Fooled them, however! Was awake nearly all night as usual and up and dressed and ready to be off when staff were changing over this morning. There’s even a taxi rank outside, I didn’t have to navigate the bus routes.
Couldn’t escape the welcoming committee, though, Mrs. M and Co-taxi not home two minutes and there they were. They must’ve had the place staked out. But now I’m back I’ll go on thinking about it all. The pictures, the words. Where your life gets put, if you’re not very careful, by other people. What you’re meant to do with all the things you remember. Should I be worrying that maybe I remember some things that aren’t true, and forget others that are? Does it matter, if nobody would know but me? I only want you to know. I want to talk to you.
I’ll have a sleep now and think about it all later, towards the time when the sun’s setting. That’s when I wake up and that’s a good time for thinking. Thoughts pop up out of the dreams I have, though I don’t remember the dreams.
I want to hear from you on these and other subjects, when I’m more myself.
When I’m less myself, is what I should be saying.
Affectionately
Arthur
Where’s the harm in it? By staying here I can give him, in this discreet way, the help he needs. If I’m now Ruth, does it matter? He’s happier, and he’s clean and eating again. Considering what I’ve taken away from him, some small measure of well-being is little enough to be giving back. And since that’s all I do give him, how could I take that away again?
I can’t risk an appearance so I can’t do much about all the visitors. I feel like writing to the damn nurses and the neighbour to say that while he may seem to them to be losing ground, actually he is being restored to life. But why would I owe them any explanation? And would they understand it? No; I would have to write it like a sick note composed to veil the whole truth. “Please make allowances for Arthur if he does not seem quite himself but he is more himself than ever and should be excused.”
It can’t be done. I would have to puzzle over it, pondering what it was they needed to know and how they needed it said, and concoct some version of his condition that would both satisfy and conceal. I would have to write with insincere respect for an established belief that I have long known to be false, which is that when people die, they depart; I would have to write it as someone other than Ruth, and that’s impossible.
27 Cardigan Avenue
Dear Ruth
Your Della phoned. This story of yours, am only now appreciating the scale. Of your ambition, I mean. Della wonders if time is now right to ask if I would let them put some of it in their next “Work in Progress” collection, they do one every two years.
What do you think of that?
She also said you had just about finished it. Well I haven’t come across anything beyond page 93 so where did she get that idea from? She said you were planning to read something from the second half to the writing group, they thought you might have had it ready for them that day. You know, the day it happened.
Also I keep finding poems. Folders and envelopes marked with year of composition. Wish you were a more meticulous filer. I claim, if I may, a little credit for meticulous filing, and like it or not you have to admit it would have done you good if a little of my example with cheque stubs, bank statements, and paperwork generally had rubbed off on you.
I’m no fan of Della’s as you know, and common sense prevailed just in time, the phone was still in my hand. I was on the point of telling her about all the poetry I still haven’t gone through, but I stopped myself just in time. Nearly said would she come round and be here with me when I read them, as if poems were a bit of a hazard, too risky to read on my own. Most of them I won’t understand anyway. I banged down receiver just in time.
By the way I like the story. At least I understand it.
I suppose you would have told me about it once you’d got a bit further on.
Re: poems. I do like this one. When did you write it? What else did you think that day, what else did you say that day, and where has all that gone?
Green bird sits
Looking at me
From the green shelter
Of the lilac tree.
Doesn’t it know
Doesn’t it see
How much I wish
That I were he?
Shouldn’t that be “was him” in the last line, strictly speaking? I can see it wouldn’t rhyme then, but Della says rhyming’s not necessary.
Couldn’t fathom what bird you were describing, either. I finally tracked down the big bird book. When did you stick that and other works of ornithological reference in the attic, by the way, because I don’t recall so much as a by-your-leave.
Now don’t take this the wrong way. I’m just trying to help. Only I don’t see what harm it could do to know what bird we’re talking about. “Green” isn’t much to go on. I’m sceptical, moreover, that you were sure it was a “he,” but it would narrow it down a bit. Male and female plumage differ, as I know I have pointed out to you in the past.
Main possibilities are these (in order of likelihood acc. season, distribution of species, and population numbers, figs. as calculated by RSPB survey 1988):
Greenfinch
Willow warbler
Wood warbler
Goldcrest
Siskin
I grant you’re the poetry buff but you’d concede I have the edge where ornithology’s concerned.
Do you remember, many’s the time at Overdale Lodge I was first to get the binoculars out? It became a bit of a joke! Mr. Mitchell and his binoculars!
I still maintain that as long as a teacher commands respect then he can take a little friendly standing joke against himself, in fact it shows he’s human.
Education by stealth, we used to say, remember? Give the opportunities to all, and some will partake. Oh, we didn’t expect to convert the kind of town kids we took to Overdale in the space of a week, but many’s the hardened case was interested in learning how to use the binoculars. Many’s the tough nut who was pleased to learn something about the lesser-known native species. Education by stealth.
At least in those days we managed to get them as far as Overdale. All that’s gone and it makes my blood boil. Give the opportunity to all and some will partake, that was a good enough philosophy in our day and it still should be. Horses to water.
Overdale has been on my mind, since looking out photos etc etc from old times. I put one up, where Della’s memorial left a hole in the wall.
Class 3C Aug 1973 it says on the back in your writing. Our fourth year, a year after we got married.
The kids in that picture are nearly fifty now. I wonder who that lanky fellow with all the dark hair and the sideburns was, he looks oddly familiar!? Clue-the one with the binoculars round his neck!!