She greets me impassively from her chair in the corner. The lights are on; the sunlight streams in. As usual, she smiles slightly – rather knowingly – as we kiss.*
Having been waylaid in the corridor by two gloved-up care workers on their morning round, I know she has been difficult. She is in her PJs. The workers see me as an ally in their cause and come back shortly for another go at getting her dressed.
I withdraw. Her belligerent cries are sharp and clear despite the closed door between us. They think I’m a son, although careful scrutiny of the images on the wall might disabuse them of that.
When I am readmitted she is unwillingly but smartly dressed. I chide her for fighting. She responds that only Lorita knows how to dress her properly, and she’s not on today.
One of the worst times was when I had withdrawn and heard her deeply-sourced anger about not being addressed in English. “Talk to me in English! Speak English,” she shouts.
I ask whether she would like some of the new book. She replies with an over-firm yes – in which I hear an echo of the frustration and anger so recently vented to the care workers who aren’t Lorita.
“Remind me what has happened so far.” Just to check.
“It’s very dense,” she responds, “and difficult to explain”.
“Well remember: there’s this detective from Melbourne who has returned to his hometown for a funeral of three members of one local family who have been murdered. And the father involved was a friend of the detective.”
“That’s right,” she concurs.
I am conscious of a newish symptom of my own condition: an inability to read slowly, and the consequent difficulty of providing meaning for a listener from page after page of dialogue in which one speaker may not be distinguished from another, unless one employs differential accents and sustained acting.
But she says it’s clear – just very dense.
We break off for a cup of tea – one for her and one for me: a mug half-full in case it spills, with little heat, plenty of milk and not much tea. Plus two sweet biscuits.
She takes up one of the crosswords, all of which are carefully folded down to the size of the puzzle alone from a broadsheet newspaper. Rather unusually, she keeps the pen herself and does the scribing. This is a Quick, meaning that essentially it’s a search for synonyms.
But just as for a Cryptic, for the Quick there is a code or language – not so much a language as a vocabulary. She has been speaking this language for many years and still displays a great facility for it. The clue is ‘Robust’. For a beginner the answer might be ‘vigorous’, or ‘sturdy’, or ‘tough’, or ‘powerful’, or ‘muscular’, or ‘strapping’, or ‘burly’. But for those experienced with this language it has to be ‘strong’. Robust is always Strong.
Then there is Lees (‘Sediment from making wine’), Are (Unit of area), ‘Woman’s dress in Tyrolean style’,** and ‘Canopy over four-poster bed’***.
And so we complete the puzzle in good time, despite her sometimes being flummoxed by a transcription error caused by confusing Across and Down clues.
She has this practice of writing ‘QED’ next to the completed article when we’ve finished.
This relationship is based on having worked with both herself and her husband. An investment of 34 years which, for me, is now yielding unanticipated rewards. The quiet times, the silences are important. Shared with mutual confidence. Sometimes we both snooze.
Her attention is drawn to the window, through which the winter sun shines.
Angrily again: “Be quiet! Quiet! Shut up!! Those birds are driving me mad today” – as if to acknowledge the variety of her mood from moment to moment. And maybe as a kind of Sorry to Lorita’s co-workers.
The brightly coloured rosellas continue their flutter and chatter in the pen outside her window below.
Sharing time with her feels valuable. I wonder which parts of this complex system that is friend, family, artist, critic are broken. Mobility is limited but language and hearing are acute. The thread of thought and conversation is elusive.
It’s as if the individual parts of the system are fine but the connections between them are in poor repair.
She will walk the corridor for me, but not for the duty physio. I’ve reminded him that her hearing is acute but he still bellows his questions and encouragement. It’s as if her hearing is still governed by the perfect pitch for which she was infamous. She interprets my mumbling better than most.
I tread the corridor with her, slow steps to accompany the walking frame, both of us bent, stiff and slow.
We return to the sunlit corner. Her unused bed throbs at the selected frequency, massaging cold sheets.
We have actually had that first chapter twice already. And I’m wondering what happens next to the detective from Melbourne. I’m sure he will solve the puzzle. QED.
*For the sake of confidentiality everything in this piece has been changed – except its emotional content.
**Dirndl
***Tester