The past few days in Venice have been warm. The weather is steadying. I begin to expect each day to be sunny. It will soon be summer.
It is nearing the end of my residency and, since the weather is so consistent, I will take the vaporetto to the Lido without fear of a sudden squall. When it lands, I step onto the wooden platform and walk past shops selling sunglasses, buckets and spades, ice creams. At the end of the avenue I am confronted with a screen of tall pine trees beyond which I get an inkling of the sand and shining line of the sea. I pay for a sunlounger and settle myself. I am aware of the Grand Hotel des Bains behind me, the setting for Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice.
The sand and sea stretch out before me invitingly. Blond children are frolicking in the water. A little boy stoops to observe a shell washed up by the tide. Everyone is either part of a family or a couple. It is dreamy to lie here in the balmy shaded light. As if conjured up by the sensation of the Hotel des Bains – its windows like eyes watching me – Mann’s spirit is revived in my own experience. I think about Death. I long for my husband.
Steven’s last days in the hospice left unanswered questions. The time was snatched away from us. It had been impossible to speak truly about what was happening. When I told him how much I loved him, his eyes looked sceptical, and he didn’t reply that he loved me too. He was facing oblivion. What could my love mean to him now? All that mattered was that the pain shouldn’t become unbearable and that he was given the right dose of morphine.
The pandemic meant that I – as his wife – was the only person allowed to visit. Steven had many phone calls from concerned friends and his family, which consisted of his cousin, with whom he was exceptionally close, and his two sons by two previous relationships. His most persistent caller was one of his ex-girlfriends who suggested that she storm her way through hospital security. He was very agitated by this and forbade her to think of it. But I noticed that he was always glad when he heard from her; his voice became light, almost flirtatious. I knew from his tone when he was talking to her.
His bed was in Keats Ward. Keats was a poet who meant a lot to my romantic-souled husband. When the consultant asked him what still brought him joy, Steven replied, “Celia brings me joy.”
I spent the nights beside his bed on a black leather lounge chair. Neither of us slept much, though he sometimes drifted off for an hour. Always when he woke he would stretch out his hand to reassure himself that I was still there. Sometimes we had conversations that unsettled me. I told him that I hoped I hadn’t been overly demanding, and that I’d left him free enough over the years to follow his own desire to write. He had published short stories and written poetry before he met me. He still wrote poetry, but he was dismissive of it, though each time he went into hospital, he gave me memory sticks on which the best of his writings was stored. When I asked him about his writing now, lying beside him in the quiet ward with the owls hooting in the dark garden outside the window, he stroked my hand and told me it didn’t matter and that I hadn’t demanded too much from him. He had always done what he wanted, he said.
Then I asked him if I had been overly possessive and jealous. It had upset me when he spent time with past girlfriends. He said no – I had been very good. He then admitted that, in the early years of our relationship, he had occasionally slept with an old girlfriend. And he thought I’d always been very patient about the girlfriend who had wanted to visit the hospice and who rang him every day. Not many wives would have put up with that, he added.
I was surprised that his confession didn’t stir up feelings of jealousy in me. I also had Z in my mind, and on my conscience. Even though previously Steven had said that he would understand if I took a lover, I thought he would be devastated to know the truth. What happens after death is a mystery, but I was certain that his memory would live on in me for the rest of my life. I needed to act rightly – for my own sake. Besides, any past or present unfaithfulness didn’t really matter now. I was not made jealous by what he had just told me. Instead, I felt infinitely sad that human beings are so separate that no one actually knows another person’s innermost self, however close they may be. We were facing the final separation and this admission of Steven’s just felt like a little tear in the fabric that was about to be ripped in two.
Three days before he died we were still pretending that he might soon recover enough strength to come home. The nursing staff colluded in this fantasy. But it then became obvious that this would be a terrifying prospect for Steven. That evening, he said that if he were forced to go home I should make sure to go far away. He intended to commit suicide by slashing his wrists and he didn’t want me to witness the sight.
After that, it was as if he’d given clear instructions to his body: he no longer desired to stay alive, and he started to slip away from me. He didn’t respond when I spoke and kept his eyes shut most of the time.
On the last night of his life, the hospice rang me when I was sitting at home by the window with an open book on my lap, unable to read. The nurse told me the end was near and I should get there as quickly as possible.
When I entered Steven’s room I could see a change had taken place. He was lying on his back. His stomach was very distended. The peritoneal cancer that was killing him seemed to be growing at a terrifying rate. He was groaning softly and I could tell he was in pain. His eyes were clenched shut. He half opened them and looked at me. Despite his suffering, there was a gleam of humour, of pleasure, at my presence. I knew he was glad to see me one last time.
The nurse told me that they were going to increase the dose of morphine and that he would soon fall into a deep sleep. After adjusting the dose, she left the room. Steven and I were alone.
The hours of the night moved slowly. There was silence apart from the eerie cries of the owls. Steven was sleeping soundlessly, though I sensed he was still alive. Then, at just after midnight, two nurses rushed into the room. They roughly hauled Steven into a sitting position, rearranging the pillows hurriedly behind his back so that his head was tilted forward, his chin on his chest. I realised that they were shaking the last drops of life out of him to prevent him waking to unendurable pain. The violence of the movement had made his eyes fly open. I saw the light in his eyes flicker with life and then die – exactly like a candle being blown out – and there was no need for the nurse to tell me, “I’m sorry, Celia, but he’s gone.”
Objects of Desire: An Artist in Venice by Celia Paul ( Jonathan Cape, £20) is published on 12 November