I’d do it. If you wanted me to.

I have taken you to Dr Somerset. He told us there was no more help he could give. I have taken you to Dr Trevellyan. She told us, ‘Could be three months. Could be a year. Some people can continue indefinitely on the medication.’ She told us that you’re not technically suffering. Your pain is deadened by the medication. She said a nurse would come and show me how to soften food and thicken fluids for you. I told her I used to be a nurse and I knew how.

Jolie visits once a week to check on you. She is checking on me. She takes your blood pressure and looks in your eyes. She checks your padding. She inspects your chair to see that it is clean and dry.

She asks me, ‘How are you coping?’

I tell her, ‘I don’t know “how”, but the why is love.’

She asks you questions instead. She nods as if she understands your response. I understand you. You swivel your eyeballs to me. I can still see you in them. ‘There’s nothing wrong my hearing,’ your eyes say, ‘she doesn’t need to speak so slow to me.’

She didn’t get to meet you before. She doesn’t know you in any other way than this. She asks if we’re all right for money. She read about the cuts. She starts to talk about the state of the country.

‘Seems like the country’s got what he’s got,’ I say, meaning you. What you have.

Jolie says she’s got to leave. She has other people to visit. At least you thought what I said was funny. Your eyes twinkle. You move your good hand up and down.

I’ve been waiting for a sunny day. The transport needs to be booked in advance, so I take a chance and book it once we’ve had one unbroken morning of sunshine.

It’s still cold. I put mittens on you – gloves are too difficult – and a hat with ear flaps. The transport is booked to take us there and to bring us back. The driver today is Sam. He asks me, ‘Are you sure you can manage?’

He puts you in the hoist, and then pushes the chair onto the bus.

‘I’ve managed this far,’ I say.

He drops us off in the car park on the cliff top at Flamborough Head. He’s not sure. ‘Don’t go near the edge.’

‘We’ve been coming here since we met,’ I tell Sam in response to that.

He leaves us. I wave at him, knowing that he looks back in his rearview mirror.

I take you to the edge. Holding us up are millions of sea animals crushed and compacted to make the chalk rock. More than millions. The sun is holding, but the wind hits us in blows. I tuck a blanket tighter in around you. I can see in your eyes that you are remembering. You used to chase me to the edge and I’d pretend to be more scared than I was. We’d lay on our fronts looking down at the sea crashing itself onto the cliff and breaking over and between rocks.

The wind is salty. I open my mouth to it. You do the same. In between the wind we can feel some of the sun’s warmth. I look across the headland. Green at top, then white chalk cliff down to the endless green and blue and white and green and blue.

The sea is churning. It’s hard to think that it is not a living thinking thing. One wave hasn’t finished smashing itself to pieces before another muscle of sea is pushing forwards. It’s the bigness of it. I can’t get my breath. I have to sit. My legs are losing. The wind puts my breath back down my throat as soon as I try to let it out.

I only realise how loud the wind and the waves are when I notice that the seagulls’ crying keeps being snatched off.

I could cry for feeling so small.

I look back at you. Your eyes are shut. Your face – is smoothed out.

And that’s it.