writingbrussels

Photo courtesy of Penboutique.com

Once she was living in the reality of her transformed relationship with her deceased husband, Patricia’s awareness and appreciation of what she had hitherto referred to as only a ‘physical’ world, expanded like a delicate flower-bud opening in the bright morning sun. She began to see people, and living things around her, literally, in a new light: a many-coloured luminescence, an intimate, alive, embracing relationship of hues, and shades, and tones was flowing and pulsating around her and in her. Life became a continuum. There was no cutting off point between what she saw, what she thought and what she felt. She felt herself as a part of all Nature, and Nature felt a part of all of her.

“Natura Naturans,” she would whisper to herself, whenever the memory of a barbecue in the garden some years before, with their friends the Lamberts, and their godson Santiago and his passionate theories about biology, floated up.

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Artwork: Enrique Cropper

Such was the immediacy of Patricia’s internal dialogue with her dead husband, there were even times of the day when a semblance of normality appeared in relation to his physical absence. “Besides,” Patricia had often jibed, “he spent half his life chained to that ERA desk.”

Yet, for all her strength, all her uplifting spiritual imaginings, and all her attempts to persuade herself that things at home were ‘more or less normal’, Patricia’s children soon learnt to tell when Patricia was having ‘one of her bad days’. The signs were varied but recognisable: an odd, distracted air during a conversation; a brief bowing of the head at an unexpected moment in the day; or a gentle sob from the bathroom when Patricia put herself out of sight.

On these occasions, though they could see it coming, they were powerless to prevent Patricia from ebbing away into a morose state of despair, when Patricia would slowly find herself engulfed in loneliness, telling herself, as she spiralled downwards, that George was no longer there and that she was a fool to even try imagining that they would ever be together again. In such a condition, a pattern would repeat. A darkness would envelope Patricia and she would shut herself off from contact with anyone else than her closest family, simply chuntering that “It’s alright” and “Don’t you worry about me”.

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Photo courtesy of Cambridge-news.co.uk

The day after George’s funeral was the hardest day of all. Patricia had been in a daze for over a fortnight. From that sudden realisation, when Lucija, George’s colleague, had urgently called her that evening to tell her of George’s accident – he had been rushed to hospital after a bicycle on rue de la Loi had collided with him and knocked him unconscious – Patricia’s recollection was a blur.

Now, sitting in the kitchen, the morning after George’s funeral, Patricia was in denial. This wasn’t the way she and George had talked about their future together. George was supposed to be retiring soon; to have more time for his family and friends, and his pastimes; to leave behind that wretched ERA he had devoted the better part of his life to.

“No, George”, cried out Patricia in a high-pitched voice. “I won’t let you do this to me!” she added, as she broke down into tears. Her eldest daughter Beverley rushed towards the lounge.

“Mum, what’s the matter? Who are you shouting at?” she called from the passage, expecting to find her mother on the phone.

“You yourself told me a thousand times how dangerous that cycle lane was in rue de la Loi!”, Patricia blurted out. “You said…”

“Mum, hey Mum, shush, it’s me, calm down, it’s alright,” interjected Beverley.

Beverley looked at her disconsolately, wondering if the medication Patricia had been offered to help her cope with the shock of losing George, in such a tragic and unexpected manner, was disturbing her whole person. Patricia’s eyes flinched and she gave a sad glance towards her daughter.

“He told me a thousand times how dangerous that cycle lane was,” she repeated. “He’s not the type of person who would ever get himself into any trouble like this.”

Beverley sat down beside her mother and reached for her hand. “Mum, Dad’s gone. The bike hit him. Knocked him over. On rue de la Loi,” she spluttered. “And he’s gone.”

Patricia bowed her head and sobbed: breaking into tears the only way she could find to escape from the agonising contradiction she was experiencing.

“But how, how can they say that George is dead and buried…” thought Patricia, “….when he is still here?”

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