He’d gone in to check on her just before lunch and found her still in bed, sleeping. Is she breathing? I asked. I’ll just go and check. Yes, he said, calling up from the stairwell, she is. When he checked on her again at just before three she was still in bed. He called her son. Yes, he said, it used to unnerve me too when I visited.
She sleeps a lot, apparently. And why not, she is over a hundred. She sleeps so trustingly, never locking her door so people, such as him and the meals on wheels and D. her help can come and go as they please. Though, of course it isn’t quite like that, they come merely to see and attend to her. She doesn’t ask much. And that sleep. I wonder about it. How will I feel if I get to her age, will I succumb to such deep, restful surrendering? And without a fight?
I struggled to remember my dream and why it had unsettled me so. And then it came, that image of the bird, wounded. A woman, a mother had hit out at it because it had nipped at her grown son. I thought it had died but I saw it’s chest heaving up and down though its feet had been broken off. Just its feathered legs remained, black as a mole’s velvet. I knew she usually cared for birds but this son of hers meant more.
I didn’t tell you about the two cyclists we saw on our return from Newtown last week, did I? I noticed the one behind first because there were two crutches strapped to his back. He and his friend we motoring along. And then he overtook. And we overtook him and then it became clear. His right leg was missing. There was just a gap and his shorts on that side flapped with the emptiness of it. But he was cycling and fast. He raced along, his left leg pedalling like billy-o. We were dumbfounded. How does he maintain his balance? I asked. We were both silenced by his courage, his energy, his determination. And he was so young, twenty or maybe twenty two, three. Incredible. A marvel.
And then there was the cat this morning. A black cat, young with a white mark under her chin. She ran across the road and I could see the approach of a taxi. Then seeing me she became spooked and dashed back across the road. No! I shouted. But the taxi slowed and swerved and just missed her. Is it six or seven lives that cats have? I asked him at breakfast after recounting what I’d seen. Nine, he said, nine.
