The Sunday Times Magazine • 43The sleep goes on, into late October. The
good news is, they are going to try a new
drug, a chemotherapy drug, bortezomib, to
see if this will control the storming that is
targeting the NMDA receptors in your brain.
The ever-changing carousel of consultants
and doctors who come and go, tell us this is
a marathon, and it will take time.
One day a particularly young consultant
asks how long Jacob had been in a
wheelchair before this? I point at photos of
him skiing on the wall, part of the collage of
images that we have plastered on his notice
board, a reminder to those who look after
Jacob, and those who visit, who Jacob is.
“And he rode a motorcycle,” I say. “And
loves tennis. And he plays the ukulele. And
he got an ‘ology’. He was the boy who got an
ology. In the BT ads. You remember?”
They look no more than 25, these
consultants. I doubt they were born when
Jacob was in these ads. But I go on ... “And
he was performing at the National this time
last year. Oslo? Did you see Oslo? He was
Is it my imagination that he glares at
me? One day, when I go to say goodbye,
he won’t reply, eyes fixed on the children,
refusing to look at me. It is starting to
become more than irritating; it is mildly
disconcerting. Again, I tell myself, I’m
paranoid. He’s fine. He’s just still waking
up, like some grumpy, fat-bottomed bear.
Every time I take Styler, the dog, to see
him there’s the same ardent connection,
and I bristle a little, with jealousy. I am
jealous of the dog. And slowly, surely it
becomes apparent, it’s not that he has
forgotten me. He doesn’t know me, can’t
locate me, something I piece together a
little more each day.
I print out a clutch of A4 photos of us all
and ask someone to pin them around the
bed. When I come in the next day, all of
the photos are up on the wall around him.
Except mine, which he doesn’t want up.
I am not mad. I will not go mad. In Jacob’s
therapy discharge report, when he finally
leaves the hospital, it will say of this time:
By mid to late February, Mr Krichefski was
noted to experience visual hallucinations
and fixed delusions regarding his partner.
He does not waver on his belief that his
partner is an imposter. This, I learn, is
Capgras syndrome.
The notes confirm that initially the
children had slipped his mind too. It was
something I had been concerned about, but
had quickly dismissed, even though he had
asked me, “Who’s that girl?” I sternly told
him that she was Mabel, his daughter,Abi Morgan,
star screenwriter
Abi Morgan is an award-
winning screenwriter and
playwright known for films
such as Brick Lane and
Suffragette, and TV dramas
such as Sex Traffic. Born in
Cardiff in 1968, her mother
was an actress and her father
a theatre director. At university
she studied drama and
literature, followed by a writing
course at the Central School of
Speech and Drama in London.
By 1998 she was writing for
the stage and screen, including
the ITV drama Peak Practice.
In 2011 she was nominated for
a Bafta for her screenplay for
The Iron Lady, about Margaret
Thatcher, starring Meryl
Streep. In 2012 she won an
Emmy for outstanding writing
for The Hour, a TV series set in
the BBC of the 1950s starring
Ben Wishaw, Dominic West
and Romola Garai.
She met Jacob Krichefski,
an actor, in London in 2000;
almost immediately she was
smitten. They have two
children, Jesse and Mabel. In
her memoir Morgan describes
how she longed to be married,
and sometimes referred to
Jacob as her husband, but he
was reluctant. They finally got
married in June last year.
Abi and Jacob met in London in 2000 and enjoyed a whirlwind romancethe best Yossi Beilin. Ask anyone. He was
shooting a film the week he collapsed. He
loves Old Fashioned cocktails. And
The West Wing. And football. Of course.
His beloved Spurs.
And he could be annoying. And stubborn.
But mostly he’s kind. He listens. And he has
a laugh, that on the first time of hearing
made me look at the people sitting behind
us at the cinema, embarrassed, only to
realise that it’s the kind of laugh that
triggers more laughter. That lights up a
room. He is astonishing. He’s amazing.
He’s beautiful. And brilliant. Brilliant father,
brilliant partner, brilliant brother, brilliant
son, brilliant friend. He’s not this.
In mid-January, you open your eyes. You
have done this before but this time you
keep them open. Then one day we come
in and you are sitting up. The next you’re
smiling, responding more and wanting to
talk, though you’re still silent.
You are virtually off the ventilator and
they are teaching you how to eat again. The
occupational therapist holds up a pot of
strawberry yoghurt and you spoon it into
your mouth with surprising ease. “How do
you feel swallowing that down?” she asks.
You nod and smile. “Good. Any itchiness?
Any burning in your throat?” You shake
your head. “And when you are ready, can I
hear your voice, Jacob?” “Yeah, you can hear
my voice,” he quietly growls in reply. Gruff
and gravelly, but unmistakably Jacob. These
are his first proper words for seven months.
Tears prick in the corner of my eyes. ➤