January 2014

January 31, 2014

Changing Times Part 2

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Changing Times Part 2

Edith’s daughter, with husband and single child, came to visit each weekend, regular as clockwork. Dorothy was always begging Edith, with her particularly earnest expression, all wrinkles and furrowed brow, that guaranteed Edith would retort “No!” Poor child, reflected Edith. If she knew how much I hate that face she makes. If she would only smile, I would do anything for her. But Dorothy rarely smiled, and so mother and daughter seldom agreed on anything.

Dorothy and Aidan had been assigned an apartment (if you could call it that…Edith screwed up her face in distaste) in the new Fourth Quarter Dome. Edith suspected that there had been undertakings given to move the old woman out, which had secured a favourable deal for what was, after all, a very ordinary family. They were always arriving on little missions to try and persuade Edith how wonderful, easy, cheap and safe it was to live in a dome. Any dome, they said, as long as she was safe, away from the rain that stung the skin, the clouds that wept ice, the debris collapsing out of the sky – people had died, didn’t she know.

Edith didn’t really care for safety. She was well aware that she had few friends remaining in the world – the sensible ones had all died years ago and she had no dependents, not at her age. On the contrary, everyone else seemed so quietly determined to point out her growing dependency.  She ate only a little food and knew her carbon footprint was very faint. A dozen commendations sat in the drawer of the kitchen table. No, what Edith cherished most, what lay in her deepest thoughts, was freedom to do as she pleased: the choice to lie late in bed, wearing what she liked and eating when she wanted, the luxury to suit herself, pottering harmlessly about the house, humming and singing tunelessly.

Domed life was increasingly sophisticated. As was intended, you could almost believe it was the real thing. Weather machines were old hat. There was piped music for walking to and sleeping to, there were birds in the roofs, countless indoor gardens, terraces and spaces for contemplation and rest. There was even an inbuilt roughness to the weather, so that occupiers could feel a shimmer of the old gratitude for creature comforts. However, making a dome was very difficult and exceedingly costly, both in terms of finding suitable materials and re-populating domed spaces with flowers, trees and shrubs, some undoubtedly filched from nature, against all the Protocols. Of course, computers controlled the Dome’s air conditioning, sky and bad weather.

Given the costs, Edith wondered when it was that technocrats had gained the upper hand, creating snow by machine, sending meteor busters into space, populating food and land banks with synthetic plants. They were building domes everywhere now, and beginning to use compulsion to make people settle inside them. The authorities exercising their civil duties could be very persuasive. Ordinary citizens were expected to be thankful, falling over each other to oblige. Edith remained obdurately old-fashioned, hanging back and praying daily to be quietly ignored. She clung to the old ways of thinking.

Edith was grateful for all the love implicit in her daughter’s repeated attempts to “rescue” her from a solitary life. There would have been something terribly frightening in a daughter who never came to visit or who only wanted to get her hands on mum’s carbon account. Edith had heard of many children of other ageing parents, offspring who suddenly flapped around in February like vultures – just before the annual allocation was re-calibrated – hoping to mop up surpluses on their parents’ accounts. Some districts were so poor that being alive on 30th February was a dangerous business.

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January 29, 2014

Changing Times Part 1

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Changing Times part 1

Here was only soft, muffled silence. Elsewhere, a million miles away, she knew a shining sun hung suspended in a vast, clear sky of shifting blues. She hoped faithfully to see the stars again, the Plough, Andromeda and Great Cygnus. Meanwhile, Earth waited, wrapped in deep grey, protective cloud beyond which playful starlight hung back out of sight with the myths. Naturally, it would clear, but we had no idea when.

Months ago all the strangeness started: large moths in July that clung on everywhere silently filling and occupying all the spaces from the ground up, so that playful schemes for summer were overlooked: the mock fishing parties, the state-sponsored harvests, the tree planting jamborees. Since all-in-one pellets had been lab-perfected, people had not worried so much at the soil, had not forced food from it. Communal gardens wilted in the grey heat, un-watered and thoughtlessly trodden over.

Many of the old, slow, ways were bypassed in an age when constant technical advancements seemed to promise so much. The earth couldn’t help being old-fashioned, though our few impatient efforts yielded little. There was small patience and no faith whatsoever, in the halls of our technocrats. The white coats clung ferociously to their ascendancy, but for how much longer?

As she slowly and patiently got out of bed that morning, Edith puffed a little, straightened her back and grimaced as she felt the itchy blanket of small aches and pains begin their accustomed jig over her joints. Must ease up on the late nights, be a good girl, she thought carelessly, as she cranked up her day. Creeping downstairs in shabby gown and slippers, clutching a deliberate fondness for those plodding, careful things of her youth which she understood marked her as eccentric, Edith used a fifth of her daily allowance of drinking water to make a pot of tea, partnering the nondescript china with a stained tea cosy. Though plain and small, the small brown piece was her favourite, one of the few pleasing and useful items she had inherited from her mother. The gentle roundness cradled exactly in her hand, like a warm, live thing.

This morning, as every morning, there was a calm slowness in the small rituals of breakfasting. The early air breathed balm through her kitchen windows. Many times she had been urged to leave the shabby, peeling old house, which was very gently falling apart, sliding peaceful into decay. But Edith would have missed the sweeps of wind under the grey sky, the blowing clouds that welcomed her each morning at the kitchen window. She had remained in this house for over sixty years, had moved back in permanently after her mother had gone over to the other side in 2071, and in the midst of the everyday tasks of cooking, cleaning, washing and baking, she would glance up and grin at the changes outside, the colours that clung on within the seeping seasons which, despite the grey, slipped innocently forward with a faith that Edith always found moving.

When her husband and only son had still been alive, the small family had kept together here. Before Harold had passed on (they had said it was “cumulative toxicity” a diagnosis she thought was surprisingly honest) he had worked all across Europe. He was lucky, since his work carried with it options to travel on business all over, from Paris to Moscow, and Edith had sometimes travelled with him. She cherished vivid, child-like memories of the grand, old government charter planes, which were equipped to take those able to pay (or who called in favours) away from The Protectorates. Harold, with his responsibility for seeing through the effective administration of fuel coupons, was able to secure occasional holiday flights to Madagascar or Tunis, where the sky had then still shown through as glimmers of patchy blue and shards of yellow.

That had been when Edith was in the first flush of her married life, a fresh and beautiful wife of twenty-six. Now she had walked so far into her dotage, there was great comfort in knowing that her happy days were safely in her past, for her to recall as she wished. With quiet gleaming pride, she was aware that she was almost entirely beyond the reach of the authorities, simply because she was “pushing” ninety. An image of herself dressed in a combat outfit, brandishing her broom (the nearest thing she possessed to an “offensive weapon” and therefore liable to be confiscated by the Civilian Authority) came to mind and she chortled, a deep, happy chuckle. Although this broom of hers was so ancient that the bristles were ragged, falling out, and the shaft was pulling away at its moorings, Edith would not be persuaded to part with it even for one of the “nice new ones” being offered down at the Exchange. No doubt some covetous busybody was anxious to get their hands on the wonderful wooden handle and top, but they weren’t having it, not yet. In her faded slippers Edith stepped silently about, dancing a small dance of freedom.

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January 28, 2014

Life With Arial

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Life with Arial

I see life clearly in Arial twelve point, when I am typing. My mother says it is too basic a font, unrefined and rather ambiguous. But I see it as straightforward, smooth and undemanding, generously allowing me get on with what I want to write, rather than having to work through the sweep of clever lines and blocking corners. Times New Roman, for example, feels quite alien to me and rather overblown. Since everyone chooses to use it, it seems to have become rather full of itself.

Perhaps my preference for the Arial typeface merely reflects the differences between my mother and me. While I enjoy a challenge, at times I can find myself too easily unbalanced and overthrown; I need to be able to see where I am plotting my path, well in advance and with no nasty surprises. Keeping going can be a rather tedious, short sighted sort of preoccupation, so that the last thing I need is life with extra knobs on. My mother, on the other hand, seems to be able to dismiss complexity easily. “Darling, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” It makes me smile, broadly, but I keep my loyalty to Arial. Besides, Arial sounds like its brother, the Archangel Ariel, whereas Times New Roman sounds like an oppressive, imperialist stride.

Before long, I’m going to start narrating for the audio copy of my first book, which is being published on 4th March. I’ve never done anything like that before, but it will get me out of the house, make me work, and focus my mind on producing a good sound. When I write, I like to talk through my work anyway, which I hope has been good practice for what happens next. In a sound-proof booth I shall be speaking into a mike, a sound engineer working with me just beyond the glass. Hopefully, just me and her. (I was going to say “him” but I threw that in there just as a little surprise.)

I’ve been busy preparing an audio script, double spaced, lots of room to remind me to slow down, and in twelve point Arial, which will feel familiar and soothing. I like the thought of an angel with me, when I am speaking aloud the most intimate details I have ever shared – an unusually emotional challenge. It is easy to write confessional material late at night in the privacy of home. But speaking it aloud, how will that feel?

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January 27, 2014

Innocence is Precious

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Innocence is precious.

“Hundreds of Benefits Claimants are fined every day” is the headline in a recent paper, revealing a dramatic increase in the number of sanctions issued to those who fail to turn up for DWP interviews or to attend to the other requirements of finding a job. You had no money to phone the jobcentre because your mobile phone ran out of credit because you were sanctioned last week? Too bad, here is another sanction to reward you for your efforts….. Sanctions appear to be levied for the strangest reasons, including, not being able to attend two appointments at the same time, and waiting to start a new job.

The current belief that underpins the increase in sanctions and the general tightening of belts is one that screams, “Scroungers, wasters, the lot of them” and so, with that assumption firmly in place, automatically the collective mind charged with administering benefits goes on the lookout for evidence to support that belief. Subconsciously, evidence is found which bolsters that assumption, as well as a whole raft of other assumptions, which are naturally filtered and selective.

The same process happens when we go around saying to ourselves, “I feel sick”. We look for any evidence that vindicates our belief; and the difficulty or discomfort we create in passing is thus not seen as regrettable, but as inevitable.

In that sense, the fact that there has been a huge increase in the number of sanctions being levied against the poorest and most desperate merely bolsters the underlying belief that there are lots of chancers out there, who will do anything to fiddle the system. This is just the tip of the ice-berg, we are just beginning to uncover the scale of the deception…. The presumption of innocence is very precious, yet seems to be under attack in all quarters. The Scottish Parliament seems bent on abolishing the doctrine of corroboration in Scotland too, so that more guilty people will get the justice they deserve.

Innocent people deserve a break too.

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January 22, 2014

I have a dream

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I have a dream

A dream I had recently seems set to plague me. I am slumped over on a roundabout, in the middle of five lanes of cars all moving extremely fast, fluidly and confidently along the motorway of their lives. I am crouching down, just barely seated on a concrete traffic island in the middle of this, and there is no-where to go. My face is bashed and bruised, and my spectacles are crooked, broken. To have fallen, that would explain the bruises.

Beside me there are two older men, dressed in torn rags, drinkers, I suspect, from the look of their faces. They would have been loved once, when they were younger, fitter and less broken by the ravages of their street lives. Now, they are hardened street bums, and over us all stands a policeman in a smart blue uniform, eyeing us warily.

The cop thinks I am like them. He thinks I am a waster, a loser. Because I cannot get up and walk, because I would stagger and fall into the traffic with fatal consequences, I cannot move. Meantime, another one of me is in a cool, quiet hotel lobby, explaining to a reporter….

“I just got a life, and now they have taken it away from me. While everyone else seems to be going places, here I am stuck on the roundabout, because now, I cannot leave the house. I had such a small life before I had my car, and now, what little freedom I managed to discover has been taken away, as if I am unworthy to be part of the stream of life that others just accept as their due.”

Instead of asking people if they can walk, those who dole out financial assistance and monitor its value in the lives of disabled users, should be looking at the difference it makes. Without a car, for example, I would be stranded at home, staring out of the windows. It is difficult, expensive and rather dangerous for me to venture outside. Without the freedom to drive a small way each day, venturing outdoors becomes exhausting and ruinously expensive. Most of us who currently have the use of a car will, if it taken away from us as a result of the latest welfare reforms, find ourselves cornered at home, having no wish to get run over, or to bankrupt ourselves or the family.

While the government talks about austerity cuts, they forget that most people who currently benefit from free vehicles depend on them utterly, to participate in life and make living meaningful and active, despite disability.  Without a car, my life choices shrivel and I become morose, depressed and exhausted. Austerity may be necessary, but taking away vital tools from those who depend on them, is like cutting off a limb or two. No-one, in this latest round of cost saving, is forcing the able-bodied to surrender their freedom. Yet without a car, there is precious little choice left to the rest of us between having a life and a living death.

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January 21, 2014

The Soundbox and the String

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The Soundbox and the String

Ahmed hefted his satchel higher. His shoulder winced with the rigidity of a long-held pain. Wiping his left hand across his forehead, eyes shielded behind his palm, he could just see the particular dip in the dunes that meant he was walking the right way home: over to his right, the clouds, knowing that water was closer, kept nearer the ground, and he could navigate from here on a good day, using his sense of smell and the sounds that drifted to him like the notes from an ancient, sacred text. Drifts of music, bellows and bells, sang to him in the desert breezes and gave him as much direction as he needed.

He would have liked a drink, though. He had only enough left in his water bag for a couple of careful mouthfuls. He would keep that awhile and swallow its warmth with the remains of his food for his evening meal.  As the heat of the day became intense, even his sandals were scorched. It would be time to rest soon.

Not much further to go.

Starting awake from his walking stupor, he noticed a small, dark snake sliding towards him, smelling water. Or perhaps just slipping from one hole to another…. He watched, and the snake was gone, leaving him feeling alone. Uneasy in the drifting sand, he moved more carefully. Out here, it would be too easy to fall asleep and bake oneself dry. Best to keep moving.

Time passed in a slipstream painted blue. Perhaps he had gone wrong, after all, when suddenly he heard shards of music. His feet took possession of his body and turned towards it easily. Up ahead, as if it had crawled there and stood itself upright, was a tent. A boy was concealed within shadows to the side, where a thin, ageing camel was tethered uneasily. His face carefully expressionless, Ahmed approached slowly, carefully noting the strange tilt of this bivouac, the ropes pegged at unusual angles. From the usual polite distance he dipped his head and signalled his approach while the other boy, hunched over a tall stick of some polished wood, watched warily, flapping his hand in a movement that suggested he should move on.

Ahmed tilted his head: all visitors had the right to ask for rest and a drink, for shade at the height of day, and the boy’s posture made him curious. Why should he not hope to wait here through the heat of day? It was either a woman, or some other private business he had chanced upon: trade in rifles, an argument over a water hole or negotiations for marriage…whatever it was, he assumed he was being invited to move on. He flashed anger at the boy, who smiled sheepishly. Looking again, Ahmed saw the guardian’s face blank, his eyes still and unseeing. But, held propped up in the sand, the polished wood staff vibrated, sending a sound like breathing music into the air beyond. Arrested by something he had never seen before, Ahmed now waited, politely standing back. The instrument, whatever it was, had been fashioned as a crude sound box strapped with leather strips to a staff, a bridge and strings fastened above with wire or something like plastic string. It had taken a long time to make, but out here, that would not be a problem.

Low notes and trills reached his ears as he stood still, rooted to his place, watching the boy’s fingers dancing over the wires, then heard a slower, broader melody coaxed with a bow. Audience of one, Ahmed waited, listened and hoped he had not missed most of it.

There was a sensation round his ankles. He looked down to see a small cat winding itself around his legs, looking up at him with a peaceful, hopeful face. Uncorking his water bottle he dipped his fingers in and allowed the cat to lick them dry, its rough tongue rasping greedily.

“You like my music?” the boy called.

“Very – very much.” He groped for words to describe musical breezes. “It is very beautiful.”

“I will play some more, if you like.”

Ahmed approached slowly, saw a grin and reached down to clasp the boy’s big hands in greeting. Beneath the long tunic which only partly covered his neck and shoulders, Ahmed saw crossed legs and worn slippers. From the eyes there was no glimpse of recognition, just a smile that shone.

“Thank you.”

“My father is away searching for firewood. He will be back after dark. If you like, there is a little food in the tent. You are welcome to have some, and to fill your water bottle from the large gourd.” He went on playing as Ahmed lifted the flap, crouched and went behind his host into the tent. A small cushion, old and frayed with use, lay towards the rear, with a scrap of blue carpet beneath. Poverty was not masked by the large gun, an old flintlock, which hung at the back of the tent, well-oiled.

Beneath the canvas, the light was diffused, as if by shining, the sun painted the cloth a deep pale yellow. There was a small pot resting up against the cushion, which presumably contained the boy’s meal. Ahmed knew that he could not eat that, but he gratefully filled his gourd with water and took a few extra mouthfuls, letting a small trickle of water run down his neck. The urge to sleep was overpowering, but he shook it aside, crossly. I must not fall asleep now he thought, I have only a kilometre or two before I am home, and then Fatima will be waiting for me, with some warm milk and a piece of flatbread. I must press on.

“Where are we?” he asked the other boy lazily, as much to make conversation as to know the answer.

“Not far from the water, is my guess. About a day’s travel at the most, I should say. Can you not smell it?”

“No, not that. I smell other things, of course. Camel dung, smoking fires, even tobacco, but not the sea.” Ahmed chuckled.

“Well, it is not far. My father is there, and will be coming back today. He said he would….”

“I am sure he will. Peace be upon him.”

Ahmed sat companionably, listening to the plaintive music rising up from the bow that the boy was sawing gently. Resting, he waited until the sun was dipping at the horizon and turning the sand a flaming red before continuing on his journey. Of the boy’s father there was no sign; the playing continued until Ahmed was out of earshot and the sky was quite dark.

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January 20, 2014

Success came so slowly

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Success came so slowly that by the time they were asking her questions, she had almost forgotten this was her, they were asking about. She had not yet grown accustomed to the wonderful – spectacular – tidings, interspersed with long, blank periods of silence and occasional emails bearing good news. “Your cheque is on the way, has been paid in, your release date is early next year…Welcome to our publicist.”

Because the silences in between were so deep, she began to doubt that her biggest dream had come true, that she had actually done the literary equivalent of winning the lottery. It took occasional reminders and statistics gleaned from dogged, faithful on-line friends and worthy “How To” articles, to reassure her that well now, writing was what she did, by all accounts, and that she had best find ways to carry on doing that. During the long gestation before her book would be born, whenever anyone needing anything did get in touch, asking for this or that, she had been used to doing everything, like, yesterday. Working for people who genuinely loved something she had made was a pleasure, and she waited eagerly for further instructions.

The hardest part was remembering her poverty. She had one good suit that she had bought for her wedding, now with one moth-hole (carefully darned) and there was a brace of shirts that she kept for special occasions and had never worn, hanging about waiting for the day she would have to be smartly turned out, carefree in cufflinks. Cufflinks for women were something new, though she had always envied those who could demonstrate so subtly their unsuitedness to domestic tasks. She had bought herself one pair, just to experiment with the ambition that said she, too, might one day leave aside the wet dishes and the soaking tubs, the water that would not now be allowed to catch her cuffs and creep annoyingly up to her elbows. It seemed that her wishes were coming true.

The excitement that others read into the print, she had expelled uneasily over many years. The writing was not the worst part, so that by the time they were enthusiastic, she had moved on to other things, and was able to smile convincingly, and give great answers. She was ahead of them in that, but when they were off zooming down the highway, she waited patiently.

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January 17, 2014

Esther – short story

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Esther – short story

“So, my dear, you want to stay, do you?” The unpleasant, oily tone said more than the words, and the sneer left no room for doubt. Esther Alambe was unwelcome.

“I have fled from my home because…” the woman’s words came slowly, one at a time. Not only was she unused to speaking the English she had learnt at school, but having a conversation, understanding what the man was saying, considering a reply, all took time. And there was the question of why. Why had she run away, concealing only her identity papers in her cleavage and disappearing into the night wearing her thin, evening clothes and light sandals?

“I was soon to be married and, well, in my culture, it is often that a woman is -” Unsure how to reveal what was so very private, she whispered to the woman sitting next to her “Do I have to tell him, now?” The quiet nod was enough, and Esther’s hopes sank, just when she needed her courage most. “In my village it is the custom to cut her before she is married!” She spoke more loudly than she intended, her cheeks flaring with embarrassment.

“All right, all right, no need to shout. Keep yer hair on. In your country…” there was a pause while the gentleman shuffled through a thin dossier that was at his right elbow. “In your country, it is illegal to cut a woman, according to your penal code. Is that not so?”

“I suppose it may be, but…”

“Well then, there was no reason to leave, was there?” The man shut the file and sat back, lacing his hands over his stomach.

“Yes, but you see, where I live, in my village, all the girls are cut before they marry. It is the custom and I cannot go against it. I am just a daughter. I saw what happened to my sisters. My two older sisters died soon after, from so much bleeding, there was so much blood on their clothes, on the bed. My uncle was negotiating for my marriage and the man who was to marry me was insisting that I should be cut, you see.”

“You could just have refused, or run away to the city?”

It seemed obvious when he spoke like that, so that Esther was silenced. She could feel the woman beside her urging her to speak, because silence now might be taken for agreement, and that might signal capitulation. But Esther looked at the man before her and understood. He was pale, too broad around the stomach. His legs looked thin and his hair was thin too, from lack of exercise, from sitting at the desk all day, shuffling papers to one side and then the other. Bizarrely, she felt sorry for him and for his glib cruelty, his deliberate unkindness. He did not want to understand, and everything she managed to tell him would be twisted around the wrong way.

But why, she wondered, why the hostility? What had she done to deserve such stupidity? Was it because she was a woman, a black woman? A black woman from Africa who did not have any rights? I do not fit here, she was thinking.

“They would have found me and taken me home again. If I had run away to Accra they would have found me, reported me missing or – something like that. Afterwards they would always be looking for me. In our families everyone can find out. It is the way.”

“Well, our way is a bit different, I think you will find.”

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, her questioner wanted Esther to leave. “Is there anything you would like to add to your statement before the end of our interview?”

“I miss my country and my family. I would not have fled at night unless I was very frightened. Cutting and bleeding and such pain would have brought only sorrow to me. But, in our culture, because I am a woman, whatever I could do would bring pain. It is the way.”

He eyed her speculatively, wondering what to say next. “Well, you see my dear, your country’s penal code makes it clear that cutting is illegal and anyone involved in it can expect to go to prison.” He spoke the last words with deliberate slowness. “We accept that your government has a policy against. So officially, there is little we can do, see? If the law was different, it would be easier…”

“But women live in the villages, with their fathers, husbands…even going to school is difficult. Unless our fathers protect us, we will be given in marriage….like cattle, she was thinking. “My father died.”

Esther sat back, exhausted with emotion and memories. “Have you seen a woman being cut?” she asked, unexpectedly impatient. “They tie a little girl to a table, or they hold her down, two up top and two below, so that she does not move. They take an old knife, and they cut away all her private parts. Just like that. No stopping for the screams, or mercy. She is stitched up with a needle and thread and wrapped and left to heal all alone. That is what they call “cutting”. Make it polite so that no-one knows what happens.” Esther’s eyes sparkled defiance as she waited for him to close the file. But he looked up, straight into her eyes, and she saw new respect. So, he was a bully, he liked women to talk back, eh? Esther was glad she had spoken out. “I hope you wrote that down, what I said?” she asked more politely. The woman clutching a shorthand notebook beside her nodded sharply, her mouth set in a grim line.

“I’ll defer a decision on your case. Meantime, see if you can rustle up some representation.”

Esther nodded. She saved the small, grim smile until her back was turned. She had not been cut. She had escaped. Now, for now, there was a small window of light, a breath of air she might breathe. Someday, she might be safe. It was a hope she held close to her heart.

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January 15, 2014

Feet First

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Feet First

I’ve just had a lovely visit from a friend, who was explaining that she recently visited a podiatrist. Ok, chiropodist. We were animatedly discussing how our feet, and the way we walk, affects our whole body, our calves, our back, our necks…which set me thinking about my routinely dreadful posture, my shambling and all the compromises I  muddle through. These days, I walk so seldom that I can feel my whole body stiffening up, in places I didn’t know could be stiff. So, just to keep me a bit flexible, I think I shall be going swimming more often. So far, this year, my resolution to swim every day – or, at least five times a week, timetables permitting – seems to be holding. Monday, Tuesday and today, three in a row.

Apparently, I have one leg which is an inch or so shorter than the other. That might make anyone lope a bit, I suppose. I use an elbow crutch outside to help with balance. I also wear a certain brand of shoes which make me wobble. But these shoes, which are expensive, top-of-the-range types, are so comfortable for my back, my hips and my knees (except when I wobble too far and fall, in which case, everything hurts) that I persist with them. My legs, feet and knees have endured years of unusual wear and tear, so these soft, sturdy shoes are valuable shock absorbers.

I was wondering what would happen if I telephoned the chiropodist and asked to make an appointment. Would she say there was nothing she could do to help me, that my problems were too complex? I suspect so, though I have rarely had the luxury of an independent or sympathetic assessment of my compromises. There is the chance that another, careful professional look-see would yield a handful of helpful answers, even if the outcome was a fresh list of problems that I might need to watch out for. I don’t mind being made aware, so long as I can keep my body active. On the other hand, I have sort of worked out what works and what causes real problems. I am also reluctant to tell the whole story, again, to yet another professional. Should I just phone up and see how far I get, or would a dignified silence be best? Only time will tell.

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January 13, 2014

Emotions all over the place

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Emotions all over the place

Suzie could see herself, snapping and snarling as she wiped the tiles behind the cooker, which streamed with steaming rivulets of water. The entire back wall had to be wiped down fast, her arms carefully navigating behind hot handles, sticky bottles of oil and damp teabag boxes containing unused chamomile infusion. She could hear herself getting angry, and wanting to stop, but why could Ali not see what needed done? Why was he leaving her to do all this now, while he tucked into steak pie? Why had he burnt the curly kale, left the potatoes to boil to mush? She had been gone only ten minutes.

Squeezing out the heavy, hot cloths, she abandoned her scrubbing, wiping and sniping, then sat reluctantly with a heavy thump and salvaged what she could of her own meal – charred kale, cooling potatoes and hummus – while her husband and daughter carefully finished their steak pie. Maxine slipped out of the door and Ali quietly waited for the storm to pass. Suzie had to decide what to do.

“I want you to -” she tried to explain, “And I get cross, because you never …”

Ali nodded, “Yes. That is true. I don’t”

“And you will always be just yourself, after all.”

“And I do love you.”

“I’m sorry I left the kitchen, but I thought you knew.”

“Knew what? You never said.”

“Not to burn the kale, to add water.” At this, she was hard pressed not to cry aloud, thinking that without her to tend to this kind of thing, her husband and daughter would live on pies and bacon and eggs. Her heart heaved with sorrow at the loss of veg. Without her there, he would manage meals in his own way, but would that include any green stuff? It was a worry, of sorts.

Then she recalled her sister, burning onions, and a small, wry, smile lifted her face.  Even the best cooks forget to tell each other, “The soup needs a stir in five minutes, I’m just out to the garden for a moment.” Even the best of intentions get caught up in conversations, as we stand with our backs to a pot bubbling up over the stove. Accidents happen when we have other things to do.

“I’ll tell you, next time I go out.”

“And I’ll try to watch more closely.”

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