He is sick, and in the grips of a snuffling, rasping, hacking cough that should elicit sympathy, but merely manages to irritate beyond belief. He's the soldiering-on type. The, ah well, I'll work through it and even though I don't rest or look after myself, hopefully it will go away, type.
After a few weeks, I begin to suspect he is rasping, snuffling and hacking deliberately to drive me mad. When I look into his watery eyes, I don't feel pity. I feel like covering him in two duvets and chaining him - there is nothing kinky about it, believe me - to the bed.
Like many people, when I am sick I don't need to be persuaded to take up semi-permanent residence upstairs. The bed where I now sit writing becomes my castle. I call him for supplies from my mobile phone, even if he is only downstairs in the kitchen. I demand 24-hour Lemsip service and regular temperature checks. Feel my forehead, isn't it hotter than it was half an hour ago, and do you think I might have pleurisy, and can you please Google it right now and check what the symptoms are, and how long I have to live? It's what you do, with more or less drama, depending on your personality, when you are sick. But not this brave soldier.
Rather uncharitably, I suspected he was actually trying to make himself worse when I caught him walking on the stone tiles and wooden floors in our house with no shoes on, which is the one thing guaranteed to bring on a cold in me. When I tell him the folly of this action, he claims to have a different "heating system" to me and says that he doesn't take in cold through his feet. I gently insist that he doesn't go to work. He snuffles and rasps and hacks, and takes one of those fizzy vitamin C drinks which he has decided are imbued with miraculous healing properties. I spy our sharpest knife glinting in the dishwasher he is emptying. I have to leave the room.
Then we have a day off. As usual, he is up at 7am, rheumy eyes searching for something to do in the house. A surface to wipe. A cupboard to clear out. I am still in bed. I call him up for a chat. After a while, he plods upstairs and sits on the bed. There is something on his mind. It takes a while, but finally I extract the reason for his discontentment.
It turns out he is bitterly disappointed that despite his obvious and ongoing sickness, I have yet to suggest offering to fix him a vitamin C drink or a cup of Lemsip. I haven't brought him breakfast in bed. Or even once put a hand to his forehead. And I can't argue, because he is right. When I am sick and want attention, I am so vocal about it even the neighbours know the nature of my ailment. He, meanwhile, is the grin-and-bear-it-and-hope-someone-notices type. Unfortunately, the excruciating noise he has been making has blinded me to the fact that I should be doing my bit to help. He sighs a long sigh and makes a barely audible snuffle/hack/rasp combination.
In fairness to me, this is the exact point when I spring into action. Before you can say "I give him two days to live, Mrs Ingle" he is tucked up under two duvets, with instructions not to lift his head until woken by the slightest of hunger pains. I go downstairs and I do something I haven't done in what feels like years - I voluntarily engage with some housework.
Intermittently humming A Spoonful of Sugar from Mary Poppins and A Woman's Work from Calamity Jane, I transform the house. More specifically, the laundry situation in our house. "It's just the day for the drying, so it is, indeed, isn't that right?" as the mother of the sick boy upstairs would say. In a few hours the clothes are billowing away on the line and every inch of every radiator is covered. It's amazing, given that I detest it so much, that I am actually exceptionally good at this housework lark.
After his washing is done, I turn my attention to his lunch. In minutes I have rustled up a light repast of poppy seed bread topped with melted sheep's cheese with just a hint of fresh basil and sunblushed tomato. I mix his miraculous vitamin C drinks and I whip up a Lemsip. I carry it all upstairs and watch him eat, and discuss his symptoms in minute detail. I notice his cough is more a dry wheeze now, and wearing my nurse's hat I decide this is a very good sign.
The next morning, when he has got some colour back in his cheeks, we marvel at how far a little TLC can go. That's when I start to realise I am not in the full bloom of health myself. All that running in and out of the house with armfuls of washing may have taken its toll. Rasp, snuffle, hack. Dribble, sniffle, moan. I'd call him for assistance, but, feeling much better, he has skipped off to the driving range. Funny that. He seems to have forgotten his mobile phone.
