by Ivan B
He concentrated on his frying pan full of onion rings.
“It’s OK, Josie can manage a steak knife.”
Mary murmured, with force.
“Not for Josie, for me. I can manage a steak knife, but it means holding down the steak with my hook and changing back and forth between knife and fork. I’m just plain lazy.”
He half turned towards her.
“Sorry, should have thought.”
She sighed.
“It’s not your problem.”
He smiled.
“Fancy some wine?”
She hesitated.
“I know it’s infra-dig, but I wouldn’t mind some white.”
He tossed the onion rings.
“White it is then.”
Ten minutes later Robert judged the steaks were thoroughly cooked and took them out from under the grill. He picked up the electric carving knife and paused, he then proceeded to slice up all three steaks into 2cm cubes and place the meat on the pre-warmed plates.
The all sat down at the kitchen table and Robert put the food on the table. Josie opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t need her meat cut up and noticed that all three meals were the same; instead of talking she placed a chip in her mouth. Robert poured out wine for himself and Mary, Josie gave a sly smile.
“Don’t I get any?”
Mary reached for another glass and gave Josie a small amount. Not believing her eyes she picked up the glass and took a sip, her face took on a puckered look. Mary nodded.
“Your quite right, red wine is much better with red meat.”
Robert opened his mouth to protest that white wine was her idea when she Mary gave him a broad wink. As the meal progressed it became increasingly obvious that Josie was tired out. At first she tackled the meal with gusto, halfway through the pudding she had trouble keeping her eyes open. In the end Mary reached out and touched her hand.
“I think you ought to be in bed.”
She gave a smile with her eyes half closed.
“Not bedtime yet.”
Mary patted the back of her hand.
“Bedtimes got nothing to do with it. My friend Susan is always telling me to listen to my body, yours is yelling ‘let me sleep.’”
Mary added enticingly.
“And tomorrow we're going shopping and I don't want a grouch, grouches don't get many new clothes and if they do they are always bright pink,”
Josie shuddered at the thought and heaved herself to her feet, kissed her dad and staggered towards the door. She stopped halfway, came back and kissed Mary on the cheek and then disappeared into her bedroom. Robert raised an eyebrow.
“I haven't seen her so tired in years.”
Mary laughed.
“The galleries in the Natural History Museum are very large and she insisted on coming back to my buggy and telling me everything she had read on every exhibit.”
“You had a buggy?”
“Three wheeler with a tiller design, trouble was you push down on the tiller for the back brakes and the motor is in the front wheel, so before I got the hang of it I left tyre marks all over their lino.”
Robert chuckled and piled the plates up in front of him.
“Looks like a quiet night. Why don’t you go out and see a friend.”
Mary picked up an errant pea.
“Susan’s working.”
Robert finished his glass of wine.
“What about other friends?”
“There’s only Susan.”
Something in her tone made Robert change the subject.
“Evening in then.”
She tossed the pea into the sink.
“Actually I was thinking about watching the TV drama tonight, it’s a new adaptation of Vera Hollingworth’s Biscuit factory, if it lives up to the hype it should be good.”
He looked bemused.
“Never heard of it, should I have?”
She laughed.
“The book won two major prizes and the original TV series produced numerous TV awards.”
He shrugged.
“Must have passed me by.”
She looked at the clock.
“Starts in half an hour, I’ll watch it in my bedroom if you want to see something else.”
He stood up.
“I’ll join you, bit of culture might do me good.”
Mary giggled.
“Riveting story it is, culture it isn’t.”
She left him clearing away and, after collecting her toiletry bag, went into the bathroom. Her left wrist had started wildly itching. She knew it was pointless, but she wiggled out of her moulded prosthetic and thoroughly cleaned out the inside of it with an antiseptic wipe. She then washed the stump. As expected it made no difference, it wasn’t a real itch, but a phantom itch, if she didn’t know better she could have easily thought that it was the palm of her hand that was itching. She rubbed some of the wonderful new cream she had got from the sports shop into her stump and then removed her leg-brace. There was a minute amount of chaffing and she applied some more cream on her leg. She then carried the hook and brace into her bedroom and dumped them on the bed before heading for the lounge. She was settled on the end of the settee by the time Robert arrived, he held up the wine bottle.
“Want to finish off the wine with me?”
“Why not.”
He placed a glass on her small table and then hesitated. She patted the settee.
“You can sit on the settee to see a good picture on the screen you know, I won’t bite.”
He sat at the other end of the settee with an empty space between them and Mary turned the TV on. They began to watch the programme like an long-married couple.
Chapter 14
Intimate conversations
Half an hour later Mary groaned.
“Sorry Robert I can’t stand anymore of this.”
He sighed.
“I’m glad it’s not just me.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Why must they take a perfectly good story and ruin it? It should be set in Exeter, but they’ve translated it to Glasgow and given it an incomprehensible dialogue. The heroin should be a red headed Irish Girl and they’ve made her an Essex blonde and the unsuspecting hero should be afro-Caribbean and they’ve made him Swedish!”
Robert smiled.
“Now if that were Shakespeare you’d say it was a daring and adventurous approach and that it was the story-line that was important.”
She fixed him with a glassy stare.
“And they changed the story from heroin runs over hero in her grotty van to hero tries to commit suicide beneath the wheels of her lorry.”
He raised a hand in mock surrender.
“Point made.”
She flicked through the TV channels, but they mutually agreed that there was nothing on. She turned the TV off and the supposed piece of modern art re-appeared on the flat TV screen. She sighed.
“Did you say you could change this?”
He didn’t stir.
“Press the two orange buttons and a menu of pictures will appear.”
She did as instructed and looked down the menu.
“I don’t know who half of these artists are.”
He chuckled.
“Join the club.”
She spotted a painting she knew and flicked up a Constable landscape, she surveyed it for all of ten seconds.
“The colours are all wrong.”
She went back to the menu. After ten minutes she gave up and reverted to the original coloured splurge. She drank some wine and turned on the radio and tuned it to a classical station. They sat listening to Mozart for a few minutes and she murmured.
“Why did you never re-marry.” She knew it was the wine talking, but she couldn’t bear the silence.
He moved in his seat slightly.
“Guess I hoped she’d come back. I thought that she’d gone off to do her own thing and when she’d got it out of her system she’d come back, but she ne
ver did.”
He looked at her.
“Call me silly if you like, but it took me four years to realise that she’d gone for good.”
Mary said gently.
“Would you have had her back?”
He nodded and she added.
“You must really love her.”
He took on an indefinable expression.
“Did love her. Then one day I woke up and realised that in four years there had not been one note, not one query as to Josie’s health, not one contact and I realised that she’d closed the door.”
“And since then, nothing?”
She meant contact from Marcia, he took the statement a different way.
“One or two women, but they either backed off when they learnt of Josie, or it’s not worked out.”
She moved her leg-rest slightly.
“Not looking for another Marcia are you?”
He sighed.
“I guess I was at first, I’m not now.”
Mary would have followed the remark up, but he beat her to the first word.
“What about you, why haven’t you married?”
She look away from him.
“Never met the right guy.”
He noted he expression.
“Did any come close?”
She shrugged.
“Actually never met any guys, least not since I fell out of the sky. I had a boyfriend for a while at university, but I wouldn’t have sex with him and he dumped me for an obese art-student one week before my accident. He never visited me. Since then zilch.”
Robert opened his mouth, but Mary, who was not looking at him, added.
“Not strictly correct. One customer did ask me out a few times last year, but he was married and I wouldn’t play.”
They sat in silence until he looked at the wine bottle, stood up and poured a few drops into her glass, he then sat down beside her. He paused and placed his right hand over her left wrist, his fingers dangling over the stump.
“Poor pair aren’t we? Can’t find the right person, perhaps were looking to hard for the wrong sort.”
She felt his gentle caress and didn’t know what to do, he half whispered.
“What happened this morning? What turned the usual extremely self confident Mary into a gibbering wreck?”
She felt like telling him to take his hands off her and go away, but she did nothing of the sort. She murmured back.
“You’ve no idea what it’s like, to be helpless and utterly dependant on others. You think that you’ve got it all under control – remember you called me little Miss Organised – and then it all falls down around your ears. I know it’s stupid and irrational and that you’ll think of me as a weak and feeble female, but I dread living alone. I can manage, but only when I think there are others around to scoop me up when I fail; isn’t that just totally foolish?”
He didn’t answer, he just lightly massaged her stump, it was extremely comforting and slightly erotic; it certainly had banished her itch. He suddenly blurted out.
“I worry about Josie. Suppose I got run over by a bus or died of a heart attack? Who would look after her or who would look after us if I was incapacitated?”
They sat in silence effectively holding hands in their respective loneliness
Mary said, wistfully.
“I wonder if Josie is right and love can grow?”
Robert glanced at her.
“I think it depends on the level of commitment and willingness to change. If you enter a relationship for life, meaning life and not just until you get bored, then I think it could be possible.”
He put his head right back onto the settee back.
“And as long as your willing to share your life and not try and act as a single person who just happens to live with somebody else; it must be more than just being like flatmates.”
Mary tensed and relaxed her left wrist in response to his massage.
“And there is no threatening to leave. You know, ‘unless you stop eating garlic I'm leaving.’”
He laughed and murmured.
“The question is would you take the risk?”
She was uncertain of his meaning.
“Is that a hypothetical question or are you actually asking me?”
He didn’t answer for a full forty seconds and Mary wondered how long her heart could pound so hard. Eventually he said.
“It wasn’t hypothetical.”
She wondered how to answer and he suddenly let go of her.
“Cards on the table before you answer. I have to admit that you didn’t set my pulse racing at first sight. I have to admit that I find you grouchy at times and sometimes I have absolutely no idea where you’re coming from. On the other and we seem to have slotted together like I never imagined possible and in truth I’ll miss you when your not around. And yes I would take the risk.”
He held her wrist again and she enjoyed his touch. She said flatly.
“My cards. You’re not my idea of a knight in shining armour and sometimes I find you too objective for you’re own good. On the other hand I haven’t felt so secure with anyone for a long time, well ever actually. When I said Susan was my only friend I meant it and that was because she persisted in the early stages of the friendship, not me.”
She hesitated and let the wine drive her on.
“But there is one thing you must know. There wouldn’t be any children, not because I wouldn’t, but because I can’t; I’ve already gone through the change.”
She saw the surprise on his face from the corner of her eye.
“It happens you know, not all women have their menopause in their forties, mine started when I was twenty seven.”
She added bitterly.
“So it’s a hell of a risk for you, taking on a barren cripple.”
He burst out laughing; she was seeking understanding, tenderness and compassion and he burst out laughing. She went to pull her arm away, but he held on.
“I’m not laughing at you I’m laughing a fate. Too true we wouldn’t have children, I’ve had the snip.”
She was surprised and it must have shown in her face, he shrugged helplessly.
“Marcia had a dreadful time having Josie and I mean truly dreadful. She made it plain that one child would be enough and that she wouldn’t take the pill for life, so I had a vasectomy and Josie would be the only child.”
Mary smiled.
“One child then.”
He squeezed her wrist.
“You haven’t said if you’d take the risk on me - a single parent who still half loves the image of his former wife.”
She closed her eyes, was this the best she could do? She turned to him.
“We’ll have to talk in the morning, when the wines stopped working, but yes, I’d take the risk. But let’s be honest from the start, I’m driven to take the risk from fear of being alone and you’re driven to the risk by fear of Josie being left alone.”
He replied tenderly.
“It’s not what drives us to the risk, it’s what drives us beyond.”
Mary concentrated as best she could.
“Of course it’s not as easy as that, there’s complications, my mother for a start, I’m not abandoning her.”
He moved his hand from her wrist to her thigh, she moved it back . He sighed.
“Lets not think of complications. If the we really believe the risk is what we want to take we’ll find a way of overcoming them. But your mother is not the only one, there’s my house.”
“Your house?”
“It’s a late Victorian pile with two impossibly steep staircases and no double room.”
She began to feel like an echo machine.
“No double room?”
He shrugged.
“Four years ago, in a fit of reality, I made the double bedroom into my study. I sleep in the box room and Josie has what passed for a small double bedroom.”
He gently massaged her stump and she whispered.
“I wond
er what we’ll think in the morning?”
He replied quietly.
“We’ll probably think we were mad to even contemplate such a liaison, but sometimes in a fearful world madness is the best option.”
They sat for another ten minutes just holding hands when Josie suddenly appeared at the door looking lost and bewildered. Robert got up and tended to her and the moment passed. Mary heaved herself to her feet and made for the loo.
Later Mary sat on the side of her bed wondering if she should go to him; she decided that would make her look, and feel, like a trollop and slipped into bed. Robert sat on the settee and wondered if he should go to her; he decided that would make him look and feel like a gigolo and he lay down. Josie dreamt of riding a Diplodocus across blue fields with giant haystacks and a herd of pink pigs.
The following morning Mary heard a noise and wondered if Josie was sleepwalking again. She put on her dressing gown and peeped out into the corridor. She made her way to the kitchen and found Robert filling the kettle. She looked at the clock.
“You’re running late aren’t you? You get ready and I’ll get you a breakfast.”
He gave her a tired smile.
“Would you mind? My all-singing all-dancing battery alarm clock didn’t bleep.”
“Of course not, you just open the marmalade jar before you go.”
She went back to her bedroom, popped on her hook and then set about preparing toast and cereal. After ten minutes he arrived looking somewhat more alive. He gulped down the cereal and set about the toast, after his second mouthful he peered at it.
“Is this marmalade?”
She pointed to the jar.
“You don’t have to put half a jar on every slice.”
He decided not to argue as time was against him and concentrated on eating the toast and drinking the scalding hot coffee. Halfway through the coffee he reached for his wallet and handed over his bank-card.
“Code is 6-8-2-9, please don’t spend more than £150.”
She gave him a scathing look.
“You want a party dress, casual clothes, shoes and a new pair of trainers for less than £150?”
He rolled his eyes.“£180 then.”
She took the card from him and he hastily swallowed the remains of his coffee and headed for the door.
.“Enjoy your conference,” she said softly and turned to put some dishes in the sink.