Nostalgia (Part2)

“Straight on down the hall,” she said. “To the kitchen! I need to put my shopping away and I will find a kettle nowhere else! How else shall I make tea?”

I was struck by the width of the doorways and the stair lift which edged its funicular way up to the upper floor; a bastard travesty on a solid, wooden stair-case which should be pristine, unadorned by such technology. As we passed into the kitchen, I made a move to remove the bags from her lap.

“No, I do not need you to help,” she said quietly. “I have been doing this for myself for a long time now. I will not be long; sit on the bar stool over there. They get so little use nowadays. I only wish now that I could remember why I bought them; probably for the same reason that I bought the espresso machine, although I seldom drink coffee.” She laughed.

I hauled myself up onto the bar-stool and sat down as I watched her; curious to know what she would do next. Placing the bags on the floor, she propelled the chair across the tiled floor in my direction and, passing beyond me, came to a halt in the glazed area of her long, narrow kitchen-diner. Applying the brakes, she placed one hand on the armrest of the chair and one hand on the table in front of her. She paused briefly, as if in preparation, and then I saw her meagre biceps contract as she rose from the seat. She rose to an upright position but suddenly her right leg buckled underneath her as though it were made of paper and she started to fall. I leapt from my stool and made in her direction as fast as I could.

“I told you to sit!” She shouted. “I meant it! If you don’t want to share my tea then you can go! Now! You are in my house; you will play by my rules!”

Helplessly, I, once more, mounted the stool. She had managed to somehow lock her left leg in place and, using her hands, had regained her position, without falling completely. Reaching over, she grabbed a cane from the back of the closest dining-chair and, using it to steady herself, she turned to face me.

“I did not mean to shout,” she said. “I am sorry, I did not intend to talk to you as though you were a ‘bad dog’; my usual appaling manners, to be sure, and my ill-temper but my house, my rules.”

I could do little more than shrug my shoulders and nod my acquiescence. She made her way to where she had earlier deposited the shopping bags. As she passed my place on the stool, I could not but help notice how fragile and frail she looked, how small her steps were; an old woman’s shuffle. Perched high on my stool, I could not stop thinking that I had been consigned there in shame, like some recalcitrant pupil in a classroom; all that I needed was the dunce’s cap on my head. She seemed to glide across the tiles, almost as if she were skating on ice. Picking up the bags, one at a time, with her free hand, she laid them gingerly on the counter. She unpacked the jars and packets and bottles onto the counter, crumpling the polythene bags as each was emptied and placing them in the largest ‘cookie jar’ that I had ever seen.

She opened three of the wall-cupboard doors and I noticed that only the bottom shelf of each cupboard had produce on them. She carefully and neatly stacked the contents of her shopping onto the lowermost shelves, one handed, while she steadied herself with the cane; tins of tomatoes, beans, sweetcorn, ghee, tuna, salmon; packets of lentils, rice, pasta, herbs and spices; bottles of oil, vinegar. I was mildly surprised at the bottle of Marsala, diary; I truly thought that I was the only one in the world who drank it, or cooked with it!

She closed the doors and made her way to the sink opposite with those same tiny steps. Hanging her cane on the counter, she pulled a long metal tube from alongside the tap and, wedging it into the spout of the kettle, pulled the lever for the cold water. The water gurgled into the empty kettle. The transparent water indicator inched its way to the half-way mark and she turned off the tap and turned on the kettle.

“Tea is finally on its way,” she said, reclaiming the cane in her left hand and turned to face me once more. “What would you like? I have Chai, Darjeeling, Green, with lemon or with mint, Assam, Earl Grey or I have some fruit and herb teas as well, if you would prefer?” She smiled. Damn that smile, diary!

“Chai will be lovely,” I replied. “Drink a lot of tea, do you?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I do not like coffee very much and alcohol is a little too dangerous, given my condition. I am too prone to falling over as it is without needlessly increasing the risk. Fruit juice and water I drink sometimes but most of the time I drink tea; I usually need the caffeine.”

She crossed once more the short distance to the other side of the kitchen and, opening yet another cupboard, pulled down two mugs and a saucer from the shelf. She placed them on the counter and put one teabag in each mug from one of a row of glass jars at the back of the wide counter. Crooking the fingers of one hand between the handles of both mugs, she carried the mugs to where the kettle stood. Once more, she turned her head to face me.

“Milk or sugar?” She asked.

“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t like milk and sugar is bad for you; or so my doctor tells me.”

“Mine too; and milk in Chai is just too disgusting!”