Nostalgia (Part 10)

She took a small sip from the glass and I was surprised to note that she did not cough or splutter as she swallowed.

“It is good brandy,” she said. “It goes down really easy; very smooth. Despite your purported chauvinism, I really must settle with you before you leave; you have been too generous with both your money and with your time. Why are you sitting on the grass?”

“No real reason,” I said. “Except for the fact that it puts the bottle within easy reach; it saves me the trouble of getting up out of the chair when I pour myself another.” She drained her glass in one further gulp.

“Then, pour me another as well!” She said. “And then we will play my little game, as you promised!”

She held out the glass and I was once again struck by how small and frail her hands appeared as they clutched the glass between the first two fingers and thumbs of each hand. I uncorked the bottle once more and poured another measure into each of the glasses. She took a sip and she placed her now almost-full glass on the small table, took up the cane from its spot on the grass and rose once more from the chair.  It was difficult to know whether the slight wavering in her gait was due to her condition or to the effects of the alcohol; the last thing that I wanted was for her to become legless, either metaphorically or literally.

She made her way through the garden to a brick-lined, raised bed of dwarf chrysanthemums and marigolds. As she sat down on the grass and lay her cane down by her side, I could not help but notice how the yellow and gold flowers made a halo around her jet black hair, so densely had the flowers been planted. Was she aware of the effect? In some strange way, it was as if I was looking at Botticelli’s ‘La Primavera’, or rather a small detail from it, but translated into a small, suburban back garden. She had leaned into the brick retaining wall with her back, as if it would do service for the back of a chair, and extended her legs in front of her. She placed her hands into her lap; one on top of the other.

“Come, Dominic,” she said. “Gather up the table and our glasses and bring them here. Since we cannot play the game with me seated on a chair and you seated on the ground, I will sit on the grass; I can lean into this small wall to support me, it is sturdily built. ‘English bond’, my gardener calls it; I understand it is quite rare as bricks go!”

“Flemish bond is the norm; English uses far too many bricks!” I replied. The years spent having a bricklayer for a ‘sort-of’ brother-in-law were finally paying off.

I picked up the table and deposited it to the side of where she sat; on the opposite side to her cane. I positioned it far enough away so that she was in little danger of spilling her drink but close enough so that she could easily reach out and grasp the glass without effort. I sat down crossed-legged alongside the table, keeping its oaken frame between us. Taking my glass in my left hand, I offered her own with my right. In a different life, perhaps, we may have been passing the baton in a school relay race; however if that were so, we fumbled it. As she took the glass from my hand, it tilted and a small splash of brandy made its way down onto the table-top.  I reached into my pocket and took out the paper towel which I had earlier used for the pizza and used it to mop up the spilt alcohol. After I had cleaned up the liquid, I made a move as though I was getting ready to put it into my mouth.

“Waste not, want not,” I joked. She laughed and took a sip of the brandy.

“Now comes the difficult part,” she said. “We cannot do this if we are separated by the table. Come, I will open my legs a little and you may position yourself between them.” The blatant double-entendre seemed to amuse her but I was at last becoming accustomed to her somewhat risqué banter; she seemed to relish every opportunity to tease. She opened her legs wide enough so that there was sufficient ground for me to sit between her calves; I positioned my legs, knees bent, over her own legs so that I was in no way pressing down on any part of her body.

“Comfortable?” She asked. I nodded. “Now, stretch out your arms towards me with your palms facing me. Now stretch out your fingers. Now, make as though you are trying to push me away. Good! Now close your eyes.”

I must confess that at this stage of the proceedings, diary, I was beginning to become a little apprehensive. I do not like the notion of being blind in a strange woman’s garden with my arms in the exact position to make handcuffing me somewhat less difficult than ‘a piece of cake’; one always has to be alert to the possibility that one was being lured into being forcibly buggered by some hairy docker in a Batman costume. Nonetheless, I did as was instructed and waited for the metaphorical axe to fall.