by Emma
But as soon as we were on our way, I suddenly saw the pavement
rushing by under me. It was so unexpected and
frightening, that I had to tell Emma to stop. In a moment I
recovered and we went on again. But then I saw the fence
coming at us at a headlong rate, and the trees seeming to
fly towards us as if they were going to knock us down. Looking
down again, I saw the pavement and even the shadows of the
lamp posts were sweeping along towards me like solid black
bars, making me think I would trip. It was no good. Once
more I had to tell Emma to stop. I knew it was illogical. I
knew I was moving, and not the lamp posts, or the pavement,
or the shadows. But as far as I was concerned visually, the
reverse was happening. I decided to give it another try. The
same thing happened again. I was panic-stricken. I had to
keep stopping to reassure myself that it really was me in
motion, and each time we stopped Emma sat down and looked
at me with those great brown eyes full of questions. She wanted
to know what was happening; after ten years together why
was I behaving in this peculiar fashion? In the end the only
solution I could think of was to close my eyes, and let Emma
carry on as usual. And this is how we finally arrived at the
shops.
Emma stopped. I opened my eyes, and there we were,
outside the greengrocer's. Immediately I was hit by a mass
AT FIRST SIGHT
I75
of colour, and that, mixed with some relief at actually being
there, made me think, 'Well it was worth it after all.' I was
astounded at the sight of all the fruit and vegetables and
flowers in the window, and saw to my immense surprise that
each apple in its redness or greenness was different, and that no
two potatoes looked alike, nor the lettuces, nor anything in the
whole array. How could there be so many shades and varieties
of colour?
Apart from this, there were a lot of things in the window
that I could not identify at all. Once again I was coming up
against the problem of not being able to relate my previous
tactile impressions to my present vision. Perhaps I had already
that day given my brain enough to cope with. Seeing was
miraculous, but I had, in a way, to learn to see as well. In the
shop, where they knew me very well and were delighted at the
success of my operation, they didn't mind my touching things
I could not recognize. There was something on the counter
that I could not, try as I would, put a name to. I could see
some red, and green, and a shape. That was all it meant to
me. It would not fit any description I could think of. Then I
touched it. I realized I was seeing leaves and flowers. It was
a plant. I could not understand why I had not immediately
known what it was. It turned out to be a poinsettia. Then I
pointed to something on the shelf, and said, 'What's that?'
'Celery.' 'And those?' 'Beetroot,' they said. So I went on, and
finished up buying tomatoes because they looked the most
gorgeous colour of all.
On our way back, I determined to keep my eyes open,
which led to an odd incident. I was again in a state of nerves,
but resolving to persevere, when I saw a young lad coming
towards us. As usual, I was talking to Emma as we walked,
and I said, 'Now there's someone coming, Emma, do be
careful.' What she made of that unnecessary comment, I
have no idea, but as I said it, I thought, 'Now I must take
action, I must get round this boy. But how? How do I do it?'
It did not occur to me that I was abandoning my trust and
faith in Emma. I thought, 'I'll step aside to the right, and
I
I76
EMMA AND I
we'll avoid him that way.' So, when he was nearly up to us,
I stepped to the side of the pavement to go right. In the
very same second, Emma had decided the best way to take
us past the lad was to go left. I let go of the harness, and we
landed up in a sort of confused heap and a tangle of harness
-while the lad went merrily on, all unaware. I felt dreadful,
and I knew by Emma's expression she could not make out
what had happened. She yawned, not out of boredom, but
embarrassment.
She sat looking at me with an anxious, quizzical expression,
which said, 'Why ever did you do that? In ten years you've
never done that before. What's happened?' I said, 'Oh,
Emma, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have put your harness on.' I
decided that I had been expecting too much of her. I had
virtually been asking her to stand by me until I had the
courage to go out on my own. It was not fair. From then on,
whenever we went out, I would simply have to put her on a
lead, and learn how to manage myself.
We somehow got home from the shops, and then I took
great delight in being able to empty my shopping bag and
see to prepare a meal. But one thing I was already beginning
to realize was that it took a great deal of concentration to
look at objects. It was something quite new to me, this
concentration and mental effort involved with seeing, something
I had not suspected would be required. I had imagined
that once I got my sight back, I would be able to see, and that
would be that. But it was not the case. It was like suddenly
being given an extra limb, and having to work hard at getting
used to putting it to the best advantage. But it was exciting,
too.
When I looked into the food cupboard for the first time,
I found an Aladdin's cave full of tins and packets and jars
which I did not know by sight, but which I had used before.
They had taken on a new existence. I came across a packet that
was red, yellow and white, and thought, 'What's this?' Of
course, it said SALT on it, but, although years before I had
been able to read print, regaining this faculty took a long
AT FIRST SIGHT
I77
time, and the word SALT at first was just an arrangement of
different shaped letters. I could remember some printed
words in my mind, and was able to write them down when I
could not see. But, the other way round, presented with words
via my eyes, and required by the brain to attach a meaning
to them, was something altogether different, and very
difficult at first, though it came back in time.
So, to begin with, I identified the salt by the old method,
taste, and related this to the colour of the box. Cereal packets
were yellow, or white with a pattern on them, baked bean
tins were a distinctive turquoise blue, and so on.
Still, this was all discovery, and I did not mind. In fact I
enjoyed going through the food cupboard on that first afternoon,
and I enjoyed even more the preparation of the meal,
with all the reds and greens of the salad dazzling me, even
down to the simple business of running water from the tap
over the lettuce: the way the water glistened and swirled,
caught the light, and made a waterfall pattern in the sink
fascinated me. Once I had laid the tea-table, and was waiting
for Don to come home, I went out into the garden, my lovely
garden. I was so proud of it as I walked about, with Emma
rooting along beside me.
When I was blind, there had been times when I literally
hated those trees in the garden, because the branches were
always getting tangled up in my hair, and if ever I did take a
walk round the lawn, which was a fairly rare occurrence, I
used to have to keep in mind the presence and arrangement of
the three apple trees, and make sure I did not collide with
them. The apple trees, in fact, had been nothing more than
rather ogre-like obstacles, to be avoided and shunned. Now
they not only looked incapable of harm, but beautiful, too.
And at the edge of the grass was our willow tree. I could not
get over its sheer grace. The leaves were green on one side,
and silver on the other. For a moment I thought my eyes really
had got it wrong. No one had ever told me that trees could
have silver leaves. It was while I was looking at the willow
that I noticed the sky for the first time, and how the clouds
I
i
I78
EMMA AND I
moved, sailing along, with great billows of white on blue. I
heard the car draw up, and the gate-latch click. Don was
back.
He came up and joined me on the lawn, and said, 'Hello,
how have you been getting on? What have you been doing?'
'Oh, looking at everything, you know.'
'What are you looking at now?'
'Well, to tell you the truth, I'm waiting to see the sunset.'
Don had often described the sunset to me and no one could
have done it better, or more vividly, yet, standing there with
him in the garden as the sun was going down, and the colours
werejust beginning to change in fractions of a second, I knew
that there was no substitute for sight. Reading about things,
or having them described (and I do not want to devalue in
any way what Don had done) were substitutes, and until
that day all I had ever had were second-hand sunsets.
On this Friday we stood and watched together. The sun
disappeared, and the clouds and sky around were streaked
with gold and purple. It was perfect, and to end that day
nothing could have matched it
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A NEW LIFE
FOR THE FIRST few seconds after I woke up the following
morning, everything seemed normal. It was no different from
any other morning, from the ten thousand other times I had
woken up. In front of me was a familiar blank greyish mist.
Then I remembered. I could see! I had only to open my eyes,
and I could see! It was the first morning of a new life. But,
in my drowsiness, I wondered: is it all really true? Dare I
open my eyes?
The night before, tired as I was, I had not wanted to go to
sleep. It had seemed such a waste to spend eight hours with
my eyes shut. I had lain there feeling happier than I had ever
felt in my life before. Emma had got into her basket at the
foot of the bed, and I had looked at the wallpaper, unable to
keep my eyes off it. It was so pretty, with cascades of blossom
on a deep rose background. Don had got into bed beside me,
and I remember him saying, 'We can go anywhere we want,
you know.' I really did think that the world, at last, was
mine. But I was still looking at the wallpaper when we put
the light out.
Now I opened my eyes. Immediately I saw that the wallpaper
was still there. I could read, I could take Emina for
walks, I could see everything I had heard about and been told
about, and never properly known. An astronomer who sees
a new planet must, I thought, feel like this, or an explorer
I
I80 EMMA AND I
coming to the edge of a plateau and seeing below him miles
and miles of unexplored territory. As I lay daydreaming, the
sun was streaming through the curtains, and I saw Emma still
curled up in her basket.
Then Don stirred and said he would get up and make some
tea, which brought me back to the more immediate, practical
things of life. And while I was looking at Emma, she woke
too. She got out of her basket, stretched sleepily right down on
her forelegs with eyes half-closed against the brightness of the
day, but looking up at me, full of affection. She gave her usual
brisk and vigorous good-morning shake, then, wagging her
tail jumped up on the bed. I had heard all this every day, but
never before seen what happened. It was a daily ritual that
she had to play her game of what Don calls 'Push Noses' in
which she puts her nose under the bedclothes and pushesback
legs in the air and tail waving frantically. Actually seeing
this for the first time, accompanied by the normal sounds, I
lay back and shook with laughter, it was so funny.
At that moment Don came in with the tea, and I said to him,
'I wonder how long it will be before she realizes I can see?'
Emma had obviously not yet grasped the fact, and I wondered
whether it would dawn on her gradually or suddenly. Then
something odd happened. I was watching Don pour out the
tea and start to get dressed, when I noticed his legs. I hadn't
noticed them before he got into bed the night before, and I
looked, and said, 'Don, your legs.'
'What about my legs?'
'Aren't they strange?' And I started to giggle because they
looked so peculiar to me.
Poor Don was quite put out. He looked down and, with a
great muster of dignity, said, 'They're perfectly normal legs.'
'But they can't be.'
'Yes, they are.'
'But they're all wrong somehow. They don't seem to fit the
rest of your body.'
He then turned round and hurriedly put on his trousers to
cover his legs and hide them from my critical gaze: I was
A NEW LIFE
I8I
convinced they were out of proportion. I have no idea how I
expected legs to look, but whatever image I had it was not
matched by Don's lower limbs. When I got out of bed a second
or two later, I stopped laughing. I saw that my legs looked
peculiar as well, amazingly strange, and disproportionate.
Over breakfast, I discovered something else. I cooked bacon
and eggs and tomatoes. I thought how much pleasure I had
missed by not being able to see food, and how the sight of it
added to the appetite. We sat down, and I put my fork towards
the bacon, and, somehow, the two did not connect. I could
see the bacon, and I could see the prongs of the fork near it,
but I could not bring the two together. The co-ordination was
beyond me, and although it was an admission of a temporary
setback, an unforeseen defeat even, I had to revert to my old
ways and feel for my food with my knife and fork. I stopped
concentrating on looking, and went back to touch.
Over the coffee, Don said, 'Where would you like to go
today?' He had arranged to h
ave a week offfrom the surgery,
and was longing to take me on all sorts of trips in the car.
Before he said it I knew where I wanted to go first: 'What
about Newstead Abbey, what about going there?' Newstead
Abbey, with its acres of woods, lakes and gardens is about a
twenty-minute drive out of Nottingham on the Mansfield
side. Once it was the home of Lord Byron, and in the I 930s
was presented to Nottingham City Corporation. I had been
there so many times when I was blind, and I found it always so
peaceful. I could almost feel the atmosphere of the old abbey,
and would imagine Byron writing poetry under the trees, or
riding his horse along the paths. I used to go round and feel the
trees, knowing there were great masses of rhododendrons, and
hear the waterfalls. I was dying to see it all.
There was a lake which stretched like a great looking-glass,
with moorhens and swans floating on it, attached to their
shimmering mirror images. Eventually we came.to the waterfalls.
The sun was shining, and it caught the water, and turned
it into a cascade of diamonds, whirling and dancing over the
stones. The colours were changing in a halo over the falls.
i
I82
EMMA AND I
I could not take my eyes off it, and Don almost had to drag
me to look at the flowers he had caught sight of: dahlias and
chrysanthemums in a blaze of different yellows and bronzes
and scarlets. To me it was as if all the colour in the world had
suddenly been concentrated and massed in that spot. Then I
caught sight of a stone wall, a part of the old abbey, and went
over to see it. It was mottled all over with pinks, whites,
yellow, grey, brown, with mosses and lichen growing in the
crevices, and all made up of a million tiny details.
I felt quite high on colour and visual sensations. But one
last thing I had to see. That was Byron's memorial to his
Newfoundland dog, Boatswain. We reached the little square
stone edifice at the top of some steps. Emma went all round it,
very interested. And I was able, at last, to read for myself
what Byron had written about his dog. Inscribed on the stone
it said that Boatswain possessed 'Beauty without Vanity,
Courage without Ferocity, and all the Virtues of Man without