Nostalgia (Part 5)

There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to make one of those decisions; one of the big decisions that your father tries to warn you about. The life changing decision; the momentous decision; the decision of such import that your life will never be the same again, however you choose. Diary, it was as if that time had come and all I could think of was ‘the Clash’ singing ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ I stayed. I comforted myself with the thought that she could fall, so hard was she laughing. So why would I not stay?

It was at least five minutes before she had calmed down enough to drink some more of her Chai.

“I think I would like to sit in the garden for a while,” she said at last. “You see that shed? There are two chairs, recliners, just inside the door. Would you mind being the gallant knight and setting them up for us in the sun? I will pop the mugs in the sink and then I will join you. Of course, I am assuming that you do not have a rabid aversion to the sun.”

I smiled; she was incorrigible!

Just inside the door, diary? Well, yes; just inside the door behind the old floorboards, the paint cans, a cracked fish tank, the lawn mower and at least four bags of peat-free compost. I set the chairs up on the lawn in full sunlight, which, the sun being low, made it comfortably warm not oppressive, just as she appeared at the door to the garden. She was smiling, laughing again.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I fibbed. It was only just a little fib. There is a man that I have to come in to tend to the garden, I cannot manage as well as I used to; I really didn’t know what might be in front of the chairs. I don’t use them that often.”

Like I say, diary, incorrigible!

I waited, like the butler, at the side of a chair while she made her way to the same chair and sat down.

“Would madam like Jeeves to make any adjustments to your chair?” I asked. It was difficult to keep a faux-mocking tone out of my voice.

“No, upright back will be fine,” she replied. “However, you can move yours so that we are facing each other. I would not have you get a crick in your neck by continually turning around to look at me. Besides, I do not want the same.”

“Very well, m’Lady. I do not know what possessed me to arrange them so, side by side; too much time on Greek island beaches laying out deckchairs, I suppose.”

I arranged my chair so that it faced in the opposite direction to hers and I was reminded of the arrangements that my mother used to make when a cousin stayed; top and tail, pillows at both ends of a single bed. She had already closed her eyes and I was suddenly struck by the same idea; top and tail.

As I made myself comfortable, she suddenly opened her eyes.

“I am truly sorry for reminding you; that must be so painful. I cannot imagine what it must be like; to lose such a one, so soon. If you would like to speak about it, we can; otherwise we will just leave it.”

I remained silent.

“Do I have kids?” She said after a lengthy pause. “No, perhaps a long time ago I might have wished for them but when the doctor made the diagnosis of the dreaded M word, I didn’t think it was fair to burden a child with a cripple for a mother.”

“I do wish that you would stop using that word,” I said. “It in no way becomes you.”

“Why? It’s what I am, a cripple. Does not the Bible speak of cripples? Am I not crippled, as in damaged? So you can call a battleship crippled when it can’t move under its own steam but you can’t do the same for a person? A person that you scarcely know! Why is damaged or disabled or challenged or anything else that you care to mention any better a word than crippled? Call a spade a spade, at least in my book. When you’re in my house, you play by my rules.

“I am sorry,” she said. “That’s all I seem to say nowadays. Sorry. Sorry for being unable to walk sometimes; sorry for bumping you with my wheelchair; sorry for being too angry too often; sorry because I can’t come to work today; sorry to Debbie because she has to fill in; sorry because I can’t make love to you tonight.” She caught her breath in the sudden realisation of what she had just said. “I didn’t mean you, as in you. I meant.....”

“I know just what you meant,” I said. “Perhaps, more importantly, do you want to talk about it?”

She closed her eyes once more and turned her head away from me as if reinforcing the distance between us; drawing battle lines?