Maybe you wouldn’t expect so, but Mick remembers breathing. He remembers the little noise his lip made when they’d part, and the rise of his chest, and his lungs filling. He remembers the little temperature change in his nostrils when they’d suck in new air, and the baby-turbulence at the roof of his mouth when he’d breathe out.


Mick watches Reenie breathe, as she moves around the house and the garden. She’s got a routine now. He worries about her. When he was alive there’d be a bit of time before she woke up, and he’d watch awakeness creep pinkly into her cheeks. Sighing, she’d wake up. Always with a sigh. He’d never told her that, that she sighs before she wakes up. She always slept later than him, even with the alarm clock in her ear, ringing its small brass bell louder than kingdom come. He’d wake up before the alarm went off. It was just the way his body worked, maybe because of his childhood getting up to help his dad at the bakery, or from later on when he’d get up get to go work down the docks. Days off he’d have chance for a lie in, but he didn’t need it. He liked to watch her get the girls up and make them breakfast.

The girls took after their mam; they weren’t no good in the morning either. He used to be tempted to let them have some of the good strong coffee Reenie made for him, but it wasn’t worth the trouble he’d get in with her. Of course, when the girls got older they cottoned on to coffee. Reenie never liked it. She said it gave her headache. It was something he shared with the girls. Only last Christmas (oh no it can’t have been, he’s lost track of how time works) Dolly and Sharon put together to get him one of those things you put on the stove. A Turkish coffee pot thing. Mick never worked it out, but the girls used it when they’d come round. They were right. The coffee you got from that thing was bloody good.

Mick has a go at describing what this state is like, just to himself as there’s no-one else that can hear him except Reenie, and that’s only now and then. The nearest he’s got so far is to think that it’s like being water. He sees his own movement the way you see the sun move on water. When he tries to touch Reenie’s hand, there’s a kind of ripple of non-light that’s barely visible. She sees it, but not everyone could. She moves around their home, talking away to him. She knows he’d never leave her. They agreed that long ago. Reenie was the sick one then. She had cancer in her womb. It was bad. Mick thought he’d lose her. In hospital he held her hand while she tried to keep his spirits up.

–    Do you remember that time we lost the bike in Germany? She asked him.

Mick got through the tightness of his throat. – You lost it more like, he said.

Reenie tried to laugh. She made a breezing sound. They’d been motorbiking round Europe, not long before she fell pregnant with Dolly. They were staying in B&Bs, only spending a night or so in each town. One evening they got invited to a bar by the couple who ran the B&B they’d booked into. They were a nice couple. Their oldest had just got engaged so they felt like celebrating. It was one drink on the house after another. It was a really good night but the next day Mick and Reenie both felt too bad to get on the bike again. They stayed in bed that whole day, and the next morning Reenie went down in her leathers to put the panniers on the bike. She came back in a panic.

– I can’t find it Mick, she said. Mick thought she looked gorgeous in her leathers, a red flush rising up her neck from the heat of them and from the panic she was in.

Mick said – What are you on about? He went down to have a look himself. She was right; the bike wasn’t where they’d chained it up the night before. Only it hadn’t been the night before, had it? The thieves would be long gone by now; escaping while Mick and Reenie cuddled through their hangovers. It was a bad few hours. The landlord at the B&B was really upset himself. He rang the police. It was only when they’d turned up to take a statement that the landlord’s son pulled up outside the house, on the missing motorbike. Reenie had been carried away with the engagement news and had given him the keys to borrow the bike. He’d gone on a day-trip up along the river with his fiancée. Reenie’d been too half cut to remember doing it. They had a good laugh about it. It worked out well; the lad had filled up the bike’s tank and bought Reenie flowers as a ‘thank you’.

In the hospital where Reenie almost died, Mick squeezed her hand. – Don’t leave me, he said. – If you go I will too. I won’t survive it.

Reenie closed her eyes. She was tired. Mick watched her chest rise and fall. She got better. It was Mick who in the end couldn’t hang on to life. He’s still around though, for as long as she needs him. If she found someone else he doesn’t know what would happen. Maybe he’d fade out. Now more than ever he sees that the present is what’s important. Reenie yawns as she irons through a small laundry pile. Mick lays his non-head against her shoulder and puts his non-arms around her. Her ribcage expands and contracts with her breath. He hears her heart beating. He thinks, it’s beating for us both.