Читать книгу My Bonnie: How dementia stole the love of my life - John Suchet - Страница 5

In the summer of 2004, my wife Bonnie and I were in the departure lounge at Stansted airport, waiting to board the short flight down to our house in the French countryside. Bon said she would just nip to the toilet. ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘but don’t be too long. We’ll be boarding soon.’ She walked off to the ladies, which was not more than 10 metres away.

Five minutes went by, 10, then 15. I was beginning to get seriously concerned. Mild worry turned into panic. I looked long and hard at the entrance to the ladies. I decided I would ask the next woman who emerged to go back in and call Bonnie’s name. I imagined the worst, as you do. A heart attack, a stroke, and…No, it didn’t bear thinking about.

A woman came out. It wasn’t Bonnie. I began to move towards her, when suddenly I heard, clear as a bell and reverberating from wall to wall, ‘Would Mr Suchet, Mr John Suchet, please come to the information desk?’

I saw a hundred, no a thousand—make that a million—faces turn towards me. (It was probably about six, but it felt like a million.) I hurried to the desk, expecting to find police, paramedics, who knew what else? My breathing was quick and shallow and I felt nausea in my stomach.

Suddenly there she was. Bonnie. Standing at the information desk, looking totally fine. The panic turned in an instant into relief—and a dose of anger. What on earth was she thinking of? Why in heaven’s name had she come to the information desk, when I was waiting just a few yards away?

But then she saw me, and her face lit up with a beatific smile, which spelled relief from ear to ear. ‘There you are! Thank goodness! I thought I had lost you!’ she said.

I took her by the arm and led her, perhaps a touch too firmly, back to the gate, trying at the same time to work out how she had managed to get past without me seeing her. Then I remembered there were two exits, one on the other side.

‘What was all that about? Why did you have me paged? I was waiting for you right here.’ There was anger in my voice, and I couldn’t disguise it. I looked at her, and she was frowning, but it was not a frown of annoyance—it was a frown of non-comprehension. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. That struck me as odd. It’s not what you would expect her to say. ‘Don’t be angry…I made a mistake, that’s all. Let it go, please.’ Anything like that would be the normal response. But ‘I don’t understand’—that’s not what you’d expect.

I said nothing more. We boarded the plane. I sat back in the seat and thought the whole incident through. I couldn’t make sense of it. All I knew, deep down, was that it shouldn’t have happened.

We got to France and I quickly forgot about it. I shouldn’t have. It was the beginning.