It’s now been 3 weeks since Dad got a UTI, 3 weeks since I was called home expecting the end. Now we don’t know what to think. My sister and brother and I had braced ourselves, made some sort of mental preparation (as much as you can) but we’re still waiting. Obviously nobody wishes it but it’s a strange sense of flux. We can’t plan ahead and we can’t start grieving but nor can we communicate much with Dad.
That’s not quite right. We do. I sat with him yesterday and cut and filed his nails, something which he was always so particular about doing when he was able. I sit facing him with his arms out in front, him watching me intently while I work away as I’ve seen women do at nail bars in London.
While I snip and file I talk about the forthcoming England v Scotland rugby match. I talk about the players – Kyle Sinckler, Jonny May. ‘Jonny May’ he repeats but it’s all he’s able to do. What is he thinking? The eyes don’t seem to communicate much either.
He has always been a mad keen rugby fan. I remember him bringing back 5 Nations (as they were then) rosettes from Twickenham – one for England and one for France each with their own motifs: the rose and the cockerel. They’re still up in my bedroom, the bedroom I sleep in while he lies still and silent down below.
He used to get so involved: when the England backs had the ball he would be shouting ‘Go! Go! Go!’ while he bounced up on down on the sofa which was normally followed by ‘Oh, for FUCK’s sake!’ as one of the players had dropped the ball. It was such an enduring memory of him. Never scary, just funny.
In those first months of the last months we had the good fortune of having The World Cup to keep him and us going. It was like a small gift from God. He was still all there back then in October/November but movement was difficult.
As Mum, me and Bro had Sunday lunch one day we had a sudden shout of distress. I rushed down the corridor to see what had happened. Again it was nothing to do with his own discomfort – it was his shock at England’s poor tackling. Afterwards I knew he would probably never have shouted like that about his own failing body.
We even had our own little piece of hallowed turf stuck between the cracks on the uneven patio at the back of the house. ‘Twickers’. He and a friend had got onto the pitch at the end of the match and either picked up a divot or deliberately dug out a square from the pitch and one of them stuffed into his pocket. I remember him telling us the story with pride and a good deal of self mockery.
He has started to cough more now, a result of the secretions that happen as a result of his condition. We were told that a rattly cough would be the sign of the end. Yet he had signs of that 3 weeks ago.
‘You sound like a rattlesnake’, mum said.
And now he seems to have made something of a recovery. It’s amazing. All of us are living in the moment.
I’m now working my way down the other side of the river estuary back out to sea. I follow the river, the Maltings receding into the background. After following the path once more as a bank that curves beside the river it’s not long before the path careers off to roam through Snape Warren.
From the small car park on the edge of the warren, I follow the path straight as it heads into Black Heath Woods. The light is beautiful today, a golden glow filtering through the pines bouncing off the black gloss paint of a fence surrounding a paddock, and lighting up the dark auburn coats of the red pole cattle who silently float between the pines. How in a moment we can have a glimpse of heaven.
Black Heath Wood and silent cows
The woods here don’t spook me like Tunstall. Like everything right now I keep telling myself it’s a state of mind. When I feel scared, or sad about Dad, or lonely I tell myself it’s just a thought. A thought that I don’t need. It’s not the woods, not the days spent on my own, not even the minutes I spend staring at dad when he’s asleep. It’s just a thought. And sometimes the thought just flits away, a tiny black moth floating up to the sky and the gathering clouds and beyond that into space.
The next part of the wood looks like it’s been designed by ‘some blind hand’. The silver birches curve oh so gently over the path, elegant waif-like models. A perfect almost arch that continues for as far as I can see until I see a dot of light at the end. Like crossing over to the other side. And all around the golden light on pastures and alighting on the odd sheep like the Golden Fleece.
Arriving at the other side is a change. Marshland. Dark, peaty channels and a raised path on boards that creates angled lines like wooden rulers placed end to end at skewed angles.
From here, I plonk along the boards surrounded by wetlands and bare, thin trees. Visible now and then between the trees is a bank which indicates the river is beyond.
There are a group of children playing a game. My bucolic imagining of a Swallows and Amazons scene is shattered by a gunshot from a shotgun very close to my left. I hope they’re aiming up.
Suddenly the woods end and the wide estuary spreads like a ruffled sheet to my right, curling and then twisting its way down to Aldeburgh. My next port of call.
The Slow Walker 