The doctor who saw them this time was a different, older consultant from Sri Lanka. He pronounced the need to get the cast off Isabel’s leg, and then they would x-ray it again to see the status of the healing. When the little circular saw was grinding through the plaster, Isabel gripped Bryony’s hand and looked away.
For some reason she felt more nervous about this procedure than she had about having both her arm casts cut off. Then she had been so desperate to be released that it had superseded everything else, but now she could only think what might happen if her shattered leg bones hadn’t fused properly. Supposing she was left with a bad limp, or worse, might still have to have her foot amputated?
However, her leg, when it emerged, very pale and thin, did look remarkably like a normal leg, and seemed straight. The scar from the operation to repair and set the bones ran right down the outside of her knee into her calf, but the stitches had dissolved naturally and what had been an ugly gash was now just a fine red line. Modern medicine had obviously done a really good job on her behalf.
Bryony also observed the scar with a semi-professional eye.
“It looks good Isabel. It’s healed well.”
The nurses helped Isabel into a hospital wheelchair and Bryony pushed her down to the x-ray department, while Isabel held their bags and her referral paper. When the x-ray was complete it was sent by computer back up to the fracture clinic, and the women retraced the journey back up in the lift to hear the verdict.
“You’re lucky, or maybe just a great natural healer,” said the doctor, staring at the x-rays on his screen. “You will need to take things very gently, and not put your full weight on it for at least another week, but I think your leg will be fine and you’ll make a full recovery. Your family, or is this your friend? – She’ll have to keep a close watch on you, but I see you’re in good hands. How have your arms been? I read you had the casts removed from them last week. Any serious pain?”
“No, not serious. I’ve been doing a little light exercise. And resting for much of the time.”
“And the ribs?”
“They are fine, just a twinge or two when I cough or laugh.”
“Yes, avoid the comedy hour for a while, and don’t catch a summer cold. Some people break their ribs from a bad cough.”
“I try to avoid crowds. Bryony here, she looks after me.”
Isabel took Bryony’s hand and held it. She didn’t let go.
The doctor’s eyes crinkled at the corners and he smiled at them both.
“I see. Well Dr Bridgford, I think I can sign you off. If you feel any serious pain, make an appointment. Otherwise, follow the exercise plan, and carry on with what you are doing. Whatever your regime has been, it obviously works.”
They said goodbye to him and the other staff, and made their escape down the corridor. After a few yards Bryony pulled something from her bag and waved it at Isabel who was still hopping on her crutches like a pirate.
“What’s that?”
“Your other sandal! Here let me put it on for you.”
She knelt down and fastened the shoe round Isabel’s slim foot, and because no-one was looking, lifted it up slightly and dropped a kiss on her toes.
“There you are, the kissing of feet, the ultimate demonstration of undying fealty.”
“Come on silly girl. I want to show you how I can walk.”
“Use the crutches to take most of your weight though.”
“OK.”
Isabel put both feet to the floor and using the crutches as an aid, walked steadily towards the exit.
“You did it! You are now officially back on your feet. This is all going in the log when we get home.”
“Yes, sweetie, let’s go home. It’s been four days since we worked on the book! We have so much to do!”
***
Isabel stayed awake this time on the journey back up into the Welsh hills and was very animated. She told Bryony a few stories from her years with Carrie, and could actually mention her name on several occasions without her eyes filling with tears. She seemed to be slowly coming out of her grief, and she felt strong enough to share with Bryony something of the agony and the ecstasy of loving Carrie, and what a rollercoaster their life together had been.
“Despite all the rows, I truly thought we’d be partners for life, I mean a long life until we grew old together. I never expected she’d be taken so soon, and so suddenly. I suppose I’ve been in shock ever since, now I think about it.”
“Who was there for you? Who did you have to share it with, all the grief?”
“No-one close enough to understand. Jane was supportive, but she had never really understood how Carrie and I worked as a couple. I was the crazy unstable one in Jane’s life. She couldn’t imagine I could live with someone who was even more unpredictable.
“Ted and Claire as well, they knew what she meant to me, but they had a kind of myopic view of gay relationships. They can’t see that a gay marriage can be identical to a straight one, more intense sometimes, because of the social pressures against gay relationships lasting.
“The people at work were all shocked when it happened, and respectful. My colleagues carried me really, at least for the first six months when I was quite out of it, but no-one really understood. I think I’ve been just lonely all this time, until you popped up. I think you get me, and you are a good listener. I feel I could tell you anything.”
“Isabel, that’s a lovely thing to hear. I feel the same way about you, if I’m allowed to say it. So were you and Carrie planning to marry?”
“Yes, she’d proposed, up a mountain in Ethiopia actually. Her mother is Ethiopian and we were there making a film together. Anyway, I accepted, after a lot of heart-searching. We were planning a big bash, but work got in the way, and we never managed to fix the date before she died. So now I will just have to die an old maid!”
Bryony squashed a tiny fantasy which had been starting to throw out a bud or two in her heart, and laughed back at Isabel.
“Anyone less like an old maid I’ve yet to meet.” She sought for something to change the mood and decided to pull into the filling station ahead of them.
“I need to fill up the car. Look, they have a café attached. Can we stop for lunch?”
“Only if you let me walk up the steps by myself. Here, use my card for the petrol. I’ll go on in and order us some food.”
Isabel obviously reveled in the fact that she could leave the car and walk in a balanced manner across the forecourt and up the three steps into the little Welsh tea-room. She used her crutches, but Bryony could see how they’d be thrown in the corner before the week was out. When she joined her Isabel had ordered salads for them both, tea and water.
They ate, and then she said, “Go over and choose yourself a cake for dessert. I’ll share it with you.”
Bryony came back with a large slice of chocolate cake and two forks, and they consumed it together.
“This is to celebrate,” said Isabel.
“What?”
“Goodbye to the hospital! I never want to set foot in one again.”
“Well, good for you, but I am looking forward to a working life spent inside one, so poor me.”
“You will be a wonderful doctor, Bryony. I can see you in a year’s time in your white coat, fully qualified. You have a fantastic career ahead of you. You’ll go far. You have real talent, I can tell. Nothing should be allowed to hold you back.”
Bryony had been about to mention Claire’s plan for Bel to live in Chester for the autumn months, so far from London, so far from her. But she just didn’t dare. She didn’t want to hear the bad news that she could predict would come from Isabel’s mouth.
“Well, let’s ask for the bill and get away. As you say, we need to concentrate on the book and only the book from now on.”
So they did, Isabel walked back to the car, carefully putting one foot in front of the other, and Bryony drove them home.
***
In so many ways, the ne
xt few weeks fulfilled Isabel’s dreams about the summer. The weather held, and the book developed. They worked on it for four hours every morning, from eight to twelve. Then Bryony fixed lunch, while Isabel read over her typed drafts from the morning and they edited what they had done.
From then on, they took the rest of the day off. Isabel followed Bryony’s exercise regime obediently some days, and under duress on others. At times Bryony had to chase her round the living room with the bean can weights, and bribe her with kisses to knuckle down and complete the physio program, but before long she was developing real muscle tone. She was also putting on weight, ounce by ounce until Bryony could no longer count her ribs or feel her hip bones jutting out.
Once a week they went shopping, usually on Wednesday when Machynlleth had a street market, but otherwise they were alone, which was exactly as they liked it. Meals without meat were a breeze, and Bryony bulked up Isabel’s diet with as much full-fat milk and carbs as she dared.
The cottage was so isolated; no-one ever passed the door. Not even the postman called, but left any circulars or letters in a box at the corner of the lane below. So because of this, after a couple of weeks they started to sunbathe naked in the garden in the warm afternoons, lying together on a blanket on the small stretch of lawn which had grown tall in the month they had been together.
Isabel had suggested the nude frolicking outside, and Bryony had not had any will to refuse. Now she was outside, lying naked on the rug and letting the sun warm her whole body, she realized just how liberating a sensation it was.
“You know, there is something about you, which has done something profound to me this summer, Isabel,” she said, one afternoon as they lay together under the sky. “You’ve brought me up, somehow, made me mature. You’ve educated me about life, about possibilities. My background was so restricted, so provincial. I thought I was being very daring, going to university, training to be a doctor, but my teachers and lecturers really just pushed me through, because I have a good memory for facts and figures. It hasn’t stretched me like you have. You’ve opened up the world to me, and you’ve opened me up as well. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“You have a way with words, darling. Thank you. I’m supposed to be the writer, but I can never, ever express what I owe to you in bringing me back to health. You are a complete joy.”
Bryony leaned on one elbow and picked a daisy to push behind Isabel’s ear.
“Isn’t there a passage in Lady Chatterley’s lover about them playing around with daisies?” she asked as she picked another flower head and positioned it over Isabel’s tummy button, and then another three to rest over her neat little patch of pubic hair.
Isabel smiled and flung her arms wide. “Lawrence understood about sexual desire. His lesbian descriptions in The Rainbow was the first description of gay women’s sex I ever read as a girl,” she said, “But I think we could teach him or anyone a thing or two about desire.”
Bryony placed two more daisies on Isabel’s breasts, and another in each of her open arm pits. “Now you are dressed as a votive offering to the gods. My queen.”
“Am I to be sacrificed out here, in broad daylight?”
“Only the birds can see us and maybe the people in the International Space Station if it happened to pass by overhead. It goes round the world every hour and a half.”
“But perhaps not over North Wales. Bryony...”
“Yes?”
“Please make love to me.”
“Yes, Isabel.”
Chapter 22
Much later, when they were decently dressed and curled up together on the sofa after supper, Bryony talked about her decision not to return to Aberystwyth. They had missed two Fridays already, because she could see how much Isabel needed her with her to finish the book, and she really didn’t want to put herself in danger from Miss Melanie from Mississippi or wherever. Besides, every day was precious while Isabel and she were together.
“I can finish the dissertation from personal observation. I have more than enough material, no need to disappear on Fridays.”
“But I worry about you overworking. We should both take Fridays off in that case. There is somewhere I’ve been reading about, somewhere I want us to see while we’re in this part of the country.”
“Hmm?”
“The shrine of Saint Melangell. It’s a very ancient druidic site with a circle of yew trees in a churchyard. The trees are more than two thousand years old, so they pre-date the time of Christ, let alone when Christianity came to Wales. The church there now is a place of pilgrimage, but I think it sounds magical. It’s all about re-birth, as the yew trees constantly regenerate themselves. I want us to go.”
“How far?”
“Oh, less than an hour away. Will you drive us there, on Friday this week?”
“Sure. Of course.”
***
The trip to the shrine was on a shimmering, hot day. The month had now slipped over to August, and the trees above their heads were in full leaf with a canopy above the car as they drove down lanes, dappled in sun and shadows. The Church was remote, and the lane to it wound back and forth through a long valley. They seemed to be travelling back in time as well as through contemporary Wales.
“Tell me about the legend of St Melangell,” said Bryony as she navigated the single track road. Isabel read from her little guide book.
“She was meant to be an early Celtic virgin princess who shielded a hare from the hunter who was about to kill it.”
“Easy way to be made a Saint, especially for a woman. I read somewhere there are ten times as many male saints as female? There seems a little bias going on there. Do you suppose it’ll be all men as well in heaven?”
“I can’t see us wanting to go to the traditional idea of heaven, can you, in that case, or in any way? Actually there is a strong argument that the Christian version is a transplant from the much older Druidic tradition of the Moon Goddess, who had a hare as her symbol. It’s amazing all the different layers which make up our history as a human race. Everything is a synthesis. That’s what makes history so fascinating, real history I mean, not just the political shouting match which makes the headlines.”
“The hidden histories of the hunted, as opposed to the propaganda written up by the hunters?”
“Precisely.”
When they arrived at the shrine however, their chat about history and syncretism faded away as they were drawn into the deep ‘thickness’ of the place, hidden away in the green valley. For hundreds, thousands of years, people had been coming here on pilgrimage, to worship, to touch an Immanence, and to feel the wonder of the ancient trees.
“These are meant to be some of the oldest trees in the British Isles.” Isabel stepped inside one of the massive yew trees and placed her hands against the hollowed out trunk. She could somehow feel its life communicating to her through the gnarled wood.
“Come, and join me. Feel it too.”
Bryony stood beside her. The tree could comfortably house them both, and they touched the wood.
“I can’t believe this place is so quiet, so unprotected.”
“Maybe its own spirits protect it.”
The red berries from the yew trees fell all around. There were so many trees, and all looked to be thriving. The size of their trunks and their huge overhanging branches confirmed their age.
Isabel and Bryony entered the church and read the copious displays on the walls. It was the oldest Romanesque church in the whole of the United Kingdom, maybe in all of northern Europe, and like the church yard it too had a spirit of peace and regeneration. But the feeling was more powerful outside than in. They spent an hour there and left an offering. Then they looked round the churchyard. Some of the tombs had oak leaves on them. Were druidic beliefs still prevalent in the area?
Isabel thought of Carrie, and her rebellious spirit against both the Catholic faith of her Italian father, and the Coptic tradition of her Ethiopian mother. Where was Carrie now? Was
she causing positive trouble somewhere else in the universe, or did she just live on in Isabel’s memory?
If the evidence was true, then this little church and the grove of yew-trees went back just as far as both those traditions, and for the trees, way beyond. The very length of the time-line somehow comforted her, and reinforced her determination to fight against climate change deniers with all the strength in her.
Maybe, as well as what they owed to future children, her generation owed it to those people in the past as well, who had planted trees, and built churches, had grown crops and raised children in the hope of a better future, not a worse one. It made her very thoughtful.
Bryony took her arm and walked with her back to the car.
“Are you OK?”
“Yes, just thinking.”
“It’s a wonderful place. I’m so pleased we found it. Thanks for suggesting it.”
“It strengthens one, doesn’t it, thinking it’s not just our little story we need to tell, but the much wider one, of all the life here on earth, all the history. It’s so strong and yet so fragile.”
“Like the hare hidden under St Melangell’s cloak?”
“Yes. That’s a powerful symbol, whoever first thought it up. They say you can see a hare or a rabbit on the moon, that’s probably where the connections started.”
“I like hares. There used to be lots in Derbyshire where I grew up.”
“Derbyshire? There’s so much about you I have yet to learn.”
“Hmm. And you, for me too.”
Bryony’s final comment was almost under her breath, as she opened the door and helped Isabel back into her seat. Acting as her career was second nature, even though she was getting stronger every day. She still felt she had only explored the top inch of Isabel’s depths, and their time together was already flying by.
Bryony wondered how it would end, whether she would ever have the courage to ask Isabel for more, more time, more commitment, and more wonderful sex. But she simply lacked the courage. She couldn’t bear to think of the probable answer. It would all be so painful; she would postpone raising it as long as she could, right up to the very last moment.
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