I wandered out of elderly care towards maternity, but they had a video link at the door so I turned back. Then I made my way down a long corridor that sloped just slightly, but in such a way that I felt like Alice in Wonderland shrinking down to fit through the keyhole. I tried to picture the envelope – the writing in black, several ink stamps from customs and air mail. The stamp itself, with a man on a green background. I faced a number of crossroads, and made my decision based only on the feeling that if I were the tattooed porter, this would be the route I’d take. His big bin was one of those on wheels that has four separate bins – medical, recycling, food and general waste. With any luck, my letter would have made it into recycling.
And then there it was. Waiting patiently, completely unattended. I crept up to it. I got onto tiptoes to see if my letter was in amongst the rubbish, but I couldn’t see. The porter with the bad tattoos was behind the closed door of the nurses’ office, so I climbed up onto the side of the bin cart. I stuck my hand in and tried to shake the tissues loose. I could see a pointed corner. There it was. Just a little further out of my reach …
I heard a noise behind me and I turned. On the other side of the corridor, a girl of about sixteen or seventeen with bright blonde hair and pink pyjamas was watching me. Then the door to the nurses’ office opened and I froze. I was most certainly going to get caught, but the girl started to speak. The tattooed porter and the grim-faced nurse turned their attention to her.
Just underneath a clump of white tissue was my letter. I leant over once again and I stuck my hand out. My fingers brushed the letter and I finally got it free.
Fully expecting to turn around and see the porter and the grim nurse staring at me, I turned to see that they were gone – heading into the May Ward. Only the girl with the pink pyjamas was still there. She smiled.
Clutching my letter from Meena, I headed back to my bed.
When I wrote my reply, I told her, I’d put my hand in a hospital bin to find a letter from you. That’s love.
And my answer to the question she’d asked me, of course, was ‘yes’。
——
Father Arthur popped in to see me yesterday. He visits a lot. And mostly we talk about you, Lenni, which I think you would enjoy.
I showed him the letter from Meena and I told him how you helped me save it from the bin. And I showed him your name – written in permanent ink on the little whiteboard that used to hang on the wall above your bed. Rescued by your nurse and now hanging next to mine.
And then I took a breath and I asked Father Arthur what he thought of the prospect of me and my rattling old bones and my damaged heart flying to Vietnam, to answer the question a soulmate of mine had asked with an emphatic ‘yes’。 To let her put her handmade ring on the fourth finger of my left hand. Though, since Meena made it herself, I am fairly sure it will be made of copper and will turn my finger green.
He smiled sadly, looked about himself for some paper, and then pulled a receipt out of his pocket and wrote: Ecclesiastes 9:9.
And then he picked up his scarf, gave me a wave and headed home.
I asked a nurse to find me a Bible – they’re everywhere in hospitals so it wasn’t difficult. An American lady in the ward across the corridor lent me hers.
As I carefully turned the skin-thin pages, I steeled myself for what it might say.
Something about stoning and eternal punishment, I imagined. The horror of my love for her. Something so damning that Arthur had felt unable to say it to my face. I imagined that would be one of the harder parts of being a priest. The times when you have to remind the sinners of their fates.
I turned the page and read Ecclesiastes 9:9.
Enjoy life with the woman whom you love
all the days of your fleeting life
Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital, March 2014
I had just woken up from a nap when a woman appeared at the end of my bed. She was wearing a thick woollen jumper covered in dog hair and she had green paint splatters on the hem of her polka dot dress. She told me there was a new art therapy room for patients of all ages and she invited me to come along to a class. She handed me a leaflet and smiled.
She smiled again when I turned up at the class designated for patients aged eighty and over. I found myself a seat near the window, and I wondered if at any point we’d get to paint the stars. The lesson actually was on stars, or something else, I can’t really remember now because it has been replaced with my memory of Lenni. Into a room full of octogenarians she came, with a confidence beyond her years. She was fierce, thin, with that bright blonde hair of Nordic children. She had a face full of mischief and a pair of pink pyjamas.