Reggie entered the living room and sat down, holding onto the table for support. As his bottom touched the seat, he let out a sigh of relief.
He shook the last cigarette from a packet of twenty, lighted it and inhaled, feeling the smoke scratch his lungs with its vaporous fingernails. He breathed out, slowly and deliberately, letting go of all cares, concerns and general considerations.
Reggie breathed heavily, his chest clicking and clucking like a chicken with bronchitis, and got up to make himself a cup of coffee.
As he stood up, he carried the oxygen tank with him, lugging it behind his languid legs, making sure that the nasal cannula didn't disconnect.
Reggie had suffered a heart attack two months ago, but he didn't want to quit smoking. Heck, he didn't even want to cut down. He would rather be dead now than give up his favourite vice.
His wife, Nellie, sat on an armchair facing the television. She was knitting a woollen jumper for their new-born grandson. The knitting needles ticked with the clock on the mantelpiece. Sounds blared from the television set.
Reggie returned from the kitchen, oxygen tank in one hand, caffeine in the other. "Going mutton or summit? Turn it down."
No answer.
"Nellie!" he cried, causing the poor woman to throw her knitting paraphernalia all over the floor. "Wish you wouldn't do that, dear," she said, leaning down to pick up her needles. "ave you checked the tank? Do we need to swap it over?"
Reggie checked the dial, tapping it. "Seems awright. I'm breavin, at least."
Nellie continued knitting, changing the subject. "Terrible news abou Elsie next door, wernit?"
A coughing and spluttering sound came from Reggie's chair. He looked down and saw white. "Oh dear," he said.
"Woss wrong?" said Nellie, looking back at him.
"Coughed up white again."
Nellie got up and grabbed the new packet of cigarettes Reggie had laid down on the table, pulling the butt from his mouth. "Are you in a rush to die, eh? Is that it?"
"No, I just wanted a cigarette. Look, my lungs 're fucked anyway. Give me a break, woujoo?"
"Then you won't mind if I disconnect this, will ya?" said Nellie, holding onto the nasal cannula. "You dont care either way, so what the hell."
Reggie looked at Nellie's hand as it stroked the metal canister. Before Nellie could follow through with her threat, Reggie reached for the nasal cannula and pulled it away from the tank, causing oxygen to burst out. He quickly gasped for breath, reaching for an oxygen mask on the table, and stood up.
He walked out of the room and closed the door.
Nellie followed him into the kitchen. "Why joo do that?"
Reggie pushed up the oxygen mask so that it rested on his forehead. "Because um fed up of you tellin me what to do all the time. "Is belittlin. You confiscate me fags and whisky and even limit the amant of caffeine I can ave evry day. Why joo do it, Nellie?"
Nellie sighed. "Cos I love ya, silly. Aint nobody, I love more. Me and the kids, we want ya to ave a long life. Youve got grandkids now.
"Look, come back n sit down. Your favourite show'll be on in a minit."
"Ill be in in a minit. I need to do somefin firs."
In the living room, Nellie stood perplexed. I was only trying to help, she thought. She did the only righteous thing she could think of at that moment, and that was to hide the rest of the cigarettes behind the water boiler in the downstairs lavatory.
She sat back down in her armchair, flicking through television channels. She was pressing the buttons so fast that she could hardly see what was showing on every channel. They seemed to flash by like cats eyes on a dark motorway.
Reggie returned about thirty minutes later carrying a bottle of scotch and an ashtray. He placed them both down on the living room table and then sat down, slowly, calculatedly, his rheumatism dictating his every movement.
Nellie pretended not to notice. She didn't want to make eye contact with her husband for fear that it would become a turn into another argument. Instead, she continued flicking through channels. When she stopped, an advertisement was playing on the television, inviting the general public to try a new form of nicotine patch; it was claimed that it was twice as effective as the other brands.
Surreptitiously, she checked whether Reggie had taken any interest in the ad. She caught him looking up at the advertisement, but quickly looked down again when he saw Nellie looking at him.
"Now theres a good ad, Reggie. Dontcha think?"
"Hmm," came the indifferent reply.
"What dya say we place an order?"
Silence.
Nellie turned. Reggie sat slouched back, hyperventilating.
"Oh god, Reggie." She raced over, took off the oxygen mask, and re-connected him to the tank, pushing the nasal cannula back into both nostrils.
Reggie took a long, deep breath.
"Look, Reggie, we can't go on like this. You're killing yourself. You know, I found thirty cigarette-butts in the empty water barrel outside yesterday. This is after the heart attack, Reg. After. What's it gunna take for you to stop?"
Reggie inhaled and exhaled, long and slow, opening the bottle of scotch. He poured a drink with a shaking hand.
From one vice to another, she thought.
Nellie sat patiently, waiting for her husband to share his thoughts, his feelings, the underlying patterns that stirred within his soul. Anything that would provide an explanation for the addiction that she struggled to understand.
Reggie took out a full packet of cigarettes from his back pocket, shook up a stick and sparked up. "Death," he said, unapologetically.
Nellies face jolted as if the letters of the word had spread out into small knives, piercing her cheeks, her eyes, her heart.
"But won't you try, Reg, for me, our sons and daughters? We love ya, Reggie."
Reggie coughed, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve, and looked up at his worried wife. "I tries and I tries, Nellie. Evry day I wake up, shower, eat breakfast. And then for an hour, I sits, staring at the wall, fighting with my life to resist the urge to light the first stick of the morning. But something stirs in me, Nel. Something visceral. A demonic feeling that I can't shake. Its as though every vein, every last bit of blood and bone inside my body is conspiring against me. All I can do is hold out my hands, surrender to the cold cuffs that lock my wrists and heart." Reggie sniffed the air as if testing his sense of smell and his ability to breathe. He could smell nothing, not even the smoke. "And gosh I tries to do something else. I garden, I bicycle, even this on occasion." He held up the tumbler of scotch.
"Oh, Reggie." She got up from her knitting chair and walked back over to her husband. She pushed away the ashtray containing a mini-mountain of ash, and held his hands, her fingers grazing his wrists. She held them tightly, feeling the bitter coldness of his hands, the palpitating pulse of his heart. She looked into his eyes, at how jaundiced they looked, how veined and bloodshot they were until she couldn't bear to look at them anymore.
Now, staring at the table, she spoke again. "Did you know in the hospital, that doctor arsd me ow many cigarettes you smoked a day, and I tells him that it was only tweny? Only tweny, I says, wiv that much emphersis." She gestures. "And then do you know what he says? He says Nellie, I dont think youre telling me the truth. He says the amant of cholesterol in your usbands areries is alarmin, to say the least. How many does e really smoke, Nellie? And thats when I knew it was too late." Nellie pulled a tissue from her cardigan pocket and dabbed the sides of her eyes. "Thats when I knew you were knockin on defs door."
Reggie sat in the same position, slightly slouched, his rotund belly protruding from beige slacks, the suspenders stretched tight over both shoulders. His hair was greasy, his skin pustulous, and small blood blisters began to surface on the tip of his aquiline nose. He burped himself into another bout of coughing.
The grandfather clock chimed and startled them, pulling Reggie away from the thought of telling his wife the real number of cigarettes he now smoked per day. But for the life of him, he couldn't tell her.
Nellie walked into the kitchen, poured another scotch, and took out the cigarettes shed been hiding behind the water boiler. When she returned, Reggie was asleep in his chair, his diaphragm lifting and lowering to the sound of clogged airways.
She put two cigarettes in his front cardigan pocket and left the fresh tumbler of scotch on the table. She kissed his forehead and made her way upstairs, closing the door behind her.
"One step at a time," she said, quietly. "One step at a time."