took over and I forgot about my initial discomfort. The arrangement suited us, that is all I can say of it.
    My shame, however, is that she has looked after me so well throughout our life together that I find myself unable to cope with basic responsibilities now that I am alone in our home. I know nothing of cooking and so eat cereal for my breakfast every day, flakes of dry oats and bran, fossilized currants made soggy by the addition of milk. I take lunch at the hospital at one o’clock when I arrive on my daily visit. I eat by myself at a small plastic table overlooking the infirmary’s unkempt garden, where the doctors and nurses smoke side by side in their pale-blue, almost indecent scrubs. The food is dull and bland but it fills my stomach and that is all I ask of it. It is basic English food. Meat and potatoes. Chicken and potatoes. Fish and potatoes. I imagine that some day the menu will offer potatoes and potatoes. It can excite no one.
    Naturally, I have grown to recognize some of my fellow visitors, the widows and widowers in waiting who wander the corridors in terrified loneliness, deprived for the first time in decades of their favourite person. We have a nodding acquaintance, some of us, and there are those who like to share their stories of hope and disappointment with each other, but I avoid conversation. I am not here to form friendships. I am here only for my wife, for my darling Zoya, to sit by her bedside, to hold her hand in mine, to whisper in her ear, to make sure she knows that she is not alone.
    I remain in the hospital until six o’clock and then I kiss hercheek, rest my hand on her shoulder for a moment, and say a silent prayer that she will still be alive when