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Night Side of the River

Book by Jeanette Winterson · 5 quotes · Death, Loss, Grief

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Night Side of the River Quotes

“If you had never lived, and my mind was full of you--a fantasy figure with whom I am having an intense personal relationship--they'd give me treatment. They'd lock me up for being delusional. As it is, yes, it's an embarrassment. The black-armband days were easier. It was a sign to say--I am a bit odd. Give me space. Give me time. Grief takes time. I am grieving. I discover that grieving means living with someone who is no longer there.”

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“Every night I want to be Heathcliff with Cathy tapping at the window. I want to be Hamlet on the windy battlements. I want the Flying Dutchman to dock. I want what everyone who has lost someone wants: a visitation. Every second, someone dying is promising to come back from the dead. Every hour, waiting for it to happen, someone living notches up another hour lost. For the Dead, time stops. For the living, time slows. I am in slow-motion now. It takes me twice as long to clean my teeth, half the morning to make coffee and wash the cup. When I go shopping, I don't remember what I need. That's because it's you I need. I stare at the bag of potatoes, the packet of bacon. Absurd. Go home.”

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“How could I not go on talking to you? How could I not expect to see you when it's the end of the day? Our life together was many things, concrete, tangible things, that included bacon, potatoes, coffee and toothpaste, but it was also a pattern. We had flow, colour, texture. We were the originators and makers of the shared life that we worked on every day. Now, I have to work on it alone. What I have are memories. The past. The present is no longer a work in progress.”

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“For those whose life together is not one shiny, sunny thing, and often a mixed blessing, Mercury is the natural ruler. We were not easy, you and I. You were trouble and I am difficult. You were faithless and I am fixed. You said you had struck gold when you met me--but you loved bonds that could be broken--gold dissolves in mercury just as salt dissolves in water--but, in reality, nothing is lost. Death, though, is a different reality. You are dissolved. Into what? Into time, into space, into the leaky container that is me, who will also dissolve into time, into space. No. 80 on the Periodic Table, you are gone. But before I take up my role as the long-suffering one--the gold-band-wearing survivor who was always there and is still--I am aware that mercury makes possible the extraction of gold from poorer-quality ores. You brought out the best in me.”

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