The Last Gift Read Free Page A

in shocking episodes that she could not get out of her mind. Her friends at work asked after him, and she told them briefly, making the best of her bulletins from sick bay. The bulletins helped her to reduce her shock into something more ordinary, to fit what had happened into familiar dramas. Who did not know a father or a sister or a husband or a neighbour who was struggling with a lingering illness or waiting for a major operation? After her bulletins, she listened to those of her friends and between them they made tragedies tolerable, blaming doctors, fate or even the unfortunates themselves for the miseries they described. It was better that way. They were not the kind of friends she could open her heart to. She did not have that kind of friend except for Abbas. She was afraid that if she spoke openly she would release a torrent of empty sympathy, which she guessed would be the best her friends at work would be able to offer. Which was probably also the best she could offer if one of them were to open their heart to her too. It was enough to feel the human gestures without probing too much, it was enough.
    If anything, she did not want to think about how he was now. She wanted not to think about that for just a few hours in a day, but she could not manage it. It was not right to leave him on his own all day, but the doctor said he was getting better and it was worth a try. The medication is doing its work and he will be fine. Don’t fuss over him all the time, she said, let him look after himself a little, let him learn. Stop fussing, that was what he said too. She knew he wanted her out of the house so he could be alone with his silences. But it was not right when he could not manage, when he spilt things and soiled himself and sat weeping all day in his loneliness. It hurt her that he spoke roughly to her, which was not his way, but she had to get used to it. He was not well, and anyway, she would fuss if she wanted, what else was she supposed to do.
    It was their regular doctor, Dr Mendez, who said don’t fuss over him all the time, let him look after himself, as if she was not a champion fusspot herself. She was very firm with Maryam, as she had always been from when Maryam first took the children to her all those years ago. Her instructions were to be obeyed in full, and her diagnosis often had a hint of blame, as if Maryam were at fault. Dr Mendez was a Spanish lady doctor, and a very stubborn one, in Maryam’s view. She was about Maryam’s age and had been their doctor for years, growing more and more like a rugged lady wrestler as she grew older and filled out. Perhaps it was Maryam’s own fault, that she had not found a way of preventing the doctor from bullying her, but she spoke to Maryam as if she was not very good at looking after herself. After the diabetes diagnosis, she lectured Abbas about his negligence too. Older men are too vain to go to the doctor until something terrible happens to them and then they are a nuisance to everyone, she said. He should have had regular blood tests as a matter of course, a man of his age, and then they would have diagnosed the diabetes years ago and would have had his heart problem under control too. Now the children must have blood tests at least once a year. These conditions are passed on in families, she said. It was as well that Abbas was so weak; doctor or no doctor, he would not have taken that tone of voice from her when he was well. As the stubborn Spanish lady doctor lectured him, Maryam thought she saw Abbas briefly smile, and she preferred to think that it was his mischief smile, saving up some mockery that he would deliver to her later, when he had the strength.
    She thought of him then as he used to be, as he was when she met him all those years ago in Exeter. She often thought of him like that since his illness, the man she met when she was seventeen, not to compare or grieve that he was no longer like that, but as a pleasure, as a memory that came to