The Sunday Times Magazine • 45and not to forget it. He had dutifully
nodded. But then he remembered them.
To forget them, that would have been
too much to bear.
“Remember what we said about your
brain having an infection,” I say to Jacob.
“Yeah ...” “And all the files being dropped
all over the floor of your life. And you’re
picking them up, each one, and one of the
files ... That’s me. And when you learn to
pick up that file, I hope you’ll see that I am
Abi.” “No, you’re not,” he mutters. “OK,
that’s fine. But I am Abi,” I say. The
neuropsychiatrists and psychologists now
working with you have told me not to try
to dispute your rationale. “You’re not,” he
replies. “Yes I am.” The ping pong of words
that I push until one or other of us tires of
them. “Not.” “Am.” “Not.” “Am.”
Another time we talk about our children’s
births. I remind him that he fell asleep on
my hospital bed after Mabel was born, next
to his tiny new daughter. I sat eating
Marmite on toast and drinking tea at five
in the morning, watching them both. Truly
one of the happiest moments of my life.
Talking about the day, I let him run free,
enjoying the memory, pitching in
occasionally until I admit — “It was an
amazing day.” “Yes, it was ...” he replies,
smiling at me. “I wish you’d been there.”
In late March Jacob is at last moved to
rehab. He lets me accompany him, coming
to accept that I am some kind of person
who has been appointed, quite possibly by
the state, he offers up one day, to look after
the children and him.
Jacob’s occupational therapist tells us
that Jacob is going to need care for the rest
of his life. Carers to wash and dress him and
help him to the toilet. And he’ll always wear
a nappy. And be impotent. “We’ve seen real
progress. But I don’t think we’ve got very far
neurologically,” Dr B says.
We are taking home Jacob, but not Jacob.
A stranger who is strange and yet not a
stranger at all. And I’m scared. You will have
spent 443 days in hospital in the end. The
occupational therapists ask for a video of
our house, and I work my way up and down
like some estate agent, trying to sell a dive,
holding up my iPhone filming it all.
We live in Crouch End. We have knocked
and extended and pushed this house into
shape over time; it has grown with the
children. Each movie made was anotherfloor renovated or pulled apart. Our kitchen
is The Iron Lady wing. Our bedroom?
Thank you, Suffragette. The down payment,
a show I wrote for HBO about the Boxing
Day tsunami. Blood money. Other people’s
lives have inspired me. And yet filming
my own world, I am nervous, as if I have
something to prove.● ● ● ●
There are days when you crash and days
when your eyes silently follow me as I make
coffee, go about my day. One day you notice
a sweater I am wearing. “I bought that for
Abi,” you say. It is the colour of pistachios.
“Yes — Christmas before last,” I reply.
“You’ll stretch it.” “Should I take it off ?”
I offer. “Yes — that’s probably a good idea.”
In our hallway there is a large mirror, and
occasionally I see you staring at yourself,
taking in your own reflection. “Who’s that?”
I ask. You stare back at yourself with
obvious disappointment. “I don’t know.”
“You’re Jacob,” I reply. You are as much
a stranger to yourself as I am to you.Sometimes there is a moment that is
pure Jacob. “Goal,” shouted on his first trip
back to Spurs as the crowd roared and Jesse
pulled him up onto his feet. Or as he
shuffles to bed, passing Mabel and barely
raising his head. And she will sink a little,
resigned, but still try to reach him. “Love
you, Daddy.” And just when all is lost again,
when the silence is painfully, unwillingly
accepted, “To the moon and back, Mabes.”
I mentally add these to the list of Firefly
Moments, brief sparks of light that remind
us Jacob is still there.
There is another list I am writing. The list
of things I am angry about. That I am angry
with you about. Angry that you still don’t
know me. Angry you never hug me. Angry
you have no awareness how our lives now
work. Angry you stay silent when the kids
need you to talk. Angry you now sit in the
same place on the sofa. Angry at the dip it
leaves in the sofa. Angry you won’t watch
any TV other than Friends. Not even
Breaking Bad, which you loved. Angry you
did not die. This last one is the one I will
struggle with most. It’s not unreasonable.
It’s understandable. But still, I don’t like
that I have said it. Feel it.● ● ● ●
One morning Jacob is sitting reading the
newspaper on his iPad in the kitchen. As he
slowly and diligently swipes the pages,
I notice a photo of us. An iPhone “on this
day” memory, flashing up in the corner of
the screen. A random image of the two of
us, on some cold March morning many
years ago, his arm around me. We are
laughing, trying to out-hug one another.
I am curious to know what he thinks of it.
Admittedly the woman in the photo is a
million miles away from how I look now.
I start to goof around, disappearing
behind the kitchen island, then reappearing
as if going up and down an imaginary
staircase. I dive into the fridge, then back
out again as if grappling with a shark in
one of the vegetable drawers. Jacob ponders
on this, blank faced and nonplussed, a
little embarrassed for me, then goes back
to his football scores. I crank it up,
attempting a kind of exaggerated Marcel
Marceau, pointing to the image of me
ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES on the iPad screen and then to my face,
From top: Morgan, second left, wrote
The Iron Lady (2011), starring Meryl
Streep; Natalie Press and Helena
Bonham Carter in Suffragette (2015);
Chiwetel Ejiofor in the TV drama
Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006) ➤SLOWLY, SURELY IT BECOMES
APPARENT, IT’S NOT THAT
HE HAS FORGOTTEN ME.
HE DOESN’T KNOW ME