COVID TALES 4: WHAT CAN YOU DO?
We had been in the habit of walking along the lane together, my arm through his, so I could draw him in to the side if a car came along. We weren’t supposed to do that now. But what was I supposed to do? He would not go out on his own. I was not supposed to visit him. Should I leave him to sit in his chair, shout to him through the conservatory window? He struggled with the phone now unless you phoned him, and the internet was well beyond him. Isolation might keep him alive for a while, but it would kill him too. He was past deciding so I decided for him. We neither of us had anyone else to put at risk. Occasionally a car would stop at a safe distance and the driver would shout at us, but we would take no notice. They didn’t understand. How could they?
I could feel the warmth of the sun on one side of my face, the cold wind on the other. It was that time of year. When we got to the big old sycamore, on the triangle of grass by the church, we turned round. We might have been brave enough to sit on the bench, but it had been taken away when they decided the tree was unsafe and cut it back. We opted for the other bench in the lee of the Village Hall instead.
This walk was a habit with us. We had not done it every day but we did it most days. Now we were rationing it - a treat to look forward to, but a concession to the rules too. It was not really warm enough to sit today, but we sat anyway, eking out the pleasure.
We talked for a while, not about anything in particular, just what came into our heads. A lot of it was about the past. There was no irony in, “the good old days”, any more. They had been good - better than now. After a while we stopped talking and just lapsed into our own thoughts. I was sure he still had thoughts, just not very joined up any more. It is like that with old friends. Sometimes you talk and sometimes you don’t. It is alright either way, talking and not talking, when you have known someone as long as we have each other.
We used to drink together. Too much. Not too much for me but too much for him. It was the drink and the diabetes that did for his eyes. First one and then the other. Scar tissue. He did not look after himself properly they said, ate things that were bad for him. And drank. After a while they could not do anything for him any more and that was that. I should have done something about it. I was his friend. But we liked a drink when we got together.
He did not drink so much now. Said his appetite for it had gone. Silly really, to cut back on what he enjoyed when the damage was done but not before. But then, we all have some things we are silly about. Like walking together.
We sat for a while despite the cold wind. It did not bother us. We were used to it. The wall gave us some protection. We carried on, talking and not talking, as the mood took us. A car or two went past, a tractor with a trailer load of sheep. There was never a lot of traffic through the village. We were lucky that way, a nice quiet place to live. There are more places like that now. Everywhere is quieter than it was. Even the towns. Nobody stopped to talk to us that morning, though one neighbour on a bicycle waved to us from the other side of the road and rang his bell as he went past.
‘That was Charlie on his bike. He waved.’ He nodded.
After a while we stopped sitting there and got up. It was getting cold, even for us, and we were used to it. We walked back down the lane. I was careful to steer him past the horse droppings. I opened the front door for him and left him there. He knew the layout of the house by heart and got about all right in there. I was not worried. He would be fine until the carer came.
‘Speak to you tomorrow.’ He nodded. I went home and washed my hands. But not of him.