She seems to have a new lease of life since his death. Can I say that? Is that kind? Perhaps they had grown tired of each other. They were clearly very different – he a little torpid, sleeping late into the morning, online gambling or maybe it was gaming through the night, smoking, clearly an interior bird though one who loved to travel alone, as he did whenever he could (was it to escape?) whereas she is up in the mornings, supremely independent even at 104, a walker, a stalwart of life, religious, artistic, perhaps a little no-nonsense, telling it like it is. Were they good companions at the end, or was it cohabitation of mere convenience? Now he is dead she seems to manage. Her other boys have let her remain in her home. He tells me a cross-faced woman comes in daily to see to her needs, from the Red Cross perhaps? She follows behind her when she does her daily circuit of the estate and sits with her as she listens to her music. Now that is a new thing, the music. Does she have an old gramophone? It is loud. It comes through our floor boards. Do I mind? I don’t think so. I want her to have that pleasure. And it does create a gentle atmosphere. The other day it was a string piece, last night a piano. I can’t hear it clearly enough to identify it.
As I’ve told you, we’ve been putting out food for the birds on our neighbour’s vacated (for the moment) balcony. We’ve filled their bird feeders with seeds and fat balls. Well, at the weekend I saw a man doing the same. I called to him up in the kitchen. There’s a man, there’s a man feeding the birds, quick. Anyway he went down and spoke to him. Apparently, the Americans, as we call them, are coming back as ‘visitors’ ( a visa protocol) soon and that he is a friend who they’ve asked to see to the birds on their behalf. How nice, and how like them, gentle couple that they are. So there will be two of us doing it now, good.
He drew up at the harbour and rolled down his window to say hello. He is a fisherman. I asked him about the RNLI burial I thought I’d seen. Oh, that was Willy Street from Penparcau, he said, clearly delighted to pass on the information. And he gave it us all. All the detail, well not much detail really – a real example of a restricted code. A spot on the lung, within three months, life and soul, a bit of a drinker, not been with the RNLI for long, always hanging around, the Greek chorus and so on. It wasn’t a burial. Silly me, but just a drive round by the hearse, who, apparently went too fast and forgot to drive down along the harbour. All those RNLI comrades waiting with flag in vain. May he rest in peace.
Did I tell you that the hyacinths are on their way?
